Why is this night different from all other nights?

Perhaps, because instead of casually ignoring my "religious duties" I am blatantly thumbing my nose at them. What? No bread of affliction for me? Well, this year, unlike other years. My failure to uphold my (mother's) cultural expectations have a political undertone.

How can we, with one hand lament our years of slavery in Egypt, decry the cruelty of oppression of a people, and with the other neatly call for the systematic destruction of another, building fortresses with the sweat of their brows to keep them from the fruits of their own production.

I never did claim to be more than culturally, tangentially related to my religion of birth, but I hereby disavow all connection to any (and all) institutionalized religions because all they promise to do is protect the power-mongerers, and disenfranchise the weak.

My four questions:

Why do we choose to ignore our own responibility in catastrophic world events but take credit for technological advances that purport to better the lives of others?

Why do we spend the better part of our lives accumulating things whose maintanence requires perpetual investment of time and energy and very little return?

Why do we conform ourselves with the daily death of comfort instead of painfully invigorating life of action?

Why are we (the world, the UN, the EU, the "49%") not invoking insurgence against a government that generates more planet choking pollution, death and destruction than any other in known history?