Studying Suburban Sustainability in the Context of Gardens
The Fifth Sacred Thing Garden
Eran Shachar Rhodes
Summer 2008
Pages 2-24 How can a garden save the world?
The world will not be saved by old minds with new programs. If the
world is saved, it will be saved by new minds with no programs. –Daniel
Quinn
The System
As I traveled through the desert I thought about my aunt, and her
cancer. It was a unique desert—not one that lacks rain, but one that
lacks food—it was a food desert.
For some reason, I began thinking about doctors; about homelessness,
and criminals; about capitalism. And suddenly it all melded together in
my head like one clear chain of ideas. I saw these ideas as a pile of
dust in an empty room. I could sweep the pile, and spread the dust
evenly around the room to take a good look at all the ideas
individually, but then like magnets they would pull themselves back
together into a pile of dust. One pile.
All these different seemingly unrelated ideas are all related,
connected, part of something larger that binds them into one entity.
The system, I thought. This is the system. It all seemed so clear to
me, in that cold afternoon, riding in my car through the desert.
How could my aunt possibly get cured, living in such a system? The
stress, the fear, the endless amount of highly processed substance that
our society has come to except as food—this above all stuck in my mind.
The food. All these chronic diseases that we have today—cancer,
diabetes—I bet someone, somewhere did a study once and found that
nearly all the patients with these diseases consume a diet which
consists mostly on our modern agribusiness food system.
Food is everything. It is the reason we are alive. When will people
stop treating it as simply another act of living, instead of what it
is—living itself. Jessica Johnson, in her thesis on food and religion
writes, “Food has been the link between cultural and individual values
and practice. Food plays an important role in religion and resembles
the ecology and history of a people. People all across the world engage
with their community through feast and fast. People share the seeds of
their culture, eat the fruits of their heritage, and build tradition
somewhere between the farm and the dinner table. Food nourishes our
physical bodies while spirituality nourishes the soul. Without both we
are incomplete. We need to eat to live; therefore, we must eat to pray,
worship, and believe. Food does not merely satisfy the stomach; it
feeds the very sources of meaning.
How will our modern society come to change its approach towards food
into one of respect, from our current system? The solution is clear to
me, as I will attempt to demonstrate in this paper, but the road seems
to me as daunting as the cliffs of insanity (The Princess Bride). But
then again, even those were climbed.
When humans eat highly processed, chemical filled food, our bodies
react, and we become sick—in more than just a physical sense.
This place I was driving through was a food desert. Deep within the
black heart of the city, where the nearest place to buy food (if
McDonalds can be considerd food), is at best 2 or 3 miles away.
Perhaps I should back up…To ’buy food’ as I stated, seems to one of our
society as nothing abnormal, but to me it seems like something is
wrong. The tentacles to this problem clearly stretch deep, reaching
into unexplored territories.
My aunt surly does not live in such a food desert. A grocery still
exists on every corner in her suburb. But perhaps it is a different
sort of food desert. One in which food is stored under lock and key,
where food is bought and sold, where food is owned—indeed life is
owned. I read science fiction stories that describe societies in which
food and water are owned, but is today’s society so different? A
colleague (anonymous) once wrote “In a society where food is owned and
treated as an economic commodity, conflict will always exist. The
cultures that rely on the totalitarian agricultural system (Quinn) have
and will continue to become more and more removed from their food
source. Such a scenario is extremely dangerous, especially when the
people believe that all food will and should be always readily
available, regardless of season, or their location on the planet. Once
people rely entirely on an invisible food source they become
disconnected from the very thing that keeps them alive. And when people
don’t know what keeps them alive, or think it is something other than
food, eventually disaster will ensue. People of this culture don’t know
that they are living because they have food—they believe that having
food is simply an aspect of living. When one group owns all that food,
and the people who depend on it don’t realize their dependence, then
that group has the power to control the lives of all those people. They
control where food will be readily available, what sort of food this
will be, and have the power to block the supply at will. And if they
control the food for everyone, they have more power than any
government, class, or any other group or individual which this planet
has ever seen. Unfortunately, this is what is happening today.
Agriculture has become a business, and has been monopolized by certain
corporations, who are on the brink of gaining this power.”
But what sort of conflict does this refer to?
Clearly such a food system affects more than simply what is for dinner.
And the question also arises of who is behind all this? Who in fact has
the power in this system, and who has the power to change it, and of
course, how?
Once again, I am staring at cliffs.
Food is everything- and they know it!
Leading the way in the quest for ultimate power is Monsanto. With
headquarters located in St. Louis, Missouri, this American corporation
has now reached nearly every corner of the planet. The system Monsanto
uses allows them to continuously take over more and more land through
patenting life, and has been repeatedly backed by the United States
government (most often through certain judicial rulings). Monsanto’s
first major victory which led to their escalating pattern of power was
when in the 1980’s the supreme court ruled that they had the right to
enter the United State seed bank, and patent the seeds. Since they have
created many genetically engineered seed varieties. These varieties
alone are resistant to the pesticide and herbicides that Monsanto sells
to farmers, and of which market they have succeeded in monopolizing.
They introduce both seeds and pesticides all over the world. These
varieties are designed to be highly capable in spreading their pollen,
and when met with an heirloom crop, to mix and take over genetically.
