I'm Not Buying It

From freeacre.

Every day, it seems, I get entreaties to send money to let George Bush know that he’s the biggest dumbass, ever. MoveOn.org wants to take out a full page ad in the New York Times that says, “YOU DUMBASS!” Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah….. Like he gives a rat’s ass what we think. Somebody wants me to sign a survey or a petition, and by the way, save the Children, Save the Whales, Save the Polar Bears, End the War, fund Cancer Research, Muscular Dystrophy, Greenpeace, AARP, Howard Dean and the Democratic National Committee. We all know what a great help they have been, don’t we?



Well, actually, no, we don’t. We know it has become Big Business to cash in on all of our various maladies and crises and malfeasance of every sort. They each come with their own clever campaigns and self-addressed stamped envelopes. They have somehow made us feel like we are doing something constructive by sending them money, even though every problem they have been addressing for years has gotten worse. Do I need to repeat that?



EVERY PROBLEM THEY HAVE BEEN ADDRESSING FOR YEARS HAS GOTTEN WORSE.



Send money anyway.



And then, there are the candidates. We “need” to send them money so that they can buy advertising time on the airwaves that we already own as citizens of this country. Our government licenses those airwaves and could make it a condition of licensure that the stations must give election campaign coverage for free as a public service donation, or they won’t be allowed to do business. That would wipe out much of the leverage that the lobbyists have with the congress in one fell swoop. Additionally, reporters could do their jobs and report what each of the candidates thinks and does and REPORT THE NEWS to their viewers. So, no, we don’t need to send them money. We need to stop sending them money and stop enabling this corrupt, bullshit system. They need to come to us and ask us how they can serve our interests – not the other way around.



Pull a dollar out of your wallet and look at it. What you are holding is the only true ballot that you have. Elections don’t matter anymore. The Democrats as well as the Republicans serve the interests of the Corporatists. Since they have been in charge, we have been defined as “consumers” rather than “citizens.” There is a big difference.



Recently, I re-watched “The Matrix.” In it, the Machines have taken over and are using the human beings on the planet as a self-replicating, unending power source. People are bred in vats and maintained in pods for their electrical impulses. They live in slime, but the illusion of a viable life and culture runs through their minds as a sort of collective hologram that keeps them docile and cranking out those volts.



Well, that is all well and good for the machinery. But, in our world, we don’t have machinery in charge. We have corporations in charge. They don’t run on electrical impulses. They run on money.



M.O.N.E.Y. Our money.



From the day our moms ran out to purchase those pre-natal vitamins until the satin-lined mahogany or bronze lids on our coffins are closed, we are milked like a vast herd and harvested like vegetables made from money. All the while the soothing slogans of advertising campaigns, the approved music on sale and downloadable, keeps us popping our fingers and dancing along. Self-serving television programming makes our bloated and self-absorbed life-styles seem cool and entertaining. Our “educational” system is reduced to a lock-step march into the service industries or the corporate wars. Our medical industries (all corporate), pick our pockets with ever-increasing efficiency as we advance towards deaths delayed just long enough to collect the last collective dime.



Does any of this make you anxious or fearful? No problem. We have drugs for that and insurance policies, therapists, and products.



You can put them on your Credit Cards.



What’s the meaning of all this? Gawdalmighty! Go to church and find out! Go to a really big church that accepts VISA, MASTERCARD, or DISCOVER. Send them millions of dollars to help you feel blessed and loved and innocent – even though the culture of which you are a product is guilty of every sin there is: greed, avarice, gluttony, lust, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride. Gosh, in this Seinfeld generation, they don’t sound so bad, do they? And, anyway, JESUS DIED FOR YOUR SINS, so it’s OK! Just send money.



Don’t trouble yourself that you have lost touch with your true nature as a natural being on this wondrous planet; that you are contributing to and participating in a die off of Biblical proportions; that we are being poisoned and sickened and are dying at an accelerating rate, as our jobs are outsourced and our rulers are moving to Dubai . Meanwhile, our congressmen and ministers, priests, and boy scout masters are molesting and being molested between services and sessions and sleeping bags. Just keep sending those checks. That way, nobody gets closed down and nobody goes to jail. It’s all good.



Well, you know what? I DON’T FUCKIN’ THINK SO! I am not buying it anymore. I’m not going to darken the doorway of any Walmart store. I’m not buying anything that I have to purchase with interest. I’m not contributing to any campaigns that aren’t local. I’m not buying anything made in a sweatshop. I’m not eating anything laced with poisons and produced by mistreating animals trapped in corporate food factories. I am not going to squander oil and other resources and add to the rationale for fighting resource wars.



I am going to withdraw my money from all that is sick and twisted, and let it all collapse. I have already cancelled my satellite connection, to withdraw my attention from the corporate mindfuck. I will look at my dollars for what they are – the only votes that make a difference. I vote for freedom from debt, saving up food for now, liberty gardens for next year. I vote for no incumbents. I vote for localizing food production, making useful products, reaching out to neighbors, helping each other come our of our collective coma. I’d like to see an honest-to-God Right to Life Movement going on – one where we support each other in our being free to live productive lives without exploiting or being exploited. This is not going to be a happy fix that makes everything all better so that life continues as we know it. That is not going to be possible. We are all going to die, and many sooner than they think. But, that is going to happen anyway.



I just want to be living a real life before I die. I’d like to set our children free, so that they are no longer tethered to their electronics and glued to the tube, fixed on a path toward fear, indentured servitude, mass delusion, electronic monitoring, and cradle-to-grave marketing and medication.



Actually, it is very simple to accomplish this revolution because the marketing geniuses have sold the whole thing to us! BRILLIANT!! All we have to do, is






STOP BUYING IT.






If you agree, just pass this message on. Maybe it will go around the world, and a whole lot of things will change and people will be happier and animals and the planet will have more of a chance. And, guess what? You don’t need to send me a check.

freeacre