Posts Tagged "change"

Thoughts: The next steps for OWS and all of us…

Posted by Larry Pollock on Dec 6, 2011 in Social Change | 2 comments

Something is amiss in our country and the whole world. A few have gained control over almost every aspect of our lives starting with a debt based system of money. Add to this an archaic educational system, un responsive government(s) and we have a recipe for disaster.

But their is a great hope. The People!

When we move in one unified direction together we can alter the very course of the future and make a planet where all thrive.

There is not a shortage of food or money, rather there is a distribution issue along with hoarding by a few.

This great article goes over the areas in our life we need to start taking control of as individuals and as communities. We must be proactive and in a creation mode to create the world we want to live in!

Please read this article linked below and share it widely.

READ: Open Letter to the Occupy Movement: It’s Time for the Ultimate Occupation

 

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Blow Up Your TV, Throw Away Your Paper…

Posted by Larry Pollock on Oct 13, 2011 in Social Change | 1 comment

Blow Up Your TV, Throw Away Your Paper……

Song writer John Prine’s words from Spanish Pipedream seem more relevant today than they did in 1971, 40 years ago. Not that he is saying that you should become a Christian. Rather that you should go out and find your spirituality, and ultimately control of you own life, on your own. Unplug, disconnect and free your mind (sounds sort of Matrix-esc).

Chorus from Spanish Pipedream:

“Blow Up Your TV,
throw away your paper
Go to the country,
build you a home
Plant a little garden,
eat a lot of peaches
Try and find Jesus on your own”

Many people seem to have woken up and are starting to say “I’m not gonna take it any more!”. Wall Street and the Banks are the current target and for good reason. If there are modern day pirates then they float on concrete seas and the wind in they’re sails is the freedom to pillage the american populous at will via Washington DC.

I won’t take anything away from these folks camping in the street and protesting as it’s simply part of the way things need to play out. But it’s not the solution, the end all, nor the future. Trying to bring back jobs, create jobs in the image of our past experience, is part of the problem. The people will still be beholding to a boss and a system that is falling apart. The current (and past) systems of consumption and manufacturing are no longer sustainable (there’s that word…).

We are moving into the age of Information, knowledge is king. Online social media is driving the connections between people who may have never met if the Web didn’t exist. The speed of innovation on this knowledge sharing is staggering. The power that is in the hands of the world’s other 99% is still not fully realized by these same people.

I was lucky enough to run into and start following Dan Robles on Twitter and then on his website: Ingenesist. He is part of a group of innovative thinkers who are helping to form the new ideas for our future in business, consumption and information. I highly recommend you read his blog and share it widely.

He recently posted an interesting article on “A Better Way to Occupy WallStreet“.

This short paragraph sets the stage:

“Here’s the trick. Wall Street is built on a foundation where the factors of production are land, labor, and capital.  All we need to do is shift the factors of production to something else. We don’t actually need to shift Wall Street, we need to shift ourselves.”

What at thought! Take our power of choice, information and use it differently. We bend, not the spoon… (yes, another Matrix reference…)

We can use the internet to create a new economic circle that is outside of the old systems yet effects them.

Following Dan I met another interesting blogger who brings it a bit more “Home” and into the physical world. Robert Paterson’s blog had an interesting post titled: “Freedom 99% – A movement to decouple from the 1%ters who control our lives #freedom99%”

“…But the best action to take is to get free from their control. To break their power by making their business no longer viable. We can do that by reducing their incomes by no more than 15%, for such an attack on the bottom line takes them into bankruptcy.

This is all you need to do – reduce the profits consistently by abut 15%. Conversely we get free of their grip and we re-allocate money to the rest of us in the 99%.

Food is a good place to start. Robin and I have shifted about 90% of our buying to the local producers and to local distributors…”

We have two sides to the equation. One is the World Wide Web connecting a global community with a common goal of creating the new world. The other is more immediate; where we spend our dollars. Focusing on buying local for our food and even supporting local manufacturers (small clothing makers, furniture, etc.) is not only good for our health but also brings to and keeps more money in your local community. Robert even goes on to suggest we move toward local fuels for heating. Efficient pellet stoves and heaters for our local schools and government buildings that efficiently burn biomass.

Very quickly our communities and individually we take back control and help our community become stronger.

For a long term shift in power and moving a vast amount of the global wealth to “the other 99%” Dan Robles suggests a new way to look at what is valuable:

“First, we need to build a knowledge inventory of all the useful stuff in our brains and integrated by geographic proximity so we all can find each other. This is how we’ll mimic land and labor. Next, the knowledge inventory must be anonymous until the point of transaction – this is not for privacy concerns, rather, we need to do this to create scarcity (nothing personal, Zuck). This is how we mimic “capital”.”

This may seem esoteric and non-specific enough for many to understand. But believe me, there are many things coming together on the Web for information and research for the masses that are already setting things up for a huge change in the world. I will bring evidence to this blog in the near future.

We all want security for ourselves and our loved ones. But Change is the nature of the world. Embracing it and being just slightly ahead of the curve can put you in a position of being secure in yourself and the knowing that you can adapt and be part of making these changes rather than feel like being on the receiving end and taking what you get.

This brings us back to the current situation of “60′s style sit ins” on Wall Street. Those in the street are feeling the changes but reacting to the 1% who are also feeling the changes and trying to hold on to what they know. It’s natural to protect what you have and have spent a long time building. It is said that it’s hard to get a man to understand something when his income depends on him not understanding it.

Sometimes we simply need to let go to get to the other shore.

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