The Cult of Ignorance and America's Worship of Stupidity (part II)

In the next few weeks a "new" Congress will convene. This one will be solidly Rethuglican. The same people who use the phrase "shoved down our throats" for any action taken by government want to shove their beliefs and ideas down our throats, but couch everything they are doing in the same rhetoric. "Lower taxes, getting government out of our lives and did I say cutting taxes?" Privatization of any services once provided by government has been their mantra for decades. Recent phenomenal strides toward stupidity have been advocated and passed by the fundamentalist contingent of our nation included such memorable things as banning scientists from presenting their findings before Congress, making it a crime to speak out in ways that can hinder the potential future businesses that corporations could make. I have been in on the ground floor of several businesses that lacked those sorts of protections.

The Earth Cycle, echoes in the analemma.

When I had a silk screen print shop in my home only printing on U.S grown, organically grown cotton clothing with non-toxic inks, the state of Texas made it illegal to grow cotton organically, putting my supplier out of business for a time. Not able to stay true to my goal of 100% ethical clothing, I lost hundreds of thousands of potential sales because of government interference. The cult of ignorance that spawned the law in Texas that crippled my business was based on the fiction that growing organic cotton would create refuges in which the boll weevil would thrive and launch attacks into neighboring fields. In fact, growing cotton organically required healthier than average conditions to prevent sick plants from becoming boll weevil magnets, but that truth was ignored completely in favor of business as usual. Because the majority want to remain ignorant and not change the way they make their living, the advocates of positive change that protects water quality, human health and ecological integrity were handed a massive bill for court actions that attempted to protect their rights to farm as their conscience led them to do and to crush the market for organic fabric grown in our country in favor of foreign produced material from places where slave labor is still legal.

The last twenty years have seen a rapid rise of information becoming available to people who are ill-equipped to handle the new potential. With no filter for the lies perpetrated on the internet, there are those who post fiction and utterly unimportant information here and as the general public spends more and more time sifting through content, they find less and less useful information more and more easily. This is the "new" intellectual territory. I have seen a proliferation of Pablam on the web. Material unfit to be read, my time reading it never to be gotten back. I do not want to post anything if I cannot instill a sense of action. Even activating our own aura, taking up a cause, or utilizing our awareness and action to synchronize with our souls can yield more than any other law or policy could ever do. This revolution can never be televised, because it threatens the threadbare fabric of our modern royals and their supporting culture of hostility and anger, power and control issues, addiction to fossil energy, etc. The revolution thatr is not being televised is the actual LOVE revolution. Humanizing our environment is based in love and flows from love. No room for hate and valid assumptions about our role in ecological transformation is based on absolute abundance, nothing short of that can carry us through troubling times.

The welfare whores that we support with this regime in power are about to fall and for them, it will be harsh, but for those of us who are learning to live on nothing, those of us who consume the least, will be insulated from the coming crash in amazing ways. The value of oil may continue to plummet as we make the switch to electric cars, jumping through one of the hoops of physics by utilizing motors that are over ninety percent efficient and making motors that run on liquid fuels obsolete. But hey, "Drill baby drill!" sounded good. I will bet that for a few more years now, the commercials will still feature giant trucks and SUVs, but ultimately, the market will demand quiet running clean electrics because the revolution is blossoming at such a rapid rate. The message has been the same forever. Whoever adapts to changing conditions first, will reap the biggest reward. In sustainable systems across the globe, extracting the largest number of tiny adaptations will have the greatest chance of survival. Diversity is not possible in the current system because every tentacle of extraction of resources is rotten to the core and oppressive. The new economy will sanctify a whole different sort of diversity, creating zero waste and throughput of energy, of resources and of human capital.

