by Joe Bigley

All life forms on this planet are currently in danger of extinction. The majority of the extinctions that have taken place thus far happened after our species took over the planet.

It is true that we are the most intelligent species that ever walked on Earth. Unfortunately, we are also the most destructive. If we don’t wake up and act quickly and collectively, our planet will be barren like Mars before the end of this century. You don’t have to take my word for it. There is plenty of scientific research that validates my statement.

There are two questions we should be asking ourselves: How did this happen and what can we do to change it?

All life forms are focused on survival, including humans. There are essentially two approaches to survival. One is competition and the other is cooperation. The paradigm that best describes competition is survival of the fittest. The paradigm that best describes cooperation is Love. Love is oneness realized. When we realize that we are “All One,” we will cooperate with one another. Cooperation ensures survival. Competition ensures extinction.

When the cells of our body compete, we have a deadly disease called cancer. Likewise, the competitive behavior of the human race is genocidal cancer. It is time that we as a race come together and organize like the cells of our body and save the planet.

The human race has been waging war since we invented bows and arrows. In 1945, America dropped two atom bombs on two heavily populated cities in Japan. The death toll of innocent people was horrific. It ended the Second World War, but it didn’t stop wars. We are bombing innocent people of all ages to this day. Why? Because we want to control the natural resources of the planet. We are fracturing the lithosphere and poisoning three essentials of life: air water, and food.

In 1961, John F. Kennedy was elected president. I was ecstatic that he won. But, I was stunned by the outgoing president’s farewell address. Ike warned us about the “Military Industrial Complex.” He wanted to say “Military Industrial Congressional Complex,” but he was forced to remove the word “Congressional” as it would have warned us that our government had been purchased by this Complex. JFK was assassinated a couple of years later and then Vietnam burst into a bloody, prolonged war. The wars continue to this day. Controlling the world’s oil is the main reason.

This Complex owns the Federal Reserve, all major banks, big industry, the military, and Congress. I believe that this Complex is “Big Brother” from Orwell’s novel 1984. In 2016, Big Brother rigged the elections. It wasn’t the first time, but it was the most obvious.

The 45th president is a White Supremacist who believes women are play toys. From all indications, Trump is a a sociopathic liar and a puppet of Big Brother. His cabinet is composed of oil and big bank billionaires.

As of this writing, Trump signed a bill making resistance to pipelines illegal. What happened to freedom of speech? Are we currently in a a Neo-Nazi Empire? Where do we go from here?

We must build a cooperative system and take back our Democracy. We can do it in spite of Big Brother.

During the World War II era, Spain became a dictatorship under Franco. These were frightening times for Spain’s citizens. But a brave Catholic priest in Mondragon, a small town in northern Spain, formed a cooperative system at the community level. This enabled people to come together in member-owned cooperatives that controlled education, local government, and production of goods and services. They not only survived the dictatorship, they are still flourishing today.

It is time for us to wake up and come together as a cooperative system as well. We can emulate the Mondragon cooperative system here in Taos as well as in our state and across the nation.

In Mondragon they had cooperative member-owned banks.We can take our money out of big banks and transfer it to member-owned credit unions. If necessary, we can create our own monetary system.

Remember, money is an illusion. We created it because it was a more efficient means of exchange than barter.

Of course, all of this will require more research.

I will expand on these topics and more in future articles. In the meantime, we the people must cooperatively and peacefully oppose corporate tyranny now!

Joe Bigley is a member of the Green Party of Taos County.