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Laws of the Sea

Today we have been reminded of the outlaw nature of the sea - as one country defends its blockade with violence, and another threatens a criminal investigation into a massive corporation that has catastrophically failed to live up to its promises.  The high seas, below and above, remain wild places, the home of piracy, rapine behavior and wanton criminality - indeed, their lawlessness reminds us of what humans get up to, when unfettered by laws, or held back by virtue.  What is perhaps more unsettling is to consider how matters are not much better, once, apparently evolved, we crawl onto the land.  For on land, where governance, and laws, obtain, companies and governments have managed to incorporate a web of so-called laws, agreements, decrees, principles, doctrines, ad infinitum - that add up to what, precisely? - money and power dominate; the weak are unprotected; and the voiceless, human or animal or plant, at the mercy of barely-veiled thuggery.  As humans, we may talk a good game, but we know our pensions ride on the profits of BP, and that our allies buy and sell weapons that we make for them so that the economy - that hateful excuse for every sin under the sun - can "recover".  One wants to say clean up the mess.  Where to begin?  We have leagues to go before we sleep.
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