Putting on my socks this morning I noticed how thin they are, compared to the way socks used to be made. It brought home to me just how unsustainable - wasteful - the western way of capitalist life is: planned obsolescence, and all that. (Thorstein Veblen also had a name for this general sort of consumer-driven thing: 'conspicuous consumption'.) When humanity didn't have to think much about the using up of the planet's resources, because they were so abundant in their time-frame use, it could afford to think of, and act accordingly on, such a way of life. But in our day and age, we have had our attention seriously drawn to the matter of 'the planet's resources'. And a good thing, too; to learn to honour and respect them, and Gaia herself, more.
Am I 'anti-capitalist'? To a certain extent. But read on...for comment about the other side of the political aisle. (Or, more accurately: the other side of the historical dialectical mechanism.)*
'The state has to provide its ctiizens with education, healthcare, and housing. Oh, and a free mobile phone for poor kids. Oh, and free access to the internet for them, too. After all, they are entitled to well-being.'
Who says.
The current Democrat Party in the States. Well, maybe not all of its members. But that is the way the situation is tending there; with the buying of votes accordingly.**
In the UK it was called the Militant Tendency. Was, because the Labour Party would not embrace the all-out socialism of that faction in its midst - and in point of fact, rejected it quite publicly, and knowingly: in order to get elected. Which it did accomplish (as 'New Labour'). But went too far in the process; and the public decided, in the last general election, that if they were going to be governed by the Tories, they might as will elect the real thing.
So what sorts of attitudes are engendered by all this, besides unhappiness for all concerned - except the well-off, in their '20:80 society' scenario, whereby 20% of the populace will be handsomely rewarded for their loyalty to the system, and 80% of The People will be redundant to its needs. 'Useless eaters,' they have been called by voices in the financial and power elite. Who would like to see them culled. In whatever form that may take. But let me refer to an attitude on the left of this dialectical equation first.
I have a feeling that there is an attitude 'out there' that says: 'We're taking from the rich and giving to the poor; that's all. It's called equality' (or 'redistribution of wealth'). Well; guess what. The rich are not the ones who are hurting, in this battle. (For battle it is; ie, class warfare.) They have neatly protected themselves in various ways from the tax system. It is the middle class and lower middle class - the so-called working poor- who are hurting the most. And because it's the middle class that provides most of the work opportunities in the economy, if they are hurting, the poor are hurting, for job opportunities.
The 20% would love to collapse the middle class, who are the main threat to their power (call it what it is: their enemy). But let me stay with 'the poor' for a moment. Apparently, many of those in that category have decided (for various reasons; including the social order-breaking cushy life of those at the increasingly-separate top of the heap) to 'opt out', and just live with their freebies, in a permanent state of welfarism. Not a good idea. Those in work are going to resent those out of work and not really looking for work. Are, resenting. Just so is the feeling of separation generated; NOT 'we're all in this together'. So this neo-socialistic state of affairs is counter-productive; not sustainable. 'Welfarism' - a permanent class, state of being - inculcates a something-for-nothing mentality. Not healthy.
Like interest-bearing money...
But to conclude my critique of the welfare state: the attitude of getting something for nothing will not get humanity to a higher state of civilization on the planet; and, indeed, is the very thing that will keep that desirable state from ever happening. What will bring about the higher, synthesis-state of civilization on the planet is the realisation - the understanding - that as we give, so do we receive; for we are part of the whole that is being served by our giving to it.
It's the difference between the evolutionary path of Service to Self and that of Service to Others.*** And the latter is the higher road. The point of choice which we are now facing; and in spades, as it were. (As well with technology eliminating jobs; and so creating the need for a separation of 'income' from 'employment'.)
Things, in short, are coming to a head.
As they should.
For 'things as they are, and have been', cannot long continue.
There is something new under the sun, waiting in the wings, for its time.
And that time is Now.
When we will recognize that we have been involved in a drama, and have been playing parts in that drama. Over and over and over again. Now a prince, now a pauper. Now male, now female. Now of one race, now another. For a purpose.
The purpose has been - and is - to grow. To gain wisdom.
And now we are at the creative edge of one stage of our growth. Where our lesson is to recognize all this, and now move on, in our awareness OF the drama.
And doing it with such awarenesses as that 'As you do unto others, so do you do unto yourself' - and even literally, in your next incarnation, experiencing the law of cause and effect. Also known as karma.
It really is time to recognize certain facts of life, and stop living as if they weren't true, as we are doing at present. Those basic facts are that life has Purpose, and that Purpose is Good.
And once we accept that premise, and start living as if it were true, the classroom changes, and we graduate; to learn other lessons.
And ultimately, through it all - the whole process of the ages - will we come back to Oneness with our Source.
With that in which we move and live and have our being.
The greater - more expanded; more knowing - for the experience.
So let's start treating each other accordingly. As ourselves.
Because
it's time.
And that time will best be marked by a releasing of the twin training wheels of interest-bearing money on the one hand and fractional-reserve banking on the other, and the vehicle of our social system - our kingdom of God on Earth - running simply on Love; wherein we provide each other with goods and services, and give of our individuated best in the process, out of gratitude to our Creator for life with meaning.
And out of knowing - really, deep down, knowing - that we are all One anyway.
Come join the new era. And help make it happen, by doing so.
For know, that you have chosen to be here, at this time. (And it is an honour and a privilege to be here, at this time.) Let us rise to the occasion.
May we rise to the occasion.
Our choice.
Your choice.
As a vital, spark-part of the I Am.
The I Am that is with You always.
---
* I feel that Hegel had a good insight into the historical process, when he posited his 'dialectic': how a position - a 'thesis' - because it is not complete in itself, generates opposition to it - an antithesis - which results in a combining of elements of both, in a synthesis; but because it is not complete in itself, it becomes but a thesis for another stage of the unfolding process. A classic instance: unbridled capitalism, with the concomitant belief in the primacy of the individual, generated the reaction of communism, with the concomitant belief in the primacy of the collective. But as the world was heading for a critical state of confrontation between the two theses, the 'process' came up with a compromise (synthesis), in elements of what became known as the welfare state, and unionism; various states of 'social justice'. But that state of affairs has not been fully satisfactory, and has generated its own antithesis, which has resulted in the standoff we are experiencing today, with the compromise system experiencing elements of its 'internal contradictions' (mainly, the making of money - which has become the purpose of the capitalist tendency - resulting in structural damage to the economic model) resulting in very potential collapse; at the least, a 'double-dip recession'.
** Obama and his administrative buddies - apparatchiks, really - are creating a political base in a fudge called Illegal Aliens Amnesty, and in the cynically-orchestrated 'immigration' of millions of Muslims from Afghanistan and Palestine. It is a putsch for power. It is a way for the socialists in America to establish socialism IN America; with the help of a secularized segment of the young, having been and being engineered to make a break from the world of their parents, through the revolutionaries' occupation of the 'high ground' of the educational establishment.
But understand: both the Left and the Right have legitimate roles to play in the unfolding of this historical process. It is, after all, a drama, that we have all played different parts in.
*** Some people believe in the superior attitude of self-interest, ie, that as one serves one's self, the whole is served. (The so-called 'trickle down' theory.) Tell that to the lower denizens of the 20:80 society.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment