How Sex, Politics, Money and Religion are Killing Planet Earth

Sunday, October 16, 2011

We Occupy Earth – For anybody who is still wondering what the movement is all about, here is a brief explanation.


I have been abhorrently negligent by not posting anything about Occupy Wall Street, which is probably the single-most significant political movement since the Vietnam protests. I apologize. The demands of my continuing education at Harvard are considerable. I wish I had a photographic memory, speed reading skills or some other super-human abilities to help me with the mountain of reading and the crunch of exams and papers that seem to be endlessly due. Alas, I, unlike many of my peers at that fine institution, am a mere mortal of only moderate intelligence. So I plod and manage to keep my head above water, but the time constraints keep me from many of the simple pleasures I usually enjoy like blogging and cleaning my humble abode.

I feel bad for my neglect, yet I also notice that few of our elected “representatives” have much to say on the topic either. Perhaps they are trying to find a way to reconcile the profound conflict of interest they are caught up in, in which they must appease the people who actually vote for them, while at the same time trying to do the same with the corporations who own them. What a conundrum. For a while, this seeming paradox was tempered by some fine propaganda that convinced many members of the voting public that corporate interests also behooved the individual. The poor deluded saps were led to believe that if we let the corporations suck the earth clean of all its wealth they might actually share a few pennies with the rest of us. That one had the corporate masters laughing all the way to their Wall Street banks for decades.

While they pissed on 99% of us, they managed to secure almost all of earth’s resources for themselves via privatization and buy out all three branches of government too. What a coup. But then the shit hit the fan. In nature, unchecked greed and exponential growth only leads to disaster. Because we are such an arrogant organism, we have managed to fool ourselves into believing that we exist outside the laws of nature and that we can bend those laws to our will. Sorry folks. We are just an organism like all the rest, and like all those who exceed the natural carrying capacity of their habitat, we are bound for a rude awakening.

The beginning of that awakening began when the greedy assholes on Wall Street became so enthralled with enriching their own pockets they forgot to care that the crap they were peddling was more worthless than the paper it was printed on. When the world realized that the market's emperors had no clothes, the whole illusion collapsed in on its own empty shell.

It wouldn’t have been too bad, if the corrupt Wall Street bankers and greedy corporate pigs hadn’t decided that their loss was going to be our loss instead. So we bailed them out, following the same stupid logic we had succumbed to in the past, that financing their greed would let a few pennies trickle down on the rest of us. But then something happened. The corporations and bankers almost immediately started recording record profits again, but this time, they didn’t even try to pretend they were going to share any of it with the rest of us. The promised jobs never materialized, and the 99% realized they had been royally screwed.

The corporate media has been trying very hard to make this now global movement seem like the fantasy of a few, disorganized fringe lefties who have no idea what their message is or what they are doing. This is business as usual for Disney-owned ABC, GE-owned NBC, etc. Are we surprised? Do we really expect these corporate mouthpieces to sympathize with a movement that explicitly intends to undermine their hegemony? Of course not. If there is anybody out there still wondering what the Occupy movement is about, I am going to summarize it below in one sentence. Please feel free to share this sentence with anybody who is still wrapped up in the confusion the corporate masters are deliberately spinning.

The earth and all her resources belong to every human and non-human, and we are no longer going to stand for 1% of the humans stealing and ruining it for the rest of us.

Clear enough?

9 comments:

  1. scathing bit of truth there...and now it is spreading around the world...saw reports on rome and other parts of europe this morning...yet still will the powers that be listen...

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  2. Let's hope it really catches on and wakes up the sheeple. I (occasionally) get email that sums up the attitude still held by so many -- "we are not responsible". It's appalling. If not we, then who? The unborn generations to come? The dead and buried of the past? Every generation assumes the responsibility by default, it can be no other way. ~Survival Acres~

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  3. The earth and all her resources belong to every human and non-human, and we are no longer going to stand for 1% of the humans stealing and ruining it for the rest of us.

    That's the best thing I've heard in awhile. Now, if we can only stop buying into the learned assumptions that accompany western civilization, then we might have something. I've discovered that it's very difficult to boycott EVERYTHING, as much as I try.

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  4. tsisageya, we can't boycott everything, but we don't need to have our bank accounts with Meryl Lynch (sp?)or buy shares in BP. Plus we can also buy what we eat from local farmers or small local businesses. Every little bit helps.

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  5. So true, killingMother. For example, I'd been reading, recently, about the slave labor practices of Hershey, and mentioned it to my 7 year old granddaughter. This led us to research The American Licorice Co. and their practices (she loves Sour Punch straws), which seems okay. When we went to the store she pointed out all the Hershey products and when she got home she expressed high indignation to her parents about what a bad company Hershey is. (Yikes! I'm in trouble now.)

    I don't love the fact that candy is her favorite food group but, as you say, every little bit helps. We've had running jokes about Walmart, plastic, and China for awhile now.

    I've discovered over the years that trying to protest with my pocketbook is a little like being a fish in polluted water.

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  6. Brian, the powers that be do not listen unless not doing so threatens their hegemony. We need to make them fear losing power, only then will they respond to our needs.

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  7. Survival Acres, I like your term "sheeple." It very accurately describes the masses that are so easily manipulated by the prevailing powers. Fortunately, even sheep sometimes get active when their well-being is threatened. The corporate and Wall Street hegemons have now overplayed their hand.

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  8. Love this post!! Oh so true.

    Perhaps my only quibble would be my feeling that the earth doesn't belong to us (& the non-humans), but rather that we all belong to the earth.

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  9. Eam, good point and absolutely correct. It is good to see you again. I hope all is well.

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