With Apologies,
Within a decade or two, I'll be gone. All the things I have done, good or bad will go with me and,
except for a few isolated records, all memories of my time here will be erased. But some things will linger without my fingerprints and those things will haunt you and your children.
You see, I didn't pay attention to so many things going on around me, that I didn't see them coming. Or, I knew about them in some fashion but chose chose to ignore them. Some things I did were short
sighted and self-serving and the costs were deferred, so they were easy to do. You'll be getting the bill
soon.
Let's be clear about these things of which I speak. For years, I've known about pollution but I chose to ignore it because it interfered with my making money – lots of it. I mined gold around the world, from Montana to Chili. At first, it was easy because the gold was visible and easy to separate from the earth. You might even remember reading about people panning for gold, so you have some idea how it was done.
After a while, though, the gold was harder to get, and I wanted it anyway. I wanted it all. So, I made
slurries of water and cyanide to dissolve the gold for recovery later. It's more costly but, hey!, it's gold
we're talking about.
Cyanide's a poison. It can kill you. But there's no law that said I had to dispose of the spent slurry. So I left it in lagoons, for you to clean up. Some of it is seeping into the soil and making its way to the rivers and streams, and your drinking water. But, hey! Again, I got mine (mine, get it?).
And, if I did get sued, I filed for bankruptcy. I got the gold, and you get the shaft. In college It's called
cause and effect, over time. It's also called collateral damage, or unintended consequences. In everyday parlance, it's you're screwed.
I didn't just pollute mining camps, I did entire lakes. Not from mining but manufacturing – gold by
another name. Just search for Lake Erie on Fire* I did that.
And, I made buckets of money on wars. I sold the tanks and missiles and ships and trucks – and food
and clothing – and on and on. I even sold services by taking away the jobs that soldiers used to do, like mechanics and cooking and administration. Why have a soldier do any of those things when taxpayers can pay millions more for civilian contractors to do it? Yeah, I couldn't resist the opportunity to serve.
Now, in war people die. Lots of them are military, but many times more are civilians. Not so, my kids. I got rid of the draft to protect them.And, I got rid of the draft because it caused a lot of unnecessary friction with public opinion. Parents got really pissed when I drafted their kids, especially when they noted that I held my own back. (“I ain't no senator's son” http://www.metrolyrics.com/fortunate-sonlyrics- creedence-clearwater-revival.html ) At first, they didn't. They thought it was important to serve the nation in a time of need. Until their kids educated them, and they realized that serving the nation meant bending over and getting serviced by the elites. Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing that Muhammad Ali said, "I got nothing against no Viet Cong. No Vietnamese ever called me Nigger."
Besides, I had plenty of kids to call up. I just called it opportunity. Works great among poor kids,
mostly Black and Latino, but some Whites, too. They were never going to get out of the hood, or
escape the barrio. This is good for them – and me. What's even better, they never heard quotes by Ali.
And there's even some folks who love the idea of their kid signing up for the patriotism it represents.
That's most evident after something like 9-11, when people are pissed, and scared, or both. Man,
having a tangible enemy sure spurs enlistments.
And sales, never forget the sales. It costs money –real money, and lots of it to maintain a military. But I am happy to do it, to supply whatever I can – for the cause. Noble me.
Nobody notices, really. Most folks are too busy to notice, or understand, or care. So, we keep building tanks that aren't really necessary anymore. We got so many that we set up places in the desert to store them, to keep them from rusting. Literally miles and miles of them. We get paid to do that, too.
Nobody notices that the super fighter jet, the -35, doesn't work. And we're already making $1.5
TRILLION in sales. Nobody notices that we have twelve aircraft carriers –and China has one. It's a
good bet that anyone you meet on the street doesn't know that – or that we're building another one,
that's over $12 BILLION and counting because it's not working either, and we get paid for cost
overruns.
Now, the guys building those tanks, and aircraft and carriers, they know. But they choose to ignore it. Who wants to be out of a job when all you've ever done is make tanks or jets or ships? They have mouths to feed, tuitions to pay.
Nobody notices that the money for all this comes from Congress, and your local Congressman or
woman is not going to shut down a plant in his or her district. Jobs = votes, remember.
I'm leaving you a much warmer planet, too. I knew that I might but at first the information was sketchy, so I ignored it. Then, when there seemed to be something to all that clamoring, I did start to pay more attention. And when I realized that taking action was going to threaten some of my businesses, I denied it, and railed against it. Then I realized how wise I had been when I started investing in one of my (now) greatest assets – politicians. Couldn't do much without them. Or, the lobbyists with great writing skills to craft the bills the politicians vote into laws to protect me.
Nobody notices, not really, the full impact of global warming. Sure, they see the fires on the evening
news, but that's over there, not in my back yard. They don't notice the ways we're changing our
business models, away from coal to fracking natural gas and polluting the nation's rivers, streams and
aquifers.
And they don't notice the number of municipal water utilities we're privatizing because we got people
to vote against their best interests. Cities large and small are giving over their water systems to me, and I promise to maintain them, for a fee. Of course, if I maintain them, it costs me, in lower profits. So, I triple the water bills for starters, then I neglect maintenance (harmful to profits) and then I offer to buy them outright.
