- http://www.voiceyourself.com/
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of those ends, it is the right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government or realize that Government has been the enslaver of man since the beginning of civilization and abolish it once and for all and return to a communal way of life. Where all men and women are truly equal and represent each other and each others survival and well-being. Where the laws of nature govern. Where we put life above material. Free individuals in free communities in harmony with one another and with the biosphere. Where our lives are not in the hands of a few powerful men, but rather in the hands of the gods... Anarchy is not chaos, but order through cooperation not control. We are all bound to the laws of nature, no matter how far we try to separate ourselves from it, no matter how deep within the city you live, your life is still governed by natural laws. Civilization makes you believe you are separate from those laws, makes you believe that through cleanliness, control, and technology that you are somehow better than and not subject to the forces and laws of nature..... As long as you live on earth, you live by the rules of the earth, not the rules of civilization or government, or the economy, or any unearthly forms of control. Those are illusions that obscure your reality and bring you this sense of ego that you feel when you deny the earth, when you wish to further this industrial machine that devours the planet every day. It is you that makes its veins pump and hunger greater each day as you contribute to that status quo. Cogs in a killing machine.... killing the planet and everything on it. Technology will not save you, but in fact is the murder weapon itself..... This can change, we are not fundamentally flawed creatures, but we must accept that that is what we are, creatures. Animals. As long as we hold on to this megalomania, this belief we are greater then other animals, and the earth, then we will continue to live against life itself.... but if we loose the ego before it's too late, if we regain that relationship with all of life... then a sustainable world is possible.
..::ANARCHO-PRIMITIVISM::..
Definition of Civilization
By Derrick Jensen
"I suddenly remembered that all writers, including writers of dictionaries, are propagandists, and I realized that these definitions are, in fact, bite-sized chunks of propaganda, concise articulations of the arrogance that has led those who believe they are living in the most advanced—and best—culture to attempt to impose by force this way of being on all others.
"I would define civilization much more precisely,and I believe more usefully, as a culture—that is, a complex of stories, institutions, and artifacts—that both leads to and emerges from the growth of cities (civilization, see civil: from civis, meaning citizen, from Latin civitatis, meaning city-state), with cities being defined—so as to distinguish them from camps, villages, and so on—as people living more or less permanently in one place in densities high enough to require the routine importation of food and other necessities of life." Endgame vol. 1, p. 17
Derrick's PREMISES from Endgame
Premise One: Civilization is not and can never be sustainable. This is especially true for industrial civilization.
Premise Two: Traditional communities do not often voluntarily give up or sell the resources on which their communities are based until their communities have been destroyed. They also do not willingly allow their landbases to be damaged so that other resources—gold, oil, and so on—can be extracted. It follows that those who want the resources will do what they can to destroy traditional communities.
Premise Three: Our way of living—industrial civilization—is based on, requires, and would collapse very quickly without persistent and widespread violence.
Premise Four: Civilization is based on a clearly defined and widely accepted yet often unarticulated hierarchy. Violence done by those higher on the hierarchy to those lower is nearly always invisible, that is, unnoticed. When it is noticed, it is fully rationalized. Violence done by those lower on the hierarchy to those higher is unthinkable, and when it does occur is regarded with shock, horror, and the fetishization of the victims.
Premise Five: The property of those higher on the hierarchy is more valuable than the lives of those below. It is acceptable for those above to increase the amount of property they control—in everyday language, to make money—by destroying or taking the lives of those below. This is called production. If those below damage the property of those above, those above may kill or otherwise destroy the lives of those below. This is called justice.
Premise Six: Civilization is not redeemable. This culture will not undergo any sort of voluntary transformation to a sane and sustainable way of living. If we do not put a halt to it, civilization will continue to immiserate the vast majority of humans and to degrade the planet until it (civilization, and probably the planet) collapses. The effects of this degradation will continue to harm humans and nonhumans for a very long time.
Premise Seven: The longer we wait for civilization to crash—or the longer we wait before we ourselves bring it down—the messier will be the crash, and the worse things will be for those humans and nonhumans who live during it, and for those who come after.
Premise Eight: The needs of the natural world are more important than the needs of the economic system.
Another way to put premise Eight: Any economic or social system that does not benefit the natural communities on which it is based is unsustainable, immoral, and stupid. Sustainability, morality, and intelligence (as well as justice) requires the dismantling of any such economic or social system, or at the very least disallowing it from damaging your landbase.
Premise Nine: Although there will clearly some day be far fewer humans than there are at present, there are many ways this reduction in population could occur (or be achieved, depending on the passivity or activity with which we choose to approach this transformation). Some of these ways would be characterized by extreme violence and privation: nuclear armageddon, for example, would reduce both population and consumption, yet do so horrifically; the same would be true for a continuation of overshoot, followed by crash. Other ways could be characterized by less violence. Given the current levels of violence by this culture against both humans and the natural world, however, it’s not possible to speak of reductions in population and consumption that do not involve violence and privation, not because the reductions themselves would necessarily involve violence, but because violence and privation have become the default. Yet some ways of reducing population and consumption, while still violent, would consist of decreasing the current levels of violence required, and caused by, the (often forced) movement of resources from the poor to the rich, and would of course be marked by a reduction in current violence against the natural world. Personally and collectively we may be able to both reduce the amount and soften the character of violence that occurs during this ongoing and perhaps longterm shift. Or we may not. But this much is certain: if we do not approach it actively—if we do not talk about our predicament and what we are going to do about it—the violence will almost undoubtedly be far more severe, the privation more extreme.
Premise Ten: The culture as a whole and most of its members are insane. The culture is driven by a death urge, an urge to destroy life.
Premise Eleven: From the beginning, this culture—civilization—has been a culture of occupation.
Premise Twelve: There are no rich people in the world, and there are no poor people. There are just people. The rich may have lots of pieces of green paper that many pretend are worth something—or their presumed riches may be even more abstract: numbers on hard drives at banks—and the poor may not. These “rich†claim they own land, and the “poor†are often denied the right to make that same claim. A primary purpose of the police is to enforce the delusions of those with lots of pieces of green paper. Those without the green papers generally buy into these delusions almost as quickly and completely as those with. These delusions carry with them extreme consequences in the real world.
Premise Thirteen: Those in power rule by force, and the sooner we break ourselves of illusions to the contrary, the sooner we can at least begin to make reasonable decisions about whether, when, and how we are going to resist.
Premise Fourteen: From birth on—and probably from conception, but I’m not sure how I’d make the case—we are individually and collectively enculturated to hate life, hate the natural world, hate the wild, hate wild animals, hate women, hate children, hate our bodies, hate and fear our emotions, hate ourselves. If we did not hate the world, we could not allow it to be destroyed before our eyes. If we did not hate ourselves, we could not allow our homes—and our bodies—to be poisoned.
Premise Fifteen: Love does not imply pacifism.
Premise Sixteen: The material world is primary. This does not mean that the spirit does not exist, nor that the material world is all there is. It means that spirit mixes with flesh. It means also that real world actions have real world consequences. It means we cannot rely on Jesus, Santa Claus, the Great Mother, or even the Easter Bunny to get us out of this mess. It means this mess really is a mess, and not just the movement of God’s eyebrows. It means we have to face this mess ourselves. It means that for the time we are here on Earth—whether or not we end up somewhere else after we die, and whether we are condemned or privileged to live here—the Earth is the point. It is primary. It is our home. It is everything. It is silly to think or act or be as though this world is not real and primary. It is silly and pathetic to not live our lives as though our lives are real.
Premise Seventeen: It is a mistake (or more likely, denial) to base our decisions on whether actions arising from these will or won’t frighten fence-sitters, or the mass of Americans.
Premise Eighteen: Our current sense of self is no more sustainable than our current use of energy or technology.
Premise Nineteen: The culture’s problem lies above all in the belief that controlling and abusing the natural world is justifiable.
Premise Twenty: Within this culture, economics—not community well-being, not morals, not ethics, not justice, not life itself—drives social decisions.
Modification of Premise Twenty: Social decisions are determined primarily (and often exclusively) on the basis of whether these decisions will increase the monetary fortunes of the decision-makers and those they serve.
Re-modification of Premise Twenty: Social decisions are determined primarily (and often exclusively) on the basis of whether these decisions will increase the power of the decision-makers and those they serve.
Re-modification of Premise Twenty: Social decisions are founded primarily (and often exclusively) on the almost entirely unexamined belief that the decision-makers and those they serve are entitled to magnify their power and/or financial fortunes at the expense of those below.
