Total Realignment. That is a bit of a grand title. I mean, to call for realignment of anything is to ask for no small feat. The addition of the word “total” only serves to enlarge its already grand scale.
But as much as its scale is epic (and presumptuous and self-indulgent), it is also vague. Realignment of what? In short, the answer is everything (that's also why it's "total").
Few people would contend that global civilization in its current state is not Hell bent on a destructive course for everything and everyone on the planet. We have developed weapons that posses the power to completely annihilate the small rock we all share, and we have been careless in who we have allowed access to said weapons—indeed allowing any human (myself included) access to that kind of power is careless, let alone individuals are either certifiably insane or simply grown-up school-yard bullies on a global power trip.
But there are many other problems. Problems that the eradication of violence would not solve. Problems like our general lack of concern/wisdom when it comes to irreversible long-term choices. Things like making cement. Every ounce of cement requires that we permanently suspend a small amount of H2O. That means the foundation of your house and the concrete tilt-up building you office in are permanently tying up a percentage of the earth’s water supply. Not a problem we had with brick and mortar or quarried rocks, but who wants to go back to that slow and dangerous process when we can have cheap and fast? We are so divorced from any idea of what makes for our survival that we have become reckless in our use and application of resources. Fossil fuels and rainforests are not the only things being destroyed by our over-indulgence.
In fact, even our best attempts at correcting our errors seem to make things worse. Take human rights for example. The United States banned child labor in our factories decades ago—we are rather proud of that fact. We also established a national minimum wage based on the idea that a person ought to be able to make enough in a 40-hour work-week to provide for herself. Also, the employee is entitled to a “safe” work environment—which usually costs quite a bit to build. Oh, and factories should not be allowed to pollute too much because no one should have to breath smog instead of clean air. We also have an economic system where prices are (for the most part) controlled by the customer. The buyer determines if he feels that the price is fair for the product and can refuse to purchase an item if he feels it is unreasonable. When enough buyers refuse to purchase a product at a given price, then the supplier is forced to cut prices. On the whole, a good system… sort of.
The problem comes in when customers decide that the standard of living they merit requires more product than the US can produce at a lower unit cost than it can be produced in the US due to a lack of child labor and the given minimum wage. Companies must still provide the products at the market demanded price, so they outsource. The end result is that a large amount of products consumed by US citizens are produced by children and people being paid such a low amount that they are forced to work for 13+ hours per day, 7 days per week in a factory so cheaply built that it is not even remotely close to safe by anyone’s standards—especially the US Government’s. When the factory worker does get to see the world outside the factory while the sun is still up, she cannot see the sun (or the stars) because the smog is far too thick… from the pollution caused by the factory she slaves away inside day after day.
It is easy to point the finger at the large corporations that have chosen to conduct business in this manner, but remember what started the whole thing: The average US Citizen believes that he is entitled to more money, more quality, and more quantity than what can be provided by the nation in which he lives. The only option for this economic presupposition is to consume the resources of neighboring nations—whether those resources are natural, economic, or human.
This is not new. It was how the Egyptians operated 4000 years ago, the Assyrians and Babylonians 3000 years ago, Greece and Rome 2000 years ago, the European nobility 1000 years ago... you know, all the societies that we style ourselves as better than. We hold our heads high and declare that we have no slaves, but that is only because we pay others to have them in our stead.
A disturbing fact—even those who protest the most (like me) still vote this way with our spending. A more disturbing fact—the rest of the world is seemingly ok with it. Sure, there are protests in the UN, but the fact is, the nations that we outsource to are more than happy to have our business and financial investment. And a previously unemployed pauper now has a job… of sorts.
And speaking of slaves: there are more individuals in slavery in the US today than there were at the peak of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade--most of them are sexual slaves and the majority are minors. My apologies Mr. Lincoln, but the Emancipation Proclamation does not seem to have had its intended effect.
Clearly there is much that needs to be changed… but how? Is there any hope? Could things ever be different? Could all things really be made new?
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