To Our Children's Children's Children (A Rock and Roll Epistle)
By Richard Girard
Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.
Reinhold Niebuhr (18921971), U.S. theologian, historian. The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness, Foreword (1944).
In April of this year, Riane Eisler wrote an extraordinary article for Tikum that was picked up by AlterNet. It is entitled "Roadmap to a New Economics: Beyond Capitalism and Socialism," and can be read in the April 13, 2010 issue of AlterNet's e-mail newsletter (http://www.alternet.org/story/146173/). This article makes a point that is often lost in the argument between proponents of capitalism, socialism, and all of the other "ism's:" If a solution doesn't improve the world for our children and their children, it is worthless.
It is so easy for us to get lost in the discussion of the minutiae of subtle arguments of philosophy and politics, and to forget what is really important. We must always keep in mind that when we seek a system to provide us with a guide for our future form of government and economy; that if it does not take into account our children and our grandchildren, as well as those who are disabled and disenfranchised--in whole or in part, including women--it does not merit our attention.
One of the reasons that I consider Karl Marx far superior to Ayn Rand, is that Marx mentions children 344 times in volume one of Das Kapital, whereas I do not remember children being mentioned by Ayn Rand once. Marx realized that children are our future, and spoke out in his writings against using children as factory workers. For Karl Marx, a child deserves both our respect and our protection.
I first read Riane Eisler fifteen years ago when I spotted a copy of The Chalice and The Blade in a used bookstore. Her concepts of the partnership versus the dominator social/political system in a society resonated deeply within my own psyche, which was fed up with the waste, corruption, and self-serving excuses that marked American political discourse and policy, which I was experiencing every day working for the State of Colorado.
Top down, hierarchical control of America's political, economic, social, and educational systems, are as antithetical to the visions' of men like Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine and their hopes for this nation as a monarch. This system is directly responsible for the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, where news reports tell us that visiting higher ups from British Petroleum overruled workers on site concerning safety. Eleven dead human beings and eighty-five million plus gallons later (that's 2,000,000+ barrels); they still do not have it stopped.
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