Turn Off, Unplug, Drop Out

from freeacre

"The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth." Morpheous, from “The Matrix”

There is an unnerving article posted by Tom Engelhardt on Smirking Chimp.com. He writes of how exponentially the military-industrial complex has grown since President Eisenhower delivered his farewell warning speech and how the Pentagon has woven itself into our lives at almost every turn. Engelhardt features the list compiled by Nick Turse in his book, “The Complex – How the Military Invades our Everyday Lives.” It is incredibly extensive. The premise is about a hypothetical Boomer and the products he uses that have Pentagon connections. I include about a third of it:

“…In go his (DoD supplier) Bausch and Lomb contact lenses and down goes a Zantac (from DoD contractor GlaxoSmithKline) for his ulcer. Heading back to the bedroom, he finds Donna finished with her workout and making the bed -- with the TV news on -- and lends her a hand. (Their headboard was purchased from Thomasville Furniture, the mattress from Sears, the pillows were made by Harris Pillow Supply, all Pentagon contractors.) They exchange grim glances as, on their Samsung set (another DoD contractor) the Today Show chronicles the latest in chaos in Iraq. "Thank god we never supported this war," Rick says, thinking of the antiwar rally Donna and he attended even before the invasion was launched. NBC, which produces the Today Show, is owned by General Electric, the 14th-largest defense contractor in the United States, to the tune of $2.3 billion from the DoD in 2006, and has worked on such weapons systems as the UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters and F/A-18 Hornet multimission fighter/attack aircraft, both in use in Iraq.”

Continuing, “…Looking at the situation in 1970, almost 10 years after Eisenhower's farewell speech, Sidney Lens, a journalist and expert on U.S. militarism, noted that there were 22,000 prime contractors doing business with the U.S. Department of Defense. Today, the number of prime contractors tops 47,000 with subcontractors reaching well over the 100,000 mark, making for one massive conglomerate touching nearly every sector of society, from top computer manufacturer Dell (the 50th-largest DoD contractor in 2006) to oil giant ExxonMobil (the 30th) to package-shipping titan FedEx (the 26th).

In fact, the Pentagon payroll is a veritable who's who of the top companies in the world: IBM; Time-Warner; Ford and General Motors; Microsoft; NBC and its parent company, General Electric; Hilton and Marriott; Columbia TriStar Films and its parent company, Sony; Pfizer; Sara Lee; Procter & Gamble; M&M Mars and Hershey; Nestlé; ESPN and its parent company, Walt Disney; Bank of America; and Johnson & Johnson among many other big-name firms. But the difference between now and then isn't only in scale. As this list suggests, Pentagon spending is reaching into previously neglected areas of American life: entertainment, popular consumer brands, sports. This penetration translates into a remarkable variety of forms of interaction with the public.

Rick and Donna's home is full of the fruits of this incursion. As they putter around in their kitchen, getting ready for the day ahead, they move from the wall cabinets (purchased at DoD contractor Lowe's Home Center) to the refrigerator (from defense contractor Maytag), choosing their breakfast from a cavalcade of products made by Pentagon contractors. These companies that, quite literally, feed the Pentagon's war machine, are the same firms that fill the shelves of America's kitchens.

Today, just about every supermarket staple -- from Ballpark Franks (Sara Lee) and Eggo waffles (Kelloggs) to Jell-O (Kraft) and Coffee Mate (Nestle) -- has ties to the Pentagon. The same holds for many household appliances. In Rick and Donna's dining room, a small Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner buzzes around the floor. Rick thought it would be cute to have the little mechanical device trolling around the house making their hectic lives just a tad easier. Little did he know that Roomba's manufacturer, iRobot, takes in U.S. tax dollars ($51 million of them from the DoD in 2006, more than a quarter of the company's revenue) and turns them into PackBots, tactical robots used by U.S. troops occupying Iraq and Afghanistan, and Warrior X700s -- 250-pound semiautonomous robots armed with heavy weapons such as machine guns, that may be deployed in Iraq this year.

In addition to selling millions of Roombas to civilian consumers, the company uses government tax dollars to make money on the civilian side of its business. According to the company's December 2006 annual report (which listed as its "Research Support Agencies" the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency [DARPA], the U.S. Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, the U.S. Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command, and the U.S. Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center), government funding "allows iRobot to accelerate the development of multiple technologies." Yet iRobot retains "ownership of patents and know-how and [is] generally free to develop other commercial products, including consumer and industrial products, utilizing the technologies developed during these projects." It's a very sweet deal. And iRobot is hardly alone.

Entering the Digital World with Guns Blazing

Sitting on the dining room table is Rick's HP (Hewlett-Packard) notebook computer. HP is another company that has grown its civilian know-how with generous military contracts, like the multiyear, multimillion-dollar deal it signed in 2005 with DARPA to "develop technologies to improve the performance of mission-critical computer networks used during combat and other vital operations." A spokesman for the company noted, "Our work for DARPA is aimed at significantly improving the performance of the Internet.... If we can successfully create new approaches to the way Internet traffic is detected and routed, we may start seeing the Internet used as the de facto communications and information network in areas where it previously would've been thought too risky." Success would certainly translate into more lucrative civilian work, as well.

….Steven grabs his iPod MP3 player (from DoD contractor Apple Computer) and heads downstairs to leave with his father. On his way to the door, Rick goes to his bookshelf and scans a selection of progressive texts whose publishers just happen to be DoD contractors, including a reissue of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (Houghton Mifflin), Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush's America by Lou Dubose and Molly Ivins (Random House), and Jon Stewart's America (The Book) (Warner Books), before choosing the Hugo Chavez-approved Hegemony or Survival by Noam Chomsky (ahem, Metropolitan Books from Macmillan publishers). As the last one out, Donna sets the ADT alarm system. (ADT took in more than $16 million from the Pentagon in 2006, while its parent company, Tyco International, cleaned up to the tune of over $187 million.)

The Pentagon on Wheels

Rick and Steven hop into the Saturn parked in the driveway. Rick is proud of his car choice -- after all, Saturn has such a people-friendly (even anti–Detroit establishment) vibe. Admittedly, he is aware that General Motors owns not only the Saturn but the Hummer brand -- the civilian version of the U.S. military's Humvee -- but he believes that, in this world, you can't be squeaky-clean perfect. But Hummer isn't the half of it.

