Giving | Taking
The choice you make will determine our future
Over the past several years, I have watched our society deteriorate to a point that I am truly feeling like we are past the point of no return. The question that lingers in my mind is “what is it that we want to return to?” Do we even want to “return.” I doubt it.
Some folks wax nostalgic for a time when the consumer culture was in high gear, men dominated every aspect of our lives, women’s role was one of subjugation and the evangelical Christian church was the epicenter of all moral and ethical decisions. But that time is not a time I would wish on anyone. It was a period of false security, blatant and rampant inequality and environmental disregard. The worse aspects of that time are now being harvested and amplified by the current regime—including illegality, racism, white male dominance, lying and cheating on a grand scale.
There were times when the resistance created positive pushback—Rachael Carson’s Silent Spring is a good example. The virus now is so entrenched in the cult of MAGA that no amount of rationality or reason can cut through the noise of this fascist regime’s gears shredding the rule-of-law and the constitution 24X7.
In all of the past actions that have harmed human- and animal- and plant-kind, there has been up one underlying and enabling action: GREED. Greed is the underbelly of our society. It is now and has been ever since humankind realized that resources were scarce and to share would mean less for the takers. This underbelly of greed was the foundation for stealing lands from this land’s original caretakers; exploiting Mother Nature despite the obvious and verifiable damage; keeping the majority of our neighbors shackled by debt and living, barely, day-to-day; letting the lobbyist with the biggest bankroll control the health care system; attacking librarians for making literature available to all. This list goes on and on—ad nauseam.
An alarming new poll reveals that half of American adults have $500 or less in their savings account, with 39% having $250 or less. Additionally, 40% of Americans keep a minimum balance of $500 or less in their checking account.1 Research estimates (including some not on Forbes’ main list) that there were 1,135 U.S. billionaires as of 2024. Their total worth is $5.7 Trillion.2 $5.7 trillion divided by the U.S. population is roughly $16,700 per person. Today I feel like the lyric in Bob Dylan’s song: “I need a dump truck to unload my head”3
Will things get better? Can we survive this current onslaught of illegality and greed? Is there a future where equality is the norm? Will the willful refusal to seek truth be the new normal? Can we ever rid ourselves of the white male inferiority complex?
I do not have the answers. I do know one thing: I will do all I can to give more than I take—just like all of the trees in the world.
https://www.wsj.com/finance/investing/what-we-know-about-americas-billionaires-1-135-and-counting-98d22268?utm_source=chatgpt.com
“From a Buick 6” Highway 61 Revisited by Bob Dylan.
Not just give, of course, but encourage others to do the same as you are doing through words and example. I think most artists have always followed that practice. We are needed more now than soldiers.