Reply #61: Another Alternative

[eilen]

start your own economy and community. Create something different and screw the people in charge in Washington, in your state building--they are not your friends, they are not our saviors, they will only do what they are paid to do by corporate lobbyists-- the Supreme Court said so-- they said corporate people have louder voices and deserve to be heard more than voters. Reject the status quo and congregate with others in your community and be subversive. Create your own barter groups and avoid paying for the war, avoid paying and propping up corporate assholes who sent our jobs overseas still expecting us to spend our hard earned money on their cheap poisonous shit, assist the old and infirm on your block and cook together, grow food together, carpool together. Determine methods to escape bullshit government bureaucracy.

In NY they just raised the cigarette tax again so they are the most expensive things you can buy, I think they are more expensive than weed gram by gram now. This has created a great market opportunity for the black or underground market. For us more or less law abiding peoples, grow your own. So long as you don't sell it you should be good. How about that plastic container tax/deposit he's pushing? Shit, learn to make root beer in a barrel like my grandmother used to. Lemonade stands or birch beer stands can proliferate. Have weekend block parties, call yourselves the Elm Street Collective and incorporate yourselves so you can have more rights than you currently enjoy. Make art on the streets. Take over foreclosed or HUD properties in your neighborhood and use them as community buildings. Hell, you can probably get grant monies to pay the back taxes and get the title. Open an underground trading post in your suburb-- We all miss the corner stores. Go to your zoning and other town hall meetings and demand space for community gardens. Have block wide garage sales/trades monthly. Have driveway clearing parties in the winter after it snows. Everyone can pitch in for a wood chipper and we can chip all our branches and yard waste to use as mulch since the waste company will only take it if it is less than 3 feet in length which results in lots of braches that were trimmed left on the side of the road.

Hell, this US official economy sucks balls and so long as TPTB continue to prop it up we all lose. It is time that the people learn to be actual producers again and have some dignity and respect. Having work that engages your hands and your brains and the freedom of your creativity is the goal. Keeping the jobs liveable, sustainable is another. If you have a means of production, employ your neighbors. If you have a skill that someone needs, give it to them and help them. Hold outdoor yoga and meditation in the street. Put together a neighborhood ballteam. Get the musicians together and have a festival with dancing.