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As an American citizen, I find that neither the Democratic or Republican parties say much of anything that resonates with me. Most of what they talk about are social issues they intend to do nothing about, as a means to divide us to more easily rule over us; otherwise most of what I hear is just Orwellian for whatever corporations, banks and big donors want, but don't want you to know or understand.
Politically, I'm an Anarchist. If you share the view of Anarchy of the Democratic and Republican parties, then you probably suppose I want chaos in the streets, mayhem, everyone against everyone else, death and destruction. But that is just projection, because that is what you are increasingly getting from the strict command and control leadership of Dems, Repubs, Corp, Bank and super rich people.
Anarchy is the Way of Nature. Anarchy is the way nature organizes, evolves effortlessly. Nature is resilient, irreducibly complex and sustainable. Humans at least are material, of nature, of the earth. It follows then there is the capacity within humanity for self-rule, spontaneous organization. I think you see that whenever there is a crisis, many people simply begin to organize a functioning society to meet simple necessities spontaneously.
Those who rule over us tend to believe however, either we are not of this earth (of God), so the rules of nature don't apply; or the opposite extreme, we are of nature and nothing else, it is all about competition, I can do pretty much whatever I want in the interest of my evolution (basest instincts). And so they feed us these ideologies that we might be separate from our true nature and each other.
If humanity were able to organize more as nature does, life would be more peaceful. An anarchic people would be self-organizing, core-strong, practicing self-rule. An anarchic people would value cooperation above competition. A truly anarchic people would take care of the earth and each other.
Organizing ourselves contrary to nature, we build immense, complex but inflexible societies one after another, every one of them collapsing under the weight of that complexity and inherent contradiction.
We now risk even human extinction, or worse, reducing the health of the biosphere such that we wipe out the majority of species and leave a severely degraded existence for a few wretched survivors.
Those who rule over us seek to divide us, by preying upon our prejudices, by exacerbating ancient hatreds, by encouraging us to percieve in absolute Good vs Evil, by highlighting petty grievances – while ignoring the overwhelming similarities between us, denying the systemic corruption that oppresses us all.
There are several tangible things we could do, that transcend race, ethnicity and political divisions, that would allow us to unlock the potential of individuals, strengthen communities, and make of America a true shining light and leader in the world.
1. Debt Relief
2. Redefine Currency
3. Land Policy
4. Rebuild Community
5. Shift in Consciousness
A simple list (the fifth one is a kind of summation of the four). Politically unimaginable in America, but the great thing about a Democratic party in a state of collapse, and a Republican party that doesn't know it is dead yet, it's a very creative time to imagine a different America.
1. Debt Relief
Don't you think that because money is so central to this society, that a study of economics would be central to a grade school education? Many American kids might be earning money by the time they are 15, yet the vast majority of American adults have no idea what the Dollar is, how it is created, or who owns it.
Why is that? Because an uninformed people are more easily made debt serfs.
Banks create money out of nothing, It is a slight of hand magic trick. They "loan" it into existence, as when they issue a mortgage, or they "buy" junk assets from distressed financial institutions and investors, usually for the full value, creating money and a corresponding and then-some amount of debt, or a claim on future production, ie interest. The money doesn't exist anywhere in reality: like some genie, say "poof", a cloud of smoke appears and suddenly it says right there on that piece of paper or computer, X amount of $'s exist – and everyone believes it.
Making money this way makes for a lot of debt. In fact, the debt can't do anything but increase exponentially over time. Thus, the Dollar is the greatest ponzi scheme ever created. Since 1980 debt has climbed relative to wages, and since 1970, considerably faster than GDP. Do you imagine these trends are sustainable indefinitely? Over time, more and more production, instead of re-invested into society, is consumed in the form of debt payments, until society breaks under the obligation.
There is a reckoning coming for the Dollar. Those who control the dollar imagine the whole world and all it's people indebted to it. But even total global domination doesn't prevent debt from growing out of control, eventually. Total global domination is not likely to happen, so the reckoning is likely coming sooner rather than later.
What would benefit regular people most, and the economy generally, would be debt relief. Growth in debt is inflation official bean counters ignore. Debt is eating away at purchasing power.
Debt Jubilee is a very old concept, mentioned in the Old Testament. A wiping away of debts, a kind of starting over, starting fresh. The ancients recognized runaway debt has a pernicious effect, causing great discord, and eventually, uprising against the creditors.
Those who own the majority of that debt are the richest among us. The most powerful among us. But it is also owned by pension accounts, IRA, 401K, retirement accounts of all kinds. There are a lot of people invested in that debt, maybe half the society, who are the "rentiers", people "letting their money work for them", which is also living off the production of the lesser half, or rather, most of the rest of the world.
The economy is swamped by debt, something has to be done or there will be ever greater discord.
2. Redefine Currency
The Dollar is the world's greatest ponzi scheme. It is an ever greater claim on future labor/production, which stagnates the economy, eventually collapsing the currency.
But it is not enough to wipe out the debt, if you just start over the same process of debt creation. The very nature of currency has to be judged. The dollar is like a mechanical hamster wheel that spins ever faster. Over time, regular people are expected to work more for less return. The product available to them becomes ever more shoddy, yet the price increases. The demands of the dollar and debt encourages wasteful, predatory and even parasistic and cannabalistic use of resources. Growth then amounts to more pollution, ever more garbage and a ruination of ecosystems. All talk about the sustainable is just that, as long as the core currency demands the unsustainable.