How could Rick have known that, in 1999, GM formally entered the Army's COMBATT (Commercially Based Tactical Truck) vehicle development program? Or that GM actually had its own military division, General Motors Defense, when his Saturn was made? Nor could Rick have known that GM Defense formed a joint venture with defense giant General Dynamics to create the GM-GDLS Defense Group (which was awarded in excess of $1.5 billion in DoD contract dollars in 2005). Or that GM took in $87 million from the Pentagon in 2006. Or that, in 2007, GM entered into a 50-year lease agreement to build a $100 million test track on the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Grounds. Or that the maker of his Saturn's tires, Goodyear, was America's 69th-largest defense contractor in 2004, with DoD contracts worth nearly $357 million.

…"Do you have your cell phone?" Rick asks. Steven whips a Motorola from his pocket. (Motorola made almost $308 million from the Department of Defense in 2004, while the phone's service provider, Verizon, took home more than $128 million in DoD contracts, and $50 million more from the Department of Homeland Security, in 2006.)”

Well, you get the idea. We live in a horrific military-industrial stew of war machinery producing corporations. Their products are in our homes. Their facilities are in our neighborhoods. Much like the bombs hidden in mosques, our own military hides within our culture and uses us as protective shields.

But, it goes further than that. Every dollar that we spend on their products enriches and empowers them and tightens the noose around our necks. Becoming ensnared in their trap, we are complicit in their crimes against humanity and the planet. There will be a reckoning.

So, WAMFTD?? Be aware. Stop purchasing their shit. Turn Off the twisted media messages that barrage the airwaves, manipulating us to buy their crap. Unplug from the financial, pharmaceutical, electrical, and commercial matrix as much as you can.

Drop Out. Shun them. Go your own way, make friends, and cultivate peace in your life now. Don’t wait for the revolution to be declared by someone else. You would be waiting forever. It won’t be analyzed in the newspapers. It won’t come from contributing to the Democratic or the Republican parties. Katie Couric won’t be announcing it on T.V. It won’t be funded by the friendly corporations that back Public Broadcasting, either. It won’t be brought to you by MoveOn.org. or the good ladies at Code Pink. It will happen as individuals declare it for themselves and make it so in their own lives.

Take the red pill, and let the delusion that we need them fall away. Screw the corporations, the corporate class, and all their death-dealing bullshit. Write up a Declaration of Independence and sign it yourself. Post it on your door, like Martin Luther when he started the Protestant movement against the Church of Rome.

There is a better world that is ours to have when we decide we are ready. Remember the teachings of Stephen Gaskin, back in the day. He wrote, “What you put your attention into you get more of.” Let’s put our attention on Freedom. Let’s turn away from products that mask insecurity (trendy clothing, cosmetics, etc.), expensive automobiles… all the 10,000 things that the Buddha taught are only distractions. Let’s nurture some things instead. Grow food, raise animals, help out our neighbors, and commit random acts of kindness. Freedom and community and self-expression are our birthright. Compassion and right action and right livelihood are ours to cultivate. We were born into our lives to Be…not to Buy.

Sometimes I get overwhelmed and bummed out and fearful. But, then, I crawl back into the Here and Now and something good happens, and I start to get excited about how it can be. I hope it is the same for you as well.

aho

THE MEANING OF FREEDOM AND HOW TO ACHIEVE IT

from Murph

I have found through the years that it is a sticky discussion when freedom, what it means, what it looks like and how to achieve it are brought up.

It seems obvious to me that varying degrees of restriction on individual freedoms have been practiced everywhere for all of recorded history. Arguments about the necessity of restricted freedom abound, particularly today. Perhaps it shouldn’t surprise me, but when I hear people say that it is necessary for our security and it is a small price to pay for security, I have a tendency to become really upset. I find that attitude appalling.

So lets start this by talking about what freedom is and what it looks like. Keep in mind this is Murph’s viewpoint.

It would seem obvious to me that a concept of total freedom of action when living in groups cannot work. Being by yourself in the wilderness is not how most of us live. More power to those that do so. The early mountain men were about as free as you can get. But, some enforceable means has to exist to impede those who do not respect others right to freedom within a social context. I sum it up this way; you cannot perform an action which takes away from or restricts another persons freedom, that is, you cannot harm another or their property, and I include the environment. That simple edict would automatically stop environmental degradation, exploitation and legal thievery. The problem comes up with how you deal with those that are willing to be exploited and have property taken from them for a perceived advantage in a trade off. In my view, this is exactly what has happened in this country. Through a variety of manipulations, people were convinced to give up part of what they had for some kind of perceived advantage. This has proceeded in fits and starts since the beginning of this country and has resulted into what we experience today, very few freedoms left with plenty of justifications promoted to enforce it.

I think we can agree that this is all manifested from bending the knees to authority, to those with wealth and power. Since this has been going on for 5000 years or so, I must conclude there is something inherent in the mental makeup of humans that will go along with it, except of course, some minority of individuals in any given society. In this 5000 years of recorded history, we have evidence that a hierarchy and patriarchy was not the only way societies governed themselves. There have been matriarchies also but perhaps less throughout history. Jeff Vail has an interesting concept concerning a non hierarchy social organization he calls “rhyizome economy”. Try this websites; http://www.jeffvail.net/2006/04/envisioning-hamlet-economy-topology-of.html

It further appears to me that a significant amount of any given population doesn’t really want freedom because it means responsibility and consequences, and as we see today, both of those words are swear words in our society.

So what would a really free society look like? Most people can imagine that for themselves, and there have been innumerable textbooks, novels and essays on the subject.

Personally, I find it fascinating to read novels where the author paints a word picture of what a truly free people would look like, and there are many. There have been societies that exhibited vastly more personal freedom than we have today. Interestingly, they were much smaller populations. Indian tribes scattered over the world have amply demonstrated this to be possible, and this is not an essay on the “noble savage” nor a declaration that these societies had total freedom. Obviously there are social norms and restrictions on behavior in every society, large or small. But, where is the line to be drawn, how much individuality and individual freedom can any society tolerate? In my reading of diaries and history of this country in its early days, it was in many ways far more tolerant of individual freedom. Our government was supposedly set up to maximize this freedom and to limit chaos and the Constitution was a pact with the population and those that ran the government. However, as our population grew and the complexity of the society increased, the government instituted more and more restrictions on personal behavior, unless you were the ones setting down the rules.

