Our Extended Responsibilities

In past blogs, I have touched on the concept that responsibility for oneself includes responsibilities for those whom we have, by life choices, made ourselves responsible for.  Another aspect of our responsibilities are being responsible for our world.

In these first several months of this year 2014, for those who follow local and world news, from the weather through local news, I can only ask, What have we, collectively, wrought?  For the climate change deniers, this last winter's horrendous weather was just a normal extreme, to be expected every hundred years or so.

For those of us who live in my area of the country, we have had to absorb several incidences of extreme child abuse that it resulted in death of the children, and having the Department of Justice come to our largest city and declare that the recent deaths of so many citizens at the hands to the Police Department, was indeed instances of the misuse of force.  Many people have spoken out about the lack of oversight by the Department of Child Protection Agency, as well that city's Police Force's excessive use of Force in the apprehension of citizens who have caused a problem.  Some of the reasons given by those whose role includes oversight, are lack of information and funding for agencies being at the root of the officials denial of the problem, not lack of staff and problems with oversight.

On the other end of this spectrum, we have the expenditure of great amounts of time and untold millions of dollars searching for a plane which has been missing for over a month now.  Also, the turning over by the military of equipment, which is claimed to no longer be needed, including tanks and other large military vehicles, to Police Departments around the country, including to small cities, as well as the development of Swat Forces being added to this country's various Federal Agencies/Departments.

There are also reports, and pictures, of developed and developing flying machines beyond what might, in former years, have been called Science Fiction fantasies.

These are only some of the examples of how skewed the values exhibited by our, "Leaders" and defenders has become.

It seems obvious, to me, that there are plenty of funds available in this world to accomplish whatever needs to be accomplished for the good of everyone, if only the will were there to do what's needed.  For me, on a regional level, the major need, especially in this Country, is to create work/jobs for those who are willing and able to work.  In the world, the solutions get harder; a main one is the gender issues in the Middle East, in Africa, it is to stop the killing of innocents.  In the whole world it is an equitable distribution of resources from those who have to those who don't have.

The main concern we should all have, however, is the healing of the planet.

In addition to last winter's extreme weather, we in this world have been experiencing a large amount of moderate and strong earthquakes, particularly around the Ring of Fire, surrounding the Pacific Ocean, as well as, in this Country, those in the Yellowstone Park's, super volcano area, and unprecedented earthquakes in Oklahoma, where a great deal of fracking has been taking place.  There are, also, the many reported sink holes, which have suddenly appeared, swallowing-up things, and other bizzare earth happenings.

How many of us have, even momentary, thoughts about what the powers-that-be have wrought on this wonderful planet of ours.  So many individuals are too caught up in their own lives, to give it any consideration; others are in denial.  This is not new, of course; I remember years ago when the problem with the holes in Earth's Ozone cover were first revealed, being greeted with disdain by the same kind of debunkers as those today who disparage reported environmental changes.  The primarily motivation for the debunking is that, if believed, it could result in a demand for an end to business as usual.  We have just experienced the first of four "blood moons," to occur in just two years, every six months.  Those who say that it is a sign, are ridiculed.  There are signs all around us that this world is in trouble, if we were willing to pay attention.

I am, for one, convinced our world is in the process of change, hopefully, it is not too late for positive changes to take the place of greed-based business as usual.

With these thoughts, I end this blog,

Shirley Gallup