Deal with the cause, not the symptom.
Those who claim to create market value, have an impact upon public interest, and exercise governmental authority must account for the inequity and inequality that exists today. The same way shareholders hold equity in a company, voters and citizens should hold equity in a democracy. Unfortunately, this becomes less true as resources are funneled ever upward and the gulf expands between rich and poor. We see it playing out in real time.
Many of us have had the best intentions. We have made charitable donations to groups we believed in. We have put a portion of our incomes toward causes we felt were necessary to improve life on Earth.
Those of us who believed the internet might build positive coalitions and give humanity common cause have been sorely disappointed and disillusioned. In the Twentieth and Twenty-First centuries, leaders have consolidated power and have become increasingly less humane and more authoritarian. They have assumed entitlements they had no right to, which among other factors has fundamentally led to the multitude of crises humankind faces today.
We believe that systems of benefit driven by growth economies are built on direct and indirect violations of the poorest people in the world today. The neoliberal approach taken by the wealthy orchestrators of the consumerist global economy will monetize everything down to the least blade of grass while completely ignoring and lying about homelessness, starvation, torture, and genocide. Let’s build a golf resort in Gaza, shall we?
Without addressing some of these fundamental issues, we cannot reach our ideal of a just future through equity in birth and development. Nonprofit and animal rights organizations need to get honest with themselves. Their actions have hardly backed up their PR campaigns.
It’s time to admit that humans are human and are inclined to hoard resources, but this is a tendency we must curb. Until we recognize and acknowledge that every person born has a fundamental right to a fair and equitable start in life, we will not solve our most desperate and dire issues.
