The End of the age of Materialism

 The first three words of ECOnomy are ECO (Jim Bell). That's the central truth we all need to remember. Sustainable is not some hippy dippy feel good idea, it's the key to our survival. Just like any individual, the economies of the world have to live on the budget of what the earth will sustain.

The economies of America and the world are based on fantasy and denial. Whether the societies are capitalist, socialist, communist or whatever, ultimately they are all materialists.

There's only so long the illusion that we can loot and pollute the earth without any consequences can be maintained.
Resources are not infinite,
the ability of the environment to absorb poisons of various sorts without serious consequences to our own health and well being has been reached, including electromagnetic pollution, not to mention various other manifestations of fantasy thinking, such as GMOs and fracking.

We are living in what could be called The Age of Pollution, or perhaps the Age of the Two Experiments, biological and electro-magnetic.
1) The Biological pollution experiment-Starting with the beginning of factories, toxins were spewed out in all directions. Now there are toxic chemicals in almost every product on the market today, especially widespread use of poisons to grow food. That has gone into overdrive with the sudden shift into GMO usage, basically using the whole world as a testing lab, and the people in it as guinea pigs.
2) The Electromagnetic pollution experiment-living organisms, indeed the earth itself, are electromagnetic beings just as much as we are flesh and bone. Starting with the widespread introduction of electricity, power lines everywhere,  now going into overdrive with computers, wifi, cellphones, cellphone towers. and all the rest of the electronics that modern life seems to revolve around, ubiquitous everywhere one goes, there is another worldwide experiment going on, an experiment in which the effects of all these devices are impacting every living being on the planet.
These are two big experiments.

We can no longer base our economies on the production and consumption of material goods. Particularly odious and destructive are disposability, and the conspicuous consumption and massive waste seen especially in the US and other wealthy countries.
Voluntary Simplicity and efficiency are the order of the day, but what about jobs?

One thing no one talks about when asking where will people work is that- how much income someone needs is directly dependent on prices, especially housing and food, and this is very much a function of the equality or inequality of a society, the degree of exploitation imposed by the haves on the have-nots.

How many hours do you have to work to pay your rent? In the US in the 50s, one could push a broom for $1/hr and rent a room for $10/month. You could pay rent with 10 hours work per month. Now the ratio is a lot more brutal. Who sets those prices. How do the laws of a country affect that? It's not so simple.

The simplest things people could do would be to
1) go vegetarian, even vegan
2) get out of their cars and on to a bicycle, walk or public transit
3) stop buying stuff not really needed

Sounds great, but how safe are the roads for bicycles, how much public transit is there? Can people get where they need to go and do what they need to do? That takes a different infrastructure.
What happens to all the people out of jobs because people stop buying? My view is that most jobs are unnecessary, especially when one calculates in the subsidized waste and inefficiency and consumerism so rampant today. However, those jobs feel very necessary to the people working them. Is America suddenly going to go to a 15 hour workweek, so that there is work for everyone? Will prices come down to adjust? It's not so simple.

It's one thing when disasters happen in isolated instances, but if it happens on a large scale?
What happens when rising oceans force people, including businesses, to move somewhere else?
What happens when storms and fires destroy homes and businesses?
What happens when various disasters happen as a result of fracking and other insane practices.
Etc. (too many things to list all
Where will people get money, how will they live?

1 What we work at, what jobs the economy is based on, must inevitably change, because right now jobs produce a lot of poisons, and this is simply not sustainable. Already cancer rates have skyrocketed,  not to mention all sorts of other health problems that ultimately come down to a toxic environment. Not to mention global climate disruption, the oceans being fished out, loss of soil nutrition, ad infinitum.
2 The whole issue of wage and social inequality will make a huge difference in how much suffering this change entails
3 Voluntary simplicity and conscious consumption must be seen as the patriotic and socially useful choices they are, rather than as a bunch of granola munchers living weird lives.

How can we have good lives, doing useful and productive work that doesn't result in poisoning ourselves and the planet?
How do we transition as gracefully as possible to this new economic system?

The issue is not just the rich who own the companies and the governments and buy the laws. The issue is the attitude shared by so many people that, in effect, the earth is just something to eat. Translated, that means that if their job, which pays their rent and buys their food, if doing that job means toxic waste in a river, well, they just do it. Perhaps they would prefer not to, but they don't feel they have a choice. Truth be told, in many cases they may not apparently have much choice.
Many may not even think about it all.

So now we get into values and self esteem. So long as people peg their self esteem to how much they earn and spend, especially how much stuff they buy, well, big problem. This is especially true of men, who often have been taught that the way to prove how much of a man they are is spend, spend, spend.
And for women, they seem to like lots of nice things.

