COLORS IN CONFLICT:
Black vs. White; Red vs. Blue. Only Green Unites Us All.
Did you know that racism is deliberately cultivated and perpetuated in prison? Prison administrators know that if all the prisoners decide to ignore their racial differences and work together as a unit, they could easily overpower the guards and escape their situation. And even if they couldn’t escape, prisoners would at least have a relatively pleasant environment to live in without the constant threat of mutual racial hatred and the gang wars that result. Of course peace and happiness cannot be allowed in prison. Prisoners are meant to suffer and be punished and so a racial war is encouraged where ever people of different races are held prisoners together.
When slavery was abolished in 1865 (“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States”), prisons became the new way to hold slaves. The first police forces (slave patrols) were set up to return escaped slaves to their masters. Old habits are hard to change. According to the NAACP: “A Black person is five times more likely to be stopped by police without just cause than a white person. One out of every three Black boys born today can expect to be sentenced to prison, compared to 1 out of 6 Latino boys; one out of 17 White boys. African Americans are incarcerated at more than 5 times the rate of whites.” Poor people are several times more likely to end up in prison than rich people. Black, brown or white, if you’re in prison, you are a slave. Even if you’re not in a real prison you can still be a real slave. Unless you are very wealthy, you may think you’re free but you’re not. Credit card bills and debt; these are the new bars and chains. And the poorer your are, the more of a slave you are, working long hours for little pay, constantly struggling to make ends meet. And isolation, which we’ve all experienced lately, is the worst form of punishment in prison.
Racism is ugly, repulsive, stupid, irrational and flat out wrong, and the modern, systemic racism directed at black Americans and other people of color is deplorable. After George Floyd’s public lynching went viral, our society is finally starting to focus on this issue in a constructive way, and I wouldn’t want to diminish that attention, but I respectfully suggest that there is an even bigger issue to consider than racism, and that is greed. Racism is a useful distraction used by our leaders to keep us (people as a whole) from observing and potentially stopping the consequences of their bottomless greed for money and power. Racism is a distraction to keep us from seeing an even greater crime which is being perpetrated by sociopathic, white-collar criminals who are looting the middle class of funds which should be used to pay our teachers, social workers, health care providers, police force and other essential workers a reasonable living wage where we could all be peaceful and happy together in our shared, global society. Perhaps the greatest crime of all is the corporate and state looting of our shared, natural resources and the consequent destruction of the environment that is leading us all to the brink of an environmental breakdown that threatens all of our lives.
How many looters have been sent to jail or prison for stealing shoes or a television set, while corporate super-looters steal millions and billions of dollars and stay out of prison, or perhaps they are even operating the prisons. Remember the movie The Shaw Shank Redemption? Sometimes the worst criminals are the administrators. They get rich off their prisoners and even get to torture them for the fun of it. To promote and enflame racism as a destructive force that kills and makes miserable a whole country filled with a diversity of races is arguably evil, but at the very least sociopathic. A sociopath has no regard for the plight of others, which is not necessarily a crime in itself, but when our leaders and administrators are sociopaths, it means they can and will use any means necessary to pursue their self-centered and greedy agendas, even if it results in mass killings and mass unhappiness across the country and around the globe. Author Andrew Vachss, an expert at recognizing and describing sociopathic behavior, tweeted the following: “Fascism is the politics of the sociopath. It cannot be combated by reasoned debate. The liberal seeks the ‘hearts and minds’ of the electorate, while the Fascist laughs behind his predator’s mask, disdaining the very concept of self-determination.”
Only Green Unites Us All!
Black versus White. Red versus Blue. Racism and politics are how people are divided. ONLY GREEN UNITES US ALL. You might think we have a lot more important things to worry about than plants and you would be wrong. Plants are our partners in life. They make our lives possible. They need us and we desperately need them. Plants generate the oxygen we need to breathe, the food we need to eat, and most of the raw materials we use to keep our society going. 95% of the biomass of the biosphere organisms is made up of plants and the soil bacteria that facilitates their growth. Animals make up less than 1% of the biomass of the biosphere organisms on Earth, and humans make up a small percentage of the animals, yet our industrial society is threatening the life of the entire biosphere.
What should be clear to anyone paying attention is that ecological destruction is taking place all around the globe on an unprecedented level. Respectable and concerned scientists have been telling our government and the public for years that our planetary biosphere is being seriously threatened by our ever-expanding industrial society. Yet our political leaders would have us believe that “climate change is a much-overhyped problem. It’s probably not even happening, and if it is happening, it’s not worth worrying about. To the extent it is real, it can probably be dealt with in the future as technology advances. And don’t bother with regulations to protect the environment, they unnecessarily impede economic growth, and the economy must keep growing indefinitely.”
All lies. Foolish, dangerous, ignorant lies. These lies are threatening your life whether you know it or not. What these environmental regulations really impede is the looting of the environment for the gain of a few individuals, the same individuals who are busy dividing us through politics and racism. Almost all great wealth is derived from exploiting environmental resources which should be managed for the benefit of all beings, not just mankind and most certainly not just for the benefit of a few obscenely wealthy sociopaths.
