I love the analogy!

For a long time people have had to deal with the dualism of life. No, I am not speaking of the dualism completely indoctrinated into Christian theology. I speak of the duality we all face between our individual desires and our global community interests.

Simply put, the carrying capacity of the planet is a function of population and consumption. When I was born there were 3 billion on the planet; today we are on the edge of 7 billion. And to add insult to injury, the dominant culture on the planet insists everyone else join in on the gluttony or face the wrath of the Empire. Regardless, we humans have not addressed either concern in my 50-odd years.

I suspect a biological plague and/or warfare will ultimately curb our global population before we ever change our ways of seeing life and living. The people and the nations -- India's anti-industrialized farming movement lead by Vandana Shiva, for example, making progressive changes right now give me hope. Unfortunately, I don't think humanity's inherent ability to deceive itself has allowed us to act in time.

This problem must be solved by ourselves, independent of governmental interference and mismanagement. We, the people, are the power. And those with power need not ask for permission.

The key

Awareness is the key - and a beginning. Individually, we may be doing too little too late, but that shouldn't prevent us from trying.
It's no use doing our bit if we don't elect people who will take the problem seriously and take action on a large scale. And we can't get a government like that unless we have parties willing to work together to ensure forward-thinking people are elected.

The main cause of the

The main cause of the present and coming disasters are the fraudulent definition of economic efficiency, as the "biggest profits for the least monetary inputs", and the also fraudulent GDP figures that account all the damage as"benefits " and "growth". The criminal idiocy of the tar sands are the best example.

Funny thing is that many real economists have figured this out ages ago, yet the garbage science of neoclassical market economics is still being taught in our universities without anybody daring to question the damage it causes, because that would "drive away investment", which is licencing the destruction, poverty and the starvation deaths of tens of millions every year.

I can well remember the war years in Europe, sold as "liberations" at both sides and having ended up as a wounded veteran, and a homeless refugee at 18.

There's no need to write thousands of pages of academic BS on what is going on and how the problem can be solved, when the solution lies in two short sentences.

"Wealth can not be created, only taken from others, the environment and future generations"

"Costs can not be cut, only transferred on others , the environment and
future generations"

Now try to explain these two simple facts to our brainwashed and bought politicians, leading us into disasters.

Ed Deak, Big Lake.

feed 'em Pablum!

Way back people were conscious of what was important in life: food and shelter!
Because it was a struggle for most to have the most basic needs, they learned to "want not, waste not"!

These days the basics are covered for people in the "developed countries" and the result is that they now are preoccupied with frills and generally are lazy and incompetent.

At an early age I dropped the idea of getting involved in a political movement, because I realized that 85% of the voters were stupid!

My feeling is that people become politicians for power and status instead.

The result is that we are governed by self-serving people who feed us BS (Pablum) and care little which way the world is heading since they have their asses covered for the foreseeable future.

All good comments

as usual; especialy Ed's and Alive's.

THe people who have their "asses covered" don't give a crap about anyone else!

Kicking and Scrteaming...

"Our small gestures toward environmental responsibility, which might be significant in the context of a large-scale effort to decarbonize civilization, are rendered meaningless by a society that fails to address the central issue of people in wealthy countries consuming resources at a rate that, according to persuasive prophets of doom such as James Lovelock, George Monbiot and Gwynne Dyer, guarantees that within 20 to 30 years, many parts of the world that are currently economically comfortable will face mass starvation." from, in my view, an extremely good and interesting article.

I wish I had more time to comment here this morning, but other pursuits call. (Actually whinny.) Suffice it that I much agree with Frank and very good comments by Alive. (I fear otherwise, but I hope samuidave is wrong... and myself.)

A major change in direction, anywhere by any one or more countries, I don't care, needs to begin to occur here very goddamn soon. Indeed, it may already be too late. And it is here, in those "empire" and empire serving (typically through war on the poorest) and benefiting countries, who have gathered and consume most of the worlds resources and generate most of the pollution, who share the majority of the blame for the coming catastrophe. Once this current "phony war" period comes crashing down on its own bullshit contradictions.

Meanwhile, as Rome burns, our Nero's and jaded populations with their heads buried in the entertainments and blood sports of the Colosseum, fiddle... partying and snorting, preoccupied with counting their GDP gold hoards late into the night.

A hot, non-phony war period, it seems near certain to me, is destined to come here pretty goddamn soon. And this in conjunction with what is ever more beginning to look like, feel and be characterized as another "Depressionary" collapse of capitalism. Samuidave, others, and likely myself have said that it is likely going to take a major catastrophe to generate the changes in attitudes, understanding and movements creation that it will take to finally and conclusively change the human social order. To make it more sustainable and simpatico with the needs of the planet as well as ourselves.

We may get our wish here, whether we are even actually ready for it or not. Indeed, as Old Karl once observed, in words to the effect, it is not "untypical" that human societies and economies etc get dragged along behind changes, which we ourselves have likely even set in motion, and the need for changes to the social order as a consequence, into a new period, kicking and screaming all the way. (Trying to cling to a past that has become already unworkable or sustainable.) Our thinking and reaction time always tends to lag behind real need... despite our puffed up image of ourselves very often as a creative and innovative species.

Prosperity Without Growth

We humans are all wrapped up in our daily toiling and our entertainment media to make uncomfortable changes in our lifestyles.
Blame government and business all you want, but I really don't believe such wide sweeping changes can come from the top.
If that means that the majority of the population will be wiped out due to drought, starvation, disease and natural disaster then we really have little influence in the matter... I like to think of it as mother nature's immune system, ridding itself of a dangerous infection, or perhaps just reducing it to tolerable levels.

Government and businesses won't be the ones to see us through this alleged impending doom.
People will have to see themselves through it and all we can hope for is a greater sense of ourselves as a dangerous ecological wildcard.

So long as the dominant sentiment is something like "Oh well, I have a job to attend and a family to raise." Our current path will continue uninterrupted to its most reasonable end.

Lucky us.

Great discussion piece... goes to the core of my motivations.

Of course, we are kidding ourselves to think that starving others will respect our barbed wire and stay out of our vegetable gardens. Still, those of us who are listening feel compelled to do something about the growing unease.

I moved to acreage 15 years ago, planted trees and started growing food, in part because of fears I have held about what is on the horizon. And... just yesterday, I booked a holiday to Ireland. That I don't feel whipped over this apparent contradiction suggests that I am subconsciously very pessimistic about my ability to mitigate the effects of the coming crunch.

Humanity's crash course with destiny seems unalterable. If I can't save anyone, not even myself, with my little garden, I am left to try to enjoy the time I have left while I may. No amount of recycling or buying local is going to turn things around, I have concluded, and so I plug on, wondering what in life is still worth doing. Self-indulgent and depressing, yes, but I am holding out for an epiphany. Suggestions?

My sentiments exactly!

"Humanity's crash course with destiny seems unalterable. If I can't save anyone, not even myself, with my little garden, I am left to try to enjoy the time I have left while I may. No amount of recycling or buying local is going to turn things around, I have concluded, and so I plug on, wondering what in life is still worth doing. Self-indulgent and depressing, yes"

Quite a few years ago I read

Quite a few years ago I read Daniel Quinn's book 'Ismael' and his other writings and I'm convinced that the human species is wired to fail.

Van Isle

As a species, probably, but a lot of us I think are willing to live within what our environment can provide and control our population and so on.

But too many of us aren't. Too bad the consequences of their actions will impact the rest of us just as hard if not harder.

It's kinda like that garden of yours....

"No amount of recycling or buying local is going to turn things around, I have concluded, and so I plug on, wondering what in life is still worth doing. Self-indulgent and depressing, yes, but I am holding out for an epiphany. Suggestions?" puppyg wrote.

I think that many of us, at least, are awaiting that epiphany, my friend, around precisely where and how to strike. It awaits some level of a general epiphany or "awakening" on the part of a critical mass of folks no doubt, but we need to be keeping our eyes and ears, and a hyper sense of awareness tuned to changes in the masses around us, that will allow us to reach out, communicate with receptive ears and organize.

Changes are already occuring in the economic content, texture and feel of the system that are destined to impact harder and on more peoples lives than they now realize, I think. If we are right in our analysis... and I am convinced we are.

But, as you know from your gardening no doubt, the soil first has to be ready to receive, and preferably free of all the weeds and debris, for those seeds to take root and have the chance to establish themselves. Otherwise, as now, they fall by the wayside and wither amongst the poor ground and rocks. (Which sounds like some biblical, from my Christian youth, doesn't it?:-)

To say it is 'too late', is to make it so.

"Humanity's crash course with destiny seems unalterable."

To say it is 'too late', is to make it so.

I have a lot of problem with the 'fukitall', its all broken and irrepairable mindset. I just don't buy it. To give up and be hedonistic is as wrong as the fundy Xtans waiting for religious apocalypse, or the fundy leftans waiting for economic apocalypse. Self defeatism is exactly the attitude that the corporate consumption state would have you affect.

For people of intelligence and conscience, the "ignorance is bliss/'taint nothing we can do mindset" is dangerous and should be, frankly, shameful. It should be fought against and not accepted.It is a plank in the platform of bidnes as usual.

I believe the rich think their money will insulate them from the coming change. People thinking they can Swiss family Robinson 4hrs north of any population center is just as laughable.

Coming Through :

The May 1968 Uprisings, graffiti spray-painted on the walls of Paris:

“Be realistic. Demand the Impossible!”

Love It...

“Be realistic. Demand the Impossible!”

Flipping the Coin...

"I believe the rich think their money will insulate them from the coming change. People thinking they can Swiss family Robinson 4hrs north of any population center is just as laughable." writes billmelater.

The other extreme to which is to think that one is going to carry through a significant change in society, the economic and social order, through the status quo, rich controlled electoral system, and to dream from election to election in the hopes of. (Which is not to say that the electoral gig is totally without value... only that more than that has to be happening as well, out on the streets and in the workplaces of the land. Each serving the interests of the other and The Greater Goal of a power shift and a transformation of society through that shift.

The "get out the vote" approach alone hasn't yet, and ain't gonna make "the change" happen anymore than what you describe as the "fundy left" futility of it all either. One attempts to build from day to day as opportunities strike, no doubt, to reach out and organize... but its also necessary to face up to the reality that its going to take a revolutionary effort and change to get beyond what is. It ain't going to happen with good thoughts, good intentions, the systems tolerance of using their institutions to do it, OR awaiting the Apocalypse. They are all sins of over-simplicity in and of themselves, in my view.

When the Apocalypse happens, it's probably already too late. I think it's going to take some mix of real opportunity developing out of objective circumstances and Lynn's implied suggestion that we need to dare to dream the impossible dream. There are near always, known to me, two sides to the equation coin, one objective and the other subjective. Both have to come together at a particular time and place... not always of our choosing.

Though I'll say again, the Apocalyptic vision of some "Fundy Leftists", awaiting the Second Coming so to speak, is certainly no more futile of itself, given the empirical evidence of postwar history, than the parliamentary dreams and ambitions of the NDP careerists, or any in the parties system of capitalism. Both have demonstrated that they are a dry tit and barren womb.

Attentive, Awake and Aware. Not paralyzed!!!

Phony War describes these events from the past for a good reason: to shake us out of our disconnect from our world.... our absolutely wonderful living planet !!!
Really, the struggles we have are a result of our own confusion, programmed or inherited.

I can't believe this "too late" reaction when the stakes are so high.
Let's start immediately, let's pay attention to our present circumstances and change what needs to be transformed.

As for the timing for this transformation and the "it's too late" reaction, we have created this amazing communication system that puts us in touch, almost instantly, to each other, and to our immense pool of knowledge. We can quickly make informed decisions.
Let's deconstruct this oil based consumer system and reconstruct a new way, creatively and appropriately connected to our biosphere, right now.

Not just words, doing it now..... please?

My Conscience...

Or... in deference to the ladies, whom I love, and their understandable sensitivities, I could have/should have above said, "...they are both a flaccid dick." :-) (My conscience was bothering me a tad. :-)

just do not vote and

just do not vote and we will have the same garbage politics forever more.
99% of people are misinformed or too cover themselves thet say they have moved on to something else.

In reality people are too consumed in themselves too care about anything else. Thus they get ripped off and get depressed and stay home doing drugs of some kind to deal with it.

Most people hide from life, I can tell by their comments. Gee I am not gonna vote because we are fed pablum and 85% are stupid and what else????

Just don't vote and you can count on being fed shit and abuse until you get your fat head out of the sand people.

If you stop and think for a moment, how do the rip off artists operate? Why they get a group of em together and go forward. Simple.

Poor people unite and do the same thing. We can't be too stupid as we can apply for welfare, find swap meets and know were all the grocery store sales are.

Again it is priorities. You either want to get out and vote or just sit back and compalin.

Hey it's our choice right. Choose wisely thats all we ask at this time.

"To say it is 'too late', is

"To say it is 'too late', is to make it so.", says BillMelater.

Thanks for the feedback, Bill. Your statement suggests you think that people like myself who are feeling pessimistic - those who may or may not have devoted decades of their lives to environmental causes only to witness human-induced destruction escalate exponentially during that time - are the problem. If so, then I take issue with your point.

The fact is the BC/Canadian electorate has been supporting leaders who are aggressive proponents of tar sands development, offshore drilling,
shifts away from democratic principles, big-budget military incursions, aquaculture etc.. I don't think I can devote myself to resisting the will of the majority just now, though I have often done so in the past.

Younger generations willing to take up battle with bad governments and the corporate agenda have every reason to stoke the fires. Those of us advancing in middle-age are finding fewer causes for which we would be willing to throw ourselves under a truck. There aren't a lot of reasons to be hopeful, but that doesn't mean we have given up.

puppyg

Good post

puppyg

Indeed, a good post.

The contempt for those who have gone before, and struggled desperately, fair drips from BillMeLater.

Your restraint was admirable, puppyg.

BillMeLater...

By the by, I'm coming up 72 here, too damn quick. And I've been through and participated in all the labour, anti-war, and major political struggles of my time. I don't need to, and don't, kiss anybody's ass... certainly not "the system's". And you give me half a chance, I'll be in the front line when the next wave of working class struggles hit the beaches of capitalism.

It's a friggin wingnut lie that we get more conservative as we get older, and support capitalism for self-interest succor. Lots of us get even more radical. To say nothing of cranky.

Out and at'em.

"..At an early age I dropped the idea of getting involved in a political movement, because I realized that 85% of the voters were stupid!"

That's it, right there! Please stansd still while I take your picture! What the deuce makes you think you can be 'not involved' if you're not stupid, but can see that most other people are?? This is (was) your clarion call, my friend. Where were your mother? Mine taught me, that if one can, one must, for there are precious few who can. How do you even avoid being propelled into leadership roles? Are you that good at hiding in the crowd and showing a blah surface? To what end? Is it better this way? people need you, and you are not delivering. No can do.

puppyg and coyoteman reply

to: "To say it is 'too late', is to make it so", says BillMelater with the sentiment I know all too well.

To appreciate that many of us 'middle-aged and older' folks are more socialism-Marxist-humanists now than ever should be very illuminating for the younger crowd. I know I am not saying 'hey, it's too late'. But I am saying we have to stop deceiving ourselves; and I would be a fool to suggest we are moving along the right path.

Face it: the system is broken and has been since the dawn of western civilization. "If voting changed anything," said Emma Goldman, "it would be illegal". The solution is not at the ballot box; even a cursory inspection of how politics is rigged for the monied class proves that fact. The solution is with the people, with ourselves. Until we see this is our only true hope, we will remain chattel and wage-slaves.

