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The world is standing on its head. Logic and reason are gone. Humpty Dumpty had a big fall and is sliding downhill faster than has ever been seen in the times of so-called civilized life on earth.
Humane priorities are ignored by the dirt-covered oligarchs who decide over the future of our all but condemned planet. The best people with a sound intellect and an intact sense of compassion can do nothing in this up-side down world but write and speak about what ought to be done to save the people, to save the planet. Nothing makes sense any more. Biotechnical corporations are poisoning the planet, the arms industry is supplying the means for the extermination of millions of harmless people every year. Money is directed to warfare and other lethal pursuits and the huge fortunes amassed by the oligarchs is sterile money that doesn't contribute in any way to the solution of the global problems that are destroying the planet.
Living a good life, a life of loving and caring, of imagination and artistic creation, is not seen as being of any value. Only profit has some value. Make profit and you are entitled to the good life. So say the profiteers. What good life? Living enclosed in your palace and constantly fearing that you are going to lose your millions on the stock exchange.
Nature is being destroyed by human greed. A human life is having an ever decreasing value. Propaganda has replaced information, education is being starved, history is being rewritten. Lies are taught as truth. Slogans are delivered where a serious program is wanting.
So what will our future be like?
Prices of essential commodities are rising at an alarming speed and what are the ruling elites doing? They are not just ruining the ecosystems of the earth with biotech products that will render the earth sterile. To make matters even worse, seemingly to make impossible a return to the days when nature had a say in the running of agriculture and the feeding of billions of people, the most fertile lands all over the planet are now used up for the production of ethanol. Huge cultures for the production of biofuel now replace the natural rice and wheat and soya and corn and legumes and other vegetables that could easily feed the population of the earth, and more! Anything goes, so long as the wealthy can go on living their lives of careless squandering of the earth's resources.
Food for the hungry is not essential any more. Let the poor people die of disease and starvation. So much the better for the ones who survive. There will be more room for high living before the deluge is coming, as it most surely is. More room for luxury hotels, huge airports, limos and SUVs, more room for segregated residential luxury areas surrounded by walls and with armed guards at the entrance gates.
There will be more fear, more armed protection by individuals and by countries, more violence when the few remaining half starving people attack the people next door who happen to have more edibles and so have to be conquered. The rising prices of basic foods and the reduced availability of anything edible will lead to unending wars between tribes and countries.
But the oligarchs in their palaces think nothing of it.
They deem themselves protected against any attacks behind their fortressed walls. The rise in commodity prices doesn't affect them. They have hoarded more money than they can ever spend. All they are concerned with is the instability of the market. Speculation at the world's finance centers has gone so far that the speculators, the bankers and economists don't understand any more what is going on. The financial market is close to chaos.
The rivers and lakes are getting more and more polluted. The glaciers in the world are melting at an increasing speed. Some of the largest rivers in the world take their sources from those glaciers and they will be deprived of all-year-round water, water that is essential to agriculture and to all forms of life.
But the oligarchs in their palaces think nothing of it.
Fantasy or future reality?
The oligarchs still have a good supply of caviar and champagne. They have a good supply of nuclear missiles in case the remaining half-starving paupers should come and knock on their gates. They are militarizing space so as to feel undefeatable, the kings of the Universe. They are now among the very few people who have survived the destruction of the earth, the water and the air, destruction that they knowingly caused and didn't think twice about. The ocean has risen so that all the coastland and most big cities along the coast have disappeared into the sea.
But the fear remains. The oligarchs are comfortable in their palaces, but the fear doesn't leave them alone. They are constantly fearing that an enemy is going to invade their fortresses, even though they have no idea who the enemy is going to be. But rumor has it that there are still some terrorists living in the mountains in what used to be Afghanistan and Pakistan. There are still some people alive in India and in China and they might well come over and attack the few people left in the Western world. Australia and Africa are laid waste from drought and nothing living exists there any more. Africa was torn apart by civil wars due to lack of food long before the last human died from dehydration and starvation.
