Since Free Traders believe that America should lower its standard of living to help the third world

[Catherina]

43. Fully understood

My real eyeopener came from living in a much simpler place.

Those big bags of groceries we haul are part of the problem too. Do we really need to haul that much food back? I did it too so I'm not slamming you and hope nothing in my post comes across that way.

How much food do we really need to haul back? When I first moved down here, I was hiring a driver to go down to the city and stock up on stuff I thought I needed at Costco. After a few months I realized, all I had to do was go local, walk to the very next corner and buy small things like a bag of rice, a chicken breast, maybe a few veggies and some avocados for amazing dinners.

We can't really do that in the states. You can barely walk anywhere because there are so many cars.

If I were God for just one day, I'd change back the whole layout corporations destroyed so people could have the time again.

I shouldn't have said weaving your own clothes because that's more of a communal activity and not everyone does it. Plus, down here you weave a few beautiful pieces and you can wear them for life.

Washing your own clothes? You'd be shocked at how little time it really takes but you need the setup. This is a very basic, uncovered one where people use one side to wash clothes and the other to wash dishes. The middle is always full of clean water.



If you don't have one in your own house, you walk a few blocks to a public pila



and really enjoy yourself catching up on the latest gossip, discussing politics, movies, whatever you want to.


But the landscape is totally different. Banks and corporations don't own all the land and then make you sell your soul to the devil to pay it off. And corporations haven't managed to own the landscape yet.

We're in a pickle in the states. Even co-op buying has its problems because we're still wasting huge resources trucking in chicken and eggs from a few central locations when chickens are the easiest thing to raise in a small yard.

I think we let corporations complicate our lives so much that we don't even realize the quality of life they stole from us until we see it elsewhere.

I like your posts, I like where you're headed. I hope I don't look like a jerk for being such a luddite. It was my concern over energy and waste that changed me to this. It all went from Why? to Why not?

It's a slippery slope once you start thinking too much.