2010 - We Can Do This

Feeding the birds

by freeacre


Good grief. Several of my “go to” writers have published their dire predictions for 2010. From James Howard Kunstler in this week’s Clusterfuck Nation, first, he rather colorfully summed up 2009 this way:

“2009 was the Year of the Zombie. The system for capital formation and allocation basically died but there was no funeral. A great national voodoo spell has kept the banks and related entities like Fannie Mae and the dead insurance giant AIG lurching around the graveyard with arms outstretched and yellowed eyes bugged out, howling for fresh infusions of blood... er, bailout cash, which is delivered in truckloads by the Federal Reserve, which is itself a zombie in the sense that it is probably insolvent. The government and the banks (including the Fed) have been playing very complicated games with each other, and the public, trying to pretend that they can all still function, shifting and shuffling losses, cooking their books, hiding losses, and doing everything possible to detach the relation of "money" to the reality of productive activity.
But nothing has been fixed, not even a little. Nothing has been enforced. No one has been held responsible for massive fraud. The underlying reality is that we are a much less affluent society than we pretend to be, or, to put it bluntly, that we are functionally bankrupt at every level: household, corporate enterprise, and government (all levels of that, too.)”
Well put, I’d say. Then he goes on to surmise what may happen next year in terms of continued bailouts, peak oil, and the continuation of failed policies. He thinks the heightened misery index will not be well received by the citizenry.
“… One wild card is how angry the American people might get. Unlike the 1930s, we are no longer a nation who call each other "Mister" and "Ma'am," where even the down-and-out wear neckties and speak a discernible variant of regular English, where hoboes say "thank you," and where, in short, there is something like a common culture of shared values. We're a nation of thugs and louts with flames tattooed on our necks, who call each other "motherfucker" and are skilled only in playing video games based on mass murder. The masses of Roosevelt's time were coming off decades of programmed, regimented work, where people showed up in well-run factories and schools and pretty much behaved themselves. In my view, that's one of the reasons that the US didn't explode in political violence during the Great Depression of the 1930s - the discipline and fortitude of the citizenry. The sheer weight of demoralization now is so titanic that it is very hard to imagine the people of the USA pulling together for anything beyond the most superficial ceremonies - placing teddy bears on a crash site. And forget about discipline and fortitude in a nation of ADD victims and self-esteem seekers.
I believe we will see the outbreak of civil disturbance at many levels in 2010. One will be plain old crime against property and persons, especially where the sense of community is flimsy-to-nonexistent, and that includes most of suburban America. The automobile is a fabulous aid to crime. People can commit crimes in Skokie and be back home in Racine before supper (if supper is anything besides a pepperoni stick and some Hostess Ho-Hos in the car). Fewer police will be on guard due to budget shortfalls.
I think we'll see a variety-pack of political disturbance led first by people who are just plain pissed off at government and corporations and seek to damage property belonging to these entities.”
The Survival Acres Newsletter contains a very dark scenario that begins in 2010, but includes an over-all view of the coming decade and beyond. It is not pretty:
“The next decade will see catastrophic changes of such scale and
magnitude, that this decade of human history will forever be
remembered as "the time of troubles". There will be little parallel
in past human history for comparison in scale, scope, size and
significance except the decade following this one which portends to
be even worse.

Many of us will probably be dead by 2020. This will be primarily the
result of the following factors: internal strife, war, disease,
plague, famine and extreme religious fundamentalism and widespread
violence. These events will begin immediately -- starting in 2010 and
continuing for through the following decade.

Root causes of these factors will be energy collapse, environmental
collapse, resource collapse and financial collapse affecting every
country of the world in the decade ahead. These are the collapsing
dominoes that underpin our entire civilization. All have been widely
abused and depleted even now, the next decade will see them falter
further and undergo full-scale collapse.”

He goes on to imagine worse and worse consequences of our collective mistakes, a sampling of which I quote here:

”… Entire countries will be abandoned to their own devices for their
survival as nations desperately hoard increasingly critical resources
for themselves. Primarily water and food will be the resource needed
most as the climate continues to spiral wildly from the norm and crops
collapse all over the world. But energy resources will be in
increasingly short supply and will precipitate the collapse of entire
economies.

2012 will be early and especially worrisome, as cultish behavior
among various groups and individuals replaces common sense in the
run-up to December 21st. Rage and riots will be replaced with despair
when prophecy proves false. Suicides will be at an all-time high among
easily influenced groups and people.

Hysteria within government, media, celebrities and pundits will
create a frenzy of hatred and froth towards groups, governments and
even individuals deemed 'responsible' for the growing crisis’s around
the world. In America, this hysteria will even achieve federal status
of protection, as lawmakers "protect" the practice of hatred and
xenophobia. Other countries will follow, believing themselves to be
under attack from within. Symptomatic responses will be the earmark
of this decade.

Politicians of all flavors will find it increasingly dangerous to
remain in office and more then a few will be forcibly removed and
assassinated. Political campaigns will resemble military conquest and
domination as contenders "vie" for the prize they seek, armed to the
teeth from the very people they claim to support. "Voting" will
become a highly manipulated and controlled affair, as increasing
privacy restrictions make simply being a citizen an unending
application process.

Privacy and rights will be completely gone by the end of the decade,
as fascist polices are layered higher and higher. Travel, purchasing,
possession and even ownership will become increasingly restricted and
controlled. The Internet will have been absorbed entirely into a
Total Information Awareness network whereby all activities, browsing,
buying and shopping will be highly controlled and manipulated. The
free press will cease to exist except underground and through
"monitored" outlets (manipulated)….”

Dmitri Orlof, on his site, “Club Orlof” sees, among other things, sophisticated attacks including aerial bombardment of isolated doomsteads attacked for their stored supplies in places like Montana by Russian mafia gangs! Good grief.

Of course, then there is Clif High at Half Past Human and his reportage of predictions based upon his advanced linguistics techniques of searching the world wide web for clues to the collective consciousness of our rather questionable species. His scenarios include much of the above with a lot more emphasis on natural disasters or occurrences of a planetary nature, like pole shifts, tectonic plate splitting, possible coronal mass ejections from the sun, and other life-as-we-know-it ending events in the not very distant future. His advise? Build a boat.

OK, OK, alright already. I get it. We’re doomed. But, is that all there is? Just a non-stop march into the worst possible problems and responses that anyone can imagine? I don’t think so. I respect each of these writes. And, I don’t discount the projections that they envision. But, in terms of my life and the lives of the people that I value (my tribe and community), my experience tells me that something is missing in these projections.

Maybe it’s because I am female. After all, for most of our experience, females of our species have lived and died with very little money, independence, or control over geo-politics, One could argue that collectively, women have been living a “post collapse” lifestyle for a thousand years. I am reminded of the quote from the movie, “Starman.”
“Would you like me to tell you what we find the most beautiful about your species?” the Starman asks of the SETI scientist. “It is that you are at your best when things are the worst.”

Let’s face it, women have made an art form of comfort in the face of brutality, powerlessness, and adversity. So, let’s not panic. Let’s break it down into manageable units, rather than get overwhelmed by the doom-o-sphere all at once. Take it day by day. Take a little time at least to focus on what is beautiful around you. Add to that beauty by making more lovely things – from simple flower arrangements or working with clay or wood or textiles. Look at the wonderful things produced by peasants with more time than money. Nurture other living things – from houseplants to animals and people. Even if you have nothing else, you will still have a lap to crawl up on and arms to embrace those around you. You have your face to smile into the faces of those you meet. You have your sense of humor to bring out a laugh from someone who needs it. You will have the music of your heart to cheer and soothe those around you. We will have our imaginations to create stories to tell to those who need encouragement and inspiration. We will have our gardens and our animals and our friends and our partners to love and to cherish even more each day. We will feed our families as creatively and nutritiously as possible. And, we will continue to add to the happy memories that children will carry throughout their lives.

Those of us who have been preparing are in a position that allows us to be somewhat more centered in the face of economic or resource collapse. Hopefully, we have kicked around these issues enough to have built up a store of emotional stability in the face of circumstances that might lead others to panic. I think it falls to us to lend a hand, lead by example, and help to extend a sense of kindness as well grace in the face of adversity in the coming year.

We can do this.

FINDING IT HARD TO BE JOLLY

Aww yes, the beauty of the cold white snow, the freshess of the air.
hmmm Bah Humbug.

By Murph

Here it is, almost Christmas, should be a holiday for thanksgiving, reinforcing bonds between loved ones, sharing and generally good feelings. Instead, all I can focus on is finishing projects, trying to manage the effects of winter, keeping animals well fed and reasonably comfortable and expressing concern to whoever I can corner for a moment about what appears to be happening to us. Yes, to US, every single non wealthy person on this planet.

I originally was intending to write a post about micro managed societies. You know, where the government minions of the PTB regulate, enforce, and ever demand more compliance of the citizens in every aspect of their lives. Freedom from government intrusion and regulation of our lives? Hah! Whatever remains of that ideology is seemingly long gone.

So here it is, the biggest holiday season for western civilization, Christmas and New Years. From everything I can ferret out of the internet, the tweaking of data by the government minions about the state of the economy appears to be falsely indicating good times are coming. Supposedly, retail sales are up, and yet retail store owners seem to be anxious whether they will survive beyond January of next year. Huge discount prices on most commodities to attract buyers don’t seem to be making any significant progress in volume of sales. Yet, the government stats keep telling us that everything is just fine, the GNP is expanding, jobs are coming back, unemployment is decreasing, and for heavens sake, we even finally got health care reform for which the health insurance boys will profit immensely. Oh yes, housing defaults and foreclosures are on the rise, but Yessiree, the good times with security and prosperity are coming back. So bud, stop your bitching, your just making it tougher for the big boys to loot (that little foreign voice says).

In our neck of the woods, Freeacre and I are being asked about storing food, and how we are doing it. More people are talking about getting gardens going this spring and asking us how we do our gardening. Meanwhile, our county government is trying like hell to figure out how they can shaft us some more. The fight goes on.

Then on Rense site http://www.rense.com/general88/supreme.htm is an article about how the Supreme Court is making it legal to rendition American citizens suspected and declared to be “suspected enemy combatant” by the president. What that means to me is that any citizen that too intently opposes policies and actions of the government can be put in prison and locked up indefinitely.

Then, there is this little tidbit that we sure haven’t heard about on lamestream media;
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-amending-executive-order-12425

And, how’s this for moral entrenchment? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1237470/Priest-advises-congregation-shoplift.html

If you haven’t already done so, I would encourage you all to read the Charles Smith publication “Survival +” which can be found here in PDF format. http://www.oftwominds.com/Survival/SP-free.pdf I consider this to be an excellent read and it is only 140 pages. The unabridged version can be ordered from Amazon for those that are interested.

Folks, I am presuming that most who frequent this campfire already know that the data indicates worse times are a comin’ to replace the current bad times. It isn’t written in stone, but all the indicators that I see sure spell doom and gloom on the horizon. Trying to keep some kind of balance today in ones personal life, trying to keep a sense of joy and compassion alive I am finding difficult. Maybe I should quite looking at all of this information if for no other reason than to keep my sense of humor concerning the human antics on this planet. Yet, I am drawn to keep up with what is happening outside of the lamestream news. While I am absolutely certain that some proportion of this information is propaganda or just outright foolishness, sifting through it has become a daily habit.

On the more mundane front, we have been experiencing a rash of ‘thing’ failures. The latest was last night when one of our printers went belly up. I got a message that the components had exceeded the life of the machine and that it would probably be more expensive to repair it than to replace the machine. The silly thing is that the message pointed to the sponge like pads as being the problem. Even if it was replaced, you then have to find/purchase a reset program to make it work again. How’s that for planned obsolescence? This morning I spent nearly an hour finding and downloading the reset software for the printer along with 3 pages of warnings to not use this unless the repair is made. I did it anyway and without the repair, and the printer now is working again. They promised me that I could have drastic ink spills over the area where the printer sets. Lol. A little bit of alcohol on a rag will take care of that if it comes up. I found the sponge they were talking about and may even try to replace it with an Oregon engineering fix. Sigh.

On the printers, notice the price differential between the factory OEM vs refill cartridge replacements? It used to be that Ebay had a dozen refill ink cartridge distributors. Now, one, maybe two at times and within the last year, huge increases in prices of the refill replacements. OEM cartridges are still so expensive that they are hardly worthwhile. I would like to know how that is justified. Those things are dirt cheap to produce. I was told once that the companies making printers sell the machine dirt cheap and make money on the ink cartridges. Amazing if true! I’m almost (but not quite) ready to go back to a pin printer, they still make them you know. Noisy, generally slow, not as neat a print job, and no photo reproduction I think. Sigh. Back to the basics I guess.

I’m not going to be able to complete the mirror refinish jobs on some real pretty grained wood bowls for Freeacre for Christmas. Not going to get the mirror refinish job done on the rifle gun stock either. Oh well, such is the holiday life.

Want to express a hope for the future and all of you who frequent this campfire have a pleasant and rewarding Christmas and New Year celebration.

Tis the Season

by freeacre


Not exactly your Star of Bethlehem….but it may be leading to something new.

Maybe we should call it “the Star of Obama” because nobody knows what it is. The lamestream reports that it was a failed Russian rocket. Yeah, like rockets form a perfect glowing spiral with a blue beam shooting out of it into an illuminated area when they go out of control. Uh huh. A more likely explanation to my mind is that it is a demonstration of the Russian version of the H.A.R.P. project – a facility for which is supposedly centered about ten miles away. Then there is Benjamin Crem jumping in at every opportunity as he has since 1976 asserting that it is yet another sign of the immanent arrival of the new Messiah, Maitreya the Teacher for the New World religion. Let’s see… that would make Maitreya about forty now and still living in London all this time. Not likely. Next we’ll be looking for Son of Maitreya…
At any rate, though, what a perfect image for the times. Cliff, in his latest report from Half Past Human, says that the linguistics on the net identify this time as one of “Secrets Revealed” and whistle-blowing by all sorts of minions as their loyalties disappear along with their paychecks. Supposedly, we are going to get out collective minds blown by the surprising duplicity of our Men in Suits, military, government, church leaders, celebrities, and basically all those cultural icons who hold what is loosely identified as our culture together.
It has already begun. Read Matt Taibbi’s scathing investigative reporting on Goldman Sachs, the financiers on Wall St. and their counterparts in the government. Formerly regarded as The Smartest Men in the Room, the toast of the beautiful and powerful, now they are purchasing guns and ducking the anticipated mob. They are afraid somebody might rearrange their face like Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s was by an angry man in a crowd who broke off his teeth and smashed in Berlusconi’s nose with a statue of some sort.

How the mighty fall. I almost hate to mention Tiger. Personally, I don’t believe that a person’s personal life is anyone else’s business but their own. I had no interest in Bill Clinton’s sex life, and I have none in Tiger Wood’s either. There seems to have been no coercion or underage involvement (quite the contrary), so I would label it None of Our Business. What does interest me, though, is how much play the mainstream is giving it. I wonder if they would have treated Jack Nickolas or Arnold Palmer that way. Oh, I’m sure none of them ever had any affairs…. But, Tiger has become a cultural cornerstone and it does rattle the mental construct to have him fall so ignobly from grace. I’m not sure if this is a case of whistle blowing – or just blowing.

In any case, we have other examples:
"Roche engages in science fraud
Roche claims there are ten studies providing Tamiflu is both safe and effective. According to the company, Tamiflu has all sorts of benefits, including a 61% reduction in hospital admissions by people who catch the flu and then get put on Tamiflu.

The problem with these claims is that they aren't true. They were simply invented by Roche.

A groundbreaking article recently published in the British Medical Journal accuses Roche of misleading governments and physicians over the benefits of Tamiflu. Out of the ten studies cited by Roche, it turns out, only two were ever published in science journals. And where is the original data from those two studies? Lost.

The data has disappeared. Files were discarded. The researcher of one study says he never even saw the data. Roche took care of all that, he explains."

Then there was the story this week that reveals that the stock market was propped up by DRUG MONEY!! Feign shock.
Via: Guardian:
"Drugs money worth billions of dollars kept the financial system afloat at the height of the global crisis, the United Nations’ drugs and crime tsar has told the Observer.
Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said he has seen evidence that the proceeds of organised crime were “the only liquid investment capital” available to some banks on the brink of collapse last year. He said that a majority of the $352bn (£216bn) of drugs profits was absorbed into the economic system as a result."

Want more? How about Climategate? Those pesky e-mails pointing to massaging the numbers on global warming that may or may not be the work of the business class influencing the scientists. Or, the scientist who refutes the claims of Al Gore in this piece:
"CLIMATEGATE - Inconvenient truth for Al Gore as his North Pole sums don't add up
Tags:
• CORPORATE MEDIA
• COVER-UP/DECEPTIONS/PROPAGANDA
• POLITICS/ELECTIONS/CORRUPTION
• SCIENCE/HEALTH/CLIMATE/NATURE
In his speech, Mr Gore told the conference: “These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years.”
“It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at,” Dr Maslowski said. “I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this.”

Oh, yeah, and the expose’ from “Vererans Today” who accuses the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld cabal of treason due to knowingly going to war in the Middle East supposedly to fight Osama bin Laden when they knew he was already dead.
“BIN LADEN NEVER MENTIONED IN McCHRYSTAL REPORT OR OBAMA SPEECH
"HUNT FOR BIN LADEN" A NATIONAL SHAME
By Gordon Duff/STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor
Conservative commentator, former Marine Colonel Bob Pappas has been saying for years that bin Laden died at Tora Bora and that Senator Kerry's claim that bin Laden escaped with Bush help was a lie. Now we know that Pappas was correct. The embarassment of having Secretary of State Clinton talk about bin Laden in Pakistan was horrific. He has been dead since December 13, 2001 and now, finally, everyone, Obama, McChrystal, Cheney, everyone who isn't nuts is finally saying what they have known for years.
However, since we lost a couple of hundred of our top special operations forces hunting for bin Laden after we knew he was dead, is someone going to answer for this with some jail time? Since we spent 200 million dollars on "special ops" looking for someone we knew was dead, who is going to jail for that? Since Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney continually talked about a man they knew was dead, now known to be for reasons of POLITICAL nature, who is going to jail for that? Why were tapes brought out, now known to be forged, as legitimate intelligence to sway the disputed 2004 election in the US? This is a criminal act if there ever was one.
In 66 pages, General Stanley McChrystal never mentions Osama bin Laden. Everything is "Mullah Omar"now. In his talk at West Point, President Obama never mentioned Osama bin Laden. Col. Pappas makes it clear, Vice President Cheney let it "out of the bag" long ago. Bin Laden was killed by American troops many many years ago.
America knew Osama bin Laden died December 13, 2001. After that, his use was hardly one to unite America but rather one to divide, scam and play games. With bin Laden gone, we could have started legitimate nation building in Afghanistan instead of the eternal insurgency that we invented ourselves.”

Yeah, I’d say it is prime time for whistle-blowing. In fact, Murph and I just finished reading “The Last Symbol” by Dan Brown. That one just may have more influence than any of the rest of these stories. It will be read by hundreds of thousands and probably seen by millions once they make it into a movie. Like the Da Vinci Code, it is full of secrets and intrigue. Only this time it is based in Washington D.C. and may shake to the core those who believe the 1950’s Disneyland take on what this country is all about.

Oddly, with all this collapse of the paradigm in mind, I find my enthusiasm for the Christmas season renewed. With so much of the banal bullshit falling away as the Mall Rats disappear into debt obscurity, a different sort of Christmas is beginning to emerge. I find myself looking through my belongings for little treasures that I can give away. Why wait until I am dead and the recipients are old to give my stuff to them? I find myself wanting to do it now. I don’t know how many Christmases I have left.

I might just put together a cookie exchange among my friends and neighbors. Gifting homemade cookies, breads, music, movies, books – all sorts of things can be given that are special and don’t depend on feeding the corporate pig. A post collapse Christmas is a Christmas that I can get behind. I intend to devote the next two weeks engaged in activities that bring joy and peace and warmth to those I love and maybe an extra meal or two for the community. No credit cards involved.

2012

...This baby is about twenty miles from our home, and there are about twenty surrounding us that are just like it.


freeacre

Until now, I have hesitated to write seriously about the 2012 prophesies. After all, there are plenty of “real” things going on to be concerned with. No need to clutter the mental landscape with imagined catastrophes that may or may not manifest. I have found it somewhat amusing to make references to “the asteroid hit” that it would take to solve our political problems in Washington. Or, that if we have a gigantic electro-magnetic pulse from the sun that takes down the electric grid, at least we wouldn’t have to listen to Rush Limbaugh any more. I have also taken some wry solace that in the event of the next Great Flood, I have a body type that would be useful as a flotation devise.

I have made light of the 2012 disaster scenarios because to take it seriously is hideously painful, especially if one has young children or grandchildren. It’s bad enough to think of the ramifications of Peak Oil and other resources destroying chances of continuing the fantasy that we can leave a prospering and thriving world for our progeny to inherit. It’s been difficult to swim against the cultural tide, and make plans for localized food production, less reliance on the electrical grid, the obsolescence of many professional careers, and cultivating the ethic that “less is more.” But, now, I guess that I am starting to be ready to actually focus on the issue of genuine global catastrophe, at least briefly.

Last night, I listened to Cliff High’s interview on 2012 with Jeff Rense for the second time. If you go to the Half Past Human site and click on the supplementary information with graphics to explain the dynamics of the sun (http://www.halfpasthuman.com/RadioSpecial.html), you will find a very cogent argument for the end of life as we know it – in about a thousand days. You can also listen to the interview with Cliff on the Rense site. It probably has been archived by now. This information does not include the speculation on Planet X (or Nirimbu), or a large asteroid possibly coming our way from outside our solar system. It also does not deal with the increased threat of collisions and different wave frequency encounters due to entering the galactic center. Those possibilities are pretty hard to figure. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe soon, maybe in 500 years. Whatever… meanwhile, I have other things to do.

But, Cliff’s information is much more immediate and, it seems to me, more plausible. There really is geologic evidence that the magnetic and physical poles of the earth have reversed and changed repeatedly. In fact, they have switched three times in the last eleven thousand years. We can verify that from core samples, of rock and ice. We can study layers of rock and the fossil record. We note references from ancient cultures in Egypt, India, the Maya, the Hopi, the Australian aborigines, the Tibetans, and on and on. Of course, that means that even though the poles have shifted and the continents have moved and the flood waters have swept over vast tracts of land, people did survive. If they hadn’t human beings would not be here today. So, that’s the good news.

The bad news is that because the sun is winding up at different rates at the poles and at the equator of the sun, it stores up huge bunches of energy that is periodically released. And, the releases can be calculated. And the calculations infer that it will happen once again in 2012. The magnetosphere that usually shields us from solar ejections has been deteriorating for fifty years. It is very weak at this time. The fact that there are no sun spots at all right now seems to indicate that something unusual is going on. The fact that all the planets in our solar system are warming up, indicates that this is a shared event throughout our whole solar system. If the sun does, indeed, spew out some mass corneal ejections, it may or may not be in the direction of the earth. So, it could be relatively mild, or it could be much worse. But, since the magnetic core of the earth will be affected either way, our planet would probably experience a pole shift which would involve massive flooding and tectonic plate shifts. And, then we would see the New North Pole in Minnesota or something and giant oceanic waves extending inland for hundreds of miles, as the Planet hits the re-set button and the magnetosphere is re-charged.

This is not going to be mitigated by trips to Costco to stock up on canned food and toilet paper. Eight-five percent of the human population of the world lives along the coastlines of the continents. So, one has to wonder if that is why the Norwegians have created the Seed Bank that is storing seeds of basically everything in a vault at the edge of the world. Or, maybe why Google is making digital copies of all known books. Or, why there have been rumors of huge underground facilities being built near Denver, Colorado, for years. Or, why the Vatican built the biggest infra-red telescope in Arizona several years ago to study the sun… Somebody knows something, but they ain’t telling us.

This is unacceptable to me. After all, we may have only three precious years left. We ought to be free to decide how we want to spend them. Those of us who live at sea level might decide to move inland to higher ground, for openers. Or, we may decide to get a house boat and stock it with supplies. Or, we may decide to spend the next three years visiting the places we have always wanted to go. Or, we may want to stop putting off sharing the secrets of our heart with someone that we secretly love. We might want to retire. We might want to learn to tango. Hell, I don’t know. There are millions of things that people might want to do differently if they knew that a planetary disaster is on the way in the near future. At least get the kids that dog they’ve been wanting – and be the most excellent parent and lover you are capable of being starting right now.

One thing regular people may not want to do is spend the rest of their lives working in pointless jobs, living in debt servitude, or going to war for some dumbass reason. Maybe that’s why the overlords are not letting the cat out of the bag. Maybe they just don’t want the slaves walking away from the plantation.

But, what if they put a few extra zeros on everybody’s bank balance, and told everybody to go out and Be All That You Can Be? I mean, hell, they just did it for Wall St. Why not the rest of us? Ok, it’s not sustainable, but hey, if the fucking sun is going whack in three years, what’s the damn difference? Why not do some things that are radically excellent?



...what do you think? Is Hot Springs Wizard looking into the distance, or into the future?

The Sorry State of Today's Youth

It's getting colder...

Thank you, ras, for sending us a guest post! Always good to hear your thoughts.

By RAS

This post was going to go in an entirely different direction. I was going to do an in-depth report on the current state of food production, the (sorry) harvest, and projections for the coming year. I may still do that later. However, I got distracted by my recent experiences and decided to do this instead.

I have been working as a substitute teacher. It’s an interesting job, but amounts to little more than glorified babysitting, as I’m not allowed to actually teach anything. I have now subbed in the poor kids schools, where hall lights don’t work and paint is literally flaking off the ceiling, and in the rich kids schools, where a million dollars was spent on the stage alone. I worked at one assignment that was supposed to be high school English. The regular teacher lied so she would have an easier time getting a sub. It turned out she was an in-school detention teacher for the worst high school in the city. The classroom was me, an aide, and a 6’6” 250 lb black dude whose only job was to keep the kids from hurting each other or me. These were 9th graders -15 years old –and they were, for the most part, extremely dangerous. I’ve never had a worse work day in my life.

But it is not just those kids. Everywhere I have gone I have been struck by the sad condition of our youth. Don’t get me wrong, there are some good kids everywhere, but most of our kids suffer from one or both of two conditions: either their parents aren’t around at all and so they pretty much raise themselves, or their parents are around (some) but not enough and so they overindulge the children to make up for not being around enough. The end result is that the vast majority of our children have no manners, no discipline, and no real future.

Let’s step into the life of an average American child for one day and see what it’s like. We’re going to assume that the child is school-age (though the only difference in a lot of cases is that the child goes to daycare all day instead of school). We are also going to assume that the child has two parents, both of whom work full time at 9-5 jobs, make decent money, and really love and care for their kids. In other words, this kid has advantages many kids in this country don’t.

Our child gets up by 6:30 in the morning, because he has to catch the bus at 7. If he’s lucky, he gets a bowl of sweetened cereal at home. If not, he gets to wait until he gets to school and then gets a ‘breakfast stick’ or something similar. He is trapped in school all day, in a prison-in-waiting with 20 to 40 other kids and one teacher. Recess? What’s that? We’ve no time for recess! We have tests to teach to! Lunch is pizza, corn dogs, or hamburgers, generally speaking. All surplus from the USDA.

School lets out at 3, but mom and dad work until at least 5, so our child goes to ‘extended day care’ which is a fancy way of saying daycare. His parents get off at 5 and have to have him picked up by 6, which is when most daycares close. They have to drive there in rush-hour traffic, so it’s a quarter til or later when they pull in. The busy places in town are daycares at 5 minutes before 6 pm every night.

Now what? Well, now its time for dinner. First you have to drive home through rush-hour traffic. Mom and dad are tired; they’ve worked all day. If they’ve really got it together, one might have went home ahead to start dinner or they might have it in the crockpot. But not likely. They’ve got to feed the kids and feed them fast because by now its 6:30, so often it will be a drive-through or something from a box.

Now it’s homework time. The average child has between one and three hours worth of homework every night. This is not an exaggeration; I’ve helped first grader’s do this much homework. Some of it will have been done at daycare, but not all, so mom and dad spend an hour or more helping him with it.

Finally, everything’s done and its time for quality time with the kids, right? No, because its now 8:00 and our imaginary child has to get a bath and get in bed to be up at 6:30 again. This will repeat 5 days a week. Some nights he might have scouts or baseball after daycare. Weekends will be taken up with sports practice, more homework, and staying out of mom and dad’s way so they can take care of all the things they couldn’t do while they were working all week.

Do you see the problems with this? This child has no free time, no time to play or draw or explore. He doesn’t get to really hang out with his parents. His diet is crap. And yet –this is the condition of millions of children in this country. This child has so many advantages: his parents are home at night, they love him, they help him with his homework instead of vegging out in front of the tv, and on and on. And yet look at the state he’s in.

Consider this: 16% of kids are obese and another 15% are at risk of being obese. That number has tripled in the past few decades. Cases of asthma, diabetes, allergies, and autism have skyrocketed. The rate of childhood depression is increasing by 23% a year, and is it any wonder? So many of our kids are now on medication for these kinds of conditions it’s impossible to do an adequate survey.

It doesn’t get any better for the young adults. Over half of young people aged 16-24 are unemployed. The army recently said a third of them are not ‘fit to serve’. In a lot ways that’s a good thing –if you can’t serve, you can’t get blown up in Afghanistan –but in others its not. The army has historically recruited people who are in generally good health and not the brightest. What does it say about us as a society when a third of our young people are too fat to do a sit up and to stupid to know you need to throw a grenade after you pull the pin?

What kind of future do these kids have? Most of them don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of surviving what is to come. If you’ve never turned off the game console, how are you supposed to figure out how to grow your own food?

I don’t know what to do about this. I don’t have any answers. But I fear for the future of our country.

The Times Call for Jedi Warriors

Freeacre


I know that things are bad. From Smirking Chimp, Brent Budowsky writes,
“Washington remains in denial about the skyrocketing misery index that plagues more than half the nation. Leaders in the capital do not get it.
The president and Congress should continue work to produce healthcare reform, but must understand that to most Americans, ignoring the economic crisis that threatens their daily lives while focusing obsessively on a healthcare bill that voters do not understand creates worry, outrage and political revolt.
Even after shocking jobless numbers, voters do not see any fierce "urgency of now" from Washington. To voters, Republicans are on Mars, Democrats on Venus, while they are suffering on Earth.
The president and congressional leaders should convene an emergency jobs summit to develop a major bipartisan plan to create jobs in America and call on business leaders to join with government.
In an upcoming column I will offer new proposals. For now my message is that Washington is dramatically out of touch with the economic pain, suffering, worry, fear, anger and concern of the people.
Consider the misery index that plagues more than half the nation in very dire and immediate ways:
1. The misery index begins with the real jobless rate of 17.5 percent. This includes the official unemployment rate of 10.2 percent plus those who are so depressed they have given up looking for work, plus those who cannot find full-time work and are forced to accept low-paying part-time jobs.
2. The misery index expands to the husbands, wives, sons and daughters of the 17.5 percent jobless in America and, for a growing number of families, the parents and grandparents who now live with them. Do the math. The "family misery index" is a giant swath of America suffering extreme, devastating and immediate hardship.
3. The misery index includes those who are employed and deeply worried about the future of their jobs. Today they are employed. Tomorrow they may not be, with the next major layoff announcement. They are deeply worried, and should be. Add them to the high end of the misery index.
4. The misery index includes wages that have been declining for almost 20 years, while the cost of living has been rising relentlessly. People work hard and play by the rules but year after year, for two decades, they fall further behind.
5. The misery index includes those holding most of the 700 million credit cards in America, who have had major increases in interest rates and fees, huge jumps in their minimum payments and major cuts in credit lines at their time of greatest need, even though they have always paid their bills.
6. The misery index includes those who are employed but are desperately making mortgage payments to avoid foreclosure. They could be forced from their homes to the streets; they frantically pay their bills and their mortgages, cutting back on food and medicine, even for their kids.
7. The misery index includes rising costs of healthcare and rising premiums for insurance that are punishing Americans. There is nothing in the healthcare bill that does anything for them anytime soon.”
And, then there is the H1N1 pandemic as well as the concerns regarding the vaccines for the flu, which may be worse than the disease. Now, it appears that a super flu or plague that leads to a hideous death by drowning in your own blood has hit the Ukraine. The lamestream is suppressing information about it, but there are several articles on rense.com and Steve Quail’s site, among others. Is it a disease or a bio-weapon? I don’t know, but it sure looks dangerous.

Peak Oil is suddenly hitting the news. A whistle blower from IEA admits that they have been suppressing statistics for years about the dwindling oil supplies in order not to create a panic. The movie, “Collapse” is opening in selected theaters today. It features an 80 minute interview with Mike Ruppert on the oil and financial crisis that will end the world as we know it. What is amazing is that the mainstream is calling it riveting and thoughtful, rather than denouncing it. Jeez, if the powers that be are suddenly going to admit that the world actually has a problem with oil production, I hardly know how to act …”duck and cover” comes to mind.

The government is handing over 11.5 trillion dollars of borrowed money to the mega-rich financiers, insurance pimps, and Big Pharma drug dealers at the expense of the rest of us. It is the most breathtaking siphoning off of wealth into the pockets of the richest 1% yet, and it’s being done by the Democrats! Of course, if it were planned by the Republicans, it would be even worse, if that is possible.

Returning veterans and people thrown out of work and into the streets are going nuts and killing people. Suicides in the military are at the highest levels since the statistics began. The mayhem may escalate as the conditions worsen.



We are truly on our own here. Maybe, at least today, that’s why I am actually feeling better. Lately, I have been feeling a sort of “preparation fatigue.” We have been preparing for this collapse for so long that I’ve about had it. I don’t want to talk about it, don’t want to think about it, don’t want to write about it. Stick a fork in me – I’m done with preparing. Systemic failure is not coming, it has arrived.

Now it’s about dealing with declining resources, the dysfunction of our institutions, and the collapse of the economy. Happily, today, I got a sort of “shot in the arm” (the good kind) by going to see the new movie, “Men Who Stare at Goats.” I’m not going to ruin the movie for you by telling the whole story. But, suffice it to say, that it portrayed the power of the hope and vision of the movement that inspired the hippies and changed many of us forever. It also presented the weaknesses and flaws that in retrospect were pretty funny.

I feel energized, liberated. Free from the illusion that the government will be any help, we can take it from here. And, we can re-discover and cultivate a sense of enthusiasm, joy, brother and sisterhood, love, fun, and creativity in the process. Why not:? We aren’t bureaucrats. We aren’t machines. We aren’t consumers. We are not that stupid herd that the overlords have tried to turn us into. We are human beings, with all the untapped powers and potential that real people have.

I want to catch the wave of energy that almost was forgotten. I want to be a Jedi. I want to use The Force to quell the Evil Empire. I want to sing and dance and give stuff away to my neighbors, learn how to feed and take care of each other. I don’t know how much time we have left. But, let’s bring the best of ourselves to it. Once again I tell you, we were born for this! The beautiful picture at the top is one that Montana Freeman took close to his home. I think it truly represents both the deterioration and the hope that is here for us.

