We could have chosen anything…
And we chose to let the oranges and tomatoes that could feed the children rot in gigantic piles the size of football fields so that the futures markets would swell and hedge fund managers would get their bonuses
We could have chosen anything…
And we chose to divide up the planet and turn brother against brother so we could steal the minerals beneath their feet and the spices in their food and the music in their souls to make ourselves rich and so we could seem interesting
We could have chosen anything…
And we chose to enslave and incarcerate and diminish and oppress, and hold down, and mock, and define out of existence, and call wrong, anyone who was different than us, anyone who could not or would not conform, any time it benefited us, even when it hurt us sometimes, because we were always too small and afraid and weak to choose differently
We could have chosen anything…
And we chose to pay actors and quarterbacks and CEOs hundreds of millions of dollars, and to argue about whether paying teachers and nurses seventy grand is too much, and if new parents deserve paid leave and the people caring for our old and dying loved ones or serving us our dinner, or driving us to the airport should be paid a wage that would allow them to care for their own families
We could have chosen anything…
And we chose to use our tax dollars to pay for new football stadiums and bombs and wars and cops and police violence and wrongful death settlements and to let our streets and schools and bridges parks and community centers crumble
We could have chosen anything…
And we chose to build, on purpose, full of intent, a social and political, and economic, and moral structure where every single thing in this world is profit driven, where the mere existence of a human being, their well being, their safety, their worth, come second to what they contribute to the bottom line, what they can pay into the system, what can be made of them. Gotta pay to play in this world. Them’s the rules. And if you can’t, you’re shit outta luck baby.
We could have chosen anything. Literally. Anything.
