Survival in adversity

              SOLUTIONS                        

The Memphis, Tennessee occupy group has always been very active. They have been involved in many different activities including the creation of their own energy. Unfortunately the picture above could not be reduced in order to show one of their members charging a battery by pumping a bicycle. They also have a solar panel charging a battery. They were also looking at putting up a wind generator to charge another battery. Those batteries provide the power to run their lights and computers that create their You Tube.  They also are working to get suitable lodging for at least some of the homeless.  In addition they are very zealous in educating the community to the issues we face.  All of those actions are options we have. They are actions WE can do.

The occupy movement is itself a solution. It has spread to many nations throughout the world. One of their solutions which seems to be gaining momentum is encouraging people to take their money out of large banks and put it in local credit unions. All of these focus on local effort, local control. Whatever we can do for ourselves and for each other is a viable option. As one of the pictures which introduced a page on this website reminded us: life has no remote. We have to get up and make the changes.

What else can we do beside create at least some of our own energy, take our money out of big banks and put it in local credit unions, and help educate others? Many people today are growing at least some of their own food. Barter networks are springing up across the USA.

We can live more simply and reduce our level of debt. If we really examine our lives, our nation, the world our major problem is debt. Nothing causes us to lose control of our lives more than debt.

Before we were ever a nation European traders came here and traded with the Native Americans. The Natives used the deer for many of their needs. Its meat was food. Its skin provided their shelter and their clothing. They also traded with the Europeans using the deer and its skin. Europeans introcduced the gun at outrageous prices. The Natives could not supply enough deer skin to meet their debt. The Europeans said: We will take your land in payment of the debt. NOT MUCH HAS CHANGED TODAY.   

The solutions advocated here are not NEW solutions. People instintively lived that way 50 or 60 years ago. A former parishoner told me several times: "We were poor then but we didn't know it." They were NOT poor. They were actually richer than we are today. They had very little debt. They took care of themselves and of each other. 

Another solution is taking a more holistic approach to our health. Recognizing that what we eat determines to some degree what our health will be. We can rely less on expensive medicines and more or proper diet and exercise. Simply reducing tension will be a powerful movement to our proper health.

Even if we do everything we can possibly do to take control of our lives, we could still get blown off the face of the earth by someone's bomb. So we also have to work for some structural changes. I outlined what we can do to assure that does not happen in a page of this site "Portland talk". It was brought out more forcefully by Seiko Ikeda when she spoke in Louisiana a few years ago. (see "Seiko talk"). Rather than repeat these talk I refdr you back to their websites.

I want to thank the Memphis Occupy group for what they are doing and also for the marvelous pictures they provided and which Iwas able to take off their You Tube. There was one picture that I was not able to reduce to sit these pages. It said something I could relate to and agre with: "This is the first time I've felt hopeful in a very long time."  

I leave you with that hope.