I am willing to share a business plan with anyone who wants to create a local business that truly serves a need in their community. I just don't have time to implement it. Looking for a job? Nothing you've found so far making you happy? Try something different. I hate the catch phrase "Follow you bliss.", but there is great truth to it if you follow it out logically. An internet troll assailed the philosophy, that I have the right to earn an honest wage for doing something I love. On the basis of a warped understanding of supply and demand. He said that if I actually loved my job, I would be willing to do it for sub poverty wages. He called it a "joy tax". I countered with the question. "Would you rather have a hamburger made by a chef who loved it into being (think how much it would be "worth"), or one slapped on the grill by someone who hated their "job" so much that they occasionally spit into the burger?" The employer has a choice between having a wage slave who has no other options or someone who truly wants to be there. The skills brought to any job deserve to earn the worker a living wage. Avoiding the responsibilities of "employer", by working folks only part time, minimum hours, and not supporting your workers with an honest living wage continue to be the biggest corporate welfare system ever devised and as long as we allow the media and their backers to avoid this fact, the more families will be hurt, the more we will face this dumbing down crisis and the longer the cult of ignorance will reign.

Moving On!

Protesters Protect Green Space in Istanbul

Like here, in the USA, people have a special connection to green spaces, especially when those areas are surrounded by built up space. In the United States of America, we have taken down nearly 100% of the native forests and destroyed the ecosystem that covered the great plains, but to the uncritical eye, these agricultural lands appear to be vast swaths of green space. In spite of the fact that we do have trees covering much of the cut over area that native forests once inhabited, what has been planted to replace the original forests is nothing like what had adapted to the sites originally. I have walked miles in stands that were mono-cultures, cut out trees that were planted in straight rows, way too close together and seen areas that looked green, but were actually ecologically problematic.

The good thing about the throngs of people defending green space in Istanbul is that they have been willing to stand for what really matters to most urban dwellers, a last vestige of nature, blossoming up out of the urban landscape. In many ways, urban green space is more likely to contain a mix of trees, a variety of bushes and flowering plants. Especially this specific area, one that had been reclaimed from a developed state in the 1930s. Building back a green space after previous development has become dilapidated on the site is especially important to city dwellers. It reflects hope amongst a host of problems that can come from urbanization. Now, the government wants to step in and bulldoze the trees. The good people of Istanbul are speaking their truth to power.

The last thing most city dwellers will agree on is that the last thing they need is another commercial space, especially if it is to be built in the style of the last great era. for one thing, that is what fell down around itself from neglect before the park came into being. The elders, who remember the way things were and have found new ways of being do not wish to be reminded of the old days that can never return, rather they need a thriving cultural landscape that includes places to picnic, enjoy their families and to just breathe a bit of relatively fresh air and get out in the sun. Anyone who has spent much time in NYC (New York City) knows that the concrete and steel canyons that daily life is lived within make Central Park even more delicious to all the senses. Experiencing the shade of a tree and feeling the dappled light caressing one's face stands in stark contrast to feeling the harsh lines of shade created by the edges of buildings. Experiencing a single tulip blossom, hearing songbirds or the scent of lilac can have as much power to rejuvenate as a good meal and a nights rest. City dwellers need open space even more than those of us who are on the edge of town. Even country dwellers need a bit of untamed space in which to rejuvenate, but relativity is always in play when speaking of perspective.

The rural population may feel like they are surrounded by green space, however the "development" that they are witness to is far more subtle than a concrete block building. It is hard to get upset about bulldozing a field of scrubby brush or the field of stumps that results from clear cutting the trees. They make specially designed machines that can cut and grade a road right through the woods and the folks who run them are often oblivious to what they are destroying. Folks at the border between city and country often see the flush of new building and are loathe to stop it because on the one hand, all the new building is just giving others the same chance to enjoy their piece of the country that they have recently claimed. On the other hand, who would not want a grocery store, nail salon, convenience store, gas station or bodega just around the corner? Commerce has certain costs and we all want to buy, right? Well, no. Many of us want to have time to develop real relationships, find one another enjoying life and experiencing a bit of nature in spite of the fact that we will go back to work tomorrow.

Urbanites not only deserve, but require the healing properties provided by nature. I stand with any group or individual who stands against obliterating green space in favor of commercialism. No matter what the oligarchs decide to foist upon us, we will stand in favor of civil society, not the exploitative kind that they oversee. Frequently we find that the powers that be are always willing to pave paradise and put up a parking lot, as Joni Mitchell sang so eloquently. It is time for the people to lead and the wealthy and powerful interests (elites) that just want to pick our pockets, collect their corporate welfare and exist on the largess of taxpayers to sit down, shut up and put their collective noses in the corner. It is past time to say that we will not play their games anymore.EURONEWS