Thursday, July 31, 2014

Morning Guide


After a year of extremes, which saw us endure 
a hot summer in 2013 that became an interminable 
winter, 2014 had an extremely short spring. 
That turned into a summer that is flying past; July will 
be one of the coolest on record and, as we ease 
into August, the area has seen near daily thunderstorms
as the West Coast endures drought conditions
for the third year in a row. There's something wrong
here; while weather cycles are to be expected,
at least a portion of the problem is due to man's
selfishness, his narrow expectations that the basic needs
will be satisfied at the turn of a faucet.

And in Detroit ... by the end of the summer, 
the municipal utility is expected to shut off water
supplies to roughly 150,000 residents,
over 20% of the city's diminishing 700,000 population.
Telling people to "just pay their water bill,"
the utility is threatening 38% of a population that is 
living below the poverty line, underemployed, unemployed,
and trapped in what is becoming "an urban desert."

Increasingly, as those who pay for and control
the Congress sip their triple-filtered bottled water,
scenarios such as these will become common.
With cutbacks and laws weighted towards the
wealthy and their interests, they will one day
wonder why the masses are at the gates.
In spite of the fact that they enjoy privileges
bestowed upon them by their massive pocketbooks,
one day, the people who toil in the shadows
of the corporate boardrooms won't be there
to kiss their masters' asses. Instead, they will be 
in the streets looking for water.

Of course, one can't think along these lines without
considering the old saw attributed to
Marie Antoinette, "Let them eat cake."
There's another to be considered --

When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; 
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the socialists, I remained silent; 
I was not a socialist.
When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; 
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews, I remained silent;
 I wasn’t a Jew.
When they came for me, 
there was no one left to speak out.

~Pastor Martin Niemöller

1 comment:

William Kendall said...

I look at the state of the world from this side of the border too, and it's discouraging too.