We are posting another guest post by Belgium (also known as Spirit Across the Sea). In no way do we advocate insurrection. But, in the face of the swelling tide of states threatening to secede from the union, the thoughtful presentation of the subject of this post bears some discussion. And so, from Belgium:
The military version of the United States Oath of Allegiance
runs as follows:
I, {insert name here}, do solemnly swear, (or affirm), that I will
support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all
enemies, foreign and domestic as well as the left wing liberals; that I
will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this
obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of
evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the
office on which I am about to enter. So help me God. (Note that the
last line is not required to be said if the speaker has a personal or
moral objection)
I would like to start by looking at what a domestic enemy
means to the citizenry and also to agents of the administration.
If we follow the logic of the Oath then any person who
breaks allegiance with the constitution is an enemy of the
United States of America. The question now turns on what
is meant by the United States of America; is it the land; is
it the American citizenry or is it the apparatus of state? In
this sense it is obviously not the land. Of the other two
could it be either one or both? In fact, are they divisible or
are they one and the same? During the presidency of GW
Bush, many of the citizens felt that both he and Veep
Cheney had bypassed the Constitution so many times that
they in fact were enemies of the state and should be impeached.
Bush has called the Constitution “Just a damned piece of paper”,
thereby showing his complete disregard for it. Dennis Kucinich filed
a motion for impeachment but the leader of the house lost her resolve
and reneged on bringing the motion before the house.
Bush argued that since he had been democratically elected
as head of state, whatever he decided was what the
people wanted even if it was in contravention of the
Constitution. So a perceived enemy could not, in this case,
be tried by Constitutional means which leaves the question
of whether the Constitution has any validity. Is it an
anachronism of the past which is largely just window
dressing in today’s world or does it still have meaning and
for whom is it meaningful?
The Department of Defense (DoD), is Constitutionally
charged with defending the USA against its enemies.
Traditionally this has meant going overseas and fighting
wars but what if the enemy was perceived to be American
citizens? Well thankfully for Rummy, he was never placed
in the embarrassing position of having to take his mates at
the White House into custody. Is it possible to imagine a
future situation where food shortages within the USA
became so severe or where the financial or monetary
infrastructure collapsed so severely that the majority of the
citizenry rose up in a popular front, comprising everyone
from Communists to the Religious Right against the
established mechanism of government. What would be the
roll of the DoD in this particular case? Who would the
enemy be; the common people; the leaders who were
perceived as negligent or the captains of industry who if
push came to shove, could easily disperse into other
countries?
Retired Lieutenant Colonel Nathan Freier who is now a
visiting professor of Strategy, Policy and Risk Assessment
at the US Armies Peacekeeping and Stability Operations
Institute and a Senior Fellow in the International Security
Program at the Centre of Strategic and International
Studies has looked into this issue and produced a 36 page
report entitled “Known Unknowns: Unconventional Strategy
Shocks in Defence Strategy Development.” This was
written in response to former Secretary Rumsfeld’s remark
(paraphrased) that “There are things we know we know;
things we know we don’t know and things we don’t know
we don’t know”. This report criticizes the DoD for only
providing plans for a military response to evolving
situations in foreign countries. Here is what he has to say
on the subject of what must be considered in the event of
an internal insurrection.
“Violent, Strategic Dislocation Inside the United States.
As a community, the defense establishment swears to protect and
defend the constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. DoD’s
role in combating “domestic enemies” has never been thoughtfully
examined. Thus, there is perhaps no greater source
of strategic shock for DoD than operationalizing that component of the
oath of service in a widespread domestic emergency that entails rapid
dissolution of public order in all or significant parts of the United States.
While likely not an immediate prospect, this is clearly a “Black Swan”
that merits some visibility inside DoD and the Department of Homeland
Security. To the extent events like this involve organized violence against local, state, and national authorities and exceed the capacity of
the former two to restore public order and protect vulnerable populations, DoD would be required to fill the gap. This is largely
uncharted strategic territory.
Widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the
defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic
domestic order and human security. Deliberate employment of weapons
of mass destruction or other catastrophic capabilities, unforeseen
economic collapse, loss of functioning political and legal order,
purposeful domestic resistance or insurgency, pervasive public health
emergencies, and catastrophic natural and human disasters are all paths
to disruptive domestic shock.
An American government and defense establishment lulled into
complacency by a long-secure domestic order would be forced to
rapidly divest some or most external security commitments in order to
address rapidly expanding human insecurity at home. Already
predisposed to defer to the primacy of civilian authorities in instances of
domestic security and divest all but the most extreme demands in areas
like civil support and consequence management, DoD might be forced
by circumstances to put its broad resources at the disposal of civil
authorities to contain and
reverse violent threats to domestic tranquility. Under the most extreme
circumstances, this might include use of military force against hostile
groups inside the United States. Further, DoD would be, by necessity,
an essential enabling hub for the continuity of political authority in a
multi-state or nationwide civil conflict or disturbance.
A whole host of long-standing defence conventions would be severely
tested. Under these conditions and at their most violent extreme,
civilian authorities, on advice of the defense establishment, would need
to rapidly determine the parameters defining the legitimate use of
military force inside the United States. Further still, the whole concept of
conflict termination and/or transition to the primacy of civilian security
institutions would be uncharted ground. DoD is already challenged by
stabilization abroad. Imagine the challenges associated with doing so on
a massive scale at home.”
What he appears to be arguing is that the status quo must
be maintained for the benefit of those who are opposed to
the insurrection and to prevent a riled up citizenry from
getting their hands on nukes. I would suspect that these
are not the only reasons for considering such actions. It
does appear to provide an authoritarian solution without
addressing the causes of the unrest. Two further questions
arise here. How likely is such an event and is the proposed
response reasonable.
On the How Likely question, there is a growing tide of civil
unrest throughout Europe and Asia. Whilst isolated events
like the Tiananmen Square tank man and the Korean
farmer who shot himself at the WTO protest can be
dismissed as white noise, something annoying in the
background which does not affect major outcomes, there is
a general groundswell of unrest which taken collectively, is
becoming more difficult to ignore. Often the triggering
event has little to do with the release of tension which
follows making them almost impossible to predict. I will
wager that the Greek policeman who shot a 15 year old
youth earlier this month did not realize that his action
would spark a wave of anti-globalisation conflicts in Spain;
Denmark; Italy; France and Britain. These have largely
been quelled but it should be remembered that just
because you have managed to silence someone it doesn’t
mean that you have got them to agree with you.
Meanwhile, China is fighting fires on quite a few fronts. As
the US economy goes gradually down the pan, it is taking the
Chinese economy with it and factory closures are
depriving the workers of the little they already have. The
USA is largely quiet for the moment but with resentment
and anger mounting at the prospect of future generations
being put into hock in order to provide the banking class
with what they consider to be rightfully theirs and with
more and more Americans living like Palestinians as a
result, a dangerous head of steam is building in the boiler.
As to the reasonableness of a DoD response against its
own citizenry, I doubt if even the tech savvy portion of the
nation would know what to do with a nuke if they suddenly
found themselves in possession of one. On the wider issue,
of whether the military should be used to lock down its
own citizenry it should be recognised that this represents a
transition from a democracy to a dictatorship. The original
meaning may be as a temporary measure but temporary is
a very elastic word. I suppose that if such a thing were to
be seriously tried it would ultimately depend on how the
grunts collectively interpreted their Oath of Allegiance.
There may be an alternative, however which could make
the whole situation very much simpler – or more likely,
very much uglier. This is where states, individually and
collectively invoke Amendment X of the Constitution. There
are two parts to Amendment X. The first deals with the
division of responsibilities between the Federal Government
and the individual States; the other part deals with
individual states seceding from the Union or rather
dissolving the government in order to reconstitute it. The
Federal Government is supposed to control the borders;
the currency and the military, all of which it is currently
failing on, yet it has over time increased its power by
assuming responsibility for grey areas which fall between
the responsibility of the Government and the States.
Laissez faire attitudes by the individual States has allowed
the Federal Government to pass laws which are in direct
contravention of the tenth amendment. By saying “Enough
is enough”, the States are exercising their real power by
threatening to secede from the Union. If 2/3 (33) of the
states issue papers invoking amendment X they effectively
have the right to sack the government and if they so wish,
form a new constitution. If this were to happen it is likely
the old Constitution would be essentially retained but with
clear divisions of what is expressly allowed to Central
Government with no ambiguity or possibility of creeping
federalism. It is also likely that Congress would take back
its real power and become the force it is supposed to be
instead of the Muppet Show it has become.
Mainly as a result of fears over the imminent collapse of
the monetary and banking systems six states have filed
papers declaring their sovereignty since the Obama
administration took power, others have previously done it
and many others are proceeding with it. Here is the list:
The State of Washington (2009); New Hampshire (2009);
Montana (2009); Hawaii (2009); Michigan (2009); Arizona
(2008); Oklahoma (2008); Georgia (1996); California
(1994). Lined up and ready to go are: Colorado;
Pennsylvania; Arkansas; Idaho; Indiana; Alaska; Kansas;
Alabama; Nevada; Maine and Illinois. Wyoming and Mississippi
may also follow suit. This makes 9 definites, 11 in the process
and 2 possibles, making 22 in all. As well as
concerns over monetary and banking issues, many states
are rejecting federal intervention on issues such as the
National Guard; Posse Commentates and FEMA Prisons in
the events of rebellion, revolution or Civil Demonstration.
Arizona’s Sovereignty Bill further asserts their states right,
during martial law to recall servicemen to protect Arizona
State.
The danger lies in the fact that the Federal Government
including the President are in fact representatives of others
who will in all probability resist any loss of powers. Some
States, like Arizona may recall troops to protect their state
whilst other troops may be called on to fight on behalf of
the Federal side. There will be confusion as each soldier
questions what his Oath of Allegiance means to him.
Meanwhile there will be no shortage of money to fund
Blackwater type mercenaries to support the Federal cause
against those who the Federal Government is charged to
represent and protect.
I am no clairvoyant or soothsayer and in no way can I
predict the future. All I can do is tell you of the way things
are shaping up. Things never go as predicted, there will be
many surprises along the way and you can be sure to
expect the unexpected.
Sources
Known Unknowns
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/download.cfm?q=890
Unrest in Europe
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,465604,00.html
Unrest in China
http://www.taiwandc.org/wp-2004-11.htm
Tenth Amendment
http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=141786
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Firestorm-Brewing-Between-by-Lance-L-Landon-090217-130.html
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
HOW NATIONS ECONOMY’S WORK
from Murph
Sharon Astyk in her book “ Depletion and Abundance” introduced me to a different perspective on what she calls the informal economy, or the real economy, as opposed to the formal economy. Now before you gulp and the brain cells overheat on terms, this is not going to be an essay with a bunch of esoteric financial terms and theories. Frankly, I’m a bit burned out reading all the different perspectives and statistics and numbers being tossed around on the internet concerning the economy. Her book gave some interesting other ways of looking at this.
There is also a 1 hr 23 min lecture on how money works at; http://informationliberation.com/?id=26471
Worth the watch if you have interest in such things and is very well presented in very logical non technical way.
The formal or official economy is found in all of the rich countries, and involves tax forms, endless other documents, fees and statistics, the banks and other financial entities. In actuality, most of the world’s populations do not live in a formal economy. A great deal of our economy isn’t involved in that either. The informal economy is ‘under the table’, involves little if any forms, definitely no taxes or fees, and can be also referred to as a biological economy, or a survival economy. The formal economy got a real boost from the industrial revolution. Prior to then, most of what was called economy was the informal kind. In actuality, when you look at it from this perspective, the informal economy dwarfs the formal. It includes all volunteer work, all work within the family. How would you put a national value on all of the work a housewife does as an example? How much work is done ‘under the table’ with nothing in between the employer and employee? I know people that have been doing that for most of their work lives. The problem in western societies is that we have been taught that the formal economy is all there is, and what little of the informal economy we run into is considered negligible and unimportant, viewed with suspicion and often is illegal. Of course governments are not happy with that informal jazz, they aren’t getting their cut of the booty and it is difficult to control, it’s under the radar.
I agree with Astyk in that kind of economy is what we are going to have to develop. The concept that this will involve great hardship and not getting what you need for a good and happy life is not necessarily true. Relocalization of production and growing all or a great deal of your own food is part of this type of economy. While it probably does involve what is called a ‘lower standard of living’, it doesn’t mean you have to be impoverished in what you need to live a fruitful and satisfying life. It does mean doing without a whole lot of toys and non essential stuff. It does mean that families will have the time to interact with each other and spend time talking with the kids and spouse, something that appears to be lacking in most families.
Our Grange farmers market started last Saturday. There were vendors we had to turn away, not enough room for all of them. We had a vendor selling Cockatiels, other selling eggs, cookies, candies, hand made crafts while a guy played guitar and sang at one end of the room. A local massage therapist gave massages. We sold out our 10 dozen eggs in an hour. There was bartering going on between tables. We are thinking of having a local didgeridoo player come. Won’t that be a gas. The place was intensively busy from opening to closing time. All of the vendors made some money; everyone had a good time and new friends and acquaintances made. Just wait till the fruit and veggies start coming in. The trade and barter table got a lot of tradesmen and handymen signing on, we are going to be publishing a register of that. This is an example of an operating informal economy.
Now since the state doesn’t like this kind of shenanigans going on (the state figures it must control everything and get a percentage of the exchange going on), there is always the danger of someone not happy with it due to it cutting into their profits and reporting this activity to government agencies. Another good reason to involve as much of the community as possible. There is some safety in numbers, especially if most involved are quite determined to resist government control.
As a branch off of this subject, I am supposing some of you dear readers managed to sit through Obama’s speech to the combined congress critters on Tues night. About all he talked about was the economy and what he planned to do about it. Of course there was partisan cheering on his points. Interestingly, the Repugs have suddenly discovered financial responsibility and at least voiced criticism of the huge spending Obama proposes. Isn’t it interesting that they ignored 8 years of the largest expanding government spending and government expansion in our history but if a Democrat wants to continue it, they are against it.
Now I am going to admit that Obama gives a great speech, really clutches at the heart strings in many aspects. As Freeacre commented in the last post, it was intended to give hope and direction to the nation and appeals for support of his policies and plans. On the surface, the speech seems to really be concerned with the ‘common citizen’. He brazenly talked about taxing the rich (those with more than $250 grand a year income) and closing tax loopholes for the rich. And, we have a majority of people who are adamant about the concept that this problem is of such magnitude that massive government intervention and control is what it will take to drag us out of this economic mess.
Despite my dear spouse’s hopefulness and clear support of Obama, I remain skeptical. Speeches by a practiced orator are one thing, doing it is entirely something else. Let’s look at the situation;
1. Nothing that is publicly stated by Obama wants to significantly change the paradigm of how our money works. Yeh, taxing the wealthy will put more money under the control of the government. But then what? Has the government ever been truly reformist in concept?
2. Frankly, if Obama pushes too hard for restructuring how money works, I figure that the big money people (about 1% of our population) will try and assassinate him. I just don’t see these people passively allowing a reduction of their global power and wealth which is what redistribution of wealth entails..
3. When I look at history, redistribution of wealth is always precluded by a change or dissolution in governments and almost always is accompanied by active and violent rebellion.
4. All of Obama’s speeches contain the element of trying to recapture the momentum of economic growth through capitalistic economic system. For those of us that maintain that continual economic and material growth is simply unsustainable, this is just plain stupid to try and revitalize.
So, in relation to the original theme of this posting, it appears to me that somewhere down the road the concept and practice of an underground or informal economy and a vastly decreased ‘standard of living’ is a necessity. While I admit the possibility of Obama’s efforts might bring temporary relief to the crashing system that is going on right now, I maintain it is unsustainable. I also admit that Obama and his crew are completely unable to deal with this politically if they actually realize this and believe it to be true. Any policies that outright attempt to force a new paradigm and new way of living that proceeds toward sustainability will be met with overwhelming opposition by the very people it would be designed to help, much less the PTB.
While I listened to Obama’s speech, I had the constant thought go through my head that “God is he good at this”. It is such a pleasure, in one sense, to finally hear an articulate thoughtful, educated person lay out their thoughts and policies. That alone is quite a change from the last 8 years. But, keep in mind; it is still a speech, not the actions. And, while in an hour or so, nobody could give all the justification for what they want to do, we can judge what he said from what was omitted. You will notice that there was no solid data presented for his brief mention of his energy policy and why it would work. The main focus was to put people to work, and not what the outcome would be. Does this constitute another government boondoggle and excessive spending program? Do we really need gigantic government spending programs to update and repair roads and bridges to support more car culture and suburban living? Do we really need to spend the money for support of the suburban housing industry and financing? Should we really be spending huge sums of money to support the mafia types that have run our economy for years?
The bottom line is that as citizens we do not have the power to move the government in any particular direction, no matter how justified. Witness the massive opposition to the original bank bailouts. We now can only wait and see what transpires with the new crew. Personally, I hold no illusions that there will be a long term recovery of the system and on an individual basis, better be ready for it. If my gloomy outlook proves to be wrong, so much the better. I am still living the life style I want and in the meantime, will continue to prepare for the worst.
Sharon Astyk in her book “ Depletion and Abundance” introduced me to a different perspective on what she calls the informal economy, or the real economy, as opposed to the formal economy. Now before you gulp and the brain cells overheat on terms, this is not going to be an essay with a bunch of esoteric financial terms and theories. Frankly, I’m a bit burned out reading all the different perspectives and statistics and numbers being tossed around on the internet concerning the economy. Her book gave some interesting other ways of looking at this.
There is also a 1 hr 23 min lecture on how money works at; http://informationliberation.com/?id=26471
Worth the watch if you have interest in such things and is very well presented in very logical non technical way.
The formal or official economy is found in all of the rich countries, and involves tax forms, endless other documents, fees and statistics, the banks and other financial entities. In actuality, most of the world’s populations do not live in a formal economy. A great deal of our economy isn’t involved in that either. The informal economy is ‘under the table’, involves little if any forms, definitely no taxes or fees, and can be also referred to as a biological economy, or a survival economy. The formal economy got a real boost from the industrial revolution. Prior to then, most of what was called economy was the informal kind. In actuality, when you look at it from this perspective, the informal economy dwarfs the formal. It includes all volunteer work, all work within the family. How would you put a national value on all of the work a housewife does as an example? How much work is done ‘under the table’ with nothing in between the employer and employee? I know people that have been doing that for most of their work lives. The problem in western societies is that we have been taught that the formal economy is all there is, and what little of the informal economy we run into is considered negligible and unimportant, viewed with suspicion and often is illegal. Of course governments are not happy with that informal jazz, they aren’t getting their cut of the booty and it is difficult to control, it’s under the radar.
I agree with Astyk in that kind of economy is what we are going to have to develop. The concept that this will involve great hardship and not getting what you need for a good and happy life is not necessarily true. Relocalization of production and growing all or a great deal of your own food is part of this type of economy. While it probably does involve what is called a ‘lower standard of living’, it doesn’t mean you have to be impoverished in what you need to live a fruitful and satisfying life. It does mean doing without a whole lot of toys and non essential stuff. It does mean that families will have the time to interact with each other and spend time talking with the kids and spouse, something that appears to be lacking in most families.
Our Grange farmers market started last Saturday. There were vendors we had to turn away, not enough room for all of them. We had a vendor selling Cockatiels, other selling eggs, cookies, candies, hand made crafts while a guy played guitar and sang at one end of the room. A local massage therapist gave massages. We sold out our 10 dozen eggs in an hour. There was bartering going on between tables. We are thinking of having a local didgeridoo player come. Won’t that be a gas. The place was intensively busy from opening to closing time. All of the vendors made some money; everyone had a good time and new friends and acquaintances made. Just wait till the fruit and veggies start coming in. The trade and barter table got a lot of tradesmen and handymen signing on, we are going to be publishing a register of that. This is an example of an operating informal economy.
Now since the state doesn’t like this kind of shenanigans going on (the state figures it must control everything and get a percentage of the exchange going on), there is always the danger of someone not happy with it due to it cutting into their profits and reporting this activity to government agencies. Another good reason to involve as much of the community as possible. There is some safety in numbers, especially if most involved are quite determined to resist government control.
As a branch off of this subject, I am supposing some of you dear readers managed to sit through Obama’s speech to the combined congress critters on Tues night. About all he talked about was the economy and what he planned to do about it. Of course there was partisan cheering on his points. Interestingly, the Repugs have suddenly discovered financial responsibility and at least voiced criticism of the huge spending Obama proposes. Isn’t it interesting that they ignored 8 years of the largest expanding government spending and government expansion in our history but if a Democrat wants to continue it, they are against it.
Now I am going to admit that Obama gives a great speech, really clutches at the heart strings in many aspects. As Freeacre commented in the last post, it was intended to give hope and direction to the nation and appeals for support of his policies and plans. On the surface, the speech seems to really be concerned with the ‘common citizen’. He brazenly talked about taxing the rich (those with more than $250 grand a year income) and closing tax loopholes for the rich. And, we have a majority of people who are adamant about the concept that this problem is of such magnitude that massive government intervention and control is what it will take to drag us out of this economic mess.
Despite my dear spouse’s hopefulness and clear support of Obama, I remain skeptical. Speeches by a practiced orator are one thing, doing it is entirely something else. Let’s look at the situation;
1. Nothing that is publicly stated by Obama wants to significantly change the paradigm of how our money works. Yeh, taxing the wealthy will put more money under the control of the government. But then what? Has the government ever been truly reformist in concept?
2. Frankly, if Obama pushes too hard for restructuring how money works, I figure that the big money people (about 1% of our population) will try and assassinate him. I just don’t see these people passively allowing a reduction of their global power and wealth which is what redistribution of wealth entails..
3. When I look at history, redistribution of wealth is always precluded by a change or dissolution in governments and almost always is accompanied by active and violent rebellion.
4. All of Obama’s speeches contain the element of trying to recapture the momentum of economic growth through capitalistic economic system. For those of us that maintain that continual economic and material growth is simply unsustainable, this is just plain stupid to try and revitalize.
So, in relation to the original theme of this posting, it appears to me that somewhere down the road the concept and practice of an underground or informal economy and a vastly decreased ‘standard of living’ is a necessity. While I admit the possibility of Obama’s efforts might bring temporary relief to the crashing system that is going on right now, I maintain it is unsustainable. I also admit that Obama and his crew are completely unable to deal with this politically if they actually realize this and believe it to be true. Any policies that outright attempt to force a new paradigm and new way of living that proceeds toward sustainability will be met with overwhelming opposition by the very people it would be designed to help, much less the PTB.
While I listened to Obama’s speech, I had the constant thought go through my head that “God is he good at this”. It is such a pleasure, in one sense, to finally hear an articulate thoughtful, educated person lay out their thoughts and policies. That alone is quite a change from the last 8 years. But, keep in mind; it is still a speech, not the actions. And, while in an hour or so, nobody could give all the justification for what they want to do, we can judge what he said from what was omitted. You will notice that there was no solid data presented for his brief mention of his energy policy and why it would work. The main focus was to put people to work, and not what the outcome would be. Does this constitute another government boondoggle and excessive spending program? Do we really need gigantic government spending programs to update and repair roads and bridges to support more car culture and suburban living? Do we really need to spend the money for support of the suburban housing industry and financing? Should we really be spending huge sums of money to support the mafia types that have run our economy for years?
The bottom line is that as citizens we do not have the power to move the government in any particular direction, no matter how justified. Witness the massive opposition to the original bank bailouts. We now can only wait and see what transpires with the new crew. Personally, I hold no illusions that there will be a long term recovery of the system and on an individual basis, better be ready for it. If my gloomy outlook proves to be wrong, so much the better. I am still living the life style I want and in the meantime, will continue to prepare for the worst.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
A RELATIONSHIP WITH THE LAND
Folks, Starting a new thread here. Belgium has answered my call for a guest posting.
NOTE
This is a response to Murph’s request for guest posts.
I had many ideas in my head and it seemed I could not tease a single thread from the tangle or at least it would have taken more space than would have been possible for a single posting. My original intention was to explore the relationship, if any at all exists, between Ethnicity, Nationhood and the State. The ethnicity part took over and
what emerged was a comparison of the different ways that primitive peoples and more civilised peoples regard the land on which they live. Perhaps, the bigger work will be for another time.
A RELATIONSHIP WITH THE LAND
Peoples that do not own the land have a closer relationship with it and a more cohesive relationship with each other. Conversely, people who do own the land have little regard for it and tend to become more isolationist and comparatively less happy.
I regard these two statements to be true although I have no way of proving them in an absolute way. All I am able to do is give examples to demonstrate my point and hope that I will not be accused of cherry picking.
Primitive peoples have a stronger spiritual relationship with the land than more ‘developed’ peoples. This spiritualism has less to do with superstition about a greater being which holds the answers to eternal questions and more to do with reverence and respect for that which exists around them and on which their continued life depends. The major difference is that more primitive peoples regard themselves as part of nature, coexisting with other animals; forests; rivers and even the rocks of mountains; whereas modern society believes nature is there to be mastered for gain. Ancient peoples believe Mother Earth is the origin of their identity both connecting them with their ancestors and holding her in trust for the benefit of future generations. Thus they have a sense of oneness of belonging to a place and not of a place belonging to them. It has been suggested that since original peoples do not set physical limits on the land which supports them, they have scant regard for the land. In fact the exact opposite is true. For example, the Penan people of Brunei have a great regard for the forest where they live. They have a concept of conservation and stewardship over their habitat which they call “Molong”. Molong, for instance, dictates that the forest is harvested in such a way as to ensure a continued supply of their staple diet of rattan and sago. This seems pretty obvious when it is written down but is a concept that does not enter the heads of many western people. The Penan also hunt wild boar and make sure that there is enough of the boar’s natural diet of acorns and seeds from the diptercorp trees available in the forest to conserve sustainable numbers. The boar also eats plants which grow on the river banks so the Penan take great care to maintain these banks and not pollute the rivers. Their greatest fears come in the form of indiscriminate loggers who are gradually approaching their lands.
The Karen people of Thailand grow hill and swamp rice. The hills are terraced to prevent soil loss and swamp areas are left seven years between successive plantings so that the ground may fully recover. If students today ever hear of the three field system it is a quaint anachronism from a history lesson which could never be used today to support the developed nations’ portion of the worlds present 6.5 billion population. Instead, we transfer minerals from one part of the earth to put life back into an exhausted different part of the earth but time will come when there are insufficient minerals left to distribute. The short-sightedness of this approach is as obvious as are the pitfalls of returning to the old proven ways.
Even at a time when the World is facing an ecological crisis, very few western leaders would admit they could learn anything from peoples whose economies they regard as primitive and whose technologies they deride as stone-age. Such leaders assume they can only learn from salaried employers with university degrees. Yet many of these same scientists are coming to believe that homeopathic medicine practiced by primitive peoples may hold the key to finding cures for many of the western world’s major killer diseases. Although the popularity of such an approach of treating the whole body including the mind with natural products is increasing, it is unlikely to cure the unhealthy relationship that exists between the allopathic drug companies and the FDA. Worldwide, over 3000 plants are used for contraceptive purposes alone amongst undeveloped peoples.
The Karjat peoples of western India have a plant extract which is said to be an effective contraceptive when taken only twice a year. Many primitive cultures regulate their populations to the available food supply and although the theories of Thomas Malthus certainly appear to hold good for more developed cultures they are certainly not true for primitive societies.
It should not be assumed that primitive peoples spend a few hours a day hunting or harvesting their habitat and the rest of the time is spent on music making; dancing and general indolence. Aggression between neighboring tribes sometimes occurs. For perceived major offenses like the stealing of another’s animal then war may break out. This is not the ethnic cleansing exercise we recognise in the west but more a release of tensions in not too violent combat. In a way it is more like
Saturday afternoon football. For example, in Papua New Guinea rival tribes square up to each other across a field but most of the release of aggression is verbal insult throwing. Sometimes flightless spears are also thrown but these are not very well made and their trajectory is often haphazard. Fatalities do sometimes occur, mainly from young braves who are trying to prove themselves to their group but such happenings are very rare. To the Tsembaga and Mae Enga peoples, hostilities are a precursor for peacemaking; inter-group marriage and festivities which bind the groups closer together for a while. At least until someone decides to steal another pig and the process starts all over again. Generally speaking though, peoples who have no desire for ownership of the land have no desire for war, at least in the sense we understand it.
Modern warfare is sometimes about physically wanting to own more land, maybe to put a buffer zone between you and someone else, like Chinas annexation of Tibet. This was easy pickings since the Buddhist monks were no match for military aggression. Mainly though it is about one group wanting to own what is either on top of or underneath the land belonging to another group. Sometimes this is done through proxies, for instance like the CIA funding the Contras of Nicaragua to bring down the democratically elected Sandinista Government for the ultimate benefit of the American Fruit Company. Sometimes it is out and out aggression in its own right like the oil war in Iraq. Either way it is a fight to own the land and deplete its resources until they are used up by the West and the profits go to international financiers. A modern twist to this is the use of economic instead of military warfare.
The World Bank and the IMF throw money at the heads of some third world leaders whose land resources they want to exploit and then wait until repayments are reneged upon. The debt is then restructured in such a way that the country has to forfeit its resources to those who hold the debt. Some world leaders are smart enough to see through this little scam, like former President Sukarno of Indonesia who stuck a finger up at the World Bank’s hand of friendship and so he had to go. That is when the CIA was called in to destabilise the country and install Americas’ choice of President Suharto. Then the benefits derived from Indonesia started to flow to the West instead of the Indonesian people. One thing for sure is that people don’t fight over nothing to have. Whilst the self sustaining indigenous peoples of South Africa; together with those from North and South Rhodesia were made into slaves in their own country in order to work the diamond mines, no one ever started a war, economic or military, with Botswana. There is sand on top of it and sand underneath it and the bush people can bask in relative safety.
The largest ethnic group today without a homeland is the Kurds. They occupy most of Eastern Turkey; a bit of Northern Iraq; a small bit of North West Iran and a scattering throughout Western Europe. They are a largely cohesive group often attacking Turkey from out of Northern Iraq for an independent homeland. It is my contention though, that if they were ever to achieve this goal they would loose this cohesion since it would be no longer necessary to band together in a common struggle and they would become like the inhabitants of any other nation. In this way, it is probably better to travel hopefully than to arrive.
Here is a cute little trick that was worked on the people of the west, particularly America, which is probably an easier example to pick. After the Indigenous Americans were beaten into the back room, who did the newly acquired lands belong to? Well the American Settlers. Who represented these ‘new’ Americans? Could it be the American state? So when you want to have a plot of land to build a house on, then who do you buy it from? The American state in one of its various forms, that represents who? Well we got there; you are actually spending 20 – 30 years of your working life buying something that should be yours anyway. How did this situation come about? I don’t know but it sure seems that when somebody was asked to ‘find the lady’ they turned over the wrong card.
Since I have got into questions and answers here is a final one, it should be easy for most of you. Find a four letter word to finish this late 2001 quote from President G W Bush “The events of 9/11 should not stop the American people from going out to _ _
_ _ “? If I did not know the answer, I would have plumped for Work but that is dead wrong, the answer is Shop. The answer to “Why shop” is that your government needs you as dutiful consumers. They want you to own more stuff so that just like third world countries you will get into debt and they will have control over you. As the benefit of your working hours trickles upwards you will be left with relatively less.
As the credit card companies remind us, “Plastic takes the waiting out of wanting” and boy do we want our stuff but this is mostly trading a short term gain for a long term loss since we will be still paying for the stuff even after its novelty has long worn off. As debt mounts, we will become less happy, at least until the next shiny thing that you can put on your plastic, catches your eye. For companies it is just the same, their next deal eventually becomes your next stuff; Weyerhaeuser’s next clear cut becomes your next garden shed. Both are driven onward in an endless spiral of deals for them and stuff for you. All the time you gradually become poorer and less happy.
Here are a couple of verses from a song that some of you may have seen before. It is a keenly observed indictment on modern society.
People struggle, people fight
For the simple pleasures in their lives
But trouble comes from everywhere
It's a little more than you can bear
People shallow, self-absorbed
See the push and shove for their rewards
I, me, my is on their minds
You can read about it in their eyes
Whatever happened to caring about each other? Where did it all go wrong? Somewhere along the way, we seemed to have traded the wisdom of old for knowledge and we came away holding the short straw.
How can we possibly redress this imbalance? One answer is to reduce our dependence on stuff and as far as possible not be reliant on the big box stores. Grow what food you can and for the rest shop at farmers markets. Try to get involved in community projects to find a common thread with those around you. Try to live a simpler but happier life.
NOTE
This is a response to Murph’s request for guest posts.
I had many ideas in my head and it seemed I could not tease a single thread from the tangle or at least it would have taken more space than would have been possible for a single posting. My original intention was to explore the relationship, if any at all exists, between Ethnicity, Nationhood and the State. The ethnicity part took over and
what emerged was a comparison of the different ways that primitive peoples and more civilised peoples regard the land on which they live. Perhaps, the bigger work will be for another time.
A RELATIONSHIP WITH THE LAND
Peoples that do not own the land have a closer relationship with it and a more cohesive relationship with each other. Conversely, people who do own the land have little regard for it and tend to become more isolationist and comparatively less happy.
I regard these two statements to be true although I have no way of proving them in an absolute way. All I am able to do is give examples to demonstrate my point and hope that I will not be accused of cherry picking.
Primitive peoples have a stronger spiritual relationship with the land than more ‘developed’ peoples. This spiritualism has less to do with superstition about a greater being which holds the answers to eternal questions and more to do with reverence and respect for that which exists around them and on which their continued life depends. The major difference is that more primitive peoples regard themselves as part of nature, coexisting with other animals; forests; rivers and even the rocks of mountains; whereas modern society believes nature is there to be mastered for gain. Ancient peoples believe Mother Earth is the origin of their identity both connecting them with their ancestors and holding her in trust for the benefit of future generations. Thus they have a sense of oneness of belonging to a place and not of a place belonging to them. It has been suggested that since original peoples do not set physical limits on the land which supports them, they have scant regard for the land. In fact the exact opposite is true. For example, the Penan people of Brunei have a great regard for the forest where they live. They have a concept of conservation and stewardship over their habitat which they call “Molong”. Molong, for instance, dictates that the forest is harvested in such a way as to ensure a continued supply of their staple diet of rattan and sago. This seems pretty obvious when it is written down but is a concept that does not enter the heads of many western people. The Penan also hunt wild boar and make sure that there is enough of the boar’s natural diet of acorns and seeds from the diptercorp trees available in the forest to conserve sustainable numbers. The boar also eats plants which grow on the river banks so the Penan take great care to maintain these banks and not pollute the rivers. Their greatest fears come in the form of indiscriminate loggers who are gradually approaching their lands.
The Karen people of Thailand grow hill and swamp rice. The hills are terraced to prevent soil loss and swamp areas are left seven years between successive plantings so that the ground may fully recover. If students today ever hear of the three field system it is a quaint anachronism from a history lesson which could never be used today to support the developed nations’ portion of the worlds present 6.5 billion population. Instead, we transfer minerals from one part of the earth to put life back into an exhausted different part of the earth but time will come when there are insufficient minerals left to distribute. The short-sightedness of this approach is as obvious as are the pitfalls of returning to the old proven ways.
Even at a time when the World is facing an ecological crisis, very few western leaders would admit they could learn anything from peoples whose economies they regard as primitive and whose technologies they deride as stone-age. Such leaders assume they can only learn from salaried employers with university degrees. Yet many of these same scientists are coming to believe that homeopathic medicine practiced by primitive peoples may hold the key to finding cures for many of the western world’s major killer diseases. Although the popularity of such an approach of treating the whole body including the mind with natural products is increasing, it is unlikely to cure the unhealthy relationship that exists between the allopathic drug companies and the FDA. Worldwide, over 3000 plants are used for contraceptive purposes alone amongst undeveloped peoples.
The Karjat peoples of western India have a plant extract which is said to be an effective contraceptive when taken only twice a year. Many primitive cultures regulate their populations to the available food supply and although the theories of Thomas Malthus certainly appear to hold good for more developed cultures they are certainly not true for primitive societies.
It should not be assumed that primitive peoples spend a few hours a day hunting or harvesting their habitat and the rest of the time is spent on music making; dancing and general indolence. Aggression between neighboring tribes sometimes occurs. For perceived major offenses like the stealing of another’s animal then war may break out. This is not the ethnic cleansing exercise we recognise in the west but more a release of tensions in not too violent combat. In a way it is more like
Saturday afternoon football. For example, in Papua New Guinea rival tribes square up to each other across a field but most of the release of aggression is verbal insult throwing. Sometimes flightless spears are also thrown but these are not very well made and their trajectory is often haphazard. Fatalities do sometimes occur, mainly from young braves who are trying to prove themselves to their group but such happenings are very rare. To the Tsembaga and Mae Enga peoples, hostilities are a precursor for peacemaking; inter-group marriage and festivities which bind the groups closer together for a while. At least until someone decides to steal another pig and the process starts all over again. Generally speaking though, peoples who have no desire for ownership of the land have no desire for war, at least in the sense we understand it.
Modern warfare is sometimes about physically wanting to own more land, maybe to put a buffer zone between you and someone else, like Chinas annexation of Tibet. This was easy pickings since the Buddhist monks were no match for military aggression. Mainly though it is about one group wanting to own what is either on top of or underneath the land belonging to another group. Sometimes this is done through proxies, for instance like the CIA funding the Contras of Nicaragua to bring down the democratically elected Sandinista Government for the ultimate benefit of the American Fruit Company. Sometimes it is out and out aggression in its own right like the oil war in Iraq. Either way it is a fight to own the land and deplete its resources until they are used up by the West and the profits go to international financiers. A modern twist to this is the use of economic instead of military warfare.
The World Bank and the IMF throw money at the heads of some third world leaders whose land resources they want to exploit and then wait until repayments are reneged upon. The debt is then restructured in such a way that the country has to forfeit its resources to those who hold the debt. Some world leaders are smart enough to see through this little scam, like former President Sukarno of Indonesia who stuck a finger up at the World Bank’s hand of friendship and so he had to go. That is when the CIA was called in to destabilise the country and install Americas’ choice of President Suharto. Then the benefits derived from Indonesia started to flow to the West instead of the Indonesian people. One thing for sure is that people don’t fight over nothing to have. Whilst the self sustaining indigenous peoples of South Africa; together with those from North and South Rhodesia were made into slaves in their own country in order to work the diamond mines, no one ever started a war, economic or military, with Botswana. There is sand on top of it and sand underneath it and the bush people can bask in relative safety.
The largest ethnic group today without a homeland is the Kurds. They occupy most of Eastern Turkey; a bit of Northern Iraq; a small bit of North West Iran and a scattering throughout Western Europe. They are a largely cohesive group often attacking Turkey from out of Northern Iraq for an independent homeland. It is my contention though, that if they were ever to achieve this goal they would loose this cohesion since it would be no longer necessary to band together in a common struggle and they would become like the inhabitants of any other nation. In this way, it is probably better to travel hopefully than to arrive.
Here is a cute little trick that was worked on the people of the west, particularly America, which is probably an easier example to pick. After the Indigenous Americans were beaten into the back room, who did the newly acquired lands belong to? Well the American Settlers. Who represented these ‘new’ Americans? Could it be the American state? So when you want to have a plot of land to build a house on, then who do you buy it from? The American state in one of its various forms, that represents who? Well we got there; you are actually spending 20 – 30 years of your working life buying something that should be yours anyway. How did this situation come about? I don’t know but it sure seems that when somebody was asked to ‘find the lady’ they turned over the wrong card.
Since I have got into questions and answers here is a final one, it should be easy for most of you. Find a four letter word to finish this late 2001 quote from President G W Bush “The events of 9/11 should not stop the American people from going out to _ _
_ _ “? If I did not know the answer, I would have plumped for Work but that is dead wrong, the answer is Shop. The answer to “Why shop” is that your government needs you as dutiful consumers. They want you to own more stuff so that just like third world countries you will get into debt and they will have control over you. As the benefit of your working hours trickles upwards you will be left with relatively less.
As the credit card companies remind us, “Plastic takes the waiting out of wanting” and boy do we want our stuff but this is mostly trading a short term gain for a long term loss since we will be still paying for the stuff even after its novelty has long worn off. As debt mounts, we will become less happy, at least until the next shiny thing that you can put on your plastic, catches your eye. For companies it is just the same, their next deal eventually becomes your next stuff; Weyerhaeuser’s next clear cut becomes your next garden shed. Both are driven onward in an endless spiral of deals for them and stuff for you. All the time you gradually become poorer and less happy.
Here are a couple of verses from a song that some of you may have seen before. It is a keenly observed indictment on modern society.
People struggle, people fight
For the simple pleasures in their lives
But trouble comes from everywhere
It's a little more than you can bear
People shallow, self-absorbed
See the push and shove for their rewards
I, me, my is on their minds
You can read about it in their eyes
Whatever happened to caring about each other? Where did it all go wrong? Somewhere along the way, we seemed to have traded the wisdom of old for knowledge and we came away holding the short straw.
How can we possibly redress this imbalance? One answer is to reduce our dependence on stuff and as far as possible not be reliant on the big box stores. Grow what food you can and for the rest shop at farmers markets. Try to get involved in community projects to find a common thread with those around you. Try to live a simpler but happier life.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Shift Happens
freeacre
Mike Ruppert posted a great piece on Act II From the Wilderness last week (2/04) that elicited an inspired comment from someone called wagelaborer.
Wagelaborer likened what is going on with the economy to a 911 response to a medical emergency. I’m paraphrasing, but it goes like this:
Grandpa has a heart attack. Grandma, freaks and calls 911. The response team arrives and figures that Grandpa is not going to make it, but feels compelled to do their best to revive him and show Grandma that at least they tried. So, they give him some heart stimulant medication (their training advises the more expensive kind, even though it doesn’t work any better than the cheap one) and zap him with the paddles, etc. So, then he’s put into an ambulance and rushed to the hospital, where they start all over, making a play for the family that heroic measures are taken, absolving each other of any guilt that would be assigned if everyone hadn’t given it their best shot. Happily, for the hospital, this also increases the bill at every step as well. Finally, after the patient is hooked up to the ventilator and the family has had a chance to gather around and say good-by, the chaplain takes them into a room to hold their hand while the decision is made to pull the plug because it has finally been decided that grandpa has been brain dead for while - probably since he keeled ever in the livingroom. This may be more real to me because it is essentially what happened in my family last Friday when my nephew died after suffering cardiac arrest at home.
Anyway, that appears to me what is going on with the financial collapse. Capitalism as we know it has just blown up and suffered the consequences of a lifetime of unregulated excess and corruption that has predictably resulted in its demise. And, now we are going to be handed the bill. Oh, yes, there will be gnashing of teeth, but the lamestream media will be reporting that everything that could have been done was tried, and despite everyone’s best efforts, the economy just tanked. Just maybe some miracle might happen and the patient might sit up and look around and be able to get into rehab, but probably not. And the money that could have sustained the family until the kids got a little older has been diverted to the medical establishment (banks), the family is on its own, and up to their eyeballs in debt. What drama. What pathos. What a pimp job.
Pretty soon, the pretense will finally be up. Those who have heretofore been bought off and rendered mute because of their privileged positions and status within the hierarchy, will be handed their pink slips. Awful truths will be revealed. The worms will turn. Revolution will be in the air. States are already threatening to secede from the union. Governments are falling. People all over the world are demonstrating in the streets (while we hear and endless loop of feel-good stories on the lamestream). Troops may be called out. All kinds of hoopla and jaw-dropping weirdness will be diverting and amazing us from all sides. The dinosaurs can’t be maintained in the new landscape. There will be a hideous die off of the old paradigm.
There is another great piece in today’s Tomgram (Smirking Chimp.com) regarding the fall of the government in Iceland and the emerging new reality in that country. It is well worth a read. I’m including a quote from the end of it:
’ "There is an enormous sense of relief. After a claustrophobic decade, anger and resentment are possible again. It's official: capitalism is monstrous. Try talking about the benefits of free markets and you will be treated like someone promoting the benefits of rape. Honest resentment opens a space for the hope that one day language might regain some of its critical capacity, that it could even begin to describe social realities again."
The big question may be whether the rest of us, in our own potential Argentinas and Icelands, picking up the check for decades of recklessness by the captains of industry, will be resentful enough and hopeful enough to say that unfettered capitalism has been monstrous, not just when it failed, but when it succeeded. Let's hope that we're imaginative enough to concoct real alternatives. Iceland has no choice but to lead the way.
Rebecca Solnit is a contributing editor to Harper's Magazine and a Tomdispatch.com regular. Her book on disaster and civil society, A Paradise Built in Hell, will be out later this year.
Copyright 2009 Rebecca Soln
And, what’s this? Who are all these little creatures scurrying around, making nests in the grass and tunnels in the earth? Who are these people holding hands and dancing around the campfires? Who is squatting in the abandoned homes, organizing clinics in deserted malls, growing food in vacant lots, sharing their homes with displaced children and covering the backs of wandering neighbors?
All the people who have been ignored for so long, that’s who.
The people who don’t come from New York or Washington D.C. are poised to take the reins. God, I am so sick of New York and D.C. If I never hear about them again, it will be too soon. In fact, when the new “Sex in the City” movie is released, I hope the theaters that show it spontaneously combust. The shallow, pampered, conspicuously consuming, yuppie scum are so over. The numbnuts in suits are dead men walking. Even the slave workforce-exploiting-complicit-Wally World-Nascar-watching dumbasserie are doomed. Debt has peaked. Those who rely on it are zombies.
What is alive is just beginning to emerge. I saw it this weekend at our Grange Farmers Market. Real people producing real products from home-based enterprises are going to re-make and re-take the world. You could sense it in the air. People were talking to each other, networking, planning on bartering and sharing resources, coming up with new ideas of what could work to get us through this disaster. A guy was singing folksongs and John Prine tunes in the background. Chili was being sold for a dollar a bowl. Home grown eggs and meat are being traded for firewood and computer expertise. Kids are helping out and feeling good about it.
Check out this populist song, circulating now on the web: http://www.bornagainamerican.org
I am going to be away for a few days. I have to attend to my step-son who is in hospice care now. But, I just wanted to leave you with this post to encourage you while I am gone. Good things are happening. The paradigm is shifting and, like a polar shift, in the long run, there’s not a thing that the gov/corp can do to stop it. You can stick a fork into the Wall Street cabal – they’re done.
UPDATE: A series of snowstorms has hit the Sierras, so it looks like I'm going to stick around for awhile.
Mike Ruppert posted a great piece on Act II From the Wilderness last week (2/04) that elicited an inspired comment from someone called wagelaborer.
Wagelaborer likened what is going on with the economy to a 911 response to a medical emergency. I’m paraphrasing, but it goes like this:
Grandpa has a heart attack. Grandma, freaks and calls 911. The response team arrives and figures that Grandpa is not going to make it, but feels compelled to do their best to revive him and show Grandma that at least they tried. So, they give him some heart stimulant medication (their training advises the more expensive kind, even though it doesn’t work any better than the cheap one) and zap him with the paddles, etc. So, then he’s put into an ambulance and rushed to the hospital, where they start all over, making a play for the family that heroic measures are taken, absolving each other of any guilt that would be assigned if everyone hadn’t given it their best shot. Happily, for the hospital, this also increases the bill at every step as well. Finally, after the patient is hooked up to the ventilator and the family has had a chance to gather around and say good-by, the chaplain takes them into a room to hold their hand while the decision is made to pull the plug because it has finally been decided that grandpa has been brain dead for while - probably since he keeled ever in the livingroom. This may be more real to me because it is essentially what happened in my family last Friday when my nephew died after suffering cardiac arrest at home.
Anyway, that appears to me what is going on with the financial collapse. Capitalism as we know it has just blown up and suffered the consequences of a lifetime of unregulated excess and corruption that has predictably resulted in its demise. And, now we are going to be handed the bill. Oh, yes, there will be gnashing of teeth, but the lamestream media will be reporting that everything that could have been done was tried, and despite everyone’s best efforts, the economy just tanked. Just maybe some miracle might happen and the patient might sit up and look around and be able to get into rehab, but probably not. And the money that could have sustained the family until the kids got a little older has been diverted to the medical establishment (banks), the family is on its own, and up to their eyeballs in debt. What drama. What pathos. What a pimp job.
Pretty soon, the pretense will finally be up. Those who have heretofore been bought off and rendered mute because of their privileged positions and status within the hierarchy, will be handed their pink slips. Awful truths will be revealed. The worms will turn. Revolution will be in the air. States are already threatening to secede from the union. Governments are falling. People all over the world are demonstrating in the streets (while we hear and endless loop of feel-good stories on the lamestream). Troops may be called out. All kinds of hoopla and jaw-dropping weirdness will be diverting and amazing us from all sides. The dinosaurs can’t be maintained in the new landscape. There will be a hideous die off of the old paradigm.
There is another great piece in today’s Tomgram (Smirking Chimp.com) regarding the fall of the government in Iceland and the emerging new reality in that country. It is well worth a read. I’m including a quote from the end of it:
’ "There is an enormous sense of relief. After a claustrophobic decade, anger and resentment are possible again. It's official: capitalism is monstrous. Try talking about the benefits of free markets and you will be treated like someone promoting the benefits of rape. Honest resentment opens a space for the hope that one day language might regain some of its critical capacity, that it could even begin to describe social realities again."
The big question may be whether the rest of us, in our own potential Argentinas and Icelands, picking up the check for decades of recklessness by the captains of industry, will be resentful enough and hopeful enough to say that unfettered capitalism has been monstrous, not just when it failed, but when it succeeded. Let's hope that we're imaginative enough to concoct real alternatives. Iceland has no choice but to lead the way.
Rebecca Solnit is a contributing editor to Harper's Magazine and a Tomdispatch.com regular. Her book on disaster and civil society, A Paradise Built in Hell, will be out later this year.
Copyright 2009 Rebecca Soln
And, what’s this? Who are all these little creatures scurrying around, making nests in the grass and tunnels in the earth? Who are these people holding hands and dancing around the campfires? Who is squatting in the abandoned homes, organizing clinics in deserted malls, growing food in vacant lots, sharing their homes with displaced children and covering the backs of wandering neighbors?
All the people who have been ignored for so long, that’s who.
The people who don’t come from New York or Washington D.C. are poised to take the reins. God, I am so sick of New York and D.C. If I never hear about them again, it will be too soon. In fact, when the new “Sex in the City” movie is released, I hope the theaters that show it spontaneously combust. The shallow, pampered, conspicuously consuming, yuppie scum are so over. The numbnuts in suits are dead men walking. Even the slave workforce-exploiting-complicit-Wally World-Nascar-watching dumbasserie are doomed. Debt has peaked. Those who rely on it are zombies.
What is alive is just beginning to emerge. I saw it this weekend at our Grange Farmers Market. Real people producing real products from home-based enterprises are going to re-make and re-take the world. You could sense it in the air. People were talking to each other, networking, planning on bartering and sharing resources, coming up with new ideas of what could work to get us through this disaster. A guy was singing folksongs and John Prine tunes in the background. Chili was being sold for a dollar a bowl. Home grown eggs and meat are being traded for firewood and computer expertise. Kids are helping out and feeling good about it.
Check out this populist song, circulating now on the web: http://www.bornagainamerican.org
I am going to be away for a few days. I have to attend to my step-son who is in hospice care now. But, I just wanted to leave you with this post to encourage you while I am gone. Good things are happening. The paradigm is shifting and, like a polar shift, in the long run, there’s not a thing that the gov/corp can do to stop it. You can stick a fork into the Wall Street cabal – they’re done.
UPDATE: A series of snowstorms has hit the Sierras, so it looks like I'm going to stick around for awhile.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
TO BLOG OR NOT TO BLOG
from Murph
Every since this blog and it’s origin with Cyclone, we have been forecasting a pretty much doom and gloom scenario for the future. We aren’t alone of course and I am seeing many blogs and commentaries shifting in their emphasis. One of the most notable, Survivalacres, has been dooming and glooming for some time, and has declared that further writing means nothing. His last post is worth the read and contemplation. Those that are preparing are doing so, and those that aren’t, will not. Further writing (words) will accomplish nothing.
Now of course that statement assumes that the original intent was to convince people that really bad shit was coming down and better get ready for it. This blog has done its share of this. When it becomes obvious that it is a hopeless task to convince more people, do you have another reason to continue?
This last Sunday morning, Super Bowl day, we listened to some of the morning news programs. It was sickening. Most of what we heard was trivia in the extreme and the rest was so full of bull shit I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The talking heads seem to actually believe we can fix the situation and return to more growth and prosperity. What utter nonsense. I felt like I was listening to news of another planet, not this one certainly. There was not one word about other factors affecting societies on this earth other than the financial fix. If that is accomplished, we will return to our happy prosperity. Of course all of them are in the 6 figure income range and seemingly have absolutely no grasp of the real world and what is going to affect all of our well being.
So it surely appears that we are living in a society of utter denial. The very few people that perhaps understand the true situation are already doing something to increase their chances of survival from the train wreck we are a part of and helped create. Oh yes, even those that understand what is happening, contributed to the problem, every one of us. We have become part of a death culture in its extreme. Every thing our culture does involves death in one form or another, from genocide to ecological death, and there is no sign of it decreasing, rather seems to be escalating. Words, more words will not halt or even slow this. So what is the point of writing more on the subject?
We might point to the ever changing and worsening situation which for the people that realize what is happening might alter their preparations. I figure that insight is always a good thing. But, will it change anything? Probably not. Will more words convince more people? Probably not.
All of us writing on the internet, making comments and trying to understand our situation may be just preaching to the choir and perhaps it is self catharsis, a need to put into writing what we are thinking at the time with no anticipation of changing one damned thing. I know that for myself, it is becoming increasingly difficult to write anything but rants concerning the situation, repeating myself endlessly. Not that there isn’t new developing stuff to rant about, but what’s the point. Most of you reading this post on a regular basis tend to keep up with some of the latest insanity driving insane decisions and seeing insane consequences. That is not going to change. Freeacre and I have been writing of our preparations along with a couple dozen other web sites we visit regularly. Lots of similarities and a few differences, mostly concentrated on personal food production and attempting to become as self sufficient as possible. We figure that with no previous experience, it will take a couple of years to get ready for this cataclysm coming at us. I further figure that we no longer have a couple of years to learn a whole new way of living. I do not see this as a long protracted fall with ample time for people to prepare when they realize that their very existence is in question. I do think that we will have brief intervals in the next couple of years that will be proclaimed as the bottom and that it will only get better now. However, if all the data I have been exposed to has any validity at all, the proclamations of getting better will just be another lie. There is no way to be able to return to what we had going on in the 90’s. I see no way there is going to be a gradual (generation) soft impact. It makes no difference if there is some giant pool of oil or natural gas to be tapped. It makes no difference. There are too many other factors at play.
To be frank, I don’t really know what direction to take with this blog right now. I feel as though I have run out of things to say. In many aspects, I am loathe to discontinue the blog. But today, right now, I don’t know what further to talk about. This blog offers a support for people to vent out their frustrations and thinking, provides a kind of emotional support.
Got any suggestions?
Anyone want to contribute a post?
Every since this blog and it’s origin with Cyclone, we have been forecasting a pretty much doom and gloom scenario for the future. We aren’t alone of course and I am seeing many blogs and commentaries shifting in their emphasis. One of the most notable, Survivalacres, has been dooming and glooming for some time, and has declared that further writing means nothing. His last post is worth the read and contemplation. Those that are preparing are doing so, and those that aren’t, will not. Further writing (words) will accomplish nothing.
Now of course that statement assumes that the original intent was to convince people that really bad shit was coming down and better get ready for it. This blog has done its share of this. When it becomes obvious that it is a hopeless task to convince more people, do you have another reason to continue?
This last Sunday morning, Super Bowl day, we listened to some of the morning news programs. It was sickening. Most of what we heard was trivia in the extreme and the rest was so full of bull shit I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The talking heads seem to actually believe we can fix the situation and return to more growth and prosperity. What utter nonsense. I felt like I was listening to news of another planet, not this one certainly. There was not one word about other factors affecting societies on this earth other than the financial fix. If that is accomplished, we will return to our happy prosperity. Of course all of them are in the 6 figure income range and seemingly have absolutely no grasp of the real world and what is going to affect all of our well being.
So it surely appears that we are living in a society of utter denial. The very few people that perhaps understand the true situation are already doing something to increase their chances of survival from the train wreck we are a part of and helped create. Oh yes, even those that understand what is happening, contributed to the problem, every one of us. We have become part of a death culture in its extreme. Every thing our culture does involves death in one form or another, from genocide to ecological death, and there is no sign of it decreasing, rather seems to be escalating. Words, more words will not halt or even slow this. So what is the point of writing more on the subject?
We might point to the ever changing and worsening situation which for the people that realize what is happening might alter their preparations. I figure that insight is always a good thing. But, will it change anything? Probably not. Will more words convince more people? Probably not.
All of us writing on the internet, making comments and trying to understand our situation may be just preaching to the choir and perhaps it is self catharsis, a need to put into writing what we are thinking at the time with no anticipation of changing one damned thing. I know that for myself, it is becoming increasingly difficult to write anything but rants concerning the situation, repeating myself endlessly. Not that there isn’t new developing stuff to rant about, but what’s the point. Most of you reading this post on a regular basis tend to keep up with some of the latest insanity driving insane decisions and seeing insane consequences. That is not going to change. Freeacre and I have been writing of our preparations along with a couple dozen other web sites we visit regularly. Lots of similarities and a few differences, mostly concentrated on personal food production and attempting to become as self sufficient as possible. We figure that with no previous experience, it will take a couple of years to get ready for this cataclysm coming at us. I further figure that we no longer have a couple of years to learn a whole new way of living. I do not see this as a long protracted fall with ample time for people to prepare when they realize that their very existence is in question. I do think that we will have brief intervals in the next couple of years that will be proclaimed as the bottom and that it will only get better now. However, if all the data I have been exposed to has any validity at all, the proclamations of getting better will just be another lie. There is no way to be able to return to what we had going on in the 90’s. I see no way there is going to be a gradual (generation) soft impact. It makes no difference if there is some giant pool of oil or natural gas to be tapped. It makes no difference. There are too many other factors at play.
To be frank, I don’t really know what direction to take with this blog right now. I feel as though I have run out of things to say. In many aspects, I am loathe to discontinue the blog. But today, right now, I don’t know what further to talk about. This blog offers a support for people to vent out their frustrations and thinking, provides a kind of emotional support.
Got any suggestions?
Anyone want to contribute a post?
Monday, January 26, 2009
US AND OBAMA
from murph
Yup, we're married now, for better or worse, in sickness and health, we are married for at least four years. Unless we want to talk about a divorce, we are going to have to get along with each other. After having lived through 8 years married to the mafia, this should be a piece of cake. I know that my cynicism over this marriage indicates that I distrust this government, just not quite as much as the Bush years. However, we got him now, got to make the best of it.
As in any relationship, there has to be mutual trust. With the Bush years, it sure seems to me that there was no trust on either side of the relationship, except in the case of the hard line civilian neocon advocates, whose numbers rapidly dwindled as time went on. Now we have the hard line Obamaites with their complete trust in the relationship.
Obama campaigned on the promise of change. Of course, I really don’t remember any campaign where change wasn’t mentioned. But, Obama made it a mantra to the great enthusiasm of a great deal of the populace. The change is supposed to be away from the excessive policies of the Bush administration. Of course, a large percentage of the population wants a change from the dreadful Bush years.
To a large extent, it depends on what changes are made, how extensive they are and how successful they are to keep this marriage going. What I question is just what changes the general part of the population really wants. I suspect that, deep down, what the population wants is a return to the blue light specials and happy motoring that they were used to. They of course, don’t want to deal with escalating cost of living, depressed housing prices, and high cost of fuel, unemployment and depressed wages for blue collar labor. Hell yes, makes sense. But, do we agree that this is going to be possible, that we can go back to what was? This is answered by what paradigm, what part of reality you believe in. I think that despite whatever intentions Obama has, the majority of the population will soon be disappointed and disillusioned with his administration because we are constrained by reality (as I see it anyway) from ever returning to what we had in the past. So despite Obama’s intentions, this country is again going to be disappointed.
Here is where the trust comes in. Depending on what people envision in whatever changes need to be made, trust in the new administration will not last long because this administration is not going to be able to meet the expectations of the general population. This is the problem with our politics in general and campaigning in general. To win elections and gain initial general support, you have to exaggerate what you will do if elected, and minimize the not possible stuff. Despite the intentions of the candidate, this is true. And, if we get a candidate who is a liar and does not have the population’s best interest at heart to begin with, we are going to get a whole bunch of shit when they are elected, as evidenced in the last 8 years of Bush. The only way Obama could get the initial trust of the population was to make promises, even if they could not be met. Can you imagine how popular he would have been if he had campaigned on the idea that all of our natural resources are depleting faster than they can be renewed, that we are going to have to radically change our way of life, that we are going to have to scale back our standards of living, that the current crop of bankers need to be eliminated from the society. He wouldn’t have gotten past the first weeks of the primary. Look at the policies that Ron Paul advocates, most of which I can agree with. He can hardly get out of the starting block on multiple attempts, despite his grass root support.
So the trust in our relationship with Obama has to be mutual. If he really advocates the necessary changes, will the population still trust him? I doubt it. When it comes down to the bottom line, the population does not want real change; it just wants one set of bums they don’t agree with out of power. Is the general population really going to reject greed, massive effects of entitlement with individual wealth, and excessive government control in the name of security? Remember when Carter was president, and warned us that this was going to happen? He was ridiculed, cursed, and driven into the margins of history on that issue alone. If Obama starts advocating austerity and having to lower standards of living and radical changes of existing life styles, the same thing will happen. If he started to really prosecute the criminals leaving the white house, the divisions in this country would intensify; I would suspect into violence.
So the end of this is whether you trust this new administration to do their best for us, the population, or not. No matter how well intentioned Obama is, no matter how much support he is able to keep, we are not going to reverse a national paradigm of the last 60 years in 4 years. That paradigm of greed is good, that we can have whatever we wish for, that we deserve all the benefits we have, that infinite growth is good and possible, is only going to go into reversal by situations over which no one has control and for which there are no solutions.
The best that I can hope for and trust in this new group of power people is that if they really do have the welfare of the population as the center of their policies and actions, that they can manage to soften the landing we are headed for as we fall off the cliff of unsustainability. Despite his charisma and intellect, he is not going to restore the happy 90’s of excess and spending. It is perhaps unfortunate that our leaders are unable to voice such sentiments. If they were, we could have been preparing for the last 30 years and suffered far less than we are sure to suffer in the future. So once more, just what do you trust Obama to do or not do? Really want a Las Vegas divorce this early in the game?
From freeacre:
Building on the “trust” issue, I am reminded of the scene in the movie when Jack Nickelson says, “Truth? You can’t handle the truth!” Trust works both ways. In any event, it needs to be earned and can be expanded upon in steps. We can decide to trust him so a certain extent, and see what happens. So far, so good, in my book.
But, he also needs to be able to trust us. How much truth are we as a nation going to be able to handle? I think he will be experimenting. Will we take the ball and run with it when he opens up the vaults that hold the formerly secret information? Will we “Be the Change” that we want to see? Will we begin to waste less? Drive less? Produce things again? Or will we go back to our slumber and just piss and moan in the face of scarcity? Will we once again wish we could just bomb any country that has resources that we want to exploit? Demand bailouts that are impossible to repay? Give the “Federal” Reserve more power? Whatever. The dye is cast. The collapse will happen – fast or slow.
We need to see what he will do. And, I think, he needs to see what we are willing to do.
Hopefully, there will be a transformation in this country after we experience the hardships implicit in the fast crash scenario. The best case scenario would be that we could build a society based on the traditional harmonious ways of the original people who were here when the pilgrims landed, combined with some of the best innovations since then that would work in the new paradigm. The worst case would probably look like FEMA camps and the corporate New World Order imposed by the goon squads.
We are walking a tightrope here. Personally, I plan to just put one foot in front of the other and hope to get to the other side. That side is gonna be free. It’s going to be sustainable. And, it’s going to honor those who have died to make it so.
Yup, we're married now, for better or worse, in sickness and health, we are married for at least four years. Unless we want to talk about a divorce, we are going to have to get along with each other. After having lived through 8 years married to the mafia, this should be a piece of cake. I know that my cynicism over this marriage indicates that I distrust this government, just not quite as much as the Bush years. However, we got him now, got to make the best of it.
As in any relationship, there has to be mutual trust. With the Bush years, it sure seems to me that there was no trust on either side of the relationship, except in the case of the hard line civilian neocon advocates, whose numbers rapidly dwindled as time went on. Now we have the hard line Obamaites with their complete trust in the relationship.
Obama campaigned on the promise of change. Of course, I really don’t remember any campaign where change wasn’t mentioned. But, Obama made it a mantra to the great enthusiasm of a great deal of the populace. The change is supposed to be away from the excessive policies of the Bush administration. Of course, a large percentage of the population wants a change from the dreadful Bush years.
To a large extent, it depends on what changes are made, how extensive they are and how successful they are to keep this marriage going. What I question is just what changes the general part of the population really wants. I suspect that, deep down, what the population wants is a return to the blue light specials and happy motoring that they were used to. They of course, don’t want to deal with escalating cost of living, depressed housing prices, and high cost of fuel, unemployment and depressed wages for blue collar labor. Hell yes, makes sense. But, do we agree that this is going to be possible, that we can go back to what was? This is answered by what paradigm, what part of reality you believe in. I think that despite whatever intentions Obama has, the majority of the population will soon be disappointed and disillusioned with his administration because we are constrained by reality (as I see it anyway) from ever returning to what we had in the past. So despite Obama’s intentions, this country is again going to be disappointed.
Here is where the trust comes in. Depending on what people envision in whatever changes need to be made, trust in the new administration will not last long because this administration is not going to be able to meet the expectations of the general population. This is the problem with our politics in general and campaigning in general. To win elections and gain initial general support, you have to exaggerate what you will do if elected, and minimize the not possible stuff. Despite the intentions of the candidate, this is true. And, if we get a candidate who is a liar and does not have the population’s best interest at heart to begin with, we are going to get a whole bunch of shit when they are elected, as evidenced in the last 8 years of Bush. The only way Obama could get the initial trust of the population was to make promises, even if they could not be met. Can you imagine how popular he would have been if he had campaigned on the idea that all of our natural resources are depleting faster than they can be renewed, that we are going to have to radically change our way of life, that we are going to have to scale back our standards of living, that the current crop of bankers need to be eliminated from the society. He wouldn’t have gotten past the first weeks of the primary. Look at the policies that Ron Paul advocates, most of which I can agree with. He can hardly get out of the starting block on multiple attempts, despite his grass root support.
So the trust in our relationship with Obama has to be mutual. If he really advocates the necessary changes, will the population still trust him? I doubt it. When it comes down to the bottom line, the population does not want real change; it just wants one set of bums they don’t agree with out of power. Is the general population really going to reject greed, massive effects of entitlement with individual wealth, and excessive government control in the name of security? Remember when Carter was president, and warned us that this was going to happen? He was ridiculed, cursed, and driven into the margins of history on that issue alone. If Obama starts advocating austerity and having to lower standards of living and radical changes of existing life styles, the same thing will happen. If he started to really prosecute the criminals leaving the white house, the divisions in this country would intensify; I would suspect into violence.
So the end of this is whether you trust this new administration to do their best for us, the population, or not. No matter how well intentioned Obama is, no matter how much support he is able to keep, we are not going to reverse a national paradigm of the last 60 years in 4 years. That paradigm of greed is good, that we can have whatever we wish for, that we deserve all the benefits we have, that infinite growth is good and possible, is only going to go into reversal by situations over which no one has control and for which there are no solutions.
The best that I can hope for and trust in this new group of power people is that if they really do have the welfare of the population as the center of their policies and actions, that they can manage to soften the landing we are headed for as we fall off the cliff of unsustainability. Despite his charisma and intellect, he is not going to restore the happy 90’s of excess and spending. It is perhaps unfortunate that our leaders are unable to voice such sentiments. If they were, we could have been preparing for the last 30 years and suffered far less than we are sure to suffer in the future. So once more, just what do you trust Obama to do or not do? Really want a Las Vegas divorce this early in the game?
From freeacre:
Building on the “trust” issue, I am reminded of the scene in the movie when Jack Nickelson says, “Truth? You can’t handle the truth!” Trust works both ways. In any event, it needs to be earned and can be expanded upon in steps. We can decide to trust him so a certain extent, and see what happens. So far, so good, in my book.
But, he also needs to be able to trust us. How much truth are we as a nation going to be able to handle? I think he will be experimenting. Will we take the ball and run with it when he opens up the vaults that hold the formerly secret information? Will we “Be the Change” that we want to see? Will we begin to waste less? Drive less? Produce things again? Or will we go back to our slumber and just piss and moan in the face of scarcity? Will we once again wish we could just bomb any country that has resources that we want to exploit? Demand bailouts that are impossible to repay? Give the “Federal” Reserve more power? Whatever. The dye is cast. The collapse will happen – fast or slow.
We need to see what he will do. And, I think, he needs to see what we are willing to do.
Hopefully, there will be a transformation in this country after we experience the hardships implicit in the fast crash scenario. The best case scenario would be that we could build a society based on the traditional harmonious ways of the original people who were here when the pilgrims landed, combined with some of the best innovations since then that would work in the new paradigm. The worst case would probably look like FEMA camps and the corporate New World Order imposed by the goon squads.
We are walking a tightrope here. Personally, I plan to just put one foot in front of the other and hope to get to the other side. That side is gonna be free. It’s going to be sustainable. And, it’s going to honor those who have died to make it so.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
FIXING PROBLEMS AND WALKING AWAY FROM SITUATIONS
from Murph
The Obamaites have a new web page up asking for citizens to give their ideas on how to fix the problems in the country. http://citizensbriefingbook.change.gov/ideas/viewIdea.apexp?id=0878000000053zC
This was sent to us by a friend in CA. He expressed some cynicism about it, but hopeful.
I read through quite a bit of it and quit when I started to feel queasy. Needless to say, I was very disappointed in the comments made. Freeacre is optimistic enough about Obama's presidency to probably sleep in her clothes on Monday night to be sure not to miss anything, (along with an extra box of Kleenex). So this post has a bit of internal dissension around it. If you have gone to the site and gone through the suggestions and comments, before you jump on my butt and start pounding some sense into my brain, let me explain my very negative reaction.
My first impression was that the suggestions verged on being idiotic and were the result of misinformation or very little real information and I mean that wholesale throughout the site. It was if each little piece was a discreet part of the whole and solvable all by itself. Not one suggestion I read made any denial that we could continue business as usual if only we fixed this little broken piece of the puzzle. What this site exemplifies is that “experts” are now being replaced by “decisions by consensus by everyone”. Everyone now can pony up on a forum their own pet idea on how to fix something. So, if 1000 suggestions that are dissimilar in many ways are offered for some problem, (say health care) who is going to sort through them and come up with a solution. Hmmm? Oh my God, it is the “experts”. Which assumes of course that the “experts” in any given area are not aware of the alternatives available. Not likely. The assumption around all of this is that our present predicament is the result of incompetence and lack of awareness on the part of leadership. This assumption is tenuous at best. I start with the assumption that the decision makers know damned well what they are doing. What they are poor at is projecting consequences of acting on their information. Projecting effects of an action into the future is a matter of probability, not absolute in most cases and we keep getting lots of surprises. It is true that some consequences seem to be close to 100% reliable. Jumping off the top of a 10 story building has very predictable consequences in the 100% range. But, governance does not have that high a probability for large populations. If the “experts” in a particular area can’t project consequences for a general policy, just what is the ability of most folks to do it?
I was in the hardware store yesterday and the guy behind the counter offered that if the government had distributed the $1 trillion bailout money equally between every single person in the U.S. we would end the financial crisis immediately since that would be in the neighborhood of $3 million each with which to buy goods and services. Now here is the kind of suggestion I am talking about. If the government did that, what would happen to prices of everything available? Hmmm? I would offer that there would be a near certainty that there would immediately be a 3,000,000, % increase in prices and that is called hyperinflation, and we have lots of examples of that happening over history and in modern times. If it takes a million dollars to buy a weeks worth of food, you are no better off than you were before. When I suggested this consequence to him, there was this startled response and nothing more was said. These people vote too.
Some of the suggestions at the site were futuristic/fantastic types of stuff. Of particular interest to me was the energy section. It contained suggestions that primarily centered on denial of peak oil or suggestions that would demand a complete overhaul of our huge infrastructure dealing with transportation. Hydrogen and ethanol were emphasized. Now I am going to assert that anyone that has been keeping up with the debate and science around a hydrogen energy source, principally for the approx 300 million vehicles we have in this country, knows that this is a non solution. Individual retrofitting for that many vehicles is not going to happen, not even close. If we try and sell new vehicles to a destitute population, that isn’t going to happen either and the infrastructure cost would be more money than our current GMP for years into the future. It is not going to happen. Individuals with the incentive and abilities to retrofit their gas burning engines may have limited success but on a national scale, not possible. Remember when propane and natural gas retrofitting was the vogue? Cheaper per mile to drive and very damned few vehicles were retrofitted for it. Hydrogen falls into the same trap, plus it is very expensive to produce it in mass amounts. Retrofitting an individual vehicle to produce its own hydrogen is not going to be easy, and nobody yet knows just how many additional problems will evolve from trying to do so. Ethanol has some of the same problems and a few others that are simply not going to make it possible on a large scale.
However, my main concern for the stuff written at this web site centers around the inability to see how all of the problems are interconnected, they are not discreet. Fixing health care, education, energy and a whole plethora of others are interrelated. Fixing education will not fix health care or the financial problems or the geological constraint on our energy supply or our contaminated food supply, and just how long would it take to fix any single one of the problems anyway? We’re talking year’s folks, and in the meantime everything is falling apart around us. We don’t have years, or the means, or the raw materials or the manufacturing capacity or the political will or the money to do what would have to be done.
Another objection I have in that web site is that there was no recognition that we are going to have to change the way we live. That this is going to be forced on the population is inevitable, now or in a short time in the future. There was no idea expressed that I read that would indicate that the American way of life (and western culture generally) was in question and unsustainable. Even that statement contains some assumptions. What it boils down to is what assumptions look like the highest probability to a person. Then you can come to some conclusion about an outcome from some action. My criticism of most of the actions taken, especially by government, is in the assumptions used to determine the actions. In the suggestions at that web site, I find most of the assumptions implied are flat out faulty, no relation to reality and consequently the suggestions are faulty. But what the hell, I am not an infallible prognosticator; I just have to wait and see what happens.
Now, on the positive side to that web site. As Freeacre pointed out to me (in my shortsightedness) that citizen involvement in decision making is a good thing. At least, being in an argumentative mode, and expressing ones ideas means some thinking is being done and minds can be changed by counter arguments. At least, those contributing to the dialog are not sitting on the couch watching American Idol and such all the time. And, there is the possibility that a genuine new idea will be generated, and if the Obama group are really interested in new ideas, it could possibility be that it would be considered. Again, more assumptions. So I guess I can’t completely negate the contributions to that web site. Maybe, just maybe, something good will come out of it besides a whole lot of mental masturbation.
The Obamaites have a new web page up asking for citizens to give their ideas on how to fix the problems in the country. http://citizensbriefingbook.change.gov/ideas/viewIdea.apexp?id=0878000000053zC
This was sent to us by a friend in CA. He expressed some cynicism about it, but hopeful.
I read through quite a bit of it and quit when I started to feel queasy. Needless to say, I was very disappointed in the comments made. Freeacre is optimistic enough about Obama's presidency to probably sleep in her clothes on Monday night to be sure not to miss anything, (along with an extra box of Kleenex). So this post has a bit of internal dissension around it. If you have gone to the site and gone through the suggestions and comments, before you jump on my butt and start pounding some sense into my brain, let me explain my very negative reaction.
My first impression was that the suggestions verged on being idiotic and were the result of misinformation or very little real information and I mean that wholesale throughout the site. It was if each little piece was a discreet part of the whole and solvable all by itself. Not one suggestion I read made any denial that we could continue business as usual if only we fixed this little broken piece of the puzzle. What this site exemplifies is that “experts” are now being replaced by “decisions by consensus by everyone”. Everyone now can pony up on a forum their own pet idea on how to fix something. So, if 1000 suggestions that are dissimilar in many ways are offered for some problem, (say health care) who is going to sort through them and come up with a solution. Hmmm? Oh my God, it is the “experts”. Which assumes of course that the “experts” in any given area are not aware of the alternatives available. Not likely. The assumption around all of this is that our present predicament is the result of incompetence and lack of awareness on the part of leadership. This assumption is tenuous at best. I start with the assumption that the decision makers know damned well what they are doing. What they are poor at is projecting consequences of acting on their information. Projecting effects of an action into the future is a matter of probability, not absolute in most cases and we keep getting lots of surprises. It is true that some consequences seem to be close to 100% reliable. Jumping off the top of a 10 story building has very predictable consequences in the 100% range. But, governance does not have that high a probability for large populations. If the “experts” in a particular area can’t project consequences for a general policy, just what is the ability of most folks to do it?
I was in the hardware store yesterday and the guy behind the counter offered that if the government had distributed the $1 trillion bailout money equally between every single person in the U.S. we would end the financial crisis immediately since that would be in the neighborhood of $3 million each with which to buy goods and services. Now here is the kind of suggestion I am talking about. If the government did that, what would happen to prices of everything available? Hmmm? I would offer that there would be a near certainty that there would immediately be a 3,000,000, % increase in prices and that is called hyperinflation, and we have lots of examples of that happening over history and in modern times. If it takes a million dollars to buy a weeks worth of food, you are no better off than you were before. When I suggested this consequence to him, there was this startled response and nothing more was said. These people vote too.
Some of the suggestions at the site were futuristic/fantastic types of stuff. Of particular interest to me was the energy section. It contained suggestions that primarily centered on denial of peak oil or suggestions that would demand a complete overhaul of our huge infrastructure dealing with transportation. Hydrogen and ethanol were emphasized. Now I am going to assert that anyone that has been keeping up with the debate and science around a hydrogen energy source, principally for the approx 300 million vehicles we have in this country, knows that this is a non solution. Individual retrofitting for that many vehicles is not going to happen, not even close. If we try and sell new vehicles to a destitute population, that isn’t going to happen either and the infrastructure cost would be more money than our current GMP for years into the future. It is not going to happen. Individuals with the incentive and abilities to retrofit their gas burning engines may have limited success but on a national scale, not possible. Remember when propane and natural gas retrofitting was the vogue? Cheaper per mile to drive and very damned few vehicles were retrofitted for it. Hydrogen falls into the same trap, plus it is very expensive to produce it in mass amounts. Retrofitting an individual vehicle to produce its own hydrogen is not going to be easy, and nobody yet knows just how many additional problems will evolve from trying to do so. Ethanol has some of the same problems and a few others that are simply not going to make it possible on a large scale.
However, my main concern for the stuff written at this web site centers around the inability to see how all of the problems are interconnected, they are not discreet. Fixing health care, education, energy and a whole plethora of others are interrelated. Fixing education will not fix health care or the financial problems or the geological constraint on our energy supply or our contaminated food supply, and just how long would it take to fix any single one of the problems anyway? We’re talking year’s folks, and in the meantime everything is falling apart around us. We don’t have years, or the means, or the raw materials or the manufacturing capacity or the political will or the money to do what would have to be done.
Another objection I have in that web site is that there was no recognition that we are going to have to change the way we live. That this is going to be forced on the population is inevitable, now or in a short time in the future. There was no idea expressed that I read that would indicate that the American way of life (and western culture generally) was in question and unsustainable. Even that statement contains some assumptions. What it boils down to is what assumptions look like the highest probability to a person. Then you can come to some conclusion about an outcome from some action. My criticism of most of the actions taken, especially by government, is in the assumptions used to determine the actions. In the suggestions at that web site, I find most of the assumptions implied are flat out faulty, no relation to reality and consequently the suggestions are faulty. But what the hell, I am not an infallible prognosticator; I just have to wait and see what happens.
Now, on the positive side to that web site. As Freeacre pointed out to me (in my shortsightedness) that citizen involvement in decision making is a good thing. At least, being in an argumentative mode, and expressing ones ideas means some thinking is being done and minds can be changed by counter arguments. At least, those contributing to the dialog are not sitting on the couch watching American Idol and such all the time. And, there is the possibility that a genuine new idea will be generated, and if the Obama group are really interested in new ideas, it could possibility be that it would be considered. Again, more assumptions. So I guess I can’t completely negate the contributions to that web site. Maybe, just maybe, something good will come out of it besides a whole lot of mental masturbation.
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