Reflection: The Shining City on the Pale Blue Dot

First of all, let's settle this now.  The woman giving the presentation on behalf of the World Bank seemed to brush off New Jersey as this cesspool of corrupted garbage.  Let me tell you something: this country would be nothing without New Jersey.  You all can live with tuberculosis?  Didn't think so.  What about living without college football?  Yeah, me neither.  New Jersey makes this country's trains run on time.  Plus, we have several bad sports teams to ridicule to make you all feel better about your own pathetic teams.  Who would be your punching bag then?  That's right.  New Jersey is just around to make all of you complacently say "hey, at least I don't live there!"  Whatever, we don't want you anyway.  

Anyway, the woman who came from the World Bank explained the priorities that the World Bank has recognized throughout its history as an international entity.  These priorities sound familiar when discussing the problems facing citizens in the United States.  Lack of shelter, lack of healthcare, lack of food, clothing, etc.

We talked about the issue of equality in class.  While I agree that that a capitalist society should run on the principles of winners and losers, the "survival of the fittest" mentality that was brought up in class is an extraordinarily primitive principle.  Yes, we at American would probably feel that it doesn't matter if we help the destitute, seeing that we are on the "top of the class" relative to them.

I'm not saying that the incomes of everyone in the country should be equal, but there needs to be equal opportunity for all.  And in that, in an ideal world, our social programs would be effective in providing people with the opportunity to better their lives.

How can we solve this, then?  The woman from the World Bank gave very daunting statistics regarding the allocation of money that developed countries have exhibited in previous fiscal years.  1.4 trillion dollars is spent, per year, on defenses.  A vast majority of that money comes from the United States.  In this country of ENORMOUS affluence, it is a disgrace that we spend seemingly unlimited amounts of money on instruments of destruction and war, while it has become damn near impossible to get a 30 day extension on unemployment benefits for those still out of work.  We need to reexamine our priorities in this country, or soon we will find our citizens dying in the streets of Kabul as well as in the streets of Washington.  

I see the argument for war, but the way I see it we should spend our money more on instruments of peace and prosperity.  Peace is better than war, because life is better than death.

Also, talking to Erin earlier in the week made me realize that it has been 14 years last week since the death of famed astronomer Carl Sagan.  His ideals regarding the fate of humanity, particularly when it comes to the exponential defense spending of developed nations, are aptly shown in his speech below regarding the photo taken of Earth by Voyager 1 in 1990, when it was 4 billion miles away from Earth:

That's here, that's home, that's us.  On it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.  The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, ever mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "supreme leader," every "superstar," every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there -- on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage, in a vast, cosmic, arena.  Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on he scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.  Think for a moment of the rivers of blood, spilled by all those generals and emperors, so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters -- of a fraction of a dot.

Our posterings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe are challenged by this point of pale light.  Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark.  In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere -- to save us from ourselves.

Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand.  It underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and preserve and cherish, the only home we've ever known.  The pale blue dot.