spiritalk wrote:

Instead of the many groups on the Internet arguing for the news media and the problems, perhaps it is time to be a part of the solutions?

I don't see anything wrong with wanting to be a part of the solutions, if you don't think the human race is doomed no matter what they do.  But what do you think those solutions are going to be?  You can't say "politics doesn't have the answer", because politics isn't a thing, it's the way we live.

If you want to make a better world, you have to be realistic about the way things work in this world.  You can grab a can of tomatoes off the shelf and that's the end of it. But there's a whole lot of infrastructure involved in getting them there. And like it or not, infrastructure can't exist without politics.


You're living in a fantasy that may one day clash with reality in a very traumatic way if you think differently.

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spiritalk wrote:

We can get too caught up in the problems of that infastructure to actually see the solutions that are possible.  And yes, many are just talking their spirituality, but many are also living it by creating change that will replace the old problems. 

Well. I think if everyone lived the way I do, the world would be a better place. I'm not an activist and I'm not part of any organized effort to change the world. But I can tell you one facet of my life that, if everybody did it? The entire world would be different. And that is that I don't watch television. At all, I don't mean, only a couple times a week, or only one or two shows. I never watch television. Now: think of what the world would be like if suddenly everybody stopped watching television.

So... am I teaching by example? Is a vegetarian teaching by example? A conscientious objector? Someone who helps support a soup kitchen? Like, if more and more people were doing something they each considered to be a positive change, do you think it will add up to a critical mass even if all those things are different?

You say you live in hope not despair. Which, I'm sure, is a choice on your part. Since I know you're big on choice. It's good that you can make that choice. But you know, this idea of the whole fabric of human society changing for the "better", I don't scoff at that idea. I take that idea very seriously. That's why I'm so critical of it. Because I do take it seriously.

For better or worse, I seem to be a bit of a realist. Which is funny, because I live mostly inside my head, which is as far from the "real world" as you can get. But when it comes to society, I think I have a pretty good grasp of the way a lot of things work. I used to work in this little local radio station years ago, I more or less ran the "news department", which meant I had to write and read on the air a daily morning newscast and write another one for the afternoon.

Which means that I talked to lots of politicians fro the local up to the state level, I talked to business leaders and cops and District Attorneys and Highway Department Superintendents and Fire Chiefs and boy, did I ever get an education into just how sausages are made in this country.

That's why I'm so intensely aware of infrastructure. You say "we can get too caught up" in the problems of the infrastructure? I have to disagree - I believe that the infrastructure is pretty much invisible to most of the people in the world. Even the ones who are part of it are barely aware of the rest of it. Those guys with rakes following the dump truck on that rural town back road, spreading hotpatch into potholes. They don't think about how they're part of a chain of infrastructure that includes county roads and state roads and interstate highways and bridges and tunnels and truckers and trains and shipping ports and stevedores and deck hands and blah blah blah nobody has the time to think about all of that. Only people with weird thinking disorders like me think about all the crazy shit in the world all the time.

But because I do think about it I have to stack any idea about the human race changing in a way that will manifest in the way society runs against that reality. Don't you think it's worth noting that every major socio-political revolution that was designed to benefit the largest number of people possible, has more or less caved in under the pressure of men whose primary goal is personal power and wealth?

And I include the revolution of the colonies against the British Crown back at the end of the 18th century.  There are a lot of Founding Fathers spinning in their graves, methinks. And remember - most of them already had power and wealth.

What does that say about us as a species? Why does the destructive forces of greed and aggression feel like the oncoming tide and the people working against it like little kids building sand castles as the waves always, always approach, overwhelm, and sweep away, leaving nothing to do but pick up the pieces, bury the dead, and start again?

Am I the baddie for pointing all of that out to people who say that they believe that a new consciousness in the human race is imminent; one that will result in rapid transformations that will change the very nature of what human society is and how it operates?

Am I just raining on everybody's parade?

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