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On my way back from the cinema with Uncle Andy, we were approached by a man that asked us for the time.
"Sure," Andy said, taking it all in stride, "It's 9.15."
"Where you guys been then," the man asked. "I'm Delroy, by the way."
He shook our hands. It felt rude to say no.
"the cinema," we said. It was odd to be approached in the street but the guy was strangely disarming and I didn't feel too unsafe with Uncle Andy there.
"it's nice that we can still go to the cinema after all that's happened," the man said. "It's like they're trying to keep us happy."
"Who's they?" I asked.
"Well, you know," he said, his eyes focusing on something that wasn't there. "This world is an amazing thing. You know, science tells us that energy is in everything, and that we're aware, right?"
"Yeah..."
"So if we're made of energy and aware, and you know there are particles where if you separate them, no matter how far apart, they know what the other ones doing? There's this quantum field yeah? and that means that everything's connected, everything's aware. You get me?"
"I understand the words you're saying..." Andy said with a half-grin on his face. "I just don't understand what you're suggesting it all means. I mean, how does all this come together?"
The man looked insulted, as if somehow we were supposed to follow this stream of consciousness speech perfectly. I hung back and let Andy deal with it.
"It means that if everything's connected, the whole world and energy, yeah?" Delroy continued. "That means that there must be something more, right? That it all means something, that it's all part of a higher force."
Oh god, I though, religion. Andy smiled. he seemed to be enjoying this.
"So you're saying this is all for a reason?"
"Yeah man, definitely," Delroy said. "I mean - look at all the CCTVs and the shrinking computers whilst they grow in power. Biotech and genetics? They're controlling us man. They could have done something about this crisis, they've known for a long time it's coming. They just wanted to take away some of our rights and possessions -we were getting too much freedom and the had to stop it."
"So all this was planned?" Andy was struggling to avoid laughing.
"All of the leaders of the countries and companies are in on this," Delroy told us, whispering like it was some deadly secret, eyes serious and preaching. "They want us for our money and our work but they want to control us."
"Nice talking to you Delroy," Andy said, pulling on my arm. "We got to go now."
"Don't forget what I said!" Delroy called after us. "We're all connected! This isn't random - there's something going on bigger than us we've got to wake up to!"
We wandered home, not quite sure what to make of the experience.
I understand how Delroy feels - wouldn't it put us out of responsibility if this was one big conspiracy to destroy and control the world as we know it? If we know there was some vast secret group scheming so much that nothing we did mattered? It's both orwellian-style scary and strangely attractive. Why attractive? Because if some group is controlling our destiny we have no responsibility and so can put away our guilt over what's happened and not feel bad about looking out only for ourselves and no one else - it was the evil overlord's fault!
If the companies knew that the oil was running out, and so did the governments and they conspired to organise the crisis, to take away our rights, then we could give in to the despair - because if we're being controlled that much, there's no hope of individuality surviving - we're pawns in this massive game.
But that's not what's going on. I don't believe it. I don't believe the people in charge, even the bad ones, are perfect or evil enough to plot such a massive scheme - it's silly. While some of the bad stuff has come from oil people and politicians looking to profit or being greedy, it's not part of some vast worldwide conspiracy. It's simply a lot of greedy people ignoring the consequences to get rich in the short term. And these CEOs and stockbrokers and oil executives are the ones to have lost the most in the crisis.
Whilst that means there's no easy guilt-remover, it does mean that we as normal people have the power to do what the greedy rich people did not do: make a change. We should have done it earlier, before it was too late. We shouldn't have let those in power take too much when they didn't deserve it. They didn't do it because they were part of an evil masterplan. they did it because they could. They did it because we gave them the opportunity. In future, we need to not let them have the chance to ruin everything.
There's no great conspiracy. If you were in their position, you might get greedy too, if there weren't enough safeguards to stop you overstepping your boundaries. There's no great conspiracy but there's a lot we can do to prevent those people from grabbing too much for themselves from us.
-Mia
[author's note: week 23
another action item from Daily Kos about US food, for those interested in making a positive impact now: As featured in this diary the USDA are trying to legislate to water down Organic standards in America - meaning you wouldn't have to use organic intestines in sausages, or organic hops in beer. This is basically a way for organic food to be pretty much wiped out as a class of foods. There's some talk of it being prompted by the drugs agencies because they make money from unhealthy people but take that with a pinch of salt and read Mia's story for today on conspiracies! whatever the reasoning behind this, any of you guys in the states that care about food production would be well advised to sign the petition and try and stop this legislation.
