Money+&+The+World+(partial+J.O.T.),+by+Ms.+Hutchinson


 * Contemporary Lit. - Sample JOT Essay** (incomplete)


 * Greed Run A-Monk**

Follow the money. That’s what the shady “mole” told reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward back in 1973 as they began investigating the infamous Watergate Scandal. When I saw the Watergate film //All the President’s Men// a few years later, that line struck me and sowed the first seeds of cynicism in me. Now well into middle age, I’ve found the line applicable to nearly every business and political scandal that hits the news, the recent up-rising in Myanmar being no exception. On the front of today’s Business section of the //Daily Herald//, an incongruous photo shows a group of red-robed, bald-headed monks squatting before a line of shielded military police (9/29/07). At first I wondered, why would the police have rounded up a bunch of peaceful monks? That question quickly gave way to the next: what in the world is the photo doing in the //Business// section of all places? It didn’t take me long to discover the reason: the dictatorship which the monks are protesting against is being funded largely by corporations in other Asian countries who want Myanmar’s oil. It’s just another case where we must follow the money, and in this case, blood money, as in the past two weeks nearly two hundred pro-democracy demonstrators have been killed by the dictator-backed junta, ten in the last two days. (//Daily Herald//, Business, p. 2, 9/29/07.)

Why is it that time and again it seems that violence and injustice are caused by greedy people? Do the heads of corporations and governments really care at all about a country’s people? Or are they only concerned with money and resources?

[Insert examples of countries/companies that do this – including the U.S. in Iraq, England in India, Germany in Poland, and Japan in China]

Sadly, if we look at human behavior throughout history, we see the same story has played out time and again. Most wars have been fought over land and resources. The early European settlers in what is now the United States pushed the indigenous people into areas where no crops can grow, calling it their “manifest destiny” to take over all the arable lands on the continent. God is often brought into the argument, though of course no one can call God and ask Him whose side He is on. Matt Groening cleverly mocked this idea in an epi-sode of //The Simpsons// a few years ago, where Joan of Arc and her rival to power in France both claim God has told them He supports their causes. God appears as a spotlight through a hole in the ceiling of the courtroom, and as He realizes He’s been caught with duplicity, He shines back and forth on Joan and her rival, and then says, “Uh, gee, I guess I never thought the two of you would ever be in the same room together. Good-bye!” and shamefully dis-appears back through the ceiling. (//The Simpsons//, “Tales from the Public Domain,” 3/17/02.) In Myanmar, the Buddhist monks don’t believe in a conscious God so they can’t rely on one to help them. But even if they did, their struggle isn’t likely to end any time soon. Powerful corporations run the world because money runs the world, and without a massive and coordinated effort on the part of the Have-nots, this will not change.

Now that the world’s gone global, one might argue that the Have-nots have greater access to organizing such a coup. Witness the multi-million-member grassroots MoveOn. Org organization, whose recent anti-war ad in the //New York Times// caused such a stir both because if its scathing attack on General Petraeus and because the //Times// gave them a cut rate of $65,000 instead of the standard $142,000. President Bush called the deal “disgusting,” and many corporate and political bigwigs publicly denounced the //Times//’ bias in the move. But instead of standing up and saying the paper is united with the MoveOn members’ cause, the editors caved. Two days later, a spokesperson at the //Times// apologized, and MoveOn. Org countered by saying they will pay the remaining $77,000, claiming they had no idea they were getting a discount. (Washington Post.com, 9/24/07.) So running counter to the notion that an internet-linked world will enable the Have-nots to unite, it’s clear that the global world has also helped the corporate and political world to unite, strengthening their power as well. The playing field is once again slanted in their favor.

So should we all just roll over and accept that the elites of the world who have money and power will continue to make all the decisions for us, sometimes silencing or even killing us in the process? Is the Great Divide between The Haves and the Have-Nots utterly insur-mountable? Perhaps not, thanks to selfless people like Paul Farmer, founder of Partners in Health in Boston, and Anderson Sa, leader of the AfroReggae group in the slums of Rio de Janeiro.

[Insert discussion of how these two men are causing grassroots level change and the Shiva Effect’s power]

Ending: how basic humanitarianism runs counter to capitalism and sometimes religion, yet it is a cause worth pursuing even in baby steps