The Hip have been my favourite band for the last twenty years, so it is not unusual for me to have their music in my head on a regular basis. But I wonder if this time it has anything to do with the G8/G20 extravaganza happening this week.
There are two lines from two Tragically Hip songs that have been repeatedly going through my mind recently.
The lines that have been taunting me are “Use it up. Use it all up. Don’t save a thing for later” (from the album In Violet Light), and “When something’s too cheap, somebody’s paying something,” (from We Are The Same).
I believe the first line to be the official capitalist motto. It is the global economic strategy of the world’s business elite and could very well be the perennial slogan of such summits.
The second line could serve as a blanket slogan for the vast majority of protesters (ie. model citizens trying to reclaim democracy) at the summits. I admire these people trying to get their voices heard. It takes courage, energy, and a sense of civic responsibility.
To continually witness an almost complete lack of vision through all three levels of government can be very discouraging, especially for youth. I’m not sure that our supposed political “leaders” and the boomer generation in general, where political power is concentrated, really understand this.
If the responsibility of each generation is to live in a way that maximizes the chances of prosperity for those generations still to come, then it is evident that the boomers have failed so far. In saying this, I do not mean to lay blame.
A dead-end cultural paradigm is a challenging addiction. The point I want to make is that in what amounts to barely a blip of human history we’ve been using it up without saving a thing for later, big time. Fossil fuels, forests, soil fertility, fish stocks, biodiversity, minerals, clean water, and on and on.
Maybe the voices of the so-called protesters should be heard this time. When life, resources, and ecological services are valued so little that their over-exploitation is not only allowed but encouraged, we obviously need to change course.
We can start by addressing the arrogance that makes us think the gifts of the Earth can be owned by a few (or owned at all) and the greed that makes us want to do so.
Because “when something’s too cheap, somebody’s paying something.”
