On the basis of sensation,
of matter and motion, we may erect the fabric of all the certainties
we can have or need.... I am an Epicurean.
(Thomas Jefferson)
Never be deceived that the
rich will permit you to vote away their wealth.
(Lucy Parsons, 1853-1942,
activist and organizer of the Industrial Workers of the World)
If voting changed
anything, they'd make it illegal.
(Emma Goldman, activist,
1869-1940)
The security of serfdom
More than thirty years ago I
spent a long weekend with my family at a hacienda in the Ecuadorian
countryside. It was almost as though we had stepped back into the
nineteenth century for three days. On the second day we went
horseback riding in the early morning and soon came upon an old man
standing quite still by the side of the dirt road, as though he'd
been waiting for us to appear.
As we rode past he doffed
his straw hat, bowed slightly and said to me in Spanish, “Good
morning, Patron.” It was an expected ritual, a gesture of
respect and courtesy in the presence of the “landlord,” the
person who exerted considerable power over the lives of the peasants
residing on the patron's property, even in the late 20th
century. It was about the 1 percent. It was about the 99 percent.
More than 30 years later,
across the globe, it's easy enough to recall the famous line by
William Butler Yeats in The Second Coming: “Things fall apart; the
centre cannot hold.”
In the land
of the free and the home of the brave--America-- the citizenry
flounders in ignorance, superstition and delusion, its institutions
slowly imploding and that very American trait—paranoia--seeping
into the cracks everywhere.
As someone said recently, America is merely the “cleanest” of the
dirty white shirts. The bar is getting lower by the minute.
Potato pickers
As consumerism and
globalization crumbles in Greece it appears, according to Greece's'potato movement' grows in power, that the Greeks are inadvertently
attempting to create new economic models while, at the same time
through trial and error, developing resilient communities.
Getting off the “global
grid,” downsizing and building resiliency is no longer a lifestyle
choice just for a handful of the affluent, the well educated and a
few libertarians desiring to build an old mythical America of “hardy
yeoman farmers.”
The ideology of death eating
The Galapagos
Islands, off the coast of Ecuador, are unique and one of the
most remarkable and spiritual
(perhaps was) places on Earth, in my opinion. I was fortunate to have
spent some time there and was saddened to have come across a recent
article entitled Galapagos menaced by tourist invasion.
While human stupidity and
bottomless greed—if given the opportunity—will all too often
treat the planet like a personal amusement park, our predatory and
archaic economic system only encourages the worsening destruction,
which offers no Hollywood ending.
Who is John Trudell
Of course climate
change may, sooner than we think, let us know what choices we
have remaining. But perhaps ignorance is truly a state of bliss, as
so many Americans are proud to proclaim: Satirist Stephen Colbert has suggested we just make climate change illegal, while Virginia Republicans ForceScientist to Stop Using 'Climate Change' Terminology.
The Gallup organization has
come out with a recent poll ( In U.S., 46% Hold Creationists View ofHuman Origin ), which once again suggests we Americans are, well,
“challenged” in so many ways.
Clowns in the Volkswagen
In the United States we can
go on debating which of the two principal political factions,
Democrats or Republicans, are the most corrupt and clueless, how
useless large media organizations have become, the terrible
reactionaries that control the Supreme Court, the destructiveness of
corporate America, repulsive billionaires and so forth and so forth.
But if we continue to merely
complain about these decaying institutions or throw up our hands in
frustration we are just part of the same problem. There is no easy,
comfortable or convenient way out at this point, for us Americans or
anyone else.
We are going to have to
build quite literally those resilient communities, develop new
institutions, write better creation myths and confront the status quo
continually. Of course it will likely be very painful.
But you also have the option
in America of hoping you're one lucky break away from being one of
the “masters of the universe” … or for that matter just
standing on the side of the road clutching your straw hat when the
landlord rides by.
There is no social order
without trust and no trust without truth or, at least, without agreed
truth-finding procedures.
(Felipe Fernandez-Armesto,
historian)
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