Those that are familiar with my essays know that I am an advocate of society being in small autonomous groups that decide for each group how they want to live by mutual, not majority, agreement. The term for such group organization is Anarchy. Our present government has not much toleration for small autonomous groups, and goes to great lengths to minimize them, to marginalize them and often to eliminate them and with a whole bunch of justifications. It sometimes amazes me that the small populations that live that way like the Mennonites and Amish, have been successful in preserving their autonomous position in the greater society. I speculate it is because they don’t have anything that the PTB want. Wonder what would happen if a vastly needed resource was found on an Amish settlement.

If we are to have a centralized government that oversees this kind of a conglomeration, it has to be severely limited in what it can demand from the population and the amount of regulation it can enforce. That again was the original intent of the Constitution. Oh yes, they were clever about it. The PTB instituted a very long and gradual erosion of those restrictions. one little piece at a time so you would hardly notice. Can you imagine what the original population would have done if they had advocated and tried to institute what we have today? A virtual return to the European concept of how to govern, exactly what the people didn’t want. Well, we got it now, absolute authority over the running of society and a whole lot of restriction on personal freedom.

One of the things that would disappear in a free society is consensual crime. As long as you were not forcing another into a relationship or action, and not taking or damaging their property, but was rather by mutual consent, it cannot be a crime. What I do as an individual that does not damage or hurt is no business of the state. In our present society, that would eliminate a sizable amount of the prisoners in jail and prison.

When we examine the criminal code in this country, and for that matter almost any large populations code, it is so extensive and full of contradictions that nobody can really understand it all. We have laws that deal with almost every aspect of human behavior, from the mundane to the radical. I see absolutely no benefit to society as a whole for this. It sure does benefit those in power though. What it comes down to is wanting control over society for privilege and gain. And poof, there go your freedoms. Our judicial system hires a vast army to perpetuate this system. At least they are employed and most of the time pay taxes, if we want to look at the cup as half full.

The old clique about freedom not coming cheap I think is true. It is a constant battle with those that would restrict us for their gain that we are dealing with. I think old Jefferson had it right when he said that we should have a revolution every 20 years and start over. That concept showed a lot of awareness of history I think. But again, we have to take into consideration the probable hard wiring of how people deal with their environment and relationships. It would indeed be an interesting society that followed that dictate.

Remember the old TV series “Northern Exposure”? I really liked the examination that the writers paid to a rather isolated society that had its revolution far more frequently and how they dealt with adversity and disagreements. A friend of mine told me once that the reason I liked that series is that it portrayed what it would be like living in a society where everyone had 130 IQ and up. Periodically the Internet has in circulation the “Darwin Awards” and “these people vote” pieces. I got to admit that I don’t have what I would consider a definitive answer how a free society would deal with these kinds of people. In the “Darwin Awards”, the participants often eliminate themselves from the gene pool.

I have an interest in how the readers of this blog would look at the concept of freedom.

Because I see social disaster coming at us, and the recognition that we cannot continue doing things the way we are and have been doing them, I can anticipate something better coming out of it. Hopefully, there will be enough people left that have some sense of history and what it means to live free that we can put something better together next time around.

AN OVERVIEW by Murph

AN OVERVIEW By Murph

In some previous posts I have made some generalized overviews of what appears to be happening in our world. I think it is easy for us to become immersed in details and focusing on single issues and not see how it all fits together or to become submerged in the enormity of what we consider the negative events swirling around us. So I attempt to step back once in a while and take a snapshot of all the information that I take in and put it together to make some sense.

Right at the top of the list is the oil problem. Unless one wants to have a heartfelt belief in the validity of anaerobic oil, we have to realize that oil is a finite resource. The probability of it ever becoming available in the huge amounts we had originally on this planet is zero. Even if the anaerobic oil concept proves true, it contains a whole list of problems that aren’t addressed, namely, rate of replenishment. So from my perspective, it makes no difference. We are going to/ are running out of oil. In simple fact, the rate of production is not keeping up with rate of increase in demand, and is thus going up in price. Obviously, prices will increase until there is that thing called demand destruction that takes hold. If you can’t afford to buy it, you aren’t going to use it. There are already some poor countries that are out of the bidding for oil, although I cannot again find that article to give specifics. (My main computer with all the bookmarks and articles stored were lost when the mother board went down and I haven’t had the time to try and rebuild the hard drive to extract the data) Regardless, if the price continues to rise, the poorer parts of the worlds population will be priced out of the market, including people in the United States. Despite the reassurances of the CERTA report and the economic gurus, we will run out of the stuff at our present and escalating usage worldwide. Currently the U.S is using 20+ million barrels of oil per day and usage is going up, not down, and no indication that will change in the near future. When it is realized how much modern life is dependent on oil, it becomes obvious that a really big social change is on the way.

The greening of the economy and reducing or eliminating fossil fuel usage is big in the news today. All sorts of ideas, inventions and public policy suggestions are sprouting up. Not only does all of this have impractical to impossible usage, but, some of it has outright damaging effects. Most of my research into these ideas shows there is little interest in computing the final costs for implementing such ideas.

1. Ethanol has the most obvious of the detrimental effects. It is an impossible substitute for oil. It costs ultimately more in energy to produce than can be used, and is dependent on fossil fuels for its production. We were warned about this when it was suggested years ago, but the warnings were ignored and the government subsidies were put in place to implement large-scale production. It is proving to be a disaster. New ethanol plants have been shut down and cost of food has dramatically risen as a direct result of these policies.
2. Electrical generation without direct fossil fuel usage is being heavily promoted. Wind energy is one of the biggies today. Few if any studies have been implemented concerning the trade offs in its wholesale use for producing electricity. If electrical usage were to be cut back drastically world wide, wind energy could conceivably have a value. At our present rate of electrical usage, trying to substitute wind for fossil fuel generation at just 25% is not possible due to the tremendous use of fossil fuels to create the production infrastructure. This does not even start to address the centralized power grids that are in decay and need updating for increased carrying capacity in that change over. And, as I have mentioned previously in posts, the ecological cost has not even been addressed, much less thoroughly investigated.

3. Wave energy is being looked at to a far lesser extent. Again, little is being addressed concerning maintenance, fossil fuel usage to implement it and its environmental impact.

4. Hydroelectric generation has reached its zenith. We have dammed up about as much as can be dammed for generation, and with tremendous ecological damage to boot.

