http://www.countercurrents.org/baker160710.htm
By Carolyn Baker
16 July, 2010
Lately I've been encountering articles and news stories touting the
need for revolution in the wake of a gansterized U.S. financial
system and a government that has itself become a criminal enterprise.
I sense that many bloggers and their readers are salivating with
anticipation that someone or something will light the fuse of a
revolutionary cannon that will eviscerate the present system and
replace it with something more just and humane.
I share their enthusiasm for profound, bone-marrow transformation of
the status quo. Jefferson really was right when he proclaimed that
the United States needed a revolution every twenty years. Many of us
who were activists during the Vietnam War era were determined to pull
off a revolution that would destroy the military industrial complex,
institutionalized racism, and the entire capitalist agenda.
Today's visionaries and activists cherish similar hopes, yet I fear
that they do not yet grasp the kind of revolution that the planet
seems to be asking for. And unlike the revolution we envisioned four
decades ago, this one must be in response to the planet and the earth
community. From this perspective, I believe there are two kinds of
revolution in front of us: The kind that is inappropriate and the
kind that is both useful and critical for planetary survival.
Inappropriate Revolutions
The most truly inappropriate revolution would be one based on false
assumptions, principally, the notion that political change on a grand
scale is meaningful. Pundits of this kind of revolution include all
cheerleaders for the Democratic Party and all others who champion the
Progressive, left-liberal landscape. These folks are currently
obsessing about the November election and agonizing over Tea Party
cacophonies. From this perspective, if the far-right were
resoundingly defeated by the election of liberal candidates, the
nation might be spared from spiraling downward into fascism.
Other well-meaning but naïve proponents of revolution argue that
social upheaval and more people in the streets will signal enough
distress among the population to provide fertile ground for a
political and cultural revolution. While not directly advocating the
overthrow of the federal government, these individuals are poised to
organize and assume positions of leadership should sufficient unrest unfold.
Inappropriate revolutions tend to focus on widespread global (whether
literal or symbolic) measures that will result in mass consciousness
raising, mass movements, and mass political and cultural change. This
philosophy mirrors "bigger is better" and assumes that significant
change only happens when society at large is involved. Models of this
kind of revolution in the modern era would be ones such as the
Russian Revolution, the Maoist revolution in China, and the Cuban Revolution.
Such revolutions rarely address the emotional and spiritual aspects
of social change because for the most part, the possibility that any
force greater than the human mind and ego exists is rejected out of
hand. A revolution operating from this assumption is by definition,
human-centric. Whereas political revolutions may include individuals
who care deeply about the ecosystems and argue passionately for
stewardship of the earth, their agenda is not fundamentally informed
by the earth. Man is still the measure of all things and therefore,
given the desired political context, humans can reverse their
species' destruction of the planet and engineer something
approximating utopia.
So what is an appropriate revolution? And appropriate to what, you may ask.
Appropriate Revolutions
An appropriate revolution is one that is relevant to what is actually
needed in the light of human and planetary evolution. It is not
primarily political but rather informed by what the earth community
is asking for. For example, the earth is not asking for more
efficient and accessible healthcare. Rather, it is asking that humans
live in such conscious intimacy with the earth that nearly all of
humanity's diseases and injuries are prevented as a result of that
relationship.
Likewise, the earth is not asking for renewable energy but a cellular
level transformation of consciousness regarding how we live on the
earth-how we eat, what we wear, the products we use, where we live,
where we travel and how.
The earth is not asking for jobs, but rather a painfully honest
examination of our purpose in walking on her body in terms of the
work that is most beneficial for her and all species that inhabit the planet.
The earth is asking, no pleading, for inhabitants who are willing and
eager to live and relate locally in small communities, cooperating
with neighbors to replenish what has been stolen from the earth and
to enhance the well being of all species.
