Respect for the Commons: an antithesis to an 'ownership society'

"In These Times" this month has an article about the need to resurrect the language of 'the commons'.

Millions of people in history have worked to add to science, or to build public parks, or to create inventions, or chose to become educators or researchers etc., with the intention of bringing benefit to all who come after them.

In this new hyper-privatised world that Bush Inc. wants to create, there is no room for 'a commons', and THAT is taking away rights and freedom from all who wish to contribute to it. And from all who have contributed to it in the past.

The corporatised society to which we have evolved constantly works to corral the value of what had been commons. By manipulating the government and exploiting the exploitable, they have succeeded in: monopolizing the airwaves, buying up (at cutrate prices) basic infrastructure (water and power) in many cities, cornering food production throughout the world, extending patents and copyrights to an extraordinary degree, etc.

What can we do about it? The language of "the commons" needs to be adopted by our Democratic candidates and politicians.

The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.

And we have adverse possesion laws to thank for it. States have been lowering the number of years needed to claim adverse possesion over lands. This has made it easier for developers to build on that land because they only have to hold their breath for a short number of years. And with our government being so attacked by idiot Libertarians, well...they can hardly find the funding to protect those lands.

if it can't be possessed or made a buck on it's off their radar. While I do agree with them concerning personal rights in society that agreement stops at land use and the commons in general. Those greedy fools would commit biocide in pursuit of their"god given rights".