I believe

A long time ago I was challenged to explain exactly what I believe in. I was surprised because despite some strong convictions I was unable to actually give a concise answer.
After several years of thought and a lot of reading, I came up with this.

Credo- I believe.

1. Waste Not
2. All life is sacred.
3. Take responsibility for your food.
4. Take responsibility for the energy you use.
5. Take responsibility for the "footprint" you create.
6. Oppose the predators.
7. Oppose globalisation.
8. Be faithful to your culture.
9. Support those who follow this creed.
10. Become a Human Being.
    
    

Waste Not. In this finite world  resources must be used only where there is a need.
Learn the difference between Need and Want.
Take only what you need to live a good life for yourself, your family and your community. This is not to say you must lead a life of absolute frugality and barren poverty- to do this will quickly destroy your resolve and stop anyone else from adopting your example. You must live a good life where you are comfortable and healthy in body, mind and spirit. Use all that you take and use it well, avoid short lived pleasures and products made with excessive waste. Always choose good workmanship and longevity over cheap and replaceable. Likewise you must be aware of the waste created in the power you use and all that you buy, use or consume. To blindly use a product created with no care for the harm it does is to condone those that make it.
Eliminate Debt. Avoid the consumerist society. Do not owe money in any form. Only buy from those that follow this creed. Debt is the biggest trap of the modern world where you are bound body and soul to the predators- the banks and the government.

All life is sacred. Recognise the value of all living things. Understand the consequences of taking a life and know your place in the order of the environment. This is not to say you must never kill. The natural order of life and death, including killing to eat, happens around us every day. We are omnivorous creatures and to pretend otherwise would be ludicrous. Where we must kill for food or need, we must show respect for the life we take. Livestock must be managed absolutely humanely at all times and death when it comes must be unexpected, instant and painless. Blood sport- killing for trophies or enjoyment must be avoided altogether as opposed to the humane hunting or fishing for meat. To kill for pleasure denies ones own humanity completely. We must each use only the land we need for our space to live and to grow our own food. We must remember we share this planet with other species, each is needed and has its own place in the world. We have no right to take any more than our own share.

Take responsibility for your food. Know the origin of your food and what was done to produce it. To knowingly eat food grown through inhumane or irresponsible methods is to condone those methods. To eat food with out knowing where it comes from is just as bad. Much of the damage done to our planet was done in the name of producing food - and this was done in the name of profit for the predators, not to feed the people. The small farm has always been far more productive per acre in the actual food produced than modern agriculture but would make no profit for the predators. To grow your own food, or at least most of it, is therefore one of the most important things we can do. To define our humanity we should intimately know what is in our food and how it was raised or grown. This establishes a control that in turn will eventually exercise control over the predators who seek to only make a profit regardless of the harm done. They will find there is no market for their battery raised meat and chemically grown vegetables.

Take responsibility for the energy you use. Energy is not free, nor should it be and we use so very much more than our share of the available resources. The ideal solution is to use only what you can produce. Firewood grown and harvested by yourself, electricity generated by your own renewable systems and preferably no petroleum at all. The most sacred energy is that produced by the sweat of your own brow- that is to say, your own manual labour. The most profane use of energy is to burn petroleum driving to the gym where you pay money to exercise on electric machinery! Money too is energy, for that is what it ultimately buys someone else's labour. Your income must come from an ethical source. To own shares in a nuclear power station or a coal mine or the like simply make you one of the predators feeding off others and giving pollution and waste in return.

Take responsibility for the "footprint" you create. Just as you must control what you take, you must control what you leave. Know that your time is finite in this world and thus you owe a responsibility to those who will come after you, just as you owe thanks to those who left this world for you. To take more than your share is a sin against the world and all who have and will live in it. To use an excess just to leave pollution and waste behind is an even greater sin. How will the future judge this society now? In all that we take, use or create we must remain conscious of the changes we make. Do we create a toxic waste, such as nuclear waste, to harm those who come after us? What right has anyone ever had to do this? For any gain, long or short term, we must ask whether we have the right to do this thing. Often this means we must accept we simply go without. 


Oppose the predators. A corporation is a cold blooded machine built to take the maximum profit and none of the responsibility! Likewise government in all of its form seeks to control an enormous body of diverse peoples with no direct interest in those people nor responsibility for the outcomes. Governments are transient -with the whims of the voters fuelled by an irresponsible and sensationalist media and will only make decisions based upon an increasingly short term of office. Government and business alike judge their own success upon money alone. In the name of profit alone government and business can commit atrocity upon us and the world around us yet remain protected by law. The corporate media, owned by Big business and government remains the sole mass communications device in the entire world. The media has almost no restrictions under law to tell the truth or be held responsible for what is said. In the face of criticism will close ranks and simply not broadcast the dissenting view. The media retains an unassailable monopoly on public communication and is a private censor on the opinion of those who would see it made to serve the actual people.  

These three forces -Big business, the Government and the Media, are the greatest of evils that have ever been known in the history of this planet! Their continued amoral stance where everything is sacrificed in the name of profit, protected by law and held blameless for the harm done, must be stopped. If permitted to continue for much longer they will indeed destroy the world as we know it. We, the people, the consumer, the voter and the customer are directly responsible for this situation. We tolerate and through inaction and denying responsibility allow the Predators to continue using us as a harvestable crop. We are fed pap, told comforting lies and encouraged to place our trust in people who have never had a single scrap of interest in our well being. We have given up our holy right of self determination and willingly made ourselves slaves of these Predators. As we collectively sink into sedated confinement they steadily take more from us each year always telling us it is for our own good.
Doubt me? Have a look a the self determination of our ancestors one hundred years ago, then fifty years ago and compare them to our society now. Ask yourself who lives shrouded in red tape, who faces the most rules and regulations from the Nanny state, who pays the most tax, who has the most restrictions put upon their own free will if they choose not to follow the main stream way of life?

