Phil Rockstroh: A Journey to the End of Empire

[marmar]

from Consortium News:



A Journey to the End of Empire
February 1, 2012

At a time when the planet needs people to come together and confront crises – from global warming to worsening poverty – the trendy ideology is an aggressive neoliberalism that seeks to impose a deregulated “free market” on the world, just the approach that is sure to bring disaster, Phil Rockstroh observes.

By Phil Rockstroh


There is no reality-based argument denying this: The present system, as defined by the neoliberal economic order, is as destructive to the balance of nature as it is to the individual, both body and psyche. One’s body grows obese while Arctic ice and wetlands shrink. Biodiversity decreases as psyches are commodified by ever-proliferating, corporatist/consumer state banality.

But the raging soul of the world will not be assaulted without consequence. Mind and body are intertwined and inseparable from nature, and, when nature responds to our assaults, her replies are known to humankind as the stuff of mythic tragedy and natural catastrophe.

“When the poet lives his hell, it is no longer possible for the common man to escape it.”— Excerpt from, The Time of the Assassins, a study of Rimbaud, by Henry Miller

But take heart. As the saying goes, it is always darkest right before it goes completely black. Rejoice in this: Seeds of futurity require the darkness within soil to dream. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://consortiumnews.com/2012/02/01/a-journey-to-the-end-of-empire/