The only viable solution I see is revolution. There is nothing any name-brand candidate or party offers that either interests me or offers any change. And gradualism has run its course. The entire way of governance is part of the marketplace; Revolution allows people to enter the mall. And if we take what is rightfully ours, it isn't even theft.

This is the Endgame

Randomness: Where is the will to change? Radical books like Derrick Jensen's Endgame appear, but where is the action? It's too frightening. Reproduction curbs need to happen everywhere right now but they won't.
Does that couple who moved out to farmland 4 hours out of Toronto think starving people will see a fence and so not go in? Or ring the doorbell and ask to have some please? But still. Find the next right thing you can do, and do it.

Thanks for the song Dorothy

Yes, Dorothy I heard the clarion call in my late teens and it was a hard decision to walk away to pursue my own fate.
But even then I sensed the doom we are heading for and the disappointment one would face in politics.

Now, decades later my prediction has become obvious to a lot of people, but it does not make me feel any better.

Could one individual have made a difference? perhaps, but not me, I am a poor speaker and certainly do not have the charisma that is needed.

Ahh, be another backroom boy? sit in at meetings forever and a day, frustrating at the compromises? furious at the attention-seekers? grieving at the election results?

Sorry, I never looked for punishment and perhaps I was
that good at hiding in the crowd and showing a blah surface?

Regrets? NO!
Hope for the future? NO

I have met groups that have arranged their own private sanctuary, in the lower mainland fully fortified and stocked for the day when things finally break open and I fully understand their sentiments.

Doom and gloom, yup!
I am happy to be old and have lived a good life, just as I am sorry that even my own kids do not grasp where we are heading.

"The Pelican song"

"We thought so then
And we think so now"
I do appreciate the article. I thought it was just me who was szkitzoid (and can not spell).
But as S. H. says: "Once this consciousness creeps into your head, it never goes away."
This consciousness has crept into everyones heads - even the politicos and the police and the bankers and farmers.
It will never go away
Good line

In the late 60s some of us

In the late 60s some of us began to see the cracks in Western consumer culture; good farmland being gobbled up by urban sprawl and more freeways, the technological war machine, pollutants in our environment, etc. Besides civil rights and women's lib., the communal movement, as naïve as it mostly was then, was one response against big corporate consumer culture.

Labeled as hippies by big media, they were nothing like the wannabes whose slogan was "sex drugs and rock 'n roll" and then went home to become the SUV driving yuppies of more recent times. It's the latter's unsustainable lifestyle that is now being emulated around the world. We know who won this PR battle, but the worst of the environmental war is still to come.

Some of us would like to go back to the land now. Yet rural populations continue to decrease in Canada and around the world. Apprehensive dads can't keep their kids on the farm. Town stores are replaced by strip malls. Rural communities unravel. This recession might slow the exodus, but...

With good Stats.Can. info., including a high quality census, information would be quickly available to policy makers and public interest groups..

Inexpensive purchases will probably come to an end as the price of fossil fuels make everything else more expensive or unavailable. If so, with no shift, the cities will explode. (check out Gwynne Dyer's 4 part, 90s, "Human Race", as in racing, series. The last globalization video chapter that uses Mexico as a case study, although dated, .

I don't think it is a phony war at all.

When I was born there were less than 3 billion people, and now there are 6.75 billion. True we have better technology now, and everyone has a cellphone, but we are stressing the planet more every day.

Earlier civilisations have collapsed catastrophically for different reasons. Ours is a global civilisation and it could well collapse in the next 50 years.

The most pressing issues are the 40% decline in marine plankton in the last 50 years and the clear-cutting of the forests. We are reducing the global production of oxygen, even as we increase the burning of fossil fuels. This is unsustainable and we may soon find out that it will end in catastrophe.

This is chemistry, not politics. Our atmosphere is in a dynamic equilibrium, and we are upsetting it.

