The world, of which we are a part, is a dynamic, living thing, its circulating magma, drifting plates dynamic atmosphere and seas are organs of a living entity. Our position in relation to our star and our rich composition render Earth a Petri dish, or more accurately, a great Uterus, giving birth to life itself in all it's myriad and adapting forms. Very few single life forms can exist on their own and most are dependent on many others just to exist. Life on our small world is symbiosis, each form continuing to exist or dying out based on symbiotic balance and made possible by planetary forces and conditions we are only beginning to understand.
Countries and Nation States are very recent inventions of a particular species of territorial mammal which are us. In the relatively short time "nations" as we know them have existed, the results have been barbaric spreads of violence, mass murder and brutal subjugations. We call these "conquests" and "slavery" and they have lead to cycles of tyranny, resentments, resistance and more wars with designated "borders" ever changing. Our world is littered with the mass graves and broken ruins that define our history.
As we clever hominids learned to alter the elemental makeup of the world, we developed technology -- often at the expense of poisoning and despoliation, like a disease harming the larger body on which our existence depends. Our wars and our technology can no longer be separated from destructive harm to our great mother or to the symbiotic balance upon which life depends. We've even created and continue to stockpile weapons designed to end life on our world. We seem trapped in our cycle of destructive behavior driven by continuing resentments, outdated territorialisms, prejudices and fears. We are led by those who hoard the most of what we produce, who project power -- the Alphas among us who are revered and feared for possessing the most destructive potential. We have developed a system of planetary destruction which oppresses most of us just for food and shelter in orer to further enrich a very few. Such a system a system based on competitive growth in a world of finite resources is the basis of continuing wars for resource hegemony ignoring and destroying in the process the greatest resource of all -- life itself.
And we celebrate this. We wave various symbols and flags for which many would kill and die. We beat our chests with pride and revere our founding alphas even as we are divided and despise each other like soccer fans or turf-conscious gangs as our mutual air, water and food are poisoned, our personal resources always stressed and the fellow creatures on which we depend die off.
Is there a way out of this? Is it too late? I don't know but I believe it must begin by changing our basic concepts. Rejecting widely accepted concepts basic to existing power structures has always been considered blasphemy -- and I am a proud blasphemer rejecting bronze age mysticism, nationalism and hierarchical power based on greed or delusions of control. I understand that such basic concepts, destructive or constructive, are based in and fed by culture. Culture defines how we see the world and ourselves in it. It defines how we see and treat others. This is why I write and why I have published a literary journal the Blue Collar Review for over 27 years as a way of overcoing cultivated divsion and effecting cultural transformation. Those in power too understand culture and do everything they can to divide and manipulate us in order to maintain their dominance.
If we are to make the changes necessary for our survival, we have to understand and overcome our primary obstacle -- the rule of ecocidal corporate interests and their power over governments. Only then will we be able to bring our ways of living back into balance with our geophysical reality and the requirements of our living world, replacing endless growth with rational de-growth. Replacing Toxic nationalisms with healthy internationalism, replacing competitive oligarchy with cooperative bottom up democracy which nourishes us, rather than destroyng the living world of which we are a part.
We must reject blind loyalty to political systems and parties. We must reject the concept of nation states, recognizing them as an obsolete obstacle to needed global community. We need to reject technologies that threatens all life. We must replace loyalty to tribe and nation with love and loyalty to our Earth mother, to each other, and to restoring and protecting the symbiotic balance of all life, of which we are mutually dependent part. Thus, rejecting "patriotism," I am a Matriot and hope you recognize that you are as well, or will join in that identification as part of one big Earth family -- not just we humans, but encompassing all living things in our symbiotic biosphere for our mutual health and preservation. Together we need to build a Matriot Movement which must be a catalyst for needed change, a moment of evolution where our species can come of age and become truly civilized.
Patriotism is the ego-centric, hyper-national alliegacne to competitive destruction and death. Matriotism is the worship and loyalty to earth and to life.
