(photo credit Wikipedia)

A Storm is Coming....


"Family"

freeacre

Murph and I don’t watch a lot of television, as you know. A lot of us at the Campfire don’t. But, I gotta admit that once in awhile some series comes along and we rent it from Netflix. We really liked “Deadwood,” for instance. And, “Rome,” “’The Sopranos, and “Fringe.” Getting them from Netflix, we can watch them the way I promised people could watch them, with no commercials, when one of my first jobs was to sell cable TV. That was the pitch. You pay a small monthly fee, but you get to see everything without commercials. It was a good idea that lasted about five minutes. It got their foot in the door. Now, we pay a large fee and most of the content is commercials. Somehow, they got us to pay for the commercials as well as the propaganda, in order to watch programs that used to be free. It’s kinda like having to get your own switch to be beaten with. But, I digress…

Once again, though, I’m hooked on a show – “The Sons of Anarchy.” Since we get everything late, you may have seen it. It is a lot like “The Sopranos,” but it revolves around a West Coast Biker gang family rather than an East Coast Italian Mob Family. The characters are multifaceted and the plot lines are intricate and very often violent. The characters in the extended “family” are strong, ruthless, sociopathic, and oddly likeable and vulnerable at times. There is a rich texture of ethnicity and a strong code to live by. How they express their individuality within the confines of the shared values of the group is interesting. The fact that they all share a bond more important than anything else is fundamental to both the Sopranos and the Sons. They are more than a crime syndicate. They are an extended family as well, albeit sick and dysfunctional.

I ask myself “why?” Both of these organizations grow from a culture that is old and corrupt. Post collapse, as it were. Sicily, apparently, has been run by different warlords, or Godfathers, for generations, once the Roman Empire disintegrated. The Sons of Anarchy commit horrid crimes with little regard for the greater cultures sense of decency or decorum. Gun-running, dope-dealing, sexual exploitation, and other malfeasances are primary ways to generate outlaw income. Both are kept in power by the collusion of the state, the banks, the media, the politicians. All corrupted and bought off.

That’s the part that I find myself dwelling upon. What happens to a human being when the ideals of the culture are found to be corrupt? When the ones in charge – church or government, police, banks, companies, et al, are generally known to be criminals and thieves? To whom do you turn to for help and support?

Family, tribe, mob or gang.

In a morally collapsed culture, one chooses to either be a straight, compliant citizen ruled and taken advantage of by the corrupt cabal, or oppose them and become an outlaw resistor. Of course, many succumb to the individualized pressures and abuse coursing through their childhoods and lives. Addiction, incarceration, tissue damage and death are results from bad choices in damaging circumstances.

Is this where we are headed when the general population gets hip to the fact that pretty much everything that we have been taught about ourselves and our nation is false? That we’ve been suckered and used, poisoned, and swindled by the very ones who command the most respect, conduct the world’s business, make the most money, lead the church denominations, make the laws, and have sworn to protect us. I guess it depends on our own personal experience.

Not all of us are bikers or importers of olive oil.

I don’t know if anyone as yet has come up with a series about outlaw mall rats or guerrilla farmers. Just think, we might be on the verge of something new in this Kali Yuga age of deterioration, war, fear, and despair. New to us, anyway.

It ain’t going to be easy. We are going to have to be able to hold our own in the mix of the differing locals vying for control, I would imagine. An example is our struggle against the U.N.’s Agenda 21. Then there are those pesky drug cartels, bikers, Nazis, and minions. But, what if, in small towns, or even apartment complexes all over the place, we reached out to each other and declared peace amongst ourselves? What if we stopped using plastic? What if we got together a code to live by that actually did provide support and protection as well as equality, fairness and freedom? What if these parentless mall mutants tweeted or twittered themselves into a cohesive group and took over shuttered malls, and made the best of a difficult situation?

Despite cosmic events, earth changes, dynasties, wars, pestilence, greed and idiocy, life seems to go on. Until it doesn’t. We also have courage, friendship, knowledge, joy, loyalty, trust and love. Those have been constants as well, in many forms. That is what has gotten us through the hard times in the past, and no doubt will again.

I gotta feeling that the ruling class would like nothing better than to quell a “revolution” with some serious shock and awe. Even if they have to make up the combatants themselves, like these so-called “Black Panthers” that supposedly want to kill white people. Or, suddenly, “the anarchists” who are stalking the Republican convention and probably hard at work setting up IED devises to blow up innocent civilians like some domestic Taliban. Great! At the slightest outbreak of protest or civil disobedience (false flag or not), they can come at us with a dizzying assortment of para-military hardware and advanced and enhanced weaponry guaranteed to keep us in place (while making money on it all as well).

What I would wager they really do not want is to have the citizenry reject the whole paradigm. Shun them. Turn off the TV during the conventions. Don’t purchase anything advertised on the tube. Don’t send them money. Take your money out of the banks and the markets. Don’t vote for anyone in Congress who voted for the bank bailouts. Cancel your newspaper. Don’t use your cell phone during the conventions. Laugh at them. Make other plans.

Protest. But protest in a way that matters and won’t get you clubbed or used as an excuse to increase police and paramilitary brutality. We need to flex our financial muscles. If there is one thing they have taught us, it is that “money talks.” We need to speak to them in their own language.

