Dear Mathew,
These men felt they had a future with 5 year mortgages and in a world where CEO’s made 20x the lowest worker’s wages. Fast forward to today where 30-40% of their income is on rent, or set against 30 year mortgages requiring dual or triple incomes in a world where CEO’s make 261x+ the lowest worker’s wages. Many of today’s young men have little hope for a future, seeing promises to their parents not come true for decades of living, hope not come to fruition, in the face of a world overheating ecologically, as reported by instrument and measure. Consumer culture with little lasting meaning to be found and grown, exchanged for the temptations of planned obsolesce. Yes, their feelings are hurt, and of such people, they look not to defend oligarchy and monarchy seen as oppressors, not directly, but indirectly in abdication and neglect of people in favor and greed of brands.
So yes, I feel for them, and for you too.
On this Memorial Day, perhaps it can be remembered and asked, what is all of this truly being built for? Truly, beyond marketing and marketecture, what’s the point if not for the benefit of one’s neighbors, and the common man’s assent to all that is good and meaningful for they and theirs? Perhaps people might be able to remember what those young men fought for, it was 5 year mortgages, quality clothing, locks of brass rather than aluminum, paint for homes disintegrating, and the ability to retire on cash holdings, without exacting tithe to the retirement tills passed by the priests of a religion of market economism. Its chains of abject debts exchanged for stages highlighting hopes of retirement nest eggs dangling like Faberge eggs glistening through two dimensional shop windows beneath castles of steel and glass, in thirty seconds spots between the hopes and dreams of beings lost in mazes of adornments of conceits as “self”.
So yes, I know them, and you, for these are siblings and relations amongst the flow of life and of death. All are welcome to refuge from the ravages of arbitrations of greed and resource to fuel and transform matter and energy into few mens’ shared visions, at the gates of peace, beyond all segregation.
In love and wellness for the benefit of limitless beings,
Roy Æ Hodges
P.S.: To any service member, passed, in honor and memorial, for it is not the land, nor the people, nor corporation, nor paper that the oath is made. It is not for economism, nor house, home, or familial relation. The oath made is to support and defend a contract between a peoples, equal, in that inalienable right to live endowed with this very body to navigate a world harsh, to find a peace happy. Good luck.