by

Not One Penny More to the Rich!

Enough is Enough!

Image by outtacontext via Flickr

The Essays of The Man From the North by Rivera Sun
Writer, Dandelion Salad
January 15, 2017

When times are bleak and darkness deepens, ancient yearnings of humanity stir in our hearts. We long for the simple things that our ancestors always sought: safety for our families, roofs over our heads, food in our bellies, rest for our weary bodies. In other words, we yearn for the basic human rights have been denied to far too many generations over the course of human history.

Throughout large swaths of history, the average human has been strapped to the yoke of economic injustice. Today, we are chained to jobs and bills and mounting debt. We are the workhorses of the modern-day wealthy. We labor to build their massive fortunes in a repetition of history as old as slaves building the pyramids, conscripts constructing the Great Wall of China, or the peons and peasants laboring to build the castles and cathedrals of Europe.

Today, we raise skyscrapers instead of temples, mansions instead of palaces, and astronomical off-shore bank accounts instead of treasure troves; but the pattern is the same. The wealth that could support the well being of a whole society is hoarded by the few. And worse than hoarded: it is stolen, skimmed, raked off the backs of many. It is snatched from our lives in slivers and slices. They take pennies and dollars from millions of us to make themselves rich: a high utility bill, an increase in the rent, overdraft fees at the banks, a new replacement cord for the computer – small things, multiplied by millions, collected by a few. Tiny bits of change that add up to our impoverishment. Even the least significant laws and policies – which are written by the wealthy – affect the rich and poor disproportionately. To those with money, a hundred dollar parking ticket is an inconvenience. To those without wealth, it might be the straw upon the camel’s back, the calamity that leads to eviction or homelessness, or the shortfall that signals hunger for one’s kids.

The rich grow richer while the rest of society suffers. They demand that walls be built to protect their fortunes – large or small – from those who have had everything taken from them in the cycles of injustice. Such hoarding of wealth while others are in need is obscene. It has been since the age of cavemen and campfires. It was appalling as the feudal kingdoms arose around the world. It was shameful as hierarchies of rulers emerged and feasted while their so-called subjects hungered. It is wrong, now, that the wealthy fly around the world in private jets while ordinary people struggle to pay bills.

Longevity does not lessen the shame of the injustice. It burns as fresh and hot in the thousandth year of its existence as it did on the first day a child went hungry because a glutton ate her share of the family’s food. The complexities of global economics fall away before the simplicity of compassion. Humanity’s soul remains imperiled while some hoard while others hunger.

And who dares to demand the impossible? Who is bold enough to speak the moral truth?

Not one penny more should go to the rich until every human being has enough. Not one more dollar should be added to the stockpiles of the wealthy while anyone is hungry, homeless, sick, or indebted due to seeking education, health, or survival. We must draw the moral line in the sand of our thoughts. We must cease the attitudes of permissibility that allow the greedy to hoard with such impunity. We must be clear and firm about our values. We must declare that enough is truly enough.

Author/Actress Rivera Sun syndicated by PeaceVoice, is the author of The Dandelion Insurrection and other books, and the Programs Coordinator for Campaign Nonviolence. http://www.riverasun.com

The Man From the North is a fictional writer in Rivera Sun’s novel, The Dandelion Insurrection. The novel takes place in the near future, in “a time that looms around the corner of today”, when a rising police state controlled by the corporate-political elite have plunged the nation into the grip of a hidden dictatorship. In spite of severe surveillance and repression, the Man From the North’s banned articles circulate through the American populace, reporting on resistance and fomenting nonviolent revolution. This article is one of a series written by The Man From the North, which are not included in the novel, but can be read here.

from the archives:

Plutocracy I: Political Repression in the U.S.A. + Plutocracy II: Solidarity Forever (must-see)

Socialism: Creating a World to Change Our Lives by Sam Friedman

Rapacious Consumerism is the Life-blood of Capitalism by Graham Peebles

Richest 10% Control 89% of World’s Wealth

Michael Hudson: Taxes Were Shifted Off the Rich and Onto Homeowners

Chris Hedges: A Tax System Rigged for the Rich + America’s Biggest Tax Dodgers are Clinton’s Biggest Donors

Wealth Belongs To All Of Us – Not Just To The Rich by Dariel Garner

We Are So Poor Because They Are So Rich by Dariel Garner

see also:

How poor countries finance the rich by Jason Hickel

15 thoughts on “Not One Penny More to the Rich!”

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  5. Like her style, and only take issue with hoarding starting in caves. Our evolution through the ice age bottleneck made us other oriented. There is no space in hunter-gatherer groups for psychopaths. The greed gene did not reemerge until civilization created surplus.

  6. I reckon there is really only one way to prosper fairness in society, and that is to introduce a system of values based on proportionality, stewardship, professionalism, good husbandry and trust; so long as we continue to regulate pay and working conditions, it follows we should also set a standard for maximum as well as minimum incomes, based on circumstances, environment, performance, biological need, psychological well-being, merit, ability, scale and responsibility.

    Instead of proxy or anonymous shareholding we need to transition toward ethical stakeholding and participatory initiatives; and rather than coveting self-interested astronomic profits from exclusionary tactics, enjoy honest dividends, community benefits and only legitimately earned rewards ~ including the personal fulfillment of job-satisfaction.

    The proportions would have to be set according to the complexity of any given organization, by consensual and/or mutual agreement; with a range of tasks, start-up requirements and operational needs, coupled to the scope of the possible activities involved, reasonable expectations and limits of growth, together with the intelligent adoption and maintenance of a sustainable strategy for functional adaptation.

  7. My plan is to try to get more people talking about the things that matter.

    Lately I have begun to cut down on railing against capitalism; instead I am increasing a little on my railing against plutocracy. Of course, I believe that capitalism inevitably creates plutocracy, but I have cut down on saying that, because I think it will be easier for people to understand that after they have thought about plutocracy a lot more. And as soon as I tell people what plutocracy means (rule by the rich), they all immediately agree that plutocracy is bad. And some of them try to tell me we’re in danger of losing our democracy. And I tell them no, all we have is a sham democracy, we haven’t had a real democracy in a long time. And they think I’m just expressing an opinion, but I tell them that’s what the 2014 research of Gilens and Page proved quantitatively. If you disregard what appear to be the processes of decision-making — the elections and so on — and just look at the outcomes of the decision-making — that is, what policies are actually implemented — you find that the policies implemented are entirely those preferred by the rich, and are not at all affected by the preferences of the non-rich. And that’s been true for at least as long as Gilens and Page have data, which is a few decades, but I think it’s probably been true for much longer. But Rivera Sun is more poetic than me, and makes it more personal and inspiring. All I know how to do is state facts.

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