Words & Our World
Waking Point
By Helen Noakes
“I wonder at the detachment with which I watch these people plunder and destroy those weaker than themselves, along with their own souls. Oh, I speak up once in a while, sign petitions, contact my senators and congress-people. But, to be honest, I’ve lost hope in these methods of protest, in these efforts to rectify injustice and downright lawlessness.”—By Helen Noakes
“…thus one can use in poetry/names of Greek shepherds/one can attempt to catch the colour of morning sky/write of love/ and also/once again/ in dead earnest/offer to the betrayed world/a rose.”—Zbigniew Herbert, translated by Czeslaw Milosz
SAN FRANCISCO California—(Weekly Hubris)—7/21/14—I’ve stopped watching newscasts as regularly as I used to. There’s really no point. Things don’t change that much from one week to the next.
Politicians continue to squabble over money and what they call power. Corporations continue to gouge the ordinary people and decimate the planet. Religious factions continue to oppress and kill in the name of God. Our current Supreme Court, with the exception of a few Justices, continues to serve its corporate and political masters. And all these so-called leaders of our country continue to be derelict in their duties, betraying not only those whom they have sworn to represent but their own humanity.
I wonder at the detachment with which I watch these people plunder and destroy those weaker than themselves, along with their own souls. Oh, I speak up once in a while, sign petitions, contact my senators and congress-people. But, to be honest, I’ve lost hope in these methods of protest, in these efforts to rectify injustice and downright lawlessness. Perhaps it’s because I’ve lived long enough to know that the wheel of life turns and “…many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first.”
In the meantime, innocents will suffer, greed and corruption will run rampant, and we in the United States will be more interested in football scores and acquiring the latest Apple device.
It’s a terminal disease, this indifference to the erosion of our civil rights, our Constitution and our sense of morality. And, by morality, I don’t mean who’s having sex with whom. The outcry against “deviant” sexual habits is a convenient distraction orchestrated by some of our fearless leaders as a smokescreen to distract some of us from what really matters.
What I mean by immorality is allowing Congress to eliminate assistance to the weakest of our community: the elderly, the children, the ill, the powerless. While these same members of Congress spout vitriolic diatribes about the abomination of homosexuality and abortion, the insolence of the rapacious poor, they are happily stuffing their pockets with “contributions” from lobbyists. I mean not demanding stricter laws governing firearms possession in a nation where gun violence is a daily occurrence and the gun lobby runs the Congress, the Senate, and the Supreme Court. I mean not holding the Justices of the Supreme Court accountable for decisions that corrode our civil liberties and make a mockery of our Constitution.
By immorality, I mean the indifference of our citizenry, who, like the mesmerized robotic beings of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, or George Orwell’s 1984, have given over their souls to corporate giants which, essentially, are our government and manipulate us through the media and through satiation. We are responsible for the state of our nation. And God have mercy on us.
I realize as I write this that I’m not so detached after all. I don’t know if anyone will read this column, if anyone will care one way or another about what I have to say. But I’m a writer. I think best when I put my ideas in writing, and these ideas have been haunting me for quite some time.
They have made me question the purpose of my writing plays, fiction, poems, these articles. What good do my little efforts do? How do they impact the world? My response is that they don’t.
My words mean little, but there are others—Bruno Levi, Vaclav Havel, Zbigniew Herbert, George Seferis, Anna Akhmatova—and so many more whose cautionary words impact many. Read these writers. Their works are lucid, powerful accounts of how indifference eventually brings about devastation and unconscionable evil. Maybe, just maybe, you’ll wake up and be one of those many who impact a few more. And that, after all is how corrupted structures collapse—a few ideas at a time.
And then words, writing, become a matter of conscience, a basis for informed action.
Helen Noakes
Helen Noakes is a playwright, novelist, writer, art historian, linguist, and Traditional Reiki Master, who was brought up in and derives richness from several of the world’s great traditions and philosophies. She believes that writing should engage and entertain, but also inform and inspire. She also believes that because the human race expresses itself in words, it is words, in the end, that will show us how very similar we are and how foolish it is to think otherwise. (Author Head Shot Augment: René Laanen.)
16 Comments
Will Balk
Oh, to be sure, your words will certainly be read. Read, passed on, and read again. Thanks for these, Helen.
Helen Noakes
Thank you so much, Will Balk. I much appreciate your taking the time to read and to comment.
anna farrell
Poignant Beauty that touches the heart…thank you so much for this inspiring post Helen….
Nancy
Nothing to add. You covered the bases. Slouching towards Bethlehem. Keep writing!
Helen Noakes
Anna Farrell, thanks so much for taking the time to read and to comment.
Helen Noakes
Nancy, thanks for the comment. Always supportive. You, too, keep writing!
Elyce Melmon
Oh Helen, I could not agree more and have often had the same thoughts though never expressed as pointedly, concisely, meaningfully. I hope your words will be read and taken to heart! Thank you for giving us something to resource that voices a caring, careful philosophy.
Alan Ichiyasu
I READ IT… THE RIPE UNDERBELLY OF DEMOCARCY IS CAPATILISM.
I THINK WE ARE ON THE SAME PAGE?
Helen Noakes
Elyce, I much appreciate your comments, and hope to see you soon.
Theo Czuk
Sounds so familiar:
I, too, used to have grandiose dreams and hopes of saving the world with my words.
Now I would just be satisfied in knowing that I might be able to entertain the troops for an evening.
Thanks for the thought candy…
Diana
Beautifully expressed, Helen. I’m just now reading tony judt’s Ill fares the Land, another voice on the same topic. Keep writing, keep feeling. You are not alone. And keep watching over your corner of the planet, as you do so well. Me agape.
Lina Papadopoulou
I often wonder if there are other people that perceive the world as I do. Once in a while I read words such as yours, Helen, and know that I am not alone. Can we do anything more than take notice and be sad? Maybe not. But at least our eyes are open even if others’ aren’t. And we are not alone.
Thank you for your article.
Helen Noakes
To Alan Ichiyasu, Diana Farr Louis, Theo Czuk, Lina Papdopoulou, thank you so much for reading and taking the time to comment. My point in the article is that we are not alone in our perspective. Other voices in other times and some in our present speak eloquently about the importance of being vigilant against the predatory power of politicians and other institutions that forget their humanity, their ethics and the necessity for common decency. You each have unique voices and talents to bring to the issues at hand, and I know you will and do use them to make the changes that are sorely needed. Thank you again for your words and for caring enough to send me a note. It means a great deal to a solitary writer.
Roger McKnight
What Helen writes is accurate and very well expressed. The major aspect that strikes me is the staggering amount of fear and hatred afoot in the United States. I wonder at the wellsprings of that fear and hatred. Are there any thinkers who have addressed that question?
Daniel Hill
Our heroes today are people like you, who despite the discouragement they may feel in their hearts, who feel the weight of corporate greed and government corruption, who recognize the suffering caused by these, continue to lift their voices and not allow their conscious to sleep. You are a hero Helen.
Eve Akel
Then we all agree that we no longer bow our heads to pray or place our hand over our heart for the pledge of allegiance…….Our bald eagle, our flag and our God have become the almighty and powerful dollar, which will soar in amber waves of ………any law that will profit the greatest nation on earth!!
Words do count when they come from the mouths and pens of those that are not in power…..That, my dear Helen IS the majority!!! There is always a time and egragor for each event that changes the status quo of the world……and it’s only words well written that will change it!!!