If a Monsanto variety is found on a certain piece of property, than
they could claim it as owners of that property. Hence the company has a
large department that dedicates itself in driving around farmland
worldwide, and discovering Monsanto owned genetics on other people’s
property. The farmers who do buy the Monsanto seed/pesticide
combination cannot save any seeds, because all varieties are build to
be self terminating after one season, so that a farmer cannot collect
the seeds, but must buy them year after year, at constantly higher
prices.
Others have gone to extensive lengths to describe all the various ways
in which all the different aspects of the American system are set up to
benefit Monsanto, so I will not go more into that. Lets move on:
There is clearly a movement that realizes the consequences of Monsanto, but haven’t of yet figured out what to do.
What movement?
There are simple, direct solutions to stopping Monsanto, such as
burning down or bombing their headquarters. This would not be
effective. Doing this would require a person or group of people who are
willing to sacrifice themselves to the subjection of our laws, and
would likely have similar results to that of suicide bombers—an even
stronger retaliation from the side in power—in this case the power is
the very foundation of modern society. There might be a consumer-based
solution, if the consumers lived in a democracy and had a say over what
happens in their country. Unfortunately the United States is not a
democracy, as illustrated later. There can possibly be farmer-based
solutions, in which farmers get together and stop buying and selling
their products to Monsanto. The sad fact is that Monsanto does not
really need these farmers to survive—they take over the land, and use
machines and the migrant slave class to produce their products. Might
there be government-based solutions? Could be, if the government was
not controlled by the corporation, and if the people were more involved
with politics. This is a possible solution for some countries, but not
the USA. Could the system possibly be changed from within the
corporation, who realizes the destruction they cause? No. Once a
genocide is well on the way, the oppressor will never admit that what
they are doing is wrong. They must be forced to stop. Many activist
organizations are dedicated to protesting, petitioning, trying to pass
bills, and many other direct and indirect action to stop Monsanto, yet
the corporation has still been extremely economically successful in the
past decade.
As long as the solution is within the context of the system in which
food is owned, it will not succeed. Only a truly revolutionary change
will stop Monsanto.
The Organic Consumers Association has been especially active in
protesting Monsanto’s genetic engineering program. But keep in mind,
they too have not truly stepped out of the conventional form of
resistance, which is in itself a part of the existing system. In May
2003 when the World Agricultural Forum was being hosted by Monsanto in
St. Louis, the OCA organized mass demonstrations in which the St. Louis
police and state government displayed their position of supporting and
protecting Monsanto when they arrested and brutalized many activists
who had gathered for the event. “Two of the farmers, George Naylor of
Greene County, Iowa, and president of the National Family Farm
Association, and Percy Schmeiser, a canola grower in Canada, are
involved in legal disputes with Monsanto Co. of Creve Coeur” (OCA,
2003). George Naylor’s name became familiar after Michael Pollen
wrote about him in The Omnivores Dilemma. Percy Schmeiser has gained
international notoriety after his loss in court battles with Monsanto
regarding GE seeds found on his farm. Information on him could be found
in Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal Vegetable Miracle. It has become clear
that traditional forms of protest are simply not working to seriously
combat Monsanto—the corporation has too much power, and enormous
support. Since these methods have been relatively ineffective, and
finding out about these resistance groups is rather simple using the
internet, I chose to research a different aspect of resistance which is
often overlooked, since it does not directly attack the oppressor.
Instead, I will demonstrate how a group of people, by helping
themselves, will destroy Monsanto.
Community
Much of the answer lies in the strength of community. A small group of
people who choose to live outside the parameters that a capitalist
neolibiralist globalized system imposes, and who rely on themselves for
food and economic success will have no need for corporate interference.
A college professor, Tony Zaragoza describes a “new class” which is
emerging, who feel the need to live entirely outside the parameters of
capitalism. Once communities such as this spread and increase
worldwide, Monsanto will literally die through lack of business and
lack of need for them to exist. In local, effective, organized
democracies lies the solution to stopping Monsanto, and all other
destructive corporations. It will also result in a dramatic decrease in
violent and non-violent conflicts. Examples of beginning stages of such
communities exist. Already Havana, Cuba has succeeded in creating a
system in which the city produces over 50% of its food through organic
urban agriculture. This came in response to the Cuban embargo, which
forced the country into creating a relatively self-sufficient system,
in which food corporations are not necessary. In Venezuela cooperative
communities have been emerging throughout the country with the help of
their socialist leader, Hugo Chavez, who’s vision of community control
offers a promising vision. Unfortunately, like so many leaders, Chavez
often focuses too much on himself, instead of his vision. In Chicago,
organizations such as Growing Home Inc. are promoting urban farming on
the poor south side, while hiring homeless people to work growing and
selling the food. The goal is to create a network of ‘food districts’
in areas of the city which, as I stated, currently lack any real food.
Many examples can be found of people attempting to make change in this
way, yet the majority of projects still lack the courage to truly
disengage from the laws and money system, which bind them to a limited
success.
The great challenge for such a revolution to occur in a United States
county or community would be convincing an entire community to show up
regularly to community meeting, and have the patience and dedications
to design plans for their community. It requires some extent of
community leadership, cooperation, and convincing. Most United States
urban neighborhoods have been design to rely outer sources. In such a
non-community based society it would be difficult to get enough people
on board. In wealthy communities people have gotten together and made
decisions such as paying extra taxes for the local school, but the idea
to share food is fairly foreign. Poorer neighborhoods who do not have
such opportunities might require help from the city or county to get
started, especially in terms of schools and other such public venues.
The community would need to write out a full plan of what will be
achieved with the money they are requesting. For example, with Growing
Home, and their vision of a food district, would they receive full
funding from city, county, or state, they would likely achieve success
much painlessly. Unfortunately, tax money is diverted to other utterly
useless endeavors such as widening roads, and subsidizing Food
corporations.
Frances Moore Lappe in her book Democracy’s Edge-choosing to save our
country by bringing democracy to Life, suggests that those of us
interesting in making community change begin by encouraging a new
“language of democracy” in which an activist is not a “rabble-rouser,
extremist with own agenda”, but instead “engaged citizen, active
citizen, empowered citizen.” Democracy would not be “limited to voting
and government,” but instead a “living democracy—a way of life that
includes economic democracy and assumes citizen participation.” In such
a democracy if someone disobeys the rules they will be subject to
community service instead of sitting in jail, and school would be
structured to teach children what they actually want and need to know.
She describes many other aspects of a “living democracy”, suggesting
that once people realize what a democracy could look like, they will
see that it is better for them (and for the planet), and choose to
discard the capitalist fake-democracy in place currently, and opt for a
healthier, more sustainable democracy, which would in turn dissolve the
need for corporate dependence of any kind.
Asserting real democracies would eliminate the need
for corporations, and would create a landscape in which corporations
have no way to survive. Real living democracies require community-based
decision-making, and can only be achieved by community-initiated
action. The strength of communities outmatches any power in the world.
Monsanto depends on governmental and societal structures, which impose
a culture of separation from community, fear, categorization and
humiliation of resistors, and indeed of resistors themselves. They
achieve such a culture in part through manipulation and mutual control
of media, which in turn deliver through lies and PR, a submission to a
general nation-wide feeling of un-empowerment, apathy, and backward
values. As more people choose to join a new class that does not follow
these capitalist (i.e. right-to-own-life) asserted guidelines,
communities are going to develop which will work as sustainable
entities. And as seen over millions of years on this planet, it is what
works that survives, and thrives. Monsanto will one day find that they
have no money, because no one is buying their products. They will not
be wanted, and they will not be needed. They will be stopped, not by
violent revolutions, or mass protests, but by simple people helping
themselves. There is no need for resistance. In fact resistance itself
is an important historically repeated part of this system. Only growth
is needed, and something which is truly new to us (even though it is as
ancient as this planet). That’s the beauty of this coming revolution.
The System-continued
I know a woman who is a healer. She does not subscribe any pills or
medicines that come in a bottle. She eats (and feeds) only raw food.
When I saw her, the first thing she did was touch a part of my hand
that instantly shot pain through my whole body. I had no idea that spot
was so sore. “That hurts, doesn’t it?” she asked me. “Yes!” and she
told me what I had eaten the previous night, and explained to me why my
body reacts the way it does to what I ate. Cancer patients have stayed
with her for a week, cleansing their bodies and minds, and have left
with the cancer gone. Likewise diabetes patients have been inspired to
change their lifestyle, and after years of being told that once you
have diabetes its with you for life, have left behind their sickness.
And so, I think about this every time I go to one of our so-called
‘doctors’. These people who have spent so much time in our educations
system, that they probably shouldn’t be still trusted as sane. I sit in
their office for an aching hour, before they come in the room, and like
a computer or text books, read symptoms, and diagnose pills. Some
medicine invented by a corporation in a laboratory to combat the
illness. But what gave me the illness to begin with? It seems to me
that this sort of system doesn’t really address my sickness. What made
me sick? Like so many aspects of our society, they don’t combat the
real problem, only give a temporary solution to its affects.
I think a few things are beginning to become clear. So the capitalist
food system, which relies on modern globalization, which relies on
fossil fuels, which relies on wars, which relies on banks, which
further rely on government, whom of course rely on corporations—also
rely entirely on people getting sick off the food, so that money can be
pumped into the pharmaceutical industry.
And the entire system would topple if the corporation were gone, since they are the ones benefiting from all this.
‘All this’, not to mention the education system, which makes sure we believe in ‘all this’.
Well, there’s a handful!
But who pulls the string behind all this?
Lets see. When someone buys food from McDonalds (which will make you
sick), they are paying the retailer, who buys their product (food, how
could food be a product?) from the distributor, who buys their food
from the producer. And the producer gets its food from whoever owns the
food.
Monsanto.
I am beginning to understand some things.
Monsanto owns the seeds! They have complete control over the food that
nearly every human in the United States gets to eat. They have the
control over the food—over life.
A short history of the most important stuff
Another colleague (anonymous) described the history of humans
relationship with food as such: It is estimated that humans began
roaming the planet around 2.5 million years ago. That is a long time;
yet, not so long in a geological sense. For the majority of the 2.5
million year the value system of humans directly correlated to the best
method for survival. Meaning if a tribe depended on a certain animal
herd to survive, they understood that in order for them to survive, the
herd, and everything the herd relied on, needed to survive as well.
And people lived this way for a long time, very slowly spreading and multiplying, as any successful predacious animal does.