Positive or not

Technology alone won't solve our problems. The world population has doubled during my working life, and they all want the same lifestyle you and I have. Not possible. But tools often redirect the purpose of the tool user. (No guns please!)

Bamboo bicycle frames, biomimicry, cradle to cradle architecture and consumer goods design, eco-footprinting (not just energy use), etc. Much better public transit, but where that is not currently possible due to missing infrastructure, then plug-in hybrid automobiles fed from solar energy collected during the daytime. The possibilities are awesome. So are the challenges.

Political will is needed. During the 1980s many of us learned about global warming. But not enough to make a dent in political consciousness.

With the 1990s more people noticed, including scientists. Even so, the Cornucopians didn't want to hear anything that might end the party.

So instead of being called long-haired, good for nothing, hippies or 60s troublemakers, now we were members of special interest groups, preaching gloom and doom. (I've never figured out how wanting to protect the earth and all our healthy futures is special interest.)

At the turn of 2000 more people were paying attention and it looked like a threshold might be reached, until 9/11. The rest is history until now

If the people who didn't vote in the last federal election, had all voted for one party, even the Rhinos, they would form government.

Democracy requires more than going to the polls once every four years, but even this can be poorly attended. Democracy is very fragile and requires careful self-discipline.

A number of women, notably, but not exclusively, from the immigrant community, vote what their husband or relatives tell them to, sometimes against their best interests.

A bad experience was overhearing a mature couple in the voting line, "I haven't heard of any of these candidates, how should I vote?" "Just go eanie, meanie, miny, moe." How is that democracy?

Even some of the science folks didn't want to think about Climate Change as they flew off to London, Singapore and LA.

We can do it, but will we? Gwynne Dyer has proposed a few directions, some too horrible to dwell on.

The same voices.....

It's the same voices, over and over again, with the same comments: "We have to do something." "Let's form a party to defeat this government." Let's start a revolution."
You forget who controls your life, because it certainly isn't you. If it's true that about 5% of the world's population controls more than 90% of the wealth of the world, any squeaking or squeeling you do on this blog site isn't going to amount to a hill of beans. I'm too old to feel the effects of the coming devestation, unless December 2012 has any bearing on all our futures. I just feel so darn sorry for my two grandchildren. I cry when I think about their short future. The only thing they can do is to take up arms against their masters, but even that will be futile, because the rich will have the means to protect themselves.

The same gutless voices.....

Right on Okanagan Orchardist
7 hours ago
Suggested as a best comment

Canada will stay in chains until we get our act together people and

It's the same voices, over and over again, with the same comments: "We have to do something." "Let's form a party to defeat this government." Let's start a revolution."
You forget who controls your life, because it certainly isn't you. If it's true that about 5% of the world's population controls more than 90% of the wealth of the world, any squeaking or squeeling you do on this blog site isn't going to amount to a hill of beans. I'm too old to feel the effects of the coming devestation, unless December 2012 has any bearing on all our futures. I just feel so darn sorry for my two grandchildren. I cry when I think about their short future. The only thing they can do is to take up arms against their masters, but even that will be futile, because the rich will have the means to protect themselves.

We need to hit the streets like Poland, Russia, Thailand and other countries did to get their democracy back.

Canada does not have the balls. If so prove it.

Either do it or shutup with the ongoing of words of we shoulda, coulda and woulda.

JUST DO IT

The most important effect

The most important effect and result of country life on a piece of land is the possibility to achieve a high degree of self sufficiency, by having a garden and workshop, where we can grow and make things for ourselves.

We moved out of Vancouver in 1979, my wife hasn't been back since 1980 and I since 1988, when I had to make a delivery. Never want to set a foot into that dump again.

Now we know what's in the food we eat and how to use our brains to make the greatest variety of things, living very well on our pensions, keeping us healthy and alive, instead of vegetating in some 2 room apartment, eating dogfood, waiting for the eviction notice by the absentee landlords.

Ed Deak.

there are more ways to skin a cat...

"Ahh, be another backroom boy? sit in at meetings forever and a day, frustrating at the compromises? furious at the attention-seekers? grieving at the election results?"

