I saw that someone had re-posted something for Earth Day a while ago, and I would like to do the same, with a few much-needed tweaks. It's about why we have Earth Day, why we blog, why we try. I'll come to the dancers shortly but first, take a good look at faces of the kids in these pictures.
~Hopeful in Spain
... moreover...
~Tickled in Thailand
These kids deserve a fairer future than the one on their horizon.
Our own kids, and the kids in these pictures, are owed a life with less mercury, solvents, and other poisons in their bloodstream, not more. But on our present course, varieties and overall levels of toxins in every person's flesh and blood will continue to rise.
~Confident in Californian
They deserve a future that includes an honest effort to understand and deal with climate change.
But they are not getting honest from all of us. They are getting decidedly dishonest from some. For an example of just how that happens in the big leagues: In the early '90's we watched cigarette CEO's lie to Congress that their products were not addictive or cancer-causing. They knew they were lying.
So did most other people, although a few wondered if they were right.
Since then, we've watched energy companies and free-market think-tanks repeatedly lie to the public - that there are valid doubts about man-made climate change. Most of them know they are lying too, just like the smokey executives. Unfortunately, this time many people are believing them.
~With love from South Africa
I know. If you are reading this, you do give a damn. And you are already trying to make a difference in your way. Thank you. You probably become weary of it at times - half in shock watching right wing politicians battle for the rights of corporations to commit fraud and loot the economy in convoluted schemes.
But even if we are weary of it all, we owe it to the kids in these pics to keep going.
It's understandable if sometimes you might feel like you have had more than enough, disgusted with hate radio and propaganda-tv shills lying through their teeth in anti-government screeches.
But take a look at the faces in these pictures. And never give up.
~Bright eyed in Brazil
It's not the right-wing politicians that we struggle against, because they are the obvious pawns of something much bigger.
The planet is bombarded daily with the message that a deregulated corporate "free-market" is the answer to the world's ills, and yet all the way to the top, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Enron and on and on - the corporate world is repeatedly exposed as a cesspool of fraud and deception.
Powerful pharmaceuticals, energy companies, banks and insurance companies work fiercely through lobbyists and patsies every day - against the public interest - for their own short term gain.
They have to. It is the law. Corporations, by law, must work in the best financial interests of their shareholders.
And it is more than the law.
It is certain that there are some damn fine people at or near the top of some huge corporations, and that there are some profoundly nasty individuals at those levels too. But the corporations themselves are neither good nor evil. It's just machinery.
By design, that machinery will not kill or injure, or protect, or be fair. By design, it will maximize profits.
If it can convince the easily-manipulated that it has a "right" to make billions by denying people health care, and that is somehow connected to those individual's own personal freedoms, it will.
If it is in its financial interests to persuade the gullible that every significant scientific body on the planet is wrong about climate change, it will do that.
That machinery might even grind on executives with inhuman rationalizations - into pushing governments and gullible populations into false and unjust wars, thereby creating markets for more fighter jets, bombs and bullets.
It must act to maximize profits. If that machinery can remain unaccountable for poisoning the water at Hinkley California with Chromium 6, or oil spills, or health damages from PCB's or fire-retardant chemicals, it will do those things too.
It must, by design and by law.
We should all understand that. And, that the law, and therefore politics, are the only useful tools people have to try to make things right.
~Innocent in India
Take just one gentle moment to really see the faces of the children on those steps above. You might pick one to fight for - add one more life to take personally. I did. There is a genuine connection to be found in that photograph.
And, then, have a good look at the hopes and dreams of these girls in a park. Of all the kids in all these photos, these are the only two I've met. They are perfect jewels. Everything good in humans is in them. Like your children, and mine. They deserve a fair chance and a healthy world. They are sisters, both dancers, learning ballet.
~Optimistic in Vancouver
And lastly, take a look at the tummy in this one. We are all 'birthers' in a way, but differently than the most recent meaning of the term. We are all creating the next world.
If you have read this far, and I know you have, you are in the arena at least some of the time, fighting for what is right in some way. Years from now, try to remember to think about the faces in these pictures. Those innocents in India or the dancers in Vancouver. You will know that you tried to make things a little better for your own, and for them too. And, you probably will have. Thank you.
Never give up.
crossposted at http://www.worldforallpeople.org