The Delroy character actually exists, under a different name, in Bristol. I've talked to him a few times whilst coming home from my girlfriend's or a bar. He's very friendly and interesting, even if what he's saying doesn't quite add up.He's basically a preacher for David Icke, as weird as that sounds. It's strange, a little disturbing but mostly fascinatingly odd.
The people-powered motif is an important one, one that can help us try and avert this kind of crisis in the real world. Accountability from the voting public is probably the most important thing we can do to stop it. In recent times politics has been pushed to one side by many people as 'not my business'. This has allowed those who would take advantage of it to gain much more strength. We can't let that continue. As the people of the world, we need to hold the greedy people accountable and keep them in check otherwise the real crisis could end up worse.]
- Location:Bristol
- Mood:
contemplative - Music:Iron & Wine - History Of Lovers
Comments
In fact, most local stuff is pretty good, so you're generally safe buying local food from grocery stores as well (especially if it's from the same farms that sell at the farmers market).
I highly recommend Michael Pollan's latest book (The Omnivore's Dilemma) about how some regulations are making our food less healthy. Basically, by preventing the worst excesses, we also prevent innovative small-scale farming.
And I totally agree with you about conspiracies. If we want things to be done in our best interest, we have to show that we're interested. Otherwise, the people in charge will just do what they want.
Until then, I can try and do a little influencing towards making the government head that way - I hope that wwo has made a shift in that direction, even if only a little. I think the internet is doing a great job of encouraging people into making a difference in politics and the world - it's just so slow, and there's so much resistance from the ones that have been in charge up til now.
For crying out loud, if I'd wanted to do something apocalyptic it would not have been difficult: I'd have given the Wasatch Fault a good swift kick along the lines of a Richter 7 quake -- we're due for one -- and watched a good portion of the East/West shipping in the US go kablooey! as the I-15 and I-80 highway interchanges fell down, never mind 75% of the housing in the area pancaking and liquifaction of the ground and . . . .
You know? Not hard. Also not of interest to me as a writer: I live here, and I think about that shit All The Time. I much prefer taking the creators of the game at their word and writing about what could happen, based on what's actually going on in my community.
Are we going to turn it around on a dime? Hell no! But again there's that peak oil doomer presumption, that we will literally destroy our culture rather than learn to use a little less every year, never mind that there are numbers showing that Americans are doing exactly that in the face of increasing gas prices.
I think it's time for me to wrap this up.
I agree with you on the apocalyptic thing - I could kill off the world's population in a very thrilling way, but what would be the point? It's actually easier to write like that as it requires nothing but the most base level of imagination. Writing about violence and the end of the world is as easy as it's cliched.
I write in an optimistic tone partially because it's much more realistic that there's a slow decline. As much as the Rapturists would like it, we're not all going to go into hell with one click, unless there's some massive nuclear war. Peak oil will cripple our economies and mean that many people will suffer and probably die (although not by and large from handguns and terrorist attack. Overpopulation and the starvation and hunger it causes will outnumber those deaths by such a huge degree they become barely sidenotes.) It won't happen in six months, or six years. Try sixty. Even then, although society will be much bloodied and much changed, it will be here, in one form or another.
The thing that annoys me about the doomsday style is that it's almost as if they would prefer that we all die in horrible violence than have to change our way of living. The end of our capitalist, everything you want, always growing society into death and destruction is appealing because it requires no effort, no sacrifice on their part (aside from their deaths, presumably). It's so much harder to write (and make) a society where we cope. It's scarier to change our way of life than to die?
I couldn't write without hope. It's easy to say we're all doomed and then rest on your laurels blaming the world's conspiracy. Hope takes perserverence and strength. We need all that we can get, so although things might get dark, I'm not going to give up on optimism. We need to show the people reading our work that they can make a difference and start preparing for the changes. Without hope and optimism they will be turned away from that in despair.
Whereas if some combination of decisions, incompetence, greed, good intentions, and wild chance got us where we are, then that's pretty scary, because how do we fix that?
It's not just insane people who believe in conspiracy theories, it's sane but frightened people, too. It's a way of making sense of chaos.
on a food note look up the NAIS and add that to the organic food legislation.
Natonal Animal Identification System
great post
-Mia