Imagine, instead of a debt- and waste-based currency, what about a regenerative one? Instead of propping up a leisure class, a currency that is generated by the very act of production, and ecological healing, empowering all?
For instance, I have been hiking around the Twin Cities this fall, marvelling at the abundance of Eurasian buckthorn. A non-native, berry producing shrub that grows to about 20 ft, it is a diuretic to mammals so deer and rabbit won't browse the saplings (while they do eat native berry producers.) Birds particularly robins, scatter the seed across the landscape, the seeds are efficient germinators, it grows in dense patches crowding and shading everything else out. It is most noticable in the late fall because the leaves remain green after most of the forest is barren because of the cold.
Now imagine Joe Schmo spends his day ripping out buckthorn saplings, and by the very act of that labor, he generates currency? Money appears in his account relative to his labor. No one pays him, the money is simply generated.
Joe and Jill Smith start an organic farm on former GMO industrial corn mining land. Simiarly, they generate money simply by the act of growing vegetables, by producing food. They can also sell product for cash to people like Joe Schmo, but otherwise their labor literally creates money.
Tyrese Jackson generates money by picking up and delivering produce from local organic farms to urban areas. Maria Gonzalez generates currency by feeding and taking care of those who can't take care of themselves.
Thereon, throughout all the menial, "chop wood, carry water" tasks of developed, civil society. Taking money creation away from centralized powers, and from those ambitious, ruthless types who strive to rule over us, giving money creation back to "we the people."
Central to this notion of a regenerative currency, would be about healing. Healing people and the earth. The act of healing and restoring ecosystems would generate currency. Healing, restoration and sustainability would be incentivized.
3. Land Policy:
Land policy, such as it is in America, favors monopoly control, by large corporations and banks, agribusiness on ever larger land holdings, and the treatment of most of the land including public and private, inherenty extractive and exploitative.
Nor are these monopolies held accountable for the pollution they release into the biosphere. This is an "externalized" cost acting as another kind of debt, to be paid by society, by sucker consumers.
A new currency as described would encourage and incentivize the expansion of wild lands, while facilitating the healthy production of food and necessary materials, while eliminating pollution. If monopolies were forced to pay for their pollution, none would exist.
The script would be flipped. Favoring individuals and small groups, preventing monopoly, destructive, extractive, predatory behavior.
The economics of the local would be paramount. Local, responsible, ethical, sustainable, restorative, generative; a people with a close connection, care and concern for the land will protect it.
4. Rebuild Community:
Favoring small producers, citizens and small business over monopoly would help restore community. By empowering individuals economically, in relation to the needs of local community, local community is made more resilient and sustainable, healthy. Whatever your skills are, there is a need, and if filling that need generates income automatically, it is empowering people to fulfill their destiny.
As it is, globalization has hollowed out rural American communities. It has removed income potential, chaining most to low wage service employment and social welfare programs, such that many have turned to meth, heroin and alcohol to "escape." Many escape to the cities, where the forces of predatory capitalism congregate. Agricultural land prices around small communities have been preverted by a combination of monetary policy, the revolving door between corp/bank/gov, and globalist trade rules, putting local land out of reach economically, leading to a sence of helplessness, disconection, depression and dispair.
There are many who would be restored spiritually, given the opportunity to thrive economically, restoring a sence of community and healing the land and waters around community.
Some communities can't be saved, others will rebuild, some might spring up where there was none.
The point is, if trends continue, the whole of the earth will be a rich mans play ground, a mostly destroyed, degraded, polluted, ecologically barren tennant farm and mining camp, if the vast majority are huddled into the cities to live a "virtual" existence. Strong communities are made of strong people with strong ties built with love, care and concern. Such a people are not so easily reduced to consumer, junkie debt serfs.
5. A Shift in Consciousness
We are now more than 7 billion people on planet earth. That is by definition, humanity "separated from nature." In a way too, it is humanity succumbing to the most brutal of all ecological rules, overpopulation in the precence of over-abundance; it happens with rabbits, reindeer and rats etc too. But it is also humanity assuming there will always be a technical sollution, or that God will save us, or aliens will…
The 'solution" probably looks more like unintended mass starvation and war, if humanity stumbles into resource constraints and point-of-no-return biosphere damage. Most signs seem to point to a very dumb human totality going berserk.
It doesn't have to be that way. If humans are in fact an intelligent species, a radical shift in consciousness is possible.
America is supposed to be a place where a diverse people come together to structure a society that would benefit all. It was not meant to be the consumer driven seat of global warmongering and economic control, global empire, for the benefit of a new internationale aristocracy. It was not supposed to be utopia for grifters, nihilists and sociopaths.
It was supposed to be a culture free from the rule of tyranny; a society protecting the right of all, to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
America could be the seat of a new kind of consiousness. I still believe, where America goes, the world will follow. This new consiousness would be focused on healing people and the earth, particulary the waters. Aware that a healthy earth will be reflected in healthy people and likewise, that we are All relations, that the way of Life is cooperation.
We are all of the earth. How we treat the earth is reflected in body and mind. The biosphere is suffering, as are people. Heal the earth and people will be healed.
