The End

So, apparently there’s a little rumor going around that Saturday, May 21, 2011 is the day of Rapture- the end of the world.

People have been proclaiming the end of the world has been/ will be coming for as long as they have been able to paint the ominous black letters on sandwich boards and stand on a street corner.  In more typical circumstances, these sign holders are old and tired and dirty. We roll our eyes and giggle or maybe take a moment to pause and reflect on the sad state of their lives.

With the most recent hullabaloo about the end of the world, fuzzy math and very specific interpretations of the Bible have prompted a number of people to quit their jobs and calculate their life savings to last them no further than May 21, 2011. They have worked to bring themselves to terms with the end and fervently tried to warn others of the fateful day that is to come.

This is when the nervous giggling starts, because while the rational of us know that we will still all wake up Sunday morning to our newspapers and our coffee and maybe some laundry, there is that LITTLE part of us that knows we really don’t know for sure, nor can we ever.

Saturday, May 21, 2011 will be the end of the world. It will be the end of the world for the tree that gets bulldozed in a forest. It will be the end of the world for a fish that can’t escape the black goo that gets spilled into water. It will be the end of the world for a family who can’t find work and now has their home entering into a state of foreclosure. It will be the end of the world for an illegal immigrant who gets discovered and deported. It will be the end of the world for a young child whose education is delayed because of budget cuts and for another child who gets bullied, yet again, because there are children who are as intolerant of difference as their parents are. It will be the end of the world for an elder who is forced to choose food over necessary medication.  It will be the end of the world for an innocent, in a small village, who gets caught up in fighting between two political powers who think they are both right.

It will be the end of the world for those out there that have just run out of the resources to fight and to survive- the ones who have no more options and the ones who have been beaten down to the point where they simply can’t stand again. This is happening in our world every day. Only the strong survive? What happened to honor? What happened to the perseverance and hope for a better tomorrow? What happened to the basic security of knowing that those of us with a good work ethic and a conscience can have a happy ending?

Maybe Saturday, May 21, 2011, will be the end of the world- as we know it (to quote REM.) Maybe a new world will begin- a world where we are respectful of the resources the Earth has provided, a world where we can once again work hard and achieve the “American Dream,” a world where we are able to properly invest in the future for our children and adequately honor those who have been here before we were. Maybe, just maybe, it will be filled with compromise and a world without wars.

Maybe when we all wake up Sunday morning we can do more to perpetuate a world without end. Plant a tree, walk instead of driving, invest more in local businesses to keep American money in America. Embrace another culture. Volunteer to mentor a child or check in on an elderly neighbor. Will any of these actions stop an Armageddon? Well, as the old saying goes, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and it certainly did not fall in a day, either. Even though you can’t change the whole big world, you do have what it takes to change your own little corner of it.


The Beatles: The End

Disposable Nation

The United States of America is currently 234 years old. That’s like a teenager in “nation years.” In our short time of existence, we have racked up trillions of dollars in debt and use, according to Answers.com , 280,000 hectares, or 6,918.95 acres, of our soil, the soil once rich with the blood of the revolutionaries that fought against the tyrannies of years gone by, is covered by landfills. The average lot size for a single family home in the US is 0.298438 of an acre, which means that it would take 23,183+ average homes to equate to the amount of space used for landfills. Where the heck am I going with this? I shall tell you.

None of that crap was here before we were and someone, somewhere, spent money on every single item in those trash heaps. What if we occupied those 6,918.95 acres, counting the heights to which each mound of steamy gooey garbage reaches, with nice, crisp dollar bills instead? Would it add up to a trillion dollars? Or, really, let’s be honest, there’s lots more than just dollar store items sitting there, all of which will never be reused and most of which,, will take a long time spewing toxins into our air, soil and water to decompose, not to mention the tax dollars and private dollars spent on processing and such.

It wasn’t always this way. There was a time before the neo-green movement inspired us to not just recycle, but re-purpose, when everyone did JUST that and managed a green existence without looking for the “green” labels. There was a time when Mayonnaise, for instance, came in glass jars. And when the mayo was all used up, the glasses got washed and used for drinking. They only got thrown away when they broke.  No one depended on petroleum products for their mayonnaise storage and no one registered for hundreds of dollars in glassware on bridal registries. There was a time everyone wore hand me downs, and when they finally died, they became cleaning rags, or ties for tomato plants, or even portions of quilts, not electric blankets, for cold winters’ nights. We didn’t throw it away!

But things got hectic, small businesses grew into/ got absorbed by big businesses. People worked for these big businesses, then the women got jobs too and all of a sudden, there was no time to sew a quilt or darn a sock or wash a jar. So the things that could have been mended became disposable and then even they became too inefficient, and they were replaced, with cheaper products of lesser quality that didn’t last. Automobiles made in 1950s still run today. Do the cars from the 1990’s do that?