5. Free energy concepts are prolific. None of them are addressing the cost in resources, fossil fuels and infrastructure needed to implement them if they prove to be workable.

6. The hydrogen economy has been shown to be not possible. In the first place, the
Infrastructure is not going to happen and its energy in ratio to energy out is unacceptable.
It isn’t going to happen.

7. None of this address how we are going to keep modern transportation going on electricity alone, nor produce plastics, nor electronics. Haven’t heard of a means to fly a plane on it yet. Face it, we have nothing and there is not on the near time horizon, any substitute for fossil fuels and we have built an empire and western civilization on having cheap plentiful fossil fuels. If we had started looking into these kinds of issues 30-50 years ago, we might just have been able to come up with some alternatives. We were warned back then and the warnings were ignored by all but a few of the tin foil hats among us.

Food production for the world is another biggie. The farming developments of last 100 years are very heavily dependent on fossil fuels. This has directly spurred huge population growths worldwide with the expanding food production. There is a limit of how many bushels of anything can be grown on an acre of land. With increasing costs of oil, we are going to experience from that alone increased food costs, worldwide. Throw in diverted food production to ethanol and bio fuel production and it will get worse. The squeeze is on as evidenced by food riots taking place in many areas now. As oil prices go up, there is going to be a lot more riots. Ever wonder when riots over food will begin in this country? Put into these observations the continuous degradation of crop land, the near disappearance of some critical elements in the food, (selenium is the first to come to mind), the ever expanding usage of farm land for housing and highways and we have some severe problems with food coming at us.

The world economics is currently a mess. There is a high probability of a big melt down of world wide economic systems and institutions. Over all, nations and most of their populations are poorer than they were 15 years ago. We can’t claim national or personal wealth when 80% of the worlds wealth is held by individuals that are only 20% of the worlds population.

Resource depletion is becoming very apparent now. Water has finally become forefront, right next to fossil fuel depletion.

The urban infrastructure is deteriorating fast. We have put so much capital into spreading out from urban centers that they are capital traps now, that is, their value is down and no way to recover the capital investment. Instead, inner city slums are now proving to be a good capital investment. Neat huh?

Governments around the world are becoming increasingly fascist, that is, under the control of corporations and big money interests. Corporations have become literally a government unto themselves with no restraints whatsoever.

That we are experiencing climate change is not a contention, but the raging debate over what is causing it goes on. Climate changes, no matter the source, are going to have huge implications on nations and societies.

This is a fairly good overview of what I see happening without going into a lot of specifics. You may be tired of seeing the down side of everything by now. I got to admit I do get tired of it also. This next section is by Freeacre and will have more of an optimistic outlook.

“Half Full” Perspective….by Freeacre

With certain notable exceptions, I am the designated “half full” person, while Murph takes the cake in the “half empty” category. So, it falls to me to present some positive news in this overview of the demise of “life as usual.” Here’s what I have come up with so far. Feel free to add to my list.

With the oil shortages and the resulting rise in the price of fuel, coupled with the devaluation of the dollar, imports of many goods will be curtailed. This will lead to the collapse of the Big Box Stores (yea!). To my mind, this is good in and of itself.

Once they are out of the picture, those people out of work due to recession/depression lay-offs, will be able to pick up the slack making useful things at home or close by to sell or trade to their neighbors. Everything from fence hardware, household supplies, clothing, toys, and on and on will be needed. Second hand stores will supply a lot of things for while, but innovative people will be busy filling in the gaps. Flea markets and farmer’s markets will thrive. This will lead to many more conversations among community members and add to a sense of neighborliness and connection, which will be emotionally satisfying.

The tax base for state and county governments will shrink, as the real estate is devalued and taxes fade from decreased incomes. There won’t be enough money to continue to incarcerate citizens for victimless or non-violent crimes, like smoking pot, or even selling it. This will be a good thing to reduce the suffering of a lot of people languishing in the prison cells now, and also lend itself to a wider distribution of herbal medicine available for people to relieve physical and/or emotional pains. From the sixties, after all, we hearken back to those words of wisdom, “Dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope.”

Once people begin to grow gardens in their yards, and replace their lawns with switch grass to feed their animals, they will be eating organic by necessity. This will lend itself to increased vitality and health. Since fewer people will have medical insurance, reliance on medications like anti-depressants, and behavioral modification drugs for children, like Ritalin and anti-psychotics for childhood “bi-polar disorder” and the like will be severely curtailed. “Hyper-active” kids can be put to work in the garden, or cutting grass with a scythe. They can ride their bikes to the grocery store to pick up things for mom and the neighbors, like a kid should be doing anyway. Once they get away from the tube and the Gameboy, they may find that their ADHD goes away…

As people start taking a closer look at their surroundings and stop thinking of a “season” as a new batch of television programming, rather than what is growing around them from year to year, interest in Permaculture will thrive. I don’t know anything about permaculture yet, so I can’t be real specific. But I know it will be big. Trees will be planted that produce nuts and good, useable wood, like walnuts and pecans and hazelnut trees, etc. Edible plants will be identified and cultivated. Poplars to take up nitrogen in the ground can be relied on to help keep the water clean. Berries and fruits will be harvested and made into jams and jellies and pies. Maybe we’ll inspire a bunch of neo-Johnny Apple Seeds to go around and plant random fruit and nut trees all over the place for the common good.

Self-expression and creativity will be encouraged and supported, as people rely less on Target Stores and Bed, Bath and Beyond to furnish their homes. People will make their own folk art, ceramics, quilts, gifts, furniture, etc. People will stop buying corporate sponsored brand name and sports paraphernalia, and regional differences will once again add to the wealth of diversity in our country. It will get a lot more colorful and interesting.

The same goes for music and entertainment. Local musicians, and artists of all sorts will have a broader audience. Community theaters and choirs, and music and dance groups of all sorts will thrive again.

The newly laid back and medically marijuanaed folk might be amused by watching the former yuppie (scum) who used to ply the most traveled roads to that they could be observed by the most neighbors in their neon jogging outfits and carrying outsized plastic water bottles, pulling rick-shaws or carts on regular routes to the grocery stores or Farmer’s Market to make a little extra cash. I know this would amuse the heck out of me… Their McMansions will also make pretty good communes, as we dense up our suburbs to make them survivable.