Hey, I don't think I meant 'politics' quite so narrowly as 'party politics' in the career sense. If we follow the Marxist thinking that 'everything is politics', and i happen to believe it is, besides being sex and religion, then anything you do in regard to reaching out, taking on a watch for something, putting yourself into the fray, is politics, and your principles can be brought into action. Throughout my life, I have taken on 'a job' wherever I went, ion the course of parenting, studying, and work life. I have got to writing policies and making decisions up and down the ying-yang, and certainly pushed things in directions they might never have gone, had I not been that troublesome broken record.

You are probably gonna say this is small fry, and pathetic, and one might as well not bother. Well, do you run after buses? I do, no matter how minuscule the chance I will reach them and get on. Sometimes, a driver will wait to reward the effort, and sometimes your sprint is better than even you knew, and if you don't get on, at least you've got your cardiac for the day. The reason most people don't do the running? I know, I've asked them, is that they don't want people to snicker when they don't make it. Boohhoo. No matter what you do, someone will snicker, who has a need to make himself feel a little bigger by imagining someone else smaller. Bully for them.

SO. when it comes to pushing the wall on behalf of mankind, I do my piece in the recognition that it's all I can do, all any of us can do. If more people did, there wouldn't be so many missing pieces.

I don't know what you can do. But something. You are too eloquent. You made me listen and not feel so alone many, many times. Don't sell yourself short.

Now I guess I've given you another song. It's that broken record thing. I am a meddler by birth, upbringing, and cultural tradition. But being a meddler has so many funny, warm and instructional aspects. You really should try it.

On Revolution and The Value of Doing Nothing...

"Face it: the system is broken and has been since the dawn of western civilization. "If voting changed anything," said Emma Goldman, "it would be illegal". The solution is not at the ballot box; even a cursory inspection of how politics is rigged for the monied class proves that fact. The solution is with the people, with ourselves. Until we see this is our only true hope, we will remain chattel and wage-slaves.' wrote samuidave.

Too many important observations in this short piece of yours to really single out any one. (Sometimes I think you have the ability to see inside my head, brother. :-)

As for the rwingers and party system true believers here, who decry such as you and I, and a growing number of others, as "do nothings" because our life experiences tell us that only revolution is the solution, they can gnash their teeth and ridicule all they want... we know damn well that we know. It ain't a guessing game for us anymore. We know.

And yes, once it gets into your head, it never leaves.

And I ain't saying that, as "part" of a revolutionary strategy that the bourgeois electoral system even, should be entirely written off. But it's still true, "That if voting (alone) changed anything (seriously), it would be illegal."

So long as that is the only option, or the only tactic that folks in this time are prepared to engage in, ones such as myself and samuidave, and others here, might just as well save our (some age dissipated) energies for the really big push, when and if it comes... as the full weight of the current reality finally hits home... as it has begun to do already. (Assuming of course, that the Grim Reaper doesn't stake his "a priori" claim to us first. :-)

man the lifeboats!

It is stimulating to read Dorothy's response to my rants; I do come across in a negative way and I understand the reaction that I could serve better if I had tried harder.

While I do not underestimate the little things one could do, my perception is that we are wasting our time doing the local stuff, when the world is going haywire all along.

My parents were heavily into politics, but on an international level; they understood that what was happening with Hitler was not a local phenomena, they watched the uprising in Spain and attended international social democratic conventions in Wienna, all on a paupers budget.
I would say that they saw great improvements during their lives and could say their efforts bore fruit.

Fast forward to today and tell me if you have seen any improvements since the fifties?

To me, the difference is that now we have lots of "eye-candy" to distract us and forget we are worse off the we were 50 years ago.

What has changed is that power has consolidated to a very small group of people, who by and large do not give a crap about the planet and its inhabitants.

These people control the media and I am sure many politicians as well, to fight them is to fight the windmills!

It is good that some people keep rowing the lifeboat when we are heading towards an iceberg, but it is only good for the morale, it serves no purpose because we are doomed, sorry to say.

