Greeks Return to the Land
Those who read Bad News, and Good News, for Greece, It’s Time to Re-Ruralise and Greeks Reclaim the Land to Ease the Pain of Economic Austerity will want to follow up with this encouraging video.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=WatDQ2Mxnfw
For the last several decades, modern society has been shaped by Big Business with a very narrow focus combined with an ill-thought-through economic system. The wonderfully ironic aspect of this is that in industry’s quest for ‘more’ — at any cost, and with little regard for medium- to long-term interests for people and place — it becomes increasingly unpleasant and/or impossible for the average guy on the street to endure the resulting circumstances. Hardships are piling up onto hardships — causing, or forcing, many of us to reevaluate what we want out of life.
The people of Greece know this more than many. With their economy grinding to a virtual standstill (today 56% of people below 25 years old are unemployed and the national total unemployment rate is now 26%), people are looking at ‘opportunities’ in a whole other light. They are effectively being squeezed into rejecting the system that has us in the vice. And, as we extricate ourselves from this very uncomfortable position and return to our roots, our very activities are a subversively positive blow to the shrinking power of Big Industry tied to Big Government.
For those of us whose countries have yet to spiral into economic collapse, we would do well to get ahead of the curve, and make our own start toward resiliency — before we are forced to do so. With enough of us making preparations we could significantly soften the landing as we repel down the slippery slope of the peak oil precipice.
An encouraging video indeed Craig, and who better to present it than Philip Williams, Australia’s ABC News correspondent in Europe. Seen almost daily on TV here, due to all that is going on over there in recent years. I recognised his voice immediately even from the initial long shot on the beach.
I spoke some time ago with a Greek family I know, who live in Australia and make an annual holiday trip back to their country of origin. They were surprisingly uncomplimentary and critical about the Greek population in general but I came to realise that their thoughts could also be applied to people of developed nations everywhere. We have all, generally speaking, become more or less dependent on government and have allowed our expectations to be shaped unwisely over, as you say, the last several decades. I would say that the major turning point in that process was somewhere in the ’80s though I cannot pin it down to a particular event, and I think the roots go back to the post-war years of the ’40s and ’50s.
It is encouraging whenever we see people working outside the system, going back to the land and bucking the trend. I particularly noted the comment by one of the people interviewed, who said something like “We can expect nothing from the government. They have proven for years how useless they are. We have to do things for ourselves”. That is a state of enlightenment that has to be achieved by individuals everywhere. The sad thing is that every year that passes there are fewer and fewer people remaining who can remember how things were before all this started and practical knowledge has to be passed on, or lost.