Young Warriors

 Each generation confronts a slightly different version of the same problems. Throughout time we have had those who wish to exploit and enslave others for the sake of enriching themselves. That fact may never change. However that does not mean that the best thing to do is put your hands in your pockets and buck up under the pressures exacted upon you by the forces which seek to exploit you. The people of Ukraine have said for years, that Oligarchs see us (We the People) as shit they grow their money in. We are but vessels used to bring them their ever-expanding booty. Pirates, by definition could only take the ship and it's contents, oligarchs exact their blood money one drop at a time throughout many generations of your family tree. Until and unless we determine that we have had enough, they will continue to exploit even the most minute chinks in our armor.

 
More than two decades ago, I was privy to a long and detailed conversation amongst a group of about twenty High School-aged young people and although what they were talking about was far outside my own experience, it held an integrity that is rare in the world we are seeing unfold around us. Remember, no oligarch-owned media empire will educate us about things we need to know to fight them. These young people, who are now heads of households, were talking about how to value corporations and how to behave, knowing that some corporate entities were funding fascism, undermining communities like their own or exploiting the workers or ecological resources. They directed and selected where to shoplift and what corporate entities to "attack", whether through deception, or misrepresentation, outright theft of resources "owned" by those corporate entities and/or disruption techniques designed to cripple them. Please understand that I cannot advocate illegal behavior unless it stops an even greater crime from being perpetrated. I understand why some feel they have no other choice, but I will not advocate for anarchy.

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However, I do understand what emotion, reason and morality motivates people who will fight to the death for their community, those who would practice malicious compliance to allow the oligarchs to fail, which they have always done and those patriots who let their own integrity lead them to the choice to let their rank incompetence operate within oppressive systems. Instead of turning in your fellows as the government is telling you to do, turn in those at the top. Don't buy or patronize any of the oppressors tools. The only language they speak is money. We can no longer afford to give it to them, it has only made them spoiled and to believe that they are entitled to their privilege. In a case I am very much aware of, ULINE Corporation's owners flooded fascist organizations with many tens of millions of dollars between November Elections that gave the win to Biden and January Sixth, when conspiratorial forces, at the behest of "their president" attacked the Capitol, police and our elected representatives in order to "Stop the Steal" which is a fiction of convenience for the oligarchs. Election lies alone have done more damage to our nation than any foreign army ever has. The packaging giant makes money on everything you see that has their logo on it.

Please share this with those real people, those you love and care about, those who can see that they are being lied to in order to support a system that hurts us all. Speak out, speak truth to power, through any platform you can find.

Flourishing

Ah, what a wonderful, oft overlooked quality and yet one that holds so much [promise for the future of humankind. So many conditions can hem in this state of natural abundance, we forget that it is achievable, sustainable and that exponential growth and abundance are actually a rule in natural systems, rather than an exception. Imagine, if you will, a forest. To make it a bit easier to fathom, try imagining a single acre (.6ha). In my part of the world, the temperate region, a common estimate for trees per acre is between three hundred and three hundred and fifty mature trees in a climax forest. To the average casual observer, it would appear to be in a relatively steady state. However, if each tree is growing a ring of new tissue each year, the number of board feet of wood in that acre would be increasing perhaps only by what seems like a small percentage, but multiplied by several hundred trees, it is quite a large amount.
Healthy ecosystems always have a certain rate of death and destruction as well, but in each and every case, the death of one organism provides habitat for hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of other organisms. There is no trash in the woods, unless humans put it there. Each bit of living tissue becomes food or shelter for other living creatures upon death, sometimes in epiphytic relationships, the habitat that is provided by living organisms is mutually beneficial, or at least the death of the host organism is not necessary. There are thousands of mutually beneficial associations in nature and both creatures can flourish in the presence of one another. Forests are again a ready example of how this can work. billions of spores waft on the wind, in search of just the right moisture, temperature and conditions to make their life process possible. A single spore can ultimately become a non-plant, non-animal organism that stretches miles, if given optimal conditions. Fungi produce food for creatures, are primary decomposers and are often completely forgotten by casual observers because they spend the majority of their life cycle hidden amongst leaf litter and forest soils. the actual fruiting body is just a temporary phenomenon, peculiar in that it only lasts for time periods on the order of days, whilst the mycelium that the fruiting body (the part we see) grows from can live hundreds of years.
I know that many of us are anthropocentric, so finding ways to help our children flourish, as well as ourselves is perhaps slightly more important to most people than helping the creatures who also live in our environment to do well. One of my recent lessons came from an educational researcher who reminded me of the need to switch up a bit in child rearing. for decades, people have taught their children that they are smart, often repeating that mantra tens of thousands of times over the child's lifetime. This can actually handicap the child later in life because when they run up against challenges that do not fit into their skill set, they wonder why, if they are so smart, they are haviung a hard time solving the problem. Instead, we should take the time to use phrases like, "I like the way you approached the problem in a creative way." or "I think it was good to ask for help before you got frustrated.", phrases that instill a sense of curiosity in the face of adversity, adaptability over mastery. I used to tell my children frequently that they had good ideas, but that often the best ideas come from just taking a break, doing something different and coming back later so that they would have a fresh eyes to view the problem at hand.
Part of flourishing is to adapt, change and grow into new situations and that is something that natural systems excel at. Some things that we can all do to enhance the ability of one another to flourish is to stop consuming rampantly, step back from all that is sold to us, on every level. The only thing that flourishes under the current power and control structures are the wealth of the ruling class. We can see this at work in virtually every aspect of our "modern" life. NASCAR for instance encourages us to put the pedal to the metal when what is needed is a featherweight foot on the accelerator. millions are spent telling our daughters that they are overweight and unattractive when what they desperately need is self confidence. Politicians tell us that there is a one size fits all educational scheme that can be imposed on our children when individualized instruction has been proven to be superior on every level, save cost. There are even those (and you know who they are in your area) telling the fiction that government needs to be run like a business. Nothing could be further from the truth. Flourishing requires access to healthy food, water and shelter. Beyond these things, our species, as well as many others, require love and affection, the understanding and meaningful communication of other beings.
I have often said that I speak for the trees, but they are dependent on pure, clean water so I find myself speaking for the water as well. As we adapt and change in ways that help us in a single area, we find proficiencies in other areas as well, as long as we continue to pay attention and integrate new knowledge. Human beings are meaning making machines and we can do nothing else. If we accept what we are told, it will lead to the demise of not only our own selves, but the entire species. Well-funded interests are fighting to stay in charge, wrest the last of everything out of the Earth to make a profit for themselves. nothing will flourish under these conditions but the proliferation of lies that they will concoct to keep us out of their hair while the dirty work is done.
The Earth is in the balance and if we are to flourish as a species we must make peace with the natural systems upon which we depend.

