I felt that line from Blade Runner (og) was the most poignant one in just about any movie I have every seen. It was more than just the words, it was the character, the ‘journey’ and the actors involved, it all just made it so…sad. Like the way dystopian future was a matter of choosing the least bad choice of the options available. All the choices were bad, with degrees of severity. I know I live in a very advanced society, where it’s like I won the lottery by being born here. Hell, I’ve lived in a third world world country (Honduras) and have seen how the people get by and…don’t. It concerns me that I see more and more of that where I am now. We were supposed to be the best, you know? Living abroad was good for me; one thing I never forgot though, was I could always come ‘home’. The experience jaded me on borders and conflicts. Why are some people filthy immigrants we need to deport from our land of milk and honey? To put it in perspective I approach it as if I were an alien species visiting Earth. I wouldn’t see the ‘humans’ as being North Americans, Australians, Peruvians, etc, I’d see them as ‘Earthlings’. As we all are. Sure we can thank God that we were born in the countries where we consume far more than we produce and have the money to sustain it (for now). What of our neighbors in poorer countries around us? Well, obviously God hates North Korea, India, Pakistan and really has a grudge against Iran these days.

Borders divide people, instead of uniting us and if I were a big conspiracy theorist, I’d say the people pulling the strings want to keep it that way. Oh noes! I’m going off into conspiracy la-la land, aren’t I? That the world is controlled by oligarchs! I sort of doubt it, have you every met a truly wealthy person? They all know what is best. Period. They are the smartest person in the room, no matter what room they are in. I can only see them working with each other on very limited objectives. Personally I feel that when someone makes say, a thousand times what the lowest earner in society earns, we should give them a certificate stating that they won life and ship them off to a farm upstate to live the rest of their lives in contentment. Somewhere they can’t cause the rest of us more harm.

I have other radical ideas too, like not tying health care to employment, supporting the most vulnerable people in our society and, you know, giving hungry people food, cold people clothing and everyone dignity. Meh, when I become God, I’ll see what I can do to even things out a bit.

A note on when I was living in Honduras; it wasn’t misery and hell. On the contrary, it was life; there were joys and sorrows, most of which are universal: births, deaths, relationships (new, old, forming and breaking up) and and companionship. I didn’t see a lot of hungry people, just a lot of people making due with what they had and helping each other get by. More and more I see that in the United States, despite those holding political power now, I see more and more people ‘making due’ with less, losing assists they had and…suffering. It’s not a good look.