Kevin Protzmann is a first-year philosophy major and can be contacted at [email protected]

I have seen a video on YouTube of an 8-year old Libyan girl in a hospital. The top half of her head had been blown away by a tyrant’s bullet.

I have seen a video of a line of blackened corpses–soldiers of the Libyan military that were burned alive in their barracks because they refused to fire on the revolutionaries.

I have seen the numbers of how much profit the nations of Europe made in the sales of arms to Libya’s tyrant.

I have seen citizens of the Ivory Coast marching together in protest of their dictator.  I heard gunshots and saw six women fall to the ground. Their blood painted the concrete red.

I have seen the tanks of the Saudi monarchy roll through the desert toward Bahrain. Their aim: to intimidate people brave enough to stand their ground against treads of steel.

I have seen the workers of India deprived of their livelihood at their factories. The man who destroyed their lives was, in turn, doused in gasoline and set aflame by those who would see their dignity upheld.

I have seen the politicians who fight for tax breaks for the wealthy and pay cuts to the workers; who support the rights of corporate executives and deny the rights of organized labor; who promote democracy through war and criticize its creation through peace; who serve the powerful and trample the poor.

I have seen the man who sells private information of individuals to corporations labeled Time magazine’s “Person of the Year,” while the man who freely gives the private information of governments to the people labeled as terrorists.

I have seen the diplomatic cables that showed the hypocrisy, mistrust and backroom dealings of Earth’s governments. The leaders of these nations, those paragons of democracy all call for the imprisonment and execution of those who believe in transparency. They loudly tell the people that the government is theirs and then quake in fear when the people discover what the government does when nobody is looking.

I have seen that the center does not hold. As the lines of communication bridge the gaps across societies and the upwelling of information kindles the flame of truth in the minds of all, humanity becomes awakened from its deep slumber. What there is to find upon awakening is not something of love, but of hatred.

When the lives of the poor are destroyed at the hands of the rich, it is the common order of things. But when the lives of the rich are destroyed at the hands of the poor, it is the most heinous and deviant of crimes. This is the way of the world; the many subject to the few. Those who say that the institutions of war, poverty, fear, anger and isolation are the natural state of things perpetrate the greatest lie ever told. Humanity is capable of so much more, if only we realize our potential. We will never be able to do so, however, so long as we remain tied down to the old ways, the old lies.

The old institutions that had promised us peace and prosperity have failed. They have been exposed as falsities that serve only the narrowest of interests. Those who had propagated those institutions over all the centuries know this to be happening, and desperately cling to their last vestiges of power. But in their desperation, their actions have turned from deceptions in the shadows to vicious crimes in the light of day for all to see. The final war will not be a military exchange between opposing states, but the culmination of conflict between those who have and those who have not. It is already upon us. The declaration of war is on the front page.

The truth dawns with man, and the dawn is breaking. The blinding light that will emanate from our visage will bring down every monarch, general, emperor, supreme leader, tyrant, capitalist and political power-broker. The white flag of peace will rise above a new Earth. The species will actualize itself as the old order is shattered into oblivion. The instruments of inherent love shall be used against their implements of hate, and they will prevail as war is replaced with peace, poverty with sufficiency, fear with courage, anger with compassion and isolation with kinship.