Re-modification of Premise Twenty: If you dig to the heart of it—if there were any heart left—you would find that social decisions are determined primarily on the basis of how well these decisions serve the ends of controlling or destroying wild nature. Endgame vol. 1, pages IX-XII
THE HEMP TRADING COMPANY. Herb'n Eco Wear.
I'd like to meet:
What is Survival?
Survival is the only international organisation supporting tribal peoples worldwide. We were founded in 1969 after an article by Norman Lewis in the UK's Sunday Times highlighted the massacres, land thefts and genocide taking place in Brazilian Amazonia. Like many modern atrocities, the racist oppression of Brazil's Indians took place in the name of 'economic growth'.
Today, Survival has supporters in 82 countries. We work for tribal peoples' rights in three complementary ways: education, advocacy and campaigns. We also offer tribal people themselves a platform to address the world. We work closely with local indigenous organisations, and focus on tribal peoples who have the most to lose, usually those most recently in contact with the outside world.
We believe that public opinion is the most effective force for change. Its power will make it harder, and eventually impossible, for governments and companies to oppress tribal peoples.
Now Entering Cyberia (Population: Zero)A Note on the Medium
Due to your vague interest in these matters which have been deemed antisocial by the new thought police, you have been exiled to Cyberia. You may believe your visit to be voluntary, but ask yourself: if you could live—in real time, in full color, without a 'net'—the revolt and transformation you fantasize about, would you be here, contemplating and trading in mere representations of such things? The new isolation chambers and interrogation rooms largely need no judicial procedures or law enforcement to fill them—we confine ourselves to these office cubicles, internet cafes, and lonely bedrooms willingly, even believing ourselves to have found access to our dreams and desires here. Not to criticize you, of course—since obviously I am in the same situation as you, similarly self-exiled. But let's use this time in the wilderness as the political prisoners of old did: not to get accustomed to it, not to build new lives around this voluntary amputation, but to educate ourselves, increase our powers and connections, so when we can return to society we will be armed with new tools for dismantling and reconceiving it. Let us take the world itself back, rather than the "information superhighways" upon which we are being herded so quickly away from it, so one day there will be no need for anyone to return here, ever again, for in the world I see - you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You'll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You'll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Tower. And when you look down, you'll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying strips of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighway...
See you on the other side of the screen, if you make it, earnest cyberspace cadet.
Ishmael: This picture links to my 'sister' myspace page. This page is dedicated to the book Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. I made this page because Ishmael has had such a profound influence in where my thoughts lie about civilization and the stories that keep it going everyday. The book inspired me to look further and deeper at our situation, to not just look at the surface but to find the very roots. Since my reading of Daniel Quinn, I later found the author Derrick Jensen who takes such ideas out of the fiction world and brings them into the real world. If you are new to the subject of civilization being the root cause of our problems it may be best you read Ishmael as an introduction to such a profound idea. I would not end your journey there, but continue on by reading other authors like Derrick Jensen in particular as well as John Zerzan, Lewis Mumford, Starhawk, Chellis Glennding, Susan Griffin, E.B. Taylor, Aric McBay, Richard Heinberg and many many others.
--ISHMAEL PAGE--
...:::[SOME DISSENT MEDIA]:::...
The Green Anarchist Infoshop is an online resource on anarchy, green anarchy, and anarcho-primitivism. It was created in order to provide easy access to information on the institutions of domination and destruction that we're up against, and perhaps some tools for fighting them while liberating ourselves. A great portion of this website is based on writings from Green Anarchy magazine, which we have stolen and copied here, and augmented them where we felt they needed to be augmented.
And yes, like the other green anarchist websites out there, we understand and realize the hypocrisy of a website advocating the destruction of technology and civilization. As of right now, it is a good medium to spread ideas and as a way to possibly turn off more computers in the end. Or, it is a green anarchist underground conspiracy to get more people on the internet in order to fuel the oil crisis and quicken the collapse? You choose.
Readings at http://anthropik.com/ include:
The Thirty Theses
By Jason Godesky
We all have basic assumptions about the world, human nature, and the relationship between the two. We are taught certain perspectives as children, and this received wisdom forms the common ground for communication. Ultimately, when we see the whole picture, our major disagreements are squabbles over details. Should gays be allowed to marry? We assume here a common understanding of what “marriage†means. Should we raise or lower taxes? We assume the legitimacy of government, and of taxes at all!
What happens when the disagreement occurs at an even more basic level? Like, whether or not our civilization is even a good thing?
The case is complex, but in truth no more complex than our “common ground†of unexamined, received wisdom. In many cases, it is much less complex. But it is different. Since forming these ideas, I have faced an increasing obstacle in communication. Unspoken, differing assumptions force me routinely to return to the same arguments again and again. So I resolved some time ago to crystallize my philosophy into a single, comprehensive work, which could form a base for further communication.
There have been several failed attempts at this, the most recent being “The Anthropik Canon.†The Thirty Theses recycles much of my previous work, but extends and elaborates on all of it, as well. This is my latest attempt to develop a comprehensive treatment of my core philosophy, reduced to thirty pronouncements which I individually defend.
You are also watching the writing of an “open source†book in real time. These will become the rough drafts to a final book version that will be published by the Tribe of Anthropik and distributed online, including through this website. Your comments, criticisms and questions about these entries will be addressed and incorporated into the final work.
..
History isn't what happened, but a story of what happened. And there are always different versions, different stories, about the same events. One version might revolve mainly around a specific set of facts while another version might minimize them or not include them at all.
Like stories, each of these different versions of history contain different lessons. Some histories tell us that our leaders, at least, have always tried to do right for everyone. Others remark that the emperors don't have the slaves' best interests at heart. Some teach us that this is both what has always been and what always will be. Others counsel that we shouldn't mistake transient dominance for intrinsic superiority. Lastly, some histories paint a picture where only the elites have the power to change the world, while others point out that social change is rarely commanded from the top down.
Regardless of the value of these many lessons, History isn't what happened, but the stories of what happened and the lessons these stories include. The very selection of which histories to teach in a society shapes our view of how what is came to be and, in turn, what we understand as possible. This choice of which history to teach can never be "neutral" or "objective." Those who choose, either following a set agenda or guided by hidden prejudices, serve their interests. Their interests could be to continue this world as it now stands or to make a new world.
We cannot simply be passive. We must choose whose interests are best: those who want to keep things going as they are or those who want to work to make a better world. If we choose the latter, we must seek out the tools we will need. History is just one tool to shape our understanding of our world. And every tool is a weapon if you hold it right.
.. Enter History Is A Weapon
EnergyBulletin.net is a clearinghouse for information regarding the peak in global energy supply. We publish news, research and analysis concerning:
• energy production statistics, models, projections and analysis
• articles which provide insight into the implications of peak oil across broad areas including geopolitics, climate change, ecology, population, finance, urban design, health, and even religious and gender issues.
• a range of information to help preparedness for peak energy, such as:
o renewable energy information
o alternative financial systems
o low energy agriculture
o relocalization
• any other subjects that could lead to better understanding the implications of an energy production peak
The Oil Drum's mission is to facilitate civil, evidence-based discussions about energy and its impact on our future.
We near the point where new oil production cannot keep up with increased energy demand and the depletion of older oil fields, resulting in a decline of total world oil production. Because we are increasingly dependent upon petroleum, declining production has the potential to disrupt our lives through much higher prices and fuel shortages. The extent of the impact of this supply shortfall will depend on its timing, the magnitude of production decline rates, the feasibility of petroleum alternatives, and our ability to curtail energy consumption.
The Global Research webpage at www.globalresearch.ca publishes news articles, commentary, background research and analysis on a broad range of issues, focussing on social, economic, strategic and environmental processes.
The Global Researech website was established on the 9th of September 2001, two days before the tragic events of September 11. Barely a few days later, Global Research had become a major news source on the New World Order and Washington's "war on terrorism".
Since September 2001, we have established an extensive archive of news articles, in-depth reports and analysis on issues which are barely covered by the mainstream media.
ABOUT EARTH FIRST!
Are you tired of namby-pamby environmental groups? Are you tired of overpaid corporate environmentalists who suck up to bureaucrats and industry? Have you become disempowered by the reductionist approach of environmental professionals and scientists?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, then Earth First! is for you. Earth First! is effective. Our front-line, direct action approach to protecting wilderness gets results. We have succeeded in cases where other environmental groups had given up, and have drawn public attention to the crises facing the natural world.
Earth First! was named in 1979 in response to a lethargic, compromising, and increasingly corporate environmental community. Earth First! takes a decidedly different tack towards environmental issues. We believe in using all the tools in the tool box, ranging from grassroots organizing and involvement in the legal process to civil disobedience and monkeywrenching.
