Wil's Rant

What surprises me most about stories like this is how many people rise under extreme duress to perform feats and acts of heroism. We hear about some portion of them but I suspect that the real numbers far exceed those we become aware of. Everything from acts during wars to those in Germany who sheltered Jewish people at horrific risk to themselves. Then there are those like Bob Geldhof who spend huge amounts of energy to raise the awareness of suffering and poverty. When I think of people like these it reminds me of the fact that we are not out of the race yet and there may just be some hope for the species. The end result of the actions of people like George Bush may be to ignite a new grass roots level movement to finally face the issues of global hunger, disease, war, and pollution. We have always had the ability, it simply takes the desire to take the back power from the politicians and multi-national corporations and make them answerable to the people as they should be. That means that the general populace must accept the responsibility of staying informed, becoming involved, and not be content to sit back and trust in our leaders to do the right thing. We should all know by now that they won't. The number of transgressions committed by any given administration seems directly proportional to the level of interest in the respective populace in their actions. History has shown that in many instances a populace has chosen to ignore the crimes of their government so long as those crimes do not affect their lives too directly. This is one of the fundamental changes we must make as a species if we are to survive.