A big surprise is waiting in the wings
But hey, wait, there are lots of people left on one continent. In South America, there are millions of indigenous people still alive who learned from their ancestors how to deal wisely with nature. They were not doomed to disappearance by the false promises of biotech seeds and products, they went on replanting the seeds that their ancestors had been planting for thousands of years. They had not cut down the life-saving forests to plant corn and soy beans for ethanol fuel. The continent had remained a place where human beings could still exist, even though glaciers were melting and water was scarce. The crops they grew needed very little water and also biotechnical fertilizers and herbicides had never been used. These poor farmers had never been able to afford the biotech products and now they were the only healthy farming communities left on Earth.
Final question
Will there be a way the earth can return to anything like its former and long-gone wealth of agricultural products? Healthy forests, unpolluted water, a return to a normal life where sensible people have turned their backs on the war without an end. Can we stop the destruction caused by carbon dioxide and pollution from deadly chemicals. Can we ever go back?
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Almost
I quite understand your objection. I was thinking of Lula as I wrote it. He's cooperating far too much with Washington. But by and large, the hope there is in the world today, I see as coming from latin America. Since my piece was pretty much fantasy mixed with reality, I didn't want ot get into details about Latin America.
Siv
Religion's strangle hold on America
Ms. O'Neall, I'm not sure, after reading your background, that you will understand the horrible hold religion has on America.
"Living a good life, a life of loving and caring, of imagination and artistic creation, is not seen as being of any value. Only profit has some value. Make profit and you are entitled to the good life."
Read about Calvinism! That's the horrible religion the Puritan zealots drug to these shores after being well advised to leave England and Holland. Calvinism, in one way or another, permeates every facet of America, especially the corporate entities. Calvinism also explains the destruction of the Constitution and the take-over of the government we've seen these last few years.
No way back
Cynical as it may sound, I don't see any way back to the way it was before. For one it's impossible in any circumstance to go back, one can only move forward. For another, I say we have done irreparable damage to the planet. Even if humans were to immediately reverse their course of action it may be too late, and even if the course reversal worked it would still be impossible to go back to how it was before.
Years ago research should have been done to ensure the sustainability of human existence. As it stands, humans have doomed themselves. It will surely not be the end of the world itself, as this planet has seen the extinction of many of its inhabitants, but humans are precariously close to sealing their own lethal fate.
At the moment (again at the risk of sounding pessimistic) any changes made to reverse, stop or at least slow down the inevitable is comparable rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
_______"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence." -- Albert Einstein
This is a time for the pursuit of individual moral salvation.
I understand that it can be discouraging to act in good faith and be undercut by the misbehaviors of your neighbors. But that is as it always has been, and always will be. If you are waiting for everyone else to join you in doing the right thing, then that right thing will never be done.
Working on a smaller scale...
On a global scale, everything Siv O’Neall has written is true. But on a personal scale, we still have room to maneuver. If we all live according to the values we write about on sites like these, we’ll be able to live our lives with as much dignity as possible and pass on what we can to our children and neighbors. The first and most important step is to cut out consumption as much as possible. Get out of debt and stay out of debt, even if you have to walk away from some of your material possessions or obligations. Every dollar we spend that is not entirely necessary is a dollar in the pockets of the evil people and corporations Siv O’Neall described in this article. Every dollar we save is one over which we have control.
Second, we need to guard our health, including our mental health. Walk where you can, eat the cleanest food you can afford. Avoid junk food, junk activities and especially, junk ideas. Stocking up on guns to shoot neighbors who we think will raid our meager supplies is not a good idea. Sharing what we have with hungry neighbors, such as people did during the depression, is a much better idea and fits better with the ideology we talk about on websites like this one.
It would be good if we re-learned the basic skills that have been out of fashion since World War II. If we had to, could we sew a simple garment, can our own applesauce, build a cabinet, put together a quilt, or make simple repairs our own appliances? Can we teach our own children the skills they will need to survive in this world?
