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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Living on this little island

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  • From: Dan Conine <dconine@bertramwireless.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Living on this little island
  • Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2014 13:55:52 -0600

"I wanted to physically make the world a better place," Janes said. With his family's help, he bought 40 acres of forested land on Denman Island. It came with two trailers.
The problem isn't the world, it's the herd. You don't have to improve the world, you have to turn the direction of the herd. The point of civilization is to isolate and drive the herd into a corral and teach them to consume purchased products. The money from those purchases constitutes our democratic voting process.
If you want Change, keep it in your pocket. You don't have to isolate yourself from the herd, and in fact doing so is less effective than staying in the herd and spreading the consciousness that consumerism is killing the future. Nobody is going to listen to a nut job on an island, but they will listen to Warren Buffet when he buys a used car instead of a new one and lives in a modest home when he doesn't have to. They will listen to a neighbor who always seems content with life more than one fighting for a rung on a ladder.
The next step is turning the herd completely around, to where the goal of humans is to contribute to the natural world rather than extract from it.

The crux of the problem is that Consumerism is THE religious basis for our civilization. Capitalism could still take place based on generosity to nature instead of extraction, but the opposite end of the labor/owner dichotomy would benefit.

Imagine a company where the CEO's job is to serve the employees' needs in order to get their work done tending a world for the sake of their children. The highest profit would be a permaculture type of place in the world where individuals are free to pursue useful interests, rather than trying to kill each other for the last dried bean.

What a concept, eh?

Ideologically, it sounds impossible, but logically, we have all of the tools and systems in place. We just don't have the awareness or the will because people have been kept living in the dark for so long. Many need a kick in the pants, but most just need a flashlight to find their own keys. The desire for a private island is just another tool used to get people to work harder for a weekend off (or a retirement doing anything but what they are trained for).

Dan C.
Belgium, WI






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