War, Wealth, and Poverty

*******

If ever there has existed an object-lesson in the insensitivity of great wealth, it is among us at this moment. Thousands of girls and boys, most of them less-than-wealthy, are giving their all-- the best and ultimate sacrifice-- for the benefit of the wealthy elite.

They are dying often slow, agonizing deaths in the desert so as to fatten the wallets of a filthy rich elite. For all the evidence suggests that this latest war in Iraq is spilling the blood of innocents to fill the coffers of the fantastically wealthy.

Originally, they tried lying to justify this war against a poor, and largely defenseless, third-world country. The so-called "soldiers" of Iraq are often starving twelve-year-olds! But those lies failed miserably-- so miserably that now, everyone knows, and admits, that they were lies. The first lie was that this war was about terrorism; but the Iraqis had nothing to do with the terrorism that attacked our country on 9-11. The second lie was that Iraq threatened the U.S. with wmd's -- nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. To the horrifying embarrassment of the liars, not a single shred of evidence ever verified this lie. The third lie was that the U.S. invaded Iraq to rid it of the horrifying tyrant Saddam. But this rationalization arrived too late in the process to have justified the original invasion; so it, too, was exposed as an "excuse" or a lie.

Now, the terrible war stands naked, stripped of justifications. Why does it have to be justified? Because the men behind it have murdered well over 112,000 human beings. Add to that the horrific two thousand American girls and boys who have shed their young blood on the altar of war and greed.

It is becoming quite evident, even obvious, to all but the hopelessly myopic and/or hardheaded, that this war has only an economic justification. It is a war to make the rich richer-- and the rich include those who are already fantastically, incredibly rich.

But why would the rich be so interested in becoming even wealthier? The question betrays extreme naivete. For it is a known psychospiritual principle that, when the rich become richer, and even "pathologically" rich, nothing matters to them but the increase of their wealth. This is odd, for the average or "normal" person wants x number of dollars to pay her bills. But the rich have all their bills paid, own everything that they have ever wanted, but their lives are still empty and miserable. For them, their pathology is that they must work more to get more money whether they need it, or even want it, or not. The rich do not want money to pay bills. It is their disease that they want money simply to have money. Getting and accumulating money have become ends, goals, in themselves.

And the more, the better. The very rich have long forgotten the meaning of a single magical word, which could solve all their problems. It is a magical word that they never use, for it has lost all meaning to them. The word is "enough." So, they never have enough, cannot ever get enough, know that they will never have enough! And this greed is their disease.

Is money more important than even human life? This war, as well as many other actions and policies perpetrated by the rich, answer with a bellowing YES!! There can be no doubt that the leaders see money, oil, and the multiplication of personal fortunes as far more important than human life. Their policies on the environment and social programs prove this nightmarish bias and bigotry.

Let us continue to work for the final victory of Love over greed. Let us do this by being the most loving, generous people that we possibly can. Let us use our excess excess to improve the planet, not simply to get fatter and more complacent, as we get wealthier. Let us not murder the poor, but help the poor, at every opportunity. The shameful truth is that there are thirty-seven million, in this, the richest country on the face of the earth, the richest society in history, who have fallen, or been driven, into poverty. Let us demand that some of the two hundred billion dollars spent to murder innocent Iraqis be recycled back into our own economy, to aid the victims of Katrina, and to aid the poor.
*******