Last, we can share what we can with others, both in material terms and in terms of our time, friendship and resources. There is no way that taking these simple actions will stop the present trends in the world, but they will enable us to live with more independence and self-respect than we would have if we succumbed to the manipulation of the establishment. If we take actions to clean up our own lives while we still can and live according to our own beliefs, and if enough people make the change, maybe we can shift the paradigm, but it will take time--and time is getting short. At least we would be able to look back on our lives with more pride, knowing that we did, in our own small circle of influence, what we could to change things.
If only
Thanks for your comment River Walker.
I have been told on more than one occasion, and this is something I know intuitively, that I can only change my own little corner of the world. Changing the world has to happen simultaneously at an individual level and en masse. Like you said though, that will take time that we may no longer have.
When I consider the change that needs to happen I am always reminded of Chief Seattle's speech; the part where he says that we are not the web of life but merely a strand in the web... what we do to the web, we do to ourselves.
I also have to admit that I have not been able to live strictly by my principles. As a single parent putting myself through school I am in a depressing amount of debt. I am also going into a field that pays very poorly (social work). I made more money cleaning homes while going to school than what I will make as a social worker. It’s not a boo-hoo because I am doing what I truly want to do and I would never kid myself to think that I would make money as a social worker. That was never my goal. The point is that I will have a master’s degree, a depressingly large amount of debt and no real way to live the way that I would like which is, quite simply, to not feel the debilitating stress of being in debt, the ability to pay my bills without working two jobs, and to truly love the work that I do.
_______"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence." -- Albert Einstein
I'm pretty much in the same
I'm pretty much in the same boat you are (single parent, although my children are finally grown!, too much debt, and I worked two jobs the entire time my children were in school), but I guess my point is--do what you can to live the way you want, even if you can't do everything at once. We are quickly running out of time to set our financial lives in order, but there is always time, even with two jobs, to learn new skills, teach our children, help our neighbors, and take care of our health. These values are free for the taking. You're so lucky to be going into a job you love--this is a real gift.
return to nature
The decrees of the last 3500 year rule of patriarchal religions which came to power as a result of Zoroasterism's patriarchal influence on Middle Eastern tribes, was unfortunately responsible for disconnecting mankind living in Middle Eastern deserts from continuing to live in a Harmony-with-Nature, equinox/solstice/moon-phases-honoring relationship with Mother Earth. The patriarchal religions teach erroneously that man has dominion over nature, women and the Feminine are denigrated and made subservient by megalomaniacal male ego that leads to nothing but greed and war.
If anyone is interested, a great reference on the facts of this paradigm shift from Nature-based Matriarchy to Authoritarian Patriarchy is well-researched in the works of Anthropologist Marija Gimbutas.
Taking down the Great Goddess/Fertility religion that proceeded the Patriarchal shift and was Humanity's operational paradigm for 25,000 years, needs to be dismantled and we need to return to the practice of cherishing the Great Mother Goddess--the Earth.
The Hippies were right. So was Chief Seattle, The Taoists, and the Dalai Lama, not to mention Voltaire's last summarizing statement at the end of his political parody "Candide," which says, "We must cultivate our Garden," and not going on thinking life is good if you support a charismatic personality (Obama, anyone?), or embrace Voltaire's Dr. Pangloss's mantra, chanting hysterically "It's the best of all possible worlds!"
It's either begin cultivating the Garden of our Mind and land to make ourselves less violent and warring and more nurturing, or forego taking up a Buddhist perspective and the trowel, compost and seeds, and instead take a new designer-med/Soma and by chem-lobotomy, cruise then through the Brave New World on disconnect, caring deeply about the the next American Idol.
My problem with Obama is he feels to me like another Hope Drug, another pan-sweep ideologue that brings the snake oil of feel good, when we need instead, like her or not, the ol' Roll-up-your-sleeves-gal who insists we need to dig in together and make things happen in our villages.
