SAID THE CAT: Capital C Capitalism

Toby, my orange tiger tom friend, and I were sitting out in the barn lot on some outdoor furniture.

He told me, Last night, I was sitting near an electronic camera device strung up inside the barn, when, all of a sudden, it began picking up a neighbor's broadcast frequency and I could hear a story about how Capitalism began.

I said, I never did think about how capitalism began! Tell me about what you learned.

Sure, he said, and began--

Once upon a time there was

an island named Madeira

way out in the ocean.

It was covered with a lot of trees.

A shipload of Portuguese sailed by

and saw all the trees.

They said Wowza!

This is a bonanza!

So they stole black people

and made them chop down the trees

plant sugar cane

fire up the kettles

boil the cane

make the sugar--

all with no pay

so the Portuguese

could ship out

the most sugar

the world had ever seen!

They got lots and lots and lots

of money

from a little bit of money.

Boom!

They had invented Capitalism!!!

But after three or four decades

Madeira's wood was gone

a bunch of species were gone

the soil was depleted.

Bust!

So they went to South America

and did it all over again.

Boom!

Then,

Bust!

So they did it all over again

in the Caribbean...

...in North American

rolling on...

and on...

Still.

Rolling.

On.

They gave the world capitalism!

They gave the world slavery!

When slavery mostly went away

Capitalism

and

cheap labor didn't.

When the have-nots stood up

and hollered about

what was going on

the money people

told them a story:

We did the hard work

it was our capital

that made the money.

You all better

pull yourselves up

by your boot-straps

and work like we did!

They left out

You know...

the Truth...

unpaid labor--slavery

cheap labor

species extinction

bio-diversity destruction

ruined soil

ruined air

ruined water

ruined humans

ruined planet.

And now Capitalists want

to mine the bottom

of the oceans

and use up

what's left of Planet Earth

to rocket themselves

out to the stars

for more

more.*

Toby laid back in exhaustion.

I sat in stunned silence.

After a bit, Toby started licking a front paw and scrubbed his face and an ear. It kept me up all night, he said.

I told him, I think I'll become a Socialist.

What's that? he asked.

I don't know but it's time to find out.

It's time for my nap, he said, and rubbed his side along my leg as we got up and he headed toward the barn. He kept a little distance between himself and the big white rooster.

__________________

*Roughly based on The Guardian-Trashing the Planet by George Monbiot, and Madeira, Sugar, and the Conquest of Nature...by JW Moore and Wikipedia.

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Paula, in Tucson, is a regular at her "Sit Spot" where she observes and notes...