{"id":3225,"date":"2017-06-17T22:26:35","date_gmt":"2017-06-17T22:26:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/astraea.net\/blog\/?p=3225"},"modified":"2017-06-17T22:26:35","modified_gmt":"2017-06-17T22:26:35","slug":"our-suicide-is-painless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/our-suicide-is-painless\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Suicide is Painless"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was an unusual day filled with seemingly inane chores that had to be done.\u00a0 I was arriving back home in the afternoon with groceries for guests and planned to turn the hay.\u00a0\u00a0 I drove past a field adjacent to our where a tractor was spraying and turned in to the drive to be greeted by a distasteful, though recognisable, toxic smell.<\/p>\n

“Damn!”<\/p>\n

Usually I’d just accept that that landowner had to spray to make a living, but I didn’t like the idea that our hay was being contaminated while it was looking so good.\u00a0 Unusually, I decided to take another angle, dropped the bags on the kitchen floor, said “Hi!” to guests and spun the car around back up to the field.<\/p>\n

After working out which row the tractor was in I walked up to the driver, who kindly stopped and helped me get n touch with the landowner.<\/p>\n

The driver said the spray\u00a0 was only to stop “disease”.<\/p>\n

The landowner said it was only to stop “disease”.<\/p>\n

They both said it was “OK”.<\/p>\n

The contractor couldn’t come back on a still day because he had to empty the tanks since the pesticide had been paid for.\u00a0 The wind might die down so he could wait a bit.\u00a0 I knew the spray would still be sprayed, and would drift.\u00a0 Hopefully little would drift, though you could see a 20\u00a0 metre tail behind the tractor and smell it quarter of a kilometre away.<\/p>\n

I asked what it was.\u00a0 “I dunno.\u00a0 Let’s have a look.”<\/p>\n

So we did. It was Imtrex.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Imtrex – dead fish, dead tree, dead human …<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“Wow.\u00a0 Look at the labels on it! Dead fish.\u00a0 Dead tree.\u00a0 Heart attack.\u00a0 C’mon! This can’t be good.”<\/p>\n

It’s weird though.\u00a0 It’s being sprayed right on the ears of ripening barley, and we’re going to eat it.\u00a0 There’s poison on it , and we’re going to eat it.\u00a0 We’re killing ourselves and enjoying it.<\/p>\n

We don’t make the connection between our demand for cheap, convenient food and lifestyles and the consequential impairment of diet and lifestyle.\u00a0 Our monolithic food chain, standardised automated production, controlled by capitalists is withering our soul and costing our health.\u00a0 Apart from the increased incidence of cancer which only affects a third or so of us, almost everyone is affected by the lower quality of food – processed, refined, packaged with a fraction of the dietary health benefits of real food, but extra poison.<\/p>\n

Yet we all buy in to it.\u00a0 We all live the lie.\u00a0 The farmer can’t make ends meet if he doesn’t.\u00a0 (Ironically, I found out since that this “T3” third treatment for “disease” was being applied too late, as the ears were grown, and so wouldn’t improve yield, although the farmer could prove he sprayed the “treatment”.) \u00a0 We can’t make ends meet f we don’t play the pyramid consumption game.\u00a0 So we all turn a blind eye to our gradual suicide.\u00a0 It’s fairly painless anyway.<\/p>\n

But it could be different.\u00a0 It would be different if we all chose differently.\u00a0 It doesn’t have to be much at first, but even little thoughtful choices make a difference.\u00a0 And they lead to bigger thoughtful choice.\u00a0 And when everyone starts choosing differently, the world changes fast.\u00a0 So whether you’re in the tractor, in the shop, regulating the chemical, making the chemical, or financing the chemical, don’t turn a blind eye.\u00a0 Think, and choose to change a little.<\/p>\n

Because dying can be easy or hard, and withering from poison is not easy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was an unusual day filled with seemingly inane chores that had to be done.\u00a0 I was arriving back home in the afternoon with groceries for guests and planned to turn the hay.\u00a0\u00a0 I drove past a field adjacent to our where a tractor was spraying and turned in to the drive to be greeted …
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