EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
The War in Afghanistan is Not about Afghanistan
The war in Afghanistan is about perpetual war, not Afghanistan. 
It's about preventing democracy in the United States, not bringing it to Southwest Asia.
And it is the tombstone of the Obama Presidency.
To justify the fight, they've rounded up the usual suspects: Terror. Oil. Minerals. Poppies. Democracy.
But George Orwell's 1984---now updated with important new books--- illuminates the bigger picture: "continuous warfare" is the key to social control.
It keeps the public frightened and dependent.
And it keeps "the wheels of industry turning without increasing the real wealth of the world. Goods must be produced, but they must not be distributed."
Better to destroy them in a ritual slaughter like Afghanistan, and wherever is next.
For a truly prosperous society, educated and secure, cannot be ruled by the few. Poverty, ignorance and fear are the three pillars of authoritarian control. Without war, they all disappear.
Thus Afghanistan. Before it: the Cold War, Korea, Vietnam, central America. After: whoever else is handy.
Recent books by Howard Zinn and David Swanson have updated Orwell's analysis.
Zinn's The Bomb,
testifies to the obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the utter
senselessness of these "announced nuclear tests." Once an Allied
bombardier, Zinn revisited a French town he helped destroy. He found the
act, of which he was once proud, had no military meaning whatsoever. 
Though he passed away earlier this year, Howard's PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES continues to shape our understanding of this nation's true core. In narrating the hidden, bloody past of our compromised democracy, he warns at end that even for the US, "There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people."
Swanson's new War is a Lie adds to the litany. A tireless campaigner for peace and justice, Swanson was instrumental in tearing away the ridiculous Bush lie that the war in Iraq was about Weapons of Mass Destruction. WAR IS A LIE adds carefully documented, passionately argued reasons why the era of endless slaughter in SouthWest Asia is a tool of social control for the military-industrial elite.
Over the years, Norman Solomon's superb books and film War Made Easy have also provided a firm, steady opposition to this fatal addiction.
Nowhere has our military madness become more transparent than in the Obama Administration. The "shellacking" the Democrats took this fall stems directly from Obama's painfully visible failure to bring hope or change to a nation at war since 1941.
For a few infuriating weeks, Obama danced around the decision to escalate in Afghanistan. Rarely has a single human being had a greater chance to change history.
Obama
could have stood up to the generals. He could have de-escalated. He
could have begun the process of drawing down the military budget, the
only way to save our economy. 
More than 50% of taxpayer money goes to weaponry. We have troops in more than 100 countries. We spend more on our military than all the rest of the world combined. Throughout history---Athens, Rome, Persia---empires have spent themselves to military oblivion. We have now been in Afghanistan longer than the USSR.
With a simple speech, Obama could have begun the Great Reversal. It was a crystal clear moment. The public support was there. It was what he was elected to do.
But like Lyndon Johnson's catastrophic March 1965 decision to escalate the war in Vietnam, Obama went exactly the wrong way. He became the first man in history to accept the Nobel Peace Prize with a pro-war speech. With Bush's Secretary of War by his side, he ceded to the military our nation's most critical decision. He doomed our domestic economy and global ecology by burying us still deeper in the lethal quagmire of perpetual war.
All else is sad detail. When Obama caved on Afghanistan, so did his presidency.
As Orwell, Zinn, Swanson and Solomon make clear, perpetual war is the carefully engineered route to poverty, ignorance and dictatorship. Afghanistan is merely the latest installment in this seamless, unseemly tragedy. Its ever-changing justifications are meaningless smokescreens, forever poised to cloud the inevitable transition to the next conflict. The names, places and rhetoric may change, but the impact will not.
Until we find a way to break through to a genuine state of peace---and we must, and soon---we have no future.