We could say, “We are the many. You are the few.”

Perhaps humankind is not really a herd. Maybe it’s a pack.

THIS IS GOD TALKING

These two photos are from SAS or aka Belgium's two dogs, pretty cute. His statement of them;

Here are our pooches. The white Malteaser / Tibettan Terrier is Inka, she is coming up to three years. The Black and white Papilon Vlinders hond is Billy. He is about five months.
They are the right size for Chris to manage espescially in a small flat.

Ok, finally was able to get some time for a new post. Something new for me to try.
from Murph


THIS IS GOD TALKING

Some time back in human history God called for a conference of all of his creations. Now we don’t have a record of the meeting other than oral tradition by several of the species of the earth. According to the tradition, God called for representatives of each species and would take questions and give answers concerning the future. Interestingly, man was invited to the conference also but seemed disinterested in attending. It is unknown if mankind got the message at all.

The meeting started off with God welcoming all of his creations and expressing much pleasure in their existence. God elaborated that over the eons he had created many species that are no longer with us. They were simply too rapacious and hungry and planet and life destroyers to keep around.

God mentioned his having thinned down some species, like man, a couple of times but they came right back and reproduced anyway. The following is the oral tradition of what then transpired in dialog form;

God- Now, here is the bad news. Many of you are going to become endangered of extinction and many of you will disappear. There is a non zero chance that all life on this planet will become extinct.

The other species-- What are you telling us? Why should that happen? We thought you loved us.

God-- It is true that I do love you all, and you all form a network which supports life on the planet as I planned. However, there is a kink in all of this that may turn out badly.

Other species—God, you are omnipotent and why would you allow a kink in the fabric of your creation? What are we being punished for?

God—You are not being punished. It is my own fault. I created a species that I allowed to flourish and it is endangering all of this creation.

Other species—Then why don’t you just eliminate that specie?

God—Because I made a promise that I wouldn’t do that. It is one of my more obvious mistakes in this creation business.

Other species—What is this specie that would do such a thing?

God—It is the human specie.

Other species—(A massive world wide groan arose from them) Yes God, we understand that and suspected that their proliferation would turn out badly. Our encounter with humans has not been good overall. We did however have hopes that they would see the error of their ways and change. You are telling us that will not happen?

God—Very low probability of that happening, unfortunately.

Other species—Ok we understand now what is before us. Can’t you break your promise to allow us to live and seek our own destiny?

God—You know I cannot do that. If I did, who among you would want anything to do with me from then on? For breaking a promise that you are able to keep is a universal no-no, right up there at the top of the rest of the universal laws. My mistake was making the promise to begin with and now I have to live with the consequences.

Other species—Tell us how this will come about so that we may prepare ourselves emotionally.

God—What I see in the future can change but the outlook is grim and has many variables. Humankind is dead set on destroying the very systems that sustain life on this planet. He is accomplishing this in many ways. The ones that will affect you the most is the future poisoning of the environment to such an extent that very few could survive at all. But it is even worse. Humans seem to want to kill themselves off too. Their ability to do this will take place in the future. In the process of killing off themselves, they will kill all of you also, from the lowest forms to the highest. The worst case is complete sterilization of the planet.

Other species—(A howl rises from the vast body of species) God, how can this be? How can a single specie have that power to destroy all life?

God—This will take place in the future when humans figure out what they will call advanced technology and harness some of the most basic forces of this universe I created.
He will have little if any knowledge or curiosity concerning the consequences of this technology. All that humans will be concerned with is power and it’s use.

Other species—God, how far into the future will this occur?

God—Many many future generations of the longest-lived among you. In the meantime, keep this conversation alive with the hope that humans will see the folly of their ways and change, and maybe even your species might help speed them up to this realization before it is too late.

Other species—What may we experience between now and the time of advanced technology?

God—Many of you will become extinct due to direct actions of humans, and some will become extinct due to natural forces over which you have no control. Some of you will experience hideous torture and complete exploitation, manipulations and changes in your very basic nature due to humans. Some of these changes will not be to your disadvantage, but most will be an advantage to humans.

Other species—What will be the signs that this technology is upon us?

God—When vast amounts of you begin to die or are butchered for no apparent reason.

Other species—Why would humans do this?

God—For many made up reasons. The human ability to justify its ridiculous actions is nearly limitless. One of the predominant reasons that will be given in the age of technology is money. Money is an artificial creation that will represent some form of the real world and will be used to justify most of the hideous actions by them. The desire for money and the power that accompanies it will become overpowering and all-inclusive for almost all humans. The few that do not think this is a good idea will be shouted down by most of the other humans. If you come into contact with those humans that deny this value, treat them wisely. They probably mean you no harm.

Other species—Can we then further anticipate being killed for food by these humans?

God—Yes for that is in the natural order I have created. Every living thing provides sustenance for other living things in a multitude of forms. When it becomes dangerous to the continuation of a specie is when it becomes a negative force. This danger will be noticed when the human population expands beyond the ability of other species to continue. Within your environments, when one specie becomes too prolific, it will die back from lack of food produced by some other specie that can’t reproduce fast enough.

Other species—Then why would this not happen with humans?

God—Normally it would and for generations it will work. It is when humans become more technological and very good at exploitation that it breaks down. Then humans will expand their populations exponentially and thus endanger all other species. That is the second mistake I made with that specie, the humans. I gave them free will to do as they please and they will do so with a vengeance. I did not set up a mechanism where exponential expansion of the specie was impossible even with technology.

