BANANA!

If Money were a banana, we'd be stripping the ligaments out of the peel with our teeth a trillion-trillion times over, all the while convincing ourselves we actually taste banana. 

Why? Because the banana isn't real, given to us with only enough tangibility to naw on and pass around. It keeps us occupied. With the pieces of banana peel to fight over individually, the poor and lower to middle classes rarely look past the peel to see anything, or question anything- afterall, they got a piece of the peel and that means they can taste banana! So, they never see that there is no banana, only a peel to strip into strings that can be woven into intricate nets of distraction... 

Scarcity. Poverty. War. Fashion. Social Technology. And so much more, we're literally conditioned from birth to follow the money before we even understand why. Most never think to ask, and so the Money Madness sets in. It starts with the shiny's we see from the carrier fixed in the baby seat on the front of the grocery cart while Mommy and/or Daddy try to stay in budget; graduates into anything we can touch on the lower shelves when we're big enough to toddle along side it while the parent(s) still budget, and eventually grows into demanding (or if the parent is lucky, asking for) another trip to the ATM for that money we're told we don't have; all before we've even hit double digits in age. This caged reality, Money's Madness Menagerie built from the diaper up, is the Truman Show no one watches because they're all living it. Buying and dying by the peel, always dreaming of the banana -from baby carriage to budgeting Worker and/or Parent.

Money runs our education system, is it any wonder it keeps going in directions that make our heads spin? Propaganda in the pages of textbooks written by corporations, select educators, and approved by local governments. Assessments dictating dollars well before anyone considers the children, while Teachers struggle with regulations, mandatory curriculum, and the children's strife in standardized testing and psuedo-food in the cafeteria? Nevermind the push for higher education that's been reduced to making money off the would-be educated long after they've achieved their degree in (we don't care as long as they have it)? Where's the voice of reason? 

Too busy fighting over the peel, dreaming of the banana.

Money runs our medical care system, is it any wonder there's more news on illness awareness and preventative medicine than the natural cures or true preventative actions? Why some plants are illegal but their synthetic, patented, pharmaceutically produced counter parts are flooded into human consumption alongside a laundry list of side-effects we can likewise be prescribe a treatment for? Why Healthcare facilities that make money decisions are better off, while those that make people decisions are often left to struggle? Where is the outrage? 

Too busy fighting over the peel, dreaming of the banana.

Money runs our agricultural system, is it any wonder it's cheaper to buy processed food products than naturally grown food? Why some have plenty while others die of starvation? It is any surprise the least nutritious but quite versatile food is the most subsidized? That seeds can be patented and paid-for to be grown, which do not produce seeds so farmers must pay again to replant- nevermind the cross-contamination and jack-evolution in other crops? The plants growing their own toxic (insect-combustion) pesticide or antibiotics forced into the animals we later consume so they can survive their living conditions? The slave and child labors, the land and water source take-overs, and so on? Where does it stop? 

Too busy fighting over the peel, dreaming of the banana.

Money runs our political system, is it any wonder corporations are considered people, but not held accountable for the damage they do? That we're disgruntled with our governments but haven't done enough to change it? That war is a go-to for profit among private contractors and nations? How lobbying is legal, or that the personnel from political office, corporation, and lobbyist can be interchanged election by election? The only televised presidential candidates have the monetary backing? Can we really be surprised that when these issues do come up, it's as a problem of it's own and not a symptom of money? Where is the demand for a resource based (we have them!) society and economy?

Too busy fighting over the peel, dreaming of the banana.

As long as we're fighting over money and dreaming of the life it will give us, we'll always make decisions to obtain as much of it as we deem we need for the quality of living we deem we need.  It leads to less than a hundred individuals having the same wealth as billions of individuals, and at the end of the day, that keeps us fighting each other while the whole world suffers and a few profit. Just think about it. 

Pull the stringy peel from your teeth and do some research, life doesn't have to be like this and there are already peel-eaters like us working on it. We all live in this world, lets all have a hand in how it turns out for future generations, eh?

-read and fact-check the books/magazines/TVshoes you're learning from, or your children are learning from (intentionally or not, its going in the brain!), and see if you don't start to question your education choices...YOUR CHOICES!

-read labels on the medicines you're taking and research what the ingredients actually are, research the money being made by that product alone, and see if you don't start to question your healthcare choices... YOUR CHOICES!

-read labels on the food you buy, research what the ingredients actually are, what they do (or haven't been tested long-term so no one knows...), and see if you don't start to question your food choices...YOUR CHOICES!

-fact-check your politicians, research the candidates main media isn't showing you as much as those they are, stop leaving your life in the hands of those you know nothing about, and see if you don't start to see you actually have choices... YOUR CHOICES!

If we all make better choices as individuals, it will force a global change toward better choices by sheer volume of demand. That's how it's always worked, we've just forgotten and allowed the banana-ideal to dictate what we do through advertising, convenience, and a number of other notions that make us feel informed and comfortable. We don't want the peel, we want the banana, but we chew on the peel because we think it tastes like banana. Wake the fuck up. Please? Thank you!

-M.E.

201603031100