Economic Sustainability

I would love to be posting pictures of our new Bale wall, but the project is on hold due to financial issues. Unfortunately, because I work all the time just for the priveledge of having financial problems, this is the only time I could have realistically built the wall.

It wouldn't have cost that much, relatively speaking - but straw bales can be expensive here in the city, and enough for a wall would have been several hundred dollars. Clay, readily available if you have land with clay soil, would have cost money as well. Then there is sand, which in most circumstances is purchased. We are no exception to that.

More and more, I am coming around to the idea that sustainability is incompatible with money. As members of the cash economy, completely dependent on and, if you look at how we spend our time, dedicated to it, we are supporting the death spiral of ecological devastation and endless wars while we "contribute" to keeping the businesses that we buy things from in business, so that their employees in turn can "do their part" to keep the machine going.

At the end of the day, this is our ultimate contribution to the planet.

My parents and grandparents taught me that "getting a good job" was something akin to a patriotic duty - that I somehow owed a debt to something greater than myself that I would repay by working. To fail to "get a job" was an unthinkable social transgression. Those previous generations also thought it was very important for everyone to open a bank account - this was part and parcel of the patriotic package. Although it wasn't articulated quite that way, I got the message all the same. And you know what? They may have been right. Back then. But the world, and this country especially, have changed a lot since my grandparents were born.

I won't spend a lot of time here discussing the corporate capture of our political system and press. The Tea Party activist that drove the shuttle to the train station and I did a mutual double take when we agreed that corporatism (his word!) was the biggest danger we face. Voting is not enough anymore. We must find ways to reclaim our independence, keep our goods, resources, and currency local. We must extricate ourselves from our dependence on corporate employment, corporate products, banks, mortgages, and oil, and find a better way to live.

Once we do, our lives will no longer be for sale, and we will no longer be bought and sold.

I am going to teach my own children something very different than what my grandparents taught me. Contribute, yes. Dedicate yourself to your work and goals, yes. But don't be fooled into thinking that a job at Walmart, whether working at the register or in the corporate office, is some sort of contribution. Sure it is - to Walmart. But what sense is there in making that kind of contribution unless you have no choice? There is nothing wrong with doing what you have to do to survive. But to the greatest extent that you can, build your life outside of the cash economy so that you free yourself up to make real contributions to this world, not fake ones.