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
142 Comments so far
Show AllHonestly, the difference in moral terms does not matter whether one references the genocide of the late 19th century, the enslavement of Africans or the Holocaust in Europe; in the first instance, the American Indian owned the land and he found his people being exterminated on the one hand, and laws being imposed on him to take his land on the other hand, leaving him fenced in on a reservation; the African found himself far from home, because someone had to work those vast tracks of land which had been taken from the Indian. The African became a slave and found himself shackled in a shack on a plantation. And Jewish folk found themselves the subjects of extermination after having been rounded up and stuck in concentration camps, possibly on account of their acquired wealth, which was systematically appropriated. It's the same principal at work in every instance. The gall involved in the previous two instances is striking because the War of Independence was fought over the "unfair principle" of taxation without representation. They had to fight the King of England over the spoils! They had to cheat their King out of his fair share of the loot! This after the British Crown had done so much to help the early colonist settle the area. So it goes! The early Americans had to fight and cheat everyone out of what they had: Indian, African and Englishman. Our country has been steeped in war from sea to shining sea, it is how the West was won. And every time the economy goes bust, the idea is basically to find fault and a threat in some external enemy, vanquish them quickly, and to replenish the Treasury with ill gotten gains, leading to a stock market rebound. The awful reality is that all that a nation has done to others it will eventually come around to doing to it's own citizens. That, unfortunately, is just the way the cookie crumbles.
The wheel turns, all necessary for world peace !
Your first sentence takes a powerless, apocalyptic route. Your second sentence offers redemption by taking power back into your own hands.
Which one do you have control over? And will you actually do it?
The beliefs change with the conditions. The beliefs never change the conditions. This flies in the face of western individualism, yes - the idea that we are as islands, and that our individual consciousness determines reality. Of course, only those with a relative degree of comfort can afford the luxury of dabbling in that philosophy. For those with power, or those sympathetic to those with power, it seems as though beliefs - actually needs and desires - determine reality because they have the power to enforce their will on the rest of us and make their wishes into reality. That is not their "beliefs" at work, that is their power at work. Those raw exercises of brute power are then rationalized and explained away, made to seem benign and neutral by being called "beliefs" - after the fact, after the coercion is happening.
Uncle Tom's beliefs did not, and could not prevent him from being sold down the river. Many people today, who are claiming that changes in belief are the answer, may soon find themselves sold down the river. In fact, that is happening, as the horrors the rest of the world have been experiencing are now lapping at the shores of American suburbia and the white collar professions. We will all be sold down the river, no matter what our beliefs are and no matter how many people we convert to sharing our beliefs. Show people the reality, the objective external reality, the conditions and the social structure and patterns, and encourage them to face the truth about that, and then things can change. New beliefs will then tag along as an after effect.
"Consciousness", especially "individual consciousness", is overrated. It is a very rubbery thing, easily adjusted, modified, influenced. People do not live in isolation, materially or consciously. Many of our problems are results of structural / political pressures. The simple fact that we have schools should indicate that consciousness can be shaped. Many of our behaviours and perceptions are the result of nurture, that is, external influences, and not hardwired into our DNA.
In fact, you ought to do a bit of research on the subject of "false consciousness". You would findit fits with your desire to resist manipulation (an external influence) in that it is propaganda that replaces personal experience, often without the awareness of the sufferer.
Too bad, huh.
Interesting observations and questions donnalou. It is getting late, but I did read your posts and have been giving them some thought. I will try to respond tomorrow.
Solve aging so people can grow up mentally and continue physically and find another earth-type planet in another solar system and a way to arrive there safe and mentally and physically sound. What else is left to ponder? The rest is arrested development; have we been left behind by the rest of the mature beings in the universe(s) because of this?
Recall there was 3 billion people on Earth in 1920. Now there are 7 billion more or less. That is 4 billion more people in
one hundred years! What resource will we run out of first?
t33air@gmail.com
Do not worry. One resource we will definately not run out of is people. ;)
A few quick responses...
"Whenever we change conditions for the better, we are responding to our highest human nature."
We are responding to conditions, which exist in objective reality, and by consensus through communication which also exists in objective reality. All of that taken together could be called "human nature," but human nature is not a feature within that process.
"How does a society make a decision to refrain from war without being informed by their internal subjective state?"
That is a great question, isn't it? Think about it.
Here is how: One member of the tribe observes something in objective reality. There is then discussion. From that, interior states of the members change. Reality > communication > beliefs. Is that not how we function? Progressive and liberal politics are based on beliefs > communication > reality. That is why we get the opposite results from the ones we claim to be intending to get.
"Can you specify and quote an oppressor who exhorted this subjects to improve their human nature? I would like to analyze this together with you."
Obama does it all of the time. The fascist demagogues in Europe did it. The German leaders, for example, preached that the improved German individual will lead to the improved German society - that it all started with the individual will and beliefs.
