The Beauty of Simplicy

comfort food: biscuits and lamb & barley stew



"Trapper" Ray's old simple home



by murph

On this blog we talk about a rather large variety of circumstances, happenings and speculations. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I find it pretty much overwhelming. Let’s face it, we are in a period of history when complexity is dominating our lives, either in fact or as a side effect. This complexity is leading to all kinds of additional problems within society which sure seems to me to be obvious. The newest example would be the oil leak in the Gulf.

Looking at a couple of these complex systems is worth while. Some of the most obvious are the supply of water, electricity, food and warmth, the absolute basics. We know that our food chain is very fragile and subject to disruption or even failing altogether under the right circumstances. We are also aware of the electrical grid, a monster of complexity that is subject to massive failure for large amounts of people. Water is now a big issue. Fresh potable water is an extremely small percentage of the total water on this planet, only about 3%. With huge human populations, the technology and complex system to make it available is also quite fragile. The same can be said for supplying heat to human habitation which is highly dependent on a diminishing supply of hydrocarbons and the complexity of the distribution system.

On April 28, The Archdruid blog posted a long essay on the “The Costs of Complexity”. He has talked about this in other postings. In fact, many other authors have approached this subject from the standpoint that complexity always reaches a point of diminishing returns, and if restlessly pursued, will eventually collapse the whole system. It seems obvious to me that adding layers of complexity to either solve problems or to enhance someone’s gain is ultimately doomed to failure.

From a population standpoint, increasing complexity creates confusion and an almost total inability to see the bigger picture outside of single issue concern. This confusion appears to me to be the biggest problem we have in modern society today. Groups have been formed that want to deal with individual issues as if they are discreet and have no relationship to anything else. Pick any group you wish; tea party, PETA, the environmentalists, political parties and their ideologies, tax protesters, any of them. They all treat their favorite issues as discreet entries in human existence. It sure doesn’t appear to me that this works at all. Thus we have a fractured, confused and angry population that has shown itself unable to affect any meaningful changes in the status quo.

Personally, I suspect that this overlying complexity is deliberate. It keeps the populations from understanding their situation and wresting control from the elites by keeping attention on a minimum of favorite issues instead of seeing a bigger picture of control and greed.

The world’s financial and economic systems suffer from the same problem, over complexity, and we have in our face the result of that. Taking a rough count, it appears to me that for every pundit declaring that everything is under control, that we live in freedom, that the good times are just around the corner there are 5-10 pundits that declare that we are doomed, that we cannot continue in the same path that we have been on for a couple of hundred years now. If that count is at least close, how come more people do not take notice? I suspect that to recognize a disaster is coming means that a radical change in life style must also come. And who in hell wants to give up the big screen TV, the IPhone, the big SUV, the 3000 sq ft living space, the toys and accruements of our modern life? Very few will do it voluntarily. The concept that our personal worth is contained in the amount of “things” we possess has permeated most of western thinking. If we give up “things”, we diminish our self worth.

I have a short true story. We have become acquainted with a man in his 90’s over the last year or so. He is one of the last of the old timers in this area, comes from a family that was one of the very earliest settlers around here. We met him through our engagement with the Grange. He impressed us with his gentleness, generosity and humor. Although, I have met people that have known him longer than we have and say that “old Ray didn’t take shit from anyone”. He spent a lot of years selling hides from trapping until he got so old that he couldn’t walk his trap lines anymore. He just recently became enfeebled enough that he had to go into a local assisted living facility. His relatives came in and are in the process of selling off all that he had and also sold the property, which was designated a historical landmark locally. Ray lived pretty much in an early or pre 1900 life style and his house is the original building his parents put up. A great example of how people lived back then. We heard that his son was cleaning up the property and was having a sale of his stuff. We went over to see what was going on. The son and two older ladies (one I think a grand daughter) were masked and cleaning up the inside of the house. Freeacre expressed awe and pleasure at the interior of the tiny little house and was expressing wonderment at how he lived. The two ladies looked at us like we were from another planet. We had gone there to see if there were any hides left from his trapping days, particularly skunk hides since I am learning how to tan hides for usefulness. All that was left was 4 skunk tails that the son gave me. LOL Not sure just what I will do with them yet. When we went back outside, the two women nearly jumped out of their skins and took 4 quick steps back when they saw the tails. (Dirty filthy things you know, but I did notice they wore leather shoes)

Like a lot of people that age, Ray was an accumulator, never threw much of anything away. Boxes and boxes of bottles, scrap steel piles, a lot of stuff that for modern life is not acceptable to keep around. But when you talk to the oldsters still alive from the last depression, it made perfect sense, you don’t just throw stuff away, for next week or next month you will make use of it. When I lived in Arkansas, I met a lot of old- timers just like that, never threw anything away, and if you needed some damned little widget to fix something, they usually had at least a couple of them hung up with bailing wire out in the shed.

The point of this story you ask? Well, we are living in a society known for it proclivity to throw away almost everything and buy new. I assert that this can not and will not continue and most people simply are not able to understand the complexity of our society that has made that, not only possible but desirable. The disdain expressed by Ray’s relatives at his life style was very easily discernable. I truly wonder how they are going to handle life when the throw away society is no longer viable, when you can no longer buy cheap shit that is soon to be added to our tremendous piles of junk and garbage. Look around you, how many home appliances and tools can be repaired by a home repair man anymore? As a society we are completely dependent on the massive complex systems that are not only fragile, but are rapidly becoming unsustainable from a variety of circumstances that sure appear to be eminent.

