We can shift our emphasis away from the commercially obsessed powers that be and into a mode which is supportive of the universal principles of harmony with nature and the biosphere - and one another.
As the ugly realities of the unforgiving status quo become ever more apparent so does the dialogue increase about what can be done about it.
'Non compliance' features prominently as an important tool for counteracting the imposition of an Orwellian control system.
In general, as I see it, there are two main strands of choice available to those who wake-up and feel impelled to take a stand: the outward focussed activist approach and the one that favours withdrawal from the system and ceasing to comply with the status quo: 'non compliance'.
Practising both at once is a pretty tall order, but not impossible. In effect, they are two sides of the same coin. Both are valid 'actions' to counteract the slide into slavery.
However the activist approach usually demands having one foot in the status quo in order to be affective in 'working from the inside' and/or going out to make a stand in defiance of the rape of the planet. Whereas the non compliance approach makes its stand through refusing to comply with demands of the status quo control paradigm in everyday life.
For the purpose of this piece I am focussing on the 'non complaint' side of the coin, but broadening out its scope to encapsulate some elements of the activist agenda which we should all be involved in by now. Pure 'non compliance' is, if anything, the tougher of the two consignments.
Are we all energy slaves?
Let's start with energy. To be non compliant in this field one needs to start by focusing on one's own energy. As I say in my book 'Changing Course for Life': "The amount of outside energy that we seek to utilise in our daily lives is proportionate to the amount of inner energy that remains unrealised in us."
So the main call here is to kick-into a sustained manifestation of one's own creative energy. The need to suck on technologically processed corporate energy is then immediately lessened.
But still, there are many 'greens' who take 'the grid' for granted and remain addicted to hitting a button to heat the room; hitting another button to cook the dinner and another to wash the clothes.
Going off-grid (in the post industrial Northern hemisphere) may constitute the best practice of non compliance in the energy sector. Few have gone that far, but those that have are demonstrating what is possible and what may become a bench mark in the not too distant future.
If you can't get that far, then switch your fuels away from fossil based energy sources and to small scale solar, wind and biomass fuels. Heat pumps to warm the home are also useful, as is geothermal energy if one is fortunate enough to live near a source.
Rivers and streams can provide clean non grid energy too, via small generators like the Pelton Wheel. Go for it! More can be done than you may think.
Food. You are what you eat
It's clear by now to most reasonably aware human beings that food has become one of the most dominant control tools of our time. So extreme is the denaturing of what was once 'genuine food' that it is impossible to remain a 'mainstream' food shopper / consumer without ingesting a continuous stream of pesticide residues, growth promoters, colouring agents, preservatives and, if you live in the USA, genetically modified organisms ... for starters.
We can shift our emphasis away from the commercially obsessed powers that be and into a mode which is supportive of the universal principles of harmony with nature and the biosphere - and one another.
Thus going into a non compliant mode with food is the starting point without which, quite frankly, one is nowhere. Except in a line at the doctor's surgery. Fortunately there are many alternative options available today to supporting the supermarket corporate food industry's vandalisation of food and farming around the world.
So to get seriously in line with supporting the longevity of planet Earth and ceasing to give your money to corporate vandals, one needs to get involved with local producers of ecologically raised fresh and seasonal foods. There are farmers markets, farm shops, box schemes, cooperative agricultural growers and suppliers and many more such outlets.
You can take the further step of starting to grow your own foods. That's brilliant! Join a city garden scheme; get onto an allotment plot; become a guerilla gardener; join with others to rent some land and share the work load. So it goes on ... food independence is the most basic level where non compliance with the powers that be is able to be manifest.
We should all be able to achieve this (in varying degrees) in whatever ways seem most appropriate to each individual.
Gimme shelter!
Housing, or even just shelter, is one of the basic necessities for all of us. It is surprising how few consider what role materials play in the ecological equation that is part of getting non compliant to the standard building practice of the housing industry.
Many facets of standard house building contribute to resource mining as if there were no tomorrow. Concrete, modern day bricks, timber from vast monoculturally managed (or logged) forestry operations, fittings and fixtures manufactured in foreign factories paying slave labour wages, are just some examples.
