The Enemy Within:
The Super New Moon of August 2018
There is an enemy within the world of public trust, both the financial kind and the kind that says, “I believe you.” Too many people now struggle to trust — anyone, anything — in the public arena.
The helping hand turned into the hand that hurt, sometimes viciously. Maybe the shyster was there from the start, or maybe not. All that really matters is the fact that the game of hearts became a business, big business. Alms are a gimmick. Profits abound from the “volunteers” who wish to be seen and heard as benevolent. Charity Cases flock to all sorts of relief sites, online and elsewhere, to grab a piece of the action, and a lot of dough.
For me, it’s like looking at the Super New Moon and trying to see it super full. It ain’t gonna happen, except with the kind passage of time. Time is all that is needed — for the light of truth to shine on the lies of the dark past. And then for the past to be left behind, along with the frauds and phonies and their lies. One colossal fib invoked the social conscience of helping others through corporate-giving.
The noble belief in altruism became a farce during the affluence of the post-Cold-War era. The global recession of the past decade did not put an end to the swindling-for-social-causes; it merely forced the crooks to change disguises and re-invent rallying cries to empty out your pockets with your helping hands for their special projects.
The inordinate and monotonous duration of the global recession did, however, put a chink in the armor of the Social Justice Commando-Creeps with their Global Slush Funds. Bilking the benevolent had to be couched in rhetoric that would have sounded ludicrous even to that mess of a man, Karl Marx, the British Museum-squatter, socialist, and husband of a very wealthy aristocrat.
I’ve always tried to separate the wheat from the chaff where charity is concerned. Although I’d been warned by cynical individuals about the high-overhead bloat of large corporate charities, my heart won out over my head during national disasters; and I generously opened up my pocketbook. I do not regret my donations, but I do doubt that the money went directly to its intended target. Sadly, that game-of-hearts degenerated even more during the digital era with crowd-funding scams that are ripe online fleecing mechanisms.
The enemy within is their greed, overcoming your generosity of the heart. There’s no such thing as a compassionate bureaucracy, and an institution with a heart is a delusion.
During my three years of writing THE DAWN (2008-2011), I wrote and lived by the moon, and I suppose I even swore by it. Camille and her daughter Gabrielle functioned by moonlight, or lack thereof, in that summer house, la maison d’été, in Roussillon. It was a bit of a jolt for me, at times, to come into full daylight and daylight-savings-time electricity regarding the rotten goings-on of the Eternal Recession in America. My clear-headed vision was eclipsed by my optimistic belief in humanity, in the resilient nature of capitalism, and in the valor of Americans.
I was woefully unaware of the absolute infiltration by the con artists into the charity game. I came to full light about it just as I was putting the finishing touches on THE DAWN. I was sharing a delicious lunch with my very dear friend when she adamantly-no-questions-asked told me that upon retirement she would NOT do volunteer work. This woman was not insensitive to the plight of others, but she did have a keen eye for a rip-off act. In fact, I’d leaned on her more than once to figure out for me situations with “trust issues”.
When did those points of light become contributions at knifepoint to “humanitarian foundations”? When did inspiration toward acts of nobility become the enabling of thefts from charity? Did the fraud start with the politicization of life or the life of politicization?
I believe those two awful currents intermixed stealthily during those naughty ‘90s. The river of good intentions got polluted by the nasty high-jinx of Politicians who won’t be named. The helping hand unknowingly gave power to the enemy within, and now we’re all trying to rout out the louts from the sphere of good works.
Those lucrative revenue streams presently flow to a sea of tax-exempt status, a hideous non-profit pool of hidden profits. Causes can be incredible cash cows!
We got people running for clean air, running for water, running for a cure for anything and everything, running for peace, running for justice, running for equality. Gee, we used to just run from the law! Or run for our lives.
The fun-run isn’t funny anymore. The lean-mean machine of corporate mercy-unto-others has become larded up with layers and layers of bureaucracy. Even the Vatican Bank would raise a righteous eyebrow at the murky human maze.
The Average Joe, as he is called, along with the Every-day Josephine, probably can’t figure out the figuring that has calculated donations into the billions of dollars and crypto-currencies from catastrophic current events. It’s all a bit much for anyone to keep track of — the black-market business that wears a white hat.
The ruse is not new. During World War II, in France, le marché noir, the black market, was a punishable offense that was so common, the punishment was envisioned more on that unique war-time poster than in real life. In truth, the Vichy government was in on the corruption, big-time. They felt they had le droit - the right to keep up with the Nazi Occupiers!
The free market has to be freed every once in a while, and the liberating of it is an act of charity. The most benevolent Americans are currently busy with selfless acts of volunteering to help put America back to work. They are learning the truth that helping others helps oneself. It’s the individual, not the organization, that builds brotherly, and sisterly love. On a global scale too. It’s a small world after all.
All sorts of events are predicted for this super new moon, complete with a partial solar eclipse. The newest moon is a symbol of the unknown, a harbinger of the tomorrow that is a beginning for everyone. The enemy within can be found and cast out, as surely as moon light casts out darkness, as swiftly as a super moon comes and goes.
Unlike a moon that can be eclipsed three times in a row, the pure in heart cannot be eclipsed by greed, fraud, and deception. There’s no marketing slogan for that truth, just the magnanimous smile of chivalry, of charity. All-heart is something the Charity Game doesn’t play.
