My holiday present: Words by Mujica, president of Uruguay, about life, consumerism, and everything

I hope all of this inspires some of you. Normally I don't share or care about this. But these words are real. This guy saw the truth.
I know, it's a gaming-related forum, but maybe some of you would care.

Pepe Mujica speech in Río

Authorities present in all the latitudes and agencies, thank you very much. Thank you very much to the people of Brazil and its President, Dilma Rousseff. Also thank you very much, good faith they have shown to all the previous speakers.
We express that as rulers we will support all agreements that, this, our poor humanity may subscribe.

However, let us ask some questions aloud.

All afternoon there has been talk of sustainable development. Removing the immense masses of poverty.

What is that flutters in our heads? The development model we want to use is the current one of the rich societies?

I ask this question: what would happen to this planet if the Hindus had the same ratio of cars per family with the Germans? How much oxygen will be left to us to breathe?

Clearer: does the world as material elements to enable 7000 to 8 billion people can have the same level of consumption and waste that have the most affluent Western societies? Is that possible?

Or do we have to give another type of discussion?

We created this civilization where we are today: market son, son of competition and that has brought a portentous and explosive progress.

But the market economy has created market societies. And this has brought us globalization, whose gaze reaches the entire planet.

Are we ruling this globalization or she governs us us?

Is it possible to speak of solidarity and that "we are all together" in an economy based on ruthless competition? How far does our brotherhood reach?

I'm not saying any of this to deny the importance of this event. On the contrary: the challenge ahead is of a colossal magnitude, and the great crisis we have is not ecologic/biologic, is political.

The man does not govern the forces today unleashed, it's the unleashed forces that govern man. And to life.
We do not come to the planet to develop just as well, in general. We come into the world to be happy. Because life is short and it goes away. And no life is worth as any material stuff. This is elementary.

But life is going to leave me, working and working to consume a "plus" and the consumer society is the engine of this. Because, ultimately, if consumption is paralyzed, the economy stops, and if the economy stops, the ghost of stagnation appears for each of us.

But that is the hyper consumption that is "attacking" the planet.

And they have to generate that hyper consumption, something that last little things, because you have to sell a lot. And an electric bulb, then, can not last more than 1000 hours on.
But there are bulbs that can last 100,000 hours on!
But these do not, can not, because the problem is the market, because we have to work and we have to sustain a civilization of "use and throw", and so we are in a vicious circle.

These are political issues.
We are saying that it's time to start fighting for another culture.

Do not ask about the return to the days of the caveman, or having a "monument to retrograds."
But we can not continue indefinitely, be governed by the market,
"But we have to rule the market."

So I say, in my humble way of thinking, that the problem we have is political.
The old thinkers-Epicurus, Seneca and the Aymara-defined "is not the poor who have little but he which requires always more".
And more and more.

"This is a cultural issue"

So I salute the efforts and arrangements to be made.
And I will accompany, as ruler.
I know some things I'm saying "grind".
But we have to realize that the water crisis and aggression to the environment is not the cause.
The cause is the model of civilization that we have assembled.
And we have to look at is how we live.

I belong to a small country well endowed with natural resources to live. In my country there are just over 3 million.
But there are about 13 million cows, the best in the world.
And about 8 or 10 million sheep great.
My country is an exporter of food, dairy, meat.
It is a plain and almost 90% of its territory is profitable.

My fellow workers fought hard for 8 hours of work. And now they are getting 6 hours.
But having six hours, you get two jobs, therefore, work more than before.
Why?
Because you have to pay a number of things: the bike, the car, fees and assessments and when you realize, you are but an old man who lost his life.

And one asks this question: that is the fate of human life?
Do we only consume?

These things I say are very basic: no development can be against happiness.
It has to be in favor of human happiness, the love of the land,
care of the children, with friends. "And having, yes, the elemental"

Precisely because it is the most important treasure we have.
When we fight for the environment, we must remember that the first element of the environment is called "human happiness"