Peeling back the rotten layers of onion.

Our culture has made great haste in covering up that would reflect badly upon us, that which would require effort to fix properly and what has allowed us great power and wealth amassed off the backs of both future generations and faraway people. The essential quality in dominion, it to dehumanize those you trade with, your colonies, your slaves, your enemies and those you foist the shackles of environmental assault upon. Once the oppressor dehumanizes or de-sanctifies whatever being or creature stands between "just business" and the true aim of their pursuits. There have always been those who sought to dominate others. This is not new to the human condition, but the great power of the oligarchs, technologically advanced warfare and behemoth industrial production capabilities has placed exponentially more power in the hands of fewer and fewer individuals whose "investments" and "policies" reach into the lives of nearly every citizen on the surface of the planet.

Indeed, the recent and continuing tragedy at Fukushima, reaches across the Pacific ocean and touches North America's West Coast in just a little over a week. We can, if we are so inclined, go to the most remote islands completely cut off from the Great Lakes by their being perched on islands well above the surface of Lake Superior. We can test the fish that swim amongst this relatively pristine environment and find Aldrin and Dieldrin, carcinogenic compunds that have been banned for thirty or more years, chemicals only used to kill pests on cotton crops in the tropics, thousands of miles away. Remember the food web that we all learned in school? We exist within the fibrous and filamentous reality of a giant web of association that spans the biosphere. We are one organism, one being, only as healthy as the world around us, only as capable of making a living as the creatures which we share our planet with.

This week, I have been peeling up three layers of flooring. Each one in it's time was billed as "modern, high tech and the best you can get" for running a sanitary kitchen and bathroom, each in succession covering up dirt and dust, and encapsulating the moisture of a thousand spills. First, probably after the original builders were forced to sell during the 1938 crash, the asphaltum-based linoleum was installed. With waxy, built up edges, to keep the moisture where you could sop it up. Thirty years of dirt later, the whole mess was put under a primitive vinyl flooring that had asbestos backing, ready to absorb any water that made it either around the edges or through the seam running down the length of the kitchen, but also, through any holes that inevitably occurred through use and eventual coverup. Finally, a very cheap luan plywood was laid down, crown stapled to the old floor with a vengance and a more "modern" version of vinyl was laid atop that. In addition to making it virtually impossible to remove the nearly hundred years of dirt and encapsulating whatever moisture got through the leaks this time, the ultimate failure only exacerbated the problems with all the earlier floors. Peeling back all the rotten layers of onion revealed a nice wood floor which has no problems other than that air can make it both under and over the boards, drying them out and allowing a conscientious home economist to actually keep them clean. With responsibility come freedom (don' cha know?) The only real problem with the old floor now is the thousands of staple holes in the hardwood. they have done more to wreck the floor than any amount of sweeping and mopping ever could have done.

People frequently forget the most powerful option when they engage in decision-making. The decision to do nothing is still a choice. We do not have to solve every crisis by doing something. Often taking a broader view requires us to do nothing. This course of action may make sense at times and not others, but by not looking deeply into the possibility of making this all important choice can yield many benefits. The media that formerly made up the floor in this neglected house harbored so much dirt and nasty biological activity, that it certainly could not have been healthy to live amongst. At least dirt floors can have beneficial bacteria and fungi. I wish that the people who have owned this building over the years would have just chosen to do nothing, the cover-up truly stinks. Just the top layers of luan and vinyl was two hundred pounds of stink.

If we look into our current state of affairs, globally, much dirt has been swept under the collective rugs of our nations. Nowhere can we truthfully say are we isolated from a raft of bad decisions, cover-ups and festering nastiness that really should be taken out. We are often sold false promises of a better life and have to watch as all that we have invested our lives in is cast into the trash bin of history. The great mass of humanity that has fallen victim in the recent global depression must find the strength to face yup to the ugly messes that have been plastered over for decades. In some cases, the better part of a century. The oppressors didn't do this by themselves, we all helped, through our silence, to build the cage that we need to break out of. Perhaps it is too late to break out, but imagine if it isn't. If we all stop feeding the oligarchs, they will have to eat either their young, or their dollars.