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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe United States of Whatever: Ecocide and the Soul of a Nation
Published on Saturday, June 1, 2013 by Common Dreams
The United States of Whatever: Ecocide and the Soul of a Nation
by Phil Rockstroh
What is the music of the spheres? asked Schopenhauer. "Munch. Munch. Munch."
.....................To turn a blind eye to the natural world, as we have done, translates into psychical ecocide. Perception is degraded. Language truncated. Life becomes dispossessed of purpose and meaning. Apropos, the rise and banal persistence of: The United States of Whatever.
Under these circumstances "whatever" translates into, inner and extant, deadly super storms, ecocide, and desertification (including and related to the desertification of language). As we decimate the earth's biodiversity, we diminish our lexicon. Our thoughts cannot take wing; our imaginings cannot take root and flower; our passions cannot flow; our putrefying pathologies cannot be composted.
......................
When our days are denuded of depth, meaning and inspired purpose, we gorge our bellies in an attempt to alleviate the ache of emptiness. The operatives of the corporate/commercial hologram have induced us to devour the planet like a serving of Hot Pockets. Yet the emptiness within only grows. We have been enticed to believe that remedy will be found in more of what caused our misery in the first place. Relief, even redemption, will be found in yet "More". Thus, we come upon the insatiable leviathan that glides within. We are lodged in the monster's belly, wherein we mistake his impersonal appetite for our own. In this way, the consumer is consumed by the collective.
How does one sate a force that is insatiable? By seizing back one's unique identity. The angel whose name is Enough arrives within one's reclaimed human voice. It comes down to this: ecology or catastrophe. Because one's humanity is formed and rounded by one's limits, we must be open to the infinity of forms that is the ecosystem of the soul but not allow vanity to attempt to claim dominion over what is ungovernable. Thus, one regains one's soul by speaking in a human voice. Yes, it is tinged with universal fire, but, to we human beings, its home is the hearth of the human heart, within which empty appetite is transmuted into the yearnings of the heart; thereby, empty motion becomes emotion; passion deepens into compassion.
.......................
please read this, long, but beautifully written piece:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/06/01
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The United States of Whatever: Ecocide and the Soul of a Nation (Original Post)
kpete
Jun 2013
OP
The language is brilliant and strong; the message is true and pure. Its substance is sad and disturbing, denoting our current malaise and dystopia as a harbinger of doom.
The last words of Hamlet come to mind then: the rest is silence.
kpete
(72,041 posts)2. I too found it to be quite profound
on many levels
it hits hard
Long Live Racoons!
peace, kp
cilla4progress
(24,798 posts)3. Thank you for sharing
Important piece of writing. Damn the corporations that shift accountability onto anonymous no ones. I'm certain indigenous peoples knew how to sustain the balance and the reverence, the loss of which is at the root of these evils.