Fragility

We are all more fragile than we think.

We are all disposable.

According to “them.”

We are all stronger than we think.

The struggle for human dignity, for each and EVERY humans dignity, is nothing new.

Nor is the relentless pressure by the faceless forces that would strip it from us.

Forces that are gaining more and more power by controlling more and more resources. Oil, food and water. Medicine and health care. Jobs.

The things humans need to survive. There is no better way to strip a human being’s dignity than to make them dependent on you…your Corporation or government…for their very survival. To make them have to come to you to live. And for their children to live.

And this is basically what “they” want, not out of malice per se, but in order to control, stabilize, and enhance their profits. The best way to ensure a steady revenue stream is to control the resources, means of production, and the workers that produce the basic human needs… to make as may people as possible  dependent on you for their very existence.

The most basic economic fact there is is that people need to eat food and drink water every day to survive. If they have to come to you to survive, you get to dictate what they have to do to receive that survival. You get to dictate what their lives are like. You get to dictate how much of their dignity you will strip in exchange for allowing them to survive. It is not that “they” are trying to strip human dignity, it is merely that they don’t care about human dignity. If human dignity and enhanced shareholder value and the bottom line are in conflict, guess what wins?

“They” are not ‘out to get you.’ Yet this is the plan. Buy, steal and bribe your way to controlling the resources that all humans are dependent upon and you have a rock steady uninterruptible revenue stream. The Corporate dream. And no accountability to anyone but your stockholders…who are making money too, to keep them from being dependent on the corporation for their dignity and survival. Both the shareholders ad the corporate officers are insulated from the consequences and moral repercussions of their actions by the corporate structure and corporate personhood. “They” are not responsible…it is “just business.”

And why should they change? What incentive do they have to do anything but what they are doing? Sure, the system is killing the planet, sure people are going to starve or die of thirst. Sure they are being stripped of their dignity. But it won’t be them. And if they change the system, or if someone else tries to force them to change it, it could be them and their family that becomes dependent, that has its dignity stripped away. Who wants that???

We have to compete to survive, we have to destroy others dignity to preserve our own, we have to let others starve so that we may live.

Is that REALLY the best the human race can do?

We live on a fragile planet, in a fragile ‘economy,’ with ever more fragile safety nets, and every day our very existence is made ever more fragile by the actions of the small percentage of people who increasingly control the resources, means of production, jobs …and now the food and water that we all need to survive. And of course…the guns. The illusion of security and self determination we enjoy is becoming more illusory by the hour. Our fragile existence is increasingly under “their” control. By dint of having the power to do so, they have taken the power, and that power is increasingly the power of life and death…let alone dignity. And they ain’t about to give it back

We, on the other hand, have us. Each other. We have the numbers, we have the choice of how to spend our money, we have our voices… to reach out to each other and to yell in protest, to say ….No. We have the ability to think and speak and organize.

We are all more fragile than we think. We are all stronger than we think. What are we going to do with what we have?