I thought it would be difficult to live without corporate owned news sources reverberating in my consciousness. There was a part of my self-image that thought it was a good idea to keep "up to date" on the events and occurrences that were deemed important by major media outlets. Only one week into this moon of "no news" I am finding almost the diametric opposite is true. If an event rises to the level of national news coverage, or it is given the status of a global news story, the chances of either being able to do anything to change it or stop things like it from happenning in the future are likely zero. Additionally, the ability of the news to destabilize our own perceptual system will probably be off the charts.
A friend recently told me that we no longer think of violence in the way we were taught as children. "Your freedom ends where the other person's nose begins." was a nearly constant refrain in our house. however, we have allowed the corporate media to assure us that violence against the "right" people is not only justified, but is necessary and called for. Killing innocents, whether by drone, vigilante or cop can be "good for us" as a nation, a city or a community. I cry, "FOUL!" This is perhaps the biggest load of crap the American public, indeed the world community has been told over the centuries. I speak and write often about the fact that every life matters, right down to microbes and their predators. The intricate web of life exists even in our guts, providing as much as 60% of our immunity to disease, as some researchers have calculated. If a bacteria can matter, so too must all people. Demonizing anyone cannot fly in a world of peace and justice.
Another friend recently told me that in the area I want to retire to, on the shores of Lake Superior, to make it into the 1%, I would only need to make about $100,000 per year. Trying to get a handle on what life might be like, just five hours by car from here, Is as mind bending as E=MC2. Trying to paint the world with an ever larger brush, telling the public a bunch of gloom and doom claptrap has stifled real growth, change and adaptations that have been known to exist for generations. Instead, we continue our subsidization of fossil energy use, allowing the oligarchy to own Congress and the administration, and the educational system has become a give-away to corporations bent on dumbing down our students for money.
I have been able to spend an entire week not listening to talking heads spouting the corporate line. I know they are out there, trying to woo the faint of heart, but this revolution that I often speak about, the one that will never be televised needs us now, more than ever. I utilize solar energy and LOVE it! I grow a large percentage of my own food and I LOVE that! I routinely spend time with my neighbors sharing ideas and inspiration, working together on projects or appreciating the gifts which we receive and give away. How could you not love that? I have begun to think about developing an entire curriculum around and based on biochar. this, perhaps more than the lack of news has been picking up the slack in my mental and emotional life. As I am getting more clkear on who I am and what I have to offer, teaching others to become charmasters only makes sense.
The classes I teach will be designed to enlighten and train the next generation of folks who know that it is important to sequester carbon, before we kill off all life through climate change; who know that desertification has been the rule for decades already and that to rehabilitate and build soil means that we insulate ourselves from both deluge and drought. People who recognize that feeding the global population when it doubles will require land to be twice as fruitful, and who understand that char will solve all these issues and more. Add to that the fact that sitting around a campfire, sharing stories is fun, relatively cheap and is one of the activities our ancestors have done since the beginning of human time.
The "news" we get from media outlets is most often terrible, frightening, maddening, or some other assaultive version designed to make us get angry, sad, mad, hostile, fearful, hateful, and or isolated. Real life, with real people is the opposite. The real messages we get from friends and neighbors mean more than the tee vee ever will, because their aims are to keep us sequestered in front of their glowing light, fueled by fossil energy, believing what we are told. Perhaps the most important thing for anyone alive on earth to know is that there is hope and benefit to making peace, both with Mother Nature, humanity itself and with the many creatures we share this planet with.
I continue to run a write-in campaign for Congress with virtually no money, because it is the right thing to do. Someone who knows this stuff needs to be speaking for the rights of the people of Northeast Wisconsin to breathe clean air, drink pure water and to be guaranteed that our foods are not contaminated with unhealthy industrial pesticides, herbicides, therapeutic drugs or industrial wastes. The way to assure a more sustainable approach to decision-making is to be pragmatic about the costs associated with continuing to do the wrong thing. Making the 1% pay their fair share means change. Without making them pay their fair share toward government and the social good (rather than our demise) we assure anarchy. A political operative who is a hold-over from the Tea Party Revolution reminded me that unregulated industries, or those regulated by rules they in fact wrote is like the Wild, Wild West. It all depends on who you want living under anarchy, the 1% only, or all of us? Like the degrees of violence each of us are willing to tolerate, we act as if there is a sliding scale, that deems "other" life expendable, especially in far off lands, but even at home, we allow the public to be poisoned, or killed. Here in Wisconsin, we have increased the speed limit and killed many more people in traffic accidents. To what benefit? A few more moments? The bells toll for them...