I must apologize to you all for the two greatest mistakes I have made since the beginning of time. I only hope that all the other creations that I have made have no such mistakes within them

If there are no further questions, we will terminate this conference. I will stay in contact with all of you through time. Let us hope that my mistakes on this planet do not have the outcome that I see.

God out.

Rosa Koire

“Smart Growth” and Agenda 21

freeacre

Finally free from pressing duties organizing the La Pine Chicken Coop and Garden Tour (Google it to see our cool website), processing rhubarb, taking care of puppies, attending meetings, supporting candidates, etc., it looks as if I have a few moments to myself. So, I want to take the time to share with you the sobering book that Rosa Koire wrote, entitled “Behind the Green Mask: U.N. Agenda 21.” For anyone politically involved, or doing work with non-profits, or community organizing, this is a “must read.”

I found it to be a sort of kick in the gut. Those who are familiar with my values know that my allegiance is to our Mother, the Earth, and to our brothers and sisters, the animals, fish, and flora. I consider myself an environmentalist and come from a “left-wing,” tradition. I support “Think Globally, Act Locally.” I endorse books like James Howard Kunstler’s “The Long Emergency,” the “Long Descent” by the Archdruid, and most of the depleted resource information by Heinberg and others. We live our lives pretty much in sync with the stated goals of the agenda – clean air, water, land, food, etc. So, it is with much chagrin and resentment that I find that, once again, a movement of which I have been in the vanguard has been co-opted by the nefarious nozzles of the corporatocracy.

Rosa Koire has been filmed by various groups that she has spoken to, and she does of great job of explaining the high points of the research she has done to prove her points. I suggest that you listen to her presentations on the web if you want to get an overview without having to read her book. One good one is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugaQzc7OpmY. This one emphasizes the ideas of “communitarianism” vs. individual freedom. Another is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDtCb45Lqt0&feature=related
which is a talk she gave to the Tea Party that has a little more detail about land use issues. She ends both of her talks with encouraging us to stand together and resist this globalist agenda to control all the resources and people of the world. She says, “We can do it!”

I gotta tell you, I am not so sure. You see, we have been fighting land use issues and working on creating a County Planning Commission Plan for years now. La Pine was chosen along with three other communities in the U.S. to be guinea pigs for a plan to eventually go national that requires sophisticated ATT systems to replace septic systems in rural areas. The U.S.G.S. used millions of dollars to do a study that concluded that there is an on-going “emergency” (projected to hit in 100-150 years at the rate the county was growing in the height of the housing boom) with the projected nitrate load in our water, land, and rivers. La Pine was picked because our area has mostly 1-5 acre lots, whereas north of here, the lots are 5 and 10 acres. So our population is more “dense.” Anyway, these new systems would require about $25 to $40 thousand dollars to install and endless money to maintain. They require a dedicated phone line to keep track of the information, as well as a $400 to $500 per year maintenance contract with regular inspections. They also burn up their pumps if they are left more than three months at a time with nothing to process because the home is a vacation property. They also can’t be installed just anywhere and have to be in approved sites. Much of our area is being red-tagged and no building is being allowed. So, people can’t live on their own land. And, they are not being compensated for it, either.

Happily, this area has a lot of retired government employees, researchers, statisticians, scientists, water experts, etc. who have not just departed from a banana boat, and who were able to find many significant flaws in the USGS report. We went to work to stop this thing. That was five years ago. So far, we have petitioned, attended countless meetings, replaced two county commissioners, the mayor, got the most disagreeable county staff toadies laid off, and voted to officially end the “Local Rule” as it was called in the best Owellian tradition. But, it still has not stopped. Then the county gave up control of the issue and tossed it to the DEQ as well as to the twenty year state Planning Commission to resolve.

But, despite the fact that the voters decisively repealed the “Local Rule,” it lives on. Coming up with one lame excuse or reason after another, the bureaucratic minion in charge continues to require these outrageous systems be built despite the law’s repeal and the replacements on the Board of County Commissioners, and despite evidence that the nitrate load in our area is going down, not up.

How can this be? All of us have been perplexed. What is the ultimate motivation? We figured “greed.” But, there seemed to be more. My answer now is “Agenda 21.” It is not so much about greed as about Control. This is only a fraction of the greater corporatocracy ideal of world-wide control of basically all people and things. This is the Matrix that we are finding ourselves living in. Individuality and freedom are concepts that are to be denied in favor of “community” and the “public good.” That is, we are disenfranchised of our right to live in the word as sovereign individuals and our constitution promising “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” – as well as our Bill of Rights. We are dumbed down and silenced if we object to being herded and milked like bovine animals raised in a feedlot as a resource of the globalist Big Agra, Big Pharma, Big Finance, and One World Government elites.

Not that many years ago, I would have thought that only the paranoid, fear-based, moronic ultra-right wing pin heads and flakes would subscribe to this idea.

That was before I recognized how the Women’s Movement was high-jacked or co-opted by the same cabal. Right about the time that Henry Kissinger started dating that “champion of women’s rights” and editor of Ms. Magazine, Gloria Steinham, the scum queen. Let’s take a quick look at how the “women’s liberation” movement has morphed into us as a people embracing tyranny, not gaining freedom.

Back in the early 70’s, upon the publishing of The Feminine Mystique, we were struggling to re-define ourselves as females. We were exploring our femininity. We were discovering our cervixes and clitorises. We were beginning to gain a measure of control of our bodies and ourselves. We were exploring the value that we contributed to the world with our unpaid service as mothers and wives. We began to demand “equal pay for equal work,” and ask that more careers be opened to women who had differing talents and skills. We wondered if there was a power in femininity as well as masculinity. We explored the idea that there was a metaphysical component to this dual relationship. We resented only being “ornaments” on some guy’s arm, and valued on something as superficial as our appearance. We were looking into the Divine Feminine and the concept of “Mother Right.”

Instead, we got funneled into being “able” to work “like a man.” We became engineers, scientists, athletes, soldiers. We never have achieved equal pay, but now it takes two paychecks to even begin to make ends meet. Mothers of young children put their toddlers into daycare centers that were supposed to educate and socialize them for the betterment of the larger society while their mothers could develop careers of their own. Now our kids are dumber than ever and we have a gang problem of breath-taking proportions - an abundance of children seemingly raised by wolves. Up the income ladder a bit, and the children are often self-absorbed, materialistic, demanding, alienated little mutants with no way to contribute in a helpful way to their families. Of course, we still love each other for the most part. We and our dogs love each other too. But, striving to create a world where each person is valued for the God-given abilities that they were blessed with is no longer in the picture. Now the “news” features tits and ass wherever one looks. Now, we’ve got Sweden making it illegal for men to pee standing up. Now they are taking gender pronouns out of the language. “Males” and “women” are “wales” or something…. There! They have destroyed that which has given us our identity from the start – both masculinity and femininity – that which protected us and nurtured us until now.

What happens to people who’s culture has been destroyed? Take a look at the American Indian experience. In the latest National Geographic, it outlines the destructive power of the government schools and broken treaties, the lies, the alcohol, the poverty, the lost traditions and religious center of the people. It’s the same in Australlia with their aboriginals. People forced to deny all the things that made them uniquely human. Great job, Brownie!

This contrived, planned, all-encompassing, planned demolition of all that we believe in cannot be defeated by a direct onslaught. They have all the money, media, governments, banks, special interests, and on and on. I hope that I am wrong, but not from what I have observed so far. And, I am getting to old to spend my whole life fighting them. Even if we were to be able to apply the brakes to this Titanic of a culture, the momentum will last through my lifetime.
So, as our elder, Montana Freeman, has often lamented, “What’s a motherfucker to do?” Do I continue to shun the bastards as much as I can? Do I join some sort of revolution? Do I move to Ecuador or Bali? Do I pray for the leveling of the playing field by EMP or asteroid hit? Look for the “benevolent” aliens that should have shown up already? Eat my medicinal brownies all day long and try not to give a rat’s ass? What?

I think I want to focus on what feels good. Kindness, humor (although I have not been very humorous today, have I?), relationships, nature, puppies. I probably will not give up sarcasm, vulgar gestures, and name-calling, as it is enjoyable. But, that’s just me….

A Pathetic 4th

A couple weekends ago we went to see some friends compete in "cowboy mounted shooting" contest, held twice a year. We got lost and a late start so we only caught the last few minutes on the day we went. Photo is of our friend, he and his wife both compete. LOL his wife usually places in the contests, he hasn't yet.

from murph

Well, here we are on the cusp of another national holiday, July 4th, the celebration of our day of emancipation from British rule. Community activities glaringly advertised on banners, flags all over the place, yard sale signs up all over the telephone poles and folks stocking up on beer and grilling meat of choice for the long holiday. Charcoal bags loaded in shopping carts and propane gas tanks being filled, their sales must be a years worth of profits from this holiday. Preparations are being made for guests or the motor home being prepped for traveling to relatives and or friends for a few days.

According to government stats, the personal savings rate increased pretty well again this month, amounting to over $3000, on the average, per working person for the month for the 115 million wage slaves in the country. Is there ANYTHING wrong with this stat? According to these stats, on the average, household should have saved over $10 grand in the last 3 months. How’s your savings plan going?

Meanwhile the appearance is that there is another conflict brewing for execution in the Mid-east. All kinds of military hardware are being shifted around and deployed on land and at sea. Of course, we saw this happening a while ago, and it didn’t escalate into a shooting match beyond individual countries being manipulated by the western power blocks. Is this time different?

Yup, time to celebrate the liberation of this country from despotic rule. I often wonder if a new national holiday will be proclaimed celebrating the instituting of the new world order of despotic governance. Historical analysis of this period 50 years down the road would be interesting to see. I don’t figure I’ll be around to read it.

