The Hidden Crisis

time to stock up..

by ras, our youngest tribal sister. Thanks, ras!




Right now everyone is talking about the economy. The economy this, the economy that. The economy sucks, and we’re all screwed. That’s the short version of a long story. More and more people are losing their jobs and homes. Things are grim and only going to get worse.
Collapse is happening. It’s a fact, not a theory, not something your grandchildren will see in the future. It is happening now. Yes, it is happening slowly –but happening nonetheless. John Michael Greer likes to point out that a young girl about to get married when the French Revolution started would have been a grandmother when France finally stabilized decades later. The collapse of a society is measured in decades, at best; the collapse of a civilization in lifetimes. Now is the twilight hour, the golden moment between the day and the night when you know the end is coming but can still do something about it. Not to stop it - no, for what is coming is inevitable, but to cushion the blow and protect yourselves and your family.
The collapse of a society or civilization generally occurs in a series of crises. The first crisis in the current collapse was the 1970s oil crisis. I want you to note two things about this crisis: first, it occurred only years after 1970, which may be considered the peak of western civilization as measured by energy output and other factors; second, I was not yet born when this crisis occurred. I wasn’t born until 1983, and I’m old enough to have children in 5th grade. Think about that for a moment. This means the collapse of western civilization has now been going on for two and a half generations.
The second crisis began in 2001 when the events of 9/11 were used as an excuse to make a naked grab for the dwindling oil reserves of the Middle East. That crisis is still simmering, as the underlying cause of it was Peak Oil –and PO must still be dealt with. The third crisis began with the economic meltdown of 2008 and is still going on. Most of the jobs that are being lost now will never come back. Most of those unemployed now may never have another formal job. The longer you are unemployed, the harder it is to get hired. Companies assume that something is wrong with you. So these poor people (of which I am one, in a lot of ways) are going to have to either provide self-employment and/or migrate into the informal economy.
Many more crises are on the horizon: water, energy, climate change. Here I want to focus on a crisis that is occurring now but has not yet burst into the public eye and is getting very little attention. That crisis is food and food production. Those of us who read sites like this on a regular basis have been aware of the impending crisis for some time, but I think it is time to step back and take a long look at what is happening and where we are going.
Let’s start with the 2009 harvest. Officially, we had a bumper year. The USDA reports bumper harvests of every crop. Unofficially, the harvest sucked –and is still not completed in some areas. Here’s one, slightly dated, map of areas declared disasters due to the harvest: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0K50u8CTpc3DpxJga_UC5m0iNmYYbk_qKuomzqV-MH1724pJ1v_FcYjGHbMFq4I-ZhElfzasOnwecWuE4NZovdcLVm6wrfIRWX8XnWLlqQlsWWCsvHfgJLOXEqPWYLUxs7DD1fqjEmEM/s1600-h/US_Declared_Disaster_Secretary+&+President_Finalv2-732348.PNG
Would you like something a little more up to date? Click here: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0K50u8CTpc3DpxJga_UC5m0iNmYYbk_qKuomzqV-MH1724pJ1v_FcYjGHbMFq4I-ZhElfzasOnwecWuE4NZovdcLVm6wrfIRWX8XnWLlqQlsWWCsvHfgJLOXEqPWYLUxs7DD1fqjEmEM/s1600-h/US_Declared_Disaster_Secretary+&+President_Finalv2-732348.PNG Notice that EVERY county in Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas has been declared a disaster –and all but one county in Georgia and Louisiana. The rest of the country isn’t much better off. (Click on each state to see the map.)
And yet, despite all of this, the U.S. had a record crop this year? I don’t think so. In fact, I’m officially going to call bullshit on this one. Yeah, I said it. Meanwhile, the number of people on food stamps in the U.S. hit another record high in December: 39 million. (Full story here: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/worldbiz/archives/2010/03/06/2003467306) The numbers are steadily growing. And remember, in some states it is extremely hard to get food assistance. How many people are going hungry but unable to get help?
So the U.S. had a bad harvest year. What about the rest of the world? Australia has lowered its crop forecast again due to droughts and flooding in various provinces. Asia did not do well either; rice and other crops had a rough harvest. Right now, all of this is leading mostly to higher prices. This in itself is a crisis for the billions of people who live on the edge of starvation or who are almost there. Here’s a good article about the problems in India: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/86d6533e-15e3-11df-b65b-00144feab49a.html?nclick_check=1
But the problems go deeper than this. Remember, the world has no stockpiles anymore. So at some point when the harvest isn’t adequate, no matter how much you raise the price, you are just going to be…out. What happens then? Prices will rise to the stratosphere well before then, and more people will go hungry, but when we do run out what happens? It probably won’t be this year, and probably not in this country –the U.S. still grows far more than it needs, and would undoubtedly use its buying power to steal food from poorer nations if need be to keep its own citizens fed, but what about the other countries? There’s an old saying I’m sure everyone is familiar with: any society is only three meal-less days away from revolution. I have the sinking feeling that statement is going to be tested again in the next few years.
Nor is the crisis likely to get any better this year. We’ve lost more farmers. They’re not making any money. They have to make enough to pay the bills, after all. Then there’s the little issue of credit. The way farming works these days, most farmers have to borrow money to pay for seeds, fertilizers, etc, which they then pay back at the end of the season out of the harvest proceeds. Some farmers weren’t able to get enough credit last year to plant enough, and a lot more weren’t able to pay back their loans at the end of the year. This year the credit crisis has gotten even worse. How many farmers won’t be able to plant at all, or be forced to plant drastically reduced amounts? Add in the uncertainty of weather, especially in these days of global weirding introduced by climate change, and we may have another recipe for disaster.
For the final bit of proof, if any is needed, go down to the local grocery store. Take a look at sizes and prices. The former has gone down while the latter has gone up. Considerably up. A year and a half a go you could get a can of chicken noodle soup for $0.50. Now that same can is $1.00. On sale. Flour has doubled in price in the past year. Doubled. So have eggs. (I buy mine from a local farm, but keep an eye on them just the same.) The organic milk we buy recently went up by $0.20 in a week. Prices are climbing dramatically.
All this adds up to an oncoming catastrophe. There’s nothing we can do to stop it. Some people will say “if only every just became a vegetarian…”. That isn’t going to happen. You know it, and I know it. Furthermore, given the number of people in the world, it would no longer be enough. We can’t control the weather. We can’t control the politicians. All we can do is try to protect our own and as many other people as we can. Given the way things are trending, that means storing and growing as much of your own food as possible, and giving as much to the local food bank as possible. Things are only going to get rougher from here on in.