Approximately 10,000 years ago (very recently in human and geological
history), a group of humans developed a form of agriculture in which
they did not need to rely on their surroundings for survival, but
instead could take advantage of their resources to produce, for the
first time ever, a surplus of food. They could ignore everything they
previously relied on for survival, and could instead focus on using the
land for their benefit, regardless of the effect this had on the other
living things in that particular area. This idea has been titled by a
colleague (Daniel Quinn), ‘totalitarian agriculture’—the system in
which the human is god. It was also the very first time a class system
was required to be established in order for this new culture to
survive.
Since this group of people now started having a surplus in food, their
population began to increase at a rate never before seen by any mammal
in the history of the planet.
The next two thousand years brought forth another strange, yet
monumental occurrence—A certain group of humans living in current day
northern Europe adapted a genetic mutation which allowed them to digest
lactose. People had never before imagined that cows, which were still
mostly wild, could be used for their milk. This eventually led to the
husbandry of other animals—it essentially was the first time animals
were to be farmed.
Once this group of humans realized the enormous power they possessed,
they began seeing themselves as better than all other humans, and began
taking over other peoples, with the backing that since they can control
the animals, they must be far superior to anyone else, and could also
control other humans. It so happened that these people from northern
and western Europe ended up taking over a great majority of the world,
spreading what a colleague (Mara) has dubbed “the abstract values
system” with them. The system in which values were no longer correlated
with the best means for survival, but with the best means for power
over other life forms.
The next significant step in the evolution of the human to food
relationship would take place around the time of the 17th century. At
this time, the British Empire had developed a method to monopolize food
as a product. Sugar was being grown in the New World as a strictly
export crop that within 150 years had gone from a luxury product, to a
basic need of nearly all of the British people. Of course, this
required a large slave class to accomplish, and once seen as
successful, it sparked an Economic Revolution, where every power in the
world rushed to monopolize products—economic power (as opposed to
strictly military), through monopoly capitalism, had become the most
efficient way to gain strength.
The Industrial Revolution sparked another change. Slavery had become
illegal in the United States, and machines began replacing their jobs.
Efficiency was the key factor in the booming competition of an ever
more materialized world.
It was around WWI when Californian food growers decided to try and sell
out of season produce on the east coast, as a luxury item during the
cold months. It turned out to be a hit, and growers from warm climates
did not hesitate to find niches in the out of season produce market.
Within a generation, out of season produce had become the norm.
Food became even more industrialized when the use of chemical
pesticides had become a necessity for the corporate food grower during
the mid 20th century.
Then came the Technological Revolution—the age of Genetic Modification,
and single generation terminator seeds. This brings us to today’s
world, where the majority of food is created by corporations.
And where do corporations get all the food?
From growers who must buy seeds year after year from Monsanto. At the
root of the system is the seed producer. Without them, the system would
fall apart. Monsanto has the power over our entire food supply.
For a more complete understanding of this history, read Story of B by Daniel Quinn.
Case Study- From Which End Do You Peel a Banana?
If I were forced to eat food grown entirely in my neighborhood,
consuming in a lifestyle that directly correlates to the changing of
seasons, living in the mercy of what my environment has to offer, I
predict that hunger and malnutrition would ensue quite quickly.
Furthermore, I predict this to be the case with the majority of my
fellow students. Personally, I enjoy nothing more than a bowl of
granola with a banana sliced on top to get me going in the morning. Of
course, throughout the day I will likely consume countless other foods
that, although marked as ‘organic’ and ‘fair trade’, I don’t really
know where or how it is grown, or how exactly it got to the local
co-op. The fact is that even when I purchase a product with a
description on the label that leads me to think that I am saving the
world by buying it, I am most likely still taking part in and
supporting the global food industry. Industrialized food takes pride in
its poetic half-truths when informing the consumer of what they are
buying, by convincing the public that ‘organic’ means ‘sustainable’,
and ‘fair trade’ means that the more you buy this product, the more you
are helping poor people somewhere far away. What the label always fails
to stress is the “far away” part, and that for this system to work,
there must always be the “poor people”. Bananas are the archetypical
crop to represent this system in today’s world. This system of global
food industry can be evaluated through the evolution of the banana
industry.
It was in the early to mid 20th century when the
industrial food ideology really took off. Creative money seekers
discovered a never before developed niche in the farming
world—importing out of season foods. That, with the rapid increase in
farming chemicals led to corporations showing serious interest in the
farming world, and to the concept of a food industry. The banana crop
was one of many to be industrialized in foreign countries for the soul
purpose of export. It so happened that the bananas enormous success as
an imported product, combined with the sensitive environment that it
grew best in, led the crop to be one of the most ecologically and
socially destructive industries ever—especially in the rainforest
regions of central America. The social and economic destruction that is
resulted from the food industry is best described in this “
six-stage process: (1) Visionary capitalists identify an economic
opportunity for the market expansion of an agricultural product…the
product is bananas. (2) The capitalists purchase (or steal, or bribe
their way into a government concession) some land, including land that
may contain rain forest, which is promptly cut down. (3) they import
workers to produce the product. (4) After a period of boom the product
goes bust on the world market, which means scaling back production,
which in turn means releasing a significant fraction of the workforce.
(5) The newly unemployed workforce seeks and fails to find to find
employment elsewhere and must seek land to grow subsistence crops to
tide themselves over until other work can be found. And finally (6) the
only place the now unemployed workers can find land no one will kick
them off of is in the forest, which means yet more of the rain forest
is converted to agriculture (Vandermeer, Perfecto, 4).