This morning our chickens left a note for me when I got up, they arising much earlier than I do. They had a rather obscure statement that things were going to be changing big time very soon and to be stocked up on chicken feed, as they didn’t want to be caught with nothing to eat. It was specifically noted that if I didn’t want to stock up, better open the gate to the garden for their access. I reminded the leaders that they had already decimated the garden 3 times this year where I had to replant half of it again and there wasn’t enough out there to eat and wouldn’t be for some time. Ever see a chicken shrug their shoulders? Those feathered anarchists have dug holes all over the back yard area for their daily dust bathes. I requested that they fill the hole back in so that people wouldn’t stumble in the holes they made. They just cackled. I reminded them that we had an upcoming tour of gardens and chicken coops in about a month and they mentioned I needed to spruce up the chicken house unless I was to die of shame. Shabby and pathetic was their description. I reminded them that I was down to only 10 projects to get done by then and not sure if I had time to do as they requested. They screamed at me to get with it instead of spending time on the computer. Sigh, I just can’t win with them.
I wanted to remind them that they could all be stew for the winter but refrained because of the threat of their contacting PETA. For a bunch of anarchists, they sure can be dependent on political correctness as a weapon.

As you can see, toting water and chopping wood take precedence over international affairs around here.

Sure are a lot of folks in our area that are moving out. A large variety of reasons but predominate is lack of income. Some of the retired folks leaving are going to live on kid’s property somewhere else. Most are leaving because their homes have been foreclosed. Lots of pretty inexpensive property for sale right now. Saw a stat recently that over 40% of homes around here are under water. Economic recovery? What recovery? A long time, now retired, resident of the community is moving to their kids owned house out of the area, very soon. Big time contributors to the community and will be most sorely missed. I wonder how many small communities across the nation are experiencing similar problems. As usual, younger folks are reluctant to take up the slack. It’s not that I don’t sympathize with them, but if we allow our communities to deteriorate I would project that any social cohesion will also break down and with the coming collapse of the economies at the national level and the local levels, local cohesion is a survival factor. I anticipate that national cohesion will be channeled to another war along with a drastic increase in social control by the government.

So let’s all get out and eat ourselves sick and drink ourselves into a stupor and celebrate our national holiday of freedom and democracy. It’s the patriotic thing to do, don’t ya know.

STUPID SHIT I COME ACROSS

from murph

(Authors name was obviously not included for security concerns and was never revealed in the original piece. Obviously reprinted without permission)

Ok, all you folks out there that are whining, bitching and complaining about what they think is going on, listen up. You don’t know what your are talking about.

Lets deal first with all of you who are don’t like all the surveillance revelations going on. What is your bitch? If you aren’t doing anything illegal what do you care? You accuse the government and some wild ass ideas of secrete organizations watching your every move and you don’t like it. Well tough shit. You know as well as I do that we have a small group of malcontents roaming around under cover of society that would destroy every vestige of our way of life. We call them terrorists. The damage they can do to our society is immense even though there are very few of them. A small nuclear device, or a biological or chemical device planted in every dense metropolitan area would destroy us. They have to be stopped. Just how many hippy scum determined to contaminate our cities water supply with LSD or Bath Salts would it take to decimate civilization? Not very many. So of course we have surveillance, under cover brave Americans dedicating their lives to stop our destruction.

Don’t like the idea that someone can watch what your doing in your back yard or what stores you go into? What is your problem? Afraid someone might spot your shopping cart filled with household chemicals to make a bomb or something?

What you simply don’t seem to understand is that those people you elected are concerned with your well being. They are in a position to protect you against those that would kill you if they are allowed to run around free.

While what we call our founding fathers were very well intentioned, they never dreamed that our society would have so many folks that were only concerned with the destruction of our near perfect life in western civilization, the greatest civilization to show up on this planet. Why would they want to destroy it? Because they are insane and insane people must be eliminated from our society, and besides they are jealous of us. Don’t like that idea? Well why don’t you just up and move to where they don’t care about being civilized, where everything evil and against God’s wishes is allowed. Maybe Pakistan or India or Afghanistan would be more to your liking, where the godless rule.

Oh yes, and while we are at it, don’t like the idea of someone snooping in on your private life in the bedroom? For Christ’s sake, your probably part of the crowd that sure likes to watch other people having sex on the internet and looking at pictures of naked people and the like. So just what makes you think government officials don’t like the same thing. Stop being so sensitive about it and just consider that your helping those government folks get off too. Besides, in the new world order all of this sex stuff is going the way of the dinosaur, be only used for procreation in the future and get rid of all this anti-God-for-fun sex.

While I am at it, all you out there that want to see illegal drugs legalized, forget it. We don’t need a society composed of zoned out hippies trying to fly planes or driving busses. Just stick to your legal drugs and be happy. After all, the drug companies are just concerned with the health of the nation and your contribution to them helps support research into more effective ways to keep you happy and satisfied with your life. When it comes right down to it anyway, happiness is found at your local Wal Mart and not in contemplating your navel.

For those of you who are tolerant of the gay culture, get off it. It is destroying our American way of life and our sacred marriage vows. If it is allowed to flourish, our country is doomed since right thinking folks would never be born, and that does not include God’s revenge on the perpetrators. Don’t let yourself get involved with these people (if we use a broad definition of people). They are evil and will lead to our destruction. They must be eliminated.

You out there that think our economic system is wrong, you got to get with the program. You just want to eliminate those that are innovative and smarter than you. Can you imagine what our lives would be like without the bankers to loan us money to start new businesses, to provide capital for expansion of companies that provide us all with the benefits of an advanced technology? Our lives would be far worse off, no dishwashers, no TV’s no nice cars to drive, no grocery stores with 200 choices of morning cereals to choose from, no chance of visiting grandma during the holidays who lives several states away. There is no future in being a Luddite. Get with the program and be in the now.