In light of projections of future events, I guess I will continue to stockpile my piles of wood, metal and parts, along with the tools and knowledge to fix stuff instead of throwing away everything that has no immediate use.

Out of Control

trying to herd the un-herdable

by freeacre

I’ve been thinking about control lately. Yesterday, the news featured a story where a seventeen year old was running around (like many goofy attention-seeking people have done) at a baseball game. Instead of running him down and pulling him off the field, the police face-planted him with a taser weapon. It seems a few in the audience thought that was a bit of an over reaction, but most thought the kid deserved it. He was “out of control.”


Then there was the hideous piece on Raw Story about fitting disabled kids with electronic devises that produce strong electrical shocks to children who piss off the staff for one reason or another:
”The rights group submitted their report this week, titled "Torture not Treatment: Electric Shock and Long-Term Restraint in the United States on Children and Adults with Disabilities at the Judge Rotenberg Center," after an in-depth investigation revealed use of restraint boards, isolation, food deprivation and electric shocks in efforts to control the behaviors of its disabled and emotionally troubled students.

Findings in the MDRI report include the center's practice of subjecting children to electric shocks on the legs, arms, soles of feet and torso -- in many cases for years -- as well as some for more than a decade. Electronic shocks are administered by remote-controlled packs attached to a child's back called a Graduated Electronic Decelerators (GEI).
The disabilities group notes that stun guns typically deliver three to four milliamps per shock. GEI packs, meanwhile, shock students with 45 milliamps -- more than ten times the amperage of a typical stun gun.
A former employee of the center told an investigator, "When you start working there, they show you this video which says the shock is 'like a bee sting' and that it does not really hurt the kids. One kid, you could smell the flesh burning, he had so many shocks. These kids are under constant fear, 24/7. They sleep with them on, eat with them on. It made me sick and I could not sleep. I prayed to God someone would help these kids."

I worked with emotionally disturbed kids in residential treatment for sixteen years, and this story almost made me physically ill. I don’t’ care if the kid is Hannibal the Cannibal, you just should not do this to anyone. Period.
“Pain aversion therapy” is what they call it. Sounds like torture to me. Abu Grabe torture. Guantanemo Bay torture. The kind of tactics apparently promoted on propaganda programs (pogroms) like “24” on television. I assume this, as I have never been able to sit through an entire episode. Is it still on? Whatever…. The damage has already been done.

Between television programs, movies, and video games that “entertain” the greater populace with portrayals of institutionalized pain inflicted by authority figures on the non-compliant, people by the millions have become desensitized to the suffering of others, and anesthetized to any sense of outrage. It probably helps that so many are also on anti-depressant drugs – or maybe it’s the fluoride in the water.

Somehow we have become convinced that everything needs to be controlled. So now we can have surveillance 24/7 of our whereabouts, our e-mail, or conversations – even our thoughts. New gadgets that can read our minds, “smart dust” nano-technology (see cryptogon.com) that will be dropped all over the planet and monitor virtually everything. Oh, that makes me feel so much safer… go ahead and spray mace into the eyes of tree-hugging protesters who are already kneeling with their arms handcuffed behind their backs. Fuck them and their stupid trees. They are out of control. Go ahead and search my luggage, pin-point me with my cell phone, put an rfid chip in my drivers license (or my inner arm), stream advertisements into my head in the department store. Read my mind. Disrobe and X-ray me. Whatever.

“Inalienable rights.. to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”” You’ve got to be kidding. That is so, like, pre-nine eleven…

I continue to be haunted by the movie, “The Lovely Bones.” I don’t want to spoil it for you by telling the whole plot. But, suffice it to say, that it concerns the excruciating process of dealing with a horrible and tragic murder of a child. It points to a larger concern – how do we react to a hideous situation that we cannot control, cannot make right, cannot make go away, cannot change? It seems for most of us, we try to control it with ever escalating tactics. More and more power, money, muscle focused and used to get our way and make it happen. More and more drugs and surgery or debt to stave off old age and death. More and more hardware, weaponry, manipulation, lies, whatever we can think of to maintain the status quo.
Until it just doesn’t work anymore. Then what? Eventually, you throw your hands in the air and surrender. “I give up.” Death, at that point, doesn’t seem so bad. In fact, it may be benign – wondrous even… a new direction. A better possibility than we have considered. And, the left behind, might just come back to what is rather than what could have been. Starting from “what is” may turn out to have its own sweetness in time

All this brings me back around to what is going on with the larger issues that we cannot control and must eventually come to accept and learn to make the best of. If we are not able to do this, we will become more monstrous than the threats that we perceive.

The Oxymoron of a Politically Stable State in Belgium

...this is a picture of the tortoise Hot Springs Wizard recently brought to a place of refuge out in the boonies, and free from the human-induced turmoil exemplified by the following post.

Getting back to the "real world," which often seems even stranger than our other-worldly speculations, our friend from Belgium updates us on the dysfunction of the State of Belgium. I thought we had it bad....


by our friend from Belgium

Belgian politics is like an oil and water emulsion which now and again starts to separate out before someone comes along to give it a good stir up. In the same way as a camel is said to be a horse designed by a committee the Belgian political system could only have been designed by such a committee.


First a little bit of history which I will keep simple since I do not know the in depth stuff myself. 150 years ago Belgium did not exist, the land which is now called Belgium was part of The Netherlands or Holland as some called it in earlier times and it bordered on Northern France. French speaking people populated the Ardennes which is the scenic hilly region north of the French border although French influence continued to a lesser extent through Flanders, the flat part, up to the river Schelde. At that time the French speakers were prosperous and elitist but the tables have turned and they are now poor and elitist. Wallonia, the political area of Belgium occupied by French speaking people (or The Ardennes) hangs at the bottom of every European monitoring scale making it an officially depressed area whilst the Dutch speaking part to the north is one of the economic powerhouses of Europe.

In the early 60’s when the Vlaardingen were coming into the ascendency and flexing their muscles, relations between the two groups had deteriorated to the extent that there was civil unrest with attacks and reprisals between opposing factions. There was a solution imposed or reluctantly agreed which was as well thought through as the division of Palestine. This is where the committee really got into action and came up with the best fix which all could agree on but which really suited no one. There was to be a local assembly (parliament) for the Dutch speakers in the north. People who live in defined Vlaanders could vote for a Dutch speaking representative. A similar situation existed in Wallonia for the French speakers. The capital Brussels was officially bilingual, even though 90% of the inhabitants speak French and inhabitants could vote for either a French or Dutch speaking representative. Each group therefore had its own assembly. In addition to this there is an overall umbrella national parliament to coordinate the other three groups. All this for a total population if eleven million people. Now here is where it gets tricky because there are not one but two complicating factors which have been a running sore for fifty years now. Firstly, unlike the USA or the UK, Belgium does not have a first past the post electoral system where the party with the most votes is the one which forms the government. Most countries within Continental Western Europe have a Proportional Representation system whereby the administration is a coalition of parties which can form a majority in the proportion in which citizens voted for them. This is a system designed for mediocrity and shoddy compromises. The party with the highest votes can invite other parties to join it and is the party which generally calls the shots but sometimes the tail can trip up the beast. The trouble with this is that the Prime minister (they call him a “Voorzitter” or Chairman here) and the National Cabinet can and often is made up of people that many of the citizens could not have voted for.

The second and more major problem is that the administrative line which separates Dutch speaking Belgium from French speaking Belgium runs ten to fifteen miles south of the southern limit of (90% French speaking) Brussels so that the Capital is landlocked within the Dutch speaking part. For all these years the French speakers have been demanding an administrative corridor between the capital and their bit. Shared responsibility has been tried where the French speakers ran the local councils directly to the south of Brussels and the Dutch speakers ran the police, fire services and other similar bodies. There are two reasonably sized towns in this area, Halle and Vilvoorde and this is where the crux of the problem lies. Citizens who need access to their representative are fed up, I mean truly fed up trying to deal with an official who refuses to speak with them in their mother tongue. Maybe you have heard the shorthand expression B-H-V (Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde); this is what it is about. When this system clearly wasn’t working the people from the area in question were accorded the same rights as those in Brussels but it didn’t really eliminate the tensions. The French speakers have agreed to abandon the area to the Dutch speakers but they want their quid pro quo in the form of an enlarged Brussels. This amounts to just moving the problem somewhere else since other parts of Vlanders will become Brussels. In order to bring the problem to a head the legislative branch ordained that there could be no future elections until Halle - Vilvoorde was separated from Brussels, in other words they could no longer choose between Dutch OR French speakers to represent them because this was unfair to other areas of Vlaanders and so some Dutch speaking areas would remain as before whilst some parts of the Dutch area would become totally administered by the French speakers. On Friday last, in a political move, the Open VLD (Vlams Liberal Democrats) walked out of the national assembly leaving it without a majority. There have been frantic efforts by three former Prime Ministers over the weekend to find a solution but the only suitable party, the socialists have sat on their hands and today the national government fell. The difficulty is that the King cannot call for a new election because that is illegal until the B-H-V separation is carried out and this apparently is an insoluble problem. You should also be aware that the Dutch speakers make no territorial claims on the soil of the French speaking people.

Apart from the political considerations above there are also economic and social issues. In order to all get along and be one Belgium together, Vlanders gives Wallonia one billion Euros every month, just to stay afloat. The French speakers take the money and in return give the north that Dick Cheney look where it appears everybody in the room has farted at the same time. Surprisingly the largest French political party by far is the socialists. This reminds me of a very old rhyme, you will know how old it is because the UK decimalised its currency in 1972. Before that there were twelve pennies in a shilling.

What is a Socialist?
One who has yearnings
To share equal profits
From unequal earnings
Be an idler or bungler
Or both, he is willing
To fork out his sixpence
And pocket your shilling.

