War on Error wrote a great diary today. I'm using my diary to talk about his, and about a few other diaries and comments that I've been thinking about.
In the comments he imagined if:
Towns asked residents to submit their area of expertise.
Then organized so that barters could happen, or
Credits for service rendered could accumulate
Imagine town residents serving each other.
Then imagine inter/intra towns doing the same
Then counties
Then states
Imagine a new way: Inter/Intra dependent co-ops unhooked from the chain stores/businesses that are killing the ability of mom and pop entrepreneurs.
Imagine the return of community chests.
Imagine a country of hearts unwilling to allow any to live without the very basic needs.
Imagine grandparents assisting teachers in the classrooms.
Imagine neighborhood programs to help all children reach their potential.
Imagine, imagine, imagine.
With some imagination and organization, we can be the America so many of us older folks remember.
We can create our own distribution networks.
We can commit to using and sharing the products we have.
We can commit to moving from a society of consumerism to a society of mutual service.
Criminal behavior can be seen as our failure to properly provide for and teach our children.
We need each other. We need to organize.
We need each other people, and all our grief and our rage without action is a mighty distraction. Meteor Blades asked us what we are doing to make it better. I've been sitting with that question for awhile now. During the Bush years, I think just after the terrible disappointment of the '04 election, I read a statement on a blog that made the same point. Find a local community, the woman said. Be part of a small point of light.
McCamy Taylor wrote a beautiful diary on Sunday. I think it deserves wider notice.
This is not a kind world. This is not a just world. The American people have been threatened. They have been attacked. They have been told that they are of no worth to society and so they might as well go away and die in a corner. They have been murdered.
We can not change these facts. We can only change how we respond to the violence.
I'm willing to bet that every person on this site knows someone who is slipping between the cracks. Someone who does not have access to basic healthcare. Someone who is struggling financially.
There is an essential lie that we are all told in our youth. That is that there is a pathway to success. If you follow the rules you will succeed. And if you don't follow the rules, you deserve failure.
Not all of us can follow the rules, and some of us who have followed the rules have discovered that they don't always lead to success. But all of us deserve to have our basic claim to humanity respected, and that is a value that our society no longer supports.
It is up to us, to each one of us who cares about justice and equality, to figure out what we will do to make it better. Each little step we take that has heart to it brings light to us all. I hope you will read McCamy Taylor's diary, and I hope you will think about the potato famine and about the people who allowed people to starve while exporting food away from them.
War on Error is calling for a Soda Revolution.
Here's an idea, boycott carbonated drinks:
Can we collectively agree to suffer carbonation deprivation? Probably not. Sitting ducks feel deprived enough already.
How about doing it to preserve drinking water? Drinking water here and around the world is being taken and even destroyed to make this product that is unhealthy for our bodies anyway?
What? That would cost more jobs. Really? Why would they continue to make soda here? Especially now. They own the bottled water business, too. Your water sold back to you in plastic bottles. Brilliant business model. Ducks have to have water.
All manufacturing related jobs will be eliminated until and unless we push back.
Period.
The jobs won't return unless and until we push back.
Period.
Come on, quack up!
I say, drink soda or don't drink soda. But consider War on Error's vision at the top of this diary. And consider this tale which DKos user Ohio shared:
A Holy man was having a conversation with the Lord one day and said, "Lord, I would like to know what Heaven and Hell are like."
The Lord led the holy man to two doors. He opened one of the doors and the holy man looked in. In the middle of the room was a large round table.. In the middle of the table was a large pot of stew, which smelled delicious and made the holy man's mouth water.
The people sitting around the table were thin and sickly. They appeared to be famished. They were holding spoons with very long handles that were strapped to their arms and each found it possible to reach into the pot of stew and take a spoonful. But because the handle was longer than their arms, they could not get the spoons back into their mouths.
The holy man shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering. The Lord said, "You have seen Hell."
They went to the next room and opened the door. It was exactly the same as the first one. There was the large round table with the large pot of stew which made the holy man's mouth water. The people were equipped with the same long-handled spoons, but here the people were well nourished and plump, laughing and talking.
The holy man said, "I don't understand."
"It is simple, said the Lord, it requires but one skill. You see, they have learned to feed each other."
"The greedy think only of themselves."
And then, join us.