06.26.22 "We Have Met The Enemy and He Is Us"

Between 1948 and 1975 American newspaper readers were treated daily to a comic strip named Pogo, written and drawn by Walt Kelly. In our digital age we’ve forgotten how important newspapers were, and how when we had them in our hands we inevitably turned to the back to open “the funnies,” or the comic pages. Many comics frequently found ways to make political, and satirical comments in the midst of their cartoons. This was especially true of Pogo who was an opossum who lived with his animal friends in the Okefenokee Swamp (a huge swamp spanning the Georgia / Florida border). Arguably Pogo’s most famous meme was, “We have met the enemy and he is us” which was Pogo’s way of saying in 1970 and 1971 that we had only ourselves to blame for environmental pollution. This meme kept going through my mind recently as I watched the world switch from one external enemy threat to the next: Covid19, Russian Ukraine war, record high gasoline prices, current and coming food shortages, record high inflation, etc. As different people and groups scramble to point the finger of blame at different people and groups, this teaching from ACIM kept cycling through my mind, "The secret of salvation is but this: that you are doing this unto yourself. No matter what the form of the attack, this still is true." (OrEd.Tx.27.86) In other words, the same thing Pogo made famous over 50 years ago is echoed in ACIM, and can be applied to all the current problems of the world. 26 min. SUBSCRIBE & SHARE