All for one and one for all

I went for a little stroll this morning. Past the newly planted vegetable garden where the beans have just poked their heads above the soil, through the citrus orchard heavily laden with oranges, lemons, grapefruits, kumquats, guava and mandarins. The guinea fowl crept along behind me, huddled like conspiring criminals - plotting my downfall. While Willy the Border Collie nuzzled my hand wanting a pat and some reward for outstanding obedience, Rupert fell over while trying to bite his testicles, no doubt also plotting some fiendish scheme to infiltrate the house and steal some tasty morsels.

As I wandered down into one of the dry-bottomed cracked-mud dams the loudest noise was the buzzing of beetles and the odd crack as a dry branch finally succumbed to the will of gravity. I stood still and listened and looked, as I like to do when I'm home. In this drought ravaged little corner of small slice of the Gold Coast hinterland there was such an abundance of life. Insects, who knows how many hundred varieties scuttled and buzzed in any place one cared to look close enough. The cry of a multitude of birds suddenly came on the station that my ears were tuned into and Rupert tore off after a Kangaroo, Willy trailing behind. One old heifer was standing on a ridge in front another 15 or so heifers, giving what appeared to be an information session on food rationing during the drought, others ignored the attempt at group survival and continued munching at the greenest grass, "We'll be 'right, we are rich, we can just buy more food" they mooed smugly at the increasingly exasperated civil-minded heifers, concerned that the price rise for food would starve the poorer cattle out of the market.

At first I wasn't sure whether to be more concerned about the fact that this situation with the small-brained starving heifers (while others ate like pigs) closely mirrored the way the human species behaves or the fact that I was hearing cows speak to one another. Then I decided the former was of a more frightening nature than the latter.

Ragnar Frisch (1931) said "the world is like a ship loaded with the goods of life, but the crew starves because they don't know how to distribute the food". And this is what countless of humanitarians have been saying before and after Frisch, and today. The rich have too much. I am still appalled at the way people waste their money, clothes, haircuts, handbags, matching napkins and table cloths. NOBODY deserves that much and NOBODY deserves to be forced into civil war at the age of 12, murder or be murdered by countrymen and die young of malaria, TB or AIDS.

The foolish, greedy and uninformed immediately blame the 'corrupt' governments of these violence and disease ridden countries. The 'Asian Tigers' of East Asia and their rapid economic growth was achieved under corruption greater than any African Nation. The finger pointers ignore the international order and institutions that ensure the 'national interest' of the most powerful countries is considered before the development and empowerment of the weakest and poorest. It is a mature, humble and wise human being that accepts the worlds problems as the fault of themselves, their families, their friends, their heritage and their society. It is an insecure and cowardly person who hides behind the status quo, blames the weak for being weak and accumulates wealth to bury their fears beneath.

The human consciousness is ever evolving and maturing, we will get there. I would just like to see it in my lifetime.

Hmmm, and I was going to write about planting a veggie patch on a mild and sunny Sunday afternoon.