Time to Wake Up

Let's Think Bigger

"Woke" vs "Awake"

Do you drive a car and use other petroleum products when it is known that this is the number one driver of climate collapse?

Do you use plastic?

Do you eat convenience food on a regular basis? Fast food?

Do you "feed the oligarchs" with your buying habits?

Are you basically a consumer--your appointed role in a corporotocracy?

Can you SEE how your role in our capitalist economy--Wage slave and Consumer--is more detrimental to the health of the planet and future of our species than ANY identity politics you may engage in?

This is not about the fairness of our system in other ways. Yes, justice is important. But if we go extinct or are thrown back to the stone age by the Capitalist Ecocide, your race, sex, sexual orientation, gender concerns, and all the rest will be moot.

This is about waking up. The part where we figure out what to do still lays ahead. It will be unfathomably hard to get the boot off our neck. The questions I asked above regarding your spending habits are key. It is the one power we have left--the power to discern when it comes to spending. And to withhold.

But that too is partly a trick. Starting with the transportation question. You most likely still drive a car or ride in someone else's because it is the only way to meet certain needs. It is STRUCTURAL. We keep doing things we know are destructive because the system demands it. A system that was created by, for the convenience of, a small number of very rich families. Oligarchs.

So, being awake is not enough. The structure must change. They, the oligarchs, will never do this voluntarily. That is one of the keys to the 2024 election. Behind all the noise was a simple fear on the part of the oligarchs that a Harris White House would get serious on “the environment”, which at this point means dealing with climate collapse.

The profits of the oligarchs depend on the petrochemical economy. They all derive their wealth from the capitalist ecocide. Installing American fascism and a free hand for oil barons is the last gasp.

And, for now, they won. It is up to us to physically and socially reject the things that make us comfortable. Some of these things can be reworked. Some may have a technological replacement. And some things will just have to revert back to the old, pre-industrial way.

There is a long standing argument about who should change their behavior to "save the planet". We KNOW it is the big transnational corps that are laying waste to the world. But they say we need to buy better lightbulbs and biodegradable straws.

It is all bull shit. It is 100% on them, but stopping them is 100% on us.

But the entire shift is, unfairly, on us, the 8 billion regular citizens of Earth. Ask yourself--what am I willing to live without? How am I willing to change? What can I do differently? I am not talking about straws and lightbulbs. I am talking about going car-free. Building community gardens developed enough to feed a lot of people. You can’t just “grow your own” when the trucks stop coming. You have to prepare for years in advance.

It means learning field medicine and herbal lore. It means re-skilling. I have been obsessed with this for a long time and I don’t have a handle on the magnitude of what will be needed.

This is one of the reasons I don't talk about "woke". I am awake. But still working on a way to deny the machine.

I am starting with questions. When a need arises that involves buying something there are things we can ask: Do I REALLY need this? Can I make it? Can I borrow it? Can I buy it used? If none of these, you may have to buy it. But go deep with your consideration. This, of course, just scratches the surface.

Addendum:
I posted this on Facebook and and was asked the following—
”I do not quite get the Woke vs Awake. Are you trying to say if you are Woke you are not Awake? I look at Woke as being Awake. Awake to the issues that are important to this country and not to brain dead magahats who just voted for a Hitler wannabee.”

So, to clarify—
In common parlance it means the same thing. But in the current usage, it is about context and nuance. Of course, you could be both.

However, you can’t really center both.

“Woke” as it is used now, is primarily an American thing. And this last election is an American problem.

“Awake” as I am using it here, is about the threat to the world, our species, and the entire biosphere posed by the capitalist ecocide.

It goes way beyond what happened here, which is, in itself, a symptom of the larger disease. And that is part of the problem. The left rushes in with the same fervor for every little squeak of the right wing noise machine. Except for taking on the 800 pound gorilla.

Because doing so would mean a commitment to giving up all of OUR modern comforts given us by the petrochemical economy. Our cars, our consumption, our plastic.

And then, actually giving those things up or at least pushing the system as a whole to find another way. No other way will be this comfortable. Life on planet earth cannot be this comfortable for any one species and still have a healthy biosphere.

Not many in the richer classes have the guts to do what must be done. And it has become critical to our continued survival.

Yes, you can keep concentrating on being “woke”. But I will challenge you to think bigger.