Oh, and did I mention schools? Yeah, I sort of let you down there, too. But look at the bright side.
You're so poorly educated (dare I say dumb?) that it'll be years before you figure out how uneducated
(dumb) you are, and you'll never connect the dots. But I left clues, little arrows pointing at the teachers – and the unions.
Nobody notices that everything a body could ever want to learn about is all over the internet. They
don't get it that if they could master add, subtract, multiply and divide, they could learn algebra,
geometry and trig in 48 hours! Nobody ever told them that the twelve year education process was a
scam, designed to produce a passive workforce. Or, that the scam was supported by teachers unions
because it guaranteed lifetime employment, and other unions because it kept able bodied people out of the workforce (supply and demand, get it? Fewer workers, higher wages).
Nobody notices that when cities pass laws raising the minimum wage, their communities prosper. I
might have gotten that wrong, and hurt myself. By keeping wages low, I thought I'd make more money. Maybe there's other ways to make money, and more of it. I have to think about that.
The more I write, the more ways I realize that I'm really leaving you in the soup. But, on the bright
side, I realize it'll happen to you, too, when your time comes. You'll make decisions in the moment.
You'll cede control over your thinking to others. You'll vote for politicians offered up to you by my
successors, and they'll pass laws that harm you, and you'll reelect them with bigger margins. The die is cast. Animal Farm is back. Dickens returns. And you won't notice.
*https://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play;_ylt=A2KLqIKQt_5V6CIAGEYsnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTByZ
Wc0dGJtBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDdmlkBHZ0aWQDBGdwb3MDMQ--?
p=Cuyahoga+River+On+Fire&vid=930b1c331eca61e5139524830782de65&turl=http%3A%2F
%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DWN.DlekWuP0UuqsbUVl%252bkrC1A%26pid
%3D15.1%26h%3D168%26w%3D300%26c%3D7%26rs%3D1&rurl=https%3A%2F
%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dzpm_DP3Y7nQ&tit=The+River+on+Fire+-
+Cuyahoga+River+PBL&c=0&h=168&w=300&l=335&sigr=11bbcom5b&sigt=1162lg2ui&sigi=12nd
4i267&age=1400709649&fr2=p%3As%2Cv%3Av&fr=yhs-mozilla-003&hsimp=yhs-
003&hspart=mozilla&tt=b .
"“Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No I'm not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over.”
―Muhammad Ali
Within a decade or two, I'll be gone. All the things I have done, good or bad will go with me and,
except for a few isolated records, all memories of my time here will be erased. But some things will linger without my fingerprints and those things will haunt you and your children.
You see, I didn't pay attention to so many things going on around me, that I didn't see them coming. Or, I knew about them in some fashion but chose chose to ignore them. Some things I did were short
sighted and self-serving and the costs were deferred, so they were easy to do. You'll be getting the bill
soon.
Let's be clear about these things of which I speak. For years, I've known about pollution but I chose to ignore it because it interfered with my making money – lots of it. I mined gold around the world, from Montana to Chili. At first, it was easy because the gold was visible and easy to separate from the earth. You might even remember reading about people panning for gold, so you have some idea how it was done.
After a while, though, the gold was harder to get, and I wanted it anyway. I wanted it all. So, I made
slurries of water and cyanide to dissolve the gold for recovery later. It's more costly but, hey!, it's gold
we're talking about.
Cyanide's a poison. It can kill you. But there's no law that said I had to dispose of the spent slurry. So I left it in lagoons, for you to clean up. Some of it is seeping into the soil and making its way to the rivers and streams, and your drinking water. But, hey! Again, I got mine (mine, get it?).
And, if I did get sued, I filed for bankruptcy. I got the gold, and you get the shaft. In college It's called
cause and effect, over time. It's also called collateral damage, or unintended consequences. In everyday parlance, it's you're screwed.
I didn't just pollute mining camps, I did entire lakes. Not from mining but manufacturing – gold by
another name. Just search for Lake Erie on Fire* I did that.
And, I made buckets of money on wars. I sold the tanks and missiles and ships and trucks – and food
and clothing – and on and on. I even sold services by taking away the jobs that soldiers used to do, like mechanics and cooking and administration. Why have a soldier do any of those things when taxpayers can pay millions more for civilian contractors to do it? Yeah, I couldn't resist the opportunity to serve.
Now, in war people die. Lots of them are military, but many times more are civilians. Not so, my kids. I got rid of the draft to protect them.And, I got rid of the draft because it caused a lot of unnecessary friction with public opinion. Parents got really pissed when I drafted their kids, especially when they noted that I held my own back. (“I ain't no senator's son” http://www.metrolyrics.com/fortunate-sonlyrics- creedence-clearwater-revival.html ) At first, they didn't. They thought it was important to serve the nation in a time of need. Until their kids educated them, and they realized that serving the nation meant bending over and getting serviced by the elites. Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing that Muhammad Ali said, "I got nothing against no Viet Cong. No Vietnamese ever called me Nigger."
