THE BELLY OF THE BEAST

from Murph

For all of history, the radical members of any society have been preaching one kind of doom or another. I fall into the classification of a doomer. I have been preaching that bad things were coming down, and while I/we couldn’t project the timing, I assured all that would listen, it was indeed coming. It sure appears that we are now in the midst of some kind of collapse. How extensive and how fast it will hit us all, in a drastic sense, is still open to speculation.

It is obvious to me that we are all living in the belly of the beast. The beast being the system and the owners that are pushing us over the abyss of self destruction. The very real threat of a harsh police state, scarcity of food, ever increasing fuel costs, mass starvation, mass dislocation, mass population movements, pandemics, ever increasing military action, and above all, advanced repression, is now upon us. It appears that when a county’s social and economic systems begin to disintegrate, humans become more repressive, more mean, nastier and more violent, more intolerant, more irrational, more vicious. Is that our fate this time around? It sure appears so to me as our owners are obviously becoming all of that and more.

I’m sitting before the computer screen, keyboard under my fingers, agonizing over what to write. I have just read some critiques of Descartes, Bacon and some history of the attempted complete annihilation of the American Indian and how this all ties in with observations about our civilization, and that is just in 20 pages of one of the books by Derrick Jensen. It is upsetting reading, even if it is familiar stuff.

I recently had several emails exchanged with a dear and long time friend. I had sent him a fairly benign web page outlining some aspects of the economic situation in this country. He reply was that he had read it, it was the longest read he has ever done on such subjects because he felt that since there wasn’t anything he could do about it anyway, it was best ignored. I replied back that I felt that I needed to know because I would then have at least some idea about how to duck and cover from what was coming at us. He wasn’t convinced, and quipped that; what was he to do, have a 357 by his side while he made guitars? My reply to him was ‘you bet’.

The coming turmoil I expect to be some of the worst the world has seen. Of course, not having lived through other such catastrophes, (or at least that I remember for those who believe in reincarnation), I can’t attest to the severity of past events. But irregardless, suffering as a country we will experience. It has already begun and the evidence is right before us if we choose to pay attention. In this fairly rural community, including the city nearest us, we have a total population less than 100,000. Between the two school systems, we just learned there are over 600 homeless children. Our local food banks are pleading for food donations and the meals for the homeless and destitute are getting skimpier. We are experiencing an over abundance of repossessed houses in this area. Perhaps they will be the refuge of choice for the homeless.

Our Citizens Action group that is fighting tooth and nail with the county over the septic and ground water issue has finally gotten some reasonably hard numbers concerning costs of the systems they want us to put in. It is equivalent to purchasing a house and property, in the range of $160,000 over a 30 year span. The immediate cost to households comes out at this time to about $40,000 plus $2000 per year for maintenance and all of the permits and related costs. And these are our elected officials. As you can see, this is simply beyond the reach of most of the population. The prestigious “Mother Earth News” recently came out with a big article by a fellow that has fought these septic issues before. He states that it is a national push by the bigger construction lobbyists for these expensive individual systems. Local officials at the city and county level of government are talking big time about expansion, destination resort building, airports and more. The latest is that because of the health hazards of dirt roads, they want to pave over them all, at an average household cost of $10,000. Needless to say, there is some angry grumbling going on. I fully expect some hothead to take up arms over it all.

The local senior center gets overstock and out of date food to feed the seniors in our town. Every Tuesday, a friend brings us over the food they are going to throw out. The last donation to our personal and chicken larder was two big boxes of organic groceries. A fairly hefty proportion was unusable for us, but after the chickens picked through it and stuffed themselves, the compost system got the rest. I figure that most of you know that if you shop for strictly as advertised organic grown food, you up your grocery bill by at least 100%. But, not to look gifts like this as bad stuff, we welcome the donations. We give away eggs and produce from our garden in return. It’s a nice trade.

I mention these things because I am reading that we are not an exception to the general state of the country. Even down to the local level, the beast is denying that we have to do anything different, that growth is good for us, that everything is just fine. A chamber of Commerce pod person made a recent comment that we aren’t in a recession and one is not coming and there was no unsolvable problem with the economy. The people that are supposed to be concerned with our interests, are not. They are exercising their dictatorial powers with a vengeance, just like the federal and state governments. It’s all about money and the power, influence and privilege it buys.

On a world wide level, large scale famine appears on the horizon. Food stores are at an all time low for the last 50 years. We are seeing battles shaping up over water. Have you been following the Georgia-Tennessee dispute over a corner of the Tennessee River? Georgia wants to move their state line 1 mile north so they can tap into the river for water. I wonder when the shooting will start.

