Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Standing for Gia and the People

There once was a man…
  Mind you, I mean it literally, a man.
  As we all know, women are not running the world
    so play a supporting role in this story, not the lead.

Anyway, there was a man.

This man suffered the fortune of being born
  into extravagant wealth.
  For that accident of birth, we can bear him no malice.

Through his youth,
  he did not experience hunger nor thirst nor, in fact, need of any kind.
  Of course, he had many wants -
  boats, techno toys, more variety from which to select, unlimited oil for his boat…

But, somewhere along the line
  he lost the capacity to discern between want and need.
  Or, perhaps
  he never learned the difference in the first place,
  having never really experienced need.

In his youth, this man was strong and virile,
  spawning children who as he, knew not of need,  but who,
  also as he, suffered from insatiable want.

But, forgive me.
  I have not given you the name of this man and his family.
   We shall call him Ubank Sovereign, Ubank for short.
   His family name is Plutocs.  The family is
   the US Plutocracy.

Together, this family celebrated their good fortune,
  new wealth,
  new power,
  new toys.
  So many reasons to celebrate.
  And celebrate they did,
   with feasts of such variety and enormity
   that there was always extra to be discarded.

And as the Ubanks before him,
  Ubank combined strategy, wile and cunning with his enormous wealth
   to accumulate yet more wealth.
  This, after all, is the US Plutocracy family dream,
   to accumulate wealth…all of it.

To his great delight, wealth generation came easily,
  for, as we all know, you can’t generate wealth without first having wealth,
  (wealth being defined as income above and beyond that required for basic sustenance).
  And, as he already owned the lion’s share of the wealth,
  well, quite frankly, it was (like) stealing food from a baby.

Of course, he made contributions to earn these immense rewards.
  To his credit we now have ‘forced obsolescence’,
    and a ‘throw away economy’,
    not to mention a thriving industry of waste removal, and yes,
    waste storage, what with the vast rivers moving downstream from his penthouse,
    and the oceans and sky at his behest,
    or should I say disposal?

But, his greatest accomplishment was the vast network of friendships
  he developed in a burg called Washing town.
  As required of any good relationship,
    he and his friends shared with each other
    in compassionate and enduring camaraderie.
  Nothing could break this (iron) triangle of friends.

Now, a few things happened in the course of Ubank's life
  that disturbed his otherwise unmitigated pleasure-taking,
   (or rent-seeking, which ever term suits you).
  and proved a lifelong irritant.
 What were these annoyances, you ask. Well, they were 
   obtaining resources to feed his family’s gluttonous appetites,
   and the pervasive whines from unwanted rabble gathered on his front steps.

He was brilliant in developing strategies to deal with the whining masses.
  ‘Manifest destiny’ moved many off his doorsteps and
    located them where he could no longer be bothered
    by their inexorable whining.
  Anointing avarice with moral and constitutional legitimacy
     busied the many who believed (!) they, too, could live as did he.

And, with his enormous wealth, he built ships of the sea and sky,
  and sailed to appropriate resources from heathens around the globe.
  His good and abiding friends in that burg, Washing town,
    lent their assistance to this noble cause through agreements with
    the folk of the Bretton Woods and other Ubanks around the globe.

Yet, all his sleepless nights and devoted work could not quiet
  the whining of the masses.
  Worse, the whining rose not just from his door steps,
     but increasingly from all corners of the world.

And out of the cacophony of ear splitting whining,
  there arose a voice,
    a voice that could be silenced neither with the pen of his Washing town friends,
    nor with the arms, that ironically, generated much of his wealth.

The voice shouted,
‘No more!’

‘No more shall you rape and pillage the poor and unpowerful!’

‘No more shall you steal the birthright of every human being
   to food and water and a livelihood and safety!’

‘No more shall your vile lies, depraved self glorification and extravagance
   feed on the human spirit and desecrate her mother Gia!’

'No more!' I say.

'No more!'
---------------------------
Though this piece is inspired by the plutocracy in the United States and it’s devastating effects on people and earth alike, it would be unfair to lay all the blame at their feet.  There are, in fact, in every society, those who amass untold wealth unto themselves and spend their lives (when they are not enjoying that wealth) implementing strategies to silence the voice of the people.  In all countries, there are wealthy and poor, not just in the USA.

Yet, we cannot avoid the fact that less than 20% of the world’s population in the USA and Europe consume 80% of the world’s resources.  And no, we do not have those resources in our own soil.  We steal them from others.

So, there needs be an accounting.

The earth, our mother Gia, is starting to exact that toll, even if we be in denial or engorging ourselves so that we can’t hear it.  The accounting has begun.

We are standing up…NOW.

The birthright of all human beings
 - food, water, a livelihood, freedom, safety,
   a world abundant in life and rich in blessings -
the birthright of ALL human beings.

NOW.



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