One clear specific example of this was when Obama responded to the health care crisis by yammering about people's bad individual habits, bad food choices. Now obviously people eating junk food as a personal decision is not causing the health care industry and insurance industry to gouge people and rip them off. It is amazing to me that otherwise intelligent people would even consider that proposition. It is the industry that is spreading those ideas around and trying to get people to believe them - "belief" by definition meaning "not the truth" - because billions of dollars are at stake, and clearly they own the politicians who are mouthing these absurd ideas. The corporate propagandists don't "believe" these ideas, by the way. They could not succeed at fleecing us and fooling us about that if they were running a faith-based operation. Our response, however, is faith-based and certain to fail because of that.
"IMHO the rulers are hoping we don't shift our individual consciousness so they can keep manipulating us. If they did not need our individual cooperation, then why would they need to resort to propaganda of lies?"
The rulers do not car about our internal emotional or spiritual states. Those cannot harm them nor can they threaten their power. They use those, because if we are living in the realm of personal beliefs and "states of consciousness" we become easier to manipulate. Politicians now routinely fool people by saying in effect "don't look at what I am doing, here is what I believe." Many people think that "Obama's heart is in the right place" or that "he shares our values" and see that as more important than what he actually does. But even people who see through the Obama lies look at oither leaders that way - "Sanders (or Feingold, or Kucinich) shares my values."
There is something of a paradox in this. Yes, in a sense people need to change their minds. But not based on beliefs, rather based on reality. The personal choice that each person needs to make is to stop thinking in terms of personal choice, and instead to think in terms of communal and collective action, in terms of the social context. That is the one and the only personal choice that is valid as a response to the tyranny. The cult of personal choices and beliefs - including transforming our consciousness into higher levels of enlightenment - plays into the hands of the rulers and weakens and divides us.
I am old enough to have witnessed the shift away from organizing and resisting and over to individual transformation of consciousness and personal choice and personal values. It happened almost overnight, and that approach has been used ever since, for the last 40 years now. It has completely and utterly failed. It carries with it great danger - that cannot be overstated. It must be repudiated and rejected, as it places us all at very grave risk.
Human nature ( or actions) would not improve by improved material conditions if human nature were truely negative.
In fact, not to contradict myself, improved material conditions are part and parcel of the down fall of USA society.
Human nature is positive as shown by the host of PTS and suicides among the military.
There is no need to change human nature but a need not to repress the positive aspects of it.
When has the leaders of a communist state not become corrupt and what is wrong with comprehensive socialism?
Putting everything through a dogmatic meatgrinder only confirms to yourself what you already believe but does not entertain an ever changing reality.
I am not putting anything through a dogmatic meat grinder. All of us use a frame of reference, see things from a certain point of view. Those defending the current system and Capitalism are far more dogmatic than any leftists have ever been on this site. The dogmatic bias of supporting Capitalism and the ruling class is broadly shared, reinforced at every turn, beaten into our heads from a young age, so we perceive that as "natural" or "reality" rather than as the extreme bias and prejudice and irrationality that it actually is. It seems "normal" to us, people we respect and admire are spouting it, "everyone knows" that it is true, it is all we hear and read our entire lives. It takes some effort to swim against that powerful current.
This idea that Socialists are "putting everything through a dogmatic meatgrinder," while those spouting the same tired old defenses of the power structure that were used against every movement for social progress are not, is closely allied to American exceptionalism and white privilege. There is an unconscious notion as to what "normal" is. Some people even will say "I am just a normal American," and obviously the anti-immigrant people are trying to save American or the "normal Americans."
WASP working class people were the first people to be stripped of their culture, robbed of their communities and traditions and sustenance, driven from their land at the onset of Capitalism with the Enclosure Acts, and herded into slums where they became a desperate and easily exploitable workforce. "Normal American" means those people, and the expanded group of "middle class" that was begrudgingly and gradually allowed on a probationary basis into the club called "normal Americans" - Catholics and Jewish people and Mediterranean people and Slavic people, and to some extent women. To join the club one must submit to the rulers and call that "patriotism; must abandon traditional culture and call that "enlightenment" and "being modern"; must defend the rulers and the system that keeps them in place and call that "practical reality"; must share the mission of the rulers, identify with it and call that "democracy" and "freedom" and "progress."
The ruling class needs bureaucrats, support service personnel, technocrats and other "house slave" workers, and these positions and accompanying higher status and perks are offered to this group of people - those who have been stripped bare of context and culture and meaning, who are empty vessels, rootless and homeless and expected to create their own identity and persona out of thin air.
