by Mark Macy

The intent of this article is not to stir up old wounds, but to see if there’s a connection between actions and consequences. If so, maybe we can learn lessons from the past in order to shape the future. (The ideas here are based on this site’s “noble-savage” perspective.)

Europeans swarmed  to America by the millions up until around 1930. In a quest for land, oil, and other resources, these new Euroamericans brutalized, destroyed, and demonized the Native Americans, shoving them off their land and onto reservations.

• Necessity or choice? [i]

Then the new Americans faced ungodly suffering in the Dustbowl and Great Depression of the 1930s.

• Karma or coincidence?[ii]

Meanwhile, Germans were suffering an even greater depression as a result of destruction and debt from the first world war. Rising from the debris in a new quest for land, iron, coal, and other resources, they started conquering other nations, setting off the second world war. Germany brutalized, destroyed, and demonized Jewish communities, shoving them out of their homes and neighborhoods into ghettos, and eventually into death camps. Eventually, America stood up to the German brutality, exerting savage effort for a noble cause: helping its European allies to push the ravenous German empire back within its borders

• Necessity or choice? [iii]

Noble America then went on to enjoy twenty years of unprecedented prosperity (up until the Vietnam War, which starts another savage drama), while the savage Germans struggled as a people ripped apart by ideology (communism vs capitalism) and by geography (East vs West Germany).

• Karma or coincidence?[iv]

For the past twenty years America, driven by a desire for oil, has been brutalizing and demonizing Middle Eastern Muslims, destroying their homes and cities and creating a flood of refugees.

• Necessity or choice? [v]

Today the Amerian economy is a shambles and its infrastructure for transportation, health care, and social safety nets has decayed to Third World status.

• Karma or coincidence?[vi]

Will the Middle Easterners follow the fate of the Native Americans, getting swept off their land so that savage America can take their oil, or will they rise up like noble America of the second world war to push the savage empire back within its borders? In either case, the result will be continued brutality and destruction.

• Necessity or choice? [vii]

Meanwhile, the Earth is heating up, seas are rising, and storms of epic proportion are destroying life and land around the globe.

• Karma or coincidence?[viii]

So, is all of this brutal activity driven by choice and karma, or by necessity and coincidence?

Do nations choose to brutalize each other, or do they have to.

Are the destructive forces of nature and economics consequences of national brutality (karma), or just coincidences?

The fate of nations and of humanity of the Second Epoch rests on the answer to that question.

The argument for choice and karma

The more I learn about our spiritual heritage and our noble-savage destiny on Earth, the more I lean toward choice and karma. (Karma could also be called consequence or ‘just desserts’). As we make noble choices fueled by love, friendship, empathy, trust, and good will, the more our future lives are rewarded by those same noble forces. As we make savage choices driven by fear, envy, doubt, and hatred, we reap savage consequences. Although there are exceptions in which noble choices receive savage consequences and vice versa, I believe choice and karma are the general rule of life in this topsy-turvy world.

The argument for necessity and coincidence

Still, I can understand the argument for necessity and coincidence, the notion that we ALL have a savage seed within us, so we have to be more savage to survive… and any pain we feel afterwards is in no way related to our behavior. It’s just a coincidence. I can understand that argument, but I no longer agree with it. It seems a bit Machiavellian and psychopathic to me… indicative of mental illness or character disorder rather than rational living.

Yes, it’s a simple fact that we are noble-savage creatures in a noble-savage world in which life kills life to survive. So, yes, we have a savage element within us driven by egos and hormones that compel us to misbehave in ways that harm those around us, as well as ourselves. That doesn’t mean, however, that savage behavior is necessary.

We also have a noble part of our nature, inspired by that finer spiritual source at the center of our being that is steeped in love and good will and has never been disturbed by the worldly dramas going on around us.

Bottom line

Living on Earth today always comes down to a choice between the noble path and the savage path. And our lives and are futures are shaped by that choice… for better or worse.

Nations that make noble choices reap noble rewards. That’s what’s been going on in Northern Europe in recent years.

Nations that make savage choices reap savage consequences. That seems to be what’s happening here in the States.

[i] Craving money, products, resources and other material things is part of the savage character of us noble-savage, carnal human beings. Choosing to detach from those desires, or at least reining them in and keeping them in perspective with respect to those around us, is part of our noble character.

[ii] The New Americans could have acknowledged the presence of the Native Americans, respected their way of life, and patiently forged an American culture that embodied the best of both lifestyles. That noble approach would probably have preempted the Great Depression, and it certainly would have saved us from the Dustbowl by preserving the vast ocean of prairie grasses that protected the soil of the Great Plains for the wandering tribes and their beloved bison.

[iii] Germany was in a complete shambles after the first world war, its needs vastly outstripping its resources, and the decision to exterminate Jews was principally (arguably perhaps) a desperate effort to help revitalize the economy. America didn’t want to get involved in the second world war, thinking it was a European problem. But eventually Uncle Sam changed his mind and came to the rescue.

[iv] Everyone who lived through the “Cold War” between the Soviets and Americans remember Germany being caught in the middle. Its Berlin Wall between the east and the west came to symbolize the chasm between Soviet communist socialism and American capitalist democracy.

[v] Thanks to US oil billionaires (e.g. the Koch brothers), their conservative political and military-clandestine minions, and their media mouthpieces, Americans today have developed the same irrational fear and hatred toward Middle Eastern Muslims that our ancestors harbored toward Native Americans a century ago. We’ve come to rationalize our brutal treatment of Muslims. To get their oil, we’ve demonized them as “terrorists,” just as our ancestors demonized Native Americans as “savages” in order to get the land and resources on which they depended.

[vi] The destruction of Native American culture and the Vietnam War are just two of countless examples throughout history of how attacking and conquering other cultures, whether for resources or for strategic military presence near your adversaries (e.g. US military bases near China or Russia or throughout the Middle East) always comes at a horrific price. The decay of the American economy and infrastructure today are the direct result of the massive cost of the Mideast War… nearly 5 trillion dollars.

[vii] American oil billionaires and their minions have taken over the government with the primary aim of acquiring the remaining world oil supplies as they quickly disappear. Their assumption is that oil will continue to be the major cornerstone in modern societies as it has been for the past century, ever since the coming of combustion engines and plastics. Their aim is not to fight terrorism and to preserve democracy in the Middle East, as they claim, but simply to take control of the richest oil reserves on the planet. The American war in the Middle East is clearly not a noble one, as the minions claim, but a savage one.

[viii] The climate change deniers in American politics are not stupid, as it  seems they are: They are simply intent on getting the world’s oil supplies, and climate change (the result of burning fossil fuels) is an inconvenient truth that needs to be denied.