What was wrong with the stuff that actually lasted in the first place? Don’t we all want to get our money’s worth from products that not only last, but can be re-purposed? Do we have to spend money we don’t have on “green labeled” products from big corporations when, any home remedy book will tell you that whatever good ol’ fashioned vinegar can’t clean, baking soda can?  And what, pray tell, was wrong with the workers that produced the products that made the Made in the USA label synonymous with quality? They wanted to get paid?

We, in the United States, actually did just  fine without, I would estimate, 90% of the things that all these too-big-to-fail-corporations produce for us. Now, they aren’t providing the jobs, and we still feel like we have to purchase their products. They think our workers became too inefficient and needed to be replaced? Do they really want us to think that we are as disposable as the products they produce?  Well, I say, if we are replaceable, SO ARE THEY!

I am obsessed with this list at Petroleum.com. Take a couple of minutes, review it and challenge yourself to see how many of those things, have been or could be substituted with something that’s not petroleum based. It’s easier than ya think. Then, broaden your thinking the products from all big corporations. When’s the last time you have made ANY purchase and expected it to last? Be honest with yourself. When’s the last time you have applied for a job and expected it to last? Be honest. See a pattern here?

We are Americans. Our freedom was hard fought. I wonder how many of those revolutionaries are rolling over in their graves as Corporate America disposes of us, the working class, one by one. Cutting education so we don’t learn to think for ourselves, creating unaffordable health care so we are too sick and feeble to stand up for ourselves?  Cutting our jobs, so we are too preoccupied with getting food on the table to pay attention to what “they” are doing. Creating mindless bickering amongst political parties…what happened to United We Stand, Divided We Fall? Well, we certainly are divided, because we are broke and because we are broken, but surely we aren't disposable- we can be mended and we can be re-purposed. For what you might ask? Maybe it's time we decided.

Starting Over

America: The World's First Post-Industrial State? by Dustin Ensinger on October 22, 2010

I just came across this article a couple of weeks ago, but it’s been bugging me ever since. The article is very informative with plenty of statistics supporting the claim that America very well will be, probably already is, by this point, considered a post-industrial state.  Really? Our number one export is, literally, garbage? That’s just wrong on so many levels.

The article bugged me, specifically, because while the statistics are incredibly important, it offered no actual solutions to such a crisis. Knowledge only becomes powerful when we actually use it to create a better tomorrow.

So, industry has moved out of America. Now what? Do we just give up? There was no “industry” in America when it first became America either, but our predecessors found needs and niches and simply made stuff and offered services in response to the needs of  the consumers. None of these pre-industrialists made millions of dollars, necessarily, but they rolled up their sleeves and worked hard and earned themselves food on the table and a roof over their heads and clothes on their backs. Not starting a whole other debate here, but they did this without any government entitlements, before there was Social Security, Medicare, welfare and unemployment insurance. There were no unions and no bailouts. There were no retirement funds and pensions. This country started out with a whole bunch of sole proprietors. That’s it. There were farmers and blacksmiths and  bakers and seamstresses. Everyone contributed, for the sole purpose of eeking out a living, and as a result, everyone benefited from the products and services that were provided.

As sole proprietorships grew into small businesses and then, of course, into big businesses, people in America became increasingly accustomed to working FOR someone and depending on someone else for paychecks and services. When you think of it that way, it’s almost like the big bosses of big business were handing out an allowance to their employees.  Then, people began to expect the government to provide allowances for them as well. I am not saying any of this is necessarily BAD, there are certainly social services, such as public education, for example, that are tremendous assets to our society. With this dependence on big business to provide products and services, as well as jobs, we, the working class, found ourselves in a position of being the beggar  and Corporate America has realized it.

This happened before, when we were colonists dependent on Mother England. When we decided we had had enough of having no control over where our tax dollars, sent to England, were being spent, we simply did something about it. We took the initiative and went out on our own and took control of our own circumstances (so to speak.)

We can certainly do it again. If, as the article states, America does virtually nothing other than create trash and consume things, then we certainly know there is a buyer’s market right here. It is possible turn the tables and cut Corporate America out of OUR equation, especially since they already cut the American workers out of theirs. We don’t need a huge industrial complex to provide jobs and services. The fruits and veggies from your local farmers have no preservatives, require no transport (saving on fuel costs) and, to my knowledge, have NEVER gotten recalled. Your local butcher shop does their own quality control on the meat products they sell. A friend of mine uses a local tax preparer during income tax time, because the preparer makes house calls. I don’t think H&R Block does that. 

We, as a nation of consumers, have become complacent. We no longer expect the quality and excellence in services and products that was once synonymous Made in the USA because, alas, we think there isn’t much left that’s Made in the USA. So many of us are forgetting that we have the power to change that, we have arms and legs and muscles and minds and skills from years of working for others. Maybe it’s time we use them. The slate’s already been wiped clean by Corporate America. Maybe it’s time to take that leap and invest in ourselves again. Maybe it’s time for starting over.