HIP and HOP politics

[Julian Pembroke Steptoe]

8/25/2006 2:11:59 PM
The greatest tragedy to the consciousness and body of humanity is that of Human Oppression. Through unwitting tradition and abject intent, America's Democratic and Republican parties are functioning as the wings and feathers of a single Human Oppression Party, making the people HOP and pop to the beat of consumer tunes. In opposition, Tragedy's End proposes and establishes the Human Interdependence Party of America (HIPAmerica), inviting all to recognize and enjoy the fruits of equality.
To do so requires the following outline toward the path and cultivation of our orchards.
First, our status and survival as individuals along the social scale, depends on our linkage in cultural, not consumer terms. Culture is the environment through and in which one survives and experiences. Consumerism is the path of exchange and production between individuals within and through the borders of cultural housing. Recognizing cultural interdependence-the human familial bond- consumerism proceeds with the least amount of injury, damage, and trauma, and the maximal yield of prosperous and worthwhile creativity. Shed of culture, consumerism proceeds in violence and serves greed, masking its calling by pretending the justice and peace of culture.
The anchor and buoy of culture's flower and the piston of its drive is self-respect generated by love that honors the self in others. Knowledge, through trials of pain and grief, joy and faith, springs from this well to nourish both wisdom and wonder. These blind guides lead us to our sight by the vision they create in our imaginations. It is our remembrance of our humility that keeps us in human harmony. With patience, we accept our rests, and with caution, we accept our fervor.
The question here is do we party for fear or for favor? The answer here is which does love best support? Indeed we often favor the known and fear the unknown, but there are times when the known seems fearsome and the unknown seems favorable. Our judgments in this application produce our successes and errors. To protect us from our own shortcomings, our instincts are a constant success, leaving our conscious mind to suffer and celebrate its chosen outcomes and encountered conditions.
To the extent that we allow and nurture these truths and our instincts, we are free. To the extent that we harness them, we are rich. To the extent that we understand them we are happy. To the extent that we practice them, we are secure. To the extent that we oppose them by perversion, exploitation, and denial, we are evil, guilty, and unjust.
Tragedy's End aims to end these tragic outcomes. So, this is a concept and commitment to which all are invited, and here we may party and church, nation and family, self and express, in the community of humanity at its best.