Earth First! is different from other environmental groups. Here are some things to keep in mind about Earth First! and some suggestions for being an active and effective Earth First!er: First of all, Earth First! is not an organization, but a movement. There are no "members" of Earth First!, only Earth First!ers. It is a belief in biocentrism, that life of the Earth comes first, and a practice of putting our beliefs into action.
While there is broad diversity within Earth First! from animal rights vegans to wilderness hunting guides, from monkeywrenchers to careful followers of Gandhi, from whiskey-drinking backwoods riffraff to thoughtful philosophers, from misanthropes to humanists there is agreement on one thing, the need for action!
Infoshop.org is an online resource of news, opinion and information.
Independent Media Center | www.indymedia.org | ((( i ))) Independent News, for Independent Peoples. Indymedia is a collective of independent media organizations and hundreds of journalists offering grassroots, non-corporate coverage. Indymedia is a democratic media outlet for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate tellings of truth.
-->www.GuerrillaNews.com<--
The Guerrilla News Network: In a war on info, Guerilla tactics are the best way to get your news.
CorpWatch.org investigates and exposes corporate violations of human rights, environmental crimes, fraud and corruption around the world. We work to foster global justice, independent media activism and democratic control over corporations.
Carolynbaker.net a website owned and managed by Carolyn Baker. Carolyn is an adjunct professor of history, a former psychotherapist, an author, and a student of mythology and ritual. This website offers up-to-the-moment alternative reporting of U.S. and international news, articles containing information and opinion, and a venue of support and connection for awake individuals who want not only to be informed, but to organize their lives and communities in ways that most effectively assist them in navigating what current events are manifesting.
Carolyn’s Mission: “The Chinese proverb and curse says, ‘May you live in interesting times’.†In the first decade of the twenty-first century, we live in profound uncertainty, faced with issues unprecedented in the history of the human race. Truth To Power seeks to provide readers with a ‘fixed point in a changing universe’ that both informs and supports humanity’s efforts to remake the world—both our personal worlds and our planet. My intention is to offer a beacon of light in the smothering darkness with which we seem to be engulfed, making available information and specific ideas and strategies which we all might utilize as we experience the life/death/rebirth process inherent in the inner and outer realms of our current reality.â€
--<[www.gortbusters.org>]-- What is a Gort? ( The Short Answer ) A gort is someone who believes that "That which is so, is so." Gortbusters teaches you, "Nothing that is so, is so." Warning: this site may actually cause thought.
Contents of this page include: Political Discussions; Environmental Discussions; Spirituality and Psychological Discussions.
RealClimate.org is a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists. We aim to provide a quick response to developing stories and provide the context sometimes missing in mainstream commentary. The discussion here is restricted to scientific topics and will not get involved in any political or economic implications of the science.
--{911WEKNOW.com}-- A lot of people ask WHY "our government" would "do this to us" -- to its own people. What they don't think about is who "the government" works for. If "our government" would "do this to us," they must not be working for us, right? Perhaps we should first ask "What is the government?", then "How is the government [organized]?" and then "Why is [there] the government?"
...::Grist.Org::...Let's face it: reading environmental journalism too often feels like eating your vegetables. Boiled. With no butter.
But at Grist, we believe that news about green issues and sustainable living doesn't have to be predictable, demoralizing, or dull. We butter the vegetables! And add salt! And strain metaphors!
Common Dreams | News & Views Common Dreams - Breaking News and Views for the Progressive Community
Seven Stories Press is an independent book publisher based in New York City, with distribution throughout the United States, Canada, England, Australia, and New Zealand. Seven Stories books are translated into and published in virtually all languages around the globe. They believe publishers have a special responsibility to defend free speech and human rights wherever they can.
They publish works of the imagination by such writers as Nelson Algren, Kate Braverman, Octavia Butler, Harriet Scott Chessman, Assia Djebar, Ariel Dorfman, Martin Duberman, Alan Dugan, Annie Ernaux, Barry Gifford, Stanley Moss, Peter Plate,Charley Rosen, Ted Solotaroff, Lee Stringer, Martin Winckler and Kurt Vonnegut, among many others, together with political titles by voices of conscience, including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Tom Athanasiou, the Boston Women's Health Book Collective, The Center for Constitutional Rights, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, Noam Chomsky, Derrick Jensen, Angela Davis, Shere Hite,Robert McChesney, Phil Jackson, Ralph Nader, Gary Null, Benjamin Pogrund, Project Censored, Luis J. Rodriguez, Barbara Seaman, Vandana Shiva, Leora Tanenbaum, Koigi wa Wamwere, Gary Webb and Howard Zinn.
Liberty For Life:
- Our goal is to uncover corruption to build a better future. Love conquers all.
- We avoid conspiracy "theory" & focus on hard facts & evidence proving collusion & corruption.
- Working to establish and protect the freedom of people around the world. Peace together, forever in love.
~SubMedia.tv~.:subMedia is an award winning indy production company with a knack for viral videos and fast paced web media:.
What Really Happened.com How 9/11 happened and what has come becasue of 9/11
Propaganda Matrix.com: Exposing the 4th Reich of the Elite and Government Sponsored Terrorism
~WwW.DaVidSheen.CoM~ . One of my favorite Revolutionary Sites. Dedicated to rebuilding the world a bit closer to earth. Dozens upon dozen of links to extraordinary sites, that give you information on upcoming active films and projects in addition to how to build your own "Earth Homes". And more. Check out his YouTube account: ~The Red Pharmacy~
Chemtrail Central Chemtrail news, research, images, forum and more.
--{ WEATHER WARS by Scott Stevens }-- Watch the weather Change.
Google Watch is Google tracking your internet, perhaps for homeland security?
..::{More Independent Media}::..
A-Infos
Afrikan.net
Alternative Press Review
Alternet
Anarchist News
Anarchists Against the Wall
Anarcho-Syndicalist Review
Anarchy
Anarkismo
Antiwar.com
Asheville Global Report
Autonomy & Solidarity
Axis of Logic
Black Agenda Report
Black Commentator
Bombs and Shields
BrownWatch
Buzzflash
Common Dreams
Counter Punch
Davey D's Hip Hop Corner
Democracy Now
Disinfo.com
Dissident Voice
Earth First!
Electronic Intifada
Electronic Iraq
FAIR
Fifth Estate
From the Wilderness
GNN
In These Times
Ind. Press Assoc.
Indymedia
infoAnarchy
Information Clearing House
InterActivist
Jew School
Labor Notes
Latuff
Left Turn
Libcom
MediaChannel.org
Media Matters
Media Monitors Network
The Memory Hole
Mikey'zine
MOAK 47
Monthly Review Zine
Mostly Water - Canada news
Mother Jones
Narco News Bulletin
The Nation
National Security Archive
NEFAC
New Standard
News Insider
NYC Indypendent
Oread Daily
p2pnet
PETA Action Alerts
Phoenix Insurgent
PR Watch
Press Action
Primitivism.com
The Progressive
Punk News
Question Everything
Rabble.ca
Resist.ca
Riot Porn
SchNEWS
Slashdot
Smoking Gun
SMYGO
Threewayfight
Utne
Venezuela News
War Times
Whispered Media
White Privilege
Women's eNews
Workers Solidarity Movement
World War 4 Report
WSWS
Yellow Times
ZNet
~~~{Some Alternative Ideas}~~~
http://justfortheloveofit.org/index.php
So what is The Freeconomy Community about?
-It's about making the transition from a money-based communityless society to a community-based moneyless society.
-It's about helping others and providing an opportunity for others to help you. It's about making the transition from a money-based communityless society to a community-based moneyless society.
-It's about sharing the skills you have learnt through your life and learning those you haven't.
-It's about sharing your tools so you all can have access to all the tools under the sun without it costing the earth.
-It's about using any free space you have to either benefit positive, ethical and local projects, or to enable volunteers to keep doing their amazing work for free.
-It's about sharing the land you don't need in order to facilitate a local food community.
-It's about freeconnecting neighbours.
-It's about learning to help each other again.
-It's about getting ready for a post peak oil world.
-It's about making dinner for a friend who was yesterday a stranger.
-It's about keeping money out of the equation.
-It's about communicating face-to-face and phasing out technological communication.
-It's about putting the soul back into society.
-It's about helping each other not for profit, but just for the love-ofit.
