With eyes unclouded

There was a time, I recall, when once men fought with honour.  I fear that time has eroded, like so much else, the very strict code that once ruled over the nations of mankind.  Where once we would stand together for our beliefs, willing to accept the outcome, but that part of us seems to have died.  There is no one reason that has caused this, our bodies are no more frail than they were when our word was our bond, we are certainly more creatures of intellect…or so we would like to believe.

One would be foolish, remiss even, to believe that no longer do men fight for what we believe in, but what is worth believing in seems to have changed somewhere along the way.  There are those who serve their countries, as there has always been, and there are those in command who are corrupt.  No longer are we ruled by nobles in name or title, but still are there those who are too weak to stand and fight for what they know to be right.  How is it then, that they can be heard, that the voices of the weak can reach the ears of the ones with the power in our world?

Some would say that rebellions, in the true sense, are finished in the enlightened age in which we live.  I have seen, with eyes unclouded, the results of these rebellions that force governments to change.  Lives are lost for the causes, blood is shed and tears are wept.  Do these warriors, who seek betterment for not only themselves and their loved ones, but for their countries as well, know the truth of their actions?  Have they the understanding that all governments are corrupt and that it will be but a matter of time before another claims the seat of power, and changes once more what they have fought for?

I fear, I worry, I see the anguish and the strife that is caused and yet I do nothing to solve it.  These are no wounds that a petty salve will heal; these are scars that are deep and filled with the pain of corruption.  In times past, perhaps, we would have stood up and fought, bled for our beliefs in the way the worlds who have not forgotten have.  Yet we have become weak, choosing to write from the safety of our domiciles, striking out with words that break no skin and bring no bread.  I condone no slaughters, no deaths, yet how to be heard in a world that pretends to hear?

It is said that politics is best left to politicians and yet these are the very people who are the source of the corruption.  Where once a man would have been elected for his leadership of others in battle, raised and hailed as a great man, we instead elect those who speak with words tainted with deceit.  Our foolishness lies in that we see only what they desire, the demons of man, our losses grievous as we pretend with eyes blinded from the world, sensing only what they deem appropriate.