P.S. For one more in-depth look at the food crisis, check out this article: http://www.marketskeptics.com/2009/12/2010-food-crisis-for-dummies.html

BREAKING POINT

STORMS A BREWING

BREAKING POINT
By Murph

It appears that more citizens in a relatively short time frame are finding their breaking points. Joe Stack is the most recent in the news. It leads me to wonder how many more have reached a breaking point and done something extreme, but it didn’t make the news.

We also seem to be anticipating some big event to come at us with much speculation as to what that event might be. Personally, I want that ‘big event’ to get here so we can figure out what our next direction should be. At least a bit more transparency in events would be a relief from the lies and denial I see surrounding our lives.

I’d like to talk about this a bit and would be interested in other peoples’ take on it.

In my life, I have observed that “breaking points” are very individualistic. Whether a person commits some very “anti social” act out of frustration, fear, or just plain old ego trip is not predictable. It appears from what I have read that Joseph Stack had been putting up with what he considered a real imposition with the IRS for a very long time. His breaking point was not easily reached. Interestingly, we just watched a movie, “Law Abiding Citizen,” that portrayed a man snapping as the result of a horrid miscarriage of justice. “Falling Down,” with Michael Douglas is another one. Life imitating art or art imitating life? It seems the movies often reflect the memes people are living with or carrying around in their heads.

Go to a watering hole for the commoners and you will see breaking points that are almost instantaneous and over what many of us might consider trivial, aided by alcohol of course.

I suppose the civilized restriction on taking action on a breaking point has some value, hopefully suppressing the trivial. Those that never seem to reach the point of fighting back, even under extreme duress, are labeled wimps etc. Thus leading to things like the high school bully who can’t seem to stop the abuse or agitation until the wimp does take action. Remember Columbine? This is usually accompanied by a lot of “collateral damage.” “Going postal” is a phrase we use to describe when a person has had enough and vents his rage and goes down in a hail of bullets.

Also notice how the popular news media treats such cases, consensus being that they had to have severe personality disorders to go to such extremes, in other words, they were crazy, in need of help. The are “loners,” “disgruntled employees,” “fanatics,” “cultists,” or the ever more popular, “terrorists.” Not citizens. Never citizens. In conjunction, notice how when the PTB engage in violent acts that it is always justified, but if citizens do, its vilified.

I also wonder how many instances involve the breaking points of the elites. Shakespeare and the Greek Tragedy examined some of these. Since the winners write their own histories, they are called “Freedom Fighters,” “Founding Fathers,” and “patriots,” or “heroes.” Gods, even.

I suspect that we have little control over the personal breaking point that is one aspect of each individual personality. I do think that we have control over what action we take. The question is - is it justified to deliberately take it out on someone who is innocent of your misery?

This brings up another question in my mind. What do you do when your breaking point has been reached and you have zero access to the ones responsible? If your breaking point is when your house is repossessed, and you have no access to the CEO of the mortgage company or the bank, who do you confront or take action against? Those under the decision making elite of the company are just minions doing their jobs. Does “just doing your job” release you from responsibility? The Nuremburg trials said, “ no it doesn’t.” In the instance of Stack, are the people that died in his extreme action to be held responsible for their working for an odious government bureaucracy? How about insurance companies? Banks? Stock brokers?

At this blog and permeating web writing is the concept of the “sheeple”, the wimps who will do anything to keep their status quo and not question or challenge those in power. I suspect that for most of these people, they just haven’t had their breaking point exceeded. I wonder what they will do when that point is reached. I further suspect that this year we are going to have an answer to that, and I think that is what the elites are afraid of - what will the herd actually do? Personally, I think they might be counting on it, just to show us the superior firepower they have.

