SamadhiMuse

 
Maybe, in human affairs
it happens as it does
in biological evolution.

A massive die-off occurs
and results in many open niches 
and something like the Cambrian Explosion 
occurs as nature or people
fill in the empty spaces.

In human affairs, wars and revolutions
take the place of nature's 
cataclysmic comets and meteors.

After WWII, there was a redistribution of
enormous amounts of wealth and opportunity
that diffused through a system
rendered porous by all the war's destruction.

Education and knowledge of the world
and it workings, poured out into the formerly
low and middle income populace
and they were no longer the sole domain
of the rich and privileged.

And we, the newly educated and newly freed,
became the human equivalents
of the denizens radiating from
the Cambrian Explosion.

But, as in biology, empty niches always
fill in again as they are reoccupied
by the more competitive among us.

The wealth and freedom 
that were liberated by war
for wide distribution
have begun to be gathered in again
by the ever present acquisitors.

But this time there are differences.
This time we are not 
the peasants of the Middle Ages
who have never seen past the end 
of our lord's properties.
This time many of us have read widely 
and know of the human history
of greed and domination that lies 
in endless repetition behind us.

This time we can see that 
which is beginning to enclose us 
yet again. 

We see the Neoliberals ascending 
our political hierarchies 
funded by the multinational corporations
who are weaving quasi-legal nets 
around national governments
with their faux free-trade agreements.

We see our news media being controlled
to shape what we see and hear.

We listen to the constant propaganda
of advertisement that encourages us 
to look the other way 
as it dazzles us 
with materialistic trinkets.

But knowledge is power
and this time we can see the causal links,
we can see the closing nets,
we can see the propaganda of confusion
creeping around us and
seeking to marginalize us
for the benefit of the acquisitors
as they seek to make us again
into their servants.

Knowledge has awoken us
and this time we will resist.

gallagher
23Mar15
Christchurch
      

— Copyright 1965-2015 by Dennis Gallagher —