Besides, I had plenty of kids to call up. I just called it opportunity. Works great among poor kids,
mostly Black and Latino, but some Whites, too. They were never going to get out of the hood, or
escape the barrio. This is good for them – and me. What's even better, they never heard quotes by Ali.
And there's even some folks who love the idea of their kid signing up for the patriotism it represents.
That's most evident after something like 9-11, when people are pissed, and scared, or both. Man,
having a tangible enemy sure spurs enlistments.
And sales, never forget the sales. It costs money –real money, and lots of it to maintain a military. But I am happy to do it, to supply whatever I can – for the cause. Noble me.
Nobody notices, really. Most folks are too busy to notice, or understand, or care. So, we keep building tanks that aren't really necessary anymore. We got so many that we set up places in the desert to store them, to keep them from rusting. Literally miles and miles of them. We get paid to do that, too.
Nobody notices that the super fighter jet, the -35, doesn't work. And we're already making $1.5
TRILLION in sales. Nobody notices that we have twelve aircraft carriers –and China has one. It's a
good bet that anyone you meet on the street doesn't know that – or that we're building another one,
that's over $12 BILLION and counting because it's not working either, and we get paid for cost
overruns.
Now, the guys building those tanks, and aircraft and carriers, they know. But they choose to ignore it. Who wants to be out of a job when all you've ever done is make tanks or jets or ships? They have mouths to feed, tuitions to pay.
Nobody notices that the money for all this comes from Congress, and your local Congressman or
woman is not going to shut down a plant in his or her district. Jobs = votes, remember.
I'm leaving you a much warmer planet, too. I knew that I might but at first the information was sketchy, so I ignored it. Then, when there seemed to be something to all that clamoring, I did start to pay more attention. And when I realized that taking action was going to threaten some of my businesses, I denied it, and railed against it. Then I realized how wise I had been when I started investing in one of my (now) greatest assets – politicians. Couldn't do much without them. Or, the lobbyists with great writing skills to craft the bills the politicians vote into laws to protect me.
Nobody notices, not really, the full impact of global warming. Sure, they see the fires on the evening
news, but that's over there, not in my back yard. They don't notice the ways we're changing our
business models, away from coal to fracking natural gas and polluting the nation's rivers, streams and
aquifers.
And they don't notice the number of municipal water utilities we're privatizing because we got people
to vote against their best interests. Cities large and small are giving over their water systems to me, and I promise to maintain them, for a fee. Of course, if I maintain them, it costs me, in lower profits. So, I triple the water bills for starters, then I neglect maintenance (harmful to profits) and then I offer to buy them outright.
Oh, and did I mention schools? Yeah, I sort of let you down there, too. But look at the bright side.
You're so poorly educated (dare I say dumb?) that it'll be years before you figure out how uneducated
(dumb) you are, and you'll never connect the dots. But I left clues, little arrows pointing at the teachers – and the unions.
Nobody notices that everything a body could ever want to learn about is all over the internet. They
don't get it that if they could master add, subtract, multiply and divide, they could learn algebra,
geometry and trig in 48 hours! Nobody ever told them that the twelve year education process was a
scam, designed to produce a passive workforce. Or, that the scam was supported by teachers unions
because it guaranteed lifetime employment, and other unions because it kept able bodied people out of the workforce (supply and demand, get it? Fewer workers, higher wages).
Nobody notices that when cities pass laws raising the minimum wage, their communities prosper. I
might have gotten that wrong, and hurt myself. By keeping wages low, I thought I'd make more money. Maybe there's other ways to make money, and more of it. I have to think about that.
The more I write, the more ways I realize that I'm really leaving you in the soup. But, on the bright
side, I realize it'll happen to you, too, when your time comes. You'll make decisions in the moment.
You'll cede control over your thinking to others. You'll vote for politicians offered up to you by my
successors, and they'll pass laws that harm you, and you'll reelect them with bigger margins. The die is cast. Animal Farm is back. Dickens returns. And you won't notice.
*https://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play;_ylt=A2KLqIKQt_5V6CIAGEYsnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTByZ
Wc0dGJtBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDdmlkBHZ0aWQDBGdwb3MDMQ--?
p=Cuyahoga+River+On+Fire&vid=930b1c331eca61e5139524830782de65&turl=http%3A%2F
%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DWN.DlekWuP0UuqsbUVl%252bkrC1A%26pid
%3D15.1%26h%3D168%26w%3D300%26c%3D7%26rs%3D1&rurl=https%3A%2F
%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dzpm_DP3Y7nQ&tit=The+River+on+Fire+-
+Cuyahoga+River+PBL&c=0&h=168&w=300&l=335&sigr=11bbcom5b&sigt=1162lg2ui&sigi=12nd
4i267&age=1400709649&fr2=p%3As%2Cv%3Av&fr=yhs-mozilla-003&hsimp=yhs-
003&hspart=mozilla&tt=b .
"“Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No I'm not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over.”
―Muhammad Ali
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