In the most crucial battles waged by humanity, those that will determine the evolution of our species, the most profound answer is to be found in dignity. We are now fighting one of those battles. Neither “realism” nor “prudence” nor “pragmatism” will help at this critical hour. Only dignity will enable us to break free from the “tutelage” of the big financiers and the rules imposed by their “markets.” As with Scottish leader William Wallace when he cried out “Freedom!” at the top of his lungs and even down to his last breath, this dignity will now also decide the outcome and the victory. Or as with Ernesto Che Guevara, when he lay dying, staring at his murderer straight in the eyes. These are just a few examples of human beings who opted to take up arms, thus abandoning the sphere of non-violence in order to enter a vaster realm: the realm of dignity.
These days those same old “realists” are smiling with disguised contempt at people who come up with new proposals. These days, newly-minted collaborationists (though they are hardly different from the same old ones, like the Vichy collaborationists during the Nazi occupation) want to scare us with their warnings that there will most likely be a flight of capital, and that “the markets” (the very “markets” that have led us to ruin) will abandon us and even subject us to harassment. In times like these, we must not forget that this is indeed war and that wars demand sacrifice. It is a very real class war. Billionaire Warren Buffett referred to this war, pointing out in addition that: “it is being won by us, the wealthy.” Let us be aware, though, that, as in all wars, there are only two alternatives: sacrifice or submission.
Yet it is a war we will only be able to fight with the ‘weapons’ of non-violence. The nations that have suffered military attacks by the Western Empire have the right -and probably the need – to use weapons to defend themselves. But this is not the case of those of us inside the empire who suffer the pillaging that is making a very small elite enormously wealthy and powerful. Nowadays that our institutions are standing up less and less for our citizens while at the same time catering more and more unabashedly to the interests of the big financial powers, it’ll be very useful to understand what civil disobedience and non-violence are, how Gandhi and Luther King came to embrace them, where these notions originate and where their strength lies… It will surely constitute a necessary step in the path of searching for alternatives to the current and obsolete Western System.
The people in the next Government of Catalonia or the next Government of Madrid who dare stand up to the West’s criminal financial system will clearly have to be prepared to suffer the harshest reprisals. There is nothing more shameful than cowardly conformism and submission or the selfish ambition of those who sell themselves and many other innocent, defenseless people for thirty silver coins. The road to liberation will be bumpy, but we can travel it. And, unlike the weak of heart, the people who dare to walk down that path will not regret it. Getting this message across to society, unmasking the large number of alleged realists (who are actually only subservient or greedy collaborationists) and uncovering the false dogma that claims there are no alternatives to this System (or this euro or this European Union controlled by the Central European Bank) are crucial tasks to take on today.
Reality is not something “out there,” unshakeable and unable to change. Countless time-old spiritual traditions as well as 20th century physics state that an observer always changes the object observed; he even changes it by the mere act of observing it. Dignity and generosity still matter. The antonym of the beautiful word “utopia” is not realism but, rather, stinginess. Other equally splendid synonyms of utopia are empathy, magnanimity, faith and courage. There is no such thing as neutral observers of reality. Admittedly, there are gullible and naïve people, human beings not sufficiently aware of the great deal of deceit and evil that exist in our world. Yet, in my opinion, that lack of realism is not the most serious matter. The lack of realism that is truly harmful is the one found in intelligent people who are stingy, and, especially, in intelligent people who are cynics.
There is no such thing as observers external to reality: we are all protagonists who shape history with our clarity of mind or our thoughtlessness, but most of all with our generosity or our stinginess.
It is possible to stand up to the current totalitarian and imperialist ways of the big western financiers. It is possible to break away from the current state of submission. There are always alternatives: Abraham Lincoln not only refused to pay bankers the interest on the loan but went ahead and issued the so-called greenbacks in order to eradicate the problem altogether. Likewise, John F. Kennedy confronted the Federal Reserve by setting out to issue the dollar currency he called United States Notes. There is life beyond this euro (neither the United Kingdom nor Sweden nor eight other members of the European Union have adopted it) and beyond this European Union (Norway, Iceland nor Switzerland are members) with its European Central Bank. We don’t need to be part of NATO, an organization that allegedly defends us from external attacks but which is now actually the aggressor itself (Russia is not the danger right now)…
It is not necessary to look for new economic models in Latin American countries with populist governments that oppose the U.S. (as we’re told). Nor, for that matter, in the Nordic countries, which are too small and atypical (as we’re also told). It is enough to analyze the history of the country where this big problem arose: the United States. The people truly against the United States are the big monopolists who hijacked democracy in that great nation. It is time to open our eyes to the fallacy that we only have this one alternative. We need savvy, vigilant nations and true statesmen who, like Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy and so many non-U.S. leaders, are prepared to step down or even be murdered rather than become puppets of the big financiers and electoral surveys. Dignity’s time has come. The only battles really lost are those where we sacrifice our dignity.