Haiti

The way in which the aftermath of the Earthquake has been covered, for the most part has been deplorable. Suffering is maintained as a media commodity. Prefacing this story with that Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere with no following explanation is feeding into the oppression that the country has been subjected to by other countries. Sure token gestures of aid have been available and supplied but a meaningful effort of assistance other than money has not, to my knowledge, been actuated. It is the same approach that the West has given African countries: funnel some seemingly generous amount of money to a country struggling to get on its own feet and then be annoyed and pseudo-surprised when the money is corrupted, stolen or channeled into obscurity. This has nothing to do with helping out those who need it but maintaining a political construction of generosity to be seen as coming from compassion.

Haiti was the first country to break the chains of slavery in the Western Hemisphere. It is the first country to be run by black African descendants. This created a fear from slave owners in the rest of the countries whose economy was dependent on slave trade and slave labor. Word spread of the successful slave revolution in Haiti around 1790-1803 or so, to other slaves giving them a sense of hope for their own situation and possibly sparking revolts among slaves in the Americas. Having to deal with the new attitude instilled in what they deemed as their property, slave owners reacted in ways that are predictable and personify the worst in human behavior. The folks who ran the countries were either slave owners themselves or did everything in their power to maintain that form of economic foundation, continuing to justify the use and practice of slavery and slave trade. Haiti suffered as a result, from the beginning. It suffered the effects of having to pull itself out of oblivion from day one with no outside help. These people, all of them are the epitome of survivors, of strength of wills and the original freedom fighters.

The same forces are at work today to keep Haiti down. There are obvious parallels to Katrina in imagery and casualty numbers. Similarly to Katrina, the infrastructure to combat such an event was white washed by the ruling elite, preferring to leave fellow humans to fend for themselves in a system that is not only prone but relies on choosing ignorance over effort. Convenience over action. Some association told Haitian leaders two years ago that the fault line that they are sitting on was prime for a quake. This prompted the Mayor of Port Au-Prince to declare that the buildings in his city were not only not quake proof but were dangerous under normal circumstances. How did anyone expect the "poorest country in the Western Hemisphere" to pull themselves up by bootstraps? Bootstraps that have been denied them since their own independence. The talking heads have been blaming Haiti. Blaming the corruption on its dictators. The corruption lies with the global Anglo systemic economic water boarding of good people who because no act of their own threaten the egos and insecurities of the ruling class of its neighbors. To blame the people of Haiti is to blame the victim. Victims of circumstance. Victims of a system that does not side with truth but with tactics which secure power no matter what needs to be done to achieve such ends.

Two figures of the kinds of people you wonder how they can sleep at night with all of the hateful rhetoric that they spew from orifices that are easily confused with other parts of their body by appearance and exiting content, they are jumping on this disaster as a way to hate and fear monger even harder. You have the now notorious comment by Pat Robertson. As a blogger for the Huffington Post called him, he is, "a PR nightmare for God", and he gives religion a bad name and is the reason why people who actually care about others and not use that front as a way to receive misappropriated donations to save their souls are skeptical about religion in general. These kinds of people are the embodiment of ignorance and because of this do not realize that they turn more people off to organized religion than they do convert people or as the see them, donors. It is not a congregation for these folks it is a watered down board of trustees who are by no means involved with the decision making processes and go along with whatever is being said or done by the organization's who they are supporting, figurehead.

It is the same people who would support the kind of self-promotional ignorant hate filled speech of Rush Limbaugh. The secular equivalent of Robertson, Limbaugh is in the same boat for turning away people with the capacity for independent thought from the Conservative cause. This pharmaceutical saturated narcissistic xenophobe is telling the ignorant band of people who take his thoughts seriously, probably one in the same who listen to Robertson or Sarah Palin, that because the U.S has given the token gesture of financial support to Haiti that they should not give any more money to these people and let them suffer in their own circumstances. This Ronald Reagan loving, capitalism infatuated attitude leads to such ignorant and compassionate absent rhetoric that it mirrors the attitudes of slave owners and I have no doubt that Rush Limbaugh, and Robertson would have no problem coming up with an excuse based on ignorance to argue for slavery and be the first to own slaves if they were given the chance.

