Archive for the ‘Anarchy Journal Constitutional’ Category

There are so many things in life that we just don’t think about.

So many physical things that exist that we don’t think about. So many phrases in our language that we don’t think about.

Cost of Living.

The term implies that we don’t deserve to live. We don’t deserve to be alive. So much for the pro-choice crowd. Once the fetus is born, its on its own.

Self help gurus and the toxic positivity crowd like to talk about what a statistical miracle it is to be alive. Good for content, great for someone whose doing well in life to feel even better about themselves. That concept smacks into a brick wall of the externally, measurable, physical reality of any capitalist controlled civilization.

The paramedic will save your life and tell you that it was a miracle, then the clerk sends you a bill that puts you into medical bankruptcy. The politician tells you it’s a miracle to be alive in the richest country in the history of the world, then votes against universal healthcare.

Cost of living. Trade ⅔ of your life in the service of being to survive the other ⅓ while you’re not working. Five days on for two days off. Fifty weeks on for two weeks off. If you’re a worker with a white collar maybe. What is a weekend? What is a holiday? Sick days? Suck it up and turn your gear on the machine plebe.

Cost of living. You mean the mental and emotional toll that simply existing, maintaining sanity and decorum takes on us? You mean the unanswerable questions about existence? What is consciousness? What happens when we die?

The consequences of the body decaying as we get older as the positive alternative to dying young? The feeling of being alone in rooms full of strangers? Wondering if anyone will ever really get us? Not knowing who we can actually trust? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why does absolute power corrupt absolutely? What does living up to my potential mean? Are we alone in the universe? Isn’t there a risk of dying at any moment? That cost of living?

No, not the immaterial cost of living. The other one. The material cost of living. The one that says if you don’t trade your time for money often enough, for enough quantity, you’ll be left to die of dehydration and starvation on the streets. That cost of living.

Why does it seem like climate change is only getting worse?

Why do the institutions, organizations, and countries that can have the greatest impact only pay lip service to combatting climate change?

Why is that even regular everyday people who aren’t skeptics seem apathetic to the prospects of positively reversing climate change?

Capitalism.

Profit motive > anything & everything

Until the many are able to unite against the few, things are only moving in one direction.

Getting people to understand that countries and cultures that are completely identified with capitalism are not going to change positively because the changes required to change would require a temporary loss in profits in large amounts for large quantities of current beneficiaries of the capitalist system.

And we know how we human can justify doing the wrong thing if it benefits us. Every human being has done it at some point in their life. An action either on purpose or on accident that negatively impacts another person or thing. But we believe we’re a good person, we didn’t mean it, we deserve better, etc.

Just scale that up to that of communities, countries, civilizations and corporations.

An aspect of human nature that works in our favor on tackling climate change is the inner drive humans have to help each other. You see it all the time when disaster strikes. There are always helpers. People helping people.

There is no benefit to losing faith in humanity. There are enough of us who want to help each other on a mass scale by helping the planet. There are enough people on the wrong side of capitalist policies to unite and drive change forward. That is where my hope lays.

I am regularly around people not from America. I enjoy it. I enjoy different perspectives and experiences and perceptions and opinions.

One of my favorite things about regularly being around foreigners is their reactions when they see American political advertising aka campaign commercials. Which is common because election season in America never ends now, since it’s a set it and forget it emotional trigger and decisiveness tool for the unwashed masses.

After they see one or two…dozen…political ads in an hour, they’ll inevitably start asking the people around them what they think of politics, what they think of democracy, what they are thinking about the upcoming election, etc.

If/when they ask me, my answer is a sloppy version of the following; American politics is theater for the capitalist oligarchy and the military industrial complex to give the masses the illusion of choice, control and influence.

If I’m talking to a European, they quickly understand what I’m talking about. If it’s an Australian or South American, there is usually an explanation of what an oligarchy is and that the MIC is and how they are the shadow authoritarian government and have been for a minimum of half a century.

Any doubt or skepticism towards that can be directed towards the 2008 bank bailouts, 2020 TARP bailouts, the volume of assassinations of anti-war organizers in the 1960s, and of course the never ending wars we have never ending money for while homelessness and wealth inequality reach all time highs in the richest country in the history of the planet.

