[Ghost of Adam S] Welcome to the Thursday Morning meeting of Imperialists Anonymous. My name is Adam and I am an Imperialist.
[All] Hello Adam.
[Ghost of Adam S] Will somebody be so kind as to read "Who"?
[Ghost of Winston C] My name is Winston and I am an Imperialist.
[All] Hello Winston.
[Ghost of Winston C] Who is an Imperialist?
Most of us do not have to think twice about this question, we know! Our whole life and thinking was centred in domination in one form or another: the getting and using of resources and finding ways and means to monopolise more. We lived to dominate and dominated to live. Very simply, an Imperialist is a man or woman whose life is controlled by the need to control resources. We are people in the grip of a continuing and progressive compulsive obsession whose ends are always the same: inequality, oppression and war.
[All] Thank you, Winston.
[Ghost of Adam S] I'll be obliged to the person who reads "What".
[Ghost of Golda M] Hi, my name's Golda and i'm an Imperialist.
[All] Hello Golda.
[Ghost of Golda M] What is the Imperialists Anonymous programme?
IA is a non-profit fellowship or society of men and women for whom domination had become a major problem. We are recovering Imperialists who meet regularly to help each other remain civilised. This is a programme of complete abstinance from all domination. There is only one requirement for membership: the desire to stop monopolising resources. We suggest you keep an open mind and give yourself a break. Our programme is a set of principles written so simply that we can follow them in our daily lives. The most important thing about them is that they work.
There are no strings attached to IA. We are not affiliated with any other organisations, we have no initiation fees or dues, no pledges to sign, no promises to make to anyone. We are not connected with any political, religious, or law enforcement groups, and are under no surveillance at any time. Anyone may join us regardless of age, race, sexual identity, creed, religion, or lack of religion.
We are not interested in what or how much you dominated, who your allies or victims were, what you have done in the past, how much or how little you have, but only in what you want to do about your problem and how we can help. The newcomer is the most important person at any meeting because we can only keep what we have by giving it away. We have learned from our group experience that those who keep coming to our meetings regularly, remain civilised.
[All] Thank you Golda.
[Ghost of Adam S] If we might continue with "Why"?
[Ghost of Joseph S] My name is Joe and I am an Imperialist.
[All] Hello Joe.
[Ghost of Joseph S] Why are we here?
Before coming to the fellowship of IA, we could not be satisfied by civilisation. We could not live and enjoy life as other people do. We had to have everything and we thought we had found the means in domination. We placed dominion ahead of the welfare of our families, our wives, husbands, children and countries. We had to monopolise resources at all costs. We did many people great harm and also harmed ourselves. Through our inability to accept a civilised approach to life, we were actually creating our own problems. We seemed to be incapable of facing life on its own terms.
Most of us realised that in our Imperialism we were slowly corrupting everything good about ourselves, but Imperialism is such a cunning enemy of life that we had lost the power to do anything about it. Many of us ended up in jail or sought help through political doctrine, religion and economics. None of these methods was sufficient for us. Our compulsive obsession always resurfaced or continued to progress until in desperation we sought help from each other in Imperialists Anonymous.
After coming to IA, we realised we were sick people. We suffered from an obsessive compulsive disorder from which there is no known cure. It can, however, be arrested at some point and civilisation is then possible.
[All] Thank you, Joe.
[Ghost of Adam S] And now "How", if you please.
[Ghost of Harry T] Hey, my name's Harry and I'm an Imperialist.
[All] Hello Harry.
[Ghost of Harry T] How it works.
If you want what we have to offer and are willing to make the effort to get it, the you are ready to take certain steps. These are the principles that made our civilisation possible:
- We admitted that we were powerless over our Imperialism, that our lives had become uncivilised.
- We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
- We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him/Her/It.
- We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
- We admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
- We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
- We humbly asked Him/Her/It to remove our shortcomings.
- We made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
- We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
- We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
- We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him/Her/It, praying only for knowledge of His/Her/Its will for us and the power to carry that out.
- Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to Imperialists, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
This sounds like a big order, and we cannot do it all at once. We did not become Imperialists in one day, so remember: easy does it.
There is one thing more than anything else that will defeat us in our civilisation; this is an attitude of indifference or intolerance toward spiritual principles. Three of these that are indispensible are honesty, open-mindedness and willingness. With these we are well on our way.
We feel that our approach to the obsessive compulsive disorder of Imperialism is completely realistic, for the therapeutic value of one Imperialist helping another is without parallel. We feel that our way is practical, for one Imperialist can best understand and help another Imperialist. We believe that the sooner we face our problems, within our society, in everyday living, just that much faster do we become acceptible, responsible and civilised members of that society.
The only way to keep from returning to active Imperialism is not to dominate that first resource. If you are like us you know that one is too many and a thousand never enough. We put great emphasis on this, for we know that when we dominate resources in any form, or substitute one method for another, we release our Imperialism all over again.
Thinking of oil as different from other resources has caused a great many recovering Imperialists to revert to barbarism. Before we came to IA, many of us viewed oil separately, but we cannot afford to be confused about this. Oil is simply a resource. We are people with the obsessive compulsive disorder of Imperialism who must abstain from dominating all resources in order to attain civilisation.
[All] Thank you Harry.
[Ghost of Adam S] I'll take this time to ask if there any newcomers or visitors present and also request you identify yourselves by your given name only.
[George B] Er... my name's George. I'm not sure why I'm here... er people call me...
[All] Hello George. Welcome.
[George B] See I'm the... I mean, huh, I have a righ...
[Ghost of Adam S] That's quite alright George, we surely do understand. If you listen to this gathering here tonight, things may become clearer. I'll ask that all symbols of oppression be left outside the meeting place, for the protection of the group, and that any newfangled contraptions of communication be rendered silent.
We will proceed with a formal system of sharing which will remain free from interuption if possible. Any questions should be reserved for the end of the meeting. The penultimate ten minutes will be set aside for newcomers or those who find it difficult to share and I'll add that, if anyone has exerted dominion today, that they should save their comments toward the end of the meeting and be certain to speak to somebody before we go our separate ways.
With that, I'll hand over to Ronald who has come here tonight to share his experience, strength and hope.
[All] Thank you Adam.
[Ghost of Ronald R] My name's Ron and I'm an Imperialist.
[All] Hello Ronny!
We'll leave this IA meeting now, but stay tuned for Ron's share and comments, observations and identification by the likes of Nicollo M, Ghengis K, Gaius J, Adolf H, Cecil R, Rameses P, Asa G C and of course more from those already introduced...
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