Losing sight at what this man meant to say, I immediately became annoyed. It has always irritated me when people misspeak or incorrectly recite some expression or cliche or quote.
Money is not the root of all evil; the LOVE OF money is....
Greed is the root of all evil.
Take the BP oil spill, the spill itself was caused by an "accident" but after millions of gallons of oil later, greed has turned this tragedy into a catastrophe.
Oil drenched birds, oil soaked beaches, the livelihoods of men and women forever eradicated, the long term effects of our ecosystem, all of the negative consequences of this "accident" are a result of greed.
But...
it isn't because of the greed of one man or one company or one industry or even one culture. What we are seeing now is a result of the greed of everyone.
Greed is as american as apple pie.
More so, greed is as universal as let's say, Soccer.
The love of money is not a rich man's disease. We see the evils caused by greed everywhere: looting in third world countries such as Haiti after an earthquake, the farming of poppy in Afghanistan which eventually is made into opium and heroin and sold, the overfishing in our oceans, the illegal whale hunts; the evils caused by the love of money is global.
The BP oil spill is simply a microcosm of the greed that inhabitants the souls of this world. BP is no less or more evil than the rest of us.
BP employs 80,000 people; that is 80,000 people with families with bills to pay. To claim BP is greedy is simply one speaking without thinking. I am certain that the majority of those 80,000 employees are sickened by the devastation in the Gulf.
BP is simply a fictitious name given to the 80,000 people employed. It's the collective name for those employees. To claim BP is greedy is a false statement, in my opinion.
Profits keep everyone employed. Cutting corners to acheive profits is when greed replaces responsible profit earning. That is where BP went wrong. However, like I said, greed is as universal as soccer.
Back in 1992, we had the Rodney King trial. It was a case of a black man being chased by cops and eventually being beaten by a group of white cops.
The trial resulted in those white cops being exonerated for that videotaped beating.
The verdict in this trial resulted in riots.
At the time, news outlets reported that the black community was so outraged at this verdict, they resorted to looting, killing, pulling a white truck driver out of his truck and smashing his head with a brick.
I am so angry at white America, I am going to steal a TV. That isn't anger, that is being opportunistic or allowing our innate need to cut corners to achieve things, take over.
It happened after Hurricane Katrina. People stealing TV's from unoccupied stores. Greed can blind someone so much they forget that their home is underwater and a new TV will be useless to them.
After the L.A. riots, Rodney King asked the infamous question: Can't we all just get along?
The answer is We Can't.
When one war ends, another one begins. We can't get along with each other, other nations; other cultures. We can't all get along on a little place called MySpace. We don't all get along with other kids when we are at the age of innocence in grade school.
Hell, we can't even get along with our own oceans.
There is one continent on this planet where greed is in short supply and everyone gets along. That place is called Anarctica.
There is no government or permanent population there. In fact, Anaractica is the last place on earth not owned by anyone.
But I do suppose if the climate there allowed it, we would have a world war fighting over its' resources and the right to own it.
The love of money IS the root of all evil.
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