A friend recently told me that we no longer think of violence in the way we were taught as children. "Your freedom ends where the other person's nose begins." was a nearly constant refrain in our house. however, we have allowed the corporate media to assure us that violence against the "right" people is not only justified, but is necessary and called for. Killing innocents, whether by drone, vigilante or cop can be "good for us" as a nation, a city or a community. I cry, "FOUL!" This is perhaps the biggest load of crap the American public, indeed the world community has been told over the centuries. I speak and write often about the fact that every life matters, right down to microbes and their predators. The intricate web of life exists even in our guts, providing as much as 60% of our immunity to disease, as some researchers have calculated. If a bacteria can matter, so too must all people. Demonizing anyone cannot fly in a world of peace and justice.
Another friend recently told me that in the area I want to retire to, on the shores of Lake Superior, to make it into the 1%, I would only need to make about $100,000 per year. Trying to get a handle on what life might be like, just five hours by car from here, Is as mind bending as E=MC2. Trying to paint the world with an ever larger brush, telling the public a bunch of gloom and doom claptrap has stifled real growth, change and adaptations that have been known to exist for generations. Instead, we continue our subsidization of fossil energy use, allowing the oligarchy to own Congress and the administration, and the educational system has become a give-away to corporations bent on dumbing down our students for money.
I have been able to spend an entire week not listening to talking heads spouting the corporate line. I know they are out there, trying to woo the faint of heart, but this revolution that I often speak about, the one that will never be televised needs us now, more than ever. I utilize solar energy and LOVE it! I grow a large percentage of my own food and I LOVE that! I routinely spend time with my neighbors sharing ideas and inspiration, working together on projects or appreciating the gifts which we receive and give away. How could you not love that? I have begun to think about developing an entire curriculum around and based on biochar. this, perhaps more than the lack of news has been picking up the slack in my mental and emotional life. As I am getting more clkear on who I am and what I have to offer, teaching others to become charmasters only makes sense.
The classes I teach will be designed to enlighten and train the next generation of folks who know that it is important to sequester carbon, before we kill off all life through climate change; who know that desertification has been the rule for decades already and that to rehabilitate and build soil means that we insulate ourselves from both deluge and drought. People who recognize that feeding the global population when it doubles will require land to be twice as fruitful, and who understand that char will solve all these issues and more. Add to that the fact that sitting around a campfire, sharing stories is fun, relatively cheap and is one of the activities our ancestors have done since the beginning of human time.
The "news" we get from media outlets is most often terrible, frightening, maddening, or some other assaultive version designed to make us get angry, sad, mad, hostile, fearful, hateful, and or isolated. Real life, with real people is the opposite. The real messages we get from friends and neighbors mean more than the tee vee ever will, because their aims are to keep us sequestered in front of their glowing light, fueled by fossil energy, believing what we are told. Perhaps the most important thing for anyone alive on earth to know is that there is hope and benefit to making peace, both with Mother Nature, humanity itself and with the many creatures we share this planet with.
I continue to run a write-in campaign for Congress with virtually no money, because it is the right thing to do. Someone who knows this stuff needs to be speaking for the rights of the people of Northeast Wisconsin to breathe clean air, drink pure water and to be guaranteed that our foods are not contaminated with unhealthy industrial pesticides, herbicides, therapeutic drugs or industrial wastes. The way to assure a more sustainable approach to decision-making is to be pragmatic about the costs associated with continuing to do the wrong thing. Making the 1% pay their fair share means change. Without making them pay their fair share toward government and the social good (rather than our demise) we assure anarchy. A political operative who is a hold-over from the Tea Party Revolution reminded me that unregulated industries, or those regulated by rules they in fact wrote is like the Wild, Wild West. It all depends on who you want living under anarchy, the 1% only, or all of us? Like the degrees of violence each of us are willing to tolerate, we act as if there is a sliding scale, that deems "other" life expendable, especially in far off lands, but even at home, we allow the public to be poisoned, or killed. Here in Wisconsin, we have increased the speed limit and killed many more people in traffic accidents. To what benefit? A few more moments? The bells toll for them...
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