Okay, so…Love, politics and life. You may want to skip this…don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Love cannot and will not save the world,  At least not this world, at this time. Love, from even a lot of people, cannot do anything, on a grand scale.  It will not change the minds of anyone who has power and wants to keep it and/or get more.

Love can be fabulous.  This isn’t about that.

This is about people who believe that by just being loving they are doing something that will actually make a difference.  Do something that will make things better for more than one person at a time.

I would be surprised to learn that people who believe that love is the answer, have ever been activists and gone up against an institution, the government, or any system at all, in order to CHANGE ANYTHING.  More attention is paid to men who try to change things, but even then, if the men can’t hurt the power structure, they aren’t a real threat either, so they usually walk away with a token gesture.   Women have a much more difficult time.  Like going to the men who beat their wives and ask to open a woman’s shelter.

If the people who think love is helpful had been activists, they would known that the men in power are in power, because they LIKE POWER and they don’t ever want to give it up and they don’t want to share it, and they really only care about people who can help them stay in power or get more of it.  Those men who run for office for reasons other than power, and win, do not last long.

Here’s what I learned from being an activist for years and years and years.  People who believe that loving kindness will change anything are like hot fudge sundaes with cherries on top, to those in power.  Those people are no threat to anyone…at all, especially the status quo.  Guys in power absolutely LOVE people like that.  They even have their pictures taken with them.

If the meek are going to inherit the earth, they might want to step up now, before there’s nothing left to inherit. The non meek are trying to figure out how to turn things around, but where the are the meek when you need them?  I’d like to remind everyone that no one ever said what condition the planet would be in, when the meek inherited it.  I’m assuming that all the non meeks would be dead.  This is a squeaky wheel world, the meek aren’t going to end up with much, I can tell you that.

We might all see the world differently but we we still SHARE a reality.  It doesn’t matter if you believe that love is the answer, the kids shot to death in their classrooms, or on the street, will still be dead.  Love isn’t going to STOP ANYTHING FROM HAPPENING.  Love doesn’t even stop a husband’s fist from breaking his wife’s jaw.  His wife can love him, he doesn’t care.  The people who believe love can change things might say that, that’s not the right kind of love, or that’s NOT love at all, and make all the excuses they can think of, but the point is…love isn’t going to change anything, and for some, that’s the only love they’ve ever known.  Ask the monks in Tibet about love, before they’re killed, of course.

People kill people every single day…in wars for profit, for all kinds of reasons.  People are killed…in schools, in businesses, in their homes, in fast-food places, pretty much everywhere.  Kids kill each other, cops kill people and are killed themselves, people kill family members…and on and on it goes.  Love doesn’t do a single thing to stop what happens.  It doesn’t change THE BIG PICTURE.

The REAL world does not respond to love in a big way.  Love did NOT save children from rapists by priests.  Doesn’t the church talk about love?  Millions of kids ALLOWED to be raped by priests, and then those kids saw that when people finally found out what happened to them…they didn’t care enough about them, to stop going to church.  So love pretty much SUCKS for them.  They got abused twice…once by the priests and then by “loving” people who didn’t care enough about what happened to them to stop going to church, but instead knelt and prayed with the very people who raped them.

People can love others all they want, but if no one cares, the only ones they’re making feel better are themselves.    They are not actually changing a single thing.  A lot of people do things for themselves.  Pretty much everyone.  But thinking it’s impacting society is just silly.   Thinking that by being loving, good work is being done is like pulling a weed in a prairie and saying that you turned it into a manicured garden.

You can’t change people who don’t care.  People in power only care about other people, as long as those people can do something to help KEEP them in power.  Money is more important than love, if you want to bring about change.  That’s why grassroots organizations have such a difficult time…they don’t have the funds to bring about change.  The bad guys get funding from beer companies, pizza chains, computer companies, Ice cream parlors, huge warehouse stores that abuse their employees, the NRA and a billion other places that have enough money TO BUY WHAT THEY WANT FROM THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE ENOUGH POWER TO GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT.  The NRA pays for the right to do what they want and love doesn’t enter into it.  Dead kids?  No problem.

As far as I’m concerned…you can have every single person who believes that love is the answer, but takes no action.  I’d be happy with one person who would wear a button, defend a clinic, or demonstrate in front of animal labs when their fingers are froze and it’s too cold to speak..  Those people put their love where it counts…in their ACTIONS.  That’s what real love is to me.  It’s putting your money where your mouth is.  You don’t do it to feel good about yourself,  you do it because it needs to be done.  Period.

Thinking love is doing anything is just ignoring the real problems we have.  People can say fight FOR something, not AGAINST whatever it is.  Doesn’t matter.  Just words.  If people in power don’t care, like the current idiot, the environment can die and so can we.  Love is a joke when you’re up against the system.  Adults should know that.  And I’m not saying fighting back will do anything either. We are basically at the mercy of the men who have the money and power to do ANYTHING they want.  WE are not stopping them from doing ANYTHING.  Not a single thing.  If they order the army and cops to kill us in the street, they’ll have guys start digging mass graves.  People are trained by the system to obey and follow orders.

I AM grateful for those lawyers and advocates who struggle daily to help the immigrants and their children, children who were sometimes torn from their parents arms.  Those unnamed people deserve a standing ovation.  They work constantly and they work hard DOING what they can to HELP others who are OPENLY abused by the American system, which is cold and violent, in spite of what the loving people may think.   The people who are taking action, to make things better have my gratitude and respect.  They have chosen a difficult path and I think they’re fabulous.  I am incredibly grateful to all those volunteers who help animals and people every single day.

AND HERE’S THE THING ABOUT THAT…VOLUNTEERS.  We need VOLUNTEERS, because the problems they work with are ALLOWED TO EXIST.  We need volunteers because the IMPORTANT THINGS DO NOT GET FUNDED PROPERLY OR AT ALL!  People have to work for FREE, to help others, because THE SYSTEM DOES NOT CARE IF OTHERS ARE HELPED.  If they did, there would be money in it.  So, kind and loving people volunteer at animal shelters, at gardens, at women’s shelters, at after school reading programs and a million other places because THE SYSTEM DOES NOT CARE ABOUT THOSE THINGS, or why they exist in the first place.   There’s no money or power involved in THOSE THINGS because animals, women and children do nothing to increase the power or wealth of the men in charge.  The volunteers at hospitals and every other place live their love.  They hold and kiss cats, dogs, mice and every poor soul who comes their way.  They teach children to read, they help where they can.  That’s love.  But it still won’t solve a single thing, on a grand scale…because none of those things matter to the powerful, therefore, they will continue to exist.  People need to face that fact.

We live in a top heavy society  run by men who only care about money and power.  The people at the top will DO ANYTHING to stay there.  They couldn’t care less about love from the herd.  They don’t care about what happen to us, unless it effects them in some way.  NO ONE CARES about whether you love them or not.  They care about money and power.

ANYTHING YOU HAVE…ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING…can be taken away from you in a moment, by the men who have all the power.  You are ALLOWED to have what you have, because they don’t want it, need it, care about it, or because they think you’ll be less of a problem if they LET you keep it.  Don’t think you’re in charge of your own life and what you have.  You aren’t.  EVERYTHING belongs to them, including you.

Love that.