The good news is that as the corporate influence is curtailed, people will matter more. As we drive less, neighborhoods and towns will no longer be something to stare at from the windows of our cars. Things will get more real. We won’t just be all for public transportation – we’ll actually get on a bus or a train. We will get to know our neighbors and communities because we will really need each other again in ways that we have forgotten.

I admit that I look forward to the end of the soulless corporate culture that sickens, exploits and controls us today. As this abomination dies, I have hope that more freedom, ingenuity, and health will prevail. It won’t be easy, and a lot of us will not make it through the transition. But, in the end, there is the possibility that things will be good.

Bringing in the Sheaves

by freeacre

This is a “last call” announcement for those who may not have stocked up as much as they are able on grains. All grains.

We knew it was coming – the push for ethanol would create a shortage of corn, thereby driving up not only the cost of corn meal, but the costs of meat and poultry as well, since the animals eat corn, too. Well, here we are. The people of Mexico have been rioting in the streets due to the sharp increase in the cost of corn for tortillas. The prices of cornmeal, wheat flour, and rice in the supermarkets have risen alarmingly. And, there is no end in sight.

Regarding rice, this piece from David Ignacias, Washington Post, April 3, 2008:

“You may have missed the front-page article in the New York Times last Saturday, with the one-column headline written in clipped newspaperese: "High Rice Cost Creating Fears of Asia Unrest." But this little story could be an early warning of another big economic problem that's sneaking up on us.

The new danger is global inflation -- most worryingly in food prices, but also in prices for commodities, raw materials and products that require petroleum energy, which includes almost everything. Prices for these goods have been skyrocketing in international markets -- at the same time the Federal Reserve and other central banks have been hosing the world with new money in their efforts to avoid a financial crisis.

That's an explosive mixture. It risks a kind of inflation that would trigger panic buying, hoarding and fears of mass political protest. Actually, this is already happening in Asia, according to the Times.

The price of rice in global markets has nearly doubled in the last three months, reports the Times's Keith Bradsher. Fearing shortages, some major rice producers -- including Vietnam, India, Egypt and Cambodia -- have sharply limited their rice exports so they can be sure they can feed their own people.”

Did you get that? The main nations that have been exporting rice are going to stop doing so. They need to feed their own people first. Yikes!

Then, there is the wheat catastrophe….

Why food prices will go through the roof in coming months
By F. William Engdahl
Online Journal Guest Writer

“A deadly fungus, known as Ug99, which kills wheat, has likely spread to Pakistan from Africa, according to reports. If true, that threatens the vital Asian Bread Basket including the Punjab region.

The spread of the deadly virus, stem rust, against which an effective fungicide does not exist, comes as world grain stocks reach the lowest in four decades and government subsidized bio-ethanol production, especially in the USA, Brazil and EU are taking land out of food production at alarming rates. The deadly fungus is being used by Monsanto and the US Government to spread patented GMO seeds.

Stem rust is the worst of three rusts that afflict wheat plants. The fungus grows primarily in the stems, plugging the vascular system so carbohydrates can't get from the leaves to the grain, which shrivels. Ug99 is a race of stem rust that blocks the vascular tissues in cereal grains including wheat, oats and barley. Unlike other rusts that may reduce crop yields, Ug99-infected plants may suffer up to 100 percent loss.

The FAO warns that the explosive growth in acreage used to grow fuels and not food in the past three years is dramatically changing the outlook for food supply globally and forcing food prices sharply higher for all foods, from cereals to sugar to meat and dairy products. The use of cereals, sugar, oilseeds and vegetable oils to satisfy the needs of a rapidly increasing biofuel industry, is one of the main drivers, most especially the large volumes of maize in the US, wheat and rapeseed in the EU and sugar in Brazil for ethanol and bio-diesel production. This is already causing dramatically higher crop prices, higher feed costs and sharply higher prices for livestock products.

Ironically, the current bio-ethanol industry is being driven by US government subsidies and a scientifically false argument in the EU and USA that bio-ethanol is less harmful to the environment than petroleum fuels and can reduce C02 emissions. The arguments have been demonstrated in every respect to be false. The huge expansion of global acreage now planted to produce biofuels is creating ecological problems and demanding use of far heavier pesticide spraying while use of biofuels in autos releases even deadlier emissions than imagined. The political effect, however, has been a catastrophic shift down in world grain stocks at the same time the EU and USA have enacted policies which drastically cut traditional emergency grain reserves. In short, it is a scenario preprogrammed for catastrophe, one which has been clear to policymakers in the EU and USA for several years. That can only suggest that such a dramatic crisis in global food supply is intentional.”

So, demand is outstripping production for corn, rice, and wheat, which form the foundation for much of the food supply for humans as well as their livestock. This is no longer a prediction. This is right now. If there is a doubt in your mind, just go to your closest grocery store and check out the prices. They have practically doubled.

But, it’s going to get worse. If the ethanol and the wheat rust, and the increased demand weren’t enough, other factors are lending themselves to this dismal picture as well. Peak Oil is drastically raising the price of gasoline, which raises the production costs of growing the grains, as well as dramatically adding to the costs of transporting it to the stores.

Climate change is also having an increasing effect. Torrential rains, tornados, and drought are also taking a big toll on the production side. When is this going to lead to starvation and death? It already has. The United Nations has issued an alarming report that the prices of food for disaster relief in Africa and other desperate places is making relief efforts too expensive to feed the many who rely on their efforts.

And, if all that weren’t enough, the financial brain trust has manoeuvred the dollar into a rate of inflation that has devalued the dollar to the point where the dollar has approximately 40 percent of the purchasing power that it had when “The Decider” took office.

In terms of grain, we are toast.

So, get it now, before the third shift at Albertson’s sneaks in and raises the prices beyond what any working class person can afford.

Eventually, we just may have to do with much less bread, pasta, rice, and those animals that eat grain.

Of course, the overlords will be conspicuously consuming despite it all. Have you seen the slick stories lately about the yuppie scum going green? Yeah, taking a year or two off from Wall Street and purchasing ranches and building state-of-the-art solar and wind powered, cork-floored eco houses, etc. etc.

…. Well, aren’t they special? They’ll probably be eating buffalo from their own herds, and running their Hummers on olive oil. . . but I digress.