GREIVANCE OR GRATITUDE

Grievance or Gratitude
freeacre

Monday, and I feel compelled to get a quick post up because we have well over sixty comments going on the previous post. All excellent, by the way. A much brainier post is in the works by Belgium. I stole the phrase “grievance or gratitude” from James Howard Kunstler’s latest Clusterfuck Nation essay this morning. He is referring to the upcoming Thanksgiving season, which seems to be buried in the malls by Halloween hoopla and the Christmas marketing blitz. He doesn’t think that folks are feeling particularly grateful this season, since unemployment is still on the upswing, many unemployment checks are expiring, the federal government is on the verge of bankruptcy, commercial real estate is about to go bust, and so forth. In fact, he intuits that when people get wind of the outlandish bonuses that will be paid on Wall St. around Christmas, a fair-sized segment of the population just might go postal. He even envisions a possible coup or some sort of disintegration of the federal government itself! That seems a tad over the top, even to me.

The consensus of opinion, at least from our little slice of consciousness at the Campfire, seems to be that President Obama is impotent to protect us from the banking and corporate globalists at best, and, at worst, a willing shill for the Reptilian puppet masters. I think of the sociopathic Big Boys pulling the strings as reptilian, due to their seeming inhumanity. They seem to be incredibly unconnected to the vast majority of regular people as to be another species dressed up in a suit. Cold-blooded, ruthless, greed-driven, malicious, and monstrous, they have proven capable of entrapping their victims whole, wrapping them up in a web of deceit, and eating them alive, like spiders. Okay, I know that spiders are arachnids, not reptiles, but they are not human, that’s for sure. The latest report this weekend on Huffington Post, and quoted by Kunstler (or was it George Ure?), that Goldman Sachs was going around the country buying up real estate mortgages that they knew full well were toxic, then bundling them up and selling them to foreign banks and pension funds. Meanwhile, they took out insurance against these derivatives so than when they failed, they would cash in. When the most prestigious financial institution is doing shit like this, with all the domestic and international ramifications, there seems to be no limit to how far they will sink. And, their perception of the people involved at the other end of these transactions are as dispassionate as the grey aliens are reported to be when observing a hapless abductee undergoing an anal probe. The banksters, the stockbrokers, and their minions in the legislatures are the aliens, and we are the herd suffering the mutilation. Sucked dry of our life’s blood and lying bloated in tent cities and underpasses, wild-eyed and crazed, or simply dazed and confused, the misery of the masses is about to get worse.

Why not? The Federal Reserve has already devalued the purchasing power of the dollar by 97 cents since 1913 and gotten away with it. The wealthiest five percent now own ninety percent of the wealth of the land, since Reagan and his chuckle headed “trickle down” theory of economics became the law of the land. The false flag event of 9/11 threw enough people into a panic that the constitution has been dismantled, and now virtually anyone can be labeled an “enemy combatant” and renditioned, tortured, and incarcerated forever without trial. The NSA just opened up a new center to help with the surveillance of our e-mails and electronic transactions – and they plan to invite corporate entities to man the facility as well. We can probably look forward to having quotas set on items to buy. I can hear the call now…”Hello, Ms. Freeacre, this is Hal, from Business Watch. We notice that you have not purchased the minimum telecommunication services and food products to keep your credit in good standing. Is there anything wrong? How may we help you?”

Oh, crap, there I go again… getting all paranoid and shit. But then, there was this Mossad agent surrounded by a zillion cops with advanced weaponry who was arrested and apparently sent back to Israel to suffer consequences after he divulged that the swine flu virus has been weaponized. It may be what is causing this hideous bleeding lungs epidemic in the Ukraine. Suddenly the web bot predictions on immanent disaster don’t seem so far from the mark. If you aren’t certain of what I am referring to, just go to today’s (11/2) Urban Survival site (linked at right) and read the column and follow the links. Or Cryptogon. Just reading this stuff is enough to give one a nose bleed. If Baxter Corp. (Donald Rumsfeld just happens to sit on their board of directors) has, indeed, released the Spanish Flu into the world again, we are looking at millions of deaths. And, if the vaccine is contaminated with adjuvants of squalene and mercury, we can anticipate additional long term suffering beyond measure. Oh, yeah, and that guy from U.N. who was found dead at the bottom of a stairwell who was working on seismic monitoring of possible nuclear testing sites also used to work in biological warfare… well, I’m just connecting some dots here. Don’t mind me. His was the second “suicide” from that lethal stairwell at the U.N., by the way. In addition to the scores of dead micro-biologists world-wide. Nothing here, citizen, just move along and buy something at your local mall.

Well, with all this, the “Death of the Dollar” and the possible attack on Iran by Israel doesn’t seem so far-fetched after all, does it? Oh, wait… we have comforting “news” by Katie Couric, et al, on the lamestream media that assures us that things are looking up for the “recovery.” Just who’s recovery is not real certain, but it looks like it doesn’t extend beyond the reptilian sector. Merciful Mother in Heaven…

The gratitude part of my headline refers, I guess, to our local and cyber communities who continue to carry on and attempt to inform, support and defend each other against these seemingly endless assaults on our collective well-being. On a personal note, I can report success after my first week on the Ultra-Simple detox and anti-inflammation program that I started. I lost twelve pounds in a week, which is pretty remarkable. Twelve less pounds to haul around in case I find myself playing commando. So, that’s a “good thing,” as Martha Stewart would say…lol.