Sustainable Farming Internships and Apprenticeships
This directory of on-the-job learning opportunities in sustainable and organic agriculture in the U.S. (and some in Canada) has been published since 1989 as a tool to help farmers and apprentices connect with each other. The listed farms are primarily seeking interns/apprentices from North America.
The Urban Farm is a 1/3-acre urban home site where owner Greg Peterson has spent the last 17 years landscaping with edible plants and trees. Additionally the Urban Farm showcases water harvesting, edible landscaping, photovoltaics and recycle building materials that is easy to understand and simple to implement at you urban home site.
Just what is permaculture? Explore the many definitions, visit the bookstore, or find or post a course in your own area.
Organic Volunteers.com's e-wwoof is a USA wwoof program. Our wwoof program allows people to sign up to become wwoofers or wwoof hosts instantly. Being a wwoofer or a wwoof host at organic volunteers is free, just fill out the form and off you go. There are many other wwoof programs in the world.
Teaching Drum Outdoor School
"Where Wilderness is the classroom, Ancient Voices are the Teachers, knowing Self and Balance are the quests."
The modern way of life has isolated us from Mother Earth, and from our intrinsic selves. This has left us groping through life with a profound emptiness—we are strangers to our plant and animal relations, and we are confused and frustrated by our deep unmet yearnings for self-knowing and relevant relationship.
Our mission at the Teaching Drum is to facilitate the connection to self, and to the Earth our first Mother. Learning earth ways and skills is important in this process, yet not enough. Along with skills, we help you peel back the layers of habit and convention so that you can reawaken your innate sensory and intuitive abilities. To the extent that you shed the layers that disrupt your communion with the natural world, you will be a fully functioning human—able to hear the voice of your ancestors, communicate with animals, and revel in your personal power. This is what a native calls Walking in Balance.
Come and find Balance; we would be honored to walk with you.
Imagine...
Possessing the skills to help yourself and family naturally.
Feeling safe, confident, secure and knowledgeable in making your own herbal home remedies.
Having more energy and feeling healthier.
NOT feeling overwhelmed when you look in an herb book or walk into a health food store.
Saving money by learning to make your OWN remedies. Becoming a home medicine maker or herbalist.
Learn Outdoor Skills!NatureSkills.com is designed to begin or complement your learning journey as a student of the natural world.
We cover outdoor skills such as tracking, bird language, primitive skills, wilderness survival skills, wild foods and more!
rewild, v : to return to a more natural or wild state; the process of undoing domestication. Synonyms: undomesticate, uncivilize.
Our Mission Statement:REWILD.info intends to collect and provide free access to knowledge of primitive and/or sustainable living practices through the use of the open source format of a wiki. Our elders have long since disappeared. The information they held and the skills they practiced exist now only in pockets--a few books, a few schools--practiced by only a few. This site, while seemingly contradictory in principle (using modern technology to teach primitive technology), does not contradict the transmission of traditional ecological knowledge we all need for such a return to the kind of life our elders knew--any means necessary to rewild. This site forms another means for those who cannot find any other starting places or for those who feel inspired to help those with no other starting places. In time, all of this will fade, but for now we need communication and we need something to stand in for our elders (and/or an oral tradition of knowledge). This site attempts to do just that.
The
REWILD.info Field Guide has four major functions:
1. This site exists for you and your community, primarily as a tool to disperse information that will help the future generations--human and other-than-human alike. Many people cannot afford to go to wilderness schools or purchase field guides, but most people can use the internet for free (at a library for example). This site will help unschoolers and low-income people have access to information that they otherwise could not afford.
2. We provide a community, at least in some sense, to those with no local community.
3. We enhance international rewilding communities by providing a space for cross-cultural pollination.
4. We function as a place for people to meet and make plans concerning the crash of civilization (ie, where to go, where to meet, what to avoid, etc.)
5. Lastly we hope to enhance and rewild the use of the English language through the encouragment, but not requirement, of writing articles in e-prime.
---B Attitudes---Blessed are those who refrain from exalting themselves above their neighbors in the community of life, for their children shall have a world to live in.
Blessed are those who listen to their neighbors in the community of life, for they shall escape extinction.
Blessed are those who refrain from imposing on others their "one right way to live," for cultural diversity shall be restored among them.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for the survival of Leaver cultures, for they shall preserve a legacy of wisdom accumulated from the beginning of time.
Blessed are those who do not fancy themselves rulers or managers or stewards of the earth, for the earth managed to thrive for three billion years without any of us.
Blessed are those who do whatever they can wherever they are, for no one is devoid of resources or opportunities.
Blessed are those who awaken others as they have been awakened.
--{Blessed are these quotes}--
"...if someone put a plastic bag over the head of a loved one, would you just stand there, or would you fight back?"
-Derrick Jensen "Endgame"
"Money perfectly manifests the desires of our culture. It is safe. It neither lives, dies, nor rots.It is exempt from experience. It is meaningless and abstract. By valuing abstraction over living beings, we seal not only our own fate, but the fates of all those we encounter."
-Derrick Jensen "A Language Older Than Words"
"I have always suspected that if our economic and political problems are ever really solved, life will become simpler instead of more complex... I think that by retaining one's childhood love of such things as trees, fishes, butterflies and - to return to my first instance - toads, one makes a peaceful and decent future a little more probable, and that by preaching the doctrine that nothing is to be admired except steel and concrete, one merely makes it a little surer that human beings will have no outlet for their surplus energy except in hatred and leader worship."
-George Orwell, from an essay on the common toad.
"There are now millions of people...to whom the blaring of a radio is not only a more acceptable but a more normal background to their thoughts than the lowing of cattle or the song of birds. The mechanization of the world could never proceed very far while taste...remained uncorrupted, because in that case most of the products of the machine would be simply unwanted. In a healthy world there would be no demand for tinned food, aspirins, gramophones, gaspipe chairs, machine guns, daily newspapers, telephones, motor-cars, etc., etc.; and... there would be a constant demand for the things the machine cannot produce. But meanwhile the machine is here, and its corrupting effects are almost irresistible."
-George Orwell, from The Road to Wigan Pier
"I maintain that it was a public-spirited action to plant that Cox, for these trees do not fruit quickly and I did not expect to stay there long. I never had an apple off it myself, but it looks as if someone else will have quite a lot. By their fruits ye shall know them, and the Cox's Orange Pippin is a good fruit to be known by.
...A thing that I regret, and which I will try to remedy some time is that I have never in my life planted a walnut. Nobody does plant them nowadays - when you see a walnut it is almost invariably an old tree. If you plant a walnut you are planting it for your grandchildren, and who cares a damn for his grandchildren?"
-George Orwell, from the essay "A Good Word for the Vicar of Bray"
"One does not sell the land the people walk on."
-Crazy Horse
"If we want to stop the hate, we need to get rid of the the framing conditions. Until we do that, we're bound to fail."
Derrick, "Culture of Make Believe".
"Civilization is not redeemable... From the beginning, this culture— civilization— has been a culture of occupation... Those in power rule by force, and the sooner we break ourselves of illusions to the contrary, the sooner we can at least begin to make reasonable decisions about whether, when, and how we are going to resist."
-Derrick Jensen "Endgame"
"The working class at least has some power-if the working class folds its arms the machinery stops-and as for the ruling class it's power is obvious. But what power does the middle class have? They have the power to talk:yak,yak,yak. To interpret, reinterpret, re-reinterpret. And that's the history of the new left in a nutshell."
-Dave Van Ronk
"If salmon, tuna, or wolverine could take on human manifestation, what would they do?"
-Derrick Jensen
"I am the earth. You are the earth. The Earth is dying. You and I are murderers.""Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them."
"If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos."
"If you're not pissed off, you're not paying attention."
-Author Unknown
"We must hurl ourselves against and through the literal and metaphorical concrete that contains and constrains us, that keeps us from talking about what is most important to us, that keeps us from living the way our bones know we can, that bars us from our home."
-Derrick Jensen "A Language Older Than Words"
"
Economic growth is a deadly disease upon the Earth, with capitalism as its most virulent strain. Throw-away consumption and explosive population growth are made possible by using up fossil fuels and destroying ecosystems. Holiday shopping numbers are covered by media in the same breath as Arctic ice melt, ignoring their deep connection. Exponential economic growth destroys ecosystems and pushes the biosphere closer to failure."
-Glen Barry
"The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82)
"Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing things historians usually record; while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry and even whittle statues. The story of civilization is the story of what happened on the banks. Historians are pessimists because they ignore the banks for the river."
-Will & Ariel Durant
"The bones, sinews and nerves of modern civilization are coal, steel, cotton and wheat. He who controls these is mightier than the Lord."