This perceived altruism is too much for some in the north where a xenophobic Nationalist Party has strong roots, particularly in the Antwerp region. This party used to be known as the Vlaams Bloc with a double meaning in the word bloc. In one sense it can be like the former Russian Bloc or it can mean to stand in the way and prevent something. What they were in favour of denying was unlimited entry into Belgium of people from Africa and Turkey. They take the view that jobs can be outsourced without ever leaving the country. In a court case they were judged to be a racial organisation so they changed their name to the Vlaams Belang which means the importance of coming from northern Belgium. They run poster campaigns in Arabic saying Vlaams jobs for Vlaams people and in a heartbeat they would cut Wallonia loose as a separate state.

There are social problems too. Apart from being the capital city, Brussels is also home to the European Parliament and NATO Headquarters. The strain on living accommodation in a defined area is intense and with predictable results people, mostly French speaking people are moving outside the circle and into Halle – Vilvoorde. The Dutch speakers who have always lived there feel they are being populated out. As an example someone went to the baker to find that the shop had been taken over by French only speakers and the shopper didn’t know how to say “Whole wheat bread” in French. Some local authorities in the B-H-V region encourage people who wish to relocate to sell their houses to Dutch speaking families. This recently resulted in a French speaking woman who split up from her husband being refused a house near her children’s school even though she was a Belgian citizen. This resulted in accusations of apartheid being thrown around. In Vlaams schools, pupils from age ten are required to learn French. In Wallonia, pupils can choose between an hour a week English or an hour a week Dutch. Most figure that English will be the most useful to them so they never learn Dutch. When French and Dutch speakers meet they therefore default into French to the chagrin of the northerners. Sometimes they will agree to speak in English but this perceived French laziness gives them the upper hand.

This piece gives you some background to what is going on here but de facto Belgium has no government and it is illegal to hold elections until an insoluble problem is sorted out. These are interesting times – watch and wait.

Making Other Arrangements

freeacre

... Okay, I'm going out on a limb here...

Wondering what in the hell the overlords are doing has become a preoccupation for many of us. It’s not like we own a lot of stock, but we watch the stock market closely anyway. It’s not like we are ever going to meet anyone who works on Wall St. but, we know their names and are familiar with how they are in orbit between positions in the government, Wall St., K Street, and the Pentagram, err, Pentagon. We speculate endlessly on what they may or may not be doing or have done. Because we know that what they do affects us all in very fundamental ways, and we also know that almost everything they tell us is false.

Often the lack of candor is justified by not wanting to cause us to “panic.” That’s a laugh - as if they care how we feel. They don’t seem to care if we go bankrupt, our children are on food stamps, our soldiers are committing suicide, our jobs are outsourced, our food is contaminated, our retirement and pensions evaporate, and we live in tent cities. In fact, let’s face it, emotional panic is lucrative – it sells mass quantities of anti-depressant drugs, from which Big Pharma is happy to profit mightily.” Their fear of a “panic” really means they are afraid that we’ll STOP GOING TO WORK.” God, forbid. Don’t stop serving their lattes, or servicing their cars, or buying their stuff, or raising their children, or publishing their stories, or kowtowing to them in every way imaginable. Especially, don’t interrupt the money stream into their pockets.

Where, I wonder, is this money going exactly? What is the big motivation to increase the zeros in their cyber accounts? Why has the top one percent sucked up 95% of the wealth of the world, even at the risk of destroying whole nations? “We didn’t see it coming!” they tell us, struggling to keep a straight face. “Bite me,” I delicately respond. Even I could see it coming.

But, sometimes I am wrong. I was worried that there would be a world-wide epidemic that would be spread by the international gathering at the Olympics. Didn’t happen. Millions of people were not wiped out by the flu, natural or engineered. But, hundreds of millions of doses of the vaccine were sold. Countries are dumping them now, but Donald Rumsfeld, with his share of Baxter pharmaceutical stocks managed to make millions off the deal. Don’tcha just wonder if it made the nut for his ticket out of here?

One billion Euros per ticket, is what the film 2012 speculates is the price to have a stateroom on one of the arks to save the elites from certain doom when the continents drift and the poles shift. It’s not sounding so far-fetched to me lately.

Why else would the United States be red-lined, practically every country in the world looted, police state policies in place all over the world, civilian control skills and equipment developed and honed, the Constitution ignored, a shadow government instituted, and on and on. It sure looks like they are gearing up for something big that most of us are not going to be happy with.

Maybe there are three tiers of survival plans. The most exclusive club would probably be the black ops space program that supposedly even now has secret space transports in orbit. Or, rumored secret sites on Mars or the moon, which I find less likely. But, shit, I would have never believed any of the crap that we know for sure has happened.

Then, perhaps a little less pricey would be a reservation in an underground facility like the ones rumored to be in Norway, Colorado, and other places. That would probably save a lot of people from a nuclear catastrophe, WWIII, or a plague scenario. A case could be made to depopulate the earth by five billion or so useless eaters and users of the now scarce oil, rare earth metals, top soil and water, after which the privileged would emerge from their caverns and commence business as usual.

Then there would be the boats. Maybe all those ships sitting around not being used for shipping are being retro-fitted with bunk beds and salad bars. Who the hell knows? They might be useful in the event of a 23 degree shift in the rotational axis of the earth.

I sure don’t know. I just know that we can be kept in hopeless ignorance rather easily. After all, I find that despite my best efforts, I have been wrong about so much. I thought Bill Clinton would support the working class. But, then he supported NAFTA and began outsourcing. I guess Americans got distracted by the wrong blow job - shoulda been watching him and Wall Street. I was excited that Joe Lieberman was chosen to be Al Gore’s first Jewish vice president. Now, I don’t even think he qualifies as an American… seems more Israeli to me. And, for that matter, I used to really admire Israel. I remember thinking that our generation would save the planet, get rid of racism and poverty, be better parents, bring peace and prosperity to the masses. Wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong.

So, I am the first to admit that I might be delusional. But, reading the new information on the Electric Universe, studying the histories of ancient peoples and civilizations, learning about the theories of the dynamics of the sun, noticing the telescopes trained on the sun and out toward the middle of the galaxy searching for rogue asteroids or planets, it sure looks like there really is a threat out there that the Powers That Be are taking seriously. Look at how much money has disappeared and how the media has refused to cover it. Remember the 2 trillion dollars in cash that got “lost” in Iraq? Remember the gold bullion that melted in the basement of the Trade Center? Consider the hundreds of trillions of cyber dollars that went “poof” with this derivative melt-down? That money must have gone somewhere. In light of the collapse of the world as we know it, and the caviler attitude toward resource depletion and eco-extinction, it is so far-fetched to think that maybe the elites are Making Other Arrangements? I think not. Just yesterday Pres. Obama announced the dissolution of the space shuttle program, with suspension of current programs in order to concentrate on manned missions to Mars and turning to private contractors for passenger space missions. Hummm….

All I know for sure is that we’ve got no ticket to ride. So, I guess we’ll just keep gardening and making pie… and maybe add some pontoons onto our little boat.

Links:

//www.halfpasthuman.com/MegaSunSpotCycle.pdf
A “must read” explanation of sun spots and cycle of intense flares, etc.

http://www.halfpasthuman.com/c14points.html
“Not a matter of interpretation…” Latest on carbon dating that shows 11,000 year cyclic change.

http://www.howtosurvive2012.com/htm_night/home.htm
Patrick Geryl’s website on surviving 2012 pole shift, etc.

http://www.rense.com/Datapages/mystmachinedata.htm
Mystery space craft in orbit around earth.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/space/article7009735.ece
Times article about new telescope to study threat from the sun.

http://www.spiritofmaat.com/jan10/life_on_mars.html
Very “trippy” story of secret space mission on Mars.

http://2012poleshift.wetpaint.com/page/Underground+bases++%28aka++DUMB%3A+Deep+Underground+Military+Base%29
One of many sites with info regarding underground bases. Good pictures on this one. Just Google for many more.

http://www.anomalies-unlimited.com/Denver_Airport.html
Very strange details of the Denver airport and anomalous constructions – with interesting links.

Musings on the Economy

Hummas and tortillas up to four dollars a pop? Hell, no! Making my own for next to nothing....freeacre


by Murph

I debated on whether to talk about the economy (in this country and the world) due to the overwhelming amount that is already circulating through the mass media and the internet. Due to what seems to be obvious in data and commentaries, I have been finding it difficult to make sense out of it all because of contradictory claims of authenticity.

The economic crisis that appears to be unfolding right now seems to be divided into two categories; the deflationists and the inflationists. Perhaps more simplified than it deserves, deflation means lowering of prices in real money, (more goods than is in demand) and inflation means rising prices in real money, (the chasing of too few goods with too much money in circulation). No, I am not defending fiat money as being real but only talking about what those dollars will buy.

We have been experiencing at the street level, a combination of the two. The absolute necessities such as food, water, housing (although that area is now in deflation) and fuel have been generally going up in price. Some say this is inflation, others say this is just cost of distribution and production going up due to scarcity. Notice that these items are not included in the cost of living indexes for some reason (which would indicate inflation) and thus the non increase of things like social security payments that are tied to inflation index since excluding them indicates that there is no inflation. We have also been experiencing deflation (lower prices) in imported commodities like electronics machinery and tooling. You can, with careful shopping now, buy a very good computer for less than $400, or a nice thin line HD TV for less than $500. I suppose yachts might fall into this category too, although I have no friends that are thinking of taking advantage of the situation.

One person that I follow carefully is Charles Hugh Smith in dealing with the economy. His book “Survival +” is an excellent primer and if you are not following his blog site, you ought to read his stuff for some different perception and conclusion about the economy. His site is at; http://www.oftwominds.com/blog.html

Charles has provided good evidence that the Fed is unable to print enough money to cause inflation. And, even if they tried, they would have to distribute somewhere in the area of $10 trillion in cash to the bottom economic 90% of the population to have it be effective in creating inflation. Not likely to happen I reckon. The reason that this is not possible is because of the mammoth debt structure (private, commercial and governmental) that we all know about. The fed simply can’t print enough money to cover this, in the realm of multiple tens of trillions of dollars. See his April 2, 2010 article on the subject. A quote from the article:

“But we all know the Fed isn't going to print $10 trillion and give it to U.S. households; it will print trillions and give it away to banks, in a futile attempt to recapitalize insolvent, fraudulent firms which should be forced into bankruptcy. The trillions of "free money" (courtesy of ZIRP, zero interest rate policy) will sit in the banks where it will fund speculations in stocks, bonds, commodities and foreign exchange. A trivial sum will be lent to insolvent consumers with much ballyhoo, and the consequences of deleveraging shoved forward one more election cycle (extend and pretend).”