This simple depiction of life in Central America perfectly explains the
cycle of destruction that the banana crop has brought to this region.
Like sugar cane, which sparked a worldwide
economic revolution, bananas played a major role in the
industrialization of a food product—more specifically food in which
importation is required. The rapid industrialization of bananas was
congruent with the industrialization of everything else, “Before the
1880’s, most Americans had never seen, much less eaten, a banana but by
1910 the country was flooded with them. Transformed from a luxury and a
novelty, bananas had become the poor man’s fruit…By 1999 annual
consumption had risen to…over twenty-seven and a half pounds of bananas
per person each year, nine pounds more than our annual consumption of
apples, the next most popular fruit. Bananas have become as “American”
as apples or strawberries despite the fact that virtually all our
bananas are imported from the countries of the Caribbean basin”
(Jenkins, ix). Following the same patterns as sugar and apples, bananas
can be viewed as a catalyst for the devastation the United States has
forced upon the American rain-forested countries.
Bananas are by all means not the only product with
this effect—coffee, cocoa, and the fast food cattle industry, along
with many other industrialized food crops all play a large role in the
destructive cycle depicted above. Today, more and more products are
also being grown for car fuel, such as corn. However, bananas seem to
get the least attention among the consumers regarding its origin.
Successful marketing has led bananas to be viewed as just another
ordinary crop that will always be readily available and cheap, not at
all exotic. This in part is due to the fact that the banana industry is
today controlled almost entirely by only three corporations, Dole, Del
Monte, and Chiquita. These companies have no desire to improve their
tactics in a way that would help save the world; in fact they continue
to grow and spread their banana plantations. There is no doubt that
soon bananas will follow the same path as sugar. Hundreds of acres of
sugar plantations now cover much of southern Florida. As seen in the
film H2 Worker, the corporations import primarily male workers from
countries such as Jamaica, to be used for labor, and receive treatment
that by many humanitarian groups would be classified as modern day
slavery. Meanwhile in Jamaica where American corporations have
devastated the countries economic and social structure, Japanese
workers are being imported to work in their factories (Life and Debt).
Banana is the continuation and escalation of cane. Global trade,
including in the banana industry has escalated to not only a crop, but
to human labor as well.
What is the answer? Should I stop eating banana for breakfast?
Possibly. However sign of improvement are beginning
to surface which lead to encouraging thoughts. Unions, and an emerging
feminist movement in the banana countries are fighting a strong battle
to end corporate destruction of their countries. The situation today is
increasingly such that “The corporations are still out there
maneuvering to obliterate the unions; paramilitaries and other armed
groups are still out there plotting assassinations and kidnappings;
neoliberal government are still scheming how to impose new trade
regimes to crush workers’ livelihoods throughout Latin America. But
banana unionists are themselves more savvy about global trade politics
with every passing year, and their unions are constructing deeper and
deeper levels of solidarity at the national, regional, and
international levels every day” (Frank, 109). And as we all know,
solidarity is just another word for love. And love means peace. It is
no longer simply a matter of bananas or sugar or any one product, but
about the interconnectivity of the human conscious, compared with the
sad out of control tentacles that bind a few lost souls to their money.
Corporations are the antithesis of peace, and with every passing day
they are loosing their footing in the steep slopes of the capitalist
mountain. The eyes of hope are opening and the hearts of solidarity are
awakening. Very soon I will be able to eat my breakfast, and know that
through this meal I truly am saving the world. For now, a new form of
resistance is the key for the doors of change, and love as always is
the only answer.
Change is coming, mark my words—change is coming.
The system- continued
I continue driving, and pass by a large meat processing plant. All of a
sudden I reach another bump in the road, as my mind reaches to the far
corners of my imaginary room and pulls in other ideas.
This factory is located in a neighborhood which is nearly entirely
black. Yet no one in the neighborhood has any jobs, despite this large
factory, which offers plenty of jobs.
Then I realize that every person working in this factory is Mexican,
coming over from a different neighborhood. The Mexicans get the jobs,
because as immigrants they live under threat of deportation, and are
taken advantage of, not given the full rights (or wage) that are law in
this country.
So if the corporations rely so heavily on the immigrant slave class for
survival, why are they always pushing citizens to hate immigrants?
Because there is no immigration problem. This ‘problem’ is an illusion
that has been invented to keep people in fear and contempt of
immigrants, so that they can remain the slaves in a country where
slavery is illegal. And indeed this has been the case ever since the
so-called abolition of slavery. Indeed, this country is built on
immigrants—built on slaves.
The Mexicans are kept as slaves, and the racism against blacks people
keeps them feared as well, and thus keeps them in the slums. Racism,
and slavery are essential to run this country.
Oh, but why is there a meat plant there to begin with? Is meat not dead animal?
A factory of death.
Deeper I dive.
All these separate issues congealed.
And the pile of dust grows.
I have personally met people who are in denial about the abundant,
blatant racism that exists in this country. However the war being waged
against citizens with dark skin is very apparent to me.
