Stripping away the distracting BS, this is what it all boils down to. (In my opinion.)

[davidthegnome]

43. It's not rude to say what you think.

You have a point - but there is still the fact that, for a lot of us, if we don't keep working... we WILL end up homeless or starving, or overwhelming what little remains of our safety net. If enough of us were to stop all at once... then yes, we could force the changes we seek. We're not talking about a small number of people here, though - we're talking about millions of people, most of whom don't yet realize they're even being whipped. We may be blinking our eyes and wondering what the hell happened, but we're not yet really awake enough to confront the issues of the time.

How do we stop buying? We do not have the survival skills of our ancestors. With some few exceptions (a great many of them older folks who survived the depression, or have some kind of agricultural skill) we are dependent upon what we might find at the grocery store and whatever dollars we have in our pockets or bank accounts. If we stop buying - we stop eating. If we stop buying - many of us freeze to death without fuel in the winter. Yet it goes even beyond that, if we stop working, we stop being able to pay rent, or mortgage, electricity. If we stop buying, everything falls apart.

I say that it is heroic to keep on pushing forward, to struggle on when conditions are terrible, to somehow manage to feed our families despite our exhaustion, our depression, our tears. It is heroic to give of yourself, of all that you have, so that those who love you might survive.

I do not entirely disagree with you... but we do not have the structures, the resources, the things we would need to accomplish what you speak of - not unless we are willing to let millions of people starve, freeze, and/or die for this revolution. It's going to require going back to older methods of survival, smaller communities where people might manage their own food, to work for themselves and each other to survive and perhaps even to thrive. Then we have to think of doctors, of teachers, of security, housing... the sheer logistics of it are beyond mind boggling. We would have to pretty much re-invent the wheel.

This isn't something that can happen quickly, much as I might wish it were. If we all stopped working tomorrow, it might be a heroic revolution, but it would also cause unthinkable suffering. Small beginnings... I think, are the key. One community at a time, until more of us have the ability to survive without the trappings of our modern society.

Personally, I'm willing to go on strike, to stop buying... whatever it takes - but it would be pretty pointless to do it alone. I can only do that to begin with because I have a family that supports me. Too many people have to live with the knowledge that if they don't go to work tomorrow, they lose their homes, their food, their health insurance, their heat...

A whole lot of us also do not work only for ourselves, but for our families, for our friends... for others who depend on us for survival. This too, is heroic and not cowardly. It is not the ox working for comfort, but the compassionate heart giving all it can.