It is comments like these two that make me actually with that there is a Hell. If there was, the hypocrisy and fear based deception that is everything that the teachings of Jesus goes directly against that these two figureheads employ would land them in Hell's quarters for sure. The very fear that they have within themselves, the idea of eternal suffering and this fear that they claim to be acting in reverse of out of love, this fear is exactly what they deserve to experience. Eternal suffering is almost too good for these kinds of people. Their rhetoric has consequences far reaching and perpetuates the very fear that they harbor which fuels their own ignorance.

It is unfortunate in the wake of this disaster that energy and time is wasted on these kinds of people. Maybe that is their plan after all, a distraction of the issue at hand. By saying such things, they are vying for attention and the media, being what it is, gives it to them. They like the fact that they get those who are not ignorant enough to take their words at face value, upset. Should I feel like I have fallen into that trap? Maybe, but to let this idea of reverse psychology keep me or anyone else from calling out these kinds of people would be to somehow legitimize it.

Here is a link to Jay Smooth's thoughts on the subject on the ILL DOCTRINE.
He has already posted links to organizations that people can donate too. If you are able, pitch in. Spread the word, RESIST IGNORANCE, EMBRACE COMPASSION AND LOVE!!!

Reid-ing into it....

So, Harry Reid got called out on mentioning Obama's electability during the campaign because he was "light skinned" and that he was able to speak without a "Negro dialect" if he wants to. Republicans jumped on this without hesitation as a double standard set up by Dems. etc. The fact is, is that this is all theater. The only folks who are really up in arms about this are Republicans. There have been countless African Americans who have flat out dismissed the comments as not worth the time, recognizing them as less than sensitive but that might really be the extent of it.

All of the African American folks who I have had the opportunity to hear respond to this incident said that the same kinds of things were discussed within their own social circles during the campaign. Obama is "light-skinned" there is no disputing that. The idea that whites might be uncomfortable with voting for a darker skinned person to run the entire country, very well might be a regrettable truth. This is something that very well should be discussed, not Reid's comments. This idea that his complexion was something that was on Obama's side is a real issue involving perceptions regarding race and a superficiality that not only the U.S. should finally stand up and face squarely. The taboo of race relations in the U.S. and elsewhere is the main thing holding back progress. The constant sweeping under the rug of a thoughtful, considerate, and well informed discourse is the single greatest hindrance towards the parties involved getting on the same page, and not only about what they feel but why. As with everything else, the lack of understanding leaves people to resort to reactions steeped in ignorance resulting in skepticism, hate, or inaccuracies.

The work "Negro" has some obvious sensitivities that accompany it. All of which reflect that is sounds like and is associated with another "N" word. But Negro was widely accepted by the Black community up until the 70's. We had the Negro-Leagues Baseball, an organization that I doubt people would agree to participate in if they felt the very namesake of the organization was insulting or degrading, even in those times when they were at increased disadvantages. As has been mentioned by possibly every one of the African Americans that I have heard respond to this, the older generation of Blacks still use the term themselves or consider themselves Negro.

It seems that an increased policing of political correctness is muddling the real conversation that could be taking place withing this whole fiasco. In a non-political situation, would a white guy face social ousting from his peers for using the word "Negro"? Of course the elements that come into play to answer that question are variables which range and run the gamut of possibilities. In order to face these issues that pose real consequences for a large part of the population we must be able to get over a certain amount of linguistic sensitivity from both sides in order to free up the space to have the conversation. Words carry meaning. Meaning that we allow them to have. Context and origin shape the meaning of a word. A word is just a word, with all of the possible meaning that it may be able to carry.

Here we should refer to George Carlin and his thoughts on a prime number amount of words. He, Carlin, also had some great thoughts on the "Negro dialect" and how it is always the white kids imitating a black vernacular and never the other way around. As the perception of society has shaped it, one sounds "cooler" than the other.