Just as people from that group see other people as "having" ethnicity or culture or tradition, while those in the dominant group are "free" of that, so too leftist are seen as having an agenda, using a dogmatic meatgrinder, while those aggressively defend Americanism, the ruling class agenda, and the existing social arrangements are presumed to be "neutral" observers, free from any bias or prejudice.
Americanism, the "middle class" sentiments, all of our notions about winners and losers - these are to be seen as the standard, and anything that does not fit into that very narrow channel is then seen as "other" - suspect, to be feared, analyzed, attacked, purged, and eliminated.
When we see our own prejudice and bias - the result of cradle to grave indoctrination aimed especially at professional and educated people - as neutral, as "reality" - then everything else looks like dogma, or prejudice, or an agenda, or something else to be feared and dismissed.
We live in the meat grinder - the empire, the destroyer of worlds, peoples, cultures, and ecosystems. Our thoughts are made into sausage daily. When we think we see sausage out there, we are projecting. When we see meat grinders out there, it is only because we are denying the meat grinder we are helping to operate and are relentlessly being chopped and diced by.
Ideas about the American "middle class" are not benign or neutral. Suburbia is not politically neutral. The professions and management positions are not politically neutral. All of the defenses of ownership, individualism, free markets, entrepreneurship are not politically neutral, are not "human nature," are not benevolent or humane. They are all directly, inevitably and irrefutably connected to massive destruction, murder, abuse, theft and environmental devastation on an unspeakable and unprecedented scale. If each of us is unwilling to look in that mirror, to see where the cause of the horrors really is and what our own role in that is, and at the same time if we unwilling to look at the objective reality about the conditions being caused by this thinking, nothing can change.
Can we even begin to imagine the degree to which we must ignore or deny the truth about ourselves, the history of the country, the objective evidence, and the degree to which we must use a microscope on all aspects of any who are seen as "other" - by their background, gender, sexual orientation, or the political and social ideas they express - in order to get everything we think about politics and social conditions so inside out and backward? We do this to such an extreme and obvious degree - it permeates all of our thinking and discussion - yet we deny it is happening at all. "Double standard" does not even begin to describe this pervasive mindset and approach.
None of us is born with the mission to be a tyrant, to bomb with or without WMD, invade or annihilate others. These intensions come to us later, during our lives, when each of us grows, becomes a subject and sees that he can overpower others and dictate his will.
As adults we are who we are.
Isn’t it strange that we are much nicer people towards our next generation than towards people living around us right now? This is a fundamental philosophical problem - our ego is much more determined and sophisticated in its actions than in its dreams. The complexity of contemporary relations and our subjectivity destroys in each of us the nice, humanistic person. It prescribes us to behave as aggressive individuals permanently fighting for interests.
• Thus, we need much less than we are fighting for every day.
The real difference between Socialism and Capitalism was rooted specifically in this dilemma: Socialism was counting on the dream, Capitalism - on everyday life philosophy. In practice Socialism has lost, demonstrating that our ego is really much stronger than our dreams.
Socialism has always won. Otherwise, human beings would not have survived as a species.
Socialism is based on the objective reality about social interaction and conditions. Capitalism is based on dreams and myths about "egos" and "free markets" and "self-interest" and "belief systems" and "human nature" and "invisible hands." Future generations will shake their heads and chuckle over our complete immersion in an irrational, unscientific and illogical set of notions about human beings and social structures and arrangements. "He who has the most money has the 'right' to control and dominate others" will seem as absurd to people in the future as heredity determining who has the right to rule does to us now.
We are social beings. Trying to understand human beings by looking at individuals, especially trying to analyze their imagined interior states, is like trying to understand ocean currents by looking at a glass of water.
The propagandists working for the ruling class want us to believe that it is "human nature" - inevitable and unavoidable - for all of us to be "aggressive individuals permanently fighting for interests." yet that denies all human history, which is a story of cooperation, of sustainable and communal living. Of course, the history we are taught - the history of, by, and for the ruling class - is a story of strong leaders, and endless war and conquest.
I was born, raised and spent most of my life the USSR. I have seen both superpowers inside and out.
