Profit.
So many people believe that money is neutral, that money is like a hand
gun, in that it is not the gun which kills but the one who uses it. This is not the case with money though, it is
a different thing. The very beginning of
money is not beneficial to human kind as many would have you believe it
is. Often the greatest defense for money
is the ease for which it allows us to trade.
You know, the “I have what you want, but you don’t have what I want,” so
we invented money as an equal trade. But
this is a shallow perspective of what it is to be a human. Using this argument is simply seeing things
as they have always been. By seeing
money as something that makes our lives easier is an illusion. To truly understand it one must see things
from a fresh stance. While using money
for exchange of goods sounds really good and it does have truth to it, in
reality though, that is not how money has been being used since its
creation.
Jump.
Metaphorically: you can give a person all
the money in the world and yet if their social life is not in order they will
not be happy. Yet, you can fulfill a
person’s social requirements and give them very little money and they will be happy. Even if starving a bit. What more does one need that profit is not
good for human culture? Even at the most
basic level it doesn't serve any function other than to make those addicted to
money, more money! It instantly becomes something one must acquire. This acquisition in society is harmful and it
is not necessary. I think people can
mentally grasp this but most have yet to experience it. There is a great deal of ignorance in our
culture regarding economics and culture.
The majority of people do not realize the meaning of this in their day
to day lives.
For instance, when an adult says they must
do something to make money instead of raise their children in a better way;
this is saying money is more important.
When a parent goes to work instead of making sure their children are educated
properly; this is saying money is more important than education. When a person goes to work every day instead
of fulfilling their dreams; they are saying money is more important than their
dreams. But why is this happening on
such a mass scale? Is it because
children understand these things without ever having to voice it or think it
even. Is it because they end up doing
unquestioningly what was done before them?
Why are so many participating in this without ever questioning it? People are this way simply because they have
not been taught otherwise; simply because they have not had a full social
experience to enlighten their minds, to show them otherwise.
In our country we have been raised to
believe that profit is all that matters.
Our economic well being is determined by our GDP, this gets translated
culturally into, “we are the best because we have the best GDP” but as our
metaphor clearly shows, this is not actually to our benefit at all. Doesn't this seem strange when, as
individuals, we can be completely happy without money? It is in all the little things that one can
see this reflected. The excess
materialism, the apathy for one’s neighbors, the lack of education, the
complacency, and just a general lack of awareness. Those in the box cannot see this though; they
honestly believe that “this way” is how humans are. They ethnocentrically believe because this is
how our country is, that that is exactly how it is. So many people are not able to see it any
other way so they do not realize at all what is happening. How can they?
Everyone around them is exactly the same!
Jump.
A thought is not knowledge without an
experience behind it. I can know greed
existed before America, but I cannot truly realize it until I have had the
experience. And yes, written words are
powerful enough to incite experience. I
can experience a phenomenon simply by reading the story of another. Empathy if you will.
I recently got my hands on a book titled, Telling
Stories To Change The World-Global Voices on the Power of Narrative to
Build Community and Make Social Justice Claims.
It is a collection of essays from people around the world working on
building culture and justice in communities through story telling. Two Zuni Indians from Arizona, whose culture
was wiped out by greed, wrote an essay which made it into this book. The following is from this essay by Edward
Wemytewa and Tia Oros Peters, titled Zuni River—Shiwinan K’yawinanne:
The
A:shiwi roamed and occupied 15.2 million acres from the wooded mountain range
in the east, now known as the Zuni Mountains, to the flatland areas in the
west, now known as the state of Arizona.
All of this is what we still know and recognize as our aboriginal
homeland. And it was a beautiful place
rich with thriving gardens and fields, not just what some anthropologists would
claim were little patches of onions or cilantro in dusty backyards where the
people could barely scrape a meager living.
At one time, when the Spanish conquistadors first eyed the wealth of
A:shiwi lands, the Zuni watershed was intact and the River flowed freely
through our territories. It fed streams
and springs that nurtured more than 12,000 acres of agricultural land rich with
corn, wheat, and alfalfa fields that were cultivated and sustained by the
people. Not to mention that the River
supported an abundance of wildlife which nourished Zuni cultural and enabled a
rich ceremonial life.
Peace
was severed when the conquistadors Coronado and Onate invaded Pueblo
territories, cutting into our homelands, and dismembering the Ancestors with
swords, greed, and God. Taking slaves,
burning crops, all in search of gold when the real wealth was in corn, the
power of the River, and in harmony found with the Natural World. Christian missionaries and settlers closely
followed the invaders, ravenous for Native spirits and desperate to seize
non-existent Zuni gold. Upon seeing the
thousands of well-irrigated, thriving acres with the complex system of canals
and ditches, their hunger for gold turned to a thirst for the most precious
commodity in a desert ecosystem, water.
