So now that this thread is winding down a little, I'd like to briefly clarify my initial intentions for creating it. As I stated in my second posting here, this thread was more targeted at Icke's dedicated legion of followers than it was at David himself. It was my way of attempting to be subtle, when perhaps I should have just gone for the throat to begin with. Still, I feel the points I made that specifically address Icke's work are indeed valid, so I'll briefly make some final clarifications.
Whilst I still respect and admire David for his tireless work in helping people wake up to certain harsh realities of life on planet earth, I simply feel that he does place way too much emphasis on the problems we are facing, whilst offering little in the way of possible solutions himself. And the reason he does this, and the only thing I take issue with him over, is that he's simply found a niche market and is now writing for them as opposed to writing for himself like he did previously.
I'm sorry to say it, but he's actually done very well from the September 11th, 2001 event. Back when I first starting reading his web site, around the year 2000 or so, his audience was still quite relatively small. After 911 occured, his website traffic went into high gear almost overnight. Suddenly he had credibility. Suddenly his speaking events were sell outs, and he was requiring larger and larger venues within which to host them. People in their masses simply weren't buying into the ludicrous official explanations for the 911 disaster, and in their shock and confusion were turning to the conspiracy researchers - David being one of the most high profile - to tell them the real truth of the matter. But, rather than encouraging them to trust their own intuition - thus empowering them to do the same thing in future - he simply wrote another very large, 500 page book in which he dissects and disproves every facet of the official 911 story.
And that book sold by the truckload because it found the right audience at the right time. Finally he'd been vindicated. Memories of his bizarre early appearance on the UK Terry Wogan Show happily disappeared from many people's memories: "He was sick and a nut case, but he's better now - and how!" It didn't even matter too much that he believed all of that crazy stuff about blood-drinking, baby-eating reptilians. That was his perogative, and most simply learned to ignore that particular aspect of his work, too busy scrutinizing all of the other juicy tidbits. Finally, after so much time, people were willing to listen to him and his strange ideas.
But one thing that you'll never hear David Icke asking anyone (except in a somewhat patronizing way) is: what do you think? He's too busy telling everyone else what he thinks. That is his talent. And whilst I give the man kudos for having the guts to get out there in the face of such huge opposition back when he first started on his journey, it is that same opposition that has taken its toll on him and left him with a lot of pent-up anger, bitterness, and frustration towards humanity. His recent tone and attitude seems to indicate that he now feels he is owed some measure of financial success for all of his efforts on our behalf. If this is indeed the case, and I feel that it is, then the agenda has finally broken him down in the most ironic way: by rendering him impotent towards taking the next step on his own spiritual journey.
Now don't get me wrong here. I'm not trying to imply that it's up to him to save the world. He's no superman, after all. Hell, he's not even a very good writer. But, for all of his efforts in helping to awaken people, here we all still sit years later edging ever closer to a global economic meltdown. The problem here is now easily stated: we all now know what's going on, but what are we going to do about it? We can of course choose to do absolutely nothing at all with this information we are collecting. We can sit on our arses and simply await the day when the proverbial shit hits the fan. That is certainly a valid option, but if that is the path that we all wish to take then we shouldn't complain about the smell afterwards.
So, what to do? Well, the first change begins with us. And it's not enough to simply change our beliefs; we must also change our attitudes as well. If we're going to talk the spiritual talk, then we need to walk the spiritual walk. We would render ourselves hypocrites were we to do less. If we are going to espouse the ideals of universal love and acceptance, then we need to start practising these values as well. And that means having respect for other people. It means not shoving your opinons down their throat, or getting upset if they don't agree with you. It means not trying to excuse them from accepting responsibility for the outcome of their actions. It means demonstrating acceptance - not tolerance - of their uniqueness and individuality and of the choices they make. And it also means respecting your own uniqueness as well. None of us are more "special" or "chosen" than anyone else: we are all simply unique in our ways, and we all have our own gifts to share with each other and with the world.
And all of these are just mere words, of course. They mean nothing until we can actually take those words, and begin a process of integrating them into our existing mindset. Only when we can do this do we enable a new array of choices to present themselves at any given opportunity, allowing us to decide how we wish to respond to changing faces, places, situations and events, rather than simply reacting from old prejudices and programming as many still do now.
And that, I feel, is the first great challenge. Learning how to accept yourself, and learning how to accept others. But unless we can even begin to do that individually, we'll never make any progress with the bigger issues that face us all collectively - which is the second great challenge.
Some people are of the opinion that society, as it is now, is going to simply collapse in on itself. And given our species' inglorious history of self-destruction, that is an easy viewpoint to understand. And yet it is also a very pessimistic statement of defeat, an opinion that humanity is just too stupid to evolve, and that it is therefore preferable to walk away and hide in some remote place, far from civilization, in relative safety and seclusion. To me, this action is far more motivated by personal survival concerns than it is in returning to harmony with nature. But it is their choice, and their right to make it.
For those who choose to stay within the system, they are faced with an overwhelming set of problems that must all be confronted if civilization is to survive. By far the biggest problem is lack of sustainability within the current system, so the question that must be answered is how to replace the current, non-sustainable system with one that is? That question itself would be difficult enough to find a solution for, but the situation here is made even more complex by the presence of a global cadre of private financial interests that have a stranglehold on the world economic system, and therefore a tangible - but largely hidden - presence in the lives of every man, woman, and child within.
I think that part of the answer to that problem may be contained within the question: the current system is simply not sustainable in the long term, or even - for that matter - the short term. There is a strong possibility that its destruction will be inevitable within the natural course of events. The goal in that case would be to find and communicate with other like-minded individuals, slowly but surely growing both real and virtual communities of people who will be capable of helping to create a new, sustainable system once the existing, unsustainable system begins its inevitable spiral into oblivion. I certainly feel that the coming years will not be a time to isolate oneself from other people, but rather a time in which we desperately need to reach out and connect with people from all walks of life and all across the globe.
And that is why the first change, the change within, is the most important one to make. It is one we can all start working on right now, and our relative success or failure in that endeavor could well determine the type of tomorrow we are collectively creating....
"Fear is the great barrier to human growth. Unknowns create fears. When these Unknowns become Knowns the fears diminish and disappear, and we are able to cope with whatever confronts us." - Robert A. Monroe
