This guy mirrors my thoughts and feelings regarding the march to the 'new world order' almost exactly.
I've refused to register on the electoral roll precisely because of the reasoning he cites... I view the whole process as corrupt and pointless and by even registering to vote, I would grant that corrupt process validity.
Paxo kept pushing Brand for a valid alternative. I wish Brand had referred him to this :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Venus_Project
If humanity doesn't steer away from this constant drive for the accumulation of wealth, a constant need for growth to support usury and the wasting of finite resources to fuel the consumer society, we're all about fecked in the long run.
Of course to do this, the 1% would have to give up their positions of power derived from wealth and they won't do this willingly. When Brand says a revolution is needed, he is absolutely right.. if the 1% won't do the right things, the ethical things, the morally correct things, then their power (which is basically achieved through wealth) needs to be torn from their grasp and put to the best use for ALL of humanity, not just the privileged few.
If there is to be a long term sustainable future for humanity, the power needs to be put into the hands of people who are experts in resource management and distribution. There needs to be an accurate audit of the resources available to humanity and then those resources need to be applied in ways that maximise their potential in moving towards a sustainable lifestyle for EVERYONE.
This might all sound pie in the sky, but the technology already exists to implement huge advances, whilst at the same time freeing a vast number of people from poverty. A person might work say 14 hours a day in a sweatshop for a pittance of a wage, just to be able to eat. Ask yourself why this person needs to do so. The easy answer is to say that if they don't, they'll starve and die.
Give that same person the means to do so, and they'll be able to produce enough food to feed themselves and even have excess without being exploited to fuel the wealth accumulation of their bosses. This doesn't have to mean that they live in a mud hut, scratching away in a field for the same 14 hours a day to do so either. The technology exists to allow the best use of space, even in an urban environment, so that a person can grow their own food and become independent.
If people grow their own food and harvest in their own space, there would be no need for supermarkets and the associated food miles required to sustain them.
If personal energy generation was provided too (through solar, wind, tidal, geothermal.. whatever is abundant in that local area), there would be no need for fuel poverty, no need for huge energy companies and their shareholders and associated greed.
Water supply and sanitation needn't be an endless stream of buckets to be both filled and emptied. The infrastructure for both is already in place and community construction projects could be organised to build it where it wasn't. All that would be needed are the resources to do so and a willing community.
None of the above could be achieved, however, without the land and/or property to accommodate it.
Who owns a huge proportion of the land and property? Yep, that's right, the 1%.
Nobody needs to own 100 properties.. they can only occupy 1 at a time. Nobody needs to own hundreds or thousands of acres of land to feed themselves.
If this land and these properties were seized from the 1% and distributed on a basis of need, there would be room for everyone on this planet to have their own home, grow enough to feed themselves and provide power, heat, water and sanitation.
These are what I would deem to be the very least needs of people that exist in any society that dares to call itself civilised.
The thing is, if done correctly, these people would be able to produce enough food and energy to actually provide an excess. Where would this excess go? It would go to help feed the people who would need to run essential services that couldn't easily be automated... I'm thinking in terms of healthcare here for example. We've all seen horror stories of people that belong to the so called 'caring profession' that shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a job requiring the provision of care. If people knew that they were going to be 'paid' in just the basics of life, how many of these uncaring people would volunteer to do a job like this? Not many I'm thinking. How many people who actually have strong empathy and a desire to help other people, who would love to do work like this are currently trapped in other jobs in order to pay their mortgages/rent/fuel bills/feed themselves and their families? I'd say plenty.
Social responsibility from all people would also be required for this 'utopian' existence to work, something which seems to be sadly lacking in this day and age.
But why is it lacking?
To my mind, the biggest single cause is money and people's desire to accumulate it. It seems that the 'screw you jack', uncaring society has arisen through people being too busy clambering over/trying to exploit other people to try and 'get ahead' in the money stakes. But all money is really, is a means to an end. Money just allows those who have an abundance to live 'better' lives.
I get sick of hearing politicians talk about 'aspiration' when what they actually mean is greed for money. If money didn't exist, what would people have to aspire to? How about a desire to to good, for the sake of being good? How about making moral and ethical choices that benefit other people, not just oneself? How about altruism?
None of these seem to be valued by those who currently hold all the wealth and power... they are too busy satisfying their greed for more wealth, more power.
Humanity needs to refocus it's aspirations away from the accumulation of wealth and power if it hopes to survive sustainably. We need to learn to be satisfied with 'enough' instead of constantly feeling that we need 'more'.
The capitalist system and the consumer society that is rapidly eating away at the earth's resources is just a vehicle to feed that desire for 'more'. We have the technology to produce things that could last for a lifetime and even beyond. Instead, we produce items with a built in lifespan that will fail and need replacing every few years. Why do we do this? For one reason and one reason only. To drive consumerism and make more profit, more money for those at the top of the heap.
With carefully considered design, items could be made to be durable and easily repairable instead of being disposable. The amount of junk that we create and the amount of finite resources that get rammed into landfills for the sake of profit is nothing short of disgraceful. If we don't soon change our ways, future generations will look back (those that might actually be able to survive), bemused by how greedy and shortsighted we have been.
To me, the solution is clear... tabula rasa. Wipe the slate clean. Get rid of money.
Without money, we would have no reason to exploit other people for a 'few more bucks'. We would have no need for constant growth to fuel usury. We would have no need to produce items with built in lifespans to drive profit. The concept of debt would shift... our only real debts would be to each other in our survivability and sustainability as a species.
The time for a radical change in our thinking has come and we are running out of time both ecologically speaking and biologically. The population of the earth continues to grow and whenever it grows, poverty grows with it. Like resources, there is a finite amount of available wealth and as the population grows it gets diluted. We hear politicians speak about 'wealth creators' but there is no such thing.. wealth cannot be created, it can only be diverted in one way or another. Seeing as most of that wealth migrates upwards, the poor will continue to get poorer and more plentiful as time goes on unless something is done to change this.
That change can't be achieved with the current system of so called democracy in which we live. If the process in and of itself, is corrupt, then it cannot be changed from within.
That's where Brand has hit the nail on the head. Only by refusing to partcipate and thus vaildate the process, can it be shown to be unfit for purpose.
If the 99% refuse to vote, then ANY government that got elected could not legitimately claim to have a popular mandate. With no mandate, it would have no validity and change would be inevitable.
The challenge once change became inevitable, would be ensuring change that benefits ALL of humanity, not just the greedy elite and those deluded enough to think they have no other option in life than to climb the greasy pole. There are other ways. There are better ways. We need to change our ways if we want to survive.