While I am on this subject of the mass population not having reached their breaking point, take a look at Matt Taibbi’s new article in Rolling Stone, March 4 issue. His article outlines how we have been scammed out of another bunch of billions of dollars by the banks, Goldman Sachs being the leader. When is the population’s tolerance for this going to reach the limit? If/when that point is reached, what will be the actions and consequences?

For myself, I don’t yet feel like my line in the sand has been breached. Of course, I am living under peculiar circumstances in relation to most people in this country. I’m not paying taxes to the federal government, don’t have a mortgage, don’t owe a bunch of money, and am living in a very supportive relatively small community in the Northwest and trying our best to live sustainably. That represents-what?- about 10% of the people in this country? Maybe even less.

It seems like this is being deliberately orchestrated, pushing folks to the breaking point. I suppose when that point is reached where a sizable amount of the people go on the rampage, then the elites will turn lose their dogs, the jackbooted thugs disguised as FEMA teams, national guard, police and FBI terrorist searchers. For that is what they will be labeled, “terrorists”. Of course, it is possible that the inevitable declaring of martial law and the militarization of society may just back fire big time. The stage has been set and all that’s needed is the spark, the final indignity against people who have nothing left to lose, and a forced takeover of everything that is not controlled now. And, like our revolutionary war, only a minority of people will scream “I’ve had enough and I ain’t gonna take it anymore” and mean it. In a plutocracy, the state has to marginalize, delegitimize and suppress forceful dissent for its own benefit to perpetuate its policies of raping and looting.

Outcomes of any large direct action are always up for grabs. There are never any clear winners but rather negotiated compromises and settlements. Remember the French revolution? One more ascension of the power hungry and control freaks pictured with his hand in his vest. I ponder how this will play out this time around for I most surely think we shall see some really big changes coming, if not government incompetence, then some huge world wide calamity that will make Haiti appear inconsequential. I have to chuckle at what I will not see, what the tribal story tellers have to say about it all, or what a historian far in the future will say about this period of history. If I were to live long enough to be a historian or story teller, my version would be very different from what I hear in stories today.

Speaking on ‘breaking points’ on the macro level, take a read of this analysis; http://edwinvieira.com/edwin207.htm He has a rather immense contempt for those that are deliberately voiding our constitution and lays out how revolutions and suppression are dealt with. You might want to check out Joe Bageant’s latest piece as well.

Sunday morning and listened to some of the blather on TV news and commentaries. Between the “Obama is going to drive our country into a socialist nightmare” and the “Obama is doing what needs to be done and a fine job of it” talking heads, I feel vaguely sick at my stomach. Is it remnants of the flue or an emotional rejection of what I am hearing? Then there is the “think positive” crowd with their ever annoying mantra that they use to rationalize everything. It all serves the man.

One of the big personal questions for each of us is going to be: when the SHTF and masses of people reach a flash point and rebel, what are we personally going to do? Avoid the conflicts as best we can, participate, deny the consequences, lend support to what side, or what? For me, I have reached the age where active rebellion would be futile, I ain’t got the mojo anymore. That’s why we have chosen a path of resistance to the greater commodity culture, and prefer acts of generosity. What about you?

Of course, as Freeacre cautions, if your answer is “right here and right now, Mother****er!” it would be prudent for you and for us not to blab it on the blogsite. No need to attract the drones to the campfire…

Rough Week

Sky Collapses On The Passamari
by Rockpicker

Winter sky drapes the land, like a canopy
dropped by unseen hands upon a cage.
Farm ground blurs between houses
at an imprecise place, over the creek,
beyond my neighbors' spruce. Past
what we can see spreads
the topography of an uncertain age.
Fence posts pitch and lose themselves
in fog, like stick men heading off
to evening chores, or the dutiful poor
marched off to kill the poor in forgettable wars.
What I took for granted and thought I knew
when sunbeams slanted through
transparent pain, seems now
untenable and untrue. Still, rockslides
and dying forests loom, like deficits
we must assume in this obscuring air.
The looted vault gapes it's open mouth.
Herefords steaming under willows birth
their calves. The little town rubs
its knees beside a flame and tunes
its set for a prompted reassurance.
I kick the empty streets in muffled gloom.
I bounce solid hopeful notes off walls
of unsold homes. Kept birds balance
in dim rooms, each night, a new deception.
With sky this low it can't be clear,
the honest and naive are always tools.
On the Passamari, the dog star fluxes, red
to green, whether occluded or seen.

by freeacre

It’s been a rough week. I thought I’d begin with Rockpicker’s latest exquisite poem, which captures so beautifully, the “muffled gloom” that is so apparent. It’s like he has a way of looking at things as if through a mental kaleidoscope and is able share a glimpse of things from his eyes. The Passamari, by the way, is the Shoshone word for the Ruby River in Montana. I looked it up.

With Murph so sick with some hellspawn virus, I could have won a gold medal if there was an Olympic category for racing back and forth rinsing and returning barf buckets. But, we were not alone in having life get in the way of our blog posting. Charles Hugh Smith was late due to the death of his friend’s mother. And, Nina, lost her dog to a mountain lion, and we extend our heartfelt sympathies. But, although personal tragedies and difficulties may have put off folding the laundry, vacuuming the house, or scouring the tub, as well as delaying postings on the web, it’s nothing compared to the dysfunction of the government.

The ruthless partisanship between the Republicans and Democrats seems to be eclipsed only by the corrupting influence of lobbyists and the arrogance of Wall St. and the central banks. Barely noticed between the entertaining coverage of the Olympics is the inability of the government to govern. The Republican overseers seem to be totally indifferent to the suffering of the tax-paying masses, despite their lip service to the “Tea Partiers.” They vote as one against anything and everything, even extensions of unemployment insurance just to spite the Dems. So what if the people starve, live in tent cities, college grads and young families move back in with their parents, careers are destroyed, 401Ks are lost, half of the children are qualifying for food stamps? They continue to boviate their litany of never-ending trademark campaign messages of disinformation, character assassination and misdirection as if the election never happened. The worse everything gets, the better for them. On to the next election and it’s millions of dollars … let’s focus on Sarah Palin and Glen Beck, shall we? How about joining in and working to reduce the deficit that you are continually complaining about? Ahhh….. no. I didn’t think so.

And, then there are the Democrats. This disappointing collection of numbnuts still mouth the words of their idealistic intentions to help people with health care, jobs, education, peace, etc. etc. But, they are still unable to deliver a single thing, having been bought off or intimidated by the same K Street swine that rule the Republicans. Sweet Mother of God! They remind me of the despicable Muscular Dystrophy campaigns with Jerry Lewis. Ever since I can remember, Jerry Lewis has been hauling out some poor crippled kid and begging for money to make him walk again. And, year after year, people send in their money – and forty years later, muscular dystrophy is worse and audits find that the majority of the money is siphoned off the top. What a frigging rip.

It’s gotten so bad that even the senators are bailing. Republicans and Democrats are refusing to even run next time, pretty much admitting that they’d rather pound salt than serve in the houses of corruption and ineptitude that the U.S. Congress has become. Three thousand more banks are on the brink of failure, according to Elizabeth Warren, one of the very few courageous voices in the government. The L.A. Times is predicting four million new foreclosures this year. That will, of course, drive the prices of homes down even further, putting even more mortgages “underwater.” The next bubble of commercial real estate is beginning to burst, the billions of toxic derivatives have yet to be dealt with, and now China is dumping our Treasuries. Many of our states are on the brink of bankruptcy. Oh, yeah, and the European Union is looking about as attractive as a bouquet of elbows. Despite the delusional rally of the stock market this week, I’d say this is the year that the wheels come off the financial cart.

But, then, it’s only money, right? Well, no, it’s debt servitude, ill health, homelessness, desperation, lost lives. But, in the end, if it wipes out the globalism that has relentlessly driven the working class into the ground by having us all conform to the lowest common peasant denominator, it might get their boots off our backs. Whose boots? The scum-sucking rich bastard financial criminal overlords, that’s whose.

But, it will take more than the collapse of the digital money house of cards to remove the misanthropic stranglehold on the productive class. The rich bastard parasites (RBP’s) are backed up by the intelligence services, the military, and FEMA. When the television programming and the commercials no longer are enough to funnel the populace into the feed lots, then they’ll call out the goon squads.

But, you know what? I have a strong feeling that’s when they are going to lose. What’s going to happen when we all start painting ourselves blue?

What Keeps Us Going?

This is some smoked salmon that we recently made for a treat. Scrumptious, if I do say so myself...

by freeacre

Things that Keep Us Going…
freeacre

It’s Superbowl Sunday, and I’ve got things to do. Now, I know it’s maybe silly, maybe banal, maybe atrocious in many ways. But, I’ve watched the progression of the teams all season, and I appreciate both teams. I think this will be a good Superbowl because no matter which team wins, I’ll be happy for them. And, I can be happy for the other team because they did, after all, make it to the Superbowl – and that ain’t just hay.

Watching the NFL on Sundays is one of my guilty pleasures, I guess. It’s not socially or intellectually redeemable, but it is such a departure from what I am usually focused on that it just feels good. Sometimes one needs a break from the doom-o-sphere. Perhaps “I can be happy” is the operative point here.

Despite the distinct possibility (or fact) that we are in the midst of economic, political, social, ecological, and cultural collapse, something keeps us getting up and putting on our shoes in the morning. A new person made a comment on the last post. McZilla. He said he was concentrating on “what he can do.” Good point. There comes a point when the litany of deterioration and threat to everything we hold dear becomes absolutely overwhelming. So, what keeps us from wrapping our lips around the muzzle of a gun? What keeps us here?

Little things, silly things, big things – I’d like some testimony. I make edible treats. Popcorn, smoked salmon, fresh bread, fruit pies. Preparing them and serving them to the Murphman and friends gives me pleasure. Murph has to put his shoes on in the morning to go out and free the chickens and feed the rabbits. It doesn’t matter if the Supreme Court just destroyed the Constitution or not. The rabbits need to eat and they need fresh water. We go to the Grange every third Tuesday evening. We are the assistant Stewards, so we need to hold up the goofy Sheppard’s staffs and bring a dish to pass. It’s a commitment. What are you doing today that lends itself to going on and finding joy or inspiration or meaning?

What are you committed to? What fills your boat? What do you turn to when the times are dark and the future looks grim? I know all of us here reach out to each other and share our thoughts. We sing our songs quietly together as we throw another log on the fire. I see Nina painting more beautiful paintings displayed on her blogsite. Rockpicker shares his incredible poems. Hot Springs Wizard sends amazing pictures of his rock decorations in the wilderness around his home.

So, I thought it might be nice to take a little time and focus at least briefly on what makes us happy or what keeps us going through these stressful times. Feel free, naturally, to keep us abreast of whatever else is going on or that you have on your mind. I do not, after all, want to be focused on peanut butter cookies, if a mile long alien ship lands with 500,000 reptilians aboard…then again, maybe I do.

Here's a little blueberry pie for you. I made it last week, and it was yummy...

SOMETIMES I AM SPEECHLESS

Almost mirror finished bowls for Freeacre for Christmas present.

from Murph
SOMETIMES I AM SPEECHLESS

The last post by Freeacre has generated a plethora of comments that got my attention. Ok, ok, Freeacre has been taking up the slack in writing posts lately. I have been speechless lately at what I am reading and experiencing to the point of wondering what words can possibly comment on the goings on in this world and this nation, and, at the local level of government.

We got a copy of the revised edition of Charles Smith’s “Survival +” book in hopes that could shed some more light on the observable crazy shit that is happening. It does help, and is an excellent book for an analysis on what is transpiring in the economic world and how it affecting people and societies. But it does not explain a lot of the craziness I am reading about. I had downloaded his first book when it was available for downloading, went through it, and it is excellent all by itself. I haven’t gotten through the “Survival +” updated book yet. Next on the list.

Not leaving me speechless, this is worth a hoot from ‘The Onion’ if you haven’t seen it..
http://www.theonion.com/content/opinion/i_dont_even_want_to_be_alive

For instance, dig this little tidbit;
http://rawstory.com/2010/01/bush-hunters-convention/
Now is this article pointing out crazy shit or what? This penchant to hang dead animal parts on a wall is something I just don’t understand. I am impressed with their drive to kill every living thing out there, except themselves I suppose, and then brag about it. Unless of course it is Cheney and a lawyer. Uggg. Lawyer parts on a wall?

By now we have all heard about Pfat Roberthem and his ‘god is responsible for Haiti’. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/13/pat-robertson-haiti-curse_n_422099.html Line feed says; “Haiti cursed by pact with devil”.

Our local county government is pushing to let developers put up more destination resorts in the county. Now does that make sense? The country is in a depression and they want more expensive resort areas built? IMO its pure craziness.

Ok, here is another;
http://cbs2chicago.com/local/Avatar.Balcer.negative.2.1412100.html
This is one of the articles slamming “Avatar” movie. Notice the reasons for putting it down. Good lord, it’s even anti Christian.

This one may be a bit of a stretch for speechlessness and craziness, but I am sure you have seen this one.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/75119-irs-commissioner-doesnt-file-his-own-taxes

For those that are curious about conspiracy theories and how they are debunked, dig this
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1084585 The entire paper has a download link at the site. Interesting reading.

I presuppose that all of you are familiar with the new Supreme Court decision lifting any restrictions on what corporations can buy in the political bull shit arena. Now this is scary in my opinion. We thought we had the best government money could buy? Now it is going to be up to the highest bidder for sure, foreign and domestic. Want to make a lot of money, go into politics. This bit of news literally leaves me speechless. They also lifted the limit of individual political donations. All this in the category of free speech. We are doomed, I tell you, doomed!

Joe Bageant has a real rant focused on a letter to him from Jan 24th. I get the feeling that he is sick and tired of people writing him bull shit.

I went to the feed store a few days ago to pick up some rabbit food and got in a conversation with the owners wife. Turns out she gets the majority of her ‘news’ from the morning “700 Club” show on TV. She expressed the opinion that Obama had rescinded almost all of Bushe’s advancements in the government. I asked her to tell me what these were. She couldn’t. I said he hadn’t repealed the Patriot Act and she thought that was good. I asked if she meant the restriction on our freedoms. She said that was a good thing for national security and to catch the people that want us all to die. Sigh. I was able to restrain myself and not laugh at her. I told here I would rather have my freedoms, thank you. Come to find out I ran across some other people that also listen to the 700 Club. Talk about a disinformation move by the evangelical churches.

We recently got a copy of Mike Rupperts new book “Confronting Collapse” that put all of his conclusion and a lot of his data together into a rather precise analysis. Some new stuff in the book that is interesting. Worth the read.

I’m about half way through James Wesley Rawles book “How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It”. He is the guy that started http://survivalblog.com/ that indeed has a lot of useful information. His listing of what we need to survival is downright daunting and would take a millionaire to supply, but the listing is very interesting about what he conceives we should be working toward and why.

Since it is getting close to seed starting for the garden, we have made our seed order and gotten some of them already. I have been pouring through loaned books from friends on multiple ideas for growing food locally.