Just a look at the jail system is enough to prove this. Over 50% of the
prisoners in this country are in for drug related crimes. Not
surprisingly 5 out of 6 of these people are black. In my white high
school, even our senior class president was caught with Marijuana, and
did not get into serious trouble. But if a black person is caught with
possession of pot they are put in jail. 1 in 9 black male adults are
currently in prison. 1 in 4 have been in at one point. These numbers
are staggeringly higher than those of lighter skinned citizens. (Stats
from the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless)
In the early 1970’s, when black communities were rallied for solidarity
and independence, a US government led attack implemented drugs into
these communities, that were never wealthy enough to even dream of
dealing with these drugs. Hence, the first of many steps (since the
civil-rights period) taken by the US government to try and dismantle
the black communities from within. And to a great degree, they have
succeeded.
A friend who has lived in Chicago his whole life and has seen the civil
rights movement crumble at the hands of the powerful tells me without a
doubt, that the condition of the black communities today is by far
worse off than he has ever seen it.
Another piece of evidence indicating that the government, or more
likely the corporations who are profiting off the system, have it in
their interests to keep the black communities of this country as
degraded as possible, is the amount of money put in, and profited
through the prison system. To keep a person in prison for one year
costs an incredible amount of tax money—around 30,000 dollars.
Comparatively, putting a person through an intensive job training and
life skills program costs approximately12,000 dollars.
One of the largest profiteers of the prison industry are food
corporations such as Aramark, who also happen to cater all of the
Chicago Public Schools, as well as colleges and office building all
over the country.
Tax paying citizens pay to keep the war against black people alive, and
simultaneously support a food system which can be attributed as one of
the main players in the destruction of our world, and our planet.
It is very easy to see how a person might find the need to resist this system. But what is resistance?
The city of Olympia, my former home, has a greater concentration of
alternative and progressive minded people than anywhere else I have
ever been. And yet the community at large is in tatters. Yes, there are
small pockets that have succeeded in receding themselves from the
common culture, but as a whole, the community is on life support. The
air in that city sits heavy with tension. Exclusion and separation is
the driving force which currently steers the community.
But how could a place with such a gathering of people who all
wish to separate themselves from common culture, and create a new class
disconnected from the ‘system’, succeed in achieving so little?
Some might argue that this is an exaggeration, however if one looks at
the Evergreen State College which is one of the hearts of where change
is occurring, they will find an apathetic frustrated place, where
everything is a fight, and where the administration and higher power
are forced into being more conservative than a ‘normal’ school. One
must only look across the street and see the huge developments being
built over the beautiful woods, to see that this community is not one
succeeding in implementing change.
But again, how could this be?
Trying to get involved with activism in Olympia, I had a front seat
view of the failures repeated by the towns’ activists. Leading the way
is Olympia SDS (students for a democratic society). The ring leaders of
this group had the ideals left over from the weathermen, that only
violent resistance can smash the system. According to these so called
‘radicals’, they are the only ones who will achieve the necessary
change, not those lousy hippies, or worst of all, liberals or
democrats. The people who controlled this group could easily have
changed the name to SAS, students for an anarchist society. But then
again, I know plenty of pacifist anarchists. These new anarchists are
quite different from Saco and Vinzetti, Emma Goldmen era, who preached
compassion, and love and respect to all life.
The truth is that these are people who are deeply ingrained in ‘the system’—they are people who believe in violence.
Planting the seed that will end the violence
There is an illness spreading. By now it can be found seemingly
anywhere the modern human has touched. It is sneaky, and can creep up
on even the most enlightened person without them knowing. The
staggering silence, which emerges like a plague over those
contaminated, comes like a sad and silent contagious wind, usually
falling upon a person without warning, and most often overwhelms all
senses to the point of utter inhuman behavior which only an artificial
world such as ours can achieve.
This disease is one of forgetting. It is the simple loss of meaning for
one simple word—violence. What is violence? This one word, which should
according to the linguistic form of human communication bear so much
power, and trigger such profound emotional reaction, has been rapidly
losing all meaning, creating a chain of events which is leading planet
Earth to the brink of exhaustion.
Just saying this word out loud makes my whole body shudder, and brings
me to the point of tears. The vastness of anger and hate and sadness
that accompanies the word should be enough to give it a valuable place
on the list of words-not-to-be-taken-lightly.
Violence.
It is truly a scary word to say.
But somehow people have succeeded in forgetting its meaning. The word
violence is used so often, with such regularity and commonality that it
no longer has importance. Which is very dangerous.
Every day this week I have sifted through the paper in order just to
see how the media is reporting these days. I found that violence can be
both a headline, and a meaningless paragraph deep within the
paper. Violence is given value as to how exciting the violence
is. If it is the sort of violence which occurs everyday, such as ‘car
bomb in Afghanistan kills 52’, or ’11 marines die in Iraq’, it has
little value, and is in a sense not real violence. Not violence worth
thinking about, or acknowledging as something real and terrible. It is
no longer violence, but simply the way life is. On the other hand,
South Africans going on rampages in the streets and murdering
Zimbabwean refugees is new and exciting—worth lots of money for a day,
before being thrown in the trash and forgotten about the next morning.
The one commonality between both these types of violence is that both
are encouraged to be treated as something far away, which does not in
actuality affect real people, and is not worth being sad or feeling
anything over. It is just something that is reported because it is
exciting—like the movies.
Other types of violence or so common and un-exciting, they are not even
referred to as violence; Cutting down a tree, building subdivisions
over prairie land, dumping waste into a river, putting animals in
factories, putting humans in factories, being mean, yelling,
chauvinistic, and infinite other daily acts which are considered such a
part of our routine world that people have never even learned how
violent these acts truly are—to what extent this sort of violence leads
to cycles of destruction and imbalance.