Back to real life: We can grow switch grass in our yards to feed our animals. Actually, chickens who eat less corn and more grasses produce eggs that are better for you anyway. And, if we switched to rabbit instead of beef as a main source of protein, we wouldn’t need to use any corn and the meat would be much leaner and lower in cholesterol than beef. Plus, rabbits can be raised locally and wouldn’t require as much gasoline to transport. You can feed them leftover greens from the garden, carrots, and things that you can grow in your backyard. They don’t produce all that nasty methane that pollutes the atmosphere, and their manure is the only one that can go directly into the garden for fertilizer without a waiting period.

Of course, we always have the option of going vegetarian. But, being a vegetarian without wheat or rice or cornmeal, leaves one eating beans and greens for the most part. Personally, my system can’t handle it.

Human beings are very adaptive to their environments, though, when necessary, fortunately. When studying the healthiest people in the world, according to Diane Schwarzbein, M.D. (my favourite nutritionist) you’ll find the Inuit’s, the French, the Tibetans, and the rural Chinese and Africans. These people have much less chronic and degenerative disease than we do. The funny thing is that they all eat a very dissimilar diet, upon first glance. The French drink wine. The Tibetans do not. They sip yak butter tea all day. The Inuit’s eat whale blubber and fish and hardly any vegetables. But, upon further examination, they do have a couple of things in common: they eat what they can pick, gather, hunt or fish. And, they have stuck to a traditional diet rich in good fats. No high carb, low fat diets for them.

So, maybe this shortage of grain will benefit us in the long run anyway. After all, it was when people began to grow grain in a big way and it was stockpiled by the pharaohs or priests to be doled out to the subservient populations that this whole hierarchical death trap began in the first place. But, the transition period is going to get rough.

I

High Weirdness and Life Worth Living

Freeacre

Lately, it seems, some of the leaders of the preparedness sites are backing off or saying “good-by.” Now that the Real Estate Meltdown, Peak Oil, Climate Change, and Financial Collapse are finally being somewhat covered by the lamesteam media, sites like Survival Acres are apparently being inundated by people who are thinking that they better start to do something. But, if they all applied their “stimulus package” checks to freeze-dried or nitrogen packed foodstuffs, there would be such a backload of supply that they’d probably starve before the boxes arrived. Those who have been in the vanguard of the movement are hunkering down and looking after themselves. No more time to sound the alarm. Time to take to the basement, or at least to circle the wagons with friends and family.

Life After the Oil Crash (LATOC) linked to a message from Mike Ruppert this morning. In it, Mike sums up his recovery experience from his personal meltdown after eight years of carrying the flag for us. Then he lets us know that he is back in L.A., has a good dog, and is just planning to live until he dies in the assorted calamities about to manifest. He doesn’t want to be contacted. He’s not answering his mail. So, once again, it’s “Good-by, Mike. We owe you everything.” Personally, I hope he sits with us sometime at our council fire. The dog could come, too. Plenty of room.

I have to admit that I am getting sick and tired of the different collapse scenarios that now are watered down and morphed into some shallow, lukewarm, unseasoned fare fit for the general consumption. Gee, do ya think that we might be in a recession? Huh? Gosh, food and gas are getting expensive, eh? Boy, howdy! We just might have to eat tilapia instead of salmon this year. Uh oh, it’s looking pretty tight on Wall Street. But, the Fed is all over it. Not to worry…cut to a Boneva commercial.

For those of us who have been delving into the intricacies of resource depletion, climate change, and the global corporate and banking crimefest that threatens to put an end to the republic as we have known it, it’s all grey, grey, grey. Men in grey suits, black ops, graphs, charts… cold, hard facts lending themselves to shortages, lack, and the end of liberty. Sunday morning news show pundits (who always give me the nagging suspicion that they walk around their homes in panty hose, or cry themselves to sleep at night), spouting off about Berneke or Paulson, or Bush or Blair. Blah, blah, blah. I can only take so much of that shit before the tune of “Suicide is Painless” becomes the background music in my head.

Is there nothing MORE?? How about something imaginative? Colorful? Bazaar…. Really scary, or wonderful, even.

What else have you got?

That’s when I turn to rense.com; Project Camelot; Steve Quale.com; Trothweb.com; Above Top Secret and such. Now we’re talking! I don’t mind dying, but I do not want to be bored to death.

I can’t get enough of those pictures of the secret space craft in stationary orbit that that guy has been taking from a telescope in his home. And, the black ops helicopters that have been harassing him. What’s that about??

How about ancient libraries in Iraq filled with stone tablets with cuneiform writing that tell the routes of returning asteroids and death stars and stories of forgotten civilizations thousands and thousands of years old. Or, a little closer to home, the Project Paperclip project to create mind controlled assassins and operatives to implement the objectives of the Illuminati or extra-terrestrial alternative time lines?

Yeah, THAT’S WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT!

Reptilian off-worlders genetically altering our DNA sometime in the dim past… space portals connecting earth to bases on Mars, secret Norwegian underground bunkers being built to save their citizenry from annihilation – it’s all fascinating stuff. Much better than that lame Tim Russert and his juvenile, sycophantic thoughts on the collective political dumbasserie.

I’m not just kidding around. I really do think that exploring these outside the box issues are good to do. Chem trails, Morgellons

Disease, 9/11 - so much suppressed information, so little time.

“Just because you are paranoid, it doesn’t mean that no one is out to get you.”

The pre-digested, corporate-correct Wally-world really isn’t all there is, thank the stars. The Flat World materialists, war-mongers, and greedheads are morally bankrupt and mentally dead to the wonders that have come before us and are about to return.

As I plant my peas and feed the poultry, I look toward the sky and imagine that someone is looking back. I am aware of the elephants that are drawing likenesses’ of themselves. I listen for the song of life that surrounds us and welcome the mysteries and surprises that are our birthright. A time for change? You bet! More than we know.

Bring it on!

SOCIAL CHANGES FOR SURVIVAL

SOCIAL CHANGES FOR SURVIVAL from Murph

The seemingly helplessness of individuals in our society to affect changes is endemic, or let’s put this another way; changes that have to do with sustainability and survival. Voices that make warnings of social chaos in some future are for the most part ignored, especially at the policy level of government, local and national. It is obvious to me that radical change in how the lives of the citizens are conducted of this country, and for most of the world for that matter, is simply going to have to take place. If we do not have the leadership or citizen involvement, the changes that are going to be forced on us will be chaotic at best.

