Saturday, April 6, 2013

Day 292: The Dignity of Suicide vs The Shame of Poverty?



A few more senseless suicides in the Land of "La Dolce Vita' - heard about them? 
Certainly not, suicides are not the kind of News we want to broadcast, they spoil the images we want to project about Dream countries and Dream lives that just a bunch have access to - Suicides put the Bitter in the Sweetness of 'La Dolce Vita' and we want to prevent that, bad for the economy, bad for our image, there is nothing to gain from it, basically it's just bad - without a Profit.

A couple of pensioners have hanged themselves in their garage in the region of Marche in Italy, the news said they decided to take their life in their garage because that's where their most prized possession was, their Fiat Panda, somehow, it made sense to them.
The grief stricken brother of the woman, unable to overcome the loss, threw himself into the sea and drowned.
The News are highlighting the "dignity" of this couple, they never asked for money to anyone or for help, because they had "too much dignity" - to let everyone know about their Poverty.
He was unemployed,  at 62 unable to find a job in construction -the only thing he was good at, and she was on a 500 euro a month pension, it was not enough to pay the rent and feed themselves, so they just saw as their only solution to end their lives. With 'Dignity'.

One aspect of all this story left me wondering, if it's true that Money doesn't equal Life, why would people with no Money perceive themselves as worthless and their life as meaningless - and if Money is what gives Dignity to Life due to all the crap we bought into, wouldn't it be the most normal thing to allow access to this Vital "Dignifying" Resource to everybody until we can sort ourselves out - because there is something very wrong with believing that Life has value only in the measure that it can be valued through a Money tag, why isn't Life price-less?

And what is all this congratulatory wave about people who commit suicide vs asking for help, do we in fact prefer that the ones that can't make it just leave the stage, with "dignity", so we won't be forced to confront the shame of poverty and how we are deliberately not wanting to face the issue of Poverty as our collective responsibility?
Has "Dignity" become the reward, the medal we give to those who don't make any trouble, who accept the rule of this system all the way to their death vs stealing to eat or robbing a bank - thanks for not bothering anybody, if you die quietly we'll give you the "Dignity' we denied to you in Life, just don't make a big deal out of your 'grand finale' - and they did not, they were found in the morning hanged (cool way to go, clean, no mess, no noise) next to a note 'Please Forgive Us' - amazing.

Despair is everywhere, people in Bulgaria are having prayers to end the rise in suicides and the widespread despair - that will surely help...
Hasn't anyone noticed that Poverty has not ended ever no matter how many people prayed -and preyed, for it? Do we have a deadline after which we give up on God and start doing something and if we do have such a deadline, can we make it known so everyone who suffers can become aware of how long they have to wait  for the delusion to end and can set up their own Advent calendar, like for Christmas, with little paper windows behind which every day an image of hope tells them a solution is coming, and on day 24, at midnight, we can birth to life Jesus words and give to each other what we would like to receive. That would be nice.

Equal Money is a solution that doesn't require Faith nor prayers, it is in fact the end of the preying on those that did not have the stomach or the opportunity to do what is required to do to make it in this system,  it is the understanding that as the problem we can become the solution, that we can stand together and redefine what Money is, as a tool at the service of Life and then get on with using it that way, serving All Life Equally, redistributing access to the world resources to all, because Life is on sale, we know we have put a price tag on life, we know as well that we don't value each Life the same way, I read an article about 'Condolence Payments', it is even ridiculous to write it, those are the payments made to the 'victims of wars' -see what we do- we call people murdered in wars that we wage for resources 'victims', this way we elicit the image of people who 'happened to get killed' in a worthy cause as collateral damage, accidents on a path we seem to be unwilling to leave - and instead of redesigning the world, we redesign the words we use to create a buffer between what we do and our responsibility, our accountability, shit happens (by itself ), our language has adapted to explain this, we use grammar 'impersonally', so 'one' never has to feel the Shame of the world we have created.

Vietnam, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, there isn't 'One' taking these countries on, there is US, criminals  waging war against humanity and many other living beings standing in the way of Money and Profit.
Given our intentions it was fitting that we should price humans as cheaply as possible, we use humans  like transports, to go places, we have first class, business and coach, which is not set by the value of what we envision we'll be able to steal from them but the value they would be able to claim for themselves, in a world where there is no Justice settling the record straight, or media making their stories known, but a faceless corporate world that like us, exists unaccountably, "One" could say that "One" believes a murder can be set with a condolence or Solatia payment and "One" could claim that Life has officially been set at the market price of anything from 1000 USD to 5000 (but Life is even cheaper when the payment for it doesn't have to come under the scrutiny of the public) but as Gordon-Bray said:

It’s hard to digest that the value of a human life is a few thousand dollars,” said Gordon-Bray, the general in Iraq. “But you know that in their economic situation, it is the equivalent of much more, and you feel better.”

So, we are not in fact admitting to any wrong doing and trying to restore justice (money vs life - one of our perverted ideas of justice), nope, we buy the peace of mind of the soldiers, a small price to pay for wars that cost in the region of billion of dollars, let's face it, we invest in Death, not in Life.

This is what we could do with the money we spent for one of the last wars - from Wikipedia

Based on National Priorities Project Cost of War concept, American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) launched an exhibit title titled "Cost of War" in May 2007, at the close of the National Eyes Wide Open Exhibit. 
It features ten budget trade-offs displayed on 3x7 foot full-color vinyl banners. AFSC uses to cost of the Iraq War estimated by economists Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz in the article "Economic Costs Of The Iraq War:
An Appraisal Three Years After The Beginning Of The Conflict", written in January 2006 that estimates the total daily cost of the Iraq War at $720 million.  
AFSC uses The National Priorities Project's per unit costs for human needs such as health care and education to make budget comparisons between the U.S. budget for human needs to "One Day of the Iraq War". The ten banners read: One Day of the Iraq War = 720 Million Dollars, How Would You Spend it?
 
One Day of the Iraq War = 84 New Elementary Schools
One Day of the Iraq War = 12,478 Elementary School Teachers
One Day of the Iraq War = 95,364 Head Start Places for Children
One Day of the Iraq War = 1,153,846 Children with Free School Lunches
One Day of the Iraq War = 34,904 Four-Year Scholarships for University Students
One Day of the Iraq War = 163,525 People with Health Care
One Day of the Iraq War = 423,529 Children with Health Care
One Day of the Iraq War = 6,482 Families with Homes
One Day of the Iraq War = 1,274,336 Homes with Renewable Energy


It is sad to have to  point out the obvious to an 'Eyes Wide Shut' Humanity, until there is a war in the world, we are investing in Death, if you want to turn the table and invest in Life, a whole system change will be required, we have a proposal, have a look at it, consider the benefits, the kind of world we could have if we stopped our "Human Race" for Profit and turned ourselves into a Humane HumanKind, we can put Life back at the centre of every equation and stop the Shame we live as, the Shame is not Poverty, it is the allowance of Poverty, we have shifted the blame on the poor for their condition so they would take the Shame of it too - but we know it was a clever miss-placement, that Shame belongs to us ALL, Equally, and should be distributed as unequally as the resources of the planet, those who have more, more Shame, just because we have more means to do more and are so far still doing nothing.

Stand up for Life, a new world is possible, we just have to decide we want it and make it happen.

Cast your vote for Life @ #EqualMoney,  Now.





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