A vignette
Friday morning: Along with three high-school students from California and a Mexican pilot, I take off from a grass runway near the tiny village of Benito Juarez, deep in the jungle in Chiapas. Many children from the town are there to see us off--whether to see us or the airplanes I'm not sure. Their town consists of maybe 50 one-room houses without plumbing, electricity, or glass in the windows, along with a few barns and other structures. Chickens and turkeys wander about all over. On the outskirts of the town are fields of corn and pasture. A stream flows by at the bottom of the hill where the people wash the clothes and themselves. The people take care of each other and seem to have enough to survive and be happy.
Monday evening: Nearing the end of my journey, my 737 is approaching a landing at Kansas City. Grotesque McMansions on huge lots are sprawled mindlessly in cul-de-sacs across the fields, with fancy cars and SUV's parked in the driveways. People here probably drive 20 miles or so every day to go to work for some "important" business in Kansas City or a suburb, making sure the American economy keeps perking. Their goal, whether they know it or not, is to take what little the people of Benito Juarez and thousands of other communities around the world have so that the McMansion dwellers can have even more.
Global capitalism is theft, pure and simple. The people of Chiapas know exactly what is going on, and so do the people in charge of our government and corporations (who are the same people). Much of the American public remains willfully ignorant, but the fact is that Americans live in perhaps the wealthiest country on earth and, instead of willingly sharing with their fellow Earthlings seem to be messianically dedicated to stealing from them. I hope we can stop this; none of us can do it alone. On a personal level, I'd say that the best thing we can do is to simplify. Buy as little as possible; tell the corporations that you refuse to play their games that are displacing and eventually killing millions around the world.
Friday morning: Along with three high-school students from California and a Mexican pilot, I take off from a grass runway near the tiny village of Benito Juarez, deep in the jungle in Chiapas. Many children from the town are there to see us off--whether to see us or the airplanes I'm not sure. Their town consists of maybe 50 one-room houses without plumbing, electricity, or glass in the windows, along with a few barns and other structures. Chickens and turkeys wander about all over. On the outskirts of the town are fields of corn and pasture. A stream flows by at the bottom of the hill where the people wash the clothes and themselves. The people take care of each other and seem to have enough to survive and be happy.
Monday evening: Nearing the end of my journey, my 737 is approaching a landing at Kansas City. Grotesque McMansions on huge lots are sprawled mindlessly in cul-de-sacs across the fields, with fancy cars and SUV's parked in the driveways. People here probably drive 20 miles or so every day to go to work for some "important" business in Kansas City or a suburb, making sure the American economy keeps perking. Their goal, whether they know it or not, is to take what little the people of Benito Juarez and thousands of other communities around the world have so that the McMansion dwellers can have even more.
Global capitalism is theft, pure and simple. The people of Chiapas know exactly what is going on, and so do the people in charge of our government and corporations (who are the same people). Much of the American public remains willfully ignorant, but the fact is that Americans live in perhaps the wealthiest country on earth and, instead of willingly sharing with their fellow Earthlings seem to be messianically dedicated to stealing from them. I hope we can stop this; none of us can do it alone. On a personal level, I'd say that the best thing we can do is to simplify. Buy as little as possible; tell the corporations that you refuse to play their games that are displacing and eventually killing millions around the world.
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