Greed Kills!
With billionaires seeming to dominate our airwaves I was forced to wonder about the psychology of Greed. While some of them will undoubtedly insist they “earned” their money their insistence only shows how deluded they are as a group. Put simply, NO ONE earns a billion dollars, a fact proven readily using basic arithmetic. That aside, I started to wonder what the sources of Greed really are. In large part that’s because I’m seeing more and more Americans embrace Greed, going so far as to try and co-opt the message of Jesus of Nazareth found in the Christian Scripture referred to as the New Testament, as a justification for Greed (the so-called “Prosperity” Gospel). America has come a long way since the phrase “Greed is good” was first uttered onscreen by a Michael Douglas movie character. Unfortunately the place where it’s arrived is not one that bodes well for humanity.
It’s undoubtedly true our ancestors lived with the constant need to find food, shelter and water since these things were essential to life. Those needs likely explain gluttony in all its forms and across numerous species in addition to our own. Complex organisms, including humans and most other mammals, likely engaged in gluttonous behavior because they had no way to ensure their next meal, or potable water was close at hand. Once agriculture was established and humans gained the ability to literally grow their own food one might believe that the “need for Greed” would diminish however the 21st Century has shown us that the exact opposite is true.
It isn’t difficult to find many examples of the dangers Greed poses to our species. While my paternal Irish ancestors migrated to the US more than a decade before the famine that killed a million people I have little doubt they chose to leave the island they’d called home for hundreds of years because they were already suffering at the hands of the Greedy. I don’t know, exactly, how many of my great, great-grandfather’s relatives remained in Ireland after his departure from Ennis but I am quite certain his Roman Catholic faith was a significant factor for him. The famine that struck in the mid-1840s gives the sense that Ireland could not sustain its populace. The reality is otherwise. Crops were grown and continued to be exported on behalf of Greedy landowners who thought little, if at all, of the human cost their love of money created.
Today, in the United States and around the world poverty and malnutrition result in ever increasing deaths. Prior to the rise of Greed our species learned to live collaboratively in small communities. This allowed our not so distant ancestors to divide the labor required to live. One interesting note is that in that time I believe there were far more female members of those early communities than there were male. Survival is a harsh master and the larger, stronger males were generally tasked with protecting the community from all manor of predators both human and animal. While this resulted in fewer males (based on reality and not any religious text) in the end it helped ensure the survival of our species. Then the notion of commerce was born and our species has been losing ground ever since.
Now, the vileness known as “Capitalism” has completely subverted the one thing that guaranteed the survival of our species - Community. Prior to the rise of Capitalism humans survived (and flourished) by working collectively. Our ancestors learned that collaboration was essential to our future. Under Capitalism we are told, in one way or another, that only servitude can save us. Indeed, it is all but certain that virtually all human religions echo this sentiment. Without servitude the Rothchilds, Gates, Musks and their ilk could not flourish as de facto parasites feeding off the literal blood, sweat and tears of most of humanity.
Greed is the unholy offspring of Capitalism. It can only exist so long as the Greedy deem themselves and their ilk to be inherently more valuable than the ordinary human. Today we find that many of the Greedy are now literally laying claim to resources that are meant for ALL of us. Food, water and, no doubt, someday air will be claimed as the property of the Greedy who will insist they are entitled to payment for “sharing” that which belongs to NO man or woman. Nestles illegally withdraws countless gallons of water from springs in America’s mountains that sustained our species since humans first arrived here some 20,000 or more years ago. In return they have paid NOTHING. Today it is said that virtually every single drop of otherwise potable water contains microplastics which necessarily came to be as the Greedy found ways to repackage that which was meant for us all into small, “convenient” bottles and other containers.
The time has come (indeed it came decades ago) for those of us who value one another, who understand that community is far more important than personal ease and comfort, to put an end to the rule of Greed. It serves a handful of self-important, sociopathic individuals at the expense of literal billions. Whatever their putative “politics” Soros, the Waltons, Bezos, Gates, Musk and their confederates represent precisely one thing - a REAL and PRESENT danger to the survival of the human race. It is time for the millions of Americans who continue to wait for their “ship to come in” to accept that such a time will NEVER come. The Greedy, by their nature, do not “Share” anything. The fact they pay their far too numerous sycophants to worship and idolize them is lost on those same individuals. Do not be lured into believing you are anything to them but a potential source of greater “wealth.” In the end all I’m suggesting is that you, and only you, can decide what matters most to you - “creature comforts” or your friends and families. It is, simply, impossible to serve both.