Friday, March 17, 2017

Not Divided, But Isolated

© Wired.com

We keep talking about how the U.S. is "divided," meaning along religious, racial, ethnic, lifestyle, gender, and other traditional lines. This is largely fiction, and meant to distract us while powerful people and corporations work at deregulation, and dismantling the public foundations we need to engage one another.

Take the proposed elimination of funding for Meals on Wheels, for example. This is a vital program for maintaining not only the nutritional health of the elderly, but their mental and emotional health as well when they greet the person bringing them dinner. This is in fact the news that prompted this post. As many have pointed out, Meals on Wheels is often the only social contact a homebound elderly person has each day, even if they are able to secure food by other means.

We are told by our leaders that we should not trust our neighbors, let alone "foreigners," or those with a different lifestyle. This constant drumbeat of distrust is intended to further divide us, right down to family-level relationships. A splintered electorate can achieve no consensus, allowing powerful individuals and industries to have their way. Government and industry have always had an unholy alliance, each one reinforcing the other until some catastrophe or social movement intervenes. Now, having successfully convinced the electorate that it is hopelessly divided, those in power have little organized opposition to reducing government programs that have helped to unite us until now.

Furthermore, we choose to isolate ourselves with our earbuds, cell phones, and other personal electronics instead of conversing on the daily bus, train, or subway commute, or during the lunch (half) hour. We "Netflix and chill." It's chilling alright. This is exactly what an unregulated economy wants: Nobody talking to each other. If you are isolated you don't learn, you don't do anything but consume; and you consume as a person who no longer understands their rights as a consumer because you are getting input only from the marketplace.

By "products and services" I also mean media. I am experiencing radio silence from many friends in the wake of the executive orders and other actions of our newly-elected President. Why, if they support our Chief, are they not answering for some of his choices? Why are they not speaking to bills before Congress that will undermine our nation's stability and health? Then it dawned on me: they probably aren't plugged into the same media outlets that I am. This is not good. Media is now fostering the very division of our electorate that in the next breath it is lamenting.

The marketplace promotes this isolationism as catering to the individual. It takes your preferences, which it learns from social media, data collected at the grocery checkout, and an infinite number of other sources, and creates "opportunities" for you to get more of the same. You are treated as nothing but a consumer.

Who needs a Department of Education when all industry wants is consumers and, maybe, robotic personalities to staff....whatever jobs have not yet been automated? Unquestioning servitude is what corporations want on the production side; and unquestioning brand loyalty in the marketplace. Who needs the Environmental Protection Agency, either, when deregulation means cheaper energy and allows for the privatization of water?

There are signs of hope, especially encouraging because they are largely grassroot initiatives. I don't mean the women's march, or the upcoming march for science. No, I am talking about utility co-ops offering innovative and cost-effective energy options. I am speaking of local farmers markets and community gardens springing up to answer questions of food security in "food deserts." Food trucks are feeding people on every corner. Credit unions are prospering.

The greatest thing about local economies, of course, is that you can't help but meet your neighbors, and discover that you have more in common than you imagined. The hardest part of participating is just getting off the couch, out from behind your tablet or laptop, and unplugged from your ear buds. Let's do this. We can't wait for anybody else, least of all an elected official.

2 comments:

  1. I confer on all points. Interesting that the several million spent on trumps weekly golfing trip to Florida cost just about as much as the money he cut from the Meals on Wheels program.

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