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The Cancer Stage of Capitalism
On Z-day 2010, Peter Joseph made reference to a Book called "The Cancer Stage of Capitalism" he connects the dots once again between our constant need for "cyclical Consumption" without any real concern to the inherent depletion of resources and the environmental ramifications. This constant Growth/GDP with finite resources will hit the wall soon as we buy and throw away, buy and throw away. Instead of the need for our economy to "Grow" we need to have it be sustainable in order for our species to survive, but with the money/profit structure we will be left with depleted resources due to the fact that Monetary economics requires continual growth in order for it to survive. We need true sustainability, efficiency and abundance, instead of this need to Deplete resources so another company can produce another Hanna Montana Doll. Here is a small excerpt from the book describing how the money/profit system is a cancer to the planet.
"There are seven defining properties of a cancer invasion which medical
diagnosis recognizes at the level of the individual organism. These seven
properties can now be recognized for the first time at the level of global
life-organization as well. And this is the pathological core of our current
disease condition.
"That is, there is:
1) an uncontrolled and unregulated reproduction and multiplication of an
agent in a host body;that
2) is not committed to any life function of its life host; that
3) aggressively and opportunistically appropriated nutrients and resources
from its social and natural hosts in uninhibited growth and
reproduction;that
4) is not effectively recognized or responded to by immune sytem of its
hosts;that
5) possesses the ability to transfer or metastasize its growth and
uncontolled reproduction to sites across the host body;that
6) progressively infiltrattes and invades contiguous and distant sites of
life hosts until it obstructs, damages and/or destroys succesive organs of
their life-system; and that
7) without efffective immune system recognition and response eventually
destroys the host bodies it has invaded."
John McMurtry *The Cancer Stage of Capitalism*
Print
Our diseased civilization needs to rethink how we use our resources on a massive scale. It's disturbing when we have Political Ticks like John McCain say things like "If we need to be in iraq for 100 year we will" and people cheer for that crap. This is how we want to waste resources? The biggest waste of resources is war coupled with the monetary system. The new social paradigm will only come when a "Collapse" happens (maybe).
Anne Wilson Schaef: "Somehow, the use of limited resources might be better understood if there were a closer relationship between those who gather the resources and those who use them. One who does not work himself does not understand how hard it is."
JK, I am not resigned to the change-only-after-more-suffering scenario. I do not believe people want to go there, but are stuck in a rut that's taking them that way. Hoping for change-before-more-suffering, I agitate for considered and distributed efforts to budge folks who haven't budged. Upgrading to the new social paradigm everywhere requires many, many self-appointed field workers. To get fired-up, please read The 8th Habit, by Stephen Covey.
Many need to see the face that goes with the inviting voice.
David Eggleton http://woburnite.com/blog/5 | http://www.appliedecologics.com "There is a chief way for the production of wealth, namely, that the producers be many and that the mere consumers be few." - a Confucian observation (of ecosystems, I believe)
"JK, I am not resigned to the change-only-after-more-suffering scenario. I do not believe people want to go there, but are stuck in a rut that's taking them that way"
It's inevitable that we will be headed for a collapse, our current matrix is trying to drink itself sober. ZDay 2010 got a lot more air time 7 hrs to help get the information out about where we are headed and what can be possible. The majority who are locked into the mainstream media and only hear what they are told they should hear.
Thanks for this. It makes explicit much to which I only alluded with "every kind of human overextension (reaching, pushing, holding...) that makes us blind to where we are, who is with us and what is needed," in a poorly received (by two who let me know and many who remained silent) post a few weeks ago.
To make it, humans will have to acquire/develop a better sense of scale. Their own bodies, unaccompanied by energy slaves, are a huge clue to what is appropriate and may be sustainable.
David Eggleton http://woburnite.com/blog/5 | http://www.appliedecologics.com "There is a chief way for the production of wealth, namely, that the producers be many and that the mere consumers be few." - a Confucian observation (of ecosystems, I believe)