- B. Traven
"Ever since our love for machines replaced the love we used to have for our fellow man, catastrophes proceed to increase."
- Man Ray
'Will these fanatical haters of nearly all forms of socialization actually end up destroying the planet? Will a recklessly capitalistic Empire America ultimately make the planet unlivable through global warming? How about disaster via a spread of hitherto unknown, incurable tropical diseases as the planet warms? How about the right wing passion for making new weapons of war capable of wiping out massive populati
Music:
BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO WATCH THIS....
.. ..
GET FUCKING MAD!!!
THE GREAT REMEMBERING
“Civilization!â€
BEYOND CIVILIZATION
THE BOILING FROG
2012
The Stork is the Bird of War
True Lies
[The Reality of] Greensumption
The Network
This is What A Police State Looks Like
..
Add to My Profile | More Videos
Slaves to Time.. Living in an Instant?
Don't fret precious I'm here, step away from the window
Go back to sleep
Lay your head down child
I won't let the boogeyman come
Pay no mind what other voices say
They don't care about you, like I do
Safe from pain and truth and choice and other poison devils,
See, they don't give a fuck about you, like I do.
Just stay with me, safe and ignorant,
Go back to sleep
Go back to sleep
Lay your head down child
I won't let the boogeyman come
Count the bodies like sheep
To the rhythm of the war drums
Pay no mind to the rabble
Pay no mind to the rabble
Head down, go to sleep to the rhythm of the war drums
I'll be the one to protect you from
Your enemies and all your demons
I'll be the one to protect you from
A will to survive and a voice of reason
I'll be the one to protect you from
Your enemies and your choices son
They're one in the same
I must isolate you
Isolate and save you from yourself
Swayin to the rhythm of the new world order and
Count the bodies like sheep to the rhythm of the war drums
The boogeymans coming
The boogeymans coming
Keep your head down, go to sleep, to the rhythm of a war drums
Stay with me
Safe and ignorant
Just stay with me
Hold you and protect you from the other ones
The evil ones
Don't love you son,
Go back to sleep
A Perfect Circle LyricsPet Lyrics
Axis of Justice is non-profit organization formed by Tom Morello of Audioslave and Serj Tankian of System of a Down. Its purpose is to bring together musicians, fans of music, and grassroots political organizations to fight for social justice together.
Black Sabbath, War-Pigs
Movies:
Picture is link to google video: Full Movie
THE CORPORATION explores the nature and spectacular rise of the dominant institution of our time. Footage from pop culture, advertising, TV news, and corporate propaganda, illuminates the corporation's grip on our lives. Taking its legal status as a "person" to its logical conclusion, the film puts the corporation on the psychiatrist's couch to ask "What kind of person is it?" Provoking, witty, sweepingly informative, The Corporation includes forty interviews with corporate insiders and critics - including Milton Friedman, Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, and Michael Moore - plus true confessions, case studies and strategies for change.
http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/
Zeitgeist, produced by Peter Joseph, was created as a nonprofit filmiac expression to inspire people to start looking at the world from a more critical perspective and to understand that very often things are not what the population at large think they are. The information in Zeitgeist was established over a year long period of research and the current Source page on this site lists the basic sources used / referenced and the Interactive Transcript includes exact source references and further information.
Now, it's important to point out that there is a tendency to simply disbelieve things that are counter to our understanding, without the necessary research performed. For example, some information contained in Part 1 and Part 3, specifically, is not obtained by simple keyword searches on the Internet. You have to dig deeper. For instance, very often people who look up "Horus" or "The Federal Reserve" on the Internet draw their conclusions from very general or biased sources. Online encyclopedias or text book Encyclopedias often do not contain the information contained in Zeitgeist. However, if one takes the time to read the sources provided, they will find that what is being presented is based on documented evidence. Any corrections, clarifications & further points regarding the film are found on the Clarifications page. Non-Profit DVDs / Free Video Downloads are available through the Downloads page.
That being said, It is my hope that people will not take what is said in the film as the truth, but find out for themselves, for truth is not told, it is realized.
Thank You
The Companion Guide to ZEITGEIST, Part 1
This 48-page ebook contains a scientific investigation of some of the facts from Part 1 of the ZEITGEIST movie, dealing with the comparisons of ancient religions and Christianity.
What A Way To Go
Life At The End Of Empire
A middle class white guy comes to grips with Peak Oil, Climate Change, Mass Extinction, Population Overshoot and the demise of the American Lifestyle.
“Hundreds of my readers have told me that my novel
Ishmael should be read in every high school classroom in the world. Naturally I’d be delighted to see this happen, but I really think it would be more to the point to have
What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire seen in every high school classroom in the world! The two hours of this documentary are two hours that bring hope for the future of humanity by awakening and informing in the most profound yet lucid way imaginable.â€
Daniel Quinn, author of Ishmael and Tales of Adam
“Heart-felt and poignant, this documentary will touch you as very few things can. It will scare, and it will make you think. Though it will give you hope, it will leave you with no easy answers. This documentary does a thorough job of presenting the pending mega-crisis in all of its aspects, and then goes even deeper to probe all of the causes, both technological and social. A careful viewing will leave you stunned, informed, and ready to step off the train and begin dismantling the tracks. Watch it yourself, and then present it to as many people as you can. Your life, and your children’s lives, depend on it.â€
Dale Allen Pfeiffer, The Mountain Sentinel
________________________________________________________
What is it doing to us as thoughtful human beings as we face the overwhelming challenges of:
• Peaking fossil fuel flow rates?
• Critically degraded ecosystems?
• A changing climate?
• An exploding global population?
• Teetering global economies?
• An unstable political climate?
And what is it doing to the rest of the life on this planet?
Featuring interviews with Daniel Quinn, Derrick Jensen, Jerry Mander, Chellis Glendinning, Richard Heinberg, Thomas Berry, William Catton, Ran Prieur and Richard Manning,
What a Way to Go looks at the current global situation and asks the most important questions of all:
• How did we get here?
• Why do we keep destroying the planet?
• What do we truly want?
• Can we find a vision that will empower us to do what is necessary to survive, and even thrive, in the coming decades?
Writer/Director
Timothy S. Bennett
Producer
Sally C. Erickson
“This movie lifts the veil from civilization to show us the hollowness of what we once thought hallowed.†-“A New Beginningâ€, a Permaculture Activist Review by John Wages
“A two-hour poem of great power and beauty… I have never seen a film quite like this before.†“What a Way to Goâ€, a Dry Dipstick Movie Review by Mick Winter
“What a Way to Go offers both a reflective indictment of our collective folly for the uninitiated, and gives that smalll attentive minority who are looking at the same facts and evidence and reaching the same conclusions the reassurance that we are not crazy.†- a review by John Ludi
“ …the best movie on the big picture (peak oil, climate change, rate of extinctions, and population overshoot) a person can make.†- posted by JMG on Grist.org
“What a Way to Go is the advanced course for those who are intellectually and emotionally prepared to examine critically our way of life - the viewer takes away ideas, even subversive ones.†- a comparison with The 11th Hour by Keith Thomas at the Nature and Society Forum
“A gripping documentary about the American Endgame.â€
-a review by Thomas Naylor at the Second Vermont Republic
Online Documentaries Monopoly Men: A Brief and Startling History of the Federal Reserve Banking & The Federal Reserve
Banking with Hitler 45 Minutes
911 = Demolition Experts Speaking Up Against the Coverup 1 Hour 50 Minutes
911 In Plane Site 55 Minutes
A Taxation Is Not Necessary 43 Minutes
AIDS & Ebola Were Manufactured Dr LG Horowitz
AIDS Hoax-Ten reasons HIV is not the cause of AIDS 2 Hours
America Destroyed By Design
America's Economic Decline
American Dictators: Documenting the Staged Election of 2004 (2004)
American Drug Lords CIA / MOB Drug Running
Angels Dont Play This HAARP
Art, Truth and Politics - Harold Pinter
Assassination of Russia
Best Enemies Money Can Buy 55 Minutes
Breaking The Invisible Shackles Of The IRS 1 Hour 41 Minutes
Bush Dynasty
Cointel Pro - War on Black America 50 Minutes
Cold War, Dirty Science
Problem, Reaction, Solution
Dick Cheny - The Unauthorized Biography 40 Minutes 2004
Dr. Michael Parenti: "Terrorism, Globalism and Conspiracy" 1 Hour
Economic vs. Human Rights
Elite Population Control 1 Hour 22 Minutes
Population Control - None Dare Call it Genocide by Dr Stanley Monteith
GERM WARFARE: DR KELLY's LAST INTERVIEW 50 Minutes
Global Governance - The Quiet War Against American Independence 1 Hour
Hollywood and the Pentagon
Inflation 30 Minutes
Interview With John Perkins - Confessions Of An Economic Hitman
JFK : The Bush Connection
Nikola Tesla - The Genius Who Lit the World 45 Minutes
Orwell Rolls In His Grave 1 Hour 40 Minutes
OUTFOXED: RUPERT MURDOCH'S WAR ON JOURNALISM
The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and The Collapse of The American Dream 1 Hour 15 Minutes
Secret Wars of the CIA
Stupidity
The Assassination of John F. Kennedy
The Fourth Reich - Toward An American Police State 1 Hour 33 Minutes
The Kissinger File
The Iron Triangle - The Carlyle Group ExposedThe Carlyle Group Exposed 50 Minutes
The revolution will not be televised 1 Hour 10 Minutes
The Search for Truth in History 1 Hour 24 Minutes
THE TRUTH & LIES OF 9/11 2 Hours 20 Minutes
United States vs United Nations 20 Minutes
Who Controls Our Children ? (Public Education Dumb Down Kids Deliberately) 60 Minutes
Why We Fight 1 Hour 40 Minutes
Television:
Tell-A-Visionaries
Kill Your TV!