The intellectual agreement that peak oil is upon us, or soon will be, has not really entered into the national consciousness, nor is the complete ramifications of this treated but for a very few authors and activists. Instead, when the subject is brought up in polite company, the subject is shut down by a collective denial that it can and will happen. This refusal to acknowledge that the era of cheap energy is about over and how it will change our lives simply will not be admitted to by either leadership or citizenry. The cult of “our way of life is non negotiable” is the predominate thinking. After all, what is the use of worrying about a few hundred caribou and our need to drill for 6 months of oil in Alaska?

We are already seeing the first results of expensive energy sources; at the gas station and at the grocery stores. Any expectation that this trend of increasing cost for eating and driving is going to reverse is denial in its extreme, and seems to be based on the idea that there is a never ending source of the energy needed to maintain how things are and have been for 3 generations.

Since the industrial revolution, there has been a constant shift from people involved in food production to urban living, to the point that we now have only 1% of the population involved in food production as compared to nearly 40% in 1900. This 1% is composed of nearly all commercial industrial production with its monoculture techniques. This has led to land degradation, monopolization of seed production, inhumane animal husbandry and excessive use of water to name just four of the consequences. For anyone looking at this it should be obvious that our method of producing food for the maintenance of a society is simply not sustainable.

If we look at a historical precedent, during WWII, when Eleanor Roosevelt planted a victory garden on the white house lawn, (this forced the agriculture department to reverse its policies) and it ended up that nearly 40% of the food production in the nation was put out by these victory gardens. But it took an example by leadership to get it going since the agricultural department at that time was adamantly opposed to it. I’m not sure whether that is a condemnation of the thinking of the general population and foresight of leadership or not, but it was effective in a critical period. Despite any other weaknesses involved, Jimmy Carter made some warnings back in the day about eventual resource depletion and put up solar panels on the white house. Reagan promptly tore them out, right at the time when we should have been making serious policy decision for the eventuality that we would not have the cheap energy sources available any longer. But, what else can you expect from senile leadership? The fact that the man is eulogized today is a sickness and a joke.

I suspect that in the near future we are going to see an increase of historical fact finding, revisionist conclusions and more energy spent in suppression and marginalizing of these findings.

I have been coming across articles and books that take a look at what has happened in the last 200 years, especially dealing with European and American history, particularly how slavery has changed. Instead of a wealthy person owning a human and having to pay for the support while that slave contributed to your wealth, it was determined in the mid 1800’s that is was cheaper to pay a subsistence wage and have a company store where the wage earner had to buy all the stuff needed for survival, at a profit of course. Since choices were severely limited to non existent, the slave was now responsible for his own upkeep. When the big Irish migration took place during the potato blight in Ireland, the Irish laborer immigrants were considered less valuable than the black slaves. They were hired at subsistence wages to do the most dangerous work and the valuable slaves kept for the more benign labor. Still and all, slavery is still slavery. If you can convince people that they have choices (in reality nonexistent choices) and that they are in charge of their destinies, while at the same time eliminating any chance at owning wealth and land, it is still slavery. Your labor is still for the enrichment of the owners and the subsistence of yourself.

Even the middle class are not exempt. The middle class was a phenomenon of the industrial revolution and the fleeting opening up of economic ascension and ambitions to be something other than slaves. But in reality, they were slaves but with more toys, better living conditions and privileges. Sort of like the plantation owner with the household staff with more privileges and better living conditions for being more subservient.

As the title suggests, there are going to have to be some changes in social structure and general attitudes if we as a species are to survive, since how we are organizing society and economics can’t be sustained. It appears to me that the change does not have to be the picture of survival by hunting and gathering, although that is a very real possibility if we continue on this path for much longer. In any event, we are going to have to reduce population to a more earth friendly level. What population we end up with will have to be non centralized, the cities have to go. Cities by their very nature are not sustainable, and instead depend on the exploitation of the surrounding area; in our present case, exploitation of the entire rest of the world.

People’s attitudes about ownership will have to change. Ownership of land will also have to go, for ownership of land demands to be exclusive by imperative, not inclusive. Instead, there will have to be a group effort to preserve at sustainable levels the environment that we depend on to live. We will need to adopt more of the attitude of the North American Indian view that land cannot be owned, any more than water and air, and is treated with reverence rather than exploitation. Clear cutting of vast forest areas, damming of rivers, polluting of the air and water will have to cease. Paving over vast areas of prime growing land will have to cease and the areas now covered by concrete and paving has to be tore up and returned to natural habitat. Local communities will have to become self sufficient, out side of any control by a centralized patriarchal hierarchy. I suspect we will see a far more un-uniform social organization than what we experience now. You will have far more choices on how you wish to live. Those organizations that become self sustaining with no exploitive behavior will have the best chance of continuance. What you will give up is the slavery to wealth, to exploitation and forced labor to continue your life. Oh, and by the way, your free time will go up dramatically. Wouldn’t that be nice?

CIVILIZATION AND DERRICK JENSEN

I have finally finished 3 books by Derrick Jensen. It has taken about 5 times the amount of time I would normally spend reading these books because of the content. About 3 chapters at a time are all I could take at a sitting and I had to walk away from it for a while. I intend to discuss why this is so in a later post. The three books I will talk about are, “The Endgame, vol I and II”, and “A Language Older Than Words”.

For those of you have not read anything by Derrick Jensen, be warned. He is going to take apart all of your cherished beliefs concerning what we call civilization. He is extreme radicalism on this subject, although not the first to be so, but in our contemporary world, I think is the most prophetic, the most adamant and the most rational and compelling.

First, a bit of background on him. As a child, he claims that he was raised in a family of utterly extreme abuse, physically and emotionally by his father. His descriptions of what he remembers of this time are horrific. He evidently has spent most of his life learning to deal with it and to heal himself. He uses this base of experience to draw parallels to our modern civilization, which he does with extreme clarity. He appears to be a well educated and well read drawing on a multitude of references.

His main thesis is that our civilization is killing us, alienating us from each other, and killing the planet, and has been doing so for most of recorded history. He maintains that a very few societies remain that do not operate as our civilization does and serve as reminders of how we can live differently.

At the very beginning of the two books “Endgame”, Jensen puts down 20 premises listed below which he supports with a vengeance throughout the two books.

Premise One: Civilization is not and can never be sustainable. This is especially true for industrial civilization.

