Manifesto: a public declaration of policy and aims…
on some thread, can’t remember which one, but one of the threads spoke
about having an “Agenda” and my name was mentioned… It got me to thinking…
what is my “Agenda?”
why do I write? what do I believe in? What am I advocating?
first of all, I strongly believe that everyone should write out a Manifesto…
a public description of what they are about…what is the point of their beliefs?
Truth be known, most people hold “ad hoc” beliefs, which means they hold
that their solutions are designed for a specific problem or task, non-generalizable,
and not intended to be adapted to other purposes…
so the ‘‘truth’’ is not a universal, transcendental truth, but a localized, problem
specific truth…so the first question we might ask is this, what kind of truths do you hold?
are your truths, ''ad hoc", or can they be used for more generalized problems?
the second question might be this, what is the goal, what is it you are trying to do?
what destination are you trying to get to? What is it you are attempting to do and
how does your goal/destination change what it is you are doing?
One of the problems of the modern world is this, it doesn’t seem to have a goal, or a
destination in mind…an example of this is capitalism… what is the final goal or
destination of capitalism? there doesn’t seem to be one…
to accumulate wealth and goods until the end of time…that seems to me at least,
to be purposeless…there is no end in sight in capitalism…an ever ongoing accumulation
of wealth and goods… but to what end?
and that is one of my questions, but to what end? one might hold to destruction
of society, but to what end? one might hold to the status quo, but to what end?
part of my “agenda” is to “woke” you into thinking about what it means to
human and part of being human is to have some sort of engagement with
the point of existence…to what end do we exist?
it has become quite clear to me and to millions of others, that capitalism
has failed… ok, so change is needed, and I am a big fan of change, but
we must engage with change with some thought as to what is the end game?
what is the point of existence and then we can go about making changes to
reach the final, agreed to end point, or goal…
if we change our economic system, capitalism, to what system should
we change to? and this answer comes from our agreed to goal or destination…
does existence have a point/goal/destination?
and if so, then how can we change our political, economic, social systems
to match that agreed upon goal or destination?
I have mentioned this before, but I liken our current “human” situation to
being like ants or bee’s… we are so involved into our own little world,
thus “keeping our nose to the grindstone” that we forget that we are more
then just worker ants whose only goal is to keep the colony going…
we have more value then just being a “worker ant” and to think of oneself
as just a “worker ant” is to be devalued, dehumanized…
I see billions of human beings, by virtue of being enslaved by the capitalistic
system, being devalued, being dehumanized into “worker ants”…
working only to keep the system going…and this is part of my manifesto,
to “awaken” you to this fact… we cannot, cannot find a solution until
we admit that there is a problem…and we are still at this basic point,
getting to the point of being able to admit that there is a problem…
must we be like drunks or junkies and wait until we hit rock bottom
before we finally admit we have a problem?
Hi, my name is Kropotkin… (hello Kropotkin) I have an addiction…
I am addicted to the accumulation of goods and wealth… I cannot
stop myself from buying more and more crap that I don’t need…and
all of that buying doesn’t benefit me at all… it is simple done to
allow those who own the goods and means of production to get
wealthier and wealthier…all I get out of the capitalistic system
is pittance that barely allows me to survive and then after 40 plus years
of killing myself for capitalism, to keep one step of starvation when I
retire… no, that isn’t what I signed up for?
But Kropotkin, what did you sign up for?
I signed up because I didn’t have a choice… we are not given choices in
our political or economic or social system that we live in…
I wasn’t given a choice and you weren’t given a choice…
and isn’t that the key aspect of capitalism, we are given choices,
but the truth is, the choices that we are given are negligible choices that
means nothing… to what kind of cereal we can buy or what model car
we can afford… the real choices of existence has been taken away from us…
do you have a choice to walk away from capitalism? no, you cannot…
you are “Primed” from birth to feed into the capitalism system,
by going to collage, to having a job/being “productive” to be educated,
to prepare for retirement… all of these have the effects of forcing you into
the “slaughter house” of capitalism… where your only value is to make profits…
you have no other point, or purpose in existence but to make profits for
our corporate overlords… and they get to decide our fate and our
existence…we have no choices in a capitalistic system…
and fundamentally, the point, the goal of existence comes down
to our choices…being human is about the choices we make for ourselves
and our society…and capitalism denies us those choices… we work or
we die of starvation… that isn’t much of a choice and the goal/destination
that is so driven into us, the accumulation of wealth, demands that
we must exploit others to gain that wealth… this is the entire point
of capitalism… the exploitation of other human being… which means
we deny them choices just as we have been denied our choices…
so part of my manifesto is to reclaim that which makes us human,
our ability to make choices…think about it… animals can’t make choices…
their instincts guide them into what “choices” they can make…but we human
beings have risen above our instincts and thus we can make choices that rise
above our instincts…take an honest look at your life and tell me, what choices,
real choices have you actually made? to choose between being a doctor or
a lawyer or an bricklayer is really making choices, it is about making a living…
and why does that particular choice becomes the most important choice
we make in life? make a living as a choice shouldn’t even be in the top ten
choices we get to make about our life…but societies drive for profits,
have turned what should be about the choices we make in life into
no choices at all about who we are and what is our goal in life?..
making a living becomes the dominant choice we get to make about our
life and it is the one choice that has no value for us as human beings…
for working for a living means our entire existence is to make profits,
not to become a better person or a more honest person or to
become a more authentic person for those choices have no place
in the modern/corporate world for those choice don’t lead to profits…
being honest or being more authentic or becoming a better person doesn’t
bring about greater profits and thus is denied by the modern world…
the world couldn’t give a shit if we are honest or brave or authentic
or about becoming a better person because those values don’t create profits…
and so our only choice is about the creation of profits… in which profession we
make our own, will we be able to create more profits?.. that is the modern question,
how do we create more profits… not the question we should be asking, which values
should we desire or what it means to become human… those questions are unimportant
because there is no profits in the “true/real” questions of existence…
and all of this comes back to the point of this, are you aware?
are you aware of what is possible as a human being, which is much
more important then a increase in the GDP this quarter…
my manifesto is simple… what does it mean to be human?
how how do we get to become better human beings?
what does it take to become a more honest or more authentic human being?
questions that the modern world with its ever increasing drive for profits,
couldn’t give a shit about…
who are you? and why does that matter?
have you ever asked yourself that? are you “woke” to your possibilities
as a human being?
questions that we should all be asking ourselves…
Kropotkin
