Neither Work, nor Money, we want Food

Neither Work, nor Money, we want Food

The system reinforces the ideology and the role of each person, for example, faced with the crisis of families separated because of lack of continuous work which permits the continuation of the role of man as provider, new laws and tribunals are formed to force payment of pensions. This convinces the woman to be subordinate to the money taken from the person who cannot comply with the “family” discipline and legislation. If the man doesn’t pay, he is either forced to or put in jail. Since they no longer want to peacefully fulfill their culturally acquired roles, the state takes charge of dotting the i’s.

In this way, under the pretext of “women’s’ rights”, she is maintained as an appendage of the man, and is invited to fill the tribunals with all sorts of accusations. This obviously influences her psyche and ideology.

The same happens with work, money, wages, purchases and consumption.

The market consumption has its difficulties. For example, propaganda and status necessitate the purchase of things that are not necessary, developing a consumerism and a desire to possess which does not correspond to human necessity, essentially creating the value that “money is necessary in order to consume”. That is to say that the product or the good becomes secondary and its equivalent is the priority, as it becomes a good in and of itself. With money, debts are paid, electric bills, shopping in the marketplace, bus fare, or Bip card.

In this way the system manages to make it difficult for people break away from “Don Dollar”. They are used to it, need it, look for it, sell whatever to get it, including the body and sense of dignity. Nothing is more horrendous that to have to bow one’s head so that some shithead does with our bodies or our dreams as he sees fit, and adding insult to injury, pays a pittance which doesn’t even cover basic necessities.

Some say, “There is no choice”.

I wish everyone said this, since the majority don’t even reach this level of questioning.

To say that there is no alternative is a step towards discovering that we are prisioners, bound to money without an exit, that we must throw ourselves into the struggle to get it any way possible. Yet later we complain about pickpockets or petty thieves who sell our car parts at flea markets.

The structure of so called crime or delinquency is seated in these imposed values which leave no other choice, which oblige many to set upon others’ property, giving the system the pretext to break and enter into the private lives of the poor, detain suspects, and make a big show of breaking up schemes to acquire the very consumer objects promoted by the very same system.

Not a day goes by when the robocops don’t appear from the forces or order to funnel the human anthill into a disciplined line, shoulder to shoulder, to obtain whatever crumbs are being handed out, especially at election time.

So instead of following the sheep, and joining the orderly line to dignities death, maybe the time has come to initiate the big debate and experimentation to break dependency on Don Dollar, on work and wages and to take a massive look at basic necessities such as food, essential services and energy.

The question could be: How to obtain food and meet necessities if work and money close doors in my face?

The church, newspapers, institutions and parties insist that the problem is work and unemployment, while they sell us heaven, utopia, hope for the future and Kino. That is to say, they carry on systematic and crushing activities to prevent the population from discovering or inventing other ways out, an exodus from the world of work, money and consumerism towards other social and economic territories.

Food can be grown in family, neighborhood or community gardens, along with raising animals. It will be necessary to learn about the country, where a family with a small plot can survive, badly, it might be said, but nevertheless they see how in the cities there are millions of pariahs, prisoners of modernity and the networks of the market, growing deeper and deeper in debt.

Debt doesn’t just make the rich richer, buying among themselves based of the long list of people who owe them money, or asking for bank loans and credit showing their list of debtors. The crisis even hits them, and banks fail one after another or the stockmarket showing the value of the stocks and profits of the factories. The Yankees put in a Black president to give the impression that the oppressed are in charge. What prestidigitation! To take money from the state and ensure that the factories survive on loans and debts.

Faced with this, campesinos with access to a piece of land, and there are some, but not many, prefer to stay and eat what they get from the earth with their own sweat. This is not work, since it living in communion with Mother Earth of which we are an integral part, like ants and butterflies. It is understood that the Mapuche fight for land, since without seed and harvest there is no community.

We can do a survey of the neighborhood and locate spaces to install gardens. Some collectives give away seeds, which must always be saved. Hopefully this is not an activity of a vanguard, of some who live apart from the community, who show how it’s done, but from several neighbors who start an initiative which can multiply with inventiveness.

As for education and health, there is quite a lot of accumulated experience in autonomous popular schools on how to install independent courses that cover four years high school education in two by inviting university students to enter neighborhoods and teach and learn in the university of life and discuss in their faculties the idea that the state and the market are not the only destinies. If there are no students, the population can organize itself oon the basis of “buying together” in order to lower costs and accustom the body to carry out acts of daily life together with the body of the neighbors.

To solve healthcare situations it is possible to organize autonomous healthcare committees to install courses in first aid, environmental hygiene, traditional and alternative medicine, and other modalities to protect he body and physical wellbeing of the population. Medical students and nursing students and so on can be invited to contribute to the neighborhood committees.

Breaking free of the ties to energy installed by the state and the market is more than possible. It is only necessary to propose it in an organized way among many, to develop alternative energy based on biogas, reusing organic garbage, or to construct solar panels which little by little can substitute for dependency on the grid. Water can be found in private backyards and clandestine wells can be installed, since the state concession owned by private interests also have an eye on underground water, without asking anybody, so it is within the full rights of public sovereignty to take whatever access to water that can be found in the neighborhood, digging with the help of volunteer students.

There are other forms of alternative energy that students of technology and environmental studies should explore to bring to the neighborhoods, along with other ways to produce food. There are also the benefits of garbage, a part for biogas, another for compost, while the rest can be used for recycling for making usable goods, learning games for children etc.

As for debts, it is necessary to study the experiences in other countries of citizens who organize themselves not to pay debts to banks and markets, with help of lawyers and economists. I cannot suggest that people take this on, since it might mean criminal charges, so I am only calling on people to study these experiences as a mere intellectual exercise. Those that want to can evaluate with friendly lawyers or law students how to improve the idea.]

Perhaps with some of these proposals which are being carried out in different neighborhoods and cities to a greater or lesser degree, initiatives and communication can multiply, and learn from one another. Avoiding ties, structures and coordination since one bad apple can spoil the barrel.

Our mail and the Red Alternativa only function to divulge experiences and put people into contact with each other who write and want learn from each other. Maybe some would like us to come to your neighborhood a day or two to talk and do workshops, which would only require a sofa and a bit of bread and if necessary help with transportation.

Maybe your time has come to enter the dynamic.

Nobody knows, only you. Talk with a neighbor or a colleague and let’s go!

Abrazos

Profesor J