Premise two: Traditional communities do not often voluntarily give up or sell the resources on which their communities are based until their communities have been destroyed. They also do not willingly allow their landbases to be damaged so that other resources –gold, oil, and so on—can be extracted. It follows that those who want the resources will do what they can to destroy traditional communities.

Premise three: Our way of living –industrial civilization—is based on, requires, and would collapse very quickly without persistent and widespread violence.

Premise four: Civilization is based on a clearly defined and widely accepted yet often unarticulated hierarchy. Violence done by those higher on the hierarchy to those lower is nearly always invisible, that is, unnoticed. When it is noticed, it is fully rationalized. Violence done by those lower on the hierarchy to those higher is unthinkable, and when it does occur is regarded with shock, horror, and the fetishization of the victims.

Premise five: The property of those higher on the hierarchy is more valuable than the lives of those below. It is acceptable for those above to increase the amount of property they control—in everyday language, to make money—by destroying or taking the lives of those below. This is called production. If those below damage the property of those above, those above may kill or otherwise destroy the lives of those below. This is called justice.

Premise six: Civilization is not redeemable. This culture will not undergo any sort of voluntary transformation to a sane and sustainable way of living. If we do not put a halt to it, civilization will continue to immiserate the vast majority of humans and to degrade the planet until it (civilization, and probably the planet) collapses. The effects of the degradation will continue to harm humans and nonhumans for a very long time.

Premise seven: The longer we wait for civilization to crash –or the longer we wait before we ourselves bring it down—the messier the crash will be, and the worse things will be for those humans and nonhumans who live during it, and for those who come after.

Premise eight: The needs of the natural world are more important than the needs of the economic system. Another way to put this. Any economic or social system that does not benefit the natural communities on which it is based is unsustainable, require the dismantling of any such economic or social system, or at the very least disallowing it from damaging your landIbase.

Premise nine: Although there will clearly someday be far fewer humans than there at present, there are many ways this reduction in population may occur (or be achieved, depending on the passivity or activity which we choose to approach this transformation). Some will be characterized by extreme violence and privation: nuclear Armageddon, for example, would reduce both population and consumption, yet do so horrifically; the same would be true for a continuation of overshoot, followed by a crash. Other ways could be characterized by less violence. Given the current levels of violence by this culture against both humans and the natural world, however, it’s not possible to speak of reductions in population and consumption that do not involve violence and privation, not because the reductions themselves would necessarily involve violence, but because violence and privation have become the default of our culture. Yet some ways of reducing population and consumption, while still violent, would consist of decreasing the current levels of violence—required and caused by the (often forced) movement of resources from the poor to the rich—and would of course be marked by a reduction in current violence against the natural world. Personally and collectively we may be able to both reduce the amount and soften the character of violence that occurs during this ongoing and perhaps long term shift. Or we may not. But this much is certain: if we do not approach it actively—if we do not talk about our predicament and what we are going to do about it—the violence will almost undoubtedly be far more severe, the privation more extreme.

Premise ten: The culture as a whole and most of its members are insane. The culture is driven by a death urge, an urge to destroy life.

Premise eleven: From the beginning, this culture—civilization—has been a culture of occupation.

Premise twelve: There are no rich people in the world, and there are no poor people. There are just people. The rich may have lots of pieces of green paper that many pretend are worth something—or their presumed riches may be even more abstract: numbers on hard drives at banks—and the poor may not. These “rich” claim they own land, and the “poor” are often denied the right to make the same claim. A primary purpose of the police is to enforce the delusions of those with lots of pieces of green paper. Those without the green papers generally buy into these delusions almost as quickly and completely as those with. These delusions carry with them extreme consequences in the real world.

Premise thirteen: Those in power rule by force, and the sooner we break ourselves of illusions to the contrary, the sooner we can at least begin to make reasonable decisions about whether, when, and how we are going to resist.

Premise fourteen: From birth on—and probably from conception, but I’m not sure how I’d make the case—we are individually and collectively enculturated to hate life, hate the natural world, hate the wild, hate wild animals, hate women, hate children, hate our bodies, hate and fear our emotions, hate ourselves. If we did not hate the world, we could not allow it to be destroyed before our eyes. If we did not hat ourselves, we could not allow our homes—and our bodies—to be poisoned.

Premise fifteen: Love does not imply pacifism.

Premise sixteen: The material world is primary. This does not mean that the spirit does not exist, nor that the material world is all there is. It means that spirit mixes with flesh. It means also that real world actions have real world consequences. It means we cannot rely on Jesus, Santa Claus, the Great Mother, or even the Easter Bunny to get us out of this mess. It means this mess really is a mess, and not just the movement of God’s eyebrows. It means we have to face this mess ourselves. It means that for the time we are here on Earth—whether or not we end up somewhere else after we die, and whether we are condemned or privileged to live here—the Earth is the point. It is primary. It is our home. It is everything. It is silly to think or act or be a though this world is not real and primary. It is silly and pathetic to not live our lives as though our lives are real.

Premise seventeen: It is a mistake (more likely, denial) to base our decisions on whether actions arising from them will or won’t frighten fence-sitters, or the mass of Americans.

Premise eighteen: Our current sense of self is no more sustainable than our current use of energy or technology.

Premise nineteen: The culture’s problem lies above all in the belief that controlling and abusing the natural world is justifiable.

Premise twenty: Within this culture, economics—not community well being, not morals, not ethics, not justice, not life itself—drives social decisions.

Modification of premise twenty: Social decisions are determined primarily (and often exclusively) on the basis of whether those decisions will increase the monetary fortunes of the decision-makers and those they serve.

More modification of premise twenty: Social decisions are determined primarily (and often exclusively) on the basis of whether these decisions will increase the power of the decision-makers and those they serve.

Another modification of premise twenty: Social decisions are founded primarily (and often exclusively) on the almost entirely unexamined belief that the decision-makers and those they serve are entitled to magnify their power and/or financial fortunes at the expense of those below.

Another modification of premise twenty: If you dig to the heart of it—if there is any heart left—you will find that social decisions are determined primarily on the basis of how well these decisions serve the ends of controlling or destroying wild nature.

Because the premises took so much space, I will end this post with only a couple of comments.

There are a few of his arguments in the 2 books that I consider weak, even if true. His writings I find difficult to totally absorb. That he is passionate in what he presents to us is obvious from the very beginning. I find that I have to almost totally agree with his assertions and justifications. He is an author that I consider well worth the time to explore.