For a lot of folks, the August/September start of the new school year triggers a repeat of the yearly cycle. But we can’t afford to repeat doing the same old same old given that the times, the weather, the seasons, the economic system, the food and fuel supplies, all are a-changin’ enough to get us thinking we could be turning Earth into Venus. What are we going to do differently this time around the Sun?
Is it to be the same economic same old same old? The trashing of planet Earth continues to accelerate as corporations and moneyed interests continue to use workers and law and government and public resources and the grabbing of the commons to squeeze wealth from the very land under our feet. First off, we have to tell it like it is. Then we need to say no. Together. And then we need to do things on behalf of nature — Mother Earth — acceding to the rights of nature, meeting the needs of the 99% as best we can without destroying our only home in the universe.
Is it to be the same political same old same old? The United States in general and Pennsylvania in particular continue their slide to the right, getting us to give up our rights to “clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment ” (PA Constitution, Article I, Section 27), to Bill of Rights rights, to democratic rights, to human-worker-gender-racial-ethnic-you-name-it rights in the name of property rights and corporate rights and profit-making rights of the 1% under the guise of protecting us from voter fraud and immigrants and welfare fraud and druggies and other-monsters-under-the-bed fears. First off, we have to tell it like it is. Then we need to say no. Together. And then we need to do things on behalf of the 99% as best we can without destroying our only home in the universe.
Is it to be the same day-to-day same old same old? We continue to get snarled up in the old unsustainable system (The Story of Stuff folks call it the “dinosaur economy”): mortgage payments, loans for big ticket items, college loans, credit card payments for all kinds of new store-bought doohickeys and thingamabobs, jobs that don’t pay the bills, buying food that has had the nutrition taken out of it and chemicals put into it, and then the inevitable medical bills. First off, we have to tell it like it is. Then we need to say no. Together. And then we need to produce things that us 99% need and can get without owing our souls to the company store.