The
movie is an odyssey begun by two people discovering the culture we live
in, what it is doing to the earth, and its future. They speak slowly and calmly
and this personal touch plus the ending make the movie the best of its genre
that I have seen.
Tim
and Sally go visiting people to find out the truth. The facts are overwhelming,
bombarding and depressing. This planet cannot support 6.5 billion people. The
United States and other developed nations are taking from all the peoples, the
animals and the lands of the earth to support its consumption lifestyle. The
damage we are doing is on a geometrically
progressive landslide to extinction that iat this point cannot be
stopped. If any of us survive it will be because we are in the right
place at the right time and we have formed a new culture.
So
we have a choice, do we want to step out of the rut we are in, all of the ways
we are comfortable and go into the unknown, possibly learning in time a way to
thrive. Or do we want to ride the current wave until it crashes and go
down in a flash of glory, or a long slow decline. Americans prefer the flash of
glory, but the slow decline is more probable.
I am biased as I watch the movie.
I like Daniel Quinn's fresh way of looking at the current culture. He is
the author of Ishmael, My Ishmael, The Story of B, and Beyond Civilization. The
movie describes a culture which began 10,000 years ago by locking up food. This is commonly termed the
agricultural revolution. Quinn says that food was cultivated long before this,
just not locked up. Locking up the food created the culture where people worked
much longer hours, but a few people could be really wealthy. The only way
people would put up with this was a strong sale of the dream.
Quinn
calls the underlying meme for this culture the one right way. He believes that if people did not buy
the dream that they would walk out and not continue to serve the power elite.
Even now in our culture, the people not gaining from stripping resources
believe that the power that is accumulating to the wealthy from this are
available to them or maybe they just feel some kind of empathy since they want
to be rich. And obviously compared to the people starving as a result of
our raping of the plant for our own use, we are rich. If the developing
nations did not buy the meme of the one
right way, they would not choose to have us confiscate their resources.
When you have a strong work ethic and accumulate a lot of grain stores you can
go to war and make anyone do what you want and we do. Not the Russians,
not the Chinese, not the terrorists, WE MAKE EVERYONE DO WHAT WE WANT.
Grain
stores in the world are way down. The Empire is now using corn to make fuel,
and continuing their payments for primarily corporations to not grow food
(subsidies). I heard today that 50% of Lane County donations for their
food boxes were down this year. How long before we all feel the food crunch. Of
course the poor in other countries are first (1,000,000 suicides in India) then
poor in this country, New Orleans and the poor in our county, then the middle
class, 6 months, 12 months. Meanwhile George Bush has his ranch in Texas with
water catchment, solar and
everything he needs to live after we all die.
The
only real choice is not just to walk out of the Empire but to connect with
ourselves and the rest of nature. This is going into the unknowing, in the
movie, the name The Great Turning. For me gardening opens the door to the
universe. We in this culture have put ourselves above every other
creature and the earth we live on and think it is our right to use them as
resources to support our consumption.
To
look around and see what our world has to offer, what it begs us to receive, is
an amazing awe inspiring process. To act from that place gives us the
sustenance of a life well lived.
Sometimes
I think I am crazy, having all
these feelings of
WE
HAVE TO DROP EVERYTHING & TO DO SOMETHING NOW?
I
got insight into that when reading a comment on a review of the movie by
Carolyn Baker.
"I refuse to look at the evidence and still support the enablers
of the system that is murdering the earth and every life
form on it.
Derrick
Jensen states that everything in the current system of civilization is set up
to protect the abusers. Those who refuse to do so will be scape-goated-if not
by the abusers, then by their "siblings" who beg them to be quiet and
maintain faith in the system.
She
also describes that people who are not in denial feel the feelings that the
people in denial do not feel and it can be overwhelming. Charlotte A near Full moon in Scorpio/Taurus