The Black Gold of worm shit is the real valuable composting commodity these days. Only problem is the goddamned Petro Chemical Companies have poisoned our land and water so horribly that the dear dear bees are dead, and the birds are next. Our kids are going crazy and shooting up their schools because the psyche meds in our water are making people nuts and mutating our sea life. Unless we all STOP polluting ourselves, our homes, and our soil, air, and water, we're toast. (Petro chem corps got laws passed to insist on infusing our mattresses with Fire Retardant chemicals which lately has been discovered to be a chemical culprit that causes thyroid cancer.) Stop buying mattresses and carpets with the toxic chemicals in them. Stop buying truly deadly to everything Petro Chem products like Roach Spray (RAID), because you poison your own family's lungs, you poison bugs that birds eat and kill the birds, and the cats eat the birds, and the beat goes on to doom. The Petro Chem Companies have been killing us for 50 years.
Here's a new Green Industry for Hillary's new world to create new jobs for our out-of-work blue-collar and middle class peeps. I've heard Flax seeds make good pillows. Why not Flax Seed or Valerian or Camomile Flower-filled mattresses? Cozy! Therapeutic! Non toxic! Grow your own mattress in your back yard. Roll yer own mattress.
Praise GAIA!
Peace.
Lené Wangmo
No One Should Graduate High School If They Can't Bake a Loaf of
White Bread.
Very well put RW...especially the part about the junk ideas and watching your mental health; getting unbalanced is contagious and is easily spread at places like the mall.
I think that my ex used to hate me more than anything else for trying to teach my kids to think independently, analytically and creatively. My kids knew how to bake a loaf of bread, butcher a goat, frame a house, sew, as well as set the VCR at an early age...as long as they had fun learning, they benefited from the experiences. Unfortunately, as we have seen recently, a little knowledge is considered a liability...it's hipper to be dumb.
At the risk of sounding spacey, they probably learned more from whitewater kayaking than from anything else. Learning to navigate through the tough drops that you encounter, going with the flow, learning to roll yourself up, reading the river and making it to the takeout in pretty much one piece prepares you for a lot of the crap that life is gonna toss your way. And oh yeah, like life, the river is a thing of beauty and satisfaction to be treasured, shared and enjoyed, also. SYOTR
_______'only dead fish swim with the stream'JPS
Really
No One Should Graduate High School If They Can't Bake a Loaf of White Bread.
Personally I try to avoid white bread like the plague. I much prefer wheat or multi grain breads.
Why do you feel that the ability to cook a loaf of bread is such an important requirement in order to graduate from high school?? My mother taught me to bake biscuits before I graduated from the eighth grade. Unfortunately, I did not understand that baking soda could not be used in place of baking powder. So I suppose I flunked. But I could fry and egg, without burning it, and make pancakes. But she never taught my older brother how to bake because his skill was working on and repairing just about anything mechanical.
I can think of many useful skills that one could substitute for baking a loaf of bread. How about being able to change the oil in the car or a flat tire? Balancing a check book or making out a family budget are also useful skills lacking today. That is one reason so many people are in debt way over their heads. I'm amazed at how few young store clerks are able to count change out correctly anymore, if the computerized cash register doesn't provide the information.
I have no problem with white water kayaking as long as no one drowns. I suppose that is the ultimate test. Personally I prefer back packing. Learning first aide, map reading, cooking on a small camp stove, selecting and packing light weight high energy foods, avoiding dangerous animals and following trails are a few skills needed for back packing. I confess that I never baked a loaf of bread on the trail though. But my friend and I did make some kick ass margaritas on the trail.
My point is that there are many useful skills that help prepare a person for adult life. I think your remarks pretty much make the same point. But we are very interdependent as a society. Different people bring different skills that are needed for survival. Learning to work well with others, in today's society, is probably even more important than being able to bake a loaf of bread.
Different Strokes
Jeez Dan, I sort of meant baking bread in a metaphorical kind of way...it sort of grounds you in something real. But for some folks, balancing a checkbook is pretty good I guess...right up there with knowing how to gild lilies and other stuff that's featured on the Martha Stewart show. FWIW, I'm an Oatmeal Molasses or Pumpernickel guy; I threw in the white bread reference because, uh well, it seemed like a metaphor for our modern lives. I'll try to use those metaphors sparingly, if at all, in the future.