Does it make a difference how we live our personal material lives?
In an old article, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has been a real warrior for the environment, said that personal choices by a few wouldn't do much in the larger scheme of things, that laws were needed. Statistically speaking he is correct, however in metaphysical terms i think he's wrong. I think of the story about a mother who brought her child to Gandhi and said "please tell him to stop eating sugar". Gandhi said come back in two weeks. When they came back, Gandhi said "Stop eating sugar". The woman asked why they had to wait two weeks, Gandhi said, 2 weeks ago i had not stopped eating sugar.

Always carrying a shopping bag, coffee cup, portable plate and silverware, takeout container with you; being very conscious how much water runs when washing dishes, indeed starting with whether a dish really needs to be washed or not, these are small things, and let's face it, there are people who can waste in a week what we can save in a year, but... in metaphysics there is the principle of "if you take one step towards god, god takes ten steps towards you". It's really all a lesson in consciousness, consciousness in the everyday details of our lives as a spiritual practice.

Ultimately, what has created these problems is a lack of consciousness and self responsibility, what will solve them is consciousness and self responsibility on a global scale. i realize that's a lot to ask, but there it is.

Every spiritual teaching says find fulfillment within, don't look without. Ultimately i take the view that this whole massive crisis, this upheaval, is for the purposes of spiritual growth, of teaching consciousness, in the everyday details of our lives. In a lot of teachings, there is the view that we are spiritual beings having a material experience, and that all that falls shall rise again, that nothing is created or destroyed, just transformed, speaking on a spiritual and energetic level. None of which excuses or condones the rape of the earth by a society that is living unconsciously. Well, we are about to become a lot more conscious on a mass level, so see the silver lining, which is that, at the end of however long this next period of upheaval lasts, which could be hundreds of years, humanity will have evolved to a new level.

Label GMOs rap

I met a guy named Freedom at a health food store yesterday. He asked me to write a GMO song. What came out was a rap. Anybody who wants to use it in any way, go ahead, i don't need to get credited. Feel free to modify as needed

I AIN'T NO GUINEA PIG FOR GMO
Hell no/ i ain't no/ guinea pig for GMOs
Hell no/ they can't use me/ just to make their blood money


They'll sell me poison just to make a buck
When i get sick they don't give a fuck
They tell me that it's all been tested
Lying motherfuckers all ought to get arrested


Hell no/ i ain't no/ guinea pig for GMOs
Hell no/ they can't use me/ just to make their blood money


In Europe they won't eat that shit
Frankenfood's the name they give to it
They don't believe those corporate lies
It's time for Americans to get wise


Hell no/ i ain't no/ guinea pig for GMOs
Hell no/ they can't use me/ just to make their blood money


Americans can't trust no government agency
They work for the Man not for me
Big Business tells them what to do
Government agency just push it through


Hell no/ i ain't no/ guinea pig for GMOs
Hell no/ they can't use me/ just to make their blood money


They plant the seeds on Factory Farms
Seeds don't stay put they blow around
They fuck up the small farmer's crops
This shit ain't right it's gotta stop


Hell no/ i ain't no/ guinea pig for GMOs
Hell no/ they can't use me/ just to make their blood money


Monarch butterflies well they all are dying
Birds migrating gotta keep flying
All around the planet's hurting
This GMO shit just ain't working


Hell no/ i ain't no/ guinea pig for GMOs
Hell no/ they can't use me/ just to make their blood money


They always trying to sneak GMOs in
to every food we eat it's a sin
to put in GMOs that haven't been tested
enough to know if they should be ingested


Hell no/ i ain't no/ guinea pig for GMOs
Hell no/ they can't use me/ just to make their blood money


We say Label cause we got a right to know
what's in the food we eat Label GMOs
Label GMOs so we have a choice
Speak  up loud use your voice


Hell no/ i ain't no/ guinea pig for GMOs
Hell no/ they can't use me/ just to make their blood money


So speak up loud let them hear your voice
label GMOs so we have a choice
or better yet ban GMOs altogether
don't eat that poison you'll feel better


Hell no/ i ain't no/ guinea pig for GMOs
Hell no/ they can't use me/ just to make their blood money


Hell no/ i ain't no/ guinea pig for GMOs
Hell no/ they can't use me/ just to make their blood money

Tactics against GMOs

Suggestions

1 REVOKE Monsanto's corporate charter. Google "revoke corporate charter"

2 PETA has a lesson for every progressive movement in the world. They have gotten media time and attention, changed the behaviour and beliefs of a public that really didn't care, even gotten laws passed. How?
By using the two great laws of advertising;
1) Sex sells
2) celebrity sells, meaning people listen to what celebrities say

One bareass celebrity at a protest gets more attention than 100,000 signatures on a petition.
Naked women get attention.
We can take advantage of that, because i know there a lot of beautiful women against GMOs.