Often we extrapolate human social behavior with socialism as a type of governance within a state. Unfortunately, statehood requires centralized decision-making, which requires leaders who need subordinate advisors. Eventually, depending on the personality of the leaders in any country, the decision-making is shared between the actual leader and his advisors. This clique has nothing to do with socialism or capitalism. They rule and eventually crush any country.
My personal views on this matter are described on pages 27-35 of this book..
http://books.google.com/books?id=oT-zFMTfKI4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=group+interest+in+decision+making&hl=en&ei=0hLzTP3hJsSqlAf9vKGrDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
My " what is wrong with comprehensive socialism" was ambiguous.
More clearly:why do you seem to adhere to Leninism which has resulted in corruption in every instance rather than a comprehesive socialism.
And Leninism is just as much as a dogmatic meatgrinder as is capitalism.
You are absolutely incorrect in identifying individual consciencenous as a identifier of western thought, for it is the basis of buddhism and as I and many others can empirically attest too your thoughts change the world.
there are even random numbers analysis experiments that prove that thoughts effect that outcome of random number programs.
My point is everyone needs to develope their individual idealogy and not adopt some static system and cram everything to fit it as you do with your materialistic outlook.
I support a comprhensive socialism with a well regulated capitalistic generator and reject both Predatory capitalism and Leninism
Two Americas,
It isn't 'human nature' at all, that is the problem. It is the false beliefs regarding human nature. What is needed is the radical redefining of what it means to be a human being.
We are not innately flawed, for example. Yet this is the assumption. The belief that we cannot do better does indeed continue to cause us to keep recreating history over and over again - because we create a 'closed system' and an unsustainable one as we can well see.
I will get back to you if you are interested. I am very tired right now.
peace,
rita
Thanks. I see where you are going. Hope we can get back to this discussion soon.
I would say that denial that we are social beings is the biggest lie - "belief." Don't we give lies too much credibility when we call them "beliefs?" We are not up against people with different beliefs, we are up against lies. You can't fight lies with beliefs.
Two Americas, beliefs that are not true, or actually wrong minded are different from lies, per se. Yes, they are lies. But they are deep seated myths about our own natures and the nature of reality.
The belief i point to alot is that humans are innate killers and must be destructive in order to survive and that can never change. We view nature from this false filter of belief and interpret animal behaviour the same way. Then we point to it as proof of our own beliefs about ourselves. So it is a very closed and limited system, which is proving to be entirely self destructive.
We have many of these false beliefs, based upon our organized religions. 'original sin' is the foundation of the flawed nature of humanity concept. And death as punishment for disobeying in the Garden of Eden. It permeates our civilization whether we consciously believe it or not. People tend to not trust themselves and look for authorities to dictate how to behave, for example.
People tend to not trust their own instincts and intuition and sensing, because they are undermined by the prevailing paradigm which really tells us we are flawed at very basic levels. Social darwinism is a more recent such belief about the nature of reality. But it was built upon older ones.
Does this make sense for you? This is why there is over intellectualization of everything. No one will trust their inner 'knowing'. And forget emotions. People are afraid to feel. That is considered feminine which is 'inferior' in our civilization. And people are afraid they will be out of control. Control. That is based in fear of our spontaneous nature. In fact, the need to control and dominate nature comes in here most ardently.
rita
I see what you are saying. You make some good points here.
I will give one example of what I am talking to in regards to beliefs.
Slavery preceded racism, not the other way around. Slavery brought wealth to the few who benefited from it. The motivation to enslave people was economic. Once that was happening, only then were excuses dreamed up about an inferior race or innate race-associated qualities - the very notion of race itself was made up from thin air - and those excuses became the beliefs that we call "racism." The victims of slavery had to be portrayed as inferior in order to justify slavery. the beliefs came after the fact, not before.
While the pursuit of wealth motivated people to engage in the slave trade, and not their beliefs, wealth is a secondary cause. Wealth gives people power and status within society, with other members of the community - the ability to control and dominate others and avoid being controlled and dominated. Once again, we cannot escape the social context, although virtually all American thinking tries to deny that human beings are social animals - from the "leadership principle" often promoted right here, to the fanciful notions about "great men" and "inspirational geniuses," to the pervasive idea that individual consciousness creates reality - "think it and believe it and it will come true." Those ideas are closely associated with Protestantism, with German mercantilism, with individualism and idealism, with imperialism and with Capitalism. In short, we are talking about the WASP plague that has afflicted the earth.
