The natural world is peaceful but the human world is troubled ...
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Wood storks are endangered but they are recovering. I wish I could say the same for humankind but there no recovery is possible for a species which delights in its own sickness.
Michael Novak perfectly illustrates the amoral sickness which is capitalism:
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While it is easy to hear such a message and become upset and judgmental, I think it safe to say that Americans are quite happy with the rich-poor disparity when we're the rich and someone else is poor. Complaints of injustice only occur when someone else is more wealthy than I or you.
There are approximately 2 billion humans who are barely surviving on less than $2 a day. While this is happening the American people are quite unhappy and discontent about consuming only 25% of the world's resources. The American economy must keep on growing and the American people must keep on shopping because ... how else could the American people claim that their own life was meaningful, successful, and progressing to greener pastures.
Liberals aren't any more just than conservatives regarding wealth disparity. Liberals buy SUVs and McMansions. Conservatives buy SUVs and McMansions. Liberals obsess over money, income and wealth. Conservatives obsess over money, income and wealth. Liberals engage in the perpetual hyperconsumption binge. Conservatives engage in the perpetual hyperconsumption binge. Liberals surrender the environment to developers for the sake of the local economy. Conservatives do the same. Liberals resist and reject sacrifice for very nearly the same reason as conservatives.
There is a great injustice in the world because of the the unfair distribution of wealth. The American people are the greedy gluttonous wealthy perpetually unsatisfied and always demanding more, more, more of everything. The billions of impoverished deprived nobodies scattered throughout the world are the victims of our greed & gluttony & selfishness & recklessness & often our military adventures meant to secure our lifestyle.
Does it actually make a difference whether a person is a conservative a liberal, an environmentalist or a SUV loving pollution advocate? It does make a small difference but not enough.
One nation of 300 million people cannot consume 25% of the world's resources. Nature is going to redistribute this wealth since Americans are unwilling and unable to make the substantial sacrifices demanded by justice.
What this means is that Americans are going to become very poor in the decades ahead. Please do accept poverty peacefully since we've spent the last several centuries making that same demand of the impoverished.
David Mathews
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