What A World

Vie with each other in good works.

The Koran
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Hello Bruce
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There's an amusing saying about the competition among the super rich which goes, "He who has the most when he dies wins." It's funny, but it's also pathetic.

Imagine a world in which the acquiring and hoarding of wealth is not the primary acclivity of people, where the fear of financial insecurity doesn't drive them to obtain more than they need, where there is no military-industrial complex, no multi national corporations, no mega farms, but where instead goodness and morality are the basic commodities of life.

There have been times and places where that was true. When the early Puritan pilgrims arrived in America they had a meager start to their new lives, the church was the center of their small communities and goodness was what prompted them and kept them together. Unfortunately along with their simple fundamentalist religion came superstition. Thus when the witch trials started it wasn't theft, rape and murder they were tried for. It was evil. Non goodness.

Imagine a community where superstition does not rule, where real goodness has a chance to establish itself and flourish like the flocks and crops of the first settlers. Imagine a world where the competition is for kindness, mercy, good deeds, instead of more land and more money.

Is it an impossible utopia? Maybe. But give it a lick. If we all started genuinely trying to win gold medals at kindness, benevolence and good works, what a world, what a world, what a world.

DB - The Vagabond
Never give up.

Rich And Poor

All the measures of the government are directed to the purpose of making the rich richer amd the poor poorer.

President William Henry Harrison
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"O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave."

President Harrison (1773 - 1841) made the above statement 3 centuries ago. Imagine the prescience. He spoke those words before the robber barons came on the scene in full force, before the Civil War, before labor union organizers were shot, before both world wars, before Karl Marx, before the threat of Communism, before Reaganomics, before the Tea Party started running away frightened from an imaginary ogre called Socialism, and here we are in the 21st Century facing the same dilemma about how our country is run as Harrison did so many years ago.

The purpose of any business, enterprise, industry, manufacturing or agriculture is to create wealth. But why should that wealth only go to the wealthy? Why must the wealthy ride on the backs of the lower and middle classes? Why do they want to disestablish the unions that take care of the working person? Why do they want to deprive health care to those who can't afford the exorbitant premiums and whimsical reimbursement policies of the insurance companies? Why do the wealthy say that people are homeless because they refuse to work when their jabs are taken away and sent overseas and the buildings they could afford to live in are taken down and replaced by towers of apartments only wealthy yuppies can afford? Why do they want to deprive older Americans of financial security, men and women who can't work any more? Why do they want to deprive veterans of the compensations they need? Why do major corporations manipulate their fees and prices for the sake of mere shareholder value? Why don't the wealthy pay their fare share of taxes? Why is Congress playing checkers with our future? IT'S NOT A GAME.

We've been through the ridiculous charade of trickle down economy. Even a Conservative friend of mine had to admit that the bottom never even got damp.

There is nothing ethically wrong with the rich getting richer. It's the other end of the equation we should all be fighting against, rich and poor. We should all be getting wealthier. This is supposed to be the greatest country in the world, but it is slowly becoming, or has already become, two nations: the land of the rich and the home of the poor.

Never give up
Dana Bate
Vagabond
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SUMMER QUESTION

It's a long, hot, sticky summer, so here's a hot, sticky question for you. Don't let the recent New York State decision rob you of your thunder.

Same sex marriage. Should it be legal or not? If so, why? If not, why not?

dbdacoba@aol.com

12 answers so far.

You have until the last day of summer, but don't dally.
I eagerly await your answer.

DB
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Wondrous Wishing 8/10/09

Love ought to be a struggle of desire toward adventures whose nobility will fertilize the soul.

Rebecca West
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Good Monday to you.
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Hurry and get....
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St. Paul wrote "The love of money is the root of all evil." George Bernard Shaw wrote "The lack of money is the root of all evil." Both of those remarks mean the same thing. We desire what we lack and need, or what we think we do, and that desire is one kind of love. So what's so evil about it?

Whenever I was booked into a new town, after I was shown my quarters, I had to find 2 things. 1 the nearest ATM and 2 the nearest grocery store. That way my creature comforts would be taken care of and I could start thinking about the job. My real desire was to work on the play I was hired to do and not much else, so I didn't want anything else to get in the way of that, such as running out of coffee.

The desire for money is one of the fundamental facts of our existence. Without money we can't live and prosper. So naturally money is an item on everyone's wish list. The problem, the evil, comes when people stop there. "I want to be wealthy." Okay, Zap! you're wealthy. Now what?

Growing up poor I never developed the middle class man's respect for money. I saw survival happen without any. And since there was no money around to think about, my love went toward a different kind of wealth. Music, art, literature, ideas, people became my investments.

Don't get me wrong, financial security is a great thing and I was glad whenever I had any. But I'm also glad my upbringing allowed me to think beyond that. Some people stop with money. They desire more money and it keeps going until they have more wealth than they can use or deserve.

The really great adventures in life are dangerous, they require risks, not financial risks but personal risks. Exploration, discovery, development of great ideas, romance in its highest sense, creation of joy and beauty, dwelling out on the cusp of human ingenuity and knowledge, learning to understand oneself, gaining wisdom and imparting it, finding and demonstrating man's highest noble capabilities. That's love.

DB -Vagabond Journeys
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May the summer critters all be nice to you.
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Lying fellows advertising backward town. (9)