Here is a link to a conversation between to admirable minds on this subject:

John McWhorter and Glenn Loury, Bloggingheads

and

Here is a link to Carlin's genius:

The Seven Words

I tried to find the other clip that I referred to but was unable. Anything by Carlin is enlightenment articulated.

invisible lines on the ground

Borders...........not the bookstore......

Arbitrary boundaries which political power-struggles defined for means of nationalistic possession. Materialism on a grand scale. The shape of a country's or other body of land's man designated border becomes its own entity in the mind of its occupants or outsiders in their perception of it and its inhabitants. In a way it is similarly looked upon by the folks living within it as the flag is, another signifier of collective identity in an abstract, symbolic way.

Sure there are less than arbitrary parts to national borders. Mainly those which follow geological formations, mountains, rivers, etc. Obviously there have been disputes regarding borders. Starting at the top, we can all come up with nationalistic boundary disputes, Berlin, Korea, and resulting continuous conflicts which have occurred. Even just the act of being in the border of a country can lead to arrest. The recent event of the folks hiking in the Middle East and unknowingly wondering into Iran several months ago, and are still detained, if I'm not mistaken. There is a warranted paranoia of espionage. But some cases seem more like 2 children who share a bedroom and they draw a line down the middle to section off each's side of the room. Arguments and fight abound when one puts a toe over the line to occupy uninvited space within that arbitrary boundary which is agreed to belong to the other.

Most of us on this planet have been born after the majority, if not all, of the nation's borders have been delineated and agreed upon. These are taken as absolutes. The greater force of history and rulers have decided these things that we live up to. Part of the bureaucratic structure that the rest of us who are just seen as commodities in the form of labor hours must obey. Is there any other way in which a population that the Earth is struggling to sustain at the moment, to structure a coexistence? The alternative is complete anarchy, an option I do not know enough about to argue either way but my gut doesn't seem to lean in that direction. It is hard to image a world without borders. A pertinent example is the Palestine/Egypt border. It was opened for the first time in I forget how long. This is one of the first opportunities in such a time that humanitarian goods are able to be delivered into the Palestinian people, a people desperately in need of help. This is also the first time since family member have been able to be reunited, in years, if my memory now serves me. There are cases where Palestinian people past the border into Egypt some years ago for whatever reason and while they were there they closed the border, effectively getting trapped in another country with no ability to return to loved ones. The non-ability to travel a matter of meters because of a fence which was erected by state direction to distinguish a "rightful" border, is an all to common occurrence. One that leads to devastating consequences.

Boundaries just seem to be a phenomenon which screams closed!!! This reverberates capitalist sentiment, although it is better to have anything opened so that the business can commence. Property, material, capital, outlined large-scale commodities drawn in the sand.

color coded

In the second time in as many weeks, I have heard a story on streaming internet radio about this phenomenon that black folk looking for employment have been resorting to as a response to the way in which their credentials are viewed in the job market. This phenomenon is disturbingly referred to as, "Whitening of One's Resume". There have been studies done which prove the disservice to humanity that the corporate environment is continuing to foster but at a more alarming rate during the current economic climate. Black applicants are basically being forced to "whiten" their resume in order to land that first interview. Changing their names to sound more white or molding a resume to de-emphasize African American institutions, etc, while upholding their respectable credentials. This is one of the most despicable things that American society has come to within its own borders.

