I originally posted this on DailyKos....
Jump Off
Mon Jul 12, 2010 at 01:55:26 PM EDT
Things we know...
Corporate power and cronyism trump most considerations for the wellbeing of the citizens of our country.
Most elite members of congress are in the pocket of these corporate entities and cannot be relied upon to advocate for our best interests.
Costs for everything, from housing to higher education to health care, have risen beyond a reasonable percentage of most people's income, and one small disaster- losing that job or needing an appendectomy when there is no health care coverage- can render one's family homeless.
These are such simple statements.
The stress and fear and pain that is encompassed in them is immense.
So many diaries expertly lay out the problems confronting us but, so far, we have not seen much focus on solutions that could work immediately, actions we can take ourselves.
Begging for help via e-mail to politicians seems pointless- for the time being, and probably forever after, we are on our own.
We need to consider a new paradigm for daily living that does not include waiting for Congress.
We need to find sustainable methods to sidestep their game.
Right now..
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We all see the disease, as has been diaried so brilliantly in dozens of diaries .......
Ridemybike
http://www.dailykos.com/...
and one that prompted this diary....
Bob Swern
http://www.dailykos.com/...
And especially the comment by Jim P...
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'Time doesn't flow in the fashion of a metronome, each moment equal to all others. Just as volcanoes might quietly build up pressure for a century or more, the actual moment of explosion demands everyone adjust immediately.'
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Exactly.
I am surely not a scholar, philosopher or an economist, but i see the practical necessity in reducing the overhead associated with the basic cost of daily living as an important first step and one we can all take right now, without waiting for better tax laws, better health care or better representation in congress.
Many people have moved back in with parents, with other family, with friends.
This is usually uncomfortable for all involved unless there is a larger plan other than just temporary shelter in a crisis situation.
We take for granted that the way our culture has evolved is somehow the 'right' way to live- a chicken in every pot, a Chevy in every garage and a quaint rose-covered cottage for each small family.
We think we have failed in some essential way if we cannot meet this ideal.
Well, this American dream has disappeared from view for many of us, from those of us who had achieved this life and from those who never quite made it.
It has set us up as separate entities all struggling to pay individual rents or mortgages and utility bills, with the banks and mortgage companies benefitting the most, while providing no safety net for tough times.
We tend to overlook that there are other very viable ways of living and there are groups that function well in these alternative ways, from the Amish to the tribal traditions of the Native Americans.
There is a growing movement of intentional communities and more free wheeling communes that allow folks to share the burden of the necessary
essentials.
http://www.ic.org/
http://www.hippy.com/...
I see that this model could be workable for most of us, from sharing suburban homes with people with similar goals to rural farming communes.
There is a town in Vermont, Hardwick, that follows this model quite successfully- the farmers and businesses co-operate to maximize everyone's potential.
http://food.truth.travel/...
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...A few years ago, one of my most clued-in food writers called me from a tiny town in Vermont raving about a restaurant named Claire's. The town was Hardwick, Vermont, and Claire's wasn't the only progressive food business in town. In fact, the tiny hamlet was such a hotbed of locavore, sustainable, and community-based activity that it was being hailed as a model for a new kind of food system. Ben Hewitt's new book,
The Town That Food Saved , takes a close look at Hardwick to see how soy milk and grass-fed meat have invigorated the local economy.'
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"New tribalism"
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
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In the past 50 years, anthropologists have greatly revised our understanding of the tribe. Franz Boas removed the idea of unilineal cultural evolution from the realm of serious anthropological research as too simplistic, allowing tribes to be studied in their own right, rather than stepping stones to civilization or "living fossils." Anthropologists such as Richard Borshay Lee and Marshall Sahlins began publishing studies that showed tribal life as an easy, safe life, the opposite of the traditional theoretical supposition. In the title to his book, Sahlins referred to these tribal cultures as "the Original Affluent Society," not for their material wealth, but for their combination of leisure and lack of want.
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This work is for the progression of humanity and the enlightenment of ourselves, such as that advocated by John Zerzan or Daniel Quinn. These philosophers have led to new tribalists pursuing what Daniel Quinn dubbed the "New Tribal Revolution". The new tribalists use the term "tribalism" not in its widely thought of derogatory sense, but to refer to what they see as the defining characteristics of tribal life: namely, an open, egalitarian, classless and cooperative community. New tribalists insist that this is, in fact, the natural state of humanity, and proven by two million years of human evolution.
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The answer depends on each person's preferences as well as on the particular tribes that are used as a point of reference - because tribal life itself is not the same for all tribes; the environment where a tribe lives has an especially important influence.
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Federal aid to states has been dwindling, resulting in an open-ended burden on individual cities and towns to scrounge for operating cash.
Housing costs are skyrocketing, due to the meteoric rise of property tax for homeowners. Renters have it no better, since their landlords are faced with the same costs. There seems to be no real effort to cap these costs for the individual, although businesses get a substantial tax break.
So, it seems to me that, whatever one's life path or profession or level of success, we are all endangered.
Seeing the insanity so beautifully/horribly exposed, especially on this site, makes me know that now is the time to jump off that cliff, change our lives, opt out of the game.
In any way we can, from baby steps to great leaps of faith.
