Stealing

You know what? The biggest problem in the world. This just hit me.

And hence the title of my blog today.

It seems wherever we go, in this world,

we get the sense that our stuff isn't safe.

Songwriters are now aware that our work can be stolen, or "appropriated?" to be used to train AI.

It feels like a break-in, as though someone could access your most important documents and impersonate you, benefiting from your labor.

And it feels like stealing when you find out your tax dollars are being used to pay for systems that are reprehensible. Are you telling me that my taxes, my money is being spent on employing ICE agents, who are detaining children and newborns and innocent people, offering them no rights?

Are you telling me that I am paying for Trump's ballroom?

Did I pay for those who chopped down all of the cherry trees and for the redecorating of The White House?

What else am I funding? Oh yeah, a war with Iran? Who agreed to this? And why?

It feels like this administration is stealing from me.

I pay taxes to support the health and well-being of people.

There's a long list of cuts. But there's a long list of adds. And in my mind, this is stealing.

The other steal that is going on is THE LAND GRAB.

Who gave permission to sell off public lands and particularly national monuments and parks?

How dare you steal from the public?

And here in Los Angeles, and in California, zoning laws have been struck down. Why? Who supports this? The notion was that more building would solve homelessness.

And guess what? It hasn't. We now have groups of developers and investors who do not live here, who can buy up our land. And this means more people are forced into either selling, or renting. It also means that rents can continue to go up and up. "Market price." Whatever this means. And who can afford a house in LA now?

The robber barons are rubbing their greedy hands together and taking whatever they want to take.

They leave us with less control. And more fear.

Fear of what they will take from us next.

The strange thing is that we outnumber them.

Yet they manage to steal more. They want more. They need more. They will do whatever they can to create rules that allow them to have more.

How much of this "more" is something they worked hard for? Manipulating rules so that you can take more and control more and own more does not mean you know the value of what you have. When you steal, you haven't earned what you own. You simply know how to push and manipulate to get what you want.

Is this the best that humanity can do?

This is a rant.

I do not want to feel angry and ripped off every day.

Neither do you.

We don't ask for that much, ,do we? We seek a creative life in which we can share our personal work with others and celebrate that. We seek to have enough so that we can afford to live, maybe retire someday, and we can share our lives and bounty with those we love.

We seek to protect our planet and other people, keep everyone healthy and safe, educated and happy.

I'd rather be writing and singing love songs than ones of protest.

However, I feel sometimes we have to raise a voice, and with that make music that objects to what is going on.

Because no matter what, no one can steal what is in my heart or in yours.

And what we have is so far beyond anything anyone could ever afford.

In this spiritual world, every one and everything is FREE.

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