Imagine 1000 naked women in front of the White House chanting "No no GMO, GMO has got to go"!
This can be done anywhere, scaled to size. It works for PETA, it can work for us.

3 CELEBRITIES- movie stars, music stars, even porn stars. People pay attention to celebrities. We would do well to pay special attention to recruiting as many celebrities as possible, including on the local level, because there are tons of celebrities out there who feel strongly about GMOs, so let's give them a chance to help. If you are doing an event in your town, recruit the local celebrities, make sure to prominently include their names in the press releases you send out and the flyers you put up

4 CONCERTS Remember the Tibet concerts, farm aid, bangladest, the more recent events. It would be great if some big name like Neil Young (i'm dating myself) would front an event. Even on a local level, it can be your local band playing a benefit night at a bar, or your local folksinger playing a house concert in someone's living room

5 DESTROY DEMAND, by Sowing seeds of doubt in people's mind.

Men, are GMOs ruining your sexual performance?
Women, are GMOs spoiling your health and beauty.
Mothers, will GMOs cause your children health problems later in life.
The government says GMOs are safe. They said that about DDT.
The government says GMOs are safe. You trust your government, don't you?
How does it feel to be a guinea pig (for GMOs)
How does it feel to be a lab rat?
Hey, have you heard-Monsanto just won an award for Most Unethical Corporation in the world, mostly because of GMOs
Is it really worth using a product that will give you cancer, just to kill a few weeds (Roundup)

Don't lecture, just throw it out there. Even if you are a single mom going crazy with your kids, this is something you can do.

It would be great if ads like these made it into Sports Illustrated, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, but even if they don't, every person you ask these questions of, is one more person doubting GMOs, and if people stop buying, no more GMOs.

6 what if someone wrote a book called
"Are GMOs undermining your health", (or something like that), and then a website went up, http;//www.aregmosunderminingyourhealth.com. What if that book got advertised, not as a political ad, but purely as business, meaning the ads could not be refused. Just putting that title out is a message. It could go on flyers, or in the little classified ads in local papers, the type that cost $5-10, and all the ad would have to be is "New book, aregmosundermining your health.com"

7 PRESSURE BUSINESS
Corporate Social Responsibility is the technical name (google it) for a movement to pressure businesses into sustainable practices.
Especially now that Monsanto has been winning awards for Most Unethical Corporation in the World, it will be a lot easier to pressure food stores and hardware stores to stop carrying their products, and to make the deeper point about dangers of GMOs.
Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Costco, Ace Hardware, True Value Hardware.
Also,does anyone remember the grape boycotts, which were used on the behalf of farmworkers

8 LABELING Getting certain businesses to label foods without GMOs
Where i live, there is a chain of stores, mostly catering to average middle class people, called Trader Joe's. They already have labels on cheese that has no rBGH. Could they be gotten to label foods without GMOs, which would get people asking the question, what wrong with GMO? Certainly there is a worldwide movent to label all foods; getting some big chains with the program would be a big impetus. If anybody says why bother, response is "people have a RIGHT TO KNOW"

9 DIVEST
during the anti apartheid movement, a major tactic was pressuring large institutions, especially large public institutions, to divest themselves of stock and investments in South Africa. Can this be started with Monsanto, later turned to all GMOs?

10 TWO GROUP NAMES that sound especially powerful to my ear are
MOTHERS against GMOs
STUDENTS against GMOs
If these groups don't already exist, it's time they did

11 CONFLATE Monsanto=moral leprosy=GMOs
monsanto has now been named Least Ethical Company in the world.
If we can, in the public mind, equate monsanto with GMOs with sliminess, Monsanto can be used as a poster child.
This is not strictly logically correct, but is a tactic that has been used to win a lot of elections. 1988 comes to mind, when George Bush I successfully equated Mike Dukakis with Willie Horton.

This is all about how you present the statement. i don't have a clear suggestion for wording how the issue is framed, and it's hugely important. Google the work of George Lakoff at the Rockridge Institute to see how important

12 TWITTER
this might go with Conflate. Twitter to everyone you know the news about Monsanto's #1 Award. Especially if we can get some people with big followings to retweet, it could go viral, destroying GMO credibility almost overnight, if we can link Monsanto=GMO=Moral leprosy.
Later on, keep twittering about the latest atrocities.

13 NETWORK with ALLIES
It seems to me that every environmental group in the world is a natural ally. Every progressive political organization. Every left wing church, like the Unitarians and Religious Science. Even mainstream churches, if they thought about it, might get riled up if asked
"Do you think it's right for man to play god?"
"Do you think it's right to interfere with God's handiwork"?

Certainly, many of us are horrified at anti abortion, anti Gay, anti immigrant groups, but there is an old saying "my enemy's enemy is my friend", and if anyone is against GMOs i say Amen, brother, and let's agree to disagree on the other stuff.