Luxuries of a Few Means Death of Mother Earth
In the ‘90s, a popular Democratic candidate for the U.S. Presidency Bill Clinton coined a campaign slogan that resonated deeply with voters and helped propel him to victory: “It’s the economy, stupid!” This simple yet impactful phrase echoed across the United States, emphasizing the primacy of economic issues. The slogan suggested that the most critical concerns were economic growth, maximizing short-term profit and consumers’ goods, income, employment, infrastructure, prioritizing materialism and consumerism while dismissing other topics as irrelevant and unwise.
Such a mindset thrives well in an imperialist country whose multi-national corporation’s control over 50% of world’s resources and work to maintain their dominance. According to an Oxfam study, the wealth of the eight richest billionaires exceeds the combined assets of 4 billion – half of the global population. Alongside this economic power comes significant military strength, encapsulated in the chilling maxim, “war is the health of the nation.”
At one point in history, the U.S. supplied weapons to both sides of a conflict during the Iraqi war, highlighting how war is treated as a lucrative enterprise. The staggering arsenal of powerful weapons could destroy humanity many times over. In response to such actions, Iraqi students studying in the U.S. – including scholars pursuing doctoral degree at Harvard – abandoned their studies, returned home , and formed militants groups like the ISIS, branding the U.S. as an “evil empire.”
Yes, it’s the economy, stupid! Could this also be the mindset driving US corporations to dump excess milk into the sea or burn surplus wheat whenever over production threatens the sacred law of supply and demand? It is a painful truth to swallow, especially knowing that over a one billion people worldwide, most of them in Asia, suffer from hunger due to food insufficiency. This is the bitter fruit of the disease of our age – the worship of money whose greed and profit are placed above humanity and the environment. It didn’t shock me to learn that Monsanto a US Multi-National Corporation, was the suppler of the infamous “yellow rain,” used during the Vietnamese war. This toxic chemical was sprayed over forests to destroy the guerillas’ hideouts of the Vietnamese resistance. Nor I was surprised to find out that the same corporation was behind the invention of genetically-modified organism (GMOs) that have displaced our native seeds i.e., Denorado, Azusena, Tunawon, and others) with to so-called High Yielding Varieties (HYVs). These HYVs, dependent on toxic chemicals, have forced our farmers into a cycle of chemical dependency and debt. Where have our indigenous seeds gone? Many have been stolen, cultivated in U.S. and now command premium prices as “healthy food.” Meanwhile, multinational corporations in collusion with those in power, continue to dominate our agricultural systems through farming practices that have impoverished the Filipino peasants for generations. Unlike our forefathers in the Philippines who practiced sustainable agriculture and treated the land with respect – as a home that provided for their needs – we are trapped in a system that has poisoned our water tables and turned our once blessed land into a living hell
Lately, I found out that powerful corporations are also controlling the mode of production in other countries in South and Latin America, i.e., Haiti, Columbia, Guatemala, etc. as these countries have the highest incidence of hunger today. This imperialistic dominance is a blatant violation of the people’s basic human right to food. In response, these countries are advocating for transformational change in coordination with social activist international group like the Occupy Movement.
While many nations around the world have awakened and are actively pushing for social change, the Filipinos remain in deep slumber. Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissenger was disturbingly accurate when he said, “Control their stomach and you control their mind.” Struggling to feed their children, Filipinos are too pre-occupied to ask why they are starving and living in extreme poverty? How can they be awakened to the issues that need their participation especially when it comes to addressing social injustices? How can they break free from the chains of poverty, gross inequities, massive corruption, misuse of funds and the horrific killings of some 30,000 victims of so-called war on drugs?
