Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>]

You got it, Laurie Ann. If we think it over, for most of us life is defined
by institutions, mostly corporate. We're like fish in water, unaware that
water exists. The fish has never known life outside water so it has nothing
to compare it to. We live in institutions from birth, hospitals and medical
professionals certified by their own institutions. We go to corporate
preschools, then on to government "public" schools or private schools, and
maybe colleges. In the meantime we're exposed to a hundred thousand
commercials promoting the profits of corporate entities we have no voice
in.  We're pushed into all sorts of organizations to promote certain
approved values, from Girl Scouts to FFA. When we marry we pay for all
sorts of corporate products that are assumed necessary for appearances, and
we get permission from local governments that license us to marry. We work
for corporations or government 90% of the time, and invest in corporate
securities that finance their dominance over us - through our retirement
plans and health insurance. Our health care means just paying corporations
to cover some of our medicals, and drug corporations rip us off every
doctor visit. When we die, a corporate funeral home buries us in a
corporate or nonprofit cemetery. 

All of this insulates us from the natural world and makes it literally
invisible. I think it was back in the 50's when it became popular to take
the family for a drive in the country to "see nature". But they lost touch
and most never knew what living on the land felt like. 


paul tradingpost@lobo.net

Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes. 
--Henry David Thoreau 
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 10/6/2006 at 12:21 PM Laurie Ann Powell wrote:

>"Isolation is the cause of unhappiness here.
>
>If Mr Warner had 5 or 10 or 25 acres just outside of town, growing  
>veggies of all sorts and animals, and town people came by to  
>purchase . . . maybe his family would not be so unhappy.  Not  
>everyone can tolerate isolation.  A living CAN be made on small  
>acreage, can it not?"
>
>Isolation wouldn't be such an issue if it weren't for the breakdown of
>extended family, and the rejection of having lots of children. Where are
>the aunts and cousins and daughters-in-law who are the natural
>companions of Warner's wife? Where are the men and boys to share the
>toil as well as the joy of occasional social celebrations?
>
>A large family is its own community, but our generation has inherited  a
>selfishness that wants stuff instead of people, as well as
>consumer-oriented mentality that is the real death of the family farm.  
>
>Sadly, as we are institutionalized from cradle to grave, loneliness is
>going to be our lot. Sending children to institutionalized schools,
>particularly, will insure that they are too peer-dependent and lazy to
>take up the farmer's life.  12 years of sitting at a desk and worrying
>about what others think about your outfit doesn't prepare you to find
>satisfaction in a job well done.  Moving to the city won't remove the
>loneliness - urbanization has its alienation, too.
>
>"Living on the soil" means we must reject institutions of all sorts,
>since every one is designed to make us dependent on the institution
>rather than our own family and resources. 
>
>Laurie Ann
>
>
>
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