Hey, congratulations, rich guys. You’ve made more money than
you could possibly ever spend. Most of you are content with that, but a few of
you are not. Some of you, instead of using your money to do good deeds and champion
genuine progress, are way off in the
opposite direction. By that I mean using your wealth and power to force your
self-centered worldview on the rest of us.
The truth is most billionaires - in fact most people who
have more than a million or two in assets - are not part of the political hardball
being played by a small group of bankers, corporatists, and billionaire
psychopaths who behave like greedy thugs.
Being rich is a wonderful thing for those who are grateful
for their good fortune, and are willing to give high priority to the common
good. Wealth also offers those who are
so blessed an opportunity to be leaders and heroes, who want a future for the
Earth that is worthy of our species.
The Gates Foundation, in the name of Bill and Melinda Gates,
and to a lesser extent Warren Buffet, has applied billions of dollars to some
of the world’s most pressing problems. But
even Bill and Warren, with all the good that they do, are playing both ends against
the middle. Both are substantially
invested in the continued massive consumption of coal and oil.
Journalist Naomi Klein’s most recent book, This Changes Everything, exposes the
dualistic thinking that certain high profile billionaires keep hidden behind
their polished public images. They may genuinely
want clean skies and a healthy biosphere, but the record shows they are not willing
to give up profitable revenue streams from investments that foster our
continued dependence on dirty fossil energy.
Too many wealthy people are content to sit on the political sidelines
and collect their fat profits, while the economic and culturally corrosive
public policy promoted by the worst of their billionaire neighbors makes
everybody that already has big money even more rich, even more separate and
unequal from the rest of us.
In fact, the real political evil emerges from a very small number
of wealthy people. Almost all the worst offenders are old. Almost all are politically conservative men,
who very much believe in white power and privilege. They aggressively use their
wealth and influence to buy politicians and manipulate the American political
process, with the intent to maximize their personal interests. I don’t suppose
there is much of anything that I or anyone else could say that could turn that
small band of big money evildoers in a more benevolent direction. They are
simply indifferent to the consequences of their pathological actions.
But there is hope for the vast majority of millionaires and
billionaires, who are not hopelessly self-absorbed. Here’s my message to those wealthy folks, who
recognize that they are not immune to the consequences of all the unprecedented,
deeply unsettling, global scale challenges humanity must deal with. I’m talking about climate change and fossil
fuel dependence. I’m talking about our reckless, abjectly corrupt, and
massively dysfunctional political process. I’m talking about the human-driven shredding of
the biosphere, whose finite water and living resources are being overwhelmed by
the demands of seven billion plus human beings. We have made an Earth-sized mess
of things. Humanity and nature are near
a breaking point of unprecedented scale.
Every human being has an obligation to get serious about this. Whether you’re
a billionaire or an indigenous person, terrified and brutalized by illegal
loggers in your forest, you have a life-and-death stake in what happens to this
planet.
To all fundamentally good and decent Americans who happen to
be rich, and also happen to be passive or indifferent to our broken political
process, I say, time to wake up. You might
think you can escape the consequences of your inaction. Don’t count on it. History has shown that when the privileged members
of a society stand by passively and watch the masses sink, the rabble tend to
rise up. They focus their rage and demands for retribution on people of
privilege, reserving their greatest ire for those who have shown no compassion
for their suffering. I’m not just
talking about the oppressors. I’m talking about those who turned a blind eye to
the process of oppression.
In 1794, during the French Revolution, Antoine Lavoiser, who
is remembered historically for his contributions to science, was guillotined
because he made his living as a tax collector for the ruling class. The same dynamic that resulted in Lavosier
losing his head applies today. Being on the losing side of a life and death, cultural
struggle can be a fatal mistake.
Getting on the morally correct, and very likely, the winning
side of history, requires making yourself part of the solution. It is not acceptable to sit by passively while
a handful of bad billionaires use their wealth to ruin our environment and tear society apart in the
name of profit. End of story.
No comments:
Post a Comment