So I've been thinking a lot lately about living communally, anarchy and what that means, whether I would label myself "anarchist" or not, whether I'm religious or spiritual or not, etc. I have a brother-in-law who is a cop, so sometimes all the anti-cop propaganda I hear around my house feels a bit disconcerting; I picture Tony, who I love, my sister's skinny husband who is still baby-faced and wide-eyed, a young man who looks fresh out of high school, and knowing why he chose to become a cop (his father was killed in a drug deal gone awry,) and I feel no animosity toward cops in general. In fact, as much as I think the government really sucks, I don't think most of our population can shoulder the responsibility of life without one. Even many of my so-called anarchist friends rely heavily on the government for food stamps, for disability or social security checks, for all sorts of other assistance. I myself use food stamps. But does that mean they, or I, am not an anarchist?
What would happen if suddenly, all the people I know who need freebies daily to survive, didn't have those services in place when they woke up tomorrow? Would we starve like rats? As the economy continues on its' downward spiral, I hear more and more people (thankfully,) beginning to talk about this. Land is being purchased. Farming techniques are being learning, as are hunting and gathering techniques. But are we as a group moving fast enough toward the self-sustainability we say we desire? What are the luxuries that still hold us back, what addictions keep us from following through with our plans? I know for me, I have some very basic desires that might not be met in a self-sustainable community. One is the desire for hot water, whenever the hell I want it, straight out of the facet. I love baths, and I'm not sure how I'd cope without them. And how about ice cream? You-Tube videos? Cell phone reception?
My questions are, as we move toward this supposedly glorious future of self-reliance, self-sustainability and low or no impact on the environment, how to we cure ourselves of this sickness which is the consumer-culture? We know, for example, that raw materials are being stolen from tribal lands in the Congo to make cell phones. This is bad for the forest, this is bad for the tribal folks who live there, and cell phone towers and the signals that go out from them seem to be slowly killing all of our honey bees. We know all of this, yet we can't wean ourselves off of this poison known as cell phones. We know too, that the electricity we use here in the Pacific Northwest is mostly from dams; dams that kill salmon and sea-lions who are shot when they use the dams as salmon buffets, dams that keep water from flowing as it should to land that needs it, dams that keep nutrients from flooding out into the forests and providing them with the bodies of the dead salmon after they have spawned, nitrogen-fixing the soil. We know all of this, yet we continue to use electricity for just about everything we do.
So even as we become aware, it seems very difficult for us to give up our addictions we so love; our car culture, our destructive farming habits, our container babies and our overdependent on antibiotics, our C-section rates, our use of epidurals, Monsanto...
My other questions are: how do we help the populace learn to think and live and act for themselves? Is it too late for some of us to learn self-reliance? Can we wean ourselves off of the government? Can we move farther away from "what is Caesars?" Can we throw the money-changers out of the temple, and return to wild goddess worship?
I know I can suture wounds. I can turn breech babies. I can cure a UTI with some alcohol and a ground cover plant called kinikinik. I can help a "stuck baby" come out. I can recommend wild food that will cure anemia. I can pretty accurately predict weather patterns.
I'm far from being ready for this collapse.
Love ya,
\Carrot
Why is self-reliance important? Why is consumer culture bad? Not that I entirely disagree with you, but those are my questions about anarchism. Seems to me that government/collective action is simply more effective than any set of uncoordinated individuals at doing whatever the group wants to do - protect the environment, ensure a decent quality of life, create and distribute modern technology. If groups of people do evil, why blame the group structure?
So...I am now a veg-head, spurring a backyard garden program, and in the summer, living on a CSA farm because it's the only answer I have to many of your questions. These are the only actions that will save me from efficiency which leads to laziness, and poor food habits which makes me unhealthy, all of which contributes to an unsatisfactory perception of myself.
I'm torn on the general populace issue--do we devote our lives to helping to convert these folks OR do we move onto farms and play the waiting game--providing powerful, stable examples for people to move on during the oil crash?
In a nutshell, don't you think playing in the dirt for the rest of your life will help you (and society, i guess) become less-destructive?
my documentary..."some folks say that a hippie won't steal, but I caught three in my corn field"--John Hartford
To me, self-reliance is important because what else is there? If we can't rely on ourselves, how will we response as the rug gets pulled out from under us as this empire collapses?
The consumer culture drives destruction; from the book I buy which was printed on the corpse of a once-living tree, to the McDonald's cheeseburger with beef which was raised on recently deforested rain forest land, to the clothes made by child-slaves in sweatshops; I don't wanna take part in these types of destruction, so I decrease my dependence upon these items more and more as I get older and wiser. It is a really good thing this economy which is based on corruption and worldwide destruction is collapsing; we can no longer live this lie that we are not reliant upon slaves the world over to bring us these goods we enjoy and are addicted to.
Some people say "well if you start looking into the politics behind how things are made, where goods come from, etc, then pretty soon you won't be able to buy anything..." My answer to that is, if these goods are produced in such a shitty way that people are scared to look at where they are coming from, I don't want them. So my only solution is to "drop out" of society altogether; if there are no goods I can purchase because everything has some evil behind it, I must learn to make/gather/hunt/provide everything for myself.
Today a friend and I where debating whether or not we where "ready" to make that move; whether we could survive out in the woods at this point, with our limited knowledge and lack of skills. He told me an inspiring story of a punk kid he knew who went out into the forest with just a poncho and a machete for two months; he survived and adapted to his situation and learned to hunt with the machete and kept himself alive. My friend said "he did what he had to do; he survived because he had to.."
My friend has a point; we can either sit and debate "moving to the woods" if you will forever, or we can just bloody do it. at this point, the way things are going, I think I'd rather start thinking about moving to the woods.
Love ya,
Carrot