Besides :-)

Besides, not voting, non-participation in the bullshit system is soon here going to prove itself as powerful a tactic, at least, as voting and engagement in it. Already, near half the eligible citizenry don't cast ballots.

We know.

Poop will always smell like poop.

Okanagan Orchardist hears the same voices

...and believes they must be futile, but he/she is wrong. "If people have adjusted to a society that seems hell-bent on destroying itself in the next couple of decades, just what does that prove about the people?": Atlantic Magazine These voices you hear, Okanagan Orchardist, are just a few of the people not so comfortable. I wonder which side you find yourself on?

The legendary journalist, I.F. Stone, had this to say on fighting the system, words I find encouraging:

The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you are going to lose, because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins. In order for somebody to win an important, major fight 100 years hence, a lot of other people have got to be willing - for the sheer fun and joy of it - to go right ahead and fight, knowing you're going to lose. You mustn't feel like a martyr. You've got to enjoy it.

I have no delusion that I will save the world; but I do try to live conscionably and be an example to the people I encounter. Until I lose all ability to protest the madness, I will continue on.

ASIDE: dorothy, are you saying religion is not politics?

Samuidave:

No,no, I am saying that just like 'everything is politics', then everything is also 'sex and religion'. These are the fundamental existential parameters. Often they flow together to the point that they are really the same thing, but certainly you cannot address one meaningfully if you remain blind to the other two.

Speaking on the note of existential thought, we none of us will get out of here alive. One could adress the pain of not knowing when, where, how, by taking the jump off some bridge or whatever. But why not stay in the game, since it's all we have? And my point is that once one decides to stay there for whatever duration, why not be a participant? Coyote and others, it's all very well to sit there and know stuff and nod sagely, but are you working on that revolution? If not, what beef do you have with those who do something, anything, that they see as situationally meaningful, since we are all marking time before Ragnarok anyway. Answer me that: What is it to you, that people find their own choice og goody-two-shoeing, as long as it does not interfere with that revolution you surely must be laboring to bring about?

Thank you samuidave, for the quote. I did not know it, but it says just what I have been thinking!

"Fast forward to today and tell me if you have seen any improvements since the fifties?", says Alive. Yes,I have seen improvement. In the fifties, people in general were far less inclined to try to look ahead and ask questions and be willing to involve themselves if they did not get good answers. They were sooo bloody comfy, but today, we have all this discomfort and anxiety, and that is progress; we should all have a good solid anxiety attack at least once a month. There is enough to be anxious about...

the 'others' to whom you, dorothy, refer

"Coyote and others, it's all very well to sit there and know stuff and nod sagely, but are you working on that revolution?"

Thinking solidifies all of our perceptions. Being a sage itself, if that is coyoteman's role, is a component needed to stimulate a revolution. A 'revolution is simply thought put into action' according to Emma Goldman. But we need the thought first.

OK,

Should we then go out and recruit some minions who can do the action?

Wherever, Whenever, At Any Time...

"Coyote and others, it's all very well to sit there and know stuff and nod sagely, but are you working on that revolution?"

you betcha, Dorothy. Everyday in my life, wherever I am, every chance I get, whatever I am doing.

Besides, what the hell do you think I'm doing here on Tyee as well. Trying to look pretty?

Everywhere I am. Every chance I get.

Indeed, I'm probably a lot more engaged and have more effect than folks who simply mark an X on a ballot, for any of the parties in a bullshit electoral system, and call that it. Like I say, already near as many have turned their backs on it as bother. The electoral system's credibility is already in serious question. Think about it.

I just refuse to waste my time and energy on what I know won't work, in a time that isn't ready yet, is all. Otherwise, I'm always up and ready for the revolution is the fact of the matter, and always have been, ever since shortly after I got out of the military as a lad... whenever the time calls, and I see a useful contribution I can make.

Semper Paratus.

I don't have anything or anyone I feel I need to apologize for or to. How about yourself?

Dorothy Gets Testy...