What is it really, that is before us? Could it be the end of nations? How I long to hold tight to my disbelief but can no longer. From my perspective as a human being and the looming picture of our planet, I am seeing the end of nations. We can all see, if we dare to look.
Was it not the rise of civilization and the creation of nations, progress for humanity? Sovereign; independent nations of peoples with common interest, causes under governing leaders, be they beneficent kings or elected presidents? Consider the simple but critical value of a passport, the documentation of your belonging to a nation. The corollary of history must be considered along side the present. It forms the background of this picture. We, the foreground, are the peoples of vast distant geographies and ethnicity that form nations; some of religion, others by continent, we fight and die for identity, independence and the freedom that comes with nationhood.... how so then, do we approach the ending...
By way of economics, the power of capitalism and the corporate monster it spawned; Almost an invisible behemoth that controls us all. So huge yet so frighteningly silent. What will the status of a nation be, when the corporate rulers ratify laws that give them dominance over nations? Those very laws are soon to be reality initiated under former President Bush, now fast tracked by President Obama. It both masquerades and is heralded under the banner of "free trade", trade that rules the world. Do not scoff and look askance because it sounds more like the plot of a comic book. Put the pieces together now before it is too late. It is not hard to see. Fourteen cents an hour slave labor from Bangladesh to Florida in the US. Billionaires, the population of which is increasing relative to ubiquitous corporations like walmart, the mc-food world of agribusiness, that consumes us as much as we consume it. Breath deep while the air remains un-metered and watch the planet groan as its' fever rises and convulses with the fiercest weather phenomenon on record; all the while the earth is wrung dry of fossil fuels that poison our precious elements of water and air. And debt rises exponentially crafted by the wizards of finance who spill their numerical poisons into our lives enslaving individuals, students, families and nations. What laws are these that allow this? What nation or president or congress has paid heed to the wise men that deliver a foreboding eulogy of our planet, pleading for change which is exchanged with further demise? will nationhood matter? The latest trade pact, the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), is designed to prevail over democratic nations, elected leaders and those citizens who put them in place.
With the end of nations, we will be just as we were in the beginning. Stake a claim in whatever desperate dwelling you can manage and struggle to survive, alone. Do not look to governments that possess military in the name of 'security' but exist to crush citizens who protest and demand change. Government of, by and for the corporation functions only for its' owners. Democracy for an elected citizenry is no longer. Power is reserved only for the highest bidder while nationhood is rendered a ghost of the past. Wars wage, for oil, water, land and what is left of air. What or who will you belong to? What will it matter if our planet continues to die? What will nations matter when we die along with planet? To whom will you belong, when nations are no more?