I’ve finally finished the jobs in the shop/garage that demanded I keep it heated. Burned up over a cord of wood doing them. At current prices for pine burning wood ($150/cord, split) it was reasonably expensive projects. Freeacre had a couple of myrtle wood bowls with beautiful graining that had gotten a bit beat up over the years. I had decided I would do a mirror finish on the two of them for Xmas presents while I was also doing a mirror finish on a rifle stock for a guy. After Freeacre informed me that we didn’t have anyplace to display mirror finished large bowls and was going to use them, I quit short of an absolute mirror finish after 8 weeks of working on them. I’ve found that mirror finishes are really difficult to do, even with practice over the years. To complicate it, I did them in tung oil. At least I’m now freed up to work on some other projects I have in mind, especially ones that don’t involve fancy finishes until we get to the planting stage in the weather.

I can’t tell you of the number of retired folks I am acquainted with that express boredom since they don’t have a regular job to go to anymore. Bored? Hmmm, how is that even possible? I guess TV and jawing with friends must constitute most of their time wasting. We can’t seem to generate enough time to do what we want to get done. Talked to an older retired guy at the Grange meeting. He expressed that his garden was all set to go. I blinked. It is winter in Oregon after all. Upon questioning him, seems he was referring to his decorative garden and planting of bushes and flowers, etc. When I expressed my thought that he was referring to a vegetable garden he laughed and said he doesn’t do vegetable gardens, too damned much work. I said that when and if the trucks stopped running or the grocery store got too high priced the vegetable garden that was too much work would suddenly be valuable. We quit talking about it about then. People standing around nodded in agreement.

People at this site have periodically expressed how hard it is to talk to people about the coming bad times, the being treated with contempt/disbelief/skepticism etc. And yet, in this area, rural Oregon, there is a surprising number of people that also believe it’s not going to get better any time soon. Difference in opinion of how it will play out and how bad it will get, but not with a whole lot of optimism. Then of course there is the ultra right people that blame everything on those damned ultra left liberals and figure if we can get Sarah Palin elected everything will go back to normal. I don’t indulge much anymore in conversations that start out that way. They are stuck in a political ideology and aren’t about to listen to a counter opinion and data. After all, I do listen to what they have to say, but if I contradict anything, their voices gain considerably in volume and they begin to wave their arms and would prefer I just shut up. Critical thinking seems to be a lost skill in the general population.

Now that this rant is finished, I can become speechless again.

Despite Efforts, Population Getting Worse

Photo courtesy of Hot Springs Wizard. Honoring the landscape with a hand-made head on what he calls, "The Rock of Knowledge"

Happily, our friend from Belgium (AKA Spirit Across the Sea) has contributed a post to give us another starting place for the on-going conversation...

Attempts to Solve the Population Problem Only Make Matters Worse

Over population is one of those proverbial elephants in the living room that nobody wants to talk about, mainly because it is easier to ignore an insoluble problem than attempt to deal with it. Thomas Malthus essentially said that population would continue to grow until it ran out of food. He used different words but that is what he meant. The problem is that there is no way you can stop turkeys from having little turkeys or any other species including humans from having offspring. They have been doing it since pre-history and regard it as an inalienable right but this inalienable right has caused a problem. It doesn’t matter whether you blame it on the age of oil or any other reason it is a fact that there has been a mushroom cloud of people on the planet in the last hundred years and the Malthus train is headed at full speed towards the buffers. The world population is expected to reach seven billion by 2012. At a current population level of almost 1.4 billion, which is a mere billion more than the population of the USA and 20% of all humans on Earth, the Chinese saw the problem coming, switched the points at the last moment and sat back to watch the train head for the cliffs.

China Set to Abandon its Failing Population Policy

It is fairly obvious that if two parents have two children during their lifetime the children replace the adults and if these children replace themselves on a one to one basis then the population remains stable. If they have more than two children then the population increases and if they have less than two it decreases. In an attempt to decrease its population China did just that. From the mid 1970’s it limited each female to just one child during her lifetime so that the population would halve over one generation. The experiment was a partial success, which means it didn’t work or more correctly it worked but not in the way intended. It is true that this policy has prevented the population jumping by an estimated 400 million but it has also resulted in unforeseen social problems which are now preoccupying the regime. Normally children are born in roughly equal numbers of males to females. Nature skews this slightly in favour of males since generally they do more dangerous things like fighting in wars for instance. Proportions vary throughout the world with ‘normal’ being about 103 males for every 100 females but in isolated groups can be as high as 107 males to 100 females (jargon shorthand for this is a ‘ratio of 1.03’ or a ‘ratio of 1.07’). Currently China is approaching a ratio of 1.21 resulting in 33.31 million more men than women being born during the twenty years between 1980 and 2000 (and of course more since). This short post is actually about gender imbalance rather population per se. There are at least 33.3 million men roaming around China that can’t find women, many living a new phenomenon called bachelor villages, resulting in male depression; an increasing sex industry and crimes against females. It is so much of a problem that in the two years between 2001 – 2003 police freed 45,000 abducted women and children and these are just the ones they found. There is also a disproportionate aging population with too few working age people to support both the elderly and the state structure.

