Love will save the day - David Usher

This is no simple reform. It really is a revolution. Sex and race because they are easy and visible differences have been the primary ways of organizing human beings into superior and inferior groups and into the cheap labour in which this system still depends. We are talking about a society in which there will be no roles other than those chosen or those earned. We are really talking about humanism. - Gloria Steinem


I wrote about this song a while ago, thought I would post it up here.




David Usher is also a humanist. I think what he is trying to say is that we continue to blame outside sources for our problems (he cites drugs and porn) but really it is ourselves who are responsible. We as a species are responsible for our own problems.

come on sell me more of your religion
'cause it's sure to make a change
last night god was on the tv screen
taking dollars for their pain
come on talk about that evolution
it's been poisoning my mind
i've been looking for a saviour
yeah i've been waiting for a sign

I think he is saying here that we are all waiting for someone (God, science, Jesus, Buddha) to come along and save us. Religion teaches that eventually someone will come along and bring us salvation, non-theists are saying faith is useless, but he is saying that love is the only thing that can be our salvation.

What we really need to be saved from... is ourselves.

I know the thought processes I had when I was deeply immersed into Jehovah's Witness doctrine, love was something that we were required to have, love was the greatest of God's laws. We were to have whole hearted love for God and our fellow man... but at the same time I was taught that most of the world was ungodly and doomed to destruction when Jesus was to come and kill off the current system of things. I was taught to love, but the entity I was taught to love was supposedly destined to kill billions of human lives. Similar beliefs are held by billions of human beings around the globe. That is the problem here. There is not going to be a supernatural deity that is going to come around and save us. Despite what I was taught, I believe we should not live our lives with that in mind.

I was taught specifically to 'live with the lords day in mind'- in other words, I was taught to live each day with the belief that other human beings were about to be killed for their sins. I believe that belief prevents us from loving the way we need to have love if we are to pull it together and save ourselves.

So I walk you down into the water
But you keep coming up for air
All those people, they don't give a damn
they just stood around and stared

Its like standing on a street corner and watching someone beat the crap out of a homeless man. Its like watching someone getting pulled out of their car and stabbed. Its like those dutch troops who had to stand by while the Serbs committed genocide in Srebrenica. When will we as a species stand up and change things?


The most depressing part of the song I think is the end: "Maybe tomorrow! Maybe tomorrow!"

Why cant we as human beings make it happen today?

Lullaby for a New World Order - Matthew Good

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo




Before I saw that there was a political message in the song, I saw parallels in the religion I was brought up with. I interpreted the song to mean something that was tearing me up inside... it was basically the line between reason and faith.


Somebody gave you a choice
And all you do is abuse it
If God he gave you a voice
Then use it


Matthew Good is himself a humanist, but the way I saw it at the time, the lyrics meant that there is no logic to the idea that we must have blind faith, that we must believe everything the man on the stage with the bible in his hand says. There is no questioning the religious leaders, because they represent God. This was the beginning of the collapse of my religious faith.

I believed what I was taught to believe, but logic and reason eventually pushed out faith. The men on the platform with the bibles in hand often told the so-called 'flock of sheep' (another JW term for congregation) that homosexuality was an evil that God despises. The homosexuals were never to inherit God's kingdom, and they were all to be destroyed upon Jesus' return. Yet, I began to believe that maybe there was nothing wrong with me... that perhaps they have just been mistaken....


Here's something to ask if these are the bad times
Because whenever you ask why it's never the good times
How will we get ourselves out of it?
How can you take your heart out of this?
And how do you stop once you've started?


Almost every week I was told how the world was descending into a moral abyss, and things are getting worse and worse. These were 'the last days'. The time that humanity was to become selfish, greedy, proud, blasphemers... etc. But that is the nature of humanity at its worst. That is how its been amongst humanity at least as far back as man invented writing and started recording history. They always tried to make us fearful of the state of humanity and its direction. Sometimes that fear is justified, but I believe we are starting to improve things. Life was much harder 100 years ago. Humanity was much more barbaric in the 1500s. Technology is advancing and making it easier for us to help other people.

This indoctrination of fear and mistrust is what causes most of the problems amongst humanity. Its what maintains the grip of organized religion on its followers. They take their hearts and minds out of it, by giving in to fear. They believe in the hatred of another group of people, because that is what their vengeful creator asks of them. Or at least, that is what the people on the platform will have them believe.

I was taught that the New World Order was coming. In order to get into this new order, I had to obey their rules on how to worship God. It took a few years of pain in my teens, but I found my way out.

In the beginning

I had wanted to start up a blog again, but I never got around to it. Talking about it today, combined with a weird rash of insomnia this past week, has convinced me to get 'er done. JesseCo is the name of a company I created in grade 6. Instead of pay attention in class, I would pass notes to the girls and draw cartoons. JesseCo owned a company called The Body Shop, unlike the Body Shoppe, The Body Shop sold body parts. One of the best selling products was the Jar-o-Eyes. The shop manager was an alien.

I love that feeling of starting something new, so I got in front of my computer, sat down, got ready to type, got up to go pee, came back, read another blog, read a few youtube videos, got up again, got tea and ginger snaps, sat down again, listened to a song that I want to blog about, searched it on the web, joined a fan website of the artist, got frustrated with their stupid 'admin new user authorizing' bs, checked huffington post, then saw the tab for blogspot and remembered that whole blog thing.

Ya. We will see how long this lasts.