Please let me package a "solution" for you in nice and pretty, American-style, wrapping. All slick and shiny and ready for you to take home.
I really hope that's not what you expect when you ask for some "solution." The mere asking of this question betrays the lack of understanding of the fundamental issue here: That in order to find a "solution", or is it THE SOLUTION®, you must completely remove yourself from the political illusions (often called 'pragmatism') that you have been trapped in through the years. This in and of itself is a very difficult task, and most people who sincerely want to "help the earth" (or humanity), "stop the war", "end poverty" and so on, die never understanding this.
This is why so many feel hopeless about not being able to create meaningful and lasting change of a profound nature. Because essentially they are looking for solutions from within the same construct that caused the problems.
What to do? First we need an understanding.
As long as women and African-Americans were nice humble and passive what did they get? Nothing. Unless you count subjugation and servitude as something. Would those in power one day have awakened one day in a particularly genial and loving mood having experienced some psycho-spiritual transformation and said, "You are so nice and humble I'm going to allow you to vote, own property and while we're at it let's throw in equal pay?"
Dream on.
It took suffragettes and civil rights activists being insistent, unpleasantly arrogant, unrelenting and a willingness to risk what little they did have to attain the few freedoms that are "allowed" today. This meant laying their bodies on the line in very dangerous situations and for sustained periods of time.
Those who are destroying our earth and our communities at breakneck speed are as humble and caring as barracudas, with all apologies to the more gentle piscine creatures, and will not easily or at all relinquish their stranglehold on the gasping planet or your neck.
What it will take is nothing short of large scale purposeful sustained direct actions that bring the system to a halt. This means tremendous sacrifice. This means personal discomfort. In this there is the inevitably of tremendous risk.
The only remedy will be when people begin to get interested in taking back active control of the processes that rule their lives and work with each other rather than crossing their fingers and heading off to the ballot box.
There is no political solution.
So what should be our demands?
DEMANDS:
1) Universal Single Payer Health Care
2) Promotion/Development of Local Food Systems
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