This one is politically personal, my version of Bono's push to remove Third World countries' debts. Americans' credit system is in danger of similar pressures, and we will eventually figure out that economics is not a separate subject from politics and psychology, agriculture and environmental sciences and the willingness to restrain population pressures. (See Jared Diamond's GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL along with COLLAPSE.)
If we don't immolate the world in a nuclear holocaust or destroy ourselves and our children through ecological devastation, we will probably have to take a perspective something like this and mix it with solid communications between classes and cultures and add in some good policy, institutional customs, and a bureaucratic structure with good enforcement (fuck the warlords). We're at a point in human history where the imperial motive of what you can gain is being replaced with the inspirational motive of what you can give. Charity isn't going to do it, only engagement will. And we aren't accepting applications from self-pitying whiners. We're all going to die--before then, what will you do?
We hurl our joy
into the abyss
with utter abandon.
If anyone's counting costs,
the higher, the deeper, the better.
We're launching ourselves.
We know this as clearly
as the north star shines out
in the darkness.
We sail forth--no compass,
no plan, few provisions,
short wake.
This eviction party is a little
rambunctious, uncouth
beginning to end.
This ship of fools is teeming
with life.
If we know not where,
we are certain
of how--
we are going with the best
of companions, that's how.
Leaving bitterness behind,
bequeathed to entitlement,
left in its mansion on the hill.
This rowdy crew, these scarred, salty dogs
raise the sails,
pilot the proud ship Atonement,
head for the deeper waters
embracing this blue-green world
we love.
Copyright 2007 Todd Mertz