Tomorrow.

          I, like many others have always stated that this pandemic, obviously a painful and devastating disaster to millions, is also the greatest opportunity we have had in generations to change the way we structure our society. As in all disasters, the human reaches out to help each other, and this one was no different. Mutual aid groups sprang up across the planet, people rallied to help each other without the thought of personal gain or profit, it worked and it felt good. As the pandemic seems to be receding across the planet, we mustn't let that feeling of community fade, we should foster it and struggle to make mutual aid the fabric of our communities. Grow the structure of coming together, see and feel the benefits of mutual aid, and use that structure to change the shape and fabric of our unequal, exploitative, profit driven and destructive society, to one that is sustainable and sees to the needs of all our people, mutual aid is the foundation of that better world we all seek. Mutual aid is humanity, humanity is mutual aid.

The following extract from It's Going Down:

           Report from Mutual Aid Disaster Relief about the massive and deadly impact on the coronavirus epidemic and the importance of continued mutual aid organizing.

        Starting in 2019/2020 and now continuing into the summer of 2021, global civil society is witnessing the biggest neoliberal disaster capitalist shock yet: COVID-19. Millions of people have been and continue to be killed by this unprecedented disaster. Like most catastrophes, those historically oppressed and least responsible for this pandemic are nevertheless those most impacted. The death toll is comparable in magnitude of lives lost to another World War.
         Every age has it’s kairos, those moments of possibility where the fate of humanity and all life on the planet hangs on the smallest of threads. What we choose to do or not do in these moments of twilight has the greatest of consequences. The ancient Greeks had two words for time: chronos and kairos. Chronos was/is chronological or sequential time, while kairos signifies a moment of truth – the time for action – pregnant time. Similarly, crisis, in its etymology, is a turning point, a moment where there are multiple paths in front of us, and we must make choices on which path to walk. The Zapatistas, likewise, taught us about the crack in the wall:

        Most of the time the wall is a big marquee where “P-R-O-G-R-E-S-S” repeats over and over. But the Zapatista knows it’s a lie, that the wall was not always there. They know how it was erected, what its function is. They know its deception. And they also know how to destroy it.
        They are not fazed by the wall’s supposed omnipotence and eternity. They know that both are false. But right now, the important thing is the crack, that it not close, that it expand.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk  

Anti-consumerism.

     Once again an interesting article for Not Buying Anything, an observation that I hope is true, my only fear is that when this over and some people find they have more money than usual, they may go out on a spending binge. I hope not, I hope they keep their sanity and take stock of the things they enjoyed without spending money. Time for reflection.

     This from Not Buying Anything:

       Recreational shopping has been a pastime for decades. Similarly, leisure, or non-essential, travel has also been popular. That just changed. We will not be going back to the way it was before the year 2020.
     Shopping and traveling were fun and entertaining for many in pre-pandemic times. When it was easy. We will not have the same zeal for spending when it is hard.
       If shoppers have to wear masks, get their temperature checked at the door, sanitize their hands, and social distance once they get in to the business, consumption won't be what it was in the spend freely days of pre-pandemic times.
      And if they continue to get infected, in-person shopping will remain a shadow of the peak consumerism days of the recent past, and likely will never come back in the same way.
       Evidence for this is the largest increase in the American savings rate ever, that happened recently. When spending money becomes less attractive, savings rates increase.
     What is good for your bank account, though, is bad for the overflowing vaults of the 1%ers.
      This is the capitalist nightmare - people deciding to do other more enjoyable things instead of spending their meagre funds to buy goods and services they don't need. But that is what is happening.
      All over the world humans are waking up every day and finding healthier, less expensive, and more meaningful, ways to occupy their time. Things that aren't shopping or traveling. Or traveling to go shopping.
      This could be the end of many familiar things and arrangements. Will it be the end of consumerism, and would that take down capitalism, too? That would be welcome, because either we take it down, or it will take us down. That decision will be ours to make.
      We have the power, that much is perfectly clear. If we won't work for them, and won't shop for their junk, what can they do? They need us more than we need them and their wasteful ways.
       Our predatory psychopathic-lead system is getting morphed into who knows exactly what as the people rediscover their power to make change. Some of those changes are that we will become savers rather than spenders, and will choose the familiar home range over frivolous foreign sojourns.
       After more than a decade of watching consumer behaviour closely, I am getting the feeling that many newly re-minted community participants are tiring of spending money on non-essential things, and going in debt to do so.
We are moving on to more important, more beautiful, more balanced concerns, and say to our former rulers and their soulless system, "Thank you for your service - we will take it from here".

 

 Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Will You Just Watch----?

Will you just watch----?

 In the World

I will be the change I wish to see
A voice to let us know how it's supposed to be
The hungering in your soul just to be free
Stuck under society's pillow trying to breathe

I will be the change I wish to see
In a world full of love for the ego trip
Easily shown on the Las Vegas Strip
Acid rains cancel flights, ruin your trip

How do you explain the fun is useless?
A convenient distraction from you're useless
behavior making sure that drugs are used less

Expansion beyond what we are taught
Accepting of being little better then not
An earnest curiosity awakened, you're caught
Trapped in the war of ideals being fought

Should I rhyme every thyme I want spaghetti
I'll eat up every voracious soliloquey I let me
Showing like a fallacious epiphany to bet me
Cooking poetry with gracious mystery, you get me?

I will be the change I want to see
A voice to be heard over society's chorus
Screaming out "this hatred isn't for us"
Too bullheaded to listen blame it on the Taurus
Planting my seed now grow a **** forest.

I will be the change I want to see
I will be the change I want to see
Will you just watch? 

By Adriel Jacobs 

 

 

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Rebels, Rebels.

Laws, good laws, bad laws, who decides?

The Rebel

Rebel rebel break the rule,

What does it matter that a “wise” man sees a fool.

Not for you the herd’s dull beat

Making tomorrow, yesterday’s repeat,

Living out the life of a clone

Marching with the crowd but always alone.

Shaping your life from some dusty tome

Playing it safe, staying at home.

Rebel rebel break the rule

Swim in the sea, never the pool.

Live your emotions, feel the surge

Follow your dreams, chase the urge.

Make life though short, an exciting game

Not a mad march for fortune or fame.

Capture the moment, live it now

Being alive your only vow.

Rebel rebel break the rule

In the end, you’re humanity’s jewel.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk