freeacre
From ras…
“Deep in the dark of the darkest night/We keep our vigil by candlelight/Waiting to sing to the newborn sun/The universe will birth when the night is done
Happy Solstice all!"
December 20, 2008 4:46 AM
and from Rockpicker...
“Blessings to all who attend this sacred fire. We have made it, collectively, to this longest night.
Snuggle in and dream deeply the future you wish to see. Know, you are powerful beyond your dreams….”
These have been the latest sentiments from the campfire…and so, in keeping with the Winter Solstice, why not let ourselves dream of what may be.
I recently finished James Howard Kunstler’s book, “The Long Emergency.” He is a compelling writer, and paints a vivid picture of the consequences of our collective decisions that have been made on the basis of resources that we thought were infinite – but, are not. He leads the reader through history, as civilizations rise and fall and transform themselves based most often on the resources available. He shows how the huge spike in population was due to petroleum based fertilizers and pesticides allowing the increase of the food supply/market. And, how the world now looks to endless growth to enrich them and fulfill their dreams of stuff and more stuff…so many people with so many dreams.
Since we had a seemingly endless supply of oil, corporations were able to outsource production of goods and then services to the cheapest sources of labor. The goods could easily be shipped to those designated as “consumers” to complete the production/marketing/supply loop. He relentlessly illustrates the devastating deterioration that has resulted to our farmland, the infrastructure of our cities and towns, and the redundancy and inanity of the populace.
It’s hard to argue with his vision of the future. After all, he wrote the book in 2006 and several of the events that he predicts, like reaching the peak of oil production, continuing resource wars, financial collapse, famine, and so forth are happening all around us now.
“The Long Emergency” explores the alternatives to oil, like wind and solar and hydrogen power, and leaves little with which to comfort ourselves. Perhaps if we had started earlier, before we were so close to peak everything and before the infrastructure of our cities and towns was so destroyed by urban sprawl and paved over by highways, and water and soil so depleted… and, before the population grew to over six billion, going on nine billion soon.
So, now we need to make “other arrangements.” Not just trading in that Taurus for a Prius, or changing to a goofy looking lightbulb. This is not new to us at the campfire. We’ve been thinking on these things for years now. We know at least enough to know that we don’t have all the answers. We know we have a lot of problems. One problem, it seems to me, is that the corporations and banks seem to be more powerful than governments and nation states. Just who is running who here? Will Obama, et al, we able to rein in the high and mighty Rich and Powerful bankers and fraudsters and their minions? After all, they have the money. We have to have our own American currency LENT to us with compound interest, just for openers! And, the last President who was attempting to change that situation was John Kennedy, and look what happened to him… And, now we just doubled our national debt in the last three months! Doesn’t that put us into debt servitude to the so-called “Federal” Reserve, which is just a consortium of un-identified global banks and not part of the federal government at all? Well, I think so! And, that’s just for starters.
We’ve got tundra that is melting and releasing methane into the air. We’ve got oceans that have already lost 90 percent of their largest fish and is becoming so acidic that the coral and the phytoplankton is dying. Mutant seeds, Franken Food, commercial lockdown of food supply, global economic collapse, and resource wars.
As our lately silent, but still dear Elder has lamented on more than one occasion, “What’s a motherf**ker to do?”
It sure looks to me like we need to localize food production and manufacturing and radically conserve how much of everything we use. It sure looks to me like we have to create economies that are not based on relentless “growth” of capital and goods. I’d say we need to kick those to the curb who want to live by using their money to just make more money, whether it supports producing anything useful or not. I think we are going to have to deal with serious challenges that will most probably involve more deaths than is even thinkable right now. Whether it’s due to wars, famine, sickness, freezing, insurrection, lack of medicine and services to care for the elderly and infirm, or a combination of all of the above. Times are probably going to be really tough until we reach a sustainable level of people that our societies and our planet can support.
But, maybe not - or maybe that, but maybe more. Like the fabled valley of Shangra La that sheltered an enlightened tribe of people kept distant from the rest of the world, maybe there will be surprising exceptions to this dismal scenario of loss and lack. Maybe adversity really does bring out the best in us.
Perhaps thought really does create form, and what we imagine eventually becomes real for us. Perhaps we simply need to come to terms with new and expanded paradigms for Who We Are and What is Possible.
What if there is nothing to fear? What if death is just an illusion, and if we need more time to finish a project, we can have it in another life and another body? What if there are those OUT THERE who are looking out for us? What if we are surrounded by unlimited power that we could use to lighten the load of so many people who need it? What if there are wonders yet to be confirmed that seem so much better than we can accept that they seem like magic and miracles?
What do you think? Since this is a time for dreaming. We are starting with a “new” sun for the year. . . what are some of the scenarios that are in our collective imaginations?
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28 comments:
What you say is all true. Many of us have made the same observations over the years.
But, are we actually in control of the "system"? Hell no. People are naive if they think they can change the system.
Take the recently elected "messiah." He's staffing his administration with the very same people who got us into this mess (I guess his idea of changes referred to the name on the door). Congress no longer listens to us, but to the corporations that pay their campaign bills. The courts side with the government - duh, they are a branch of the government!
I've said this so many times that I sound like an unimaginative broken record, but the ONLY solution is for us to take matters into our own hands outside the present system. Walk away from it and create our own new system based on the realities you just acknowledged.
Stake out a plot of earth somewhere, start growing your own food, teach others how to do it, share among you, get acclimated to adversity and scarcity, form new communities, ignore and abandon the old system to the degree possible and let it expire. I see no other efficacious course of action.
I'd love to live some place where I could use a horse and wagon for transportation and get rid of my car. Think what a huge source of control the system has over you through just your car: license, registration, insurance, loans, repairs, fuel. Not having a car is so liberating.
With any luck the people desperately fighting to maintain the old system will leave alone those of us trying to create a new system.
Of course, if people really believe the system still works, I suppose they could write their congressman...ha, ha.
Dave
http://daveeriqat.wordpress.com/
FA, I think it will be the 'winter of our discontent' but I see nothing wrong with enjoying the holy days while we can. The Light of the Sun is returning now, but not the Light of the world. I wrote a long post this morning on my blog on the subject. http://myflightfromthegrid.blogspot.com/2008/12/deep-in-dark-of-longest-night.html
Dave,
I agree with your idea of "what's a mother f***er to do". We do need to withdraw from the whole system. Let us imagine that all the terrible suffering and collapse of what is around us doesn't take place. The majority of the population will go merrily on their way doing exactly the same as they are now. If every system we have going falls into a pit and disintegrates is when real social change will happen. I figure that those that began to prepare in advance will have some kind of chance of coming out on the other side of the horror and then making a new arrangement can happen. Whether some kind of lesson will have been learned and acted upon is open to question.
Unfortunately perhaps, for most populations, it's a matter of just trying to get by. We have about 8000 years of history to draw on. Not a hopeful outlook I think. But we can try and show that what has been tried over and over doesn't work in the long run. Until another flim flam artist comes among us that is.
I left this link in the last comment on the previous post and I feel it is important enough to repost it here. It's a long read, but for me, it was worth it. Also, English is not the author's first language, so the reader must work a little more than usual. Even taken with many grains of the salt, what is presented offers a new perspective from which to view our current predicament. Here's the link. Page down to Astralwalker's post. Ahau.
http://www.projectavalon.net/forum/showthread.php?t=8441
-rockpicker
That link, Rockpicker, had me reading until two in the morning. I think it is the best representation of the Mayan Long Count and the associated interpretation of their cosmology that I have read yet. Great pictures, too.
The idea of the "Hanab Ku", the Ultimate Force of the Universe being at the center of the galaxies as a "Black Hole" that both destroys and creates anew, is a more sensible explanation to me than, say, a Big White Guy with a Beard who is jealous and capricious and bossy (oh, and also newly divided into Three Sections, only one of which is popular now...).
We have a friend who has spent time in the Mayan country exploring the ruins and can read hieroglyphs, and he has said much the same things to us. Very convincing, in terms of the incredible accuracy of their calendars and stone work.
I am not capable of doing the calculations that determine whether or not I am bobbing up and down into the asteroid stream and am about to be annihilated by Planet X or slammed by giant transformative cosmic rays. But, if it is so, I find it oddly comforting.
It kinda makes the issues we normally deal with puny in comparison - just a matter of bad form and taste. But, not affecting the larger picture much at all. Perhaps Hanub Ku will provide that extra dimension to our Selves that will allow us to be more than the greedy, short-sited dumbasseris that is our collective lot today. I hope so.
What does that mean, though, in terms of how we spend out time until then? A few seem to make it through. The majority would die. I guess I could calm down and be gentler with my planetary neighbors if I truly thought we'd all be dead in four years no matter what. Maybe I'd plant more flowers and visit the Coast more often. Lots to think about...
For those confused by, but still interested in, the here and now, here's a link to a great Webster Tarpley explanation of the significance of the Mumbai attacks over Thanksgiving.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgvx0ptPT5U
may the Light of this fire
expand vision for the short-sighted, offer solace
to the disenfranchised and
radiate peace of mind
to the uncertain.
-rp
From Belgium,
Freeacre asked what it is like living in a country without a government and the answer is no different than it was before. It wasn’t any different last year when we didn’t have a government for about eleven months. In most of Europe there is a proportional representation system and the party which had the largest proportion of the vote but not enough for an overall majority has to form a coalition with another party in order to have an overall combined majority in the house. Unfortunately nobody else wanted to work with the winners so it was nearly a year before the deadlock was broken. During that time the civil service and the judiciary kept functioning as it should; it is just that for a time no new decisions were made. I have no idea whether or not Yves Leterme or any of his associates had sticky fingers in the Fortis affair or whether the executive branch abused its powers. I do feel sorry in a way for him though because every time he tried to do something positive for Belgium he was pushed two steps backwards by the French speakers. He did want to dismantle a lot of central government and devolve more power to the townships and give the people more direct say in politics but that situation is now over. In a way living without a government is a dry run for the time when Europe is given over to Anarchy (if only).
Next, I would like to apologise to those of you whom still I owe letters and e mails. The news of the new house move came right on top of a period in hospital and I have been in a bit of a tail spin over the last weeks. I will get around to it shortly - promise.
I would also like to wish everybody the best for the coming year, I have a feeling it is not going to be an easy one. In the meantime I hope that everyone gets enough of whatever it is that makes them happy.
My car died this morning. It is stick a fork in it dead.
This has nothing whatsoever to do with this post, other than 'winter of our discontent' applies and I am frustrated as all hell right now.
ras, oh dear... I am sure we all extend our sympathies and good thoughts.
From Belgium,
Sorry to hear that Ras, what a shitty time of the year for that to happen. If it is in any way fixable then maybe you should talk to Stoney about it, he is Auto Repair Man of the clan. Other than that, I have heard that horses with hairy feet are making a comeback.
Ras; What's it doing, or not doing?
Could you give us some specifics? Maybe all is not lost.
-rp
Oh, its dead all right. I knew it was coming. The transmission (quite literally) burnt up. And yes, I had been adding fluid regularly to adjust for the leak, but all the seals have gone in the cold and it dumped what was left of the fluid and then presto! Dead car. Replacing that alone would be a couple of grand and then when you add in all the other problems...it wouldn't be worth it, not unless I was a mechanic could I bring it back to life.
Maybe you could turn it into a really big bird feeder...
From Belgium,
Maybe big birds like chickens.
From Belgium,
Ras, is your car a front or rear wheel drive? Front wheel drives are a heck of a lot easier to work on. I wonce changed a clutch on a Austin Maxi (it was long ago) and I was back in the house drinking coffee in just over half an hour. Otherwise it is up on ramps to drop the gearbox down or even an engine out job.
From Belgium,
Did I really spell once with a w?
SATS, yes you did, but heck, so what,?
this one has been to the edge with a question and here is what occured,it is rather long and i apologize for it but here goes.
The land where every word is forked, the spoken truth falls as dust at the feet of all that has been.
It is not that the heart beats in deception but it is clothed in the great denial, and it is where naught but the we.... have
been burnt at the stake,have we not?
the quest has been taken once again to invoke the ears of our creator that we are made to see with the eyes of eagle, to put down the fury of a beaten soul and to rise once again to that place where there is honor and dignity and the love that has been trampled upon floats gently against the face of us that know the hate as only a reflection of an illusion gone insane.
greetings my brothers and sisters, the wind does blow cold does it not?
the small sampling that benefits the few of which the ones that attend these sacred fires are privy to is only a beginning to the storm that rests upon the horizon, ready to unleash the new age into being.
we are being tested as no man or women has ever been tested, for the time is upon us and the evolution of our collective minds is at hand, says bug/
if the insensitivity is not released as a snowflake floating gently to the ground we shall go......where? i ask bug these things and she with her always knowing smile goads me onward to pierce the veil of long ago and to witness the miracle, .....but what will happen to all of us as a people if we do not wake up to the truth of our own existence i ask, she replies that no thing is written in stone but is written in the hearts of men and that the future is open and will be displayed as the light shines upon one another, and that if the love is discovered to be that which we all are... then who knows?
i am perplexed by this and unsatisfied, and say so, .... this is the way of it isn't it she says, would you not discover this on your own?
i seek the sage people, the old ones that have been here for longer then human memory, they are very reluctant to whisper their quite murmurings, their relatives have been touched by the plow and torn from the mother, piled high and burn to make way for a heart of ice, but they sense that i have no plow and and that i only wish to know of the long ago before the carnage began.
they do not often get a chance to witness with the two-leggeds as the world is intent to keep such things in the category of being a little touched in the head by those that seek them out..... but once started they speak with dignity and the honor of what once was and the visions that entered my mind of those days of clean mother earth and all the things that crawled and the things that flew and the things that swam in the sacred waters, and the harmony that existed between all of creators manifestations . and then they began to sing, i was overwhelmed by this and even thought i could hear no sound i could hear the songs coming from these ancient of ancients. and what a wonderful song it was, so clear on that sunny day with many eagles,flying in the warm updrafts without effort, joined in with the screeching of the red-tails and furry things running amongst the legs of the sage relations.
my heart is bursting with the wonder of it all and i fall to the ground and leak my face upon our mother and am soothed by the sage people for they know only love and do not speak unkindly of those that destroy them.
i wonder if any of you as children remember those times when all alone except for being surrounded by the things of our sacred mother earth, do you not remember the little ant walking among the.. to it,, forest of weeds and flowers, and asking it where it was going and the ant telling you that it was going to where it lived in the ground along with all its relatives, and don't you remember lying on your back on a sunny day and watching the living clouds turn into what ever you could imagine? these were the cloud people and they could tell you stories of things you wondered about. in those days all the things of mother earth could "talk" to you if you listened, and you did because your mind had not been filled with the ignorance and arrogance of the ''adult'' two-leggeds yet, you were alive in the most sacred meaning of the term, you were not separated but at one with all the living companions that were gifts from our mother. but gradually those days were laughed out of our existence weren't they? we became sophisticated and somebody, the days of continuous miracles came to an end and the world became a torturous place of rules,mean assed teachers, shitty boring religions by the hatful,.each one declaring to be the only truth and to destroy all that did not fit in with the status quo, and this meant us if we did not perform in the excepted manner.
our childhood of daily miracles was crushed for the most of us and we became mean and ugly like everyone else, almost. but guess what? here we are, alive and well, right??right?? we can still thrill at the most mundane of things, the absolute glory of a fading sunset or a huge V of geese flying overhead honking their asses off at each other and you wonder how in the hell they ever get to where they are going with so many talking all at the same time, the one in front having so many back seat drivers telling him which direction to go;
i come this day before all of you in the enduring hope that we will create a future not only for us but for those that are to come,, when i look into the eyes of my two year old granddaughter and the new one that will arrive in a couple of months to begin their journeys upon mother earth, how shall i explain what we have done to their world, and how are they to know love if they cannot know that all consuming thing that is so much of the great mystery? that there is only one thing that really has any meaning and without it there is nothing to live for. .... WE are love ,......... nothing more.. all else is denial.
i send to each of you all that i have to offer, my heart and my love for a chance to do something that will make a difference for those of us that are here and those that are on the way,and also all of those that have passed, we honor you our fathers, our mothers and all of those that never got to walk in beauty, we know that you are among us,...just there......and let us create a healthy place for our selfs, let us help one another, let us find a way for all of the things that need to happen to happen, let us know what the red path is, for it is the journey home,
and all are welcome to travel our land of dreams and to know those places that are revealed to those of pure hearts, but what of those that are trapped by their captain crunch surroundings?/ she just laughs, she says that i am a fool and i believe her, then we laugh together.
i speak these words in gratitude for the honor of being allowed to attend these sacred councils. let us breath together as one,our hearts beating together as one. i love you.
in peace
bug, our sage relations &mf
Yea! It is exceedingly good to hear from you and the Bug and the sage people, Montana! I think I will light some sage in solidarity.
This thing is working? Great! I typed a nice long post concerning the collapse of the oil market last night, only to watch it slither slowly off the page to be replaced with some fuckstick and his adware! There to screwworm something called "WinWeb Security" through my firewall!
I've spent the last day screeching incoherently at this unseeing CRT orb while it mocks me with this WinWeb shit and it's incessant pop ups! So reprehensible are the lousy Russians that brewed this shit up that it even hides itself from all attempts to remove it except by going into task manager, and running the program through it's icon on the tool tray, then ending the process on the applications window. After that, you have to wait for it to open it's next process, and stop it, and so on until all five of it's processes are stopped.
IMMEDIATELY afterward, you have to run a good spyware/adware scan which picks up on the stopped processes, and dumps them in to the shitter. If you don't dump them in the shitter, and instead decide to stick them in quarantine, it will sneak out again as soon as the computer is restarted! You have to shit can it!
I'll repost the oil market thing as soon as I get my brain out of overdrive!
Stoney,
You sure have your share of computer problems. I suspect that it is the result of not understanding the needs of AI machines. You got to learn to show affection to them, stroke their screens, caress the cpu, and do regular body dust maintenance on them. You have to get deep down inside of them, understand the sensual and emotional needs, stroke a few buried circuit boards and whisper sweet nothings to the RAM. They love to have you talk dirty to them. As they age, their needs change also. Offer yours some sweet nifty little diamond programs that tickle their electrons, get them all ready to go, they will then be much more receptive to your needs then. Physical contact will get you further than swearing at them. Don't however leave lip prints on the screens for a long time. They really hate that. Just got to be sensitive to their needs. Remember, if you aren't, there is always another program out there more than willing to satisfy.
From Belgium,
Hey Stoney, how come you have got a Windows problem, I thought that you used Linux? I had exactly the same problem a couple of months ago with Windows Security Centre and Antivirus 2009. It is not a virus as such so your antivirus software won’t get rid of it but it is more annoying than any other virus I have ever had. I believe the problem comes in through Internet Explorer so I was thinking to see if I could get an xp version that didn’t download it as part of the package. I found that Lavasoft Ad Aware, good as it is, would not do the trick so I went searching for something that would and I found that Malwarebytes’ Anti Malware did the trick. It is a bit clunky to run in that the scanner and the clock sometimes goes dormant for long periods and then they suddenly jerk into life and catch up with themselves. Anyway, this one sorted the problem out for me. Another one I have on is “RogueRemover Free” which seems to look for specific things in particular places. This one will do a scan in about five seconds. It always amazes me how fast it works. I believe Spy Hunter is also good but it is not free. These people say that if their software doesn’t get rid of the problem then call their call centre and they will write a patch just for you. That’s what I call service but unfortunately I again ran into the no credit card problem. All of these are available from Download.com. Best of luck!
From Belgium,
Stoney, I forgot to mention two things. Firstly you have to do a disk clean up to stop the bad stuff coming back in through the temporary internet files. The other thing is that RogueRemover FREE (The product name is written that way) is a program that specifically targets products which are designed to produce so called, false positives. In other words products which tell you that there is a problem when there isn’t, just in order to sell you their software.
Wow...hard to believe that 2008 is almost over... It has been a year full of twists and turns and has laid groundwork for a very interesting 2009.
Would like to take this time to wish all who grace this campfire a Very Merry Christmas with hopes for a Happy Healthy, Prosperous New Year!!
I will be back next year to this my favorite blog site by a Campfire!!
Ely
I've managed to arrange temporary transportation, thank the Goddess. Belgium, my (old) car is a standard rear wheel drive automatic, hence the expense.
Mf, yeah! I'm glad to see you again. It's been awhile.
The old year is passing and the new will soon come. It will be a trying year, as will the next several. But we shall get through it.
I'm beginning to think Obama has a real messiah complex. He's selected the same bible Lincoln used for his inaugeration. No one has used it since Lincoln.
Personally, I like the symbolism of Obama using the Lincoln Bible to take the oath of office on. It just seems right to me. When one thinks about the struggle for equality that began with the Emancipation Proclamation and leading up to finally having a president who is a mixture of black and white heritage - well, it just seems fitting. I will probably be brought to tears, even if I am gullible or delusional or whatever. It doesn't matter to me much that neither Lincoln nor Obama is perfect. But, both seem to be men who would inspire others to fight for freedom and equality. Some things you believe in, not because they are true, but because they are worth believing in. The challenge is to make them become true. You can call me crazy. I've been called worse...
I have some rather sad news, on the birthday of the cross worshipers deity, a very good friend of mine, a vietnam vet, wounded in battle and carrying the scars of it to this day, his beautiful wife Prairie Dog, there two young sons and assorted farm creatures house burnt to the ground leaving only a pile of ashes.
This is a very small community and the response to that heartbreak of losing every single thing they owned was immediately the need of the people that live here, it was and is still a phenomenal thing to witness with the outpouring of care our neighbors provided , an immediate house to live in until they could straightened out what was left of their former life, an auction with things donated by the people to raise money for what ever, and more caring then one could possibly imagine.
i was witness to something that had tears of proud to watch this outpouring of concern for ones brother and his family. for in reality we are one family the world could learn something of this, this selfless work of love for something other then ones self. simply amazing to behold.
you know, we here at the council fire have had to the large extent been in the process of examining what is happening to our mother earth as she it falls into a heap of rubbish of our own making, for we all contribute to this suicide of humanity by our participation in the sickness of acquiring the mountains of unnecessary bullshit for what or why we do not know if asked.
It seems as nothing more on the one hand then just a compulsive act of instant gratification and on the other to satisfy a lack which can be traced to a damaged sense of self worth, and a keeping up with the presented image of what is cool and on the cutting edge of obeying every stupid impulse created by the mind of a paid provocateur.
how we shall crawl out from under this insanity has and is a source of much discussion and the answers we have found are at best good on paper but leave a huge unknown in which no looking can predict that which is yet to come.
one thing for certain though is that it will not be nice for all of us.
i mean how can we include six billion two-leggeds plus and counting into the matrix as a situation that has a remedy that would include love as a perquisite as first act of welfare for all?
who could think that large, i mean it seems ridiculous on the surface but what does a mind say when presented with lets save the world and its inhabitants,? fuck!! our minds are tiny i guess, but in reality what if this question was a demand that just had to be answered? if indeed we are of the same material of a sun gone nova and walk around in a body and mind of the creator that also created all that is revealed to our senses,, what is the problem.? what is so ungraspable,? to a mind that were it totally free, unfettered by the mundane bullshit of compulsory ignorance since arrival regard such a notion as any different then learning to tie ones shoelaces? i mean what exactly is the difference? i see no difference. same clockwork, it's a matter of vision is it not? a disintegration of all that was as a binding and a letting go of restraints that hold the mind in it's crippling embrace. an enthusiasm that has meaning, a passion unknown until now in its necessaries of creative flow.
because every single being on our sacred mother earth has the same worth as the sun and the stars, do they not? and throwing away one single soul is throwing away a piece of our own soul. so all must be encluded!! not one left to die because we have fucked up contaminated minds, that is no longer an excuse is it? our minds can be free, that is a given because as night follows day it is so.
it is only for us to see this opening into that which was before only a dream or the hallucination of a mad man.
it is real and it is available, to ask how this mind is to be attained is to fall once more into the trap of which the old mind is loaded , there is no how., to unlock the new mind all of the hows have to be set aside because the challenge is to great to even consider anything that has ever been, sound good so far?
a mind cleaned of the un-flushed of yesterday and standing alone peering into that which is yet to come, the complete unknown, ''there'' is the energy of creation, ''there'' is the place where it will all be made to come into being, whether for goodness for us and our fellow two-leggeds or death for the planet, it is just ''there''.
i can hear the laughing at this idea but it is to be expected i guess, but there is no laughing at the prospect of a burn out hulk of a rock that is entirely uninhabitable by us and our desendents and all our fellow creatures is there?
in peace
mf
ps please excuse my grammer and spelling i was traumatized to severely by a sadistic teacher to retain the ingredients of either, but am working on recovering those tools.
From Belgium,
I feel for both you and your friend and his family. What your community did used to be known in England as the wartime spirit but then we stopped killing each other and then people stopped helping each other, then bit by bit we collectively became more isolationist. It is strange that these things should be so linked together. In tribal societies war, such as it is becomes more,of a social occasion with very few injuries and even less fatalities, a bit like a cross between beligerant clans and football.Thesedays, goodness and kindness is still there but generally they are burried deep. More often than not it takes something like this to bring it to the surface. On the other hand, look at when Ras was the only one to be the good Samaritan after her neighbour was foreclosed on. I have to say though that my new neighbours seem a friendly lot up to now; one old lady even offered me food the other day as I was on my way to do some work in the new place.
When we get to the bigger picture, there are a few who have the ability to comprehend the enormity of the task but very few who have the ability to do anything about it. Those who have often choose to sit on their hands. Then human nature, tempered with experience makes one question the motives of those who actually do. For instance, do many believe that what Bill Gates is doing in Africa is truly altruistic?
There is no laughing at your conclusion mf; there are none so blind as those who don't want to see.
I really worry about what we are going to do in this country if the jobs really start disappearing in a big way and the "safety net" of unemployment insurance is totally inadequate. Something like only 1/3 of the people who lose their jobs qualify for it even now. If you are fired, rather than laid off, you don't get it. If your company goes belly up, you don't get it, I don't think. If you are considered a contract or a temporary employee, which so many are even though they have worked full time for years, they don't qualify... when the benefits run out, or hundreds of thousands can get no help, what are they going to do? And then when the government tells us that they have no money to help the people, after they have given BILLIONS AND TRILLIONS to the corporate/ investor class and the bankers, what is going to be the reaction?
I hope somebody is lying awake at night trying to figure out ways to help people survive.
I think there will be countless acts of kindness and generosity. But, people will be overwhelmed. There is no doubt about it, though, people are going to need to help each other out, big time. The Dali Lama once said, "Kindness is my religion." I think we are all going to need to go along with that idea. I'd like to see that lamestream media focus on generosity of spirit, rather than on competitiveness and avarice and the ruthless drive to beat everyone else. That would be helpful.
Maybe we'll get back to creating good memories of how we pulled together, like during the war or the former depression, and began to create a better world where our children won't have to become investment bankers or stock brokering pricks. They'll be saying, "when I grow up, I want to be a midwife! or a permaculturist! or "I wanna drive a mule team!" lol
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