In his essay, "A Revolution That Is Arising From The Earth", William
Kotke states:
We who can read these words are civilized people who have been
mentally conditioned by the culture of civilization and the
industrial society from birth. We have precepts loaded into our
subconscious minds which cause us to see reality in a certain way. To
a native Maya person in the State of Chiapas, Mexico, the earth
speaks through them. They live integrated with the earth in their
everyday energy systems and in their mental attitudes. To them the
fact that the earthlife has manifest these living things around us,
and us, means that we are children of the Mother Earth and we speak
as one of the voices of the earth. To the Maya this is obvious on a
deep level. To us it is an interesting intellectual proposition only,
because we have been conditioned by a cultural upbringing that
filters out this deep understanding and we do not mentally link our
life with the life of the living earth.
To the Maya security is the earth and its care. The Maya live with
the earth and feed from its natural bounty. Historically for a
million years our species has been very successful. We have been
adapted to the earth life. We lived within the ecological web and
energy flows of the earth. Our traditional migratory patterns carried
us over our gathering areas. In the season when the game were fat in
one place we went there, when the berries were ripe in another we
went there. Our success was adaptation to the life of the earth. We
also had a culture that respected the earth and living things. The
proposition is simple. We are alive, we live because of the other
living things which feed us, we are obligated to respect and
encourage those other living things so that we too can live.
In order for these indicators of an appropriate revolution to be
actualized, a new kind of human must emerge-a new species with
conscious self-awareness that knows-not thinks or feels-that it is
not "in harmony" with the earth, but that it is the earth. This
knowledge can only be acquired if our species is willing to
experience, not theorize, that it originated from something greater
and emerged on this planet for the purpose of serving something
greater in order to perpetuate its values throughout the earth
community and for countless generations in the future.
This revolution has already begun and manifests itself in the mission
and work of organizations like Transition, Business Alliance of Local
Economies (BALLE), and the permaculture movement. These organizations
are about much more than growing organic gardens. One of their
principal functions is the revolutionizing of how money works-a
revolution without which fundamental change is impossible. They are
creating self-sufficiency and resilience in neighborhoods and local
communities, both of which may serve as mainstays in the event of
infrastructure collapse, food and water shortages, natural disasters,
economic devastation, and loss of essential services.
The localization efforts of organizations such as these have far more
implications than mere "emergency response" preparation. They will
eventually become the new normal as the collapse of industrial
civilization exacerbates. The sooner these systems become firmly in
place, the more resilient their citizens will be in navigating a
world that in a couple of decades may be unrecognizable by current
standards. They have evolved not merely out of vision and ingenuity
but out of a palpable sense that a new humanity is in the process of
emerging-a humanity that functions optimally not in a global economy
or through mass consciousness raising, but through networking and
smallness of scale.
So with those who argue that a revolution is desperately needed, I
would heartily agree-with the caveat that it must be an appropriate
one, skillfully moving in response to the earth and the evolutionary
threshold on which humans stand. It must focus on building vibrant
and discerning communities who will keep ears and hearts to the
ground, listening for what the earth is asking of them.
In closing this piece, I must notice that three years ago on the
Speaking Truth to Power website,
http://www.carolynbaker.net/ I wrote in depth about the fallacy of
placing confidence in Barack Obama as the candidate who would
"revolutionize" the United States. I was called cynical,
narrow-minded, and hopelessly pessimistic. Three years later I am
hard-pressed to find anyone who is enthusiastic about the record of
President Obama or the likelihood that if he has a clue about
anything, he would actually abdicate his Goldman-Sachs designed
throne and implement the platform of "change" on which he ran for
office. Even if he were to do so, there is no money for such an
agenda, and a cataclysmic Gulf Oil disaster has become an
unimaginable game-changer.
All of this only validates my premise that local action,
self-sufficiency, and taking charge of issues in one's community are
the essential ingredients of revolutionary change rather than
dependence on a distant President and Congress, bought and
orchestrated by the very system that is annihilating the earth
community. Do not take my word for it. Research for yourself what the
three organizations mentioned above have accomplished in the last
three years. If you still insist on calling me cynical, I would argue
that the definition of that word completely escapes you.
.
0 comments:
Post a Comment