re-3: escaping the matrix

2009-12-30

Richard Moore


Greetings,

We now have 674 subscribers on cyberjournal, which is only about 6 less than we had last summer. So despite those who unsubscribed dramatically in anger, we don’t seem to have lost very many due to our climate discussion. I hate to see anyone leave, but this isn’t a place for people who can’t bear to have their assumptions challenged. If they prefer the blue pill, let them slumber in their pods. I hope they don’t freeze in them as we continue to experience a dramatic increase in global cooling.
We also have 157 subscribers to newslog, which is more than I ever expected on a list with so many postings. As you’ve noticed, I haven’t been posting newslog summaries here on cyberjournal. I just don’t have the time. What I will do is cite specific newslog items from time to time when they are relevant to our current discussions. For example:
Real climate science, if you want it
The URL for the newslog archives is always in the signature at the bottom of postings, so you can check it from time to time to see if any items interest you. Also, you might want to subscribe to the newslog digest on google, which gives you a daily summary of the topics. I’d be happy to set that up for anyone on request. Yahoo and riseup don’t have such a service. Newslog will continue to get items on climate, vaccines, outside-the-box science, 9/11, New World Order, false-flag Yemeni plane-bombing attempts, etc. Also I may start doing dialog postings on newslog for such topics.
Here on cyberjournal I’d like to focus on solutions more than problems. Of course problems will need to be mentioned in passing, as they are relevant to solutions. And problems will come up in dialog postings if you bring them up.
cheers,
rkm
___________
From: Peggy Conroy
Date: 26 December 2009 15:02:34 GMT
To: “Richard Moore” <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Re: escaping the matrix

RKM,
  We need a really short, catchy essay on the necessity of scrapping the all hailed model of “growth” as the only engine for economic progress and job creation. Sustainability/diversity models are great but tend to show an idealized system already in place, not how to evolve one that  isn’t so disruptive and complicated that nobody will listen. Then we have the problem of “planned economic systems” that worked so well in the era of Soviet domination of much of the world…..In our area of upstate NY we are lucky to be pretty rural to start with plus have a viable neighbor to the north, Canada, who helps drive our economic engine. In the ’30’s of course, prohibition worked well to help us out with border crossings being more easily penetrated than now! However, factory farms and welfare mentality have encroached much of our area as well, so when any big employer moves to China, etc. or goes belly up due to globalization there’s hell to pay in the media.  There is a larger movement for localization in the past 10 years, with farmers’ markets and outlets like our organic store specializing in “local” but it’s very small and difficult to keep viable. Most people think of Wal Mart and Price Chopper for everything due to cost. Even incremental change is hard.
   Sincerely,
Peggy Conroy
West Chazy, NY 
Hi Peggy,
How’s this for a short, catchy essay? … You can’t grow forever on a finite planet. Most of the important truths in life are very simple. But our stuck beliefs, and habits, hide them from us. A priest once asked a child, What is faith? Being an un-stuck child, he answered, believing what you know isn’t true. Thus we have faith in democracy, even though we know in our hearts the government never listens to us. In Zen, the first profound achievement is beginner’s mind. Learning can then get underway. The Sufis say it this way: To gain knowledge, learn a fact every day. To gain wisdom, forget a fact every day.

Most people think of WalMart. As individuals, trying to get the most for our money, that is a very rational choice. Those of us who choose otherwise are the irrational ones. We have an unfounded faith: If only everyone would act from sustainability-consciousness, we could change the world. We then act on that faith, by joining the few at the farmer’s market and spending a bit extra. We need to wake up: it isn’t working. Political correctness, as a revolutionary paradigm, has failed. Period full stop. Get over it. (I don’t mean you Peggy, I mean all of us. Your comments come from beginner’s mind. Very refreshing.)
Individualism. Most of us don’t realize this is a modern concept. Wikipedia says the term was first used c. 1830. Thus it is part of Enlightenment thinking, part of the escape from monarchy and theocracy. Whenever the pendulum has swung too far in one direction, it always then swings too far in the other direction. As with most wisdom, this is memorialized in a folk saying: Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water. Notice that such sayings are never taught in school. Wisdom never is. It’s not part of the curriculum. And yet such wisdom is passed down from generation to generation. By us, not by the state. Close your eyes and ponder that for a moment.
The baby is the community. The bath water is monarchy and theocracy. Individualism is the mistake.
Enlightenment thinking came with the Industrial Revolution. Before industrialism, individualism was not economically feasible. Before industrialism rich people did not live in penthouses, with phones to bring in Chinese food and call girls. They lived in country estates, with lots of servants, and lots of land to support them all. They were surrounded by a community that they happened to own. Poor people lived in villages where they cooperated with one another, also with lots of land around them that supported them all. And they didn’t think of themselves as poor. Poverty came in with with industrialism, an invention just like the steam engine.
Many hands make light work. Again, not on the curriculum. Nor is, we are all brothers under the skin. These are the wisdoms that we need to remember. Sustainability is no big deal, it is obvious. It is a no-brainer. Any child knows you can’t spend your allowance and have it too. Our problem is not the decisions that are made, but the fact that we don’t make the decisions. And beneath that is the fact that there is no we, there is only me. Lots of me’s is a flock of sheep. We were not descended from sheep. Black sheep, and white sheep, they all yield to the sheep dog’s bark. The sheep dog is the state. 
We need to re-create community. Not because it is a good economic idea, but because it is the path to liberation and empowerment. Community is not a gathering of environmentalists, nor of tea-party enthusiasts. It is the environmentalists and the tea-party folks in the same room. The black sheep and the white sheep together, transcending their sheepness. The only thing you have to lose is your chains. 
rkm

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