Zombies!!

The Southern Tier and Finger Lakes region of New York State took a bit of a hit last week. Another election decided by financial gains. Across the region not only were pro-hydraulic fracturing folks folks elected to town boards, but a proposition passed to bring in a bunch of massive Vegas style casinos to the area.

This makes me wonder if the zombie apocalypse isn't some imaginary catastrophic event in the minds of certain weirdos, but it is actually a process that is happening in front of us right now. The folks that are looking at our future and concerned with our well being, are continuously steam rolled by a mass of brain dead zombies who mindlessly lurch after any and all capital gain. What is scary about the whole thing is that these people are just doing what our system says they should do. Money good, no money bad. They never questioned it. I don't know what it is that causes some people to just fall into line right over a cliff and some to step back and question what's going on, but as someone who has stepped back......way back, I can see, plain as day, that capitalism is creating a false incentives to do the wrong things.

First off the system is based on rapid and continuous growth. I am in awe of the fact that this aspect of capitalism is ignored. It really doesn't take a smart person to point out that continuous growth can't happen. Collapse at some point is inevitable.

That's the obvious problem. However, I think the most alarming trait of capitalism is the fact that the real value of everything has been replaced with profits or losses and that drives most of our decision making. The fracking debate is a good example of this. This is something that none of us would consider if it weren't for financial gains. Rape our own land for the benefit of others? Let's put it to a test in a hypothetical situation. A capitalist finds an apple tree. What do they do? Pick every last piece of fruit on the tree because each apple is a certain value in dollars to be earned to them and then starve with a fistful of dollars. To the human animal and all other life on earth who comes upon this apple tree they see nutrition. They eat and with every bite they would be thinking of how to sustain this sustenance. They would not eat too much because they would not have any for the next day. Our lives are full of decisions like this that capitalism makes for us. We all march forward chasing dollar bills while the ground crumbles beneath our feet. Unfortunately it seems things won't change until the whole thing collapses and we find out that no, we cannot eat money. If we were strong, we could break free of the addiction.....bring it local.....let things hold the value that they really have. Unfortunately, this is very engrained in our everyday thinking and there are many people who are really benefiting from this system who are very unlikely to change.