The Decisions That Define Us
If you are from an urban area (with a Main St.) in the U.S.A., Europe or anywhere else and have never traveled to less developed regions of your or any other nation, you may not know this. The good health of these "poor" people is undeniable. This is true for people of less "developed" nations around the globe, despite their experiencing some of what we in the modern world might call the harshest living conditions. From the indigenous to the rural, these people survive by their cultural values. Their cultures know the value of community, family and farming. For these values to be successful it takes intelligence, honesty, hard work and discipline. Survival makes these values and qualities necessary. Good health, humility and harmony are just some of the signs of the success in these countries.
What these indigenous relatives of ours are struggling to survive are really the policies imposed on them by the unnatural world of colonial government and its consumer culture. Consider this example. A November 8 report out of Dakar, Senegal details the food shortage crisis facing many West African nations. The crisis is due to the global demand for their food. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization released a bulletin reporting about poor global production of wheat and rice. The worst production losses occurred in the U.S.A., Australia, France and Germany. These grain shortages forced other nations like Argentina and China to restrict their wheat and rice exports or stop exporting these grains completely. Low production, low inventory and higher transportation costs result in higher prices. The price of wheat this year has risen 100 % per bushel over the price in in the last few years. People without currency become people without food, despite abundant production within their region.
The facts have established that under the colonial system of governance, the wealthy economies exploit the weaker economies. Food crises in "less developed nations" are not due solely to a drought or flood in their region. The international policies and agreements favor the money wielding consumer and the armies that back him. For the markets in rich nations to remain viable, the consumer must be wooed to shop or eat there. The consumer is sold on quality, selection and cost. The markets able to secure rice from the Himalayan region and chocolate with the highest percentage of cacao are successful because the consumer has been sold on shopping there. And when inventories of wheat are low, resources from around the world are pulled into the wealthy economies so that stores can remain competitive by offering to consumers 45 selections of bread.
Unfortunately, after we have chosen our loaf of bread, the remaining 44 cannot be returned to those it was meant for. The rest is wasted. Because of this, people are having to survive drought, flood and governments that impose plantation and cash crop farming. This scenario involves the degradation of the environment and its inhabitants. It requires destructive farming techniques and a labor force of indigenous or rural dwelling peoples working all day on a farm. At the end of the day these peoples haven't all they need to survive, as they traditionally would have had from small scale farm production, but they have only a very small amount of money. With this money they can afford to buy some canned food and some local grain.
Another example of these devastating policies is the 2005 food crisis in Niger and the crisis that it forecasts for the upcoming season in Niger and other West African nations. In 2005, a large part of the grain grown in Niger was exported to Nigeria to alleviate a shortage of grain there. It was found, however, that while the unusually large export to Nigeria left people in Niger starving for grain, the grain exported to Nigeria was being used to feed chickens. such reasons and given the forecast for another grain shortage in Nigeria, adequate harvests in other West African nations may not be enough to avert more crises in those nations. Are we too ignorant to perceive that our abundance causes a global imbalance?
Many more destructive actions, legitimized by government policy and financed through our consumer culture, are committed by our agricultural, pharmaceutical and military industries. The actions of these industries have proven destructive. It is the acceptance of these actions that shows that the colonial governments have an interest in, support, and benefit from these industries. These governments facilitate an illusion for the consumer. Politicians are the salesmen, selling the destructive actions of these industries as things necessary to the safety and security of "our way of life". The modern religions that work with these governments reassure us all that these actions are moral? They even assure divine forgiveness for those willing to perpetrate war on other humans.
These crimes against humanity can be witnessed daily around the globe. Homelessness, prison, disease and death are the result of displacement, foreclosure, relocation and poverty that people without colonial resources are subject to. Many people living under a colonial government suppose that poverty proves that the system has failed. It is, perhaps, but not in the direct sense. These colonial systems have intentionally failed to instill proper values in their people, and these systems are doing this all over the world. These institutions are most recently being called "leadership academies".
For the rulers of the colonial system, elimination of values is not a failure but a success. Cultivating humans without values, genius, humility, knowledge, wisdom or understanding is an institutional objective. It is much easier to manipulate the public and facilitate mass movements when most people base their decisions on emotion rather than reason. This is because their logical faculties haven't been developed. And it is the ability to reason logically, assess honestly and act accordingly that each individual must develop in order to overcome the colonial conditioning we have been exposed to.
When we become more self-sufficient and reclaiming the values of our traditional cultures, the corrupting governments and religions that we currently legitimize would become harmless and irrelevant. All it takes are individuals who reject and avoid any excuse for doing evil. For example, if individuals reject excuses, there wouldn't be any wars because warlords could not convince any individual to commit the evil act of killing. Nor could politicians amass armies in their usual attempts to gain power. The undeniable history of war among nations and the complicity of modern religions in condoning war crimes reveal the modern religions to be a tool of the colonial power structure and part of an anti-spiritual movement.
To help us survive the natural world, our ancestors accumulated and preserved the knowledge, wisdom and understanding that humanity has inherited. It is to our traditional cultures and values that we must return in order to survive the unnatural society where many of us find ourselves. The Great Book of Divine Ordinances, the Code of Human Behavior, also called the 77 Commandments, has been preserved by our ancestors for our inheritance. These commandments list the things that we are forbidden to do. It is our best guide in determining what to do, and how to do it. We must simply be sure that whatever we are doing, we are not breaking any commandments.
By aligning ourselves with the principles of the 77 Commandments, we can begin to determine the things we can do in order to sustain ourselves and live our lives. The saying goes, "it is the things that we will not do that define us". Our traditional cultures are what have enshrined the things we should and should not do. These cultures and values were to be passed down from our ancestors to us ensuring our survival and their rebirth back into the same culture and values. This cycle has been stopped, with generation after generation being exploited for the benefit of none.
We must restart the natural cycle. To do so we must work from where we are today, and with the resources we have. Most importantly, the path that we take back home will be a part of our history. The foundation that we lay for building the home of our future generations must have the 77 Commandments as its cornerstone. To adhere to the principles of good at all costs, no matter the adversity, will ensure a history that shines as an example for future generations and dictates that there is never a good reason for doing evil. It is time to find our way home and begin rebuilding our culture.