You peak oilers and peak everything else believers. You obviously have forgotten God. He will provide for us, at least those of us that still believe in him. The earth will never run out of what we need to live because God will see to it. You have forgotten God’s promise of a better life coming. Wake up and start attending church and give thanks for our way of life.

And lastly, you folks out there that don’t like our foreign policy and the use of our military to keep our way of life intact. Get over it. History is filled with stories of groups and countries hording resources for their own benefit and not sharing. That has to cease and it is legitimate to use military force to get them to share. It is obvious to any sane person that we have a destiny to fulfill in this great country and we need those resources to fulfill that destiny. We need to have the resources to show the rest of the world how great they can be if they would only adopt our way of life.

And this folks, is the reality of our way of life and that’s all I have to say.

PS. I don’t do it very often but I enjoy writing satire every once in a while. Murph

And while we are talking about some pretty serious stuff, I presume you have heard how some herds of cattle in Texas have dropped dead because the hybrid (not GM) grass they were grazing on was suddenly producing cyanide gas. (from Cryptogon 6-24-12) At this time, nobody knows why this should happen. The field they were grazing in has been feeding cattle for many years with the same hybrid of grass. Speculation is that maybe the drought down there had something to do with it.

HOW MUCH MORE CAN WE TAKE?

Meet Jake


Meet Ellie

Since the loss of our dog Brie, we have had a bit of emptiness around our place. So, we decided to introduce a bit of chaos back into our lives in the form of two puppies. Whew, what a hand full. We have concluded it is much easier to house break one pup, and not so easy to train two at the same time.


From Murph

Every day, when I scan through multiple news sites and commentaries I am again impressed with our capacity to endure an every increasing amount of problems that keep arising. Chief among these problems is the energy supply in the form of hydrocarbons.

Even though I talk of it frequently, I still, at times, feel that I do not have a real handle on the energy problems and their full implication. It sure enough appears to me that most of the easily accessible hydrocarbons have been extracted. While improved technology has so far supported more expensive extraction processes, there will still be a limit. There is always a limit. Exactly where that limit will be and it’s impact is under intense debate. The abiotic oil folks are adamant about limitless oil availability and yet are not able to answer what appears to me as crucial questions concerning its extraction if abiotic production is indeed a fact, which appears to me to be a tenuous platform to begin with. I read that there is limitless oil being produced all the time from deep in the core of the earth. If this is true, then how come the earth is not covered with oil at its surface? After all, this process has been going on for how long? After millions of years, it would sure seem to me that all that migrating oil toward the surface should be really the dominating liquid of the planet and that is obviously not true. So, even if abiotic oil is a fact, it also appears to me that it also has a limit and its replenishment rate is rather slow, like millennium slow. So, they talk about drilling 5-10-15 miles beneath the surface to tap those pools. That is a very expensive endeavor and despite advancing technology for well drilling, will increase the cost of extraction.

The folks ginning up the oil sands and oil shale extraction don’t seem to recognize that there is an energy-in energy-out ratio that is nearly at par. Even with advances of the technical problems with this extraction, we would have to make some pretty wild leaps in technology to make it economically viable. Without government subsidization of the energy sector, sand and shale extraction is a totally losing endeavor from an economic standpoint. The same can be said about off shore drilling. This of course does not include the extreme environmental degradation from these sources.

It sure appears to me that the data indicates that conventional production of oil is declining. Drilling more holes and extracting more liquid crude has just about had its day. Those big pools of oil are becoming less productive year over year, indicating that the pools are running dry, or at least of low enough extraction as to be non profitable.

If my assertions are any where near reality, our society is living in an extreme position of denial. Somewhere down the time road, total energy extraction will become untenable, costing more in energy extraction than can be realized in benefit.

The implications of this, I think, are enormous. Food production is the final setting for oil depletion. We have numerous examples of attempts at reducing the use of hydrocarbons in producing food. I recently had an interesting web site sent to me.
http://www.nextworldtv.com/page/760.html
This 40 minute film is an British farmer’s explorations into the use of hydrocarbons to produce food from a permaculture standpoint. Toward the end of the film, they briefly explore what food production would look like without the use of hydrocarbons. That is, back to pre 1900’s farming. It is labor intensive to say the least and the film points out that the farming community is ill prepared to go back to animal power to produce food. And this does not even touch on how to put up a distribution system for the food produced with no, or very limited, hydrocarbons. The film asserts that with very different concepts of farming, that it is possible to feed 10 people per acre. That means that for the population of the US, it would take 35 million acres of this methodology to feed the present population if we all went primarily to vegetarianism and very little meat products. Here is some interesting data http://www.westernwatersheds.org/watmess/watmess_2002/2002html_summer/article6.htm
This site asserts that there is only 349 million acres that is planted in crops and most of that is to produce feed for meat production.

The next question I ask is how much of that land could produce food with vastly reduced use of hydrocarbons? Actually, very little of it. Most of the land used for agriculture has been literally killed for biodiversity and non-hydrocarbon farming and this is the result of factory farming and monoculture farming, GMO crops along with government subsidies. And this does not even start to address the quality of food produced by these methods. It also does not address the irrigation aspect and how water is also becoming a big problem. Along with climate changes and some real dire predictions on how that is going to change food production we have a very serious problem that is not being addressed.

