Who Exactly Is Corrupting Our World?

On the way home this afternoon, I saw a car with a sticker that said "707" and had an image of a gun.

First of all, is that necessary? And, secondly, why would I not try to avoid contact with you if your car comes with a warning sign?

This past week, a couple of friends mentioned their dissatisfaction with our country. They mentioned the inessential existence of guns and weapons in America and the corruption of the government that rules us. One wanted to move to Australia. One wanted to move to the Philippines.

The gun problem is quite clear. It made me wonder when humans started acquiring weapons to use against each other. Before humans became a sophisticated and technological people, their sole use of weapons was to kill animals for their own survival. In a world where we have enough nuclear weapons to blow ourselves up seven times (or whatever), sometimes I think we would've been better off as cave men and women.

As for corruption, this problem spreads out across every continent. Yes, America is hardly a land for the free, what with its discrimination and illegal immigration and a self-centered and arrogant disregard for anyone not in America, etc. However, any country where there is a vast difference between the filthy rich and the starving poor is corrupt, in my opinion. You can't move to escape corruption; you need to figure out a way to fix it from where you are.

I've thought about Bill Gates a lot this past year. He has been the richest man in the world for some years now, but the reports and literature on starving people from every third world country continues to grow with his wealth. At some point, do we have a responsibility to give up on capitalism and change the world for the better? Should he feel a responsibility to help dying children or cure AIDS? Yes, he does good things with his money. People keep reminding me that he is giving a larger percentage of the money in his will to his own charity foundation rather than his own children. But each of his children still receive more than enough money to be filthy rich in the future, while millions of children will share whatever goes to charity.

Oprah is a prime example of the American system. She is a black woman, successful in a white man's world. How many people fail to realize that she lived through the Civil Rights movement when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks were speaking out against oppression in their own country? Instead of marching with the movement and working towards equal rights, she was working her way up corporate America. Instead of fighting for her own rights as a woman of color, she chose to prove that she could crack her way into the dominant culture. With her millions of dollars, she's done a lot of good in many people's eyes. While she may live on as another face in Hollywood, maybe as a woman who gave away a lot of free stuff, MLK and Rosa Parks are already a part of our nation's history.

I know. I don't have much of a right to put down Bill Gates for not looking to do good for the children in Africa, India, or the Philippines. Or Oprah for choosing to become capitally successful instead of getting arrested. I myself am a product of capitalism. I buy clothes. I wear designer purses. I spend more money than I should. So who am I to judge?

I am no one. No One with an opinion. And a voice. And I'm using it to question what I learn and share my ideas.

Here's one: I believe in the education of the whole self and the ability to critically think. I believe in the use of each person's education to push them further to see the problems the world and the ways to fix them. I believe in power. I believe in life purpose. Not every person is called to work in the Peace Corps. Not every person is called to be a teacher. Not every person is called to give up their dreams to be parents. But we are all called to do something that will make our world better.

We need money to find a cure for cancer. We need money to produce food to feed the world. We need money to fix the growing problems in our environment.

So, in this sense, some people need to make more money than others. Some people need to go to school for twenty years to become doctors or professors. Some people need to give up everything they have for a life of service. I've accepted the fact that where we are today, we have produced a wide range of needs and the talented people to serve those needs.

So do not tell me that this world is corrupt and then smoke, drink, and do drugs on the weekends. Don't say "what is the point of school, my time is better spent partying," and then be left struggling to support yourself instead of doing the good you could be doing. Education can be wasted. Money can be wasted. But why are you wasting these precious valuables when you could be using them to evoke the change you so desperately seek? Figure out how you want to be remembered, and start paving the way.