Masaru Emoto: Messages from Water: Water has a very important message for us. Water is telling us to take a much deeper look at our selves. When we do look at our selves through the mirror of water, the message becomes amazingly, crystal, clear. We know that human life is directly connected to the quality of our water, both within and all around us.
Books:
Anything By George Orwell
Anything by Derrick Jensen
At once a beautifully poetic memoir and an exploration of the various ways we live in the world, A Language Older than Words explains violence as a pathology that touches every aspect of our lives, and indeed affects all aspects of life on earth. This chronicle of a young man's drive to transcend domestic abuse offers a challenging look at our worldwide sense of community, and how we can make things better.
This narrative moves elegantly between the microcosm of the author's dysfunctional family and the macrocosm of History. Readers are initiated into the stifling world of child and spousal abuse, and then beyond, where Jensen finds the same dynamics tricked out on the grand stage of Western civilization. The prose is as lyrical and cogent as it is convincing.
Jensen's vast experiences as an environmentalist, high-jumper, student, teacher, beekeeper, and most importantly, as a human being give rise to the wealth of examples and anecdotes that further illustrate this cry for community. The masterful intertwining of all these elements elevates A Language Older than Words above and beyond an engrossing book, giving readers what might even be described as a curative outlook on life.
Derrick Jensen takes no prisoners in The Culture of Make Believe, his brilliant and eagerly awaited follow-up to his powerful and lyrical A Language Older Than Words. What begins as an exploration of the lines of thought and experience that run between the massive lynchings in early twentieth-century America to today’s death squads in South America soon explodes into an examination of the very heart of our civilization. Readers of Jensen’s earlier work will recognize his deft and startling interweaving of the deeply personal, the political, the historical, and the philosophical, as he attempts to understand the atrocities that characterize so much of our culture, from the 8,000 dead at Bhopal to the more than twenty million people enslaved today (more than came over on the dreaded Middle Passage), to the destruction of the natural world. The book makes clear that it is only through understanding these atrocities, and by feeling the sorrow and despair caused by them, then moving through that despair, that we will be able to make significant movement toward halting them. With The Culture of Make Believe, Jensen has written a book that is as impeccably researched as it is moving, with conclusions as far-reaching as they are shocking. After A Language Older Than Words, readers began calling Jensen the philosopher poet of the deep ecological movement. This new book, The Culture of Make Believe, will introduce a new wave of readers to this important writer and thinker.
"Derrick Jensen is a man driven to stare without flinching at the baleful design of our culture, which encourages us to honor those who wreak the most havoc on the world (and on human lives) and to scorn those who protest against the havoc as opponents of decency and good order. In fact, The Culture of Make Believe so explicitly reveals the intimacy between the murder of the world and "decency and good order" that I'm surprised any author would dare write it and any publisher would dare bring it to print. His analysis of our culture's predilection for hatred and destruction will rattle your bones."
-Daniel Quinn, author of Ishmael
Accepting the increasingly widespread belief that industrialized culture inevitably erodes the natural world, Endgame sets out to explore how this relationship impels us towards a revolutionary and as-yet undiscovered shift in strategy. Building on a series of simple but increasingly provocative premises, Jensen leaves us hoping for what may be inevitable: a return to agrarian communal life via the disintegration of civilization itself.
Derrick Jensen is: activist, author, small farmer, beekeeper, teacher, and philosopher.
Whereas Volume 1 of Endgame presents the problem of civilization, Volume 2 of this pivotal work illustrates our means of resistance. Incensed and hopeful, impassioned and lucid, Endgame leapfrogs the environmental movement’s deadlock over our willingness to change our conduct, focusing instead on our ability to adapt to the impending ecological revolution.
If this title offends you.. then you should read this book. If this title doesn’t offend you.. then you should read this book. If you are female.. you should read this book. Male, transgendered, queer, straight, bi, whatever.. you should read this book. Cunt does for feminism what smoothies did for high-fiber diets—it reinvents the oft-indigestible into something sweet and delicious.
Muscio encourages women to reclaim the word “cuntâ€, rejecting its negative connotations and reincarnating it as a symbol of women’s power and strength. She invites women to disregard the derogatory messages they receive about their bodies and their womanhood: both “the anatomical jewel,†as she terms it, and the essence of femaleness. In a work that is by turns a handbook on sexual health and personal history, Muscio candidly discusses issues that affect the lives of all women…in an effort to foster a woman-positive society.
Included in Cunt are alternative ways to alleviate menstrual pain without drugs, natural alternatives to tampons and pads, herbal emmenagogues and abortifacients for unwanted pregnancies and non-pharmaceutical birth control methods to name a few.
Anything by CrimethInc.
"Days of War Nights of Love"
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At 292 heavily illustrated pages, our flagship book is the perfect size for any knapsack and the perfect reference manual for anyone seeking a life of passion and revolt. AK Press calls it "an underground bestseller," but as it says in the preface:
"This book isn't designed to be used in the way a 'normal' book is. Rather than reading it from one cover to the other, casting perfunctory votes of disapproval or agreement along the way, and then putting it on the shelf as another inert possession, we hope you will use this as a tool in your own efforts—not just to think about the world, but also to change it. This book is composed of ideas and images we've remorselessly stolen and adjusted to our purposes, and we hope you'll do exactly the same with its contents.
"As for the contents themselves: we've limited ourselves for the most part to criticism of the established order, because we trust you to do the rest. Heaven is a different place for everyone; hell, at least this particular one, we inhabit in common. This book is supposed to help you analyze and disassemble this world—what you build for yourself in it's place is in your hands, although we've offered some general ideas of where to start. Remember: the destructive impulse is also a creative one . . . happy smashing! "
Your ticket to a world free of charge.
Anything By Daniel Quinn
It is a general rule that any particular culture can only be understood by someone outside of it - a neutral observer, unaffected by prejudice or indoctrination. This is the reasoning behind Quinn's choice of a gorilla named Ishmael as the main character of this novel, who conducts a series of dialogues analyzing the whole of civilization itself.
But what is the civilization that Quinn looks at? Instead of muttering about monumental building and written language, Quinn treats civilization in a method that is becoming increasingly popular: as the result of a critical mass of humanity that makes possible rapid advances in knowledge and science. For this to be possible, intensive agriculture must be used to raise the population density to such a point that civilization occurs.
So Quinn uses a gorilla as an outsider looking in and perceiving the reality of civilization - of cultures using intensive agriculture to dominate the world. His conclusions are for the most part negative: he concludes that civilization is not sustainable in the long term.
The observations used to come to this conclusion are relatively well-known; that civilization is the greatest disaster to befall earth in the past 65 million years. In terms of pollution, deforestation, extinction, and overall negative impact to the web of life itself, humanity is supreme among all the species. What Quinn does not share with the others who know these facts is a belief that civilization will overcome any difficulties it encounters. Civilization, to Quinn, is the problem, not the solution.
_Ishmael_ is the presentation of these ideas in a Socratic method from a gorilla to a man "with an earnest desire to save the world." There isn't really any plot to this book, nor does Quinn intend there to be. The disappearance of Ishmael at the end of book is the only story-like element in _Ishmael_, and it is really an attempt by Quinn to set the reader free - to encourage him/her to think about civilization for himself rather than be told about it by a telepathic gorilla. I've always had the feeling that this should be considered nonfiction, rather than a story.
