Legally Piggily

Abstract from Critical Path

The earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth.
All things are connected. We may be brothers after all.
One thing we know which man may one day discover: Our God is the same God.
He is the God of man and His compassion is equal for the red and the white.
The white too shall pass; perhaps sooner than all other tribes.
Contaminate your bed and you will one night suffocate in your own waste.

That destiny is a mystery, for we do not understand when the buffalo are to be slaughtered, the wild horse tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy with scent of many men and the view of the ripe hills blotted by talking wires.

Where is the thicket? Gone. Where is the eagle? Gone.
The end of living and the beginning of survival.

We have learned in the last decade that aggression is a secondary behavior of humans -
that when they get what they need, when they need it, and are not overwhelmed, they are spontaneously benevolent; it is only when they become desperate that they become aggressive because what they have relied on is no longer working.

Income Tax & Wealth

Income tax did not disclose capital wealth. It disclosed only the declared income of the wealthy.

The rich get richer and the poor get children.
The rich get their buildings built for a song and people them with many servants for another song.
Nobody ever knew what the wealthy really had.
The wealthy seemed to be just fantastically so.

The Banking Poem

Oh, our parents forgot to get married.
Our parents forgot to get wed.
Did a wedding bell chime, it was always a time
when our parents were somewhere in bed.

Ye banker, ye broker, ye joker,
Three prominent bastards are thee, tra la,
Three prominent bastards are thee!

As the children of the cop possess the flattest kind of feet,
As the daughter of the floozie has a waggle to her seat,
My position at the bottom of society I owe
To the qualities my parents bequeathed me long ago.

My father was a married man and, what is even more,
He was married to my mother - a fact which I deplore.

I was born in holy wedlock, consequently by and by.
I was rocked by every bastard who had plunder in his eye.
I invested, I deposited, I voted every fall,
And I saved up every penny and the bastards took it all.

At last I've learned my lesson, and I'm on the proper track,
I'm a self-appointed bastard and I'M GOING TO GET IT BACK.

Oh, our parents forgot to get married.
Our parents forgot to get wed.
Did a wedding bell chime, it was always a time
when our parents were somewhere in bed.

Ye banker, ye broker, ye joker,
Three prominent bastards are thee, tra la,
Three prominent bastards are thee!

Source:

Richard Buckminster Fuller
Adjuvant Kiyoshi Kuromiya
Critical Path, 1981
St. Martin's Press, New York.