Looking for the perfect hero on the YBR. An impossible dream?

If the tension in the Middle East, the barbarism of ISIS, the world economy and the breakdown of security in America weren’t enough for us to deal with, we can now add Ebola to our plate of concerns. While Oz was known to have its problems…houses fallng from the sky, bad witches making serious threats, flying monkeys, etc., our problems are weighing down our fragile spirits.

What we are in desperate need of is a hero. Perhaps more than one is needed, but other than going to our favorite deli and ordering one, where in the world are we going to find the perfect hero? In the White House? In the halls of Congress? In the corridors of the Fortune 500? Among religious leaders? In Hollywood?

You know the lyric from the pop tune “looking for love in all the wrong place?”  Well, if we going looking for a hero in some of the aforementioned places, we’ll be looking in all the wrong places.

It’s very important to understand that while we think of our times as “the best of times and the worst of times<” we are not alone in our thinking.  There has never been a time in human history that did not try men’s souls. Humanity seems to have a pretty crappy track record in many regards.  In the last century alone there were over 270 wars, civil and otherwise, around the world, with a los of over 77 million people.  How many of those who were casualties of war might have been the hero the world was looking for?  And as fearful as we are of the possible spread of Ebola, consider the millions of people who died during the raging spread of the Spanish Flu (1918/19). How many heroes did we bury in early graves?

Today Americans are looking to the man in the White House for the hero we want to save the world.  Guess what?  The hero we need is not living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. And that’s not meant to be an attack on President Obama. Considering the number of problems he’s facing at home and abroad, it is totally unfair for us to expect him to wave a magic wand and make all our problems go away.

Diseases, a bad economy and internal strife can all be dealt with if we put aside our prejudices and political beliefs. We can help turn the course of humanity in the right direction if we follow the yellow brick road…a raod paved with kindness, consideration and compassion.

But, it’s going to take a lot more than that to end the hatred the seems to be growing like a cancer around the world.  We will not find a cure for this cancer if we attack it with closed minds.  That doesn’t mean we have to condone any of the heinous acts committed in the name of religion. What we have to do is face some hard, cold facts.  Religion is, in my opinion, the cause of most of our problems. Not that religion is wrong, per se, but it is the stringent list of doctrines and sometimes archaic beliefs that instead of opening our hearts, bind them with heavy chains.

People are continually debating over wether or not the Koran calls for the blood of infidels. The debate is futile, because if even only one person is a “believer” of such an inhuman doctrine, there is a chance that such a belief will be embraced by hundreds, thousands and even millions.

Wanting a hero is a noble belief, but we have to be careful for what we wish for, because the perfect hero might not necessarily be an American, nor might such a fantastic hero actually be on board with everything we believe.

Alas. Our journey for the perfect hero is more than likely going to end up the way it did for Dorothy when, with the help of Toto, unmasked the less than great and powerful Wizard of Oz.

The real hero is inside each and every one of us. Every opportunity we have to be selfless and act for the good of others with no expectations, is one small step in finding the perfect hero. – Eleanor Roosevelt

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The Scarecrow speaks his mind on the current crisis in the Middle East.

 

The text of the address delivered by the Scarecrow of Oz to the members of the United Nations in the summer 0f 2014

 

Before I begin to insult the intelligence of the people of planet Earth, let me tell you that Oz did have its problems. Once ruled by four witches….two good and two bad…and governed by a humbug, the residents of Oz were not living on the same page. The long-suffering Munchkins, who always believed they got the short end of the stick, were small in number compared to the people of Emerald City who believed they were in charge. The constant feuding between these two peoples made it very difficult for the other inhabitants of Oz to live in harmony. The Winkies, Quadlings, Field Mice and the Porcelain people in the China Country had their differences, but only rarely took up arms to settle their differences. The same can’t be said for the Kalidahs, those monstrous beasts with bodies like bears and heads like tigers, and the Fighting Trees. They shared the same territory but could not live together. Their differences they said were too great so they fought…constantly. And lastly there were the Winged Monkeys, a most maligned people. Having lived under the cruel Wicked Witch of the West, they had no rights. They were forced to do her bidding. But once the Wicked Witch was liquefied, they emerged as the great peacekeepers of Oz, and to this day they continue to fight….using words, not weapons…to help the people of Oz resolve their differences.

Having spent the past two years as a visiting professor at Harvard, and having had the opportunity to travel the world and meet the people of earth, I have to admit that you are an embarrassment. You live on a beautiful planet. You have been blessed beyond belief. But still, after thousands of years you are still uncivilized.  You claim to believe in a God that is all good and all loving, but instead of honoring your God, you make a mockery of this eternal being by shedding blood in his/her name.

The current situation in your Middle East tells me how stupid you people are. A good number of you are siding with the Palestinians…for what you believe are good and just reasons, A good number of you are aligned with Israel….for what you, too, believe are good and just reasons. The Arab and the Jewish people are shedding blood over what…a piece of land in the desert?  The people in the region believe that they are doing God’s bidding. These people are fighting a war that is almost as old as mankind.  And why?  Is it because the Jewish homeland was carved out of that little piece of earth the Palestinian people believed was theirs and theirs alone?  Is it because the State of Israel has mistreated the Palestinians and denied them their basic human rights?

Are you people so blind to your history that you can’t see that it was your greed that caused today’s problems in the Middle East in the first place.  And I say it was greed because after reading your history books that’s all I come away with….greed, with a heavy dose of self-righteousness thrown in there for bad measure.

There is not a place on this earth that has not suffered because of your greed and this belief that one people have a supreme right over other people. You Americans, who fought for independence and in your own words declared that all people are created equal, are the same people that nearly put an end to the people who called your land their home for centuries.  What you did to the members of the hundreds of Native American tribes is unconscionable. You took their land because you wanted it. You made a mockery of their beliefs, destroyed their traditions and inflicted them with diseases that did what your guns couldn’t do.  To make amends you gave these once great people reservations to live out their lives.

Your partition of the United States of America is only one example of how the people of planet earth believe that the earth must be conquered and divided up.  It doesn’t matter that the great shorelines, the mountain ranges and the mighty rivers that you uses as boundaries were never intended to divide you, but rather to join you as one great people.

What happened in the Middle East is the result of your desire to slice up the world and for the most powerful nations to take possession of it, regardless of what people might have called that land their home.  The blame for what is happening today in the Middle East needs to be a shared blame.  It’s far too easy to blame the current parties involved in the conflict because there is a history of blame that needs to be shared by other nations.

(To read the rest of the Scarecrow’s address….)

Scarecrow part two

 

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