These folks are being forced to deny their own appearance of a history and culture that they have every reason to be proud of. According to NPR, 52 percent of black men between 16 and 19 can not find work. Black college graduates have twice as much hardship as white graduates at finding work. Competency being equal, whites, whether they know it or not, agree with it or not, have an upper hand. This is not surprising in a system that was established by slave owners. A system that only abolished slavery to begin with because they were fearing the lost of power and economic might. The Civil War started over a dispute of business practices not related to slavery. The issue of slavery was incorporated by Lincoln as a strategic move, calculated that it would rally more support behind him in his agenda for the war. The freeing of slaves was an act of strategic political calculation, not compassion.* As they always do, the history books paint, Lincoln as the savior not the politician. There is no doubt that we was a persuasive guy, but the spin put on his actions have preserved the system that was put into place by keeping Blacks down and elevating the status of Whites. The government stoked the fires of racism when they noticed that the poor whites were siding with slaves or freed slaves back then. They poised the poor whites against the poor blacks in competition for the jobs, intentionally blocking any familiarization between the two. The poor had and continue to have the strength in numbers but the guys in power have the strategy to keep things the way they are or keep the tide flowing in the direction of the power elite.

The latest happenings of qualified people being denied work because of the color they were dealt at birth is appalling at best. It is telling about the human tendency to overlook the fact that the chances of people being who and what they are, are irrelevant. We know how things have come into being, yet we accept this flawed history which led to the flawed present as absolute, indisputable and inevitable. At least the elite have successfully generated a situation where disputing present circumstances seems futile which discourages those who care to change the way in which things work or how things are run. In turning mostly to white workers, we are denying the collective a valuable resource of intellect. What would come from the true allowance of everyone, regardless of anything, to run with their own creativity to better serve our species and the rest of this planets inhabitants? We may never know.


Here are two NPR stories that aired 1/10/10:

Black Job-Seekers Hide Race for Corporate America

and

Black Teenage Males Crushed By Unemployment

* Info about Lincoln provided by my recollection of what is contained on the subject from Howard Zinn's, The People's History of the United States.

narcissism led to racism?

[ Acknowledging the sensitivity of the topic at hand, I find it necessary to state the following to clarify any misinterpretation of the intentions of speculating on this topic: This is a thought experiment, not a justification by any means. It has been observed in the past that in discussing various habits of humanity that an understanding may be seen as a way to justify an occurrence. Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact that these kinds of occurrences do exists warrants, or maybe necessitates, the investigation of the roots of their manifestation as a crucial first step towards their eradication. This theoretical offering could be brought into similar and no less important bigoted mindsets such as sexism, classism, ant-gay sentiments, etc. etc. I hope that the idea of theorizing on a cause is an attempt to bring a collective awareness closer to the understanding of a phenomenon in order to begin the process to correct it. ]


We are all narcissistic. It just depends to what extent. There is nothing altruistic in action because we find pleasure in helping others thus resulting not in a selfless act. This pleasure is also derived from a sense and attempt that we formulate an image for others to perceive. Although this is not physically narcissistic, it plays into the same intentions of appreciating your own image, whether that being physical or the image that a collected source of past actions is able to construct in the community eye.

The above mentioned condition has led to a feeling of comfort in things that are familiar. We feel threatened in the unfamiliar. Early on when one race would come in contact with another race, this was an interaction between unfamiliar parties. The lack of insight into the human condition by a collective species, coupled with the effects of evolution and survival of the fittest resulted in hostile views stemming from ignorance of the near exact, besides mere and superficial appearance, similarities and traits. There are obvious lopsided oppressive practices throughout history coming from one race towards most others. It is of the feeling that this is needless to say and that time spent on revisiting crimes against humanity on this unimaginable scale would be rehashing ideas which we are all familiar with. In the interest of posing hypothesis towards the roots of racism, I feel that to focus on the main party whose outlooks on other races has resulted in a system which secures the results of this historical avenue is able to be set aside for this brief moment to focus on cause and not blame, a blame that is hard to ignore or argue against.

During the process of human evolution, the familiarity of other living entities was perhaps the first acquired instinctual trait. The perils of surviving in the "wild" are such that strength in numbers, any number greater than one, is a comforting feeling bringing a sense of greater security than if one were to be alone. This is still felt today by many living in a "civilized" society, many are left to fear being alone. We are social animals. The recognition of beings that were of the same make up as our selves equipped us with a necessary survival instinct that if we were in trouble, we could run to the right kind of group which would provide protection for our own personal survival. And on the flip side, know which kinds of beings to help defend from predators to keep the number high enough to preserve a band or tribes chances of survival through coordination and numbers. If our instincts were not this generous, we would either run to the wrong kind of group, a group that would kill us or we would find ourselves on our own with a decreased chance of survival, going at it solo.

