Leo Foresta

I saw an interview of one of my former colleagues on a Canadian TV channel.

The old chap – let’s call him Gerald – is head of a major oil company’s Canadian affiliate involved in the exploitation of tar sands.

Having known Gerald pretty well, I wasn’t in the least surprised to see how smoothly he handled this delicate interview focusing on the high ecological impacts and economic stakes of tar sands.

Gerald knows his stuff. He didn’t elude questions and gave straight, clear answers. He was open and smiling without that repulsive cheesy grin of so many corporate folks.

But I wondered what was really going on in his mind when he delivered perfectly the message in line with the system’s logic. In fact I have a pretty good feeling of what it was.

Better than most, Gerald knows what exploitation of tar sands entails: destroying forests the size of several countries to prolong by a mere few years an absurdly wasteful overconsumption of oil, not to mention using and polluting huge quantities of water. Sheer madness,”justified” only by the grab now and f… all mentality of the ruling elite.

Like millions of others in all sectors of the global economy, Gerald has a contract with the system. In his case a very rewarding contract. I’m pretty sure it’s not just the money that attracts him: it is also the challenge of running a complex operation with interesting technical and managerial problems. He’s a highly educated and technically competent individual, a sort of athlete in the corporate world. His ego is large, and perhaps still growing.

But he must wonder how he came to put his skills at the service of a predatory destructive activity with no positive contribution to general harmony.

These days high ranking slaves of the system are facing colossal contradictions that will tear their minds apart. Because we’re nearing climax in the arrogant brutality of human history. Roman centurions were arrogant, so was Attila, and aristocrats, but nowadays there is the layer of supposedly all powerful technology on top of traditional arrogance. So we have a sense of superiority, uniqueness, me first, others don’t matter, nothing matters except me, technology serves me, it’s clever, like me… and at the bottom of it all fear, terror.

I don’t dislike or despise Gerald, on the contrary I have lot of compassion and wish him well.

To the thousands and millions of hard working slaves of the system I dedicate a sincere ho’oponopono : “I love you, I ‘m sorry, Please forgive me, Thank you”.

But this in no way codones or excuses what they do.

Fear not, send kindness to all including arm dealers and pharma salesmen.

Love,

Leo

Copyright © Leo Foresta 2012