The problem presented by _Ishmael_ is simple: civilization is the problem. The solution is both simple and complex: in order to preserve a human niche in the ecosystem, we must go beyond civilization. Working to figure out just what this means is one of the great joys of reading _Ishmael_, whether or not you agree with Quinn's assessment of the situation. _Ishmael_ is a book that will make you look around and think, and perhaps reach some conclusions that you may find surprising. Highly recommended.
The Story of B acts as a halfway point between the novels Ishmael and My Ishmael, also by Daniel Quinn. While referring to (but not based upon) the gorilla Ishmael, Quinn's novel takes readers along side Jared Osborne, a Laurentian priest. Jared is sent by his superiors to Europe to investigate an itinerant preacher who has been stirring up trouble. The preacher is known to his followers as "B", but his enemies say he's the "Antichrist". Pressed for a judgment, Osborne is driven to penetrate B's inner circle where he soon finds himself an anguished collaborator in the dismantling of his own religious foundations.
The fictional teachings of B are documented in full at the end of the book. Although the book is written in first person point of view from Jared’s naïve perspective, the author's real-life perspective echoes that of B. The following teachings are therefore Daniel Quinn’s historically-based ideas of the descent of man and the future of human history.
The Great Forgetting is the term B uses to describe an occurrence during the formative millennia of our civilization. What was forgotten is that there was a time when people lived without civilization and were sustained by hunting and gathering rather than by animal husbandry and agriculture. By the time history began to be written down, thousands of years had passed since abandoning the hunter-gatherer lifestyle and it had been assumed that people had come into existence farming. Quinn argues that our knowledge and worldview today would be greatly altered had the foundation thinkers of our culture known there was history beyond the beginning of civilization. When Paleontology uncovered 3 million years worth of human generations, making it untenable that humanity, agriculture, and civilization all began at roughly the same time, our worldview was still not affected. Instead, humanity used terms like “pre-history†and “The Agricultural Revolution†to label these events, rather than grafting their ramifications into our societal fabric.
"My Ishmael isn't just a sequel to the original. Instead, the original must be seen as a springboard for this new penetrating look into the machinery of our own culture, with all the drama and intrigue that a culture's history has to offer. If you're not changed after reading My Ishmael, you're dead."
Lance Pierce, Editor, Illusions Magazine
"Enthralling, shocking, hope-filled, and utterly fearless, Quinn leads us deeper and deeper into human heart, history, and spirit. Thank God the Gorilla is Back! In My Ishmael, Quinn strikes out into entirely new territory, posing questions that will rock you on your heels, and providing tantalizing possibilities for a truly new world vision."
-Susan Chernak McElroy, Author of Animals as Teachers & Healers
http://www.ishmael.com/welcome.cfm
Read “A People’s History†in it’s entirety here.
Consistently lauded for its lively, readable prose, this revised and updated edition of A People's History of the United States turns traditional textbook history on its head. Howard Zinn infuses the often-submerged voices of blacks, women, American Indians, war resisters, and poor laborers of all nationalities into this thorough narrative that spans American history from Christopher Columbus's arrival to an afterword on the Clinton presidency.
Addressing his trademark reversals of perspective, Zinn--a teacher, historian, and social activist for more than 20 years--explains, "My point is not that we must, in telling history, accuse, judge, condemn Columbus in absentia. It is too late for that; it would be a useless scholarly exercise in morality. But the easy acceptance of atrocities as a deplorable but necessary price to pay for progress (Hiroshima and Vietnam, to save Western civilization; Kronstadt and Hungary, to save socialism; nuclear proliferation, to save us all)--that is still with us. One reason these atrocities are still with us is that we have learned to bury them in a mass of other facts, as radioactive wastes are buried in containers in the earth."
If your last experience of American history was brought to you by junior high school textbooks--or even if you're a specialist--get ready for the other side of stories you may not even have heard. With its vivid descriptions of rarely noted events, A People's History of the United States is required reading for anyone who wants to take a fresh look at the rich, rocky history of America.
David Abram's writing casts a spell of its own as he weaves the reader through a meticulously researched work that gently addresses such seemingly daunting topics as where the past and future exist, the relationship between space and time, and how the written word serves to sever humans from their primordial source of sustenance: the earth.
"Only as the written text began to speak would the voices of the forest, and of the river, begin to fade. And only then would language loosen its ancient associations with the invisible breath, the spirit sever itself from the wind, the psyche dissociate itself from the environing air," writes Abram of the separation caused by the proliferation of the written word.
"In writing The Spell of the Sensuous, Abram consulted an engaging collection of peoples and works. He uses aboriginal song lines, stories from the Koyukon people of northwestern Alaska, the philosophy of phenomenology, and the speeches of Socrates to paint a poetic landscape that explains how we became separated from the earth in the first place. With minimal environmental doomsaying, Abram discusses how we can begin to recover a sustainable relationship with the earth and the nonhuman beings who live among us--in the more-than-human world." --Kathryn True
From Publishers Weekly How did Western civilization become so estranged from nonhuman nature that we condone the ongoing destruction of forests, rivers, valleys, species and ecosystems? Santa Fe ecologist/philosopher Abram's search for an answer to this dilemma led him to mingle with shamans in Nepal and sorcerers in Indonesia, where he studied how traditional healers monitor relations between the human community and the animate environment. In this stimulating inquiry, he also delves into the philosophy of phenomenologists Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, who replaced the conventional view of a single, wholly determinable reality with a fluid picture of the mind/body as a participatory organism that reciprocally interacts with its surroundings. Abram blames the invention of the phonetic alphabet for triggering a trend toward increasing abstraction and alienation from nature. He gleans insights into how to heal the rift from Australian aborigines' concept of the Dreamtime (the perpetual emerging of the world from chaos), the Navajo concept of a Holy Wind and the importance of breath in Jewish mysticism.
Original Wisdom: Stories of an Ancient Way of Knowing
By Robert Wolff
The aboriginal Sng'oi of Malaysia are often described with words like "pre-industrial" or "pre-agricultural," but it is a mistake to think of them as living in a former stage of what of our more "advanced" society has become. As Wolff shows in this book, it would be more precise to say that are living in another world - a better world.
Having spent half his youth growing up among Sng'oi, Wolff says this: "I learned early on to be in two different realities." One reality was oriented around the clock, efficiency, technology, and harsh realism. The other was fluid, timeless, almost dreamlike - a world in which "people touched each other," a world in which "we knew animals and plants intimately." The bulk of this book is spent fleshing out differences between these worlds, in an attempt to teach us Westerners another way of knowing, another reality. Yet in the process of doing so, it quickly becomes apparent that the modern world doesn't quite measure up.
As slaves to an alienating industrial system, we civilized people must pay rent to live. A completely self-domesticated species, we live in a state of complete dependence on big industry and agriculture. We are ignorant of the flora and fauna that support our life, and helplessness to a capricious global market. Thus, the condescending glance "modern" humanity casts at so-called "primitive peoples" is extremely ironic.
Traditionally referred to as "Sakai," or slaves, by modern Malaysians, the Sng'oi do not take offense. Says one Sng'oi man, "We look at the people down below [literally, from up in the mountains] - they have to get up at a certain time in the morning, they have to pay for everything with money, which they have to earn doing things for other people. They are constantly told what they can and cannot do. No, we do not mind when they call us slaves."
At one point in the book, Wolff recounts a number of silent educational trips into the rainforest with his friend/guide, Ahmeed, who was subtly trying to teach him to interact and connect with the forest on his own terms. After days of walking, Wolff became thirsty. It was precisely then that Ahmeed decided to sneak off and leave him to find water on his own. After searching for hours, he not only discovered water - he also discovered another way of seeing. "When I leaned over drink from the leaf, I saw water with feathery ripples, I saw a few mosquito larvae wriggling on the surface, I saw the veins of the leaf through the water, some bubbles, a little piece of dirt... How beautiful, how perfect." His perception suddenly "opened," and a deep feeling of connection enveloped him. "The all-ness was everywhere, and I was a part of it... I could not be afraid - I was apart of this all-ness."
Contrast this with our culture, a culture walled-in with fear; a culture that "learns - has to learn - to shut off the senses, to protect oneself from all the noise." Unlike the Sng'oi, who are brought up to listen, watch and feel their world in depth, our culture inhabits apsychological straightjacket. We are brought up to act like machines only to find ourselves replaced by machines built to act like humans. Perhaps our fear of the natural world explains why our economic system has set out to expand and colonize every wild space left on the globe. In the other world Wolff experienced, every day - indeed every second - was a miracle. Life, by no means perfect, was nevertheless full of smiles, stories, songs and dance. It was a world without fear and domination - until Komatsu bulldozers started coming to clear away the forest.
