Wednesday January 16, 2013...WHO OWNS THE EARTH?

WHO OWNS THE EARTH?

How did the supposed owners of this earth acquire this planet? What historical event gave them title to all of the bounty and production of this planet?

History would say that mankind grew from a beginning couple, whether ordained by God or by natural evolution. It would imply that they and their descendents would have claim to the land and what it produces. Since we are all descendents of that beginning, we can claim a portion of the earth as ours. Somehow, over the centuries, some of us have acquired more than their portion of the earth and feel that they can do anything they want with it. The rest of us are left with diminished proceeds.

In our technical world, we are all dependent on each other for our basic supplies. None of us is completely independent from society. We need the roads, and the power lines, and the airways, and the food production, and the clothing manufacture, and the auto manufacture, and a myriad of other necessities to maintain our lifestyle. We, as fellow human earthlings, need each other cooperating and working together to ease our way through life. Each person in our society is necessary to the others in order to maintain our society. Without the truck driver, we wouldn't have access to the food and goods we need. Without the fuel supplier, the truck driver couldn't do his job. Without the road builder the fuel supplier couldn't deliver his product. Without the food grower, the road builder couldn't feed himself. Without the food processor, the food grower would be overwhelmed with product. Without the truck driver, the food processor couldn't ship the food. We are all necessary to each other and equally important to our society.

Does any one person own the Earth? Does that person own the air that we all breathe? Or the water that quenches our thirst? Does that person own the rain? How about the oceans? What about the Earth itself – does one person own the land that we all share? The earth was here before man came along and will be here after man has gone. It is like the air and the water and the oceans – here for us all to share while we live. We can see that continents move and sea levels rise and fall. Where there is land now, there was once ocean and where there is ocean there was once land. Rivers change their courses and lakes form and dry up. Where once there was farm there is now a river and where there was once a forest is now a desert. Nothing is forever. We, as descendents of that original couple have the use of the land and the air and the water, for now, but it belongs to all of us and needs to be preserved for those of us who will follow.

How can 400 Americans own more of this country than half of our citizens - 150 million Americans?

Does that mean that America is more theirs than ours? Do they get to make all the decisions? Do they own our political system and our corporate structure? Is each of these 400 Americans actually worth more than 375,000 of us? Can they get by without us? Can we get by without them? What can we expect in the future?