Glossing over the obvious sins of our ruling classes

Reddit user u/He-is altered (by making the pile of cookies much larger) this piece of artwork originally created by Denis Lushch from Victoria, Australia

OKAY.

First of all, let’s just clear the air: Climate change has turned into Climate Catastrophe, the Sixth Mass extinction is nigh, and regardless of how folks crow about global improvement in overall quality of life, billions of humans continue to live in extreme misery clearly for the sake of the bank accounts and stock portfolios of a few hundred thousand.

In other words:

We’re in deep shit.

Other content creators can line up the grim statistics of our impending planetary systems collapse.

I’d rather point out the obvious handwavey, “look over here!” tactics of people who, despite being generally very well-intentioned, tend to distract from the true parameters of our species’ precipitous decline.

Because we don’t talk about that very much, do we?

We applaud the folks who create beautiful educational videos about the water cycle and about world peace, but while we’re busy enjoying the beauty and sincerity of their hopefulness, our power-crazed puppet masters pull on our strings and laugh as we dance.

I won’t line them up for you here.

Instead, here are links to the IPCC’s 2023 6th Assessment Report Synthesis, breakfreefromplastic.org’s 2023 Global Brand Audit, an OxFam International press release on how billionaires have increased their wealth in 2024, a 2024 article on the Top 7 most polluting industries, and a 2022 academic article on how the Global North impoverishes the Global South through unequal exchange. You’re all grownups. You can read and research for yourselves. And you’re perfectly capable of typing out any additional desired query into the web search service of your choice.

Although if you want me to do it for you, I’d be happy to provide that service. Just saying.

Anyway, let’s say you’re sufficiently apprised of the situation now, and you’re just as perturbed as I am. 

So allow me to say the quiet part out loud now: Our enemies are real, they are human, and they are not us.

The insidiousness of messages of hope that revolve around all of us holding hands and harmonizing our way to a peaceful and ecologically balanced future lies partly in the implication that we, ordinary people, are entirely to blame. That humanity as a whole is responsible for the continuing devastation of our planet, not the mustachio-twirling cartoon villains that make up the global system’s elite and political classes.

Don’t get me wrong: we’re not off the hook. We are responsible for our own fates and for how we hold others responsible. Individually, we do bear some of that weight.

But a disproportionate amount of the responsibility lies in the hands of those who have a disproportionate amount of the power in our current global system.

And I’m not just talking about the Musk-Bezos-Zuckerberg Triumvirate currently holding court in the United States, I’m also talking about their fellow billionaires and hundred-millionaires. I’m also talking about the political toadies and media yes-men who implement the continued structuring and restructuring of local societal scaffoldings to fit their conveniences and whims, and work to manufacture our (i.e., the general population’s) compliance.

I’m not discounting the Colonialism Of It All, either. Because this current capitalist system was built on colonialism and it’s no surprise then that the families that benefited from it then continue to be the ones in power today.

I’m not accusing people who stand by specific political ideologies, by the way. To do so would be to fire buckshot into a fog: ideology is just another smokescreen. Regardless of whether one is a conservative, liberal, or centrist in the “democratic world,” or even a hardline communist tankie still gnashing their teeth over the outcome of the Cold War, those at the top continue to gain from perpetuating the status quo. 

Yes, a certain “Roman salute”-ing sort is on the rise, and yes, if we look closely, many of those in the billionaire class have gone full mask-off in aligning with them. (In a way, I see that as a good thing. They’ve shown their hand and made it easier for us to see that Olympus is populated by monsters masquerading as gods.)

But beware the quiet ones. The ones running the philanthropic foundations and chairing the charities and “fighting for our rights”. Many of them claim to have the ordinary person’s back, but will happily turn around and stab it if it meant they could continue living in their comfortably gilded bubbles.

I’m painting a grim picture, I know. One where we as individuals have little to no control over our collective fate as a species.

I’m suggesting that everyone in power is our enemy.

And they are. Whether they are well-intentioned or not, those who benefit the most from the system will inevitably fight for the system.

But we aren’t fighting alone. Look around you.

The people around you are your siblings in oppression. And yes, even among ourselves, power is distributed unequally. But that doesn’t matter in the face of the overwhelming odds we have before us. The odds created by the ones who hold disproportionate power.

If, instead of striving to snatch the single sheep from my brother’s flock to enrich my fold (I’m talking about King Solomon, look at me referencing the Bible!), we both keep wary eyes on the pack of ravening wolves devouring both our flocks (and drooling over our own flesh), my brother and I will have better chances of surviving.

We have the power to dream, to work together, and to get up, wipe the boot-mud off our faces, spit out our broken teeth, and hope.

All we need to do is hold hands, sing Kumbaya, and eat the rich.