piece of an email conversation with a friend

i'd have to say that i agree with everything you have to say about religion, government, corporations, and even philosophies dividing more than doing anything else. i feel like none of our problems can truly be solved by any of those forces. those forces, more or less, are the causes of most problems. you can link almost anything to the source of religion, government, or corporations--violence, crime, social classes, sexism, racism, homophobia, nationalism, poverty, environmental destruction, animal cruelty, rape.......i could go on forever. for a while i thought, "this organization can fix this problem, this politician can fix that problem" but these problems are so deeply rooted and intertwined that unless something happens to spur a complete transformation, a revolution, america and the rest of the world will just continue in this downward spiral. this downward spiral which, of course, those powerful or rich enough to make a difference are blind to, as a side-effect of (or maybe the intention of) TV, news, shopping malls....although no answer is perfect, i think a good answer for this would be non-hierarchical, self-sustaining communities. smaller groups of people dependent on themselves and each other for food, clothing, and entertainment--not each isolated and dependent on a huge corporation. or people dependent on themselves and each other for comfort and guidance, not dependent on religion. and people dependent on themselves and each other for organization and consensus, not dependent on the outside force of the government. but of course, people would have to change their beliefs and values in order to get to a point where such communities would work well, and in turn the causes of the problems would be absent, and the problems would be fewer. matt thinks that for people to operate interdependently and without a higher power ruling them, the people would not have to have certain beliefs or values about equality or sustainability. he thinks if people are put in that situtation, after a while they will realize it just makes sense and it's the best way to survive. i don't know if the community idea would work unless it was composed of people willing to try living peacefully together.but those are all hypotheticals. all we can really believe or do now is what is right in front of us. so i better start doing what i think needs doing. i feel like the chances of a big transformation are pretty slim, but i figure i can at least try to help some people or affect some places. talk to you later