lahermite

(i will be giving more depth to my profile by doing posts for each thing i wrote there. i will then link from my profile to each post.)

barefoot. that's my feet in my icon. in their most preferred state: naked.

here's a few links that support going barefoot:

Learning to Walk

shoes are bad and we should all go barefoot

The Barefoot Hiker

i walk barefoot whenever possible. i've been in supermarkets, restaurants, movie theatres, hiking up mountains, round disney, in malls, and in protests, barefoot. disney threatened to kick me out, actually! i've walked barefoot in snow and in long grass. someone said to me the other day, "where are your shoes? you'll get sick walking around barefoot..." when i asked why, exactly, i would get sick walking barefoot, the answer was a mumbled, "well, you'll get a chill" - in other words, they had no idea why they were telling me to wear shoes, just that it's "the done thing".

shoes, like clothing, started out as a protection from the elements. then they got taken over by consumerism and profit-mongers and oppressive forces wanting to dictate things. remember the asian women who made their feet deformed stapping them into teeny shoes? seen numerous people with bunions caused by improper shoes? seen all those women with horrendous back problems because they wore six inch stilletoes for years? shoes are not natural for our feet and are a weapon of oppression.

shoes = bad!

shoes = oppression!

go barefoot today. be free!

i like the feel of the earth beneath my feet. i like feeling connected to that earth. all the different textures of the earth are a delight to my feet. i feel the ground with my feet the same as i feel anything with my hands. direct sensation. my feet are nearly always dirty. i like dirt!

i do wear shoes, of course. i wear them in the winter nearly all the time. it sucks. i'm much happier when i can get socks and shoes off and go barefoot.

(i will be giving more depth to my profile by doing posts for each thing i wrote there. i will then link from my profile to each post.)

anti-civilisation anarchist

anti: against

civilisation: from the root, "civil", meaning of cities. basically, when people start living in numbers too large to be supported by their immediate landbase, they are forced to import resources. importing resources, basically, means stealing from elsewhere. most commonly this means stealing from those who do not have the ability to withstand the force and domination used by the thieves. importation of resources cannot ever be sustainable. eventually the resources run out, meaning they have to be imported from further and further afield, until eventually, all of them are gone. civilisations have throughout known history collapsed for this very reason. the importation of resources can only happen under domination and oppression, which leads to...

anarchist: an = no. arch = ruler. simplified, anarchism means no rulers. no domination, no oppression. a system of self-governance. any system based on an external governance is a system based on inequalities and oppression. a "ruler", or person appointed by said ruler, has the "right" to dictate to others how they can and cannot live. what they can and cannot do. quite simply, this isn't fair. nor is it right. no person is above any other. superiority is a concept enforced by brutality, and only by brutality. in a system with rulers, personal autonomy doesn't exist. if you don't do as you're told, you are forced to. the rules are dictated by those in power to maintain their positions of power.

a couple of links that explain these concepts better than i can:

http://www.endgamethebook.org/Excerpts/1-Premises.htm

http://www.endgamethebook.org/Excerpts/3-Civilization.htm

http://www.greenanarchy.info/anarchy.php

http://www.greenanarchy.info/civ.php

i label myself an anti-civilisation anarchist because it simplifies some of my most core beliefs: that we must live sustainably on our immediate landbases; we must live harmoniously and without superiority with all other forms of life on this planet, our only home; civilisation destroys bio-diversity, the destruction of which is leading to the current mass extinction of far too many forms of life for the planet to continue to thrive. a non-thriving planet means we die, too; all life on the planet is equal. it all has the same right to life and freedom. no being is superior to any other.

many people argue that we (humans) can develop technology that can save us. i dispute that. any technology that we develop is based on some form of oppression. "green technology" still requires the use of precious resources; metals, woods, oils, ores, minerals, etc. the extraction of these requires mining, drilling, digging, etc. this is not sustainable and requires huge amounts of oppression; of the land, of the people doing the extraction (the "owners" don't go down in the mine, only the oppressed go down in the mine, and how did they get to be owners in the first place - by forcing the concept through brutality), of the air and water polluted by the extraction, of the people (human and non-human) who rely on that air and water to survive, etc etc. for every form of technology invented to "save" us from the mess we've created, we dig ourselves into a deeper hole. guns cannot save you from violence, they can only increase the violence. such is it with all forms of (especially industrial) technology.