Well, the answer is pretty obvious these days. We're owned by the Corporate Masters, and it's getting worse all the time.
We'd like to be Sweden, but we're not, and that's not going to change anytime soon.
So, how can we fight back? How can we work to take back some of this economy that has been stolen from us?
Much has been said about supporting small businesses. Some of us even go out of our way to do that. But it's easy to forget, it's easy to decide it's just too expensive.
But what if you were invested in them?
We're not all out of money yet. They haven't ground us entirely into the gravel yet. (I was tempted to say: "Ground us entirely into the chat," but I figured people mostly wouldn't get it.)
We don't get to have a nice socialist place here like Sweden. Not in the cards, not any time soon.
So, maybe we should start thinking about fighting fire with fire.
There are organizations framed around this idea. Kiva.org is one, kickstarter.com is another. Kiva is a microloan program, and kickstarter is more of an organized donation site aimed at capitalizing small business startups.
Starting a business is scary. Startups are likely to fail without at least some capital. I'm sure there are many unemployed, talented, left-leaning bloggers who have thought about doing this, but aren't well-experienced in how this works.
I'm equally sure there are many who aren't up for doing it, but know a lot about how to do it, and could help out via their experiences.
Also, it tends to help to have a business plan, to know what's possible, to understand demand. Demand can be artificially created, or it can be framed instead as a recognition of a real need. The former can, of course, be disguised as the latter.
Artificial demand is a big part of what's killing our people, not to mention a lot of other species' people.
What are real needs? That needs to be part of this discussion.
Okay, first the obvious stuff: food, clothing, and shelter. They teach you that in grade school here (or else they used to). People still seem to agree on that, except when it's those horrible homeless people who need to be controlled.
What else, in this brave new Internet age? Well, communications. That didn't used to be considered a need, it was just a given. Because we did not have teh Internet.
Next, teh Internet. Definitely a need now.
Or is it?
What if they take it away? They could, you know. They appear to be edging in that direction, a tad.
All the more reason to work on evolving regional economic systems where we do the framing, even if we wind up having to go back to doing it via underground newspapers delivered via carrier unicorn (btw: my dog is very excited about the possibility of being disguised as a carrier unicorn; I asked him. He needs to get out more).
What else do we need? Well, we need to have people with guns and sonic eardrum-bursting devices & stuff not come around and kill us all, should we have the temerity to protest.
That's why we have to reinvent the economy. So we can present an appealing face to those guys running the sonic cannons. Because, you know; they're not going to be the guys in charge. They're just going to be the guys who get stuck out on the street freaking out about what they are being asked to do to their fellow citizens.
Just more people like us, trying to figure it out. Maybe scared people. But not necessarily bad people.
&&&
Okay, so how do we do that? I say we talk a lot more about investing in each other. I love all of you right, left and center, for being so kind about helping other bloggers here who are in need.
But we need to get more proactive here. We need to invest in each other. We need to get a bit more organized about that.
And h/t everybody here who has tried to get this sort of thing started previously...and even now.
And thank you, so much, for helping me to see that there were ways I could work with the world, strange one that I am.
Y'all rock. I'm good for getting to work. But I think we need to have a lot of talking for a bit now. Bad regime change coming.
Love you all,
Miep
Bad Moon Rising (this is an update)