Our Society

We live in a toxic social, economic, and political milieu.

This is caused by, among other things, the pressure from massive corporations on working people to hold jobs without security and at inadequate pay levels. Also, the corporations have created a blitz of advertising to encourage people to overspend and create complex lives, so they have no energy to push back at their oppression.

This has been going on for a long time. The antitrust laws aren’t working. The use of charge accounts directly or indirectly leads to transfers of money from ordinary people to the one-percenters.

Ordinary people are angry, and with justification. They know they are getting shafted. It’s hard to understand the real cause, so they blame the government. A politician comes along who promises to find better jobs for them, makes them feel better, but rarely fulfills that promise.

The existing system of human society is so massive, it’s hard to see how to change it. 

What is my personal response to this situation? First, to create a zone of silence within, to which I can periodically retreat and take care of self.

Second, to build community. One way is to encourage private independent businesses within cities and towns and also inclusive of neighboring towns, to keep money circulating locally and have less diversion to larger corporations, a system David Korten of Yes! Magazine calls “Local Living Economies”. Another is to create communities of interest connected virtually, such as the “Buy Nothing” groups. These communities can develop as centers of resistance to industrial civilization.