The proven advantages of sticking with ones own similar kind were duly noted in a survival scenario. A continued and increased migration of peoples, with growing populations, following food source migration, general curiosity, searching for new goods, etc. brought about a higher rate of interaction between different races. Geographical and climate based elements had varying demands on the different kinds of people, resulting in differing technology, diseases and utilization of natural resources giving some peoples a technological advantage to take over other cultures. (Here I would like to refer to Jared Diamonds, Guns, Germs and Steel. Diamond goes into phenomenal and clear detail on the playing out of cultural powers through out history.) Without understanding the shared capacity for ingenuity and the effects of the physical world on such ingenuity, the people's who had the outcome of living through a more harsh climate, resulting in a more exploited use of resources and ingenuity, were able to justify an unparalleled treatment of their fellow man and women. This early and super concentrated ignorance is the same flavor of ignorance that still exists fostering and permitting forms of "isms", especially racism to persist. The conquering parties automatically reverted to assuming that they were a superior model of human. The infatuation with their own image, narcissism, granted them the ability to do so. This as well as the added justification of religious audacity and greater fire power and disease.

As a side note:
Both Christians and Muslims practiced taking others into slavery. Both initiated a policy that they would not enslave anyone of the same religion. As the market for slaves grew to such an enormous degree, BOTH religious parties took exception and began to enslave their own kind. The drive for wealth and the indisputable market demand made supposedly pious men fall prey to the lust for material gain. This is an interesting historical exhibition of the power of materiality on the human moral compass.

How does this apply to today? Well, I feel that if we are to admit our own narcissistic tendencies, like beginning a treatment for drug addiction, admission is the first step towards reconciliation or reversing the effects of the affliction. The spiritual and religious teachings that we follow give us insight to the potentials of our species, harmony through compassion and openness. Racism is the ultimate form of someone being closed off to others. Scientific facts that are proving all of the races similarity and that superiority among them is an abstract, false concept. It is up to us to construct and align this collective information to resist some physiological residue from evolution and acknowledge that there is a reason for it to have arisen and that there is a greater reason to rise above it.

A volume of books could be written on this topic I feel. This was just an idea that occurred to me that would be worth exploring in as little and unresearched detail as I have offered here....

economic extension of evolution

Some of the underlying functioning facets of a capitalist society seem to mirror the properties that were (and continually are) felt during the process of natural selection. Like everything else, it is not too far off to say that, what capitalism panders to through commodity in all of its forms are direct the results of the biological manifestations in response to the effects of external variables. The most immediate example would be our omnipresent interest in the exchange of ideas. Another neo-necessity (a term used in a previous post with such a title) is the computer, obviously using electricity, the top neo-necessity mentioned previously. The functioning intentions of this blog is to transfer ideas as quickly as possible to whoever may stumble onto them. The freshness of thought is one which I prefer and one which seems to lend itself to more interaction, revision and hopefully participation. The transfer of ideas or information is not a new phenomena, needless to say, but before the last 100 years or so has been required to take place face-to-face. The commodity that is currently being employed to transfer ideas and information at this very moment is a modernization and extension of one of the aspects of human evolution that resulted in the very commodity itself. Ingenuity through widespread information sharing, collaboration, and idea revision are parts of not only human evolution (this encouraged and nurtured an already growing brain size, gave us the ability to see the advantages of a widespread cooperation, etc) but also the way in which the capitalist system feeds itself in order to keep itself in motion. The constant appropriation of ideas, now from anyone, anywhere, and the expansion of those ideas is flooding the global capitalist market. Someone in one continent may come up with an accessory to a product that was invented on another hemisphere which derived from a product that existed at first 75 years ago.