The inflationists are pointing to the massive amount of money that the printing presses are churning out. Charles points out that with little exception, this is all digital money, not the paper bill we talk about when we refer to the printing presses. And, all of this digital money is being poured into financial institutions to keep them afloat, since it appears from the data I have seen that they are all bankrupt, that is, have more debt than assets due to the implosion of the debt structure, to the tune of hundreds of trillions of dollars total worldwide. In perspective, more than the total world GDP.

The principle problem with the inflation idea is that this country and most of Europe and Asia have become consumerist debt economies, depending on imports and exports to supply the needs of the country. Since, with very few exceptions, the unwinding of all this bad debt structure would take more money that the printing presses could turn out, inflation is impossible. Saw an interesting documentary a couple nights ago on Peru that is following this economic paradigm and has a booming economy, at least for now. But, since it is now obvious that this paradigm is not sustainable, that country will also experience similar economic problems that Europe and the U.S. is experiencing, down the road.

Now, what does this all mean to us as individuals trying to keep things going in our lives? Depending on what analysis you think has the most substance will determine how you deal with it. If you buy into the deflationist concept, then cash will become king, the dollar will not significantly depreciate and you’ll soon be able to buy what you want at vastly reduced prices as the over production of consumer goods tries to unload inventory. That’s also taking for granted that you have a stash of cash to draw on.

If you buy into the inflationist concept, then you need to get whatever cash you have into hard goods now, because the price will only go up, and to put money into inflationary hedges like precious metals.

Do you understand my confusion now? Accumulate hard goods now, or sit on cash and wait for prices to drop even more.

So far, all the supposed money thrown into the financial system has not made a dent in the rest of the economy and there is no real projection I have seen to think it ever will. Banks are not lending and the velocity of money flowing through the economy is not happening, as it was promised it would. Sort of like the Reagan trickle down economics that never really materialized. Instead, capital has simply accumulated at an ever increasing pace into the top 1% of the elites with wages either decreasing or remaining stagnant for the rest of us.

At this site, we have people that have withdrawn from the greater society to the extreme. We also have people that have gone to low population density areas and are promoting community self sufficiency and interdependency. Then we have a population that is trying to stick it out and have a retreat to escape to if things go extreme. Others are already planning to escape to other countries. We have local friends that are planning to do just that, that is, if they have time left to implement it. Due to the new Obama laws just enacted, taking money with you could be a very iffy proposition.

Preparing and attempting to lessen the chaos that will affect us all, for which we all seem to agree is coming, is a real problem. I had an acquaintance just a couple of days ago, tell me that he just bought 1000 rounds of ammo so if things get tough, he could take what I have. I was astounded. Think I would ever even think of trusting this guy on anything? The dude is relatively wealthy and seems to think that he can take or buy anything he wants. I’m sure most of you have had experiences with people with similar attitudes. In my opinion, this is going to be the challenge we all face, how to deal with this on a most personal basis if/when things get really dicey.

It appears to me that there will be no significant changes in how the economy is being managed and exploited. It definitely will not change by working within the system. There simply is not enough popular movement to accomplish this and would have to be by a national uprising, probably revolution. I anticipate that the only significant change is going to come about by a flat out economic collapse and something different in a paradigm comes along that people find helpful in daily living. Of course, I have my own thoughts on what that different paradigm would look like. I can say with some degree of certainty that any paradigm that includes the government being of beneficial nature, especially in dealing with money, will in the long run be another disaster. Putting our faith in the benevolence of government is a vastly misplaced faith in my opinion.

Interesting times we live in.

The Rabbit Hole of Hate

another beautiful creation from Hot Springs Wizard


freeacre

Sometimes, I have to admit, I feel pretty smug about how I knew the real estate crash was going to happen. I knew that if I got a re-finance loan, I had three years to pay off my bills, re-model my home, and sell it for a profit before the crash. I was tipped off way in advance by Mike Ruppert’s “From the Wilderness” and Matt Savinar’s “Life After the Oil Crash.” We not only read these sites. We were convinced. We took action. And, I am glad that we did. We have gone on to be guided by “Urban Survival,” “Of Two Minds,” “Survival Acres,” “Comrade Simba,” “Cryptogon,” etc. and now we are enriched by our tribal blogs as well.

But, I don’t feel so smug anymore. It’s getting pretty weird out there. I find myself negotiating the different alternative information sites as if I were walking a path salted with land mines. It used to be that one could turn to alternative sites and read one rant after another exposing how dimwitted, galling, manipulative, greedy, or otherwise heinous George Bush and his henchmen were. He was a third generation Nazi, a member of the Skull and Bones, cocaine-tooting, playboy, alcoholic, loser who happened to be President of the United States. And Carl Rove, “His Brain,” was a slimy, but clever, master-manipulator who had orchestrated the take-over of the military and Washington by rapture-driven, born-again, sheep with the IQ of a pet rock, over the last 30 years. And, Darth Chaney – don’t get me started. All that seemed to be pretty well documented and verifiable. We wondered if an election was going to be allowed at all, given that the last two had been stolen. We wondered if we were going to be rounded up and thrown into FEMA camps if we resisted getting chipped or if our firearms were confiscated. Oil had peaked. The trucks delivering food would be out of gas any day now. The electrical grid was deteriorating. We stocked up on batteries, kerosene lamps, solar radios, alternative heating, three years of firewood, and Amish dipper for the well, in case the pump goes out.