These political leaders in collusion with the oligarchs and enabled by the profit-driven media, have buried them under a mountain of the fallacies, drama and trivialities. This manipulation is glaringly evident in the latest political surveys for the forthcoming mid-term elections, where the traditional politicians and movie stars as senatorial bets are on top. Politics in our country follows the rule of money, stardom, wealth, fame and power completely ignoring the need for transformational change focusing on people, planet, prosperity and peace. When will we ever learn that these politicians are like vultures sucking the nation dry of resources? For them, instant pursuit of wealth, fame and power is all that matters.
Today, let us reflect deeply on the implication of that mindset that what is important is the economy. Millions of concerned environmentalists and climate advocates fear that if the greenhouse gas emissions will continue unabated, the end of life on earth will become inevitable as the “tipping point” has already been reached. We are now in the 25th year of the 21st century but we are not sure anymore if we will reach the 22nd century which is just 75 years from now. That money must be used to generate more money is a flawed paradigm that is based on the growth-at-all-cost development strategy, also known as Neo-Liberal Capitalism. That growth-centered paradigm has provided luxuries to a few out of the sufferings of the billions of people and at the expense of Mother Earth.
The truth is, that paradigm is now being debunked globally. Tens of millions of people are mobilizing weekly to challenge these corporations often referred to as the “Master of Mankind” whose relentless pursuit of profit destroying the planet. The protesters are shouting, “it’s not the economy but the environment, stupid!” They are now initiating a world shift, rejecting the claim that these masters own the world. Even His Holiness Pope Francis in His latest Encyclical Laudatu Si’ has questioned that money must endlessly grow. Contemporaneous spiritual leaders argue that what should be maximized are not material values through flawed social structures, blinded by egotism but our inner spiritual values as humans are fundamentally spiritual beings and consciousness is all there is! Debunk the object consciousness as forms are just transient. Thus, from form consciousness, we have to go to the formless, connected to the Formless Being called God.
Indeed, the economic paradigm has ransacked nature, consigning the earth now in survival mode. The proliferation of the greenhouse gas emissions which is about 52 billion tons annually, has trapped the temperature in the atmosphere which will persist for 25,000 years. Will the masters of mankind stop or at least reduce these emissions? Apparently not as they have constituted an elite scientific group to counter the truth so as not to lower their massive enormous profit. But the truth is, for every one Celsius increase in global temperature, there will be a corresponding 10 percent reduction in food production. As the earth warms, the insects’ bites will become more fatal and can reach high altitude. It has been forecasted by scientists that in the next 20 years, the earth will increase its temperature that will empower the insects to reach very high altitude. Example, the inhabitants of Bhopal must leave their country for reason of pestilence to seek refuge in Nepal but Nepal during that time will already be under water. In fact, there is now on-going massive desertification in all continents and according to the World Bank, about 100 to 140 million climate refugees will wander around the planet by the year 2030, looking for the nearest water hole. And the UN expects more than 400 million refugees by 2050. If the study of climate advocates will happen that the water sea level will rise by at least 70 meters by 2080 as the glaciers are melting at the tune of 1,000 hectares of the 386-meter-high iceberg every day, many islands in the Pacific Ocean will perish, i.e., the Marshal Islands and the Philippine Archipelago. This means additional 100 million Filipino refugees will be added to the 400 million. Despite these grim realities, mainstream media in the Philippines continues to obscure these narratives. I am grateful to be here in the United States, where I can share these truths as revealed by climate advocates and journalists.
Yes, the environment must now take precedence over an economy that fosters rampant consumerism and unbridled materialism otherwise famine, pestilence, massive extinction of all species including the Homo sapiens, war and death as biblically revealed by John will be the norm. Our Indigenous Peoples are in fact correct when they say, “Ang kinaiyahan dili lamang tinubdan sa kinabuhi kung dili mao gayud ang kinabuhi!” (Nature is not only the source of life; it is life.” Jesus has saved us from the blindness of Satanic egotism, let us therefore save Mother Earth – all for God’s greater glory!
YES, IT IS NOT THE ECONOMY BUT THE ENVIRONMENT, STUPID!!!