We are living in a country (that appears to not be an exception) where the majority of the population is completely unaware of what is and has been taking over their lives. The whole process has been gradual enough that most people aren’t even aware of it. The U.S is now truly a service economy, dedicated to shuffling our feet and saying “yas sir, yas sir” when demands are made of us. We have been indoctrinated for so many years to be passive, to take orders, to bend to the will of authority and majority that we have forgotten, as a society, that they have no mandate from heaven to do this to us. So now our time is spent figuratively and in actuality wiping the asses of the elite and thanking them for their attention, and of course dreaming of the day when we too can have our asses wiped by someone lower on the power totem pole.

In the meantime, the very land base and ecology that is absolutely essential to our survival as a species is degraded at a furious pace in the name of progress and resource development. And while we are at it, let’s not ignore our breeding like rabbits, piling up our garbage as if it wasn’t important. Meanwhile our owners are progressively becoming more insistent that they have the right and duty to involve themselves more and more into our private lives, into our very health, and of course it is justified as providing for our safety and security. I wonder what it really says about us that we aren’t out rioting in the streets and eating the rich for pleasure. But, of course, we must respect our betters, those of the elite class, because they must be finding favor with God since they are at the top of the heap. Isn’t that what our religions teach us? Or haven’t you read the Old Testament lately? Or read the religious leaders teaching around the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s. The essence of those teachings was that if things are not good for you, you must have angered your God.

While I am on this subject, I want to make a brief mention about a subject we have touched on a bit before, cognitive dissonance. By definition, it is contrary and mutually exclusive perceptions of reality. When our belief systems are contradicted by observable events, it creates a tension, a stress, a very uncomfortable feeling we call cognitive dissonance. Since the belief system and the data are mutually exclusive, to relieve the tension, one or the other has to go. The effort that is necessary to resolve the truth of the matter is extensive. The easiest route is to ignore the data that contradicts the belief system. An example; who would want to admit that the country they love and adore with all its comforts and advantages would kill its own citizens for gain, or would kill a million people for gain and realize that they have contributed to putting the people in charge that are doing this?

To keep our population under control, the mass media has been taken over by huge conglomerates. The predominate aspect of these dispensers of “news” is deception, distortion or outright ignoring of important information. Have you followed the "60 Minutes" blackout of a section in a couple of major metropolitan areas of Alabama? In case you are wondering about it, Karl Rove took a hand in that little bit of political hiding. Coincidently, (perhaps synchronicity would be a better term), most of the population is on a circular treadmill which makes it impossible to question what we are fed as news. Getting out of bed, going to work (probably for far more than 8 hours) coming home, eating supper, watching TV and then back to bed is the standard of life. I know about that too, I’ve been there. There is not much time or reason to question what you are fed by the media. After all, if it is in print or put out by a “journalist” it has to be true doesn’t it? I recently read of an investigation into the biggest newspapers in England where they found that only 12% of the news stories were actually written by investigative research. 8% were so outright ambiguous that they didn’t know where they came from. 80% of the news was repeated second or third hand from public relations outfits. Of that 80%, only 12% of the information was checked for accuracy. Political propaganda machines are the primary information sources for “news” publications of all types. Is it any wonder that those living in the beast’s belly have no idea that they can escape this situation? Is it any wonder that we have a society composed predominately of sheeple?

There are moments when the screaming voice in my head takes over, when I can barely live with myself over these observations. That’s when I have those self defeating fantasies of violence. That is when I have to turn to activities instead of thinking to push the screaming voice back down its hole. As always, I keep asking the question to no one in particular, “when will this end?”

And so today, in the name of whatever god you want to name, we continue, as a species, raping, pillaging, killing and destroying the environment, and of course, the main god is money and profits. The few, the very few, who object, are stopped cold from having any influence, any power, any veracity.

I listen to the news blurbs about the campaign, listen to the mongrel humans blurting forth their platitudes, their lies, their stupid innuendos, and observe with horror the cheering of the crowds. It’s all a giant circle jerk of mental masturbation. The winner gets to eat the cracker.

Living in the belly of the beast has only one solution that I can see. Want to take a stab at what that is? It sure doesn’t appear that we are going to have a mass movement to change consciousness. That would be nice and sure nu’f a bunch less violent. Oh, I will keep looking for it, but you can bet I won’t hold my breath about it. Sort of like Jonah in the belly of the whale. Need to find its sneezing meat and give it a good whack. Getting sneezed out of the belly of the beast is one way to do it I suppose.