It appears that modern humanity has removed itself so far from the real
world, that not only do we not acknowledge and recognize violence, but
we don’t even know what it is we are destroying. And if we never
learned what it is that we are destroying, we will never acknowledge
that we are destroying it (since we don’t know it exists), and we will
not think of it as violence, and we will forget what violence is, and
will lose all connection to the only things that allow us to live on
this earth.
When I refer to the ‘real world’, I am speaking of the living organism
which is our planet. The four sacred things that allow all life to be
here—Earth, Air, Fire, Water. And the firth sacred thing, which allows
humans to live with the rest of it all and with each other—spirit, and
everything that encompasses, such as senses, emotions, love.
With so much violence filling the air with dark heaviness all around
us, it is impressive we are even able to stand up. But it makes it
easier when we forget what violence is. I know people who want to
create a new world and refer to themselves as radicals, or anarchists,
or activists. People who want to see an end to all the destruction, and
live free from the chains our modern product-drenched society has
created. Many of these people want to smash the system using any means
necessary—fight back! They will use violence to end all the madness.
The trouble is that these ideas are not radical at all. In fact, they
are an essential part of maintaining the fear and mutual distrust among
the human community in our modern age. To use violence against
violence will create a situation in which violence is ordinary, and
eventually loses its meaning, and eventually forgotten as being
violence. Perhaps this is the true nature of what violence does to
people.
When a person uses violent means to achieve their goal, they will not
achieve something new. We all know that instead of violence being
something unacceptable and abnormal, it is as everyday as
breathing—proof that it is an essential part of this fear based
society. So when violence is used it cannot bring about something
different, it is simply playing a part in the very society that we are
trying to change.
Of course, there is no one definition for violence.
For example, tearing up concrete in order to plant a garden, is not
something I consider violent. The trouble starts when people get too
wrapped up in the reaction they receive to their actions. When ever
something new and unique is done, which does not follow the guidelines
and parameters this system has set up, there will be a strong (usually
violent) reaction from the ‘authorities’, most often police. Eventually
people become obsessed with one thing—fighting the police. So often
this is what any form of violence leads to. People loose their vision
of the society they are trying to create, and become focused on
fighting the police. There is no vision, no communal or democratic
motive, they are just an essential part of maintaining the stigma and
stereotypes that the authority want activists to have. When this
occurs, the authority has won—it has distracted the activists from what
is truly important, and drew them into a fruitless battle.
There must be a vision.
When I tell people that the society I envision is
one in which all aspects are governed by the four sacred things—earth,
air, fire, and water—which can never be owned, else life cannot exist,
they look at me like I am crazy. I tell them that everything—the
economics, politics, daily routines, really everything, will be
governed by these sacred things. Only with such a situation can a
society ever be truly sustainable.
I used to believe that new laws must be put in place, such as these
four sacred thing, free housing to all, free healthcare to all, free
education for all, and free food for all. But I slowly began to see
that these do not reach the core of our current spiraling cycle. Except
perhaps the part about free food for all. That part caught me by
surprise when I first wrote it down. Something in it made sense.
Once I realized that food is everything, I dug even deeper, and
discovered the illness. I realized that the majority of my brothers and
sisters on this planet do not know that the four sacred things govern
everything on our planet.
Thoreau’s words come to mind ‘in wilderness in the preservation of the
world’. I finally truly, deeply understand and appreciate those words.
For they are the ultimate truth for the survival of humans.
We must reconnect with the sacred things that allow everything on this planet to live, earth, air, fire, and water.
And we must become true radicals and abandon all desire to be a part of
violence. We must remove ourselves from it. Disassociate ourselves from
anything to do with violence; enough of it exists already. Imagine a
Palestinian strapped with bombs, and saturated with lies and hatred
entering an Israeli city. Imagine first what sort of upbringing would
lead a person to do such a thing. And next imagine with that upbringing
in mind what sort of reaction this person expects to find when they
meet Israelis—they will expect be treated like dirt and hated, because
perhaps they have or were always told they would and maybe even should
have. But imagine if, instead of the Israelis treating this person like
dirt, they looked at the person as a fellow living beings and said with
all sincerity ‘there is a place set for you at our table, if you will
choose to join us’. Or an Israeli soldiers entering a Palestinian
village—instead of receiving stones to the head, like they expect, they
are greeted with respect and humanity, and every Palestinian they pass
telling them ‘there is a place set for you at our table, if you will
choose to join us.’ The soldiers would not know how to react. Think
about it. These are 19-year-old humans—surely they feel spirit. It is
perhaps the most passionate age, which is likely why our society puts
them into the army during those years.
Such scenario would end the violence. Not using violence, but
humanity—forgiveness and love. It is an essential commitment that only
individuals can be responsible for. Feel violence, breathe, embrace it
with the full spectrum of humanity, and contain it in your hands,
pushing it smaller and smaller, until it is dust. Then let it fly into
the beautiful wind and be gone, until the happy worms can it eat and
make the final conversion.
This I know as ultimate truth to be possible. Because we are humans,
and posses the fifth sacred thing, which will allow us to remember, and
forgive, and embrace, and evolve.
But how does such a world take root?
I believe one powerful way is by doing exactly what I have done over the past 10 weeks.