I knew I shouldn't have mentioned yakking; it's a 'dangerous' activity that's probably not for everyone. The kids wanted to hang in the real world and I encouraged it. They also climb, backpack and do some safe things, too.
I didn't teach them how to avoid dangerous animals on the trail of life...I taught them how to identify and deal with them. Arrrgh, there's another darned metaphor....my English teacher made me do it...it's not my fault....realllllly!
You're right though, I'm not a surgeon/oncologist and am very grateful to the ones that I'm seeing right now (along with their staffs). We are interdependent to a great extent if we truly wish to live harmoniously in the modern world...we share and learn from each other; imho, the hoarders of knowledge are the broadcasters of spite, misery and despair.
_______'only dead fish swim with the stream'JPS
Metaphor huh
Metaphor, such a big word. I don't know if I have the education to handle it. So I looked it up.
1: a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them (as in drowning in money); broadly : figurative language — compare simile
So I should substitute "baking" for "drowning" and "white bread" for "money" in the above example.
I guess I'm just too dense to get the metaphor. Or is your metaphor comparing graduation from high school with baking bread? I suppose that would work if you subscribe to the cookbook approach widely used in education today. But where does creative thinking, you said you taught your children, come into play?
I hope your children's metaphorical education turned out better than my literal biscuits did.
By the way, I really have no problem with kayaking. I'm sure it's a great thrill.
Calvanism is at the heart of Dominionism. Our greatest threat.
From the Puritan theocracies of the 17th century to the antebellum south to the fascism of the 1930's have all combined and overlayed to give us the mess we are in. From the class area it is believed that if you are rich then you are blessed and if you are not then you are damned. The racial component too is used and if you are the chosen gender (male) or not are also items they classifie all people in their world of ridgid caste hiearchies like insects.
Ruthlessness is a virtue among them toward us lessers since we are both racially,sexually and culturally damned by their storm god (JHVH) a white male christian Zeus. Part of their occult views is that there is an immortal soul tainted by being in the flesh,inferior flesh at that. Killing someone is looked upon as a favor if not a duety. Just see Iraq and Afghanistan for examples. They are mandated to prepare the world for their god's return. They have 1,000 years to get the job done. PNAC has written the map
They cannot be reasoned with just stopped. Many are callous because they have no feelings or emotions for anyone or anything. They believe that we who do are strange but useful to maniputlate.{See Machiavelli for the howto and any dictator living or dead.} And so they do now at the top reigns of power. This is where the dangerous lunatics have taken over not just the asylem but civilization itself!
_______I am sorry for this I misplaced the previous password.
Not to worry.
Any day now Jesus is going to save us. Well, not me. Jesus hates me. But maybe I'll be saved by spacemen. Hope springs eternal.
**
Kin I git an amen brothas and sistas????
_______"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence." -- Albert Einstein
Amen!
Amen!
_______"Americans will always do the right thing, but only after they have exhausted all possible alternatives."
Sir Winston Churchill
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This planet is as invisible to the gods and spacemen
as a dried up mummified corpse buried under a desert.
Without the fresh, natural fragrant oils that fed it's life force, it can no longer transmit living signals out into the universe. what life that is left here is as bugs and maggots, devouring the remains of the remains.
But maybe oil springs eternal as well.
(having said that, I think I'll go eat some plastic and hit the hay)
______________
"In the desert, you can remember your name,
cause there aint no one for to give you no pain"
-America
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"Is There a Way BAck"
Of course there's a way-back, silly. ALL SUV's have one. Don't ya know?
But if you are talking about a way back from the damage to our planet, that can only happen when they find a W. A .Y. to put all the oil B. A. C. K. into the ground where it all came from and leave it there. And let the earth grow new oil. And leave THAT there as WELL.
______________
"In the desert, you can remember your name,
cause there aint no one for to give you no pain"
-America
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Almost...
I was with you until the south America part. In 2006, brazil clear cut an area of the Amazon rain forest the size of Belgium!
If only there were a place not afffected by this global misbehavior!