Here is a little doodling from Bush Tea. I am particularly interested in the BU family’s take on how Barbados falls into this category
It is amazing how life goes. Particularly intriguing is how the lessons to be learned by simple poor folks are identical to those experienced by global conglomerates, and even by superpowers. Practically everyone who can deduce that water is wet, and that fire is hot- can predict the consequences of an individual living beyond his or her means. It is as predictable as old age and eventual death. We all know if you spend more than you earn, that you will end up at the mercy of the loan sharks that bankrolled you.
Ever Tom Dick and Harry know that unless you save for a rainy day, events will catch up on you eventually – and that when it rains, it will pour….
These self-evident truths are well ingrained into practically every living individual – even dumb animals are known to save for a rainy day and to ensure that they live within their means.
So you would think that the greatest superpower that ever existed, with the most advanced technologies ever, and some of the most brilliant minds that ever lived would have figured out these ‘self-evident’ realities. After all these are the guru’s that we all seek to emulate. …..
What Gurus what?!?
Surely we have been deceived by what must be the largest collection of misguided idiots that have ever been fitted with facilities for the expulsion of spent bodily solids. Who in their right mind, could have expected to maintain a long term system whose driving force is greed and graft? That rewards deceit and dishonesty? And which is designed to live on resources borrowed from sworn enemies? ….FOOLS!! That’s who.
For some time now, our world has been influenced by a pyramid philosophy, created by the USA, which seeks to exploit as many little people as possible at the bottom, in order to reward a relative few at the top with riches beyond all reasonableness. For decades now, we have seen this small percentage of the world’s population enjoy a disproportionate ratio of the world’s resources, use a large portion of its energy supplies and create a large part of its pollution, while at the same time, huge masses of peoples exists without even the very basic necessities of life -like clean water, basic food and shelter and a safe place to live.
In spite of this glaring disparity, the so called ‘developed world’, under US leadership, continued to seek elaborate mechanisms to amass more wealth and goods for themselves.
When it became unfashionable to do this through slavery and forced labour, the proponents created a number of complex financial and legal entities that not only continued, but also accelerated the exploitation. The World Bank, FTA, IMF and globalization were among the entities designed to facilitate this continuing rape of the 3rd world.
By establishing their dollar as the currency of choice for world trade, they have been able to accumulate unprecedented levels of international debt while hardly accumulating any personal savings. This has sustained their standard of living at a level way above any relationship to real productivity. When even this reached extreme limits, they then created various financial instruments, like junk bonds, which allowed them to invent fictional valuations on their real estate holdings, and to sell these fictional assets to greedy, unsuspecting banks and financial institutions across the world.
This sort of thing happens at the individual level too… Greedy, misguided persons borrow from everyone who would lend, extend their credit cards, mortgage their assets and even sell their souls – in order to be able to acquire the kind of assets that they associate with success and enjoyment of life. It always ends in misery and shame.
It was therefore just a matter of time and a question of exactly where in the sorry mess, that America’s bubble would burst. It turns out that some overzealous ratings analyst spilled the beans on the junk bonds/mortgage scam. Once the dominoes began to fall, it was Humpty Dumpty time.
So now America has been exposed. It is nothing but a broke, lost nation, woefully in debt, addicted to oil, lacking leadership, and drifting in a world of resentful masses who remember being the trodden base that supported the pyramid while it lasted.
Its military has been humiliated and bogged down, not against major world powers, but against faceless vagrants who hide in caves and who have no fixed place of abode.
Its religious leadership is characterized by TV millionaires whose success seems to be directly related to the size of their bank holdings, and whose life examples seem to mirror the popular soap operas.
Undoubtedly they possess the most impressive and deadly military arsenal that has ever been assembled. Their technologies, from the ability to routinely operate in outer space to the ongoing development of advance computer and telecommunications systems are unprecedented. Indeed, if it would not prejudice my analysis, I would be tempted to characterize the USA today, as a powerful giant made of iron, but whose feet appear to be molded of clay.
In the final analysis, for individuals, for families, for nations, for continents, and for superpowers, the basic unvarying spiritual laws are unrelenting and inevitable.
-By the sweat of his brow shall a man eat…
-A fool and his money are soon parted
-What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world – and lose his own soul?
There is a lesson in this mess for Barbados too. We too have become blindly focused on the accumulation of money and goods as our measure of success. We too have been exploiting our real estate, inflating prices out of the reach of the ordinary Bajan, we have been ignoring our poor (no longer even counting them as unemployed) and turning to outsiders for cheap labour…and we too will suffer the consequences of the spiritual laws.
For those of us who care, and who have seen humanity being distracted and destroyed by the global philosophy of greed, envy and hate, the coming troubles are expected.
In this respect then, difficult as they will be, the coming experiences may be the greatest blessing that humanity could possible have, if the experience can force us to come to grips with the true value and purpose of life and to rethink the failed philosophy of greed, hate and envy.
The blogmaster invites you to join the discussion.