I’m glad that we have all this stuff. But, something is off. Timing, for one thing. The economic and real estate crash is happening, for sure. But, the Overseers keep coming up with new ways to prop it up and allow at least the façade of business-as-usual to continue. There are tent cities on the outskirts of most metropolitan areas. But, people continue to bet that “things are turning around.” I thought the lights would be out by now. But, it keeps on keepin’ on, and that is getting on my nerves. And another thing - the alternative sites are more shrill than ever.

Now that the cretinous Bush regime is out and Obama is in, the same, if not worse, screeds are being written about Obama on sites like Rense, Steve Quayle, or Truthseeker. He’s a fake, a phony, a Muslim, a closet Jew, a homo, a minion of Israel/Bilderberger/Illuminati, etc. They’re labeling him everything but what it seems they really can’t stand – he’s semi-black. Half black, raised by white relatives in Hawaii. But, even that level of black seems to be too much to bear for these racist fucks. Or, are they anti-Semite fucks? I object to the brutal policies of Israel, too. But, the vehemence with which many of these stories are written, the innuendo and the paranoia, belies the hatred that used to be reserved for the Ku Klux Klan literature of the 50’s. All that’s missing are pictures of pawn shop symbols and big noses. If they ever finish hating blacks and Jews, they’ll turn to the Muslims, Mexicans, or women’s libbers. There is no end to it.

Everywhere I turn there are just jaw-dropping, disgusting pieces that I avert my eyes from. I go to Huffington Post to see what the mainstream is doing and I see headlines about the size of Tiger Wood’s penis or Lady GaGa’s I-don’t’-know-what, political wankers, bulging underpants, or some hideous, tasteless abomination that somehow passes as “news” or “pop” culture. I go for news and it feels like I landed at Hustler Magazine. WTF?

You go to even straighter sites, like MSMBC or ABC or CBS, and it’s all a despicable corporate love-fest. You can hardly get more than a few headlines, since you spend all your time watching drug commercials and dodging flash ads about belly fat. It’s all about selling you something, or inducing some false sense of pride that makes you feel good about being a corporatist, errr Repubican, uh, American. They take it for granted that we all hang out at The Mall, work in some cubicle, and never miss an episode of American Idol (which I have never actually seen).

So, why do I keep turning to the internet? Good question. Let me assure you that my own irony has not escaped me. After all, I take some measure of pride in the fact that over the years, I have honed insults to the neo-cons and Overlords into a quasi art form. But, now I wonder if I am becoming part of the problem. I wonder if any of the fringe sites would ever be able to recognize good things when they see them. Or, maybe stop thinking in terms of good and bad, but rather, asking “What is the goal? And how do we get there? That way, maybe we could disagree without deciding that one of us should be rotting in hell. Could we maybe work out a few things?

How much is evil and how much is just simply wrong or in error? Wrong can be persuaded. Wrong can be taught. Wrong can be forgiven. Wrong can change. Wrong can be disagreed with, but also worked with. Wrongs can be healed. Evil, it seems to me, is not human. Evil is systemic, ruthless, without compassion, unable to be reasoned with and cannot be fought that same way that one can fight a person. Like Ran Prier said, “evil is like a forest fire.” You don’t petition it, you don’t lay down in front of it to get it to change its course.

Somehow we need to be able to tell the two apart. When we can’t tell the difference, we end up seeing evil everywhere. And, when one sees evil everywhere, they become afraid. And, when they become afraid, they become more susceptible to evil, even a minion of evil. And, then they bring on what it is that they fear.

The metaphysicians teach that these are days of transition. From the Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius, a procession of the equinoxes. The End Times, the Apocalypse. The Hopis, the Hindus, the Aborigines, the Taoists, the Egyptians, the Mayans – all have predictions of the end of days that will lead to something new. But, the Evil Ones, the Satanists, the Reptilians, the Corporatist vampires, the Money or Power driven Zombie Overlords as well as the hate-filled wing nuts would have it all end in debt, death and dissolution - because they have never been really free and alive in the first place.

It does seem to be shaping up as camps of good and evil. Yes, there is going to be struggle and loss and shortage and challenge and hard times. But, we can learn and help and protect and save and build and innovate and transform. The others are going to want to hate and kill and maim and intimidate and dominate. I believe that we as human beings are blessed with a natural capacity to discern light from dark, love from fear or hate. Our whole body is a receptor. Our minds can be confused. But, our bodies know. We can feel it if we cultivate the sensitivity to it.

So, I, for one, intend to work on becoming adept at recognizing hateful and fear-filled perspectives and agendas and avoid them. I am intending to throw what is left of my life’s energy into recognizing the good, the helpful, the productive, the caring, the comforting, the strong, the creative in the challenges before us. Let’s face it - we are all going to die. But, until then, we need to decide how we are going to live. This intention doesn’t mean that I will never get angry. Far from it. Anger can be good. It’s hatred that I’m having a problem with.

