To set back the clock of progress

"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Progress is to move forward in space and time and develop towards an improved or more advanced condition. It is the peculiarity of a man-made dream; and as such, many things can set back progress; some by centuries. However, nothing sets it back further than the folly of man - the initiator, dreamer, and the destroyer of progress. If a nation is to achieve progress, it must cultivate the people; not sow or plant worthless words. It is not by words, muscle, or physical dexterity that great things are achieved; but by reflection, force of character, and judgment. These attributes is what is missing in our legislators - the persons who are empowered but impede the cause of progress in our country by being concerned with only their progress in life. All that we call progress, is all about the enfranchisement of man, of labour, the substitution of imprisonment for death, of fine for imprisonment, the destruction of polygamy, the establishing of free speech, of the rights of conscience.

Investigation

In short, all that has tended to the development and civilization of man; all the results of investigation, observation, experience and free thought. All that man has accomplished for the benefit of man since the close of the Dark Ages; has been done and achieved, in spite of the breed called politicians.

If only politics and politicians had been civilized and not self serving, how much grander our nation would have been. Yet, politicians will be politicians - most hailing from the worst breed amongst humans - and so, in days to come, there will be much offers of many things, and above all, offer to place an impermeable faith in them.

But trust me: these offers, they are all offers of something not worth listening to, not worth having, not worth responding to; because, they come from liars and men of duplicity, thieves and plunderers, men who deal in untruths and not from men of moral courage, men of truth.

One of the most moral acts is to create a space in which life can progress - move forward - and our politicians, known to deal in untruths and nothing else of substance, are not capable of creating that space.

Unreasonable

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to suit him. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man who will not accept the world as it is and will want change. Progress needs change. Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible; because it is ideas, and not battles, which marks the forward progress of Mankind. Being devoid of the habit of collective thinking, achieving progress through the efforts of the elected representatives in parliament may be an illusion; but an illusion it would be to suppose that what parliament cannot give us we can get elsewhere. Achieving progress depends on the mindset of the people and has to originate in parliament.

That is why it rests in our hands to select the right type of persons to send to parliament. In a nation where the folly of fools abounds; where people await the leftovers of plunder as handouts; where people do not know logic and reason and are thankful for the spittle that is, spat their way; it is but natural that politicians do what they do best: cheat the people and plunder the national wealth. Thus, the fact that over sixty years since independence, nothing has changed except for the worse only proves that you can never change things by fighting the existing reality: that the majority of us are thoughtless, spineless. Hence, to change something, we need to build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.

If you consider yourself as a part of that great vision called human, lay your faith in people of integrity and honesty. This nation has an abundance of them. Progress means getting nearer to the place you want to be, and if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward on the same route does not get you any nearer.

A step backwards after making a wrong turn will be a step in the right direction. If you find you are on the wrong road to achieving progress, do an about-turn, and walk back to the right road; and in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man. Those who do not move do not notice their chains.

Authoritarian

Whosoever governs; the truth is, we live under an authoritarian system that always benefits only a tiny minority - the all-powerful bum-sucking elite. Only the degree of authoritarianism varies and not the system because; whosoever governs, only this all powerful elite gets obscenely rich, while millions are cheated out of realizing their true potential because the system is rotten. In fact, it is so rotten that it is ripe for collapse. It is our duty as citizens to ensure that we hasten that collapse through the choices we make because it is not a crime to fight injustice through a choice.

The system has conditioned us - hypnotized nearly everybody into accepting that life has to be the way it is. We are hypnotized into believing that most things we see happening are natural: hunger, crime, plunder, corruption, and so on. They are not.

They are products of the system, and its all consuming greed. We have become robots: zombies too busy scrambling for leftovers, scrambling for day-to-day existence, scrambling for handouts, and are not able to see that we are really victims of the system. From cradle to death we are, indoctrinated that our happiness depends on and results from handouts of politicians.

All that these scoundrels of society say, and keep saying is, they are unable to fix our problems and so give us more power, more time, another chance.

They have been saying the same things, making the same hollow promises, forever since independence; and we, the people - the sheep - have listened patiently. It is time to wake up and say that the days of external authority and force-backed power, and a sham democracy which acts as a front for the ambitions of the elites, the crooks, and the plunderers, are numbered.

Is it not time we opened our eyes and used our intelligence and insight? Progress is in your hands; the power for change is in your hands; but you need to use your head, to achieve it.

Struggled

We have forgotten much: how we struggled in the past; how we rose to, dizzy heights when the war was over; and how we sank to unparalleled depths due to our follies of choice. We no longer aspire to anything. Even the finer shades of despair are lost to us. We have ceased to be runners. We plod from structure to conveyance to employment and back again. We live within the boundaries that stupid politicians have determined for us.

Our measuring stick is short, and sweet nothing. The full gamut of life is a brief, shadowy, continuum that runs from gray to more gray. The rainbow is, bleached. We hardly know how to doubt anymore and trust like fools fearing thought.

If not for the irresistible march of evolution, reality forever newborn, which by constantly shattering our mental categories, force us to go ever further and further in our pursuit of progress, foolish man would never see progress.

Every day, we may make progress; every step, we may be fruitful; yet there will stretch out before us an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path called progress. We will never get to the end of the journey unless we use our intelligence. Progress is the daughter of time; and so, the time has come to give birth to her. Let us not march with the times; but be the march of time.

For views, reviews, encomiums, and brickbats: [email protected]