Sunday, August 16, 2009

Question answered

It’s funny how things work out sometimes. Less than a week ago I received this article through email. The author used this quote by Anatole France: “The law, in its majestic quality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.”

After reading the article I remember asking what does France mean by this? I became busy with something else and didn't give the question much thought after that. Well, this morning, while paging through Derrick Jensen’s “Welcome to the Machine”, the question answered itself.

Jensen says, “Frances point was clear. The poor are not to be free or independent; the rich do not have to beg, as they control the levers of power, which are the privatization of profits and the externalization of costs, or the taking for themselves of whatever material benefits the machine provides, while forcing others (including especially the nonhuman world) to suffer the material consequences.” Pg. 134

I guess I’m on the right path.