As a people we must actively engage in resistance against this enslavement. Educate yourself with a cynical eye. Engage in alternative media where you can say what you want without censorship. When you vote, vote for the smaller parties who show real ethics and encourage others to do likewise. Practise civil disobedience against invasive government and stifling red tape. Make your local government justify their decisions publicly and publicly criticize those who serve themselves or others before the actual electorate. Purchase all that you need from small local business or craftsmen. Boycott big business. Refuse to work for the predators. Refuse to support them in your community. Refuse if possible to even permit them in your community. Educate the public around you. When a large enough part of the community is actively hostile towards the Predators they will be forced to change or react. Either way, as the saying goes, it is better to die as a free man than live as a slave.


Oppose globalisation. Who is actually served by globalisation? Apart from the Predators -Big Business, Government and the Media I can think of no-one. Sure the media will constantly tell you how that you will be so much better off but they will be unable to tell you exactly how. The simple answer is that you will in no way benefit from Globalisation! When business wishes to increase profits they enlarge the factory. Likewise if they can enlarge the consumer (slave) base, remove national boundaries, homogenize cultures and increase the control of media they will stand to make more profit. There are no benefits at all to the individual. Not one.

Now ask, What harm will be done by Globalisation? Look about you and the harm quickly becomes readily obvious. Cheap commercial culture from another country will flood your home and your children's minds as your own culture and history is quietly suppressed and forgotten. Wave after wave of consumer fads roll through the media encouraging conformity and spending while at the same time making anyone who does not take part become different and suspicious- the outsider. Diversity where individuals are free to have different cultures and beliefs is condemned. Government ensures through legislation that Big Business can continue to make huge profits while completely protected by law yet the environmental damage they cause is a "public problem". The individual will have a dollar value attached evaluating their worth in society and will be legally refused care when the price exceeds their perceived worth.

Doubt me? In Queensland in the late eighties all of the State run mental hospitals, bar one, were closed down because it simply cost too much to house the patients. So these people were turned out onto the streets with vague promises of "care in the community" the money for which was never forthcoming despite promises from the politicians. Most of these patients ended up in prisons instead where they could be housed for less than half of the cost.

Our differences are what gives human culture such a powerful vitality. Our languages, cultures, music and creeds serve to preserve the species and help it grow. Globalisation is the absolute antithesis of this!


Be faithful to your culture. Each of us identifies with a group. In essence our tribe. I am told that the human brain can only really recognise and actually know about one hundred and fifty people or less. Ask yourself how many of your friends you really know- where you could tell me their life stories, their beliefs, their loves and hates, their favourite foods? This group will most likely be your people- your culture and your history. Globalisation seeks to give us all the same language, food, music and culture. This must be completely refused in every way! History shows us that the first step in creating a slave is to dress them all alike and enforce behavioural compliance with no permitted deviation or individual behaviour.

So you must remember your roots and practise that culture or you will suffer the fate of so many indigenous peoples around the world where lost generations are vainly trying to recreate the language and culture of their lost forefathers. You must be able to say who your people are and what it means to you. Know the food of your people, the music, the dance, the song and practice them all. This is not just history, it is also the culture of where you live now, the music you write and sing, the family favourite dishes you cook, the way your grandmother grows vegetables in her garden and indeed even the family names children use for their grandparents - "Nanna", "Nonna", "Abulita", or "Bubka" to name a few. You must take fierce pride in your culture and people and never believe the media when it will try to label your culture quaint or backwards.


Support those who follow this creed. Be strong, never take shit from a fool. Much of the modern "green community" is based around pacifism. History shows us that those who beat their swords to ploughshares ended up ploughing for those who didn't and this is the same path the Green community are heading down! Already there are any number of "Eco" products and "green" stores springing up around us. The Predators simply seek to turn the whole movement into a soft and sanitised mainstream product with a gentle pat on the head where you can feel good about yourself yet achieve absolutely nothing at all! Completely passive and utterly controlled.

No! We must present a hard face to the aggressors, unyielding in our beliefs and refusing compromise or bargain with the Predators. We must become Predators ourselves (or perhaps the Watchdogs instead) and stalk those who would harm our world. Make Big Business, Government and Media understand that they must serve the people absolutely or else cease altogether. Make the individuals hiding behind the law accountable for their actions. We must be the voice that the Predators have taken from the people.

Those that follow this Creed or even those who would save the world but don't know how are your brothers and sisters. You must support them as they need and they will support you.

 

Become a Human Being. Understand what it is that makes a Human different from the beast. We may all be Homo-Sapiens but we are not all Human Beings.

A Human will take the hard path if it is right. A Human will never stay silent when it is right to speak out. A Human will speak for those that cannot. A Human understands self denial and frugality, has tolerance and even love for those who are different yet still enrich our society. A Human rises to the challenge and will not admit defeat when fighting for right. A Human educates himself and will make his own conclusions through a critical eye. A Human will try to do no harm yet a Human will fight to protect in the name of what is right.

As you can see, there are very few Humans in this world. Most Homo-Sapiens fall into the category of mindless, reactive Beasts.
But there is hope, the very fact that you are reading this suggests you may be a Human. The only way you will ever know for sure is the way you choose to live in the world.