In other words, we have a food crisis staring us in the face somewhere down the road. And this is just our country and the crisis is even worse for other countries that are being drastically affected by climate changes. It appears to me that the production of food to feed populations might possibly become a very real problem before long. It already is showing some cracks and I expect them to get worse.

Of course, we can expect that the solutions that will be advanced will be more of the same practices but on an even larger scale, which appear to me to be self-defeating and will end badly. That is, large population die-off simply due to non-availability of food, and/or food that is so adulterated as to cause premature deaths of much of our population.

I would suppose that with enough time, humans might very well be able to physiologically adapt to this food adulteration, but I suspect there won’t be enough time for that to happen. That kind of adaptability takes rather long lengths of time to accomplish. Even if we had a national policy to begin change over to a more sustainable method of food production right now, the amount of time it would take to make the land viable again would be measured in decades, not even multiple years. A great deal of our farmland has literally been poisoned to death by modern agricultural practices and it will take considerable time to reverse that. I do not see any national inclination to even begin to talk about it. The political hold that big agricultural concerns have on the government is an iron fist at this time.

I expect to see a push to put even more land into factory production of food to be initiated, thus destroying even more whole ecosystems. Even reinstitution of a victory garden on a mass scale is not going to solve this problem. During WWII the victory garden is credited with nearly 40% of the food supply. It would not be enough today if you could sell the concept on a social wide basis. All of the experimenting with organic/alternative/permaculture will not work without a national policy and support, and is not going to make a dent in this problem, and even if it was tried, the fight with big ag businesses would be fierce and protracted. From my perspective and information, any change should have been started many years ago and I don’t see it taking place in any near future.

On a personal basis, the backyard/frontyard production of food is about our only alternative and that has a whole host of problems in and of itself, Zoning laws, being only one obstacle. Land use descriptions are another.

In our area, I have frequently made descriptions concerning the problem with home based food production; quality of land for growing and climate being the big ones. Another problem that is showing up right now is land contamination with herbicide use. One of our local big time self-sufficiency gardeners has suddenly run up on this big time. Our soil has to have soil amendments, and the most economically means of doing this is animal manure. Herbicides have shown up in her garden and she is strictly an organic gardener. Now our area has a lot of horse folks so there is lots of horse manure available. Problem is, to be able to take your horses to other areas, you have to have certification that your animals are fed weed free hay. In order to have weed free hay, you have to buy or produce hay that is heavily contaminated with herbicides, principally for our area, is Milestone, made by Dow chemical Co. The aminopyrolids (one of the chemicals in the herbicides) taken in by the animal, among other consequences, is excreted in the manure. If that manure is used for soil amendments, it kills broadleaf garden plants, which comprise most of the edible food produced in a garden. Its life span under ideal situations is about 5 years in the soil. Testing for and removal is quite expensive. Soil tests for it run about $250 bucks a whack, although, if you want to take the time and effort, you can determine it for yourself. Plant some seeds in a cup with the suspected soil. When the seeds sprout, and grows above the soil, if the leaves curl up and in, it is probably contaminated with aminopyrolids or even some other chemical soup. The curling of the leaves is the result of interruption of normal hormonal metabolism of the plant, how most of the herbicides work.

All of this does not address the contamination of soil and surface water with aluminum particulates from aerial spraying, that is still being denied by the government and a large amount of the general population as being conspiracy theory. Interesting how Monsanto is applying for GM seed release that is supposedly impervious to aluminum contamination.

I have to conclude that food is going to be the next really big emergency, and probably in our lifetimes. I wish I had some hard answers to this problem but I don’t and the permaculture advocates are only a partial answer and I doubt that we will have enough time to solve this problem before the crisis is upon us anyway. It takes a lot of effort and time to grow your own food needs. Most folks are simply unwilling to go to that amount of effort. We work at it, but we still have to supplement our food from the store. City folks are in a real bind and suburban folks are hindered by regulations. In the more rural areas, land use laws can be a very real impediment. We have them here too. Homeowners associations are also a biggie for stopping individual food production. It is such a complex problem with no real governmental will to alleviate these problems that I become despairing of it being solved. Maybe the reason there is no effort to solve these problems is because there is an agenda to not do so. By appearance alone, I can subscribe to that conspiracy.

All we can do is continue to do the best we can.

ON PETER KROPOTKIN

That picture of a bearded gentleman is Peter Kropotkin, the subject of today's post

ON PETER KROPOTKIN from murph

I finally got the formatting to look right. Thanks Hotsprings.

I mentioned some time ago that I was delving into Kropotkin’s writings. His stuff is not something to breeze through with understanding and is taking me some time to absorb his concepts. Had a friend mention to me that Kropotkin was excellent at putting him to sleep. I mentioned back that I felt the same way about Eckhart Tolle.

I think it behooves us to ask some questions; what is the legitimate function of government, and how powerful should it be?

We currently have a majority of our citizens that are totally dependent upon the government to enable them to live, dependent upon that body. Is this a legitimate function of government? If you are of a more politically liberal point of view, yes it is. Some of the arguments for this are hard to refute. What do we do with citizens that for various reasons cannot support themselves, temporarily or permanently? Should the government have the mandate to confiscate fruit of an individuals labor to support someone else?

