The North American youth are vigorously occupying across North America for reasons popular media doesn’t address. Instead, they appear to be villianizing their movement.
My name is Mike Bhangu and I wrote the book Popular Ideas Broken and Rebuilt (available at Country Bug Books and Gifts) before the North American Occupation Movement. Ironically enough, the book explains why the Occupation Movement is taking place – beyond the propaganda pushed by big media. In the book, I challenge what the youth are now challenging. They challenge the type of built world developed nations have created; however, I would like to make it clear that the many advances, innovations, occupations, organizational methods, means of acquiring the resources needed and the infrastructure/methods of distribution are all wonderful. Civilizations have never been as sophisticated and as advanced.
Furthermore, developed nations have reached a point in their civil evolution where they’re able to educate and easily provide the basics each human condition requires to live. As such, we (the youth and I) do not challenge the advancements the human race has made but we challenge the manner in which the ideas and the creations today shorten the chains when they should’ve applied stress. Examples of the types of ideas I challenge along with the youth are:
1. I challenge the contemporary kings and queens because they concentrate capital and thicken the chains. We assume that the CEOs, the shareholders and those of old-money will show benevolence, but the truth is absolute power corrupts and their motivations are fuelled by a want for more money, resources, power and influence; their motivations are fuelled by greed and the nature of greed prevents the greedy from distributing. That type of nature can never be left unregulated. It’s like allowing a T-Rex to wander New York City on an empty stomach.
2. I challenge governments that don’t regulate the contemporary kings and queens and I challenge them because they’re the only ones able to keep greed in check. The reality is that big business is indirectly in control:
a) They control through financial contributions to politicians and political parties.
b) They control by conditioning the voter to harbour specific beliefs.
c) They control by spending millions lobbying their agenda in an attempt to influence public policy.
d) And they control by threatening to pull capital out of the country.
3. I challenge the ideology that pumps like blood through the veins of the infrastructure – greed. I challenge greed because it kills the better parts of me and forces the person to struggle to breathe. Not only that, greed leads to abominations like a dominant selfish condition, poverty, suffering, war and shortcuts like a genetically modified food supply. In the case of a genetically modified food supply, the fact of the matter is we don’t know the long-term effects that type of food will have on the human condition, and the only reason our food supply is juiced-up with chemicals, antibiotics, viruses, bacteria and so on, is because the producers of our food supply are in search of more profit.
4. I challenge the creators and the promoters of the consumer culture. I challenge because their intentions weren’t and aren’t benevolent and their creation corrupts the moral collective intelligence of every culture that comes into contact with it. Understand that the idea of consumerism was created and it isn’t perpetuated to free people from the hardships of life. Consumerism exists to increase profit and to make the rich richer regardless of consequences.
5. I challenge the popular values conditioned because the popular values only love the selfish within and the agents that constitute the selfish harbour the potential for a person to hurt another. In addition, the popular value configurations pushed by the machine suppress the collective agents and as a consequence, earth is separate from the heavens.
6. I challenge the media conglomerates because at times they undermine democracy and sometimes mislead. Ted Turner, the founder of CNN, is quoted as saying, “media concentration is a frightening thing… (for example) you have two of the four major networks owned by people that have huge investments in nuclear power and nuclear weapons – Both GE and Westinghouse. What kinds of balanced story are they going to give you on the news about the nuclear issues?”
7. I challenge a 40 year mortgage because my life is worth more than a house on half an acre. I’m willing to give 10 and maybe then I’ll have enough youth left to develop my human condition to become the ideal person and to experience the one life and the one world.
8. I challenge the eight hours, the five days and the before and the after extorted by the built world. In total, more than eight hours a day are given to a pay-cheque to pay-cheque existence – an hour or two before work prepping for work and getting to work, and an hour or two after work getting home from work and prepping for the upcoming work day. By the time the mind is free of its occupation the mind is too tired to develop the other aspects of the human condition.
In relation, you would think that those who do give more than eight hours of their day would be able to escape a pay-cheque to pay-cheque existence. However, most are unable to break through Maslow’s lower levels.
9. I challenge the ideology that destroys our First Mother. I challenge that ideology because the destruction of the planet and atmosphere only destroys the human condition. From where I stand, natural resources should be controlled by an entity that doesn’t plunder but protects our First Mother, and private interests should be governed so to prevent them from creating products, industries and machinery that damage. In the end, if the CEOs and the shareholders had protected the planet there would be no hole in the ozone, no disappeared rainforests and no melting glaciers.
10. I challenge governments that don’t protect our First Mother and governments that allow big business to pollute and plunder. Government is the entity only with the ability to keep the plunderers and the producers of the polluting agents in check, and if rainforests are disappearing and glaciers are melting, well, I guess government failed in its obligation. It’s as simple as that because the solution is a simple one – regulate the producers and the plunderers.
The youth and I challenge but we do not challenge the whole and we do not challenge it all because there are good parts to the machine and the machine does have the potential to benefit all. We’re just attempting to communicate that the machine isn’t yet perfect and all we wish to do is fine tune it a bit. Tell me, what’s wrong with that?
Mike Bhangu is a local author.