Product traits seemingly make the same testing cycles as physical attributes in the natural world. Facebook is going through on of the trial periods now. If there are enough negative reactions or responses they, and any other company, will change that part of their product or run the risk of terminating, similar to a biological response to pressures from nature. $urvival of the fittest is an obvious comparison that may not need to be expressed in detail. The cunning survive in both climates, natural and market. Size may help or hurt in both situations. The old is constantly being taken over by the new: Google's Nexus One is making its attempt to control the smart phone tribe as an elder chimp (in this metaphor the iPhone) would be challenged by a younger male. The constant milling over of dominant forces: although some of the forces seem to stay put, we have had a massive extinction in the capitalist era with countless banks, Saab, etc. The big ones fall at some point.

The behavioral and physical manifestations from our subjection to natural evolution has given rise to this capitalist system. Socialism goes against our comfort zone of cooperation with one another through social systems in the past. Sure, we could cooperate on a reasonable scale of lest say 200 people or so but you get in the millions, and forget about it. There is not the personal stake required for such a willingness to take place. The personal stake that is derived from evolution, the inevitability that self preservation is one's ultimate priority. Capitalism is dog-eat-dog. Survival at its most raw and cold. We chose capitalism not because it works but because subconsciously feel comfort in the fact that we believe that we are the only ones that we have to rely on. The comfort of self reliance stems from evolution, that if I can just do this it can be done.

scape goat mask

In the face of a systemic problem coming to light, the system looks for a scape goat. There have been a few examples of this happening in recent memory. As vast as recent can be in an attention deficit, strobing media society. Obama admits that the attempted attack on the plane over Detroit was a systemic failure. I admire his candor in admitting such a thing. Constructed opponents of the Democrats are blaming Janet Napolitano, head of Homeland Security, about the incident. Ignoring the system that she is trying to run and the system that it is a part of. With the economic crisis, as with National Security, the complexity and widespread incongruity of what should be functioning parts of a whole, the financial system needed a figure head to personify, and scape goat for the problem. They found him in Madoff. The system stays in tact with the faithful to the systemic models preserving their own interests. Madoff goes to jail, the public is supposed to feel like the one bad apple is out of the barrel and the other supposed good apples can not continue on their way to ripen.

Because we are more familiar with the idea of an individual we look for a personification of a situation, event, or system in order to gain an access point to the illusion of the understanding of such a thing or idea. There are the figureheads of socialism which are all regarded as monsters, thus creating the image that the system is monsterous. The opposite is true for securing a system that is equally as flawed and disregards true human need. The system needs to find figureheads that have the sufficient appearance of a comforting face on the system that they paint as having the greatest potential for individual freedom (greed) and protection against threats (fear).

No change will come about if we are constantly looking for scape goats. You take out the spoke in the wheel and it gets replaced with another which is implemented to maintain the structural integrity of the same system. If that one fails the same tactic is deployed. This is a conditioning tactic of the system towards the masses as well. If people were to actually see the systemic failures in the conduct of everyday life (massive debt, multiple hours in front of the t.v. daily = killing ambition, poor diet, etc. etc. etc.) then they may regain some kind of critical awareness of the state of the multitude of systems that they are inevitably a part of and look for answers in places that are not offered by that same system.

neo-necessities

The structure that has emerged in our economic system (and its offspring: the commodification of every aspect of life) is directly linked to how we have been shaped through the trials of surviving in the natural world and early forms of human society. On the most basic level we are dependent on external phenomena for our existence and its survival. If we were to boil it down, that phenomena would be the Sun, depending on how far you were willing to "boil". This reliance on external material for our own survival has developed into an abstraction which has concrete consequences that we are able to see in our everyday interaction with the world. There is no way around the increasing need to be flexible in our own formulated perception of what is now a necessity. One could live as basic as one would like but in some ways that has its own side of a self directed existence. If we are to continue the most noble virtue of humanity, the virtue of compassion and the subsequent acting upon it, depending on the scale of ambition of our actions, we would need to understand the theories for the society currently manifest to find ourselves in a more accepting position to adopt to its conditions and some of its unnecessary necessities. Because of the hardships of dealing with the intangible aspects of human spirituality, no matter what that may mean to any given individual, the seemingly unshakable and concrete nature of greed and materiality is a dead ringer for a more appealing arena to focus one's energy. There are more immediate returns on one's investment, the former denies some pleasures where the later is rooted in them, etc.