Since the time of Mao, China has dragged itself into the industrial age but old habits die hard and its mentality is still largely peasantry. The country is not known for its human rights or its social (welfare) policies. When the elderly become too old to work it is traditionally for the offspring to continue the pastoral life in the same locality and provide for the parents. In this way strong family bonds are maintained. Now with migration of the young into the new industrial areas combined with the one child policy, the elderly have become vulnerable in a way previously unknown. Previously, sons took over father’s duties in the fields and lived in the family home or nearby to care and provide for the parents. Daughters married and went to live with her husband or in the home of his parents. Thus it was mainly the sons and their wives who cared for the parents. In a way, sons represented their pension policy. Now with the one child policy that safety net has been lost especially if the son is enticed into the new industrial areas which could be a couple of days train journey away. If parents have a daughter they are even worse off since it is almost certain she will be lost to them during their working lifetime with no one to carry on the family line or provide for them in old age. Not only this, the daughter’s family has to provide a dowry on her marriage yet it is the bridegrooms family that receive care from her in later life. A growing market within China for affordable ultrasound scanners has allowed many parents to ‘choose’ for sons with illegal selective pro-choice abortions becoming an increasing fact of life. If this fails or the woman ‘chooses’ too late, then incidences of infanticide of daughters are reported to be drastically increasing. The administration now realizes it got a few details wrong and that even the plans of an authoritarian regime can be sidetracked by the will of the people. It is now expected that there will be proposals in the next five year plan (2011 – 2016) to drop or at least shelve the one child policy to replace it with a sliding scale policy where the one child per female law will remain in the main cities; two children per female in the designated countryside and three in areas like Tibet for instance where gender ratios are within normal world wide limits. It is suggested that this will be combined with some sort of welfare plan which favours girls. Proposed measures include exempting girls’ families from contributing towards school fees; parents with two daughters would also receive the equivalent of $150 pa for the rest of their lives (this is a lot in China); preferential health care treatment together with modern housing and secure employment. A care package for the elderly would also be provided. There are three foreseeable problems with this; firstly this break with existing policy would seriously conflict with China's population control effort; secondly there are not enough working people to pay for it and finally export revenue may get caught in the dollar’s demise.

Mainland Chinese have more in common with the Yanomamo People than with the inhabitants of Hong Kong

The above is just a knee jerk reaction of the people to an ill thought through policy by an authoritarian regime – and it couldn’t happen anywhere else, right? Well, No!
The Yanomamo are a tribal people who inhabit Venezuela’s jungle region along its southern border with Brazil. There are about 15,000 of them living in 150 or so scattered villages. If you accept the initial premise that they are often attacked by their neighbouring villages, then their solution to this can only be described as bizarre logic. But before that, some interesting numbers. Villages of forty members or less cannot survive since there are too few men to defend it. At numbers of 100 – 125 inhabitants, there is constant squabbling about policy and at a level of 150 inhabitants it becomes totally unworkable as a cohesive unit and splits into two. Bear with me for a few seconds because I am going to run the argument backwards and then the reason for the attacks will become clear. The villages are attacked so the attacked village needs a strong force of men to defend it and because of this the attacking side needs a strong force of men to prevail in their mission. In order to get a sufficient proportion of warriors it is customary for separate communities to practice infanticide against females. This leaves a disproportionate number of men and the reason for inter village conflict is to steal women from their neighbours. If they only had the wit to stop with the infanticide then there would be enough women to go around without any need for fighting at all. Maybe the whole thing is nature’s way of sharpening their survival skills.

Well that is all fine or not, depending on whether you are one of the victors or the vanquished and we can see the disproportionate numbers of males and therefore the connection with the mainland Chinese but what has all this got to do with the people of Hong Kong. Well it seems that the men of Hong Kong just don’t like very much to marry the ladies of Hong Kong and go on more of a poaching rather than raiding mission to the mainland. The reasons for this are not at all clear but it just is so. Perhaps city slicker males don’t like to marry city slicker ladies and go off to find mainland maidens. This leaves a more than an average number of local ladies on the island - for those of you who are interested in knowing this fact.

Imbalance Redressed?

Now that the ladies of Hong Kong have entered the conversation, is there anywhere else in the world that has a surfeit of women? Well it just so happens there is but I am not at all sure the surplus men of China would want to head there in droves. It is in Greenland and the Arctic waste territories; the peoples who are collectively known as Eskimos. The reason is not reverse infanticide but all the same, I am sure it is not one you are going to want to know about. Their diet consists entirely of fish and other sea life, seals, walrus etc and these species over the years have absorbed much of the toxic waste our civilisation has dumped into the sea – DDT, PCB’s mercury, cadmium and other heavy metals. These chemicals affect hormones and endocrines in pregnant women in a way that favours the formation of a female fetus. So next time you see an Eskimo woman smiling in your direction, just remember that she might be a sack of toxic waste.

Conclusion

It seems to me that when you set about deliberately meddling with the primordial forces of nature then nature has ways if biting back and although they might not always be conventional, they are always effective.

Sources

Rolic News – Chinese syndicated newspaper Dec 2009
Experts urge switch from one child policy

Human Sex ratio – Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sex_ratio

MSNBC.com
NBC: China begins to face sex-ratio imbalance
http://www.nsmbc.msn/id/5953508/print/1/displaymode/1098/

National Geographic Magazine August 1976 pp211
Yanomamo, the True People
(Borrowed from the doctor’s waiting room)

"Year of the Bad Serf"

photo courtesy of Hot Springs Wizard

by freeacre


“In the face of expensive wars and a dying desperate federal state, 2010 will mark the year that Americans self-consciously embrace the power of civil disobedience, and launch a decade of fundamental and good-natured repudiation of all things government – its wars, its debts, its never-ending lies and yes, even its promises. It’s already happening, and it’s going to be a lot of fun.” That’s a quote from an essay (“Year of the Bad Serf”) by Karen Kwiawatowsky on LewRockwell.com that got my attention.

Humm….rebellious fun. Yeah, fun would be good. People who are familiar with me already know that I tend to favor the adolescent responses of immature name-calling and vulgar gestures as my first response to adversity or bogus authority. I consider it my survival response to a rather objectionable childhood that has served me quite well. If nothing else, it helps to disconnect me from knee-jerk subservience or fear while giving me time to think of a more effective retaliation. Some people might say that I have an “anger racket” and that it is not good for my health. But, you know, I just tell them to "bite me."

When George Bush was the president and we were writing on cyclone’s site, I used to keep a handy list of insulting labels when referring to the assorted miscreants in his abysmal administration. Since then, my list has been lost. But, it may be time to make up another one to keep handy when firing off a quick letter to the lamestream media talking heads or to one or the other of the political or financial wizards responsible for the unfolding debacle in Washington and Wall Street. To that end, I am beginning a new list. Feel free to use it yourselves or to add to it. Collectively, we could create a compendium of choice appellations that would be both convenient and emotionally satisfying to use. Let’s see…

There are some restrictions to insults these days. You can’t call a Republican “retarded” anymore, for instance. It would be an insult to the, um, mentally challenged among us. And, you really can’t exclude the females from the mix, either, since women seem to have broken the barriers and become equally as despicable as the men. So, “scum bag” can be gender-balanced with “scum queen,” for instance. Sometimes one needs some extra verbal ammunition to heap justifiable scorn on those who so richly deserve it. So, hauling out the trusty thesaurus,

Nouns Adverbs & Adjectives

Abomination (something
that is sick and wrong) abhorrent (loathsome, abysmal detestable, disgusting, wretched)

Accomplice (partner-in- Addled (befuddled)
crime, abettor, henchman) bovine (stupid, cow-like)
Bankster (thief, robber, crook) (fake, phony, fraudulent)
Brain trust (PTB)
Dumbass dumbassed (also works as adjective)
Fraudster (see: bankster) fetid (foul, rank, rancid)
Hack (trite, banal, inane, heinous (evil, wicked, atrocious)
lamestream journalist) hideous (monstrous, appalling)
lout (dolt, oaf, idiot)
minion (lackey, servant)
miscreant (criminal, villain, Malicious (misanthropic, malignant)
see: carl rove)
Nozzle (I just like it)
numbnut (numbskull, nitwit) nefarious (heinous, detestable)
nut, nutjob (fruitcake, flake)
Overlord (ruling class asshole) Obnoxious (odious, revolting)
Peasant (serf, wage slave) pernicious (destructive, harmful)
Pinhead (butthead) pathetic
Pimp (whore, pl.,congress) perverse
Rapacious (plundering, savage)
Reprobate (evil-doer) relentless (persistent, cruel)
Scum (loathsome as in
yuppie scum, or scum queen)
Suit (minion of overlords)shameful (despicable, contemptible)
Shyster (unethical lawyer)
Shit (turd, piece of…) shit (… for brains)
Tool (toady)

I like alliteration. It adds color and emphasis to a description. So, one can combine adjectives and nouns with the same first sound, and it becomes a colorful term: shameful shyster; pathetic pinhead; nattering nozzle; malignant miscreant; heinous hack; bogus brain trust, etc.

Well, those are my favorites. There are so many more wonderful taunts and insulting terms with which to season your letters to the editor, your congressional representative, your local financial analyst, or comment on a blog site. Consider it art. Consider it therapy. This is my own little step toward making it perhaps somewhat quicker or easier to heap one’s dissatisfaction with the way things are to those who richly deserve it.

Later, if the system still holds, we could examine entertaining ways we can demonstrate our dissatisfaction in real terms, like stuffing a “postage paid” envelope to our credit card company with the cut up bank card with a half pound of junk mail; or, walking merrily away from your upside-down mortgage or unsecured credit card. Thinking of creative bumper stickers we can put up all over, like “No Incumbents!” when it’s time to vote. Let’s think on it… Acts of civil disobedience will probably be called for. We can attempt to do rebellious acts that are fun street theater that makes a point without inviting being hammered by the powers that be.

I guess the point of all this is to keep our spirits up while dealing with the relentless slide that seems to move at a glacial pace, and win some hearts and minds along the way. Naturally, if some big crisis or disaster suddenly happens, forget it, and duck and cover. There are many things to keep our eyeballs on right now. I’m sure that we will be keeping each other apprised through our comments. Until then,

Cheers!