It got down to 29 degrees last night. It was in the low thirties when Elijah, my three year old grandson, and I went out to do the chores. There was ice in the bird bath and in all the buckets, but the Sun was shining and it was really a glorious Morning. We went to the market in Pine City yesterday. We bought a dozen stalks of Brussels Sprouts to put up in the freezer. They didn't do well in the garden this year. Perhaps it was too wet. Markets are good places to see how free enterprise works.
Free Enterprise, of course, is not Capitalism. In the last couple hundred years there has been great attempts to relate and even confuse the two. Capitalism strangles free enterprise. Capitalism uses the power of money to eliminate its competitors. Free enterprise can only exist at the whim of the capitalist. When you threaten their profits they find a way to eliminate you. If it goes well they will buy you out; if you don't cooperate they will drive you into bankruptcy or worse. Gradually, the monied people purchased our politicians and they pass laws to facilitate the corporate takeover of our society. The people of money use slogans to hide who they are. They pretend to champion small business; but make it almost impossible for a small business to succeed. Their predatory natures are hidden behind behind slogans and ideologies that sound like they support freedom and democracy, but hide the wish to dominate and conquer. It is "survival of the fittest". The worst kind of Social Darwinism.
That is what the Wall Street Occupation is about. People who lack understanding think they have no focus. It is just the opposite; their focus is huge and profound. They see that in every sphere of our lives we are being controlled by the people of money. People have no right to health care; to education; to decent housing; to a healthy diet; to unpolluted air and water; their soil is being destroyed; crops lacking in nutrition and dangerous to our health our being presented as good for us; innocent people all over the world are being murdered in the pretense of protecting us from terrorism; and I could go on and on. Do I need to? That is what the protest are about. They are bringing to our attention how greed and the lust for power have destroyed many lives and severely limited the life expressions of the rest of us.
Yet the solution has always been right in front of us. It has echoed down through the ages, out of the mouths of our great teachers. It can be summed up, love one another.
Love and Peace, Gregg
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