To cease supporting this purely profit motivated industry, one needs to explore the potential to build a house or shed using clay and straw, hemp, cob, rammed earth, or timber from sustainably managed certified woodlands. It's all out there - and its mostly cheaper than the standard materials. So, get non compliant in your mode of living!
Dung of the devil
Okay - money! This is a big one. It is the manipulation of money that holds the entire world to ransom from day to day. And it is the bankers who grasp the reins of material power with both hands, conducting a massive fraudulent 'free trade' global marketing exercise which leaves the human population of the planet ever more divided between outrageous wealth and abject poverty.
'Fiat' money markets dominate global financial institutions in a virtual reality world of manipulated exchange rates, Ponzi schemes, 'derivative' trading and speculative 'hedge fund' gambling ventures. Frankly it's all gobbledy-gook to most people - and that's an intentional part of the master plan for global banking domination. It's actually falling apart - but we need to give it a further push.
So, where to go to get non complaint to this vast behemoth? Start off by shifting any available funds into genuine ethical banking organisations. There are many in the UK and in most other European countries and they exist in the USA as well.
They maintain a code of practice which obliges them to not accept investment from or for war related military issues, nuclear power, fracking, GMO, agrichemicals, exploitive mining operations and so forth. Check carefully, as there are counterfeit schemes as well.
Then there is bartering instead of exchange of money, LETS schemes and alternative currencies like the Bristol and Totnes pound in the UK. Look these up on the internet for further information.
Innovative ways of supporting alternative life styles and small scale farming operations are springing up all over the place these days. Community Supported Agriculture is one such, and getting involved means an exchange of work can replace the need to pay out for your daily food needs.
Pioneers in these fields are truly activists of the top draw. We can all play our part in shifting the resource game away from the dehumanized megalomaniacs who hold sway at this time.
Pay unto Caesar?
Taxation is a tough one too. Withholding tax delivers a powerful message to government. In the 1960's there was a popular wave of withholding tax amongst UK and US anti war activists. It happened again against the development of nuclear power stations.
What was learned from these actions was that this is something that has to be done in numbers. It can be suicidal to go it alone, as one is too easily picked-off without anyone else ever hearing about it.
I have great admiration for those who refuse to pay taxes in a targeted fashion. Taxes are, after all, a calculated demand for government revenue over which one is offered no choice at all. How taxes are set, what they are used for and how they are gathered are all controlled from a centralised bureaucracy that is directly linked to elitist halls of power.
Those halls of power are master tax evaders in their own right! Billions get stashed away in 'tax havens' and other such fraudulent regimes every year - and no one seems to end up in prison as a result. So why should 'the people' be threatened with gaol when they fail to pay for the military industrial complex to go blundering into foreign countries on endless illicit killing sprees?
The only halfway transparent tax system is that practised within small regions or counties, where it is possible to see approximately where one's money is going.
To get round this system there are a number of options: one can go persona non grata; operate under the radar; be seen to be earning less than the taxable starting point or doing the real thing openly - in numbers. It would be good to hear from anyone who has embarked upon this form of activism.
We need to form powerful and determined bodies of courageous individuals in order to make this one stick.
Only connect
The communication 'industry' is a monster. It's prime role is the dumbing-down of the populous. Mind control is always hovering behind the glitzy adverts for convenient consumables. Personal technological communication gizmos like Ipods, smart phones, tablets and laptops, should all carry a health warning along with the mobile towers that supply the signals.
This is due to the spread of electro magnetic smog that pollutes the surrounding environment and the neo cortex of those committed to this form of communication: some 80% of Westernised societies. Of course, what is 'communicated' on these gizmos can be as toxic as the equipment! From the point of view of the microwaves, the old fashioned land line telephone looks positively benign by comparison.
Television is the number one communication mind killer, not because it is emitting harmful cathode rays (which it probably is not, unless yours is an old TV) but because of the content of the programmes that appear on it ... and who is controlling that content. Now just six corporations own all the main stream media on the planet.
'Real communication' is an art form and belongs in the realm of theatre, music, literature, poetry and dance. In order to take a non compliant position vis a vis communication, we need to tidy up our own vernacular and our verbal/written skills at passing truth from person to person.
