13 Aspects of a Paragraph

Thirteen aspects of a paragraph that touched me.

When I become too theoretical, when I ask with too much vehemence why people work jobs they hate,

why so many earn their living by deforesting, or mining, or working other destructive jobs, my friend reminds me:

"Sixty days", he says. "That’s how long it takes before people in the civilized world begin to die of starvation.

Dave can’t quit his job because in sixty days his children will die.

That's the primary reason most of us do not rebel. We have too much to lose".

Ours is a politics, economics and religion of occupation, not of inhabitation,

and as such the methods by which we are formed and governed have no legitimacy

save that sprouting from the end of a cannon, from a can of pepper spray, from the rapist's penis,

from the travesty of modern education, from the instilled dread of a distant hell and the false promise of a future techtopia, from the chains that bind children to beds and looms and from the everyday fear of starvation

-- as well as an internalized notion of what constitutes social success or failure --

that binds us to wage slavery.

The responsibility for holding destructive institutions, systems and culture accountable falls on each of us.

We are the governors of this prison as well as the governed...

Derrick Jensen, A Language Older Than Words

Endgame

Thursday Thirteen is an activity where online participants have an opportunity to get to know each other by presenting their interests within a structure of 13 items.