I saw in the press today that Bush has asked for another $70 BILLION for the war in Iraq - wonder how many mouths that would feed, penelope?

Can never have too many trees, Susan! ;-) But, yes, it’d do kids good if one day a week they had no electricity so they had to entertain themselves by using their brains for mental exercise or a ball for physical exercise.

Melissa - I saw someone slag off Joss Stone (British singer) for that very thing today. If we all made tiny concerted efforts it would make a world of difference.

Terrie… Well, that’s SOME comment! All very valid points. Maybe hitting bottom is what we really need as a species. Maybe that’s really what it will take before we learn our lesson. It would be horrific, but Mankind, if it survived, would come out stronger and healthier for it. Unfortunately it wouldn’t only be us who suffered - everything on the planet would, too. Maybe that’s the next evolutionary step for us.

Pleased you enjoyed it, Liz. Thanks for the support.

Glad you enjoyed the post, guys. Always good to hear from you.
Steve

Also if we all not only the billionares emptied our bank balances and flogged our goods and took seriously that stuff about giving all our goods to the poor and following him.

I do not see either of these things happening certainly not overnight.

That there are idiots and irresponsible greedy people programmed by advertising and peer pressure and the American way of life to do these things you complain of cannot be denied.

At least if they were contributing as much to charity as some governments (I mention no Names) ie one percent - it is a small thing but a contribution which could mount up.

We the butterfly collectors of care2 do not it seems to me do well to slag anything that is a move in the right direction however miniscule.

Enjoyed your blog. I agree with you. Earth Day did pass with very little notice and that’s too bad. I guess some of us do care and are doing what we can. I planted a few trees in my yard, which at the rate I’m going, will soon be overgrown with trees. We’ve let our “lawn” return to the natural grasses, etc. that belong in what was once the field where our house is build. I’m tempted to spout “We Shall Overcome” if we keep trying to open people’s eyes.

Perhaps it will take the power being knocked out for several days for people to learn how to get along without electricity and X-boxes once again, but I fear they would not know what to do to entertain themselves, as even the children seem to have lost the ability to do that. A sad situation in an ever increasing sad news world!

I too am sick and tired of mega-corporations programming and propagandizing the masses into buy, buy, buy–spend, spend, spend. And on what?! CRAP!!! Crap we don’t need, seldom use and then dump either into landfills or on to other people who don’t need or want it either.

You can’t eat oil.
You can’t plant computers.
You can’t harvest X-Boxes.
And you can’t drink ethanol.

What part of ‘unsustainable’ do we not understand? Consumerism is the sickness and the multinational corporations are the pathogen. What part of that do people not understand? They understand, they just refuse to ‘cure’ the ailment because it might be painful or inconvenient. There are, however, some of us out here that DO ‘get it’, that DO understand and ARE taking the cure. And our numbers are growing–slowly but surely.

Unfortunately, like the junkies that the rest of the masses are, they will not ‘kick the habit’ until either some life-threatening event occurs to them personally or they loose everything/everyone who cares about them. When they finally ‘hit bottom’ will they begin to seek help with their ‘addiction’. By then, having nothing left, will they understand the destruction they have suffered and caused to suffer.

My fear is that by that time of bottoming out by millions of people it will be too late for the planet and our species as a whole. The ‘cancer’ will have become terminal and no amount of ‘radical therapy’ will save the victim (the victim being life on earth and the earth itself).

When will people ‘get it’? When greed is no longer King. When coveting that which one does not have, does not need or does not even want really, is eradicated from the human psyche. The ‘Seven Deadlies’ are called that for a reason–because they ARE deadly. What we do, what we buy, what we CONSUME does indeed kill. Cause and effect–these are universal laws.

Until people stop buying into the capitalist wet dream of mindless consumption and soulless profits, there will be no end to the virus–it will continue to be fed. That is — until the last fish gasps, the last steer bellows, the last tree falls and the last flower fails to bloom.

But there is still hope! WE, those of us who are AWAKE, must not give up trying to wake up the rest of the brain-dead, xombied out, worker-drones. They can still be reached, they can still be cured. The window is not wide or long or endless, but it is still open. We must not preach or pontificate our mission. We must lead by example. We must engage them on their level–in their own terms of understanding. When we do that, we CAN reach them and awaken their self-preservation gene. The light bulb turns on and they ‘get it’!!!

As for ‘man-made’ holidays, they only serve the rich to fill their voracious appetites of greed for gold. Their God is our money. Starve the Beast and feed our families, our spirits, our lives. Get back to what is truly important and not superficial.

Oh, by the way, I and my family, we do not ‘celebrate’ ANY holiday with mindless spending on mindless crap to prove our love to eachother. We ‘celebrate’ eachother EVERY DAY of the year with kindness, respect, honor and understanding. LOVE. We spend what money we have on the essentials to life, not on useless crap we don’t need. Our home is not filled with ‘things’, our home is filled with love for one another, respect for the earth and all things living and compassion for those who have even less. We don’t have much (by a consumer’s or corporation’s standard) but everything we have WE OWN. And we are THANKFUL for what we have-every day of the year.

Try it, people, you might like it! You might learn what is really important to you–or should be. You too can achieve consciousness, awareness and personal responsibility. :)