We like to think that we are living in a free society. None of us in the Western Countries are slaves (except in bdsm relationships, and then by choice). Yet we find ourselves living lives not defined by their freedom, but by their survival.

Recently, I find myself looking at the world we live in, like so many others do, and finding that what it looks like and what it is are often two very different things. But what it looks like is often dictated by those who have power and the power to keep their illusion going, rather than on the reality that is.

We live in a world of multinational corporations. They have brought forth wonders the like which mankind thought it would never seen, the very nature of science fiction itself is made manifest in our world now. At the same time though, nothing can be gained without being lost.

We have lost our liberty even as we are more free than we have ever been.

Without massive corporations that silence and destroy the small stores that were the mainstay of the world economy for thousands of years, we would not have such things as computers and the internet with which to communicate to each other and experience ideas beyond our own local area. Certainly, Heathenism and Paganism would not be where we are with out the technological advances we have now.

But now we live lives of slaves. We live on the bottom rung of society where we do not control our efforts, our labor, our will, or our finances. My generation looks to be some of the highest educated (on paper) and yet the poorest generation since before the Great Depression. We are swamped in debt, looking to a world where all the jobs have gone somewhere else where the people are better educated, will work for less, or kept by the older generation until such time as we are then two old to truly do the work and advance when the generation after us (should their be one) will be young, educated, and ready to fill those gaps left by our parents.

In some ways I am lucky, I don’t have the debt that a lot do, but I have no wealth either. And it doesn’t look like it is going to change. I used to run this blog for fun, but now I’m trying to monetize it because it seems literally my last hope for any kind of self sufficiency or freedom. Because I’m close to thirty years old, I work two jobs…and I still can’t cover all my very basic bills. And I’m fiscally conservative, as they say. As I understand and see it, most of my generation is in the same boat. Assuming they can get two jobs. Those lucky enough to find full time jobs with benefits find the jobs harder, the labor more exerting, the pay not worth as much. I worked a full time job that paid well in my area, lived as cheaply as I could, and still could not pay for food on a daily basis. At a “Good” job.

Progress is needed, it is right. But we face a place where progress is leaving us worse off than slaves. The problem is, one cannot stop progress. The corporations that span the globe and care not for nation or people, who view all the world as one people, do not care if some people suffer if all people profit.

Nationalism, Tribalism, Folkism, these things are viewed as evil, bad, violent, and racist. They are viewed this way because people feel that it puts one people above another. But this is not, exactly, true. What it does is allow a people to place its survival higher than another.

In an age of universalism, where all peoples are valued the same, racial divides slip away as the peoples see themselves as one group. This is generally a good thing, but when the group becomes too large, the group becomes willing to sacrifice members of itself for the greater good. A society of ten people husbands the lives of its members. A society of ten thousand is willing to throw away lives for its comfort through war, deadly labor, and increased poverty.

A society of 7 billion? That is willing to let entire people’s die for the greater comfort of society. The only thing that stops this is essentially Nationalism or Tribalism, which looks at the world and says “No! I and my people have a right to survive!”

But this provides a discomfort to the world at larger. After all, if a people refuses to be sacrificed, but the state of the world is such that someone must be sacrificed, then a different group incapable of resistance must be found. American workers refused to be sacrificed, so Corporations went elsewhere with their slave labor and found willing sacrifices. Corporations also looked at those unwilling to sacrifice themselves and then put into place blocks to prevent people from being able to resist the sacrifice. Which is why we essentially now have slave wages for so many jobs in the USA and around the world.

But the issue of nationalism isn’t just a corporate issue. Denying a people the route to create a specific identity, to have pride in that identity, is to deny that people or group an identity with which to resist its exploration and eventual extermination.

I’ve seen a number of posts lately talking about how bad it is to have pride in one’s cultural heritage(s) if one is “White.” This is because bad things were done in the past, based on the morals of a modern society. What a modern society fails to realize, however, was that without those things the survival of those groups that partook in such evil actions was in great question. We are only here to judge them because they took those actions and survived.

Deny a people it’s ability to self identify and take pride in who it is, and you set them up to be wiped out.

Now, some feel that such is just. White people did such evil things that they deserve to be wiped out. This, to me, is a horribly hypocritical attitude. “All life is precious, so you have to die to preserve that life.”

This is one of the reasons I’m folkish. Regardless of past actions, those that live now have the right to defend themselves, to exist, and to not be punished for things they could not change, regardless of race. My people and our ways are valuable, just like everyone else, and I would see them defended regardless of how proper it is. Because if people are going to suffer and die, evil though this feeling might be, I would that it was not my people.

The only way for a people to be free is for its identity to be preserved and used against those forces that would see it enslaved, exploited, or destroyed. The only way to stand up to multinational corporations is a form of nationalism, which puts people and country above the conveniences and profits gained by such corporations.