From One Activist to Another: Don't Protest, Build Back! Change the Rules by Changing the Game!
"Calmed and centred with all this yoga and meditation, it’s time to take the next step. The time for action is now. Let’s get up off our mats and unfurl those banners. And once more unto the breach."
I read this article today, the above is how it ended. Here is my alternative ending.
Or better yet, rather than repeating ineffective strategies, (protesting, though it still has a role, albeit a smaller one) let's take back the power by providing our own means to thrive!
Food corporations can't have any control over us if we team up with our neighbors and communities to grow our own food! Forget about protesting Monsanto and Bayer, make them obsolete.
Water companies can't have any power over us if we catch and filter our own rainwater (and while we're at it, let's create greywater systems to recycle our used water to grow our food) divert storm drains (that overburden water treatment plants) to grow food to share with our neighbors!
Our education system can't routinely fail to enliven our new generations if we partner up with our neighborhoods and share the responsibility and opportunity to raise conscious, active, free-range children! Children that will help transform the world, because they haven't been told that they won't be good enough by our current educational system.
In fact, while we're at it, let's start sharing all our resources with our neighbors, so we don't have to buy(waste/consume) as much. Instead of everyone in the neighborhood owning a lawnmower, why not share one (in fact, why not get rid of the lawnmower altogether and grow food instead, I have found that we spend an obscene amount of time doing unnecessary chores) If we do this enough we'll find we don't have to contribute to this system anymore, a system that lives and feeds off our 'productive' inputs. Work less, live more. By our acts of being free, will we 'protest' the current paradigm. Protest, by non-participation. Presently it's like we're playing monopoly against the banker, the game is rigged, we'll never "take it down from the inside", the only way to win, is to start playing a new game!
You know an effective way to fight a beast a billion times larger than ourselves (ironically it is ourselves), is not to go at it banners up, head to head, fists clenched; but to starve it out. Shrugging off our dependence of this system we can't support or sustain anymore, is the surest way we will make evolutionary change. We have routinely made the false indecision to trust our "leaders" to make the change we wished to see; the time has come to take ownership and make that transition ourselves. For our leaders aren't even strong enough to fight the system, because they rely on it more than we do! (Most, if not all, revolutions in history replaced one leader with another; it's not a time to fight, that has been tried too many times before, only to lose the best of us...)
So go ahead, let's knock on our neighbors doors, say hello and see what we can do to help each other; play together to build the world that can replace our current one. Don't spend our energy fighting a dying system, let's use that precious resource to build/create our future! (Though we can still protest effectively as a hobby, just for fun :) )
Rieki
Awesome post. You should watch or read something from Osho. What you described above it's really similar with his "communes".
Thank you. I've read some of his articles, none of his books though. Part of my philosophy involves re-creating intentional communities (in only a few aspects like a commune). I feel we can learn a lot of the mistakes and victories of the 60's movements (to include Osho) and apply them today in our own communities. I call these intentional communities 'Our Neighbourgood's'! Which is essentially a framework for human interaction and governance on a intentional community scale to better and more beautifully meet our needs. I foresee it being one alternative to the dominant paradigm we are in today and it's what I'm focused on designing :)
True change will come until people do as you are suggesting here. We are slowly turning our yard into a garden to ensure that we aren't eating poisoned food and contributing to the Monsanto/Bayer agribusiness complex.
Awesome :) Thank you for helping make the world a more beautiful place! I actually shared a post on my garden today "Grow Food not Lawns"! I became a gardener first out of necessity but that quickly grew into a passion. I never would have seen myself growing food 6 years ago :) Have you ever heard of 'Permaculture'?
Definitely like the idea of starbing the beast. Lets not forget, every item you can grow, reuse, or not buy at all starves them of tax money.
Haha exactly my thoughts here How to Save Money On Taxes.
Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Recycle ;)
This is an interesting point of view. Do you think we have enough on the planet to sustain the population without the use of everything they treat the food with now?
Absolutely! Even more so! I live in Bali with a population of 673 people per sq/km. The island can sustain itself just with the food it grows. I did the math and we can support 42 billion people on the livable land on the earth with that population density.
Further organic (this isn't even biodynamic which does even better) farming outperforms conventional farming.