Overtly casual 'chat' is a form of pollution and a waste of precious vital energy. How we use language is critical: aware communicators do not call a group of men and women 'you guys', for example. What is that doing? It is destroying the dignity, beauty and subtle sensuality of all that makes a man and a woman special ... not just indistinct neutered plasma.
The more we travel, the more we need to travel
This is a big time industry if there ever was one. The road and airline industries are two of the biggest lobby groups on the planet. On a par with Big Pharma and Agribusiness. Motorway construction and high speed rail are two of the favourite control system formulas for keeping us in line - usually a straight line!
They blast their way through often pristine countryside and prime farmland, cutting off villages and animal migration routes in the process; simply to serve the all important 'business community' and 'free trade' agenda.
A to B routes only link big cities and the centralisation of power which they stand for. We have the template in Hitler's pre-World War Two autobahn construction. Yes, they are fascistic models for fascistic societies.
There can be no doubt that the bicycle and the horse are the finest form of transport available to us. Their ecological footprint is virtually zero. On a par with these are one's own good legs and feet.
Then come a whole host of other practical ways of getting one's self and one's goods around: canal barges must rate highly, moving goods and people, low-tech and slowly, by water is a green and benign transportation system. Electric vehicles are also in the running for light footprint movement. Rickshaws, roller skates and scooters aren't bad either!
However, the car and the van may be indispensable to some - including me, due to my having a commitment to a farming and forestry business. So then we need to explore less damaging options - while also just travelling less. Getting non compliant while keeping a foot in the status quo is tricky - yes.
The real fashion disasters
We all need clothing. But the clothing industry is a nightmarish corporate steam roller.
Just consider the sweat shop wages that are paid to those who try to earn a living in the factories of the super-brands that dominate high street shopping today. Then look at the price paid for the end product. It's a classic case of rip-off consumerism - and it puts the accumulated wealth into the hands of the already wealthy at the expense of humanity as a whole.
Clothes have a special place in our lives. We wear them everyday. They have direct and intimate connection with our bodies and skin. Therefore their vibrational aura carries through to us whether we like it or not. So beware: not only is there the prison like production line of the sweat shops to take into account in mainstream clothing, but there is the fact that the materials used will have been sprayed with toxic chemicals and will also, if cotton, increasingly likely be GMO.
Then you will find 'nano-clothes' and all sorts of weird and wonderful synthetic substances being woven into the cloth we all wear. Once fabricated, garments are sprayed again with fungicides and other noxious chemicals to act as a preservative against mould and wrinkling. The clothing industry is yet another form of exploitation of the health and welfare of the human population.
Braking out of this? Number one: Don't go on irrational spending sprees just because you want to 'be fashionable' ... well that's pretty obvious. Re-use - look for clothes in charity shops and carboot sales. Look for woollen articles, they are at least relatively 'natural'. Then, if you are handy with needle and thread, try making your own clothes from natural materials.
Underwear should be made from organic cotton/wool - its proximity to reproductive organs means the possibility of systemic absorption of pesticide residues. There are organic clothing outlets - and they should be explored - if one cares enough and if the prices are acceptable.
'Collectively de-construct the hierarchies'
So that's enough for now - the categories go on and on of course. And I certainly don't claim to have all the answers. But I hope I have covered some of the prime areas in which we can shift our emphasis away from the commercially obsessed powers that be and into a mode which is supportive of the universal principles of harmony with nature and the biosphere - and one another.
As the founders of 'Rising Vibrations' state in a recent article, we need to "collectively de-construct the hierarchies within ourselves ... and continue to assert our inherent sovereignty, helping to rebuild ecosystems and create renewed communities ... giving no further energy to the unnatural systems of man." Bravo to that!
Just in case anyone is thinking I might be a good example of 'non compliant', I may have to disappoint you. My score is probably 6 out of 10. Long way to go still, but happy to be on the road!
Julian Rose is an organic farmer, author and international activist. His latest book 'In Defence of Life' is available at www.alibris.co.uk and other independent book shops, or from www.julianrose.info.