Written by William   

Certainly after reading Sean McElwee’s “…Understanding the Real Makers and Takers” Salon –RSN 11/18/13:

I would observe: Eating Your Young – A More-Equal Opportunity That You Think

Opinion:
We complain about the wealthy not helping enough or in proportion to their means but we all rarely ourselves donate more than tail chasing, in many cases well meaning, rhetoric on the subject. The web is resplendent with a cacophony of mean-spirited, ultimately pissing in the ocean blabber, always believing itself to have the opposite in effect. The proof is in what comes out of the pipe –noting on our end changes.

We talkers just do not help others, we simply talk. In proportion to what we could do, we are contributing far less than the supper rich. The hard workers in the trenches who need the support just buckle down and work. The forward thinking philanthropists do something –maybe never enough but they do something. Countless masses in the middle would do something, even if modestly so, if they knew where to apply their gift, and then there are the talkers. They just simply do nothing in the way of real positive action, and they never change because they believe their talk is the action, and there is no way to divorce them of that notion.

It is very difficult to accumulate wealth without it being at the cost of some poor bastards and their families. We all know this; it’s been debated and the obvious pointed out forever. Certainly we should never let up the heat on those with such wealth to do better by the societies from which they extracted their means. Nevertheless, that “heat” does no good, if we do not use our own abilities to help others far beyond our words. We can fool ourselves with the smoke and mirrors of constant criticism of others’ lack of action to help those in need or to support a great idea for society. Yet, speak as we have this way over the eons of time, we have never found a way to simply talk something into greatness. Eventually, one has to do something about the problem or the plight of others, and our cumulative potential to make such a difference is squandered daily by our insatiable need to talk ourselves literally into others’ business and away from action.

We blab on but cannot support extreme creative visions and solutions, for instance like Reader Supported News, Military Family Voices or Team Rubicon. It’s embarrassing and telling to watch how so many talk and take but do not give, all the while accusing others of the same trait. Wealth is no more a guarantee of corruption than the constant criticism of the wealthy is a sign of the speaker's own lack of action to help others. However, there seem to be far more wealthy individuals trying to distance themselves from their stigma than there are talkers trying to prove they can shut up and take action to actually help the society they use but preach against.

Philanthropy at any level and support of extreme innovation are equal opportunity actions. Virtually everyone on the planet is in some state of need and virtually everyone can help. If one is extremely desperate, predatory, aggressive, misguided, mean-spirited, self-aggrandizing or insane they may intentionally or unintentionally eat their young. That horrific carnage occurs every day on both sides of the money fence.

With every word that is uttered from either side criticizing the other and that is not backed by actions to make a better society, there are signs that there is someone slowly taking bites out of our youngest relatives. Ironically, and to the horror of those who stop to try do better, some of those bite marks are our own.