Welcoming the New Industrial Revolution
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It's clear major change is due for our world. The Earth is crying out for humans to make different decisions. Rather than sound like a doomsday prophet mentioning some of the drastic problems developing (and interacting with each other), I'd like to make some suggestions I think would make things better. We each have different priorities; submit your own suggestions for healing our troubled world to Hazelwood Homepage by emailing hazelwoodeditor@yahoo.com or by calling (412) 421-7234. Here are some of mine (I'll save the most controversial for another time):
We've got to stop processing food so much. Peanuts, for instance, start out a wonderfully wholesome food - but after hydrogenation, roasting, addition of sugar or corn syrup, and sitting on the shelf for God knows how long, become more of a medical nightmare than a staple food.
Time after time, decisions made by commercial interests have resulted in consumption of "foods" which barely rate that label. Throughout the history of human consumption of wheat and other grains, the grain seed was eaten some time after harvesting without further processing other than perhaps grinding and baking. Since (before refrigeration) the seed would not keep once ground (killed), baking and eating followed not long after grinding. This was all subverted when processors removed most of the nutrients and added chemical preservatives - thereby eliminating the need for refrigeration by producing a substance which would not get moldy. That "white bread", now "fortified" with vitamins to be able to be claimed to have at least some nutritional value - and dyed to make it look more like the whole grain it no longer is - is what the majority of Americans now eat, unaware that REAL bread requires either refrigeration or almost immediate consumption to avoid it getting moldy.
That the planet's richest nation is by no measure the healthiest calls to us to go back to basics. Grow the food locally as much as possible. Grow it without the chemicals Nature managed to do without before we "wise" ones started messing with things. Have a bakery in every home, or on every corner, and in every institution - a REAL bakery, one that grinds the wheat, rye, and other grain seeds just before baking and selling or serving the bread made from it.
We need a revolution in this country, but not a violent one. We need a new industrial model, one which motivates the long-term enhancement of Earth rather than it's short-term consumption. The privatization of everything from the gene pool to the water must be reversed. The redlining of parts of the Earth as not good places for business investment is a short-term money-making strategy which ultimately shuts down the world economy - causing bankruptcy in the long run. Planned obsolescence is unethical and should be illegal. Industries should not be allowed to externalize the costs of their decisions in the form of pollution. A company in the new world to come will no more be able to put pollutant-filled smoke in it's neighbors' lungs than a hired killer has to put a bullet in someone.
Similar to the American Indian belief that the land belongs to the Great Spirit, good science yields the conclusion that all life is connected. New details each day of ecological relationships breaking down bring home the tragic impact of some new ecosystem service faltering - clean water, moderation of weather, pollination of our crops, new and resurgent diseases, loss of agricultural stability, loss of fish habitat, flooding events and droughts. We're losing our families - the frogs, the bats, honeybees and many other beautiful pollinating insects...In the end we're losing ourselves.
We shouldn't want to go back to the old days. Technology is so advanced at this stage that, should we make the appropriate decisions (the most loving ones) we could literally establish a Heaven on Earth. Failure to recognize all life as one will shortly likely consign most our particular species to history. This is the time referred to in Hopi prophecy as the Great Purification.
And we've got to share. We've got to work together to grow food, process it, distribute it, and return the organic waste to the soil. As a part of this re-establishing the local food web of life, the community-owned grocery store (food co-op) is a good concept requiring cooperation among a really wide group of people, and has to have an attitude of neighborliness to get off the ground. Just as with locally-grown natural food, world events are driving an increasingly cooperative society, and the Hazelwood Community Grocery is something we all need to get behind.
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It's clear major change is due for our world. The Earth is crying out for humans to make different decisions. Rather than sound like a doomsday prophet mentioning some of the drastic problems developing (and interacting with each other), I'd like to make some suggestions I think would make things better. We each have different priorities; submit your own suggestions for healing our troubled world to Hazelwood Homepage by emailing hazelwoodeditor@yahoo.com or by calling (412) 421-7234. Here are some of mine (I'll save the most controversial for another time):
We've got to stop processing food so much. Peanuts, for instance, start out a wonderfully wholesome food - but after hydrogenation, roasting, addition of sugar or corn syrup, and sitting on the shelf for God knows how long, become more of a medical nightmare than a staple food.
Time after time, decisions made by commercial interests have resulted in consumption of "foods" which barely rate that label. Throughout the history of human consumption of wheat and other grains, the grain seed was eaten some time after harvesting without further processing other than perhaps grinding and baking. Since (before refrigeration) the seed would not keep once ground (killed), baking and eating followed not long after grinding. This was all subverted when processors removed most of the nutrients and added chemical preservatives - thereby eliminating the need for refrigeration by producing a substance which would not get moldy. That "white bread", now "fortified" with vitamins to be able to be claimed to have at least some nutritional value - and dyed to make it look more like the whole grain it no longer is - is what the majority of Americans now eat, unaware that REAL bread requires either refrigeration or almost immediate consumption to avoid it getting moldy.
That the planet's richest nation is by no measure the healthiest calls to us to go back to basics. Grow the food locally as much as possible. Grow it without the chemicals Nature managed to do without before we "wise" ones started messing with things. Have a bakery in every home, or on every corner, and in every institution - a REAL bakery, one that grinds the wheat, rye, and other grain seeds just before baking and selling or serving the bread made from it.
We need a revolution in this country, but not a violent one. We need a new industrial model, one which motivates the long-term enhancement of Earth rather than it's short-term consumption. The privatization of everything from the gene pool to the water must be reversed. The redlining of parts of the Earth as not good places for business investment is a short-term money-making strategy which ultimately shuts down the world economy - causing bankruptcy in the long run. Planned obsolescence is unethical and should be illegal. Industries should not be allowed to externalize the costs of their decisions in the form of pollution. A company in the new world to come will no more be able to put pollutant-filled smoke in it's neighbors' lungs than a hired killer has to put a bullet in someone.
Similar to the American Indian belief that the land belongs to the Great Spirit, good science yields the conclusion that all life is connected. New details each day of ecological relationships breaking down bring home the tragic impact of some new ecosystem service faltering - clean water, moderation of weather, pollination of our crops, new and resurgent diseases, loss of agricultural stability, loss of fish habitat, flooding events and droughts. We're losing our families - the frogs, the bats, honeybees and many other beautiful pollinating insects...In the end we're losing ourselves.
We shouldn't want to go back to the old days. Technology is so advanced at this stage that, should we make the appropriate decisions (the most loving ones) we could literally establish a Heaven on Earth. Failure to recognize all life as one will shortly likely consign most our particular species to history. This is the time referred to in Hopi prophecy as the Great Purification.
And we've got to share. We've got to work together to grow food, process it, distribute it, and return the organic waste to the soil. As a part of this re-establishing the local food web of life, the community-owned grocery store (food co-op) is a good concept requiring cooperation among a really wide group of people, and has to have an attitude of neighborliness to get off the ground. Just as with locally-grown natural food, world events are driving an increasingly cooperative society, and the Hazelwood Community Grocery is something we all need to get behind.
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posted by St. Jim the Composter at 8:57 AM
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