*If you are a new reader to this blog, please semi-ignore this post. It is boring and I don’t want to scare you away. Y’all scroll on down for a better post*
Sorry, readers for this completely boring post, but I just found out that a small application I am using on WordPress may have been blocking some of your comments! So, just a second ago I was reading this really funny comment by a stranger which had been incorrectly labeled as ‘spam’, laughing about it, and I am using this new laptop, and my fingers tapped the little dumb touchpad, and I permanently deleted it. ARRRRRRG. I apologize for this post sounding like a FaceBook status update, but I wanted you guys to know that I may not be getting some of your comments. :0( I’ll be working on this NOW.
My Little Country 
I’ve been thinking about this post for a few days, Amanda. Of course a lot of what you’ve said has touched a nerve– while I don’t grow my own food or “dig my hands into the soil” very often from my suburban apartment, I think a lot about these issues.
Particularly the issue of food production has been rearing its ugly head in my life recently–my friend Mike has become so outraged by the state of food production that he has gone completely vegan and moved into a vegan co-op in Austin. You can also see the proliferation of the “locavore” movement gathering speed– people who won’t eat anything that’s traveled more than 100 miles (or even 50!) to make it onto their plates. “Locavore” restaurants are popping up in Austin, and we even have one in San Marcos now! Of course the food is more expensive, but that is the cost of quality, and the value is borne out in the taste of the food and the experience of eating it.
Sometimes I worry (and here I risk offending my beautiful birthplace) that you are surrounded by people who, due to the remoteness of East Texas and the Glenn Beck mentality, are unaware of the growing movement already underway, towards the “awareness” you speak of.
This movement is going to take all kinds of people, including those who seek out and relentlessly pursue that golden-green-God: CASH. As you well know, I don’t have kids. My “quality time” is spent with a Jack Russell, a great boyfriend, and my work family– and for whatever reason, I’ve noticed over the past few years, I have a passion for business.
My little tattoo shop is hardly Microsoft, but I’ve been a monthly contributor to Environment Texas and our local NPR station since I’ve been able to do so. I’ve noticed that money makes a difference! It actually, as horrible as this sounds, makes the world go ’round, in a way. He (or she) who controls the cash, controls….actually quite a bit. Washington, certainly. Hollywood as well.
Now I’m on my own soapbox. But this is why I joke that I’m a “better Republican” than most of those in the actual party these days. It’s not about ideology. It’s about using our glorious system–capitalism (managed carefully as our good Founders intended)– to change the economy, and by extension the world.
Our dream is the same. I want my nieces–all children!– to know where their eggs come from. But the only way that this kind of widespread change is going to occur is by orchestrating a massive restructuring of our economy– and that’s going to take cold hard cash.
Here, at long last, is my point: demonizing the pursuit of money is, (in addition to being an outdated method of religious control), directly preventing progress among the very people who would implement the changes you’d like to see. I don’t believe there’s anything inherently wrong with the pursuit and enjoyment of wealth. The people with the money have the power to make changes.
I’m just bouncing your recent thoughts, which I mostly agree with, off of my recent revelations about why a vast movement of people– who all seem to agree on things which make complete sense, like not abusing animals and protecting the Earth (for God’s sake!)– has the false appearance of being a weakened minority!
I believe the answer is money. The “old” systems have accumulated quite a lot of it, and they use it to distract people and quite literally dumb us down in a number of ways, so that they can continue to do business in the “old ways,” which are often criminal and sometimes murderous.
The only solution to this, then, if we want to avoid a Communist takeover, which we do, is: MONEY.
People like me and you- small business owners– need to be seeking it out, diversifying, buying stock with new greener technologies, starting up farmer’s markets, getting on the ball and putting together the America we want to see. It’s time to roll up our sleeves and do the hard work the way Americans do– but this applies to the financial world too… In fact that might be the most desperate area right now.
Money talks, people need to use their money to effect change in the world. That is how these changes are going to be made, I believe. And for now, I’m making the choice to pursue it, to try and understand how the system works, and then hopefully change it.
I guess all I’m saying is that the despair in your tone is something I hear from a lot of people– in fact almost everyone I know. But these problems, like any, are solvable in American hands, and are in fact already being solved by the minds of our generation. We just have to implement them, and to do so, let’s not demonize money or our financial system–it’s still the best thing we have going, and I really believe this, we have the power to change things and there are already many people working to do so.
I know this is like, so over for you and you would probably love to quit thinking about this issue and move on to something else. You don’t have to post this at all…its just a dialogue in response to what I feared was total despair, which in regard to the Kardashians I completely understand. You’re in Jacksonville. Although I love it there, its different. The world is moving forward, people are changing. You’re helping it along, with this blog, which is genius and insightful and should be required reading.
It will be ok. I think. I’m gonna do what I can, like you are…it’s going to take all of us after all.
I guess that should have gone under your other post.