I remember in the 90’s when Jessie Ventura became governor of Minnesota as an independent. When asked why he was an independent he said that the only difference between a democrat and a republican is the speed at which their knees hit the ground when their donors walk into the room.

Those who would say that America is a democracy and isn’t a corporate captured, authoritarian state; would also openly admit how corrupt Washington is. They would call me a conspiracy theorist, and then complain about how nothing ever seems to get done in Washington. Drain the swamp! But we live in a direct democracy. What does duopoly mean anyways?!

As long as we’re blaming the rank and file voters of the opposite party, obsessing over pronouns, or thinking an ex billionaire game show host is to blame for all of our problems, then we certainly won’t have the mental capacity to comprehend the people who control the currency, the land, the bombs and the resources are the ones controlling the government and that the combination of the two controls our lives.

Because then we would have to admit that we aren’t free, we own nothing, we have no rights. And I know from repeated experience, that ignorance…is…bliss.

When one has little to no life experience in the “real” world, that of the world outside of high school and home life; climate change seems like a no brainer issue. We know what’s wrong. We know what’s causing it. So let’s fix it. Or at least do something of substance about it.

One only needs to spend a minimal amount of time working in first world, developed nations to understand why little to anything gets done about climate change that isn’t performative at best.

The foundation of all developed countries is that of waste and pollution. Capitalism in the late stage form we’re currently living in, demands infinite growth with finite resources. Throw out your old thing and buy this new thing, for every thing, for every one, ever, forever.

There is so much pollution that even the most ardent activists can’t comprehend and would prefer to not think about, for the sake of being able to sleep or have relationships.

That is the scale of the problem. Not that it’s inconceivable, but it is so vast that a human being with emotions and a soul can’t handle taking in a full account of the negatives vs the positives.

How many cargo ships sink, spill, or lose their cargo in the ocean every year? How many of those ships are moving across the ocean every day? Even the ones that don’t spill anything, which is beyond commonplace, how much oil is polluting the ocean just in day to day business?

Now include airplanes. Now include cars. Now buses. Now boats. Now cargo trucks. Now private jets. We haven’t even gotten to non recyclable plastic or styrofoam yet.

We can change all of this. But not you and me. Sorry, too much wealth inequality. This change has to come at the top. Capitalism is the cancer killing the planet. To deny that is to deny the law of gravity. We at the bottom certainly can’t give up, we know that in our bones. But what we also need to know, admit aloud, and talk about publicly is that the narrative of personal responsibility in combating climate change only need apply to those who pull the levers of capitalism. Not our neighbors driving an SUV or using plastic bags at the grocery store.

“They got money for war, but can’t feed the poor” Tupac Shakur

Anytime I mention the >$845 billion annual budget for the Military Industrial Complex I am always greeted by either confusion, deflection or anger.

Anger is the one that gives me that kind of self mutilating joy. Such sadness and disappointment at my fellow human that they feel the need to take up verbal defense of an entity that literally has more money than any other entity on Earth…for “defense”

What’s worse than an exploited worker in false class solidarity with billionaires? Military Industrial Complex bootlickers.

It’s not their fault. America is the most propagandized country in the history of the world and it’s not even close. Germany? North Korea? Wake up.

Have you looked at a screen ever? What is advertising? What are commercials? Who owns the news? Who owns the media? And why? Exactly.

It’s in our nature to think we’re the good guys. We’ll already justify our own actions to ourselves regardless of their external effects unless we suffer immediate negative repercussions.

You take that part of our nature and subject us to a literal non stop, inescapable propaganda machine in every home, public space, purse, and pocket and how can the masses in America not have the consciousness be corporate captured?

We know in our hearts poverty shouldn’t exist in the world with so much wealth. But what our eyes see and our ears hear, our mind believes. And those two senses are under a never ending attack of seduction by entities that want us to live like donkeys chasing the carrot to avoid the stick.

And if we’re too buys mentally, verbally, and physically fighting each other or buying things or working ourselves to the bone to avoid poverty, then we certainly can’t unite for the greater good of the 99%.