I am reminded of the line by Bob Dylan, “ Some say don’t hate nothin’ at all, except hatred.” When you hate, you keep whatever it is stuck in the same spot. If you forgive, you allow it to turn into something else. Forgiveness doesn’t mean condoning that which is wrong. It doesn’t mean being complicit, or denying, or allowing it to continue. It means setting yourself free from fear and allows for the possibility of transformation. In humans, it is one of our greatest powers. We just don’t quite get it yet. But, I am allowing for the possibility that maybe we will.

The Sun or the Son?

Recent photo of sun from space weather .com.

By freeacre

I was hoping for another coherent post, but this one might not prove to be it. Ras provided one last week. I have every confidence that Belgium will write a post pretty soon, and his are consistently thoughtful and well-documented. The Murphman usually cranks out something coherent. But this week he has been going to a blank page, sitting there - and nothing but empty thought bubbles are appearing above his head. So, then he switches over to Solitaire. He seems to be suffering from severe writer’s block.

It’s not that nothing is going on. Rather, it’s that too much is going on. We’ve got local politics, county politics, and national politics. Big issues like Health Care that are going to affect us all coming down to the wire. Taxes, refunds delayed, proposed regulations of the banking cartel, continuing real estate collapse and job loss, possible war with Iran in the works, and now flooding that follows the unusually high snowfalls in much of the country. But, is this what is grabbing my attention. No, not really.

Instead, I find myself perseverating on this dumbass e-mail I received from a neighbor telling me that if I consider myself a “real American,” I’ll be all concerned that we battle the forces that want to delete “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance, and while we are at it, defend the “in God We Trust” slogan on our money. Oh, yeah, and the message begins with a picture of “God” in the form of Jesus looking like a radiant man from Norway. She also sends me smug videos of Middle Eastern people getting blown up by our latest military weaponry, and does not seem to find any irony there. I wish there were a supplement one could take for “irony deficiency anemia.” I’d send her a lifetime supply.

And, since when is Jesus God, anyway? When I went to Lutheran confirmation classes back in the day, we were taught that one thing that all Christians adhere to is the Nicene Creed which, as I recall, begins, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, and in Jesus Christ, His Only Son……” Get that? God, the Creator and His Son – Jesus. Now, it’s Jesus who is God. What ever happened to the Trinity? Has the State of Texas been re-writing the Bible, too? Have we dropped God from the Trinity like Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, was dropped from the Founding Fathers in the revisionist public school history books? “Move along, Citizen. Nothing to see here….”

Oh, and speaking of religion, how about the story of the pedophile Catholic priests that keeps metastasizing in country after country? It’s just outrageous. The Church seems to be the main institution that supports and abets the molestation of children on a systemic level. And, they continue to get away with it generation after generation. Why aren’t these perps in jail? Perhaps it is because the ones who hold power in the world are also in on the program. It’s almost too dark for me to get my mind around. Cognitive dissonance begins to kick in, and I find myself suddenly devoted to anything else other than betrayal. I daydream of an asteroid direct hit on the Vatican. Can’t help it.

I find myself turning to spaceweather.com and the USGS earthquake sites twenty times a day for updates. I have read and re-read Clif High of Halfpasthuman’s report on the current “Sun Sickness” (http://www.halfpasthuman.com/MegaSunSpotCycle.pdf) as well as his latest Shape of Things to Come. I have also returned to Geryl’s site How to Survive 2012.com that is based on his rigorous investigation of the Mayan Long Count.
So, while my neighbor is intent on keeping “under God” in the pledge of allegiance, I am looking heaven-ward for divine intervention in the shape of thunderbolts of the Gods or a 7,000 ft. tsunami wave. Go figure.

I’ve seen some great documentaries this year like “Blue Gold – the New Water Wars,” “The Blue Cove,” “Food, Inc.,” “Farmer John,” etc, but the one that is haunting me most is “Symbols of an Alien Sky.” The discussion towards the end of the previous post included the sense of an idea sinking in - a moment of clarity that seems fleeting sometimes. I experienced one of those last night as I watched another good BBC nature documentary, “Nature’s Most Amazing Events.” It showed in gorgeous detail, the effect that the seasonal changes of the sun have on the food supply in the Pacific Ocean. It showed the suffering of the sea lions as they endured a harsh winter and waited for spring. Humpback whales going six months without food, then heading for Alaska and the plankton bloom that the sun would initiate in the Spring. The Sun awaking life in the oceans – plankton, little critters, then herring, and then sea lions, birds, dolphins, whales – all totally dependent on the energy generated by the Sun to provide sustenance, which it does in abundance.

As I watched the ocean turning green with life, I remembered that “Symbols” taught that all the original Gods were planets or suns. Suddenly the idea did not seem so far-fetched. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a god that was tangible and who actually did something, rather than a stupid slogan on a coin or a story that one had to take “on faith.” How about a Sun of immense size and power who arrives every morning and brings light, warmth, and life to this planet? And, if there is an electronic connection between all the bodies in the heavens, and if there is sentience as well (as quantum theory seems to be indicating), then it is not such a leap, after all, that the Sun might just be the Son after all.

Is this coherent? I don’t’ know. But, something seems to be settling in my mind that makes things seem to make sense to me in a way that they have never done before.
aho