A very important work, using shocking autobiographical experiences to show and transport what it means to be systematically discriminated against throA very important work, using shocking autobiographical experiences to show and transport what it means to be systematically discriminated against throughout one´s whole life, opening the eyes of the privileged ones who have the potential and influence to help boosting a change after half a century of deliberately diminishing the quality of life, chances, and potential of black people.
„You are fighting for your rights after centuries of unspeakable atrocities, mass impoverishment, a lack of distributive justice, genocides, prison industry complexes, slavery, mass murders, hate, police brutality, and racism? Seems as if you are a dangerous extremist, maybe even a terrorist.“
That´s the only option for the conservative forces, such as Nixon and many others, behind downplaying the past and current injustices they helped causing and aggravating, because if they would let an open, scientific, fact based debate, maybe even including ethics and morality, happen, they would lose and have to explain cruelty, exploitation, and massive media manipulation. So their only option is to use as many unfair, illogical, and wrong propaganda techniques as possible to make the victims of a decade long war of a government against its own citizens look like perpetrators and aggressors.
There are different reasons and motivations for disliking activism for people not directly involved. Refusing any kind of activism, because it could lead to the insight of one´s own indifference, cognitive bias, and thereby criticism by others. Not making any distinction between pro sustainability and equality activism such as environment, anti racism, environmental protection,… and religious and extreme far right and left activism without peaceful civil disobedience and protest. Preferring divide and rule, not wanting people to organize and become real political factors and powers, because one likes money and much of it. Etc.
That democratic, Western governments all over the world are trying to make it more and more difficult and dangerous to be active, enable law enforcement and private security firms to attack peaceful protesters, built Orwellian surveillance systems like directly fresh out of the textbook, is the more meta level of trying to keep protests small and attack women protesting for their rights. Even white supremacists get more tolerance by this system than the victims of their hate.
How media instrumentalize and mischievously misinterpret the real agenda of the protesters to make them seem more dangerous, mislead, and wrong, is the icing on the cake of individual and collective prejudices, stereotypes, and anachronistic thinking.
Chris Rock and David Chappelle, two of the most ingenious comedians, whose works should be mandatory readings in school, possibly together with George Carlin and many other sarcastic social critics, made racial prejudice and its immense stupidity a main element of their careers and sensitized millions of people for topics nobody wants, dares, or can openly talk about, especially in mainstream news media. It would imply too many correlations to the whole, sick, dysfunctional democratic system. One of the options to not go mad, angry, or sad might be to continue their work by showing the illogical madness using hard facts and fight it with laughter, spread groundbreaking, progressive novels like this one, and oppose the anachronistic institutions by ridiculing them.
Finding freedom from consumerism and opportunism in harmony with nature.
The principle of living in harmony with nature has been a topic for a long timFinding freedom from consumerism and opportunism in harmony with nature.
The principle of living in harmony with nature has been a topic for a long time until civilization alienated people from their original homeland. However, especially this opens up the possibility for introspection and reflection with the help of the simple life before apparently essential things like consumption, status and power lose their appeal.
Thoreau shows how a needless life can be filled with happiness and meaning by getting satisfaction from oneself, one's creativity and the people and nature around and not by the eternal hunt for the imposed, changing ideals of society. Such as "Go into the cave of the enemies and kill them all with a club, so that you can have fun in the hereafter with your comrades who have fallen in battle and massively amounts of willing women and whatever drug we allow you to consume."
Alternatively, "Learn stupidly from senseless, non-creatively applicable knowledge to make you highly specialized until up into old age." "Consume with accumulated capital and build up your righteous free time for ritualized buying decisions. "Neglect family and friends and ignore the state of the planet that is so friendly to allow you to live on it. "
Unfortunately, the utopian approaches have too often been negatively connoted and presented as impossible. After the dictate that such a world would not be possible. Wars are possible. Fiat money is no problem. But distributive justice with an education system that makes children responsible and happy citizens with environmental awareness? Better not.
Nonviolent education was another cornerstone of Thoreau's ideology. At a time when everyone was considered weak, who did not beat children to the bone until blood came out. According to standard doctrine, you had to form these empty shells with black pedagogy until they became, understandably, freaking lunatic religious extremists and fascists. Forcefully forge them like a glowing lump of metal with hammers without love to the instruments one needed to nourish the future generation with pain and cruelty.
This educational mentality could have had a not inconsiderable influence on inhumanity at all times, especially with extreme ideologies that gain more access when the majority of the population is from childhood on severely traumatized. When you do evil to innocent beings, teach cruelty and force them to lose all emotions to defend and protect themselves, you get the wished result.
The questioning of authorities was and is a stepchild of human behavior. Therefore, Thoreau warned that, even in democracies, one should never bow submissively to majority decisions without questioning them critically. He allowed people the right to protest against bad decisions and to not be forced into a silent consensus. In addition to a pioneer of environmental protection and non-violent pedagogy, he can, therefore, be seen as an icon of the civil rights movement, passive resistance and civil disobedience.