The topics Wolff address in this book vary from indigenous medicine to education, from dream interpretation to surviving the onslaught of civilization. This is not simply anthropology or ethnology, but a critique of modern industrial civilization and it's "Development Scheme" in the gentle voice of someone intimate with the Sng'oi. In all, the book amounts to nothing less than an alternative way of being. I found it refreshing, insightful and transformative - three criteria for any great book.
In his 1978 bestseller, Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, Jerry Mander argued that television is, by its very nature, a harmful technology. The trouble with television is not a matter of content, as the current debate suggests, it goes deeper than that. Whether one watches children's programming on public television or violent, late-night crime dramas, the effects are essentially the same, Mander said: the medium itself acts a visual intoxicant, entrancing the viewer and thereby replacing other forms of knowledge with the imagery of its programmers. Television's effects on young children are especially deleterious, Mander insisted, since it infuses them with high-tech, high-speed expectations of life and separates them from their natural environments. We cannot hope to understand television, Mander concluded, without looking at the totality of its effects.
In the Absence of the Sacred takes this argument a step further by examining our relationship to technology as a whole. Mander takes issue with the widespread notion that technology is neutral and that only people determine whether its effects are good or bad. "This idea would be merely preposterous if it were not so widely accepted, and so dangerous," he writes. Because technologies contain certain inherent qualities, they are not neutral. In the case of nuclear energy, for example, it doesn't matter who is in charge because the dangers inherent in the process are the same: the long- term effects of waste, the safety hazards, the lack of local controls, etc.
The belief that technology is neutral is only one aspect of what Mander calls "the pro-technology paradigm" — "a system of perceptions that make us blind and passive when it comes to technology." It's a cultural mindset that has emerged over time as we've become more and more accustomed to living with technology. It's also a product of the optimistic, even utopian, claims that invariably accompany the introduction of new technology. Another factor contributing to our passivity in the face of technology, Mander contends, is the habit of evaluating it in strictly personal terms. By stressing the benefits of technology in our personal lives — the machine vacuums our carpets, the television keeps us informed, the car gets us around, the computer allows us to work from home, etc. — we make little attempt to understand its larger societal and ecological consequences.
What we need, in Mander's view, is a society-wide debate about the costs of technology — economically, socially, environmentally, and in terms of public health. "In a truly democratic society," he writes "any new technology would be subject to exhaustive debate. That a society must retain the option of declining a technology — if it deems it harmful — is basic. As it is now, our spectrum of choice is limited to mere acceptance. The real decisions about technological introduction are made only by one segment of society: the corporate, based strictly on considerations of profit."
Mander sees a close connection between the advances of modern technological society and the plight of indigenous peoples around the world. Since the dawn of the technological era, he says, the only consistent opposition has come from land-based native peoples. Rooted in an alternative view of the planet, Indians, islanders, and peoples of the North have not only warned of the dangers of technology, they have also been its most direct victims. Mander illustrates this point with numerous examples, from Hopi-Navajo territory, where the government is forcing people off their ancestral land to make room for coal strip-mining; to Hawaii, where Native Hawaiians are struggling to save their sacred Pele, the islands, from geothermal drilling and destruction caused by bombing by NATO ships; to Death Valley, where the Western Shoshone fight for a reservation even though they never ceded any of their land to the United States, where they struggle against military pressure to keep nuclear missiles from being placed near their homes; and to the Great Plains, where the Lakota people refuse to accept a $300 million federal offer for the Black Hills. "That technological society should ignore and suppress native voices is understandable, since to heed them would suggest we must fundamentally change our way of life. Instead, we say they must change. They decline to do so."
According to Mander, we are in the midst of "an epic worldwide struggle" between the forces of Western economic development and the remaining native peoples of the planet, whose presence obstructs their progress. The ultimate outcome of this conflict is not hard to predict given that the technological juggernaut inevitably chews up the societies that warn that this path will not work. "Worst of all," Mander concludes, "these are the very people who are best equipped to help us out of our fix, if only we'd let them be and listen to what they say."
Seven Stories Press is an independent book publisher based in New York City, with distribution throughout the United States, Canada, England, Australia, and New Zealand. Seven Stories books are translated into and published in virtually all languages around the globe. They believe publishers have a special responsibility to defend free speech and human rights wherever they can.
They publish works of the imagination by such writers as Nelson Algren, Kate Braverman, Octavia Butler, Harriet Scott Chessman, Assia Djebar, Ariel Dorfman, Martin Duberman, Alan Dugan, Annie Ernaux, Barry Gifford, Stanley Moss, Peter Plate,Charley Rosen, Ted Solotaroff, Lee Stringer, Martin Winckler and Kurt Vonnegut, among many others, together with political titles by voices of conscience, including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Tom Athanasiou, the Boston Women's Health Book Collective, The Center for Constitutional Rights, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, Noam Chomsky, Derrick Jensen, Angela Davis, Shere Hite,Robert McChesney, Phil Jackson, Ralph Nader, Gary Null, Benjamin Pogrund, Project Censored, Luis J. Rodriguez, Barbara Seaman, Vandana Shiva, Leora Tanenbaum, Koigi wa Wamwere, Gary Webb and Howard Zinn.
Read the Entire Book 1984 by George Orwell Here
The Party claimed, of course, to have liberated the proles from bondage. . In reality very little was known about the proles. It was not necessary to know much. So long as they continued to work and breed, their other activities were without importance. Left to themselves, like cattle turned loose upon the plains of Argentina, they had reverted to a style of life that appeared to be natural to them, a sort of ancestral pattern. They were born, they grew up in the gutters, they went to work at twelve, they passed through a brief blossoming period of beauty and sexual desire, they married at twenty, they were middle-aged at thirty, they died, for the most part, at sixty. Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbors, films, football, beer, and, above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult. George Orwell, 1984
I highly Suggest "THE FOUR AGREEMENTS"
Don Miguel Ruiz's book, The Four Agreements was published in 1997. For many, The Four Agreements is a life-changing book, whose ideas come from the ancient Toltec wisdom of the native people of Southern Mexico. The Toltec were 'people of knowledge' - scientists and artists who created a society to explore and conserve the traditional spiritual knowledge and practices of their ancestors. The Toltec viewed science and spirit as part of the same entity, believing that all energy - material or ethereal - is derived from and governed by the universe. Don Miguel Ruiz, born and raised in rural Mexico, was brought up to follow his family's Toltec ways by his mother, a Toltec faith healer, and grandfather, a Toltec 'nagual', a shaman. Despite this, Don Miguel decided to pursue a conventional education, which led him to qualify and practice for several years as a surgeon. Following a car crash, Don Miguel Ruiz reverted to his Toltec roots during the late 1970's, first studying and learning in depth the Toltec ways, and then healing, teaching, lecturing and writing during the 1980's and 90's, when he wrote The Four Agreements (published in 1997), The Mastery of Love (1999), The Four Agreements Companion Book (2000), and Prayers (2001). Don Miguel Ruiz survived a serious heart attack 2002, since when his teachings have been largely channelled through seminars and classes run by his followers, notably his sons Don Jose Luis and Don Miguel Ruiz Junior. Like many gurus and philosophical pioneers, Ruiz has to an extent packaged, promoted and commercialised his work, nevertheless the simplicity and elegance of his thinking remains a source of great enlightenment and aspiration. The simple ideas of The Four Agreements provide an inspirational code for life; a personal development model, and a template for personal development, behaviour, communications and relationships. Here is how Don Miguel Ruiz summarises 'The Four Agreements':the four agreements - don miguel ruiz's code for life
Agreement 1
Be impeccable with your word - Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.
Agreement 2
Don’t take anything personally - Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.
Agreement 3
Don’t make assumptions - Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.
Agreement 4
Always do your best - Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.
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Heroes:
Andrea Was Murdered In January of 2003. Her mother Linda has been fighting to bring the suspected killer (a major drug dealer) to justice, but has recieved little to no help from the (corrupted) police dept. Please go to her page, and read the blogs. Help in anyway you can. This is Andrea, the picture is a link...
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Ishmael
“As an irrigator guides water to his fields, as an archer aims an arrow, as a carpenter carves wood, the wise shape their lives.†~ Buddha
“Believe nothing. No matter where you read it, Or who said it, Even if I have said it, Unless it agrees with your own reason And your own common sense.†~ Buddha
