CHTHONIC REALITY
I Offer you Water
by
Terri Moore
On a recent stroll through the ‘net, I came across the following promotion-piece:
"Ethos Water and H20 Africa join forces to help alleviate the world water crisis; expanded distribution of Ethos™ water through Pepsi-Cola Bottling System boosts awareness and funding for the cause. Ethos Water, the brand dedicated to
helping children get clean water, is driving support for its mission by collaborating with H20 Africa, a foundation focused on clean water initiatives.
Later this month, H20 Africa's co-founder, Matt Damon, will appear in a national Ethos Water print advertising campaign encouraging consumers to get involved in raising awareness and funding for the world water crisis.The campaign coincides
with the expanded distribution of Ethos(TM) water into more than 40,000 convenience, grocery, mass and drug stores across the United States through the Pepsi-Cola bottling system. Since Starbucks acquired Ethos Water in 2005, the product has become available in more than 7,000 company-operated stores in the U.S. and Canada. Ethos(TM) water is packaged, distributed and marketed by Pepsi-Cola through the North American Coffee Partnership (NACP), a joint venture between Starbucks and Pepsi-Cola North America."
Gods' wounds! In the post-modern world it has been fashionable to declare that all morality is subjective - that there is no basis for an objective, universal morality anywhere or any when. I'm about to go all Derrick Jensen on you now, for I firmly disagree. There is a basis for objective morality and it is simply this - clean water.
OK, when I say objective I'm not including the realms of any possible alien life form which may not require H2O at all. I'm talking about a morality for all life on Earth. Morals appear to be the provenance of the human animal, particularly homo sapiens resident on the third rock from the Sun. Err... our Sun, y'know, the G5 type star about a third of the way in from the edge of the galaxy... err, y'know, our galaxy, in the supercluster...oh gods forget it.
I have been known, in a slightly younger incarnation, to argue vehemently against the existence of any objective system of morality. One man's God is another man's Demon, and all that crap. It holds in most cases. However, Jensen's Endgame puts forward a compelling - to me anyway - argument in favour of clean, drinkable water being in fact the basis for an objective morality. (I do love this guy. He, like me, was trained as a species of physicist and perhaps that adds to my feeling that his arguments make deep sense.) I leave the actual mechanics of the argument up to the reader, although I think they are perhaps over the line into the not-needing-any-words category.
While we're thinking this over, perhaps we should keep in mind the many ways that good old humanity has conspired to undermine this most basic necessity of life. Water all over the planet is seconded by the powers that be (the ruling elite) and pressed into the service of industry, industrial farming, and the euphemistic development efforts.
All the while being told that this is for the benefit of all, our source of life is routinely polluted, irradiated, soiled, dumped into and evaporated in the name of the appropriation of land and its concomitant wealth which the bastards (err... sorry, government and captains of industry) must have - apparently in order to give some justification to their otherwise hollow, shallow and inconsequential lives.
Now read that opening piece again and tell me you didn't have to fight the urge to vomit. Aaargh. I'm sick of the lot of them. Might I suggest that if your religion does not include this basic tenet of morality you look at reforming it? Or better yet - change your religion completely.
I offer you water, my brothers and my sisters. And through this veil of tears through which I observe the dying planet, I wish for you to always drink deep.
CONTACT TERRI MOORE
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