My little bit of money is not in the market, because market gains are predominantly ill-gotten. The market is built on deception, exploitation, devastation or outright destruction — the markets operate as sanctioned global establishments of gambling, commodities speculation and mutant derivative product creation — run amuck — with phantom gains miraculously transformed into real money and real gains born out of the labor, sacrifice and pain of others.

The market flourishes because of the deception it perpetuates — one which we sometimes choose not to see, especially while our 401ks, our investment accounts, and in the recent past – our home’s value, are blooming like tomatoes on MiracleGro (for the record, I don’t use MiracleGro either).

The market relies on the exploitation/devastation/destruction of:

1) labor here and abroad;

2) the environment and natural resources – whether it be air, land, water, fossil fuels or conflict minerals;

3) animals (domesticated and wild mammals, fish and birds);

4) and lifelong debtors (usury, i.e., loan interest once was considered an abomination, a sin, and today it remains a scourge on society and government — and it’s purely an economic fabrication born of greed).

Why not take our money out of the market, and if possible (of course it’s possible), out of the big banks altogether? At the very least, we could move our money into true community banks, credit unions – or better yet, into savings and loans co-ops of family and friends (to deposit into and draw from legitimately – with trust and without interest).

You know, the interest you “earn” at the too-big-too-fail banks and the gains you “earn” in the market or through your retirement/investment accounts are primarily obtained either by the direct labor of others in the extraction, harvest, production, processing, transit, distribution and sale of commodities – or indirectly to you via the big banks, through interest debt paid by the wages actually earned by the aforementioned direct labor.

Let us use our money instead to do good for our families, our friends and for others. Let’s not buy a damn thing without knowing its origin and provenance, and let’s just get out of the stock market! Take your money out of the market because of love, NOT FEAR.

Let us try to be more conscious human consumers and human beings, and with small steps, we can start to reclaim our health, our lives, our natural and sacred resources, our planet — and most importantly, our human dignity and divinity.