permaculture

[Juergen Botz <jurgen@botz.org>]

Dieter Brand wrote:
> > > How did people change from being makers of things to "consumers?"
> > When our civilization was taken over by an alien species of producers,
>    
>   Yes, yes, its always the fault of the others, the aliens. Timeworn recipe
>   for finding scapegoats with others, other people, other races. Just too 
>   convenient, since it releases us of the need to look for the real problem
>   which, more often then not, is much closer to home. 

I know... "we have met the enemy, and he is us."  After all,
corporations today are as much part of us as civilization itself,
right?  But then, so are the parasites and diseases that co-
evolved with us... yet at the same time they are aliens who 
can cost us our health and life.  I'm not trying to disclaim 
human responsibility... it's up to us to stop the alien menace.  
But to do that we have to recognize it for what it is.  

Besides, my statement was factual.  Until the corporations 
began to dominate the economic system, >90% of all production 
was by human individuals.  And more importantly, most human 
individuals had the basic knowledge to produce the essentials 
of their life or at least of what those things actually were
and how they were made.  How many people today know even 
something as simple as what soap is?  Every supermarket has
at least two entire iles full of minor variations of this one
product, sold at a wide range of prices to individuals who 
have no clue that it's all the same thing.

Everything that is wrong in the world today has it's basis in an
economic system that considers ever increasing production as the
primary good, and that system is 99% controlled by the corporations.
It isn't that pre-corporations we didn't already have the beginnings
of the same problems or that humans were more enlightened.  But
today the situation is as I describe it, and the corporations are
the power that is perpetuating it and fighting against any change.

>   The bad corporations don't make anything you don't want to buy.

Oh yes, they do.  Much of commerce (especially retail) long ago 
stopped being about supplying demand and became all about CREATING 
demand.  They call that marketing, but I call it lying and 
brainwashing.

:j