I drove out to the country early this morning to rake the brother-in-law's hay to get ahead of the hot midday sun. The hay still holds moisture from the evening hours, and the leaves and stems don't get damaged when the rake spirals them into windrows. The rough, hilly countryside south of town is beautiful at that time of day because of the way the sun strikes the grass and crops, and it made me wonder just how many shades of green color the land. Johnny Cash probably wondered, too, since after visiting Ireland he wrote the song "Forty Shades of Green."
Driving a tractor back and forth in a field gets repetitious and gives a man plenty of time to think about things. One of the thoughts that kept recurring was a reference that caught my eye yesterday while roaming around the internet. Lee Iacocca, the one who led Chrysler Corp. to recovery some years back, asks, "Where the hell is our outrage? We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, 'Stay the course.'"
A Google search turns up countless references to his recent book Where Have All the Leaders Gone? And if one thinks Iacocca should be discounted and is the only one who spouts opposition and disrespect of our country's leadership, he can be steered towards many other references of dissatisfaction. The recent issue
of The Nation magazine carries a lengthy article, "Disaster Capitalism: State of Extortion." The gist of it is "multinational corporations ... systematically exploit the state of fear and disorientation that accompanies moments of great shock and crisis." One can easily guess some of the examples the author lists: control of oil fields in Iraq, global food crisis where agribusiness cartels control patents on Genetically Modified Organisms, a housing bill that shifts the burden of mortgage default to taxpayers, etc.
This modest blogger and his blogsite represent only a tiny grain of sand on a world wide beach. I wish I had a large front-end loader and a fleet of dump trucks.
