Another battle, it seems.  This time: oil pipelines and the inevitable leaks they suffer.

Well, they don’t suffer, really. They, the companies, are insured against leaks and the resulting financial problems.  They don’t really care about the damage to the environment (they have environmental damage insurance, too) so it will be the inevitable leaks that we and the environs suffer.

Geez, what else is new?

I am not going to write about why laying pipelines across wilderness is a bad idea.  I am not going to write about oil-laden tankers plying our coastal waters delivering their poison cargo south.  And I am not going to write about why it bothers me so much.  You can readily imagine my take on that story.  You can likely even feel my distress.  Writing it out in detail is just more words.  I’ll spare you.

Plus this blog wanders a bit……..

What I am partly writing about today is – just because it is current – the First nations.  Seems 500 or so First Nations representatives met a few days ago and pledged their mutual and unified defiance of the plans by our Federal Govt. and Enbridge to build a pipeline from the Tar Sands to Kitimat and then ship the sludge the remaining distance to Vancouver and points south by tanker.  The First Nations stood up, got counted and defied the government and the corporation.  Unanimously.  “We will protect our heritage!”

There were over 130 signatories to what is called the Fraser Covenant.  Something like 61 ‘nations’ unified.  It was magic.  It was inspiring.

The next day Enbridge announced that one of the nations had signed an agreement with them and that the deal paid $7M.  Chief Elmer Derrick of the GitXsan people made the announcement with Enbridge.  The next day, another press release – this time from another group of GitXsan refuting Derricks statements.

So, there is no unity.

It would seem that that there is a majority, tho.  That’s still good.  Majorities are good.  But it is not unity.  Money divided them.  Derrick wanted the money.  And he took it.  Money divided the unity, the brotherhood, the nobleness and the courage.  It divided the family.  It weakened their statement.  And money is effectively divisive all of the time now, it seems.  More ‘heritage defenders’ may follow.

An aside: The U.S. State Department has effectively delayed the Keystone XL (oil pipeline from the TAR SANDS) until early 2013 — after the next presidential election — by ordering TransCanada to come up with a new route through Nebraska to avoid an important source of water. 

The US is worried about Nebraska.  Our two levels of government are ‘selling out’ our entire coastline.

And that is why I am really writing today.  It is not about the latest environmental disaster-in-waiting.  It is not even the weakness of the corrupt to sell out.  It is certainly not about the First Nations.

The point today is that everything we have seems to have been reduced to one common denominator.  Money.  If you want to bribe someone, you offer money.  If you want to motivate someone, you offer money.  If you accidentally (or even purposefully) harm them you can ‘pay’ them money in compensation.  Money, it seems, is the universal solution to what ails ya.

People who lose loved ones sue others they deem responsible.  They don’t get back the loved one, but they may get some money!?  That is madness!

Doesn’t it really feel like money is more the cause of what ails ya?

Somehow?

‘Course, it isn’t.  Not logically.  How can it be?  Money is merely a medium of exchange.  Neither good nor bad.  That’s the theory, anyway.  But doesn’t it feel like an accomplice to evil?  Doesn’t it seem like money is an integral part of all that is wrong with what is going on?  And so much of what is going on is not so good…………and therefore………..?

I accept the argument that money is a neutral, benign, soulless and without-character symbol-of-a-promise.  It is currency.  It is a medium of exchange and only that.  It is no more evil than a bead or a string of chicken bones each once used just like money.  But it doesn’t feel that way.  Not anymore.  Not at the scale or pervasiveness that I am seeing.  It feels like it is somehow an entity in itself.  Am I crazy?

Is it just me?

It may be even simpler than that.  Money really may be innocent.  Maybe it is simply just us, and maybe it is just the all-too-common Elmer Derricks of this world.  Maybe it is a system that makes us think that everything can be reduced to bucks.  Maybe, as the Master Card ad says, ‘some things are priceless!’  And we seem to have forgotten that.

Maybe the promise has been broken?

The point?  Not only are some things priceless, most things are.  All of the really great things in life are absolutely priceless.  Health, relationships, the earth.  Everything really great is priceless.  And yet we seem to have put a price on everything including, tragically, health, relationships and the earth.   How stupid is that?