Carefully Conserve 3 Different Plant Populations.
Plants take care of us as long as we take care of them. And this is where we are failing as a society. A wise society will carefully conserve 3 different plant populations: 1) Wild plants are uncultivated but they generate the bulk of the atmospheric oxygen we breathe. The ongoing destruction of the rain forest is equivalent to the destruction of the lungs of the photosynthetic organism that is the living solar system, whose heart planet we live on and have our interconnected existence. 2) Cultivated plants are part of our agricultural effort to provide a ready source of fruits, seeds, nuts, roots and leaves and other plant parts we eat to power our human bodies. And 3) fossilized plants have been chemically transformed over millions of years into fossil fuel which can be used to power mechanical motors and vehicles, which should be used sparingly because they heat the environment, release greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere and the fuel-refinement process generates huge amounts of plastic waste that is filling the Earth with pollution. Don’t believe in global warming? Just sit in a gridlocked traffic jam in the midst of tens of thousands of cars belching toxic smoke and heat and multiply that by a few hundred cities just like it all around the globe. That’s global warming, which also makes it easier for fires to start and spread, like the ones torching the West coast of North America right now.
We can’t afford to let our politicians and other super-looters keep us distracted any longer. Any so called “winners” of a race war are still losers as long as they’re stuck in prison, and we’re all stuck in the prison of poverty as long as we allow the rich and the corporations they control to continue to plunder and rape the Earth and become obscenely wealthy, hoarding wealth that could and should be used to eliminate poverty and provide the abundance and general good will necessary to actively restore the Earth’s biosphere, stop the ecological destruction and clean up the pollution threatening our very survival as a species. If we don’t find a way to break out of our prison of racial hatred and political conflict and insist on a re-structuring of our society where we all can thrive and devote resources to restoring our planetary, predominantly plant-based biosphere (nature), then we will die in this planetary prison, and take a lot of other species with us. Believe it or not, we still have a chance to turn this planetary prison into a paradise but it means making real and significant changes, and taking responsibility for the planetary biosphere which gives us life. We are meant to be caretakers of the biosphere, not exploiters of the biosphere.
Imagine a Biosphere-Loving Society.
Imagine for a moment what such a biosphere-loving society would look like: Intelligently designed cities surrounded by farms and gardens with smoothly integrated, quite and efficient public transportation systems. Community gardens are scattered throughout the city, including high-rise buildings with alternating floors filled with hydroponic gardens. Seasonal festivals are celebrated all around the world, an opportunity to consider the state of the planetary garden and express gratitude for all that plants give us. Restoration of the soil and an exclusive focus on growing organic food results in improved health for everyone, the equivalent of universal health care for all. The ocean is cleaned up, the giant plastic dead zone has been removed, coral reefs have been restored and marine fish and animals are allowed to flourish. We eventually give back 50% of the land to wild plants, wild animals and even wild humans if they choose to live primitively, hunting respectfully with bow and arrow like native American Indians. Everything is recycled. Products are designed to last a lifetime and can be easily repaired and recycled. Human artisanship is highly valued, along with art and music production. This is what our planet is supposed to look like.
To achieve this vision we would definitely have to work together, all around the world. Racism and divisive politics make this vision impossible. We would have to approach our future with the same mindset as a prison population that decides to make a break for it together, all for one and one for all. We would have to do it because we want to leave something beautiful for our children, and because we want life in all it’s wonderful diversity to survive and flourish. (Check out: A 12 Step Program to Restore the Biosphere.)
Now let me tell you about the MONAD Calendar-Clock app, which tells the planetary time and date. MONAD measures and demonstrates the planetary biorhythms (the solar day, lunar month & seasonal year) of the Earth’s predominantly plant-based, photosynthetic biosphere. MONAD has a Health Event Mode based on the principles of chronobiology, and allows you to record your personal biorhythms in the context of planetary biorhythms. MONAD shows you your unique place in planet centered space and time, but it also reminds us all of our collective purpose here on this living planet: we are the gardeners and caretakers of the planetary biosphere. MONAD is an essential tool for a more globally conscious humanity, and will change the way you see yourself in relation to the living Earth. Find out more about MONAD at: monad.earth.
And one last thought. In this democratic society, we determine our fate to a large extent by voting. This next voting opportunity is critical. Neither party (Blue versus Red) is ideal, but the most important thing to know about any political party is What is their stance on the environment? We need people in charge who first of all admit there is a problem, and second of all are willing and able to address the problem. Our society has many serious problems our leaders need to deal with, including racism, but the only problem which immanently threatens all of us all around the globe is the threat to the environment. Vote for the political party which takes seriously the warnings of scientists and is committed to addressing the pressing needs of our environment. (The Landslide app can serve as a useful guide to help you vote in such a way as to provide maximum support for the environment.) Vote with your wallet. Support your local organic food stores and the farms and gardens that provide organic foods and products which don’t contribute to pollution and toxic waste. Recycle everything. Support Greenpeace and the Sierra Club and any other organization which is working to restore nature.
End.