From The Beginning, This Culture - Civilization

Yes, It's Vital To Make Lifestyle Choices To Mitigate Damage Caused By Being A Member Of Industrialized Civilization, But To Assign Primary Responsibility To Oneself, And To Focus Primarily On Making Oneself Better, Is An Immense Copout, An Abrogation Of Responsibility.

A Wonderful Thing Happens When You Give Up On Hope, Which Is That You Realize You Never Needed It In The First Place. You Realize That Giving Up On Hope Doesn't Kill You, Nor Did It Make You Less Effective. In Fact It Made You More Effective, Because You Ceased Relying On Someone Or Something Else To Solve Your Problems - You Ceased Hoping Your Problems Somehow Get Solved, Through The Magical Assistance Of God, The Great Mother, The Sierra Club, Valiant Tree-sitters, Brave Salmon, Or Even The Earth Itself - And You Just Began Doing What's Necessary To Solve Your Problems Yourself.

Surely By Now There Can Be Few Here Who Still Believe The Purpose Of Government Is To Protect Us From The Destructive Activities Of Corporations. At Last Most Of Us Must Understand That The Opposite Is True: That The Primary Purpose Of Government Is To Protect Those Who Run The Economy From The Outrage Of Injured Citizens.

If We Hope To Stem The Mass Destruction That Inevitably Attends Our Economic System (and To Alter The Sense Of Entitlement - The Sense Of Contempt, The Hatred - On Which It Is Based), Fundamental Historical, Social, Economic, And Technological Forces Need To Be Pondered, Understood, And Redirected. Behavior Won't Change Much Without A Fundamental Change In Consciousness. The Question Becomes: How Do We Change Consciousness?

You Can Rarely Prove Something To Someone Who Does Not Want To See It Proven, And Even More To The Point, You Can Almost Never Prove Something To Someone Who Has Financial Or Ideological Reasons To Not See It Proven.