For some time I’ve been finding it hard to sit down and write. I’ve tried to ignore it as simple writer’s block, figuring the muse would wake up at some point and I’d be back at it.
But here’s my real problem: I just can’t waste another moment thinking about the powers-that-be in government, the media and big biz who are destroying this country, and with it the world; am not willing to spend one more iota of my precious consciousness on the contemplation of George W Bush and his cohort of war criminals; and, frankly, must concede that none of my writing has made an effing bit of difference.
Ouch.
Those of you who have sent emails over the years telling me I was too angry and too consumed with Bush-bashing were right, mostly. Though I don’t want to ever be the sort of person who could witness a major crime against humanity without getting angry and needing to do something to stop it, I’ve known for some time that my writing wasn’t resolving the anger or solving any problems.
So, I’m going to try to take the advice that was usually added to those emails: I will focus on the issues of personal, social, and environmental healing. I will never mention Bush again, nor will I participate in the endless, screeching noise-fest that passes for political commentary in this country.
I continue to believe that the vast majority of people are good, decent, and naturally inclined toward living in peace; that our problem is with a very small percentage of “dominists” who will do anything to retain wealth and power; and that our quandary is that we can not defeat them using their methods: force begets force, violence begets violence, domination begets domination.
This has been the doom of every right-intentioned revolution or resurrection in human history — as good as it feels to turn the tables on the dominators, any use of dominating force only results in another dominist system.
I see two ways out of this conundrum. The first requires that those who hold the power voluntarily and with full sincerity choose to share that power. No war, no fight, no struggle for dominance. Rather, the very people with the most power to effect change come to their senses and do the right thing.
Solution number two requires that global dominism suffer a total collapse, with millions dying in the ensuing chaos. If we’re lucky, out of the ashes something better emerges.
Much as I would like to believe in the first possibility, I think we all should start preparing for latter.
You are right, I found myself making the same observation about my rantings to my friends and family. In all the documentaries and books I have read, I forgot about hope. I forgot that me, being an individual in a society that shuns such an existence, am living an extremely powerful life. I have the power, just by exercising certain actions in society, to maintain or break the chains that hold us.
I realized this after two relatively simple and powerful forces suddenly entered my life. I stumbled across this website, WestonAprice.org, and it taught me everything I need to know about what real food is and what it isn’t. But more than that, the foundation advocates a switch toward local food sources, raw milk being the biggest symbol of this “fight.”
Basically, the way the logic goes, the biggest factor in dominating our lives has been the complete alienation of all traditional foodstuffs from the Standard American Diet (SAD), and the replacement with processed, “devitalized,” and ultimately fake food. Maple syrup and raw honey turn into white sugar and aspartame. Butter, tallow, and lard become canola, soy, and other vegetable oils. Liver and other organ meats are traded for the actual flesh meat of the animals we eat (and the vast majority of these animals live in factory farms, deprived of all proper care. Ultimately, the biology of the animal is changed, and the nutritional value squandered along with it). Fermented foods are practically impossible to come by in appropriate quantities in our convenience-addicted society. We are told that fat kills us (the biggest lie in the history of mankind, find me a healthy traditional society that did not eat a substantial amount of fats and i’ll quit the internet) The list goes on and on….
Another reason to give up hope? On top of the war(s), the depleted uranium, the whole 9/11 cover-up (at minimum there was a cover-up), we have the knowledge now that our entire food supply is now permanently contaminated with predatory GMO foodstuffs, unhealthy modern unfermented soy foods, and artificial sweeteners. But amidst all the horrible things we have in our midst, we have the backbone of every land on this earth, we have the old-fashioned food producer, the local farmer who sets up his market on a wednesday afternoon with his colleagues and does his best to feed the growing culture of knowledgeable eaters. These eaters represent the decay of the old system, which produces, with astonishing consistency, children and men with dental deformities, weakened immune systems, and general dis-ease. They herald the beginning of a new power, the individual….
Think of it like this. When you go to your local supermarket, how much food do you see on the shelf? You see far too much to be sold to the amount of customers that arrive in the store. It is common knowledge that the publix’s and food lion’s of this country throw away tons of food every day. You going or not going to the store doesn’t really make that much of a difference. If you go, great, you buy things and keep the system lubricated. The mono-culture farms and factory dairy’s and pig lots get another few cents to their name. In the scheme of things, you are about as significant to these food suppliers as the studies which should have brought their downfall 50 years ago. But imagine that instead of going to the local mega-market, you drove maybe across your town or city, and searched out your local market. You pay, like me, about 15 dollars for a week’s supply of plant foods, seasonal and usually organic. Even better, they aren’t picked pre-ripe like all the plant foods you buy at the store (ever had a local apple? The difference is obvious). If you’re lucky, you get your hands on some grass fed beef or pasture fed chicken eggs too, if not from that little market at the local lake then at your local health food store, which no doubt will make you pay a dollar more for the priceless quality of your hopefully pasture fed eggs.
So you have your real, healthy food, now what? You eat it, and it tastes good. But in that simple little act of recycling your money into your local food supply, you have added fuel to the fire that is your local food community. Your switch means the world to these people. They aren’t like the major food producers of the world. Your buying power actually is powerful to these people. You have made a huge difference in your one individual purchase choice. Unlike when you go to publix, your purchases actually have a substantial impact on the economic well being of these people. You have helped make sure that that farmer will be around to sell you his delicious seasonal foods next week. And not just you, but your friends who eat your food will want to go to.
So you see, the hope to destroy the systems of control that dominate our lives lies in yourself. You have the power to either feed the system, or feed the local farmer who is part of his own little local ecosystem. Your decision means the entire world to you, it is just that we get so caught up in a world of convenient and ultimately corrupt abundance that it becomes hard to see the strength and divine nature of the human body. We eat the worst pesticide laden, irradiated, dead foods and it STILL takes us a lifetime to get cancer. That is changing, children are getting cancer now too, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Go to that website I mentioned earlier, WestonAprice.org. Look around and see if you don’t feel the same power I felt when I learned how much of a difference I can really make, just by changing the foods I eat.
That other source of information? Well, this one actually made me truly see the truth about the strength of the human race. A little movie I watched on google video called “What the Bleeep do we Know?” Watch it, it is interesting.
Good post! I understand exactly how you feel. I have been experiencing something similar with my writings myself lately.
I too hope that we don’t have to experience option #2, but I think we should prepare for it.
you would like the party we’re throwing. http://www.bushretires.com