I Can Have It All!

Sure you can

The truly most blessed 1% of humans on this planet are NOT the richest 7 million people out there – Not by any stretch of the imagination. That 1%’s monetary wealth makes them no better then the rest of us.

According to some gurus I have met on-line recently People like Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates are no better off than any of those among us who have our health; who have love in our lives and who have a comfortable and safe home. ‘Yes’ these gurus insist ‘You can have it all – BUT you have to SHARE IT ALL’

I don’t imagine that this command literally means that we have to rip our last cloak in half to give it to that cold man we pass who has no coat like St. Martin did; though realistically that might well be “What Jesus would Do”.

But in this latter-day capitalist hellscape that the oligarchs are pushing “effin bad”. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aRor905cCw ) the call to truly “Share” certainly doesn’t mean “what little I can get away with” like Boris, Donald, Vlad and Lindsey have been modeling either!

Given all the bling of our wild-west ‘dog-eat-dog’ free market system that we Americans grew up with…..Each of us has spent our lives stepping over homeless people everyday (unless we can afford to hide in our gated communities). This eats away at ones soul. NO doubt! We all know this to be true. As it happens 32 years ago I let my son hug each homeless person we met while he learned to walk in Philly’s city center. At the time our streets were ‘littered with’ Vietnam Vets who were totally loving and kind to my toddler. Today I am extremely proud of the heart and soul that still radiate from his healthy body – but He and I both suffer from ‘boundary problems’.

“Boundary Problems”? I’ve always had trouble with that term. I am lucky enough to be partly African in spirit and we have a term from the Zulu that we all use – Ubunta. It literally means ‘I am because We are because You are’ How beautiful is that? And how uncapitalist! Here the moto is “I am what I do” – OYVAY world! Give me boundary problems any day of the week – over the existential horror of being fully equated to your place on the capitalist totem pole.

So back to ‘I can have everything I want because the Universe wants me too’. Nice idea! And I’m pretty sure the Universe does what me to do what I would have to do to have everything I want. Because I want to end human poverty and degradation on earth? Seriously! Remember “Let’s make poverty History”? Remember how rich Bono got advertising that? I don’t really have much against Bono himself — except that he wasn’t noticing that Gaia Mother Earth can’t maintain 7 billion people at Bono’s level of consumption. Simple closed set mathematics.

We do have enough food for the people who populate this earth now – we could even provide them with beauty https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWkVcaAGCi0 plentifully – if we weren’t so busy pushing the poor (who we hate because we are so scared of joining them) down with all the ugliness we can muster. But those richest 80 people on earth Cannot Be Allowed to be as rich as the poorest 3.5 billion people on this planet put together!

So for me to ‘have it all’ and be as fulfilled as those gurus promise – I may have to MAKE those poor little rich souls ‘Share it all‘. But to cut them some slack however those little greedy-boots (as we used to call kids in kindergarten who didn’t share) Could never TRULY ‘buy and sell’ half the earth’s population. Since each God-given Human has there own intrinsic value – that is a ridiculous – read “capitalistic” -concept…And Yet remember “I have a dream that each man will be judged not by the color of his skin but rather by the contents of his character ……(sic) – nor by the contents of his bank account either, for that matter”. Capitalism has deeply failed us!

The USA is becoming a nation of ‘homo-economicus’ earthlings. We seem to believe that we are as valuable as our cars or cell phones. Poor US!

I wish I could say that Kenya is better about intrinsic human value but alas no such luck: Thanks in part to American Televangalists and their ‘wealth ministry’ – Kenyans are starting to really believe that if you love Jesus enough you will be able to buy a Mercedes Benz. Of course the way you prove that you love God enough is by paying tithes to your pastor so that he can buy his own private jet.

Somehow the Universe is lost in this equation – as we rape mother earth to prove that Jesus loves us.

So Bottom Line – Long Live Extinction Rebellion – I will be in Texas in early December. Seriously Who wants to do some radical sharing! Send Every gas guzzling car to Nairobi, and give every American an Electric Car – this would cost Much Less than our Military Industrial Complex I pretty sure.