Our Greatest Challenge: Asserting the Power of Non ComplianceJulian Rose Before you deny this, read on I am going to show you how each one of us is ensuring the survival of the corrupted banking system; the skewed taxation model; the globalized corporate food regime; agrichemical dependent food production; our centralized power supply and the machinations of war. There are plenty more of course e.g. pharmaceuticals, communication systems and government itself the list goes on and on but this should do to get things going. Banking: If you still have any money deposited in the mainstream banking system, that money is being invested into whatever commercial, military or government scheme offers the best returns to the bank with some of the interest residue coming on to you. So unless its an ethical bank with strict rules that disallow investment into the instruments of ecocide and war, you can be sure that, at any time, your money will be funneled-off into the weapons trade; nuclear power production plants; RD into the genetic modification of the food chain; big pharma medicines; mass highway construction; large-scale fossil fuel extraction as well as directly into the pockets of the banks themselves! In fact, we now know that institutions like the International Monetary Fund, The Federal Reserve the World Bank and the European Central Bank, lend/loan (electronic) money to other nations then collect the interest owing on these loans from respective national governments that acquire this revenue by taxing their work force/citizens. In effect, we are thus paying our taxes straight into the coffers of the vast banking institutions whose objective it is to stage a total takeover of the planet. So you see, it is we the people who make it possible for the banking system to continue its nefarious destruction of our fragile planet. Its not even going into the necessary maintenance of the basic infrastructure. That is being done by a mix of private businesses and big consortiums answering to the new owners of various strands of the infrastructural web be it the railways, water or roads. No, our money is going into the bulging pockets of those who, in turn, use it to influence governments to push through policies that directly benefit their hegemonic goals. Not only this, but also to ensure the maintenance of banking tax havens, mass laundering and stashing of vast hoards of our money for whatever luxury lifestyles grinning chief executives might fancy for themselves. So, unless and until we start refusing to pay such taxes or any one element of them we are quite simply turning a blind eye on our governments collusion with the banking despots. We are quite literally funding that which we are most opposed to. Next up: the supermarket. Dazzled by the illusion of choice millions of really quite intelligent individuals make their weekly pilgrimage to their nearest supermarket/hypermarket; yet this institution is the single most culpable commercial tool for the global destruction of our natural environment and essential foods. Why? Because in the relentless drive for higher profits, supermarkets force farmers into producing food at the absolute lowest possible costs. By demanding large volumes of regimentally uniform produce with no blemishes or non-standard shapes, the supermarket chiefs force farmers into slavery to agrichemical corporations, genetic engineering monsters and vast machinery conglomerates that pretty much guarantee the mass-produced conformity that is demanded by the big chain stores. Even organic farms fall fowl of this regime (but without the use of agrichemicals and pesticides) once they commit to supply supermarket chains. Our Food:The technical and financial methodology involved in mass produced food production has ensured that vast swathes of this planet have been reduced to sterile, chemical dependent monocultures where edible plants only grow because of the increasingly large doses of synthetic nitrogen which are applied to what remains of the the soils in which they are planted. Weakened by excessive hybridisation, plants and seeds are prevented from succumbing to diseases by the application of millions of litres of synthetic pesticides and fungicides that destroy the living microbiology of the soil, and, by so doing, set off a chain of destruction which reaches all the way up the food chain to us human beings. The animal kingdom is directly caught-up in the maelstrom. Cattle, pig and chicken concentration camps supply 90% of all meat, eggs and milk in the West. Their feed comprises mostly GM soya and maize. Here animals are routinely stressed beyond any kind of acceptable humane standards and antibiotics are used routinely to stave off early disease and death. That, my friends, is the end result of giving your custom to the supermarket. By worshipping at the golden calf of globalized commercial convenience you are culpable of laying waste to the natural genetic diversity of the planet; the lives of millions of farm animals and of once-proud independent farmers as well as the foundations of your own physical health. You are quite literally sawing further into the branch you are sitting on each time you present your plastic card to the cashier at the supermarket till. And, as with all our actions, they have their affect all the way back down the chain. Only by withdrawing our support from the killing fields can we bring about an end to the killing. No withdrawal equals no change. Shop in local independent stores that stock environmentally friendly local and regional foods. Go to farmers markets. Get hooked onto a box scheme. Go direct to the grower. Do whatever you need to do to support those who deserve your custom and not those who dont. Best of all grow your own! Power supplies:Your energy supplier relies upon you paying your quarterly bill. While you may, in your deeper self, feel distinctly ill at ease paying for electricity being generated by uranium, oil and gas extraction methods that are mostly grossly polluting and reliant upon vast corporate investments whose financial returns come in billion dollar profits, its still not enough to make most people stop to consider the alternatives. Water, unfortunately, comes under the same category, as most water companies in the West are now privatized. The owner of my water supplier in the UK is currently an Australian outfit. Even when Big Green solutions are found, they remain mostly in the hands of irresponsible corporations headed by faceless profiteers. We cannot go on giving away our money to these charlatans and retain a clear conscience once we know what is going on. We must find a way to cease our largely mindless bill paying and support for that which is at fundamental odds with a rejuvinative and caring approach to life. Here we can follow the same ethos as that suggested for food: look for human scale, responsible renewable energy producers and/or use local wood sources to fuel your boiler and cooker. Lastly, war: The war in Afghanistan, alone, has already cost British taxpayers 37 billion pounds 2,000 pounds for every UK household. God knows what US taxpayers have forked-out. When will we realize that, once again, it is we who footed this bill. How much did we contribute to the bloody dislocation of limbs, emaciated corpses and newborn children sickened and laid low by a blitz of uranium depleted shells that rained down indiscriminately on everyone deemed to be a potential security threat. A threat to the security of who? Those who we pay to decide the fate of others? Too shocking to contemplate, isnt it. Yet it is we who pay for the politicians who murder the children, mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters by mistake while sitting back in their leather upholstered chairs of State, wearing the masque of assumed gravity so as to fool the public into perceiving just how deeply they feel the weight of their decisions.. So it is that we are faced by a profoundly meaningful challenge, our greatest challenge of this moment: rise-up together in acts of deliberate humanitarian non-compliance or live with the daily realisation that we are knowingly contributing to the continuation of the dark sides apocalyptic agenda. It would no doubt seem too daunting, at least for most, to withdraw our support, in one go, from all aspects of the strategically mined highway which we are being led down. But each one of us can tackle at least one or two of the issues I have raised here. That will already contribute to initiating a major expression of people power in action! Then, if a bunch of us got together and decided to withhold say 20% of our taxes as a statement of refusal to contribute to the ever-threatening war machine we could be at the forefront of a really significant strike for freedom, truth and justice. We the people are coming of age. We recognize that actions speak louder than words and that actions are an indispensable prerequisite to the change we long for. I, for one, cannot live the lie once having tasted the truth. Acting on ones own is a lonely path to tread, and one that carries a minimum chance of success. But acting together is joyous, life affirming and infectious. This gives it an especially good chance of real success. That, dear brothers and sisters, is what we came here to do. So, shall we be joined together in changing the course of this World? Or will we allow cynicism, laziness and fear to stand in the way of taking control of our destinies and the greater destiny of our planet? RELATED ACTIVIST POST ARTICLE: Julian is an early pioneer of UK organic farming, an international activist and writer: www.changingcourseforlife.info linkwithin_text=Related Articles: 