Kudos! Brilliant analysis. Joy to read. Please write a book. Seriously.
Brilliant post, Two Americas. While I believe readytotransform to be sincere, I also believe that psychology serves the hegemony. Its primary aim it to help people adjust to prevailing conditions. Unfortunately, the message comes across that there is something wrong with us if we feel depressed or anxious or frustrated or enraged.
Readytotransform, your veteran client is not wrong: we do live in a “dog eat dog” world. Perhaps you should direct him to Veterans for Peace so that he can work toward changing that world, rather than waste his time and money on “treatment.”
The level of ignorance concerning these perpetual wars is astounding, and is fed by an endless propaganda campaign on both the left and right. Any attempt to counter this campaign will not lead to what we define as “mental health.” Quite the opposite. A widescale understanding that we have been lied to constantly would certainly lead to mass hysteria.
I totally agree Elizabeth H. I am working with his value system and giving him articles to read and discussing activism, as i am one myself. He calls me a tree hugging leftist, but he really likes it.
Although i work as a therapist, i am a 'healer' and use Reiki and other meathods to allow human beings to realize how awesome we truly are. I also work on deep emotional release and challenging the current paradigm.
I assure you, i am not a cliche'. How boring would that be? And unhelpful.
A note to anyone who reads this - Please don't make assumptions about people whom you don't know. I see it here a lot and then you are being like the people you rail against. I have worked with a few vets and we always discuss the deeper issues. It is who i am. And by the way, i am not a prescriber of pills. Most people don't realize how insideous this practice has become.
Peace,
rita
rita,
Have you read the book "Elegant Simplicity, Reflections on an Alternative Way of Being," by John Reed? I just finished it and highly recommend it to all. In 125 pages it talks to much of what I believe we are all talking to, but in a concise and deeper (much deeper) way.
Spirituality seems to be a rather taboo subject here (and I admit to having my own prejudices about it), but so much of what Reed wrote struck a deep chord within me. It is, in short, something that most of us "know" deep within our beings. And that is what it all really comes down to: Being.
Peace,
Ted
Hi Ted, no i haven't read it, but it sounds like it gets down to the substance of things. And i agree. I think that we need to get much deeper here on these posts as well. Simply moving the same old puzzle pieces around does not create a new perspective and thus, history just repeats.
Thank you for your post here.
rita
"Simply moving the same old puzzle pieces around does not create a new perspective and thus, history just repeats."
Agreed. Agreed. Agreed.
I need to reach out more and connect. Americans are starving for it.
Thank you for this comment! I used up all my ink printing this and will be circulating it to young people I know.
Revised comment. I meant: Thank you for this article, Harvey Wasserman.
Solve aging so people can grow up mentally and continue physically and find another earth-type planet in another solar system and a way to arrive there safe and mentally and physically sound. What else is left to ponder? The rest is arrested development; have we been left behind by the rest of the mature beings in the universe(s) because of this?
"There is no blue print for changing the human condition that has ever been given by any church in this world, as far as i know."
Not by any church, you're right. And perhaps while not a blueprint, all the great teachers throughout history (Lao Tzu, Jesus, Buddha, Shakespeare, Gandhi, Einstein, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, etc.) have said basically the same thing: We are not the center of the universe. There is something much deeper than we can ever know and until we acknowledge that, we will continue to be controlled by the ego.
In this season of high consumption, I offer this quote by Eckhart Tolle: "Nothing can satisfy the ego for long. As long as it runs your life, there are two ways of being unhappy. Not getting what you want is one. Getting what you want is the other."
Ego gets in the way of right-living. And isn't so much of what we do just ways to placate and bolster the ego? Isn't our faith in material things (including material religions) just more ways of placating the ego?
"And so we will become extinct."
Maybe we will. Or, maybe the "we" you talk to is the ego. And maybe living as if others mattered is a good first step to transcending ego.
There is no program or plan for doing this, it is done on an individual basis. It's hard, introspective work. Maybe that's why so few people do it and instead, cling to dogma and programs.
"You will be a creator when there is abandonment in you - no greed, no ambition, no anxiety, no sense of striving, gaining, arriving, and attaining...The changes that follow are not the result of your blueprints and efforts but the product of nature that spurns your plans and will leave no room for a sense of merit or achievement..." Anthony de Mello
Why repair something so evil? Let it die!