His inspirational ideas have influenced icons of freedom movement over the centuries and in the explosive current world situation, they show their visionary power and the potential for the full development of humanist ideas. If everyone lived that way, sustainable existence and peaceful coexistence with nature would be easily possible. The satisfaction with the most essential and the inward turn, rather than longing for ephemeral, mundane consumerism.
The peaceful and important protest against a mass extinction couldn´t be shown more disproportionate in mass media.
What extinction rebellion does andThe peaceful and important protest against a mass extinction couldn´t be shown more disproportionate in mass media.
What extinction rebellion does and wants: In contrast to WWF, Greenpeace, Fridays for future, etc., who mainly deal with general environmental and climate change topics, the very dark and depressing facts are brought to a broader audience by extinction rebellion. Things that are not going to happen as the worst-case scenarios for climate change, but have already happened and are happening just right now and.... once again a species extinct. There are no numbers, as no politician cares to create enough jobs for biologists to do fieldwork, so we don´t even know how many we exterminate. So or so many millions, but basically indifferent, because it happens anyway.
Think a moment about how much one hears about oilsand, rainforest destruction, mass extinction, biodiversity loss, etc. in contrast to climate change. The large problem of the instrumentalization of the climate change topic by governments is that they use it to avoid other topics and to a certain extent each NGO has to deal with the problem that people get conditioned to forget the other topics about this omnipresent "Oh my god, the poor polar bear." It´s quite handy for a political party to talk about long-time goals and ignore the problems that could, but shouldn´t, be solved today.
Mass media and governments would never dare to criticize Gandhi, Martin Luther King,... but against a new movement with exactly the same principle to nonviolent, civil disobedience, they dare to use each unfair rhetorical and psychological trick to make the population believe that they are chaotic extremists, close to real criminals.
If there would be any kind of intelligent, sustainable public transport system instead of roads with cars, there would be no such evil possibility as to bring the whole system to a hold for a short amount of time and to be denunciated as anarchistic, dangerous lunatics cause one doesn´t like that nearly all life will die out.
Cause I already mentioned Gandhi, I will add the quote. “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
No matter if it is the occupy Wall Street movement, Fridays for future, alternative political parties or anything just a little bit progressive, it gets flamed, hatetrolled and overaggressively attacked by certain pitiful people. History will show them as embarrassing footnotes before a brighter age began.
A wiki walk can be as refreshing to the mind as a walk through nature in this, yuck, ugh, boo, completely overrated real-life outside books:
As other examples like collaborative learning, cataloging, creative commons, sharing economy,... collaborative consumption leads the way to a fairer pAs other examples like collaborative learning, cataloging, creative commons, sharing economy,... collaborative consumption leads the way to a fairer post-scarcity economy.
By enabling each human to become a sharer, host, producer, worker, gardener,... and, most importantly, connected with all kind of people who can do things one can´t do, the fruits of the labor don´t go to the ones who do nothing and just own, inherit or steal. As the taxi industry is confronted with Uber and hotels with Airbnb, banks with social lending, the building sector with independent technicians, credit ratings with a social reputation system based on competence and friendliness, the food industry with self supporters... more and more branches get confronted with a wonderful problem. The people who worked for low wages become independent, share their own homes and cars and help others for a fair price if they have craftsmen or educational skills.
Certainly, there is a huge problem of companies exploiting many autonomous, one person company workers and precarious working conditions are often reported, but that are examples of the old model in new clothes. Cause the platforms offering the services depend on pleased costumers, they need a non-exploitative, sustainable business model. The ones with that change the world for the better and I seldom say something like that about a corporation.
The only thing the state, controlled by lobbies, can do, is to try to delay the development with chicanery and ridiculous laws, but it´s unstoppable. It might get pretty impossible to try to prohibit people to drive their car, rent out a room in their apartment or work with their hands or minds. Of course, the government tries it, as it sabotages all good approaches, but come on, what can they do?
Tax terror for everyone who dares to do that, yes, but no more in a stable democrazy, sorry democracy, of course, that would just match if we would be ruled by... Oh wait, yes. Probably they try to reintroduce a new red scare tactic by telling that sharing a drill, snowblower, chainsaw,... is just one step from Stalin style hardcore communism.
In the farther future, even more sophisticated machines may be produced by independent creative workers, engineers and an increasing number of fab labs. As 3D printing and technology in general advances, more and more will be produced under a free license and without planned obsolescence. Don´t forget aquaponic, producing food, greenhouses and that all powered by sustainable energy, especially biogas, biofuel and other commodities produced in fermenters and bioreactors.
What might seem utopic could be far spread in just 10 to 20 years from now as tech developments tends to accelerate and costs sink rapidly and it opens up one perspective. As soon as a community of enough skilled people comes together to produce everything they need by themselves and sell it to and share it with the rest of the world, this whole endless growth economic circle comes to an abrupt end.
Or all business models and platforms are bought by the existing leviathans and all is business as usual, except that it is probably a bit more humane and motivating inside another kind of hamster wheel with more space to play and be social together and connect, share, unicorns and stuff like that under the brand of a multinational conglomerate that is mightier than anything ever created by humans.
A wiki walk can be as refreshing to the mind as a walk through nature in this, yuck, ugh, boo, completely overrated real-life outside books:
Mario the lone bookwolf
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