One of the easiest of these, what I would like to call "Neo-necessities" (as being a man-made, man-generated, or man-utilized material or phenomena that the structure of modern society as conditioned us to feel is indispensable from any social survival as we are heading towards a single global tribe of humans) is Electricity. This could be easily carried over into many other forms of things that result with the correct manner of processing that leads us to energy which gives us the spoils of living today. Gasoline, coal, etc. are the formidable targets. Just as we are dependent on external phenomena for our own physical bodily survival, the consumption of nutrients from external living entities plant or animal turning these entities into energy which power our own bodies and coming to understand the access to food as a human right or at least as something that we should as a species strive to ensure that everyone is distanced from the burden of going hungry (even though we export food from starving countries by companies owned in the West to feed Westerners), we have developed a similar outlook on the energies which power our machines which we have unending faith in that make our collective lives either easier or more interesting.

The fact is, is that energy as a commodity is entirely too inexpensive. The Industrial Goliaths that provide societies with energy in all of its forms have perfected the state of non-critical awareness of the effects and sources of their products which ensures a production above mainstream interest and a product which taken for granted by the consumer. The ease of flipping a switch to give light to a room is an act whose complexities are rarely contemplated. From the natural resource to how it is processed or used which moved something that was connected to something else that moved around wound copper resulting in the production of electrons, to the copper cables laid from house to house (not even getting into the production of the copper cables, the light bulb or the house that the room is in). Commodification has resulted in our complete resignation to the wills of the corporate and industrial brokers who provide us with environmentally detrimental products. If energy was a reasonable price in relation to its effects on the second most dependent externality which we are inescapably linked, that being Earth, and a higher price of energy consumption is unavoidably felt whenever energy is being used, we may be able to appreciate the infrastructure that we live under, the collective agreement to live in such a way and the effects that it has on a planet that will have the final say in things. We blow smoke in the face of the hand that feeds us.

In and about 2005 or so when the gasoline prices were creeping close to $4.00 per gallon, people, being subject to the behaviors in a modern society based on false economics are capable of, spent most of their time complaining about the price of a substance which simultaneously makes their lives almost immeasurable more convenient and possibly indisputably more interesting than life without it, and pollutes the very environment (most principally, air, another externality necessity of basic bodily survival) that we need. Because of the economic base of society in 2005, this resulted in people not taking for granted their time in their cars as much. Of course this probably did not phase the wealthy for obvious reasons. We (the U.S.) have chosen convenience over compassion. The only reason why the prices were as low as even their highest point is because our tax money is used to subsidize the cost of gasoline, among other things. This is money that could be going towards universal health care, the noble venture of ending poverty, cleaning up the environment, etc. etc., all which are compassionate acts but we have, mostly because we have become accustomed to the convenience that is found in the low price of gas, chosen to preserve our convenient lifestyles. We know how to fix the dire situation that our brothers and sisters within and outside of our arbitrary countries borders, we just do not want to be inconvenienced in doing so.

I heard a study sometime recently that came to the conclusion that when it comes to helping others, if you increase the number of people in need from 1 (one) to just 2 (two) people's willingness to help drops something unnerving like 75%. If the idea of helping out more than one person is enough of a deterrent from helping, we need to find a way to overcome our inability to endure whatever our privileged Western lifestyles have conditioned us to consider an inconvenience and understand the positivity generated within our own being from the feeling of helping out another human being far exceeds the feeling of acquiring the new trendy commodity of the hour.