Harsh change came to the land and to the A:shiwi as the people saw the
first glint of steel blades in the hot sun and heard the anguished sound of
children crying.
Incursions
into vulnerable tribal homelands continued.
The Zuni River was dammed and diverted by the Ramah Cattle Company
empowering Mormon missionary settlements upriver in the late 1890s, impounding
thousands of acres of water and altering the natural life and flow of the
watershed. Meanwhile, other Anglo
settlers and ranchers began clear-cutting the forests, causing a dramatic
increase in the amount of runoff in the drainage of the Zuni watershed,
resulting in topsoil erosion and near total decimation of the ecosystem. The sun no longer shimmered on the Zuni
River.”
Sound familiar? It is still happening today. I used to think this was an American thing, but
reading this caused me to more deeply realize that it is a bank thing
instead. Those same banks that were at
the top of the pecking order then, are still there now. Addicted to power and money, they are blind
to the destruction they cause. American
culture seems to have followed suit.
When we broke away from Europe we did not break away economically nor religiously.
Jump.
Pecking order exists in all of Nature. Naturally we are part of Nature; inherent in
us is this phenomenon of pecking order. Because of religious dogma the human
race is yet to grasp the full depth of what it means to have evolved for
millions of years into what we now call Human Beings. Interestingly though, pecking order does not
go away simply by becoming aware of it.
It is not the same as realizing why one is angry and the anger immediately
dissipating. Becoming aware of it simply
gives one the ability to notice it as it occurs. Pecking order is unavoidable, but what is not
unavoidable is who sits at the top.
Banks have been at the top of the pecking order for so long now no one
questions it or realizes that humanity does not have to exist in this fashion. Just like those that never question
Christianity because that was simply how they were raised, the same thing is
occurring with our cultural economic beliefs.
Ignorance is not bliss; bad beliefs do, in fact, cause significant harm.
Jump.
I am also reading a book called Voices
Rising—Stories From The Katrina Narrative Project. This is a collection of short essays from
people who survived the storm; short stories from those who did not evacuate
New Orleans prior to the storm. The
introduction of the book explains that the essays contained within are a
sampling of the entire collection: young and old, poor and rich, male and
female. What I found most interesting is
the common themes within all of the essays.
There are two main ones. First,
the “cry wolf” theme and the second is the violence that ensued.
Cry wolf?
The news and media hyped storms in New Orleans repeatedly. From reading the stories it seems to be a
part of life living in New Orleans; hurricane season. We all know what this feels like. The media makes everything always seem so
dire. The people in the essays talked
about how many times they were told to evacuate for previous storms and nothing
would happen. A couple people so far
have mentioned evacuating for previous storms and it never even rained. Always warning, always making it seem like life
or death, and yet nothing happens. Some
of the people said they didn’t even attempt to watch the news to see what was
going on because they had heard it all before.
Does this sound familiar? Everyday this is happening to most
Americans. The media is constantly
"crying wolf" but it never seems to be any real threat. Then when the real threat is there, it will
be too late, everyone is desensitized; no one sees it coming. In New Orleans people literally drowned in
their own attics because they could not break through their roofs to get
out. The water rose above their houses
and they died. So many more people died
than the news actually reported. The
government really did keep a lid on the devastation. Firsthand accounts tell of bodies literally lying
in the streets.
When one reads of the violence that
followed the storm, one becomes immediately aware that this time it really was
a wolf. Imagine walking down your street
and there are dead people laying around, floating in the water, or being
stepped over while you’re looking for food.
Imagine one of them who was your neighbor two days earlier, now just a
corpse rotting in the street. Imagine cops
being shot at and imagine the cops shooting at you because they are just as
afraid as you are. Complete chaos. Law enforcement officers from New Orleans are
not even allowed to talk about what happened in the week following the
storm. In an interview one officer said
only this, “I’m not interested in talking about what I saw, or about what I’ve
had to do, to anyone. Ever.” This is very telling.
Americans tend to have this belief that no
matter what, everything is going to be okay.
Ask someone who stayed in New Orleans through the storm about that. The truth is it doesn’t matter how many times
the media has cried wolf, each and every moment, full attention must be paid to
the happenings of profit. The greed
which has been driving the world is coming to a head. Great change is in the air. This time it really is a wolf.
It is easy to take life for granted. Can you see this in yourself?
"Educate and inform the whole mass of
the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our
liberty." - Thomas Jefferson
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