It has dawned on me numerous times that, in America, people are generally divorced from life. I don't mean that to insinuate that they aren't paying attention to their daily affairs and enjoying themselves, it is a much different alienation. In America, people are largely alienated from what gives us life. In an era where most people run to the grocery store for food and turn on the faucet for a seemingly endless supply of water, the true givers of life are often hidden.
Food doesn't come from a grocery store. Yes, you can buy it there, or at your local farmer's market, but that isn't where it comes from. It comes from the soil. It comes from clean air and clean water. Yes, people understand this, but they don't often think about it. Rather, they think about money. "You need money to survive" goes the saying. Well, no, money is not a necessity for survival. Food, water, air and shelter are necessary for survival. But in the capitalist society, where profit and property drive everyday life, it begins to seem as if money is a necessary part of life. However, it's only necessary because we have allowed it to become so.
I listened to a YouTube video today by an urban dweller named Ron Finley who has begun to grow food in every possible space he could find (link below). He said that "Gardening is the most therapeutic and defiant act that you can do." He compares it to growing your own money. He further says that in order to change a community, you have to change the soil, and that we are the soil. To him, and I believe he is right, the act of growing food is empowering to those who participate. It is the act of fostering the source of life.
We are too far removed from the source of life, just as we are removed from death. Death has become a sterile, distant experience. People increasingly die in nursing homes and hospitals rather than at home with their loved ones. Further, we no longer care for the bodies of our loved ones. We have professionals to do that for us. So far removed are we from the experience of death, that we often see it presented as a shock, or a tragedy, rather than the arrival of an inevitable destination.
Maybe this alienation from life and death helps to explain why we don't shout at the top of our lungs against the pervasive pollution created by the quest for money. If money is necessary for life, more necessary than digging our hands in the soil to produce life giving plants, then pollution seems like a necessary evil. Without the pollution, how would we make money? How would we live?
The earth gives us everything we need to survive. Men have claimed ownership of the land and resources and demanded that we hand over money for that which is a birthright. I don't mean to say that everything should be given for nothing, everyone who is able must labor to survive; that is a general law of nature. However, people should not be born into a land where money matters more than life. Access to food, clean water, clean air, and the materials and land for shelter should be automatic. What gives one man the right to withhold these things from others just because he was born first and laid claim to it? He will die. But upon his death, these things don't revert to the ownership of the commons. Instead, it is passed down to his heirs in a childish game of finders keepers. Meanwhile, this earth, that has the capability of supporting us all, is being poisoned while people are starved and homeless.
Capitalism didn't always exist. Neither did Kings and Lords of the land. There was a time when people were born and could freely survive off of the earth's bounty. Maybe it is too late to turn the tide away from capitalism, maybe it isn't. All I know is that spring is here. Soon I will be outside plunging my hands into the soil of the containers that make up my garden. Later, I will watch in tenderness as the plants grow large and healthy. I may not be able to survive off of the small amount of food I can grown here, but I will have a reminder of the true source of life.
Ron Finley: A guerilla gardener in South Central LA
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Sunday, March 17, 2013
The Police State
The link below is from November of 2012. A homeowner was trying to protect his home from igniting due to a fire at his neighbor's house. The police were on the scene, but no firefighters had yet arrived. The police told the homeowner, who was using a garden hose to try to wet down his home, to let it burn because that is what insurance is for. As the situation worsened, and firefighters were still not on the scene, the homeowner reached again for the hose; at which point the police officers used a taser to subdue him.
My question is this: Since when is it acceptable for the police to interfere with a man on his own property who is doing nothing to put anyone else in danger?
Too often, police are engaging in overly aggressive behavior. I run across stories like this everyday. Police increasingly use deadly force on unarmed 'suspects' or use much more force than necessary. Since when did our police lose the ability to communicate? Why is it that they are increasingly inclined to use brute force, rather than dialogue?
I'm of the opinion that this is just another sign of how off kilter our society has become. At the root of the problem lies the dog-eat-dog, ruthless, social Darwinism brought about by the Ayn Rand aficionados and the ensuing corporate culture that has robbed us of our sense of empathy and practically destroyed our sense of community.
We can do better than this.
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