Readers of this blog who also follow some of us on Facebook know that we are avid hikers. I am lucky enough to live in a truly beautiful part of the world, an urban area with lots of wide open space and trails. The amazing beauty in this short clip is not going to last forever. In
fact it will not survive the market onslaught and destruction that the
capitalist mode of production has waged on it for a few centuries and
continues to wage on it with ferocious abandon.
Capitalism will destroy life as we
know it on this planet if it not
overthrown and replaced by a democratic socialist world, a global
federation of states, economies producing on the basis of social need
and not profit, cooperation not competition. We have children because we believe in the
future. But there is no future with capitalism. It means then, that we
must dedicate out lives to changing it, for our children and grandchildren. This is Briones Regional Park, a public space on the east side of the San Francisco Bay. I found this beautiful butterfly on my hike, it was reluctant to fly for whatever reason. What beauty it is and we should fight vigorously to protect it and humanity from the savagery of the market.
Along with the beauty and pleasure of the natural world and ordinary working class people's access to to it, there is the human side of it. Our relations with each other and with all animals. Humor is so important to us as well. One has to possess a sense of humor to be a revolutionary. And we all know that humor keeps us afloat in the world of work where our life activity is bought and used by others. "The time during which a laborer works...." wrote Marx,"....is the time during which the capitalist consumes the labor power he has purchased from him.". I am retired thanks to working in the public sector and having a union. Reducing the hours of work and lowering the retirement age are important and necessary demands in any struggle workers engage in. Here's a short clip for dog lovers. Dog's need psychoanalysis too as capitalism is rough on them as well. We have included a Latino Dog, a Mexican to be exact who is not too keen on an Irishman singing songs to him, a ferocious canine indeed.
We want to protect our environment, the natural world in which we live. The environmental crisis is perhaps the most serious issue facing the human species today. So we are serious about this. But being serious about changing society doesn't mean we have to be humorless.
2 comments:
One reason you don't see a lot of butterflies of this type (or any, for that matter) is that the horticulture industry does not promote the cultivation of their host and food plants. Your butterfly is a pipevine swallowtail, whose host plant is the Dutchman's pipevine, a plant you will find only in specialized native plant nurseries or in some of the few wild places we have left. You can sometimes find them in my Berkeley flatlands neighborhood, where some of us are fortunate enough to have gardens and are growing the host plant.
Marsha, thank you so much for this comment and helping to identify that beautiful butterfly. I had never seen one. It was alive but would not fly. I will look for the host plant. That one was up in Briones. It's funny here in California talking about "few wild places" compared to the UK or most of Europe California has lots of wild places. I will put your comment on the blogs Facebook page in response to the post as well.
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