My aim is to raise enough funds so that I can put aside a good deal of time from my various other time-consuming projects so that I can focus exclusively on the book and get the first edition done as soon as possible. But this requires actual funds, and I am far from having anything close to the amount necessary to dedicate meaningful time to this project. I hate asking for money, but I have come to terms with being an intellectual prostitute for the time being. However, I would rather prostitute my mind for the benefit of the wider public – and most especially the youth of the current “lost generation” to which I belong – as opposed to whoring my mind and efforts out to some various institution. At this point, however, I am essentially unemployable in almost every field, and so my options are rather limited. But I think that through my work, I can help others see that as a species, we do have other options, but that requires us to come to a common understanding, and to engage in common action. We cannot change the world, or steer humanity off the course of seemingly-inevitable extinction, alone. We need each other.I agree. Everyone who is concerned about the growing use of violence and debt to bring all the people of the world under the domination of the One Percent must now choose essentially one of two courses: 1) join together with all the other activists of the world's 99 Percent in efforts to free ourselves from the evolving nightmare of existence and create a new world which will permit people to live in dignity and harmony with one another and nature; or 2) just keep going along with the existing systems of power out of habit, or because you think it is the easiest way to live, and watch the current problems of wars, unemployment, debt slavery, a growing police state, and climate catastrophes continue to worsen.
I'm not interested in those people who choose option 2, but I am for those who choose option 1. It is now time--hopefully, it isn't too late--to seriously act on what we need to do to affirm this option: because to choose this option means to commit to action! We, who identify ourselves as the 99 Percent, must now come together to save ourselves, to create conditions in which our labor serves our needs, to create institutions that we control and that enable us to decide what our labor is used for and the very conditions of our labor.
A good place to start is to support people who, at great sacrifice to their material lives, have worked for us, and want to continue to work for us, instead of corporate executives, corporate boards of directors and their stockholders who are responsible for the growing nightmarish world. Andrew Gavin Marshall is one of the best such people. If we can't support him, then we have in effect chosen option 2.
There have been a lot of debates about the character of human nature. This next period of our history--hopefully, it will not be the last--will provide an excellent opportunity to test human nature to find out what it really consists of. I'm reminded of Tom Paine's words in one of his stirring pamphlets called "The Crisis" published in December 1776 in which he wrote:
THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.Only now we do not merely live in a country, but in the world. And, of course, we are now much more aware that it was never "our country", but a country that was mostly owned and, even more so, controlled by a small minority of landowners like Washington, Hamilton, and Adams. Now we see a world that is mostly owned and controlled by their descendants. the class of people known nowadays as the One Percent.
We must not be deceived any longer. We, ordinary people, who call ourselves the 99 Percent, must decide that we no longer will tolerate the rule by a small minority because they have brought nothing but hellish scenes of terrorism, poverty, wars, unemployment, debt slavery, and environmental degradation upon the world. These are, indeed, "times that try men's souls" and I fear that "the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from "acting to save ourselves and our planet Earth which sustains our lives. We must decide that this dreadful rule of the One Percent is over, and that we are willing to do whatever it takes to end that rule.
One such action is to support the research and writings of Andrew Gavin Marshall.
