Wonder

Once upon a time there was a world where school kids practiced hiding from atomic bombs by ducking under school desks, where milk was delivered on the front doorstep in glass bottles that were returned and refilled, where there were suspicions and rumors of sneak attacks and global destruction. When the neighbors had bomb shelters in the back yard. When even the most learned said things like "I don't know the weapons with which we will fight world war 3, but world war 4 will be fought with sticks and stones."

I grew up in those times I remember Ike and the military industrial complex,  and Khruschchev pounding his shoe, I remember sputnik, and the bay of pigs, the fear and the joy of youth and the wonder of an amazing future, JFK, John Glenn, LBJ, Birmingham on fire, MLK at the national mall, the Beatles and comic book super heroes. Where there was motivation and competition, where there was learning, discussion and dissent. Where there was a time of enlightenment and first discovery. I remember fear and awe at my personal discovery that we, mankind, could fly to the moon and back, and in the span it took for the trip, we could destroy the entirety of civilization.

The grand hypocrisy of it that is humanity - I had a naive hope that the world would awake one day and the contradictions and strife would lift. I dreamed that there would be a super hero, a Bodhisattva, a Saint, or even a benevolent arrival from space to unify the globe and bring on mundi pacem.... so I wait ... no folk tale finish, no novel awakening, yet!,
 Just the progression of growing world commerce, Mc Donalds, Disney, Exxon-Mobil, Wal-Mart, Dow Chemical, the information age, and a new awakening of national independence movements across the globe. Perhaps global financial interdependence, and instantaneous personal global communications are bringing about a new transformation of humanity. What will it look like when global corporations are the defacto ruling global force? When no one can hide from the scrutiny of automatic surveillance and consumer tracking and identity verification. Will the similarity and homogenization that global commerce are causing erase the differences and awaken a world consciousness or will the haves and have nots battle for the last scraps of this worlds resources, or could there be worse evil than the imaginings of George Orwell or HG Wells?

I wonder at what the next chapter of the book looks like and each day an new page is revealed!

 

Independence

Everyone knows what independence is or do we? I have been thinking for a very long time about somehow creating a way to survive comfortably with out need of the grocery store or the gas station, a way to be more self reliant. Somehow the initial investment is always beyond my means... I think I know why, subsidies! I am now aware of why independence is so expensive. Not in terms of nations or communities but personal independence, or self sufficiency. Each of us subsidizes the continuation of our dependance.

It is easy to exploit others to get the raw materials and finished products in trade for those things others see from you that they hold as valuable. The inequality of the relationship builds dependance and promotes the continuance of the inequality. This unequal relationship works to greater advantage when starvation and squalor are the conditions experienced by the exploited. The exploited look to the privileged and see some glorious future promised by hard work but never achieve much more than subsistence. I see a deep moral problem with the idea that we want to "spend less to get more" from our fellows.......slavery is alive and well in the 21st century.

Are the international corporations the emperors of the new age?

What if having our basic needs for food, shelter, and medicine, were the minimum expected compensation for our labors, and some moderate level of comfort beyond that was all we were to expect from our contributions beyond our needs to our community? Would this stifle development or destroy our competitive nature? What if morally society frowned on extravagant excesses, mass greed, and misuse or abuse of resources?
What if to achieve that moderate level of comfort we were able to trade a share of our works in an open trading system where barter and worth were gauged by others needs not others greed? Is the American middle class the gauge for a moderate level of comfort on a global scale?
Would the idea of self reliance be more achievable, or a necessity? How about applying this concept to a community? Would a society based on an equitable negotiated trade model be possible after global capitalism, or are we really simply greedy and self serving by nature? Is our consumer society inevitably going to have greed, sloth, and deceit as the pinnacle of the capitalist ideal? Could there be a repeat of the dark ages where the global consumer economy we are dependent upon falters?
 
 I was once told about societies that had a taboo against "gathering to ones self in excess", and others who gained status by the ability to give away more than others as a practice....
There has to be some method to balance needs, personal comfort, and social position.......
No one has found the ideological path to utopia as far as I can tell....but the questions are still intriguing.

 How can society today, change behavior enough to achieve more local economic stability and independence?

We live on a big blue marble and as far as I can tell what we have here is all that there is unless we figure out how to travel the stars.. So how can we continue to grow - grow populations -grow economies - grow production, at some point we run out of planet! We run out of resources or we run out of room.....any way you look at it humanity has a limit on our growth either some time in our future or more quickly than any of us would imagine. Why do we ignore it?

 For a shorter term, more attainable personal goal -
 What little steps could I take to become more self reliant and less dependent.......?
 A garden.
 A horse,
 A field of grass,
A hammer and a saw,
Knowledge of gardening, animal husbandry, construction techniques, logic, common sense, and an ability to learn and adapt.....

Is that enough? oh I forgot - a big bag of $100.00 bills!


 But why are we not doing these things? What changed that we have run to the shelter of "modern living" inside the shell of society, technology, and metropolis? Most people today never learn to sew on a button how could they tailor a suit of clothes? Could you tan an animal hide, or build a barn, or train a horse, how about ride on one..... or find food plants or know medicinal plants? Have you ever gone out to hunt game animals....How about plucking a chicken? Or dressing a squirrel? There are a lot of modern hunters out there but do they prepare the kill or take it to the butcher shop? Most would do the latter I would bet.....
 I find it sad that if the present delivery systems were to fail to deliver the goods to the supermarket that so many people would suffer and if the calamity lasted for too long that suffering would turn to things far worse.

Survival is a learned skill of necessity, Subsistence is a way to meet bare needs, Self sufficiency is a level beyond bare subsistence where comfort and some leisure are attainable by design, through knowledge and technique. Oh and of course hard work! As in Aesop's fable about the ant and the grasshopper, there is little time to waste and everyone must look to the future.       

 It would be a true community service to work to insure that we maintain a level of understanding in our community and our homes that would allow for self sufficiency. By setting up a series of programs, clinics, demonstrations and workshops to promote the knowledge and practice which will help support a home independence movement. By changing attitudes at home perhaps the ideal can grow to the community and then the idea of independence can grow into a re-invigoration of the meaning and importance of true Independence for the Nation!