Of course, without government-backed efforts, we would not have our highway system, most universities, most research labs, and stifled advanced research. Without government backing, our lives would mostly be at a much lower “standard of living”.

All of which evades the point. Is it legitimate for a government, in a moral or even a ethical sense, to forcefully confiscate money from you for projects that you may not approve of? Should the government have the ability to force you into military service for wars that have an agenda we care little about? I am using this in a broad sense. A government that creates the financial situation for which the only way a young man can get 3 hots and a cot and must join the military is still confiscating your life. Of course, that young man in actuality has a choice, between bad and maybe a worse situation.

From a political view, Jesus was an anarchist. Your only loyalty was to God.

Kropotkin is what I would call a fundamental anarchist in that whatever government is formed has to be with the agreement of the population involved and if it becomes intrusive or advocating actions that people can’t stand, it is dissolved.

Kropotkin and modern anarchists insist that human relations should all be voluntary right from the start. Kropotkin asserted that people will act morally from an innate need for the relationships.

One of the best futuristic novels (IMO) that speculates on what an anarchistic society would look like is “The Probability Broach” by L. Neil Smith.

In the modern anarchistic thought, I have put this in the blog before.

YOU MAY ALREADY BE AN ANARCHIST
It’s true. If your idea of healthy human relations is a dinner with friends, where everyone enjoys everyone else’s company, responsibilities are divided up voluntarily and informally, and no one gives order or sells anything, then you are an anarchist, plain and simple. The only question that remains is how you can arrange for more of your interactions to resemble this model.

Whenever you act without waiting for instructions or official permission, you are an anarchist. Any time you bypass a ridiculous regulation when no one’s looking, you are an anarchist. If you don’t trust the government, the school system, Hollywood, or the management to know better than you when it comes to things that affect your life, that’s anarchism, too. And you are especially an anarchist when you come up with your own ideas and initiatives and solutions.

As you can see, it’s anarchism that keeps things working and life interesting. If we waited for authorities and specialists and technicians to take care of everything, we would not only be in a world of trouble, but dreadfully bored—and boring—too boot. Today we live in that world of (dreadfully boring!) trouble precisely to the extent that we abdicate responsibility and control.

Anarchism is naturally present in every healthy human being. It isn’t necessarily about throwing bombs or wearing black masks, though you may have seen that on television; (Do you believe everything you see on television? That’s not anarchist!). The root of anarchism is the simple impulse to DO IT YOURSELF; everything else follows from this.

Here is an interesting take on anarchism and the early Jews; http://www.counterpunch.org/2005/03/29/the-subversive-commandments/

In the previous post, I mentioned one aspect of Kropotkin’s concern about biological survival of a species. He asserted that it was only through cooperation would a thinking species survive. That survival of the fittest only pertained to individuals, not to a group.

Kropotkin’s greatest moral attribute of humans is the dictate of “treating other as you would be treated, under similar circumstances”. He further states;

“We all love moral strength, we all despise moral weakness and cowardice. Every moment our looks and words show the repugnance we feel towards cowardice, deceit, intrigue, want of moral courage. We betray our disgust, even when under the influence of a worldly education we try to hide our contempt beneath those lying appearances which will vanish as equal relations are established among us”. Sounds pretty egalitarian to me.

Kropotkin is a great believer in equality, across the board and respect for the individual. He does not support the mutilating of an individual in the name of some moralistic ideal.

Kropotkin was born in 1842, and makes many observations to his contemporary society. I find it interesting that what we bitch about today, he was bitching about back in the late 1800’s; Hypocrisy, deceit, wars, inequality, lies, backstabbing, and a general restriction on individual freedom. He was deeply concerned with the hierarchy of authority and its abuses. He goes to great length to demonstrate the morality of an anarchist system of social organization. He sometimes becomes rather bitter with religion, pointing out the hypocrisy of that social force and its abuse of hierarchy.

I have much to go in reading Kropotkin’s essays and dissertations. But so far, he was a man of his times and just as applicable in today’s world, and for me, a very interesting man to learn about. There are a few questions that have come up concerning his writings, but maybe they will be answered as I plow through his stuff. I suspect that his influence today will be similar to his time, a small but vocal adherents to his ideas.

It appears obvious to me that a strong central state will always become corrupt and self-serving, always, at least so history teaches us. Central states always seek control over everything that can be controlled. Their dissolution may take some time, but dissolution always occurs. Central states, always, are run by a very small minority of elites that always have an agenda that is self-serving. Even during the formation of this country and its constitution, which was rather radical at the time, the folks writing the document were self-serving, looking ahead by generations for a continuation of elitist control.

It sure appears to me that Kropotkin’s contention that only an anarchistic society can actually survive over the long term at the benefit of all of its citizens with maximum freedom. This would necessitate that each person is willing to take responsibility for their actions and that only freely accepted associations would be the norm. That societies are prone to grant power to the few in a hierarchy because of the promises they make to grab power keeps us from having a free society. If a more anarchistic society is ever to become a reality, there will be great pain within the society to form it because of this dependency. The present attitude of populations across the globe, and its dependency on a strong central government, does not bode well for such a change. However, folks have to make a decision as to which causes more harm and hardship over time. It is the same with our present economic situation. The pain that would have to be endured by the population to cure what ails us economically is unacceptable to most folks. But, it will come, it always does.