My Project- The Fifth Sacred Thing Garden
I have created something extraordinary. And that is something to be
proud of. When I give people the list of all the food that now grows on
my parents yard, even those who have been here have a hard time
believing me.
Here is what grows:
Perennials-
3 Apple tree, 2 apricot tree, 2 papaws, 1 cherry, 1 mulberry, 1 peach, 1 nectarine, 1 pear;
2 red raspberries, 3 yellow raspberries, 3 blueberries, 2 gooseberry, 1
elderberry, 1 saskatoon, strawberries, grape, wintergreen, rhubarb,
asparagus; A huge variety of herbs; and many other non-edible flowers
and beautiful plants and grasses.
Then we have our veggie garden, which has sunflowers, sweet corn,
edemame soybeans, garbanzo beans, pole beans, several varieties of
squash, watermelon, zucchini, cucumber, different kinds of potatoes,
carrots, beets, spinach, lettuce, kale, eggplant, pepper, broccoli,
cabbage, cauliflower, onion, garlic, and of course tomatoes.
Did I forget anything?
As for the perennial garden, nearly no work is required for its up-keeping.
People ask me all the time, ‘don’t fruit trees require a lot of
maintenance?’ This question often comes in response to my assertion
that every street should be lined with fruit trees and other edible
goods for the public taking.
My answer is this, that perhaps on a farm where the orchard is an
essential part of the livelihood of the grower, than that farmer would
want to take special care to make sure the yield is as high as
possible. But if the streets in a city or suburb are to be lines with
trees, why not make them edible ones? Even if wildlife eats most of the
fruit, this will be no different than having a tree that does not bear
any fruit to begin with. You will still have the beautiful tree to
bring some life to the ugly street.
Any of the food growing in the front yard of the house is available to
anyone who wants some good food while walking by. It is my dream to
tear down the fences that surround every yard here in Wilmette, and
have one large field consisting of all the yards, where food could be
grown for all the houses in the area.
This would not only improve the sustainability of the neighborhood, but
also improve the social structure, and the general humanity and
kindness of the community.
Moreover, I believe that such a system is required for a society to
survive. Food must be open to all, free to all, and shared by all. And
people must know where it comes from.
If streets were lined with food, than educating people about the sacred
things of this world that allow us to survive would require nothing
more than people leaving their houses, or just looking outside.
And I have started this.
Already, I believe I have inspired my neighbors on either side of the
fence to take a look at their yards, and see the possibility. My
neighbors to the east are an old couple who have a big lawn and
landscapers who take care of it. Everyday now Walter comes outside and
sees what I’m up to, what I am growing, asking me questions. He seems
so happy to see all this food. The last two trees I planted were on an
area of the property that we share with them. He was so excited to see
these trees there. Yesterday I saw him outside in his yard; He was
tending to a few plants that are growing out in front of his house. I
had never seen him do this before.
To the west my neighbors have planted fruit trees! Yes!! Perhaps one
day the fence will come down, and we could share our wealth. And once
others see how wonderful it is, they will want to join in.
All over the neighborhood I have noticed gardens that were not there a
year ago. I have talked to many of these folk, and they all have passed
by my garden, and think it looks wonderful. I think I may have inspired
some of them. One man down the street is setting up a garden
specifically to attract birds. The beauty of that overwhelms me.
For the more stuck up suburbanites I have this explanation—having a
garden saves you energy. People love talking about energy these days,
so this works every time. Its true though, growing even a small amount
of food means that you are not buying the product which came from a
giant farm in California. The amount of energy used on that huge farm
in the central valley, combined with its being shipped here to Chicago
adds up to a lot of energy use going into that one product.
Some people want to set up a solar panel to reduce their energy, which
is great, except that it costs a hell of a lot of money. To them I say
this: grow a garden instead. It is cheaper, and will save just as
much—if not more energy, even if you don’t necessarily feel it since
you are not the one using that energy. It is still being used though.
A garden is a thing of beauty, of peace. It’s a thing that works—it can survives—is sustainable.
You do the math
There is no doubt that being the caretaker of a good organic veggie
garden is a lot of work, especially if you start from scratch. However,
having personally gone through the process of creating a good organic
garden, I can assure that it is worth it.
When I say ‘start from scratch’, I am referring to a fairly large
suburban yard, which consists of mostly sod lawn, and which has never
felt the living pleasures that quality organic caretaking offers.
For my project, I chose to focus on my neighborhood, which I designated
as a full square block in any direction. Among the houses of my
neighborhood the great majority have both front and back yards that
consist of grass. The great majority of these lawns have hired
landscapers to take care of. The average cost for these landscapers to
come mow and chemically treat the lawn is about $60 a month. Year,
after year, after year.
Setting up a garden, permaculture, edible forests, piece of art, what
ever you choose to call it might be in investment of a thousand
dollars, assuming you pay someone to help set it up (which is entirely
likely for a busy suburban household). After that, its costs nothing,
and its benefits are being count.
Moreover, if it is a veggie garden that you want, you can spend that
60$ a month to pay someone, or an organization to take care of you
garden for you. There are people who do this. Some will even drop a
basket of food on your doorstep every week, like a CSA, except that its
being grown in your own back yard.
I know there is such an organization here in the northern suburbs. If
there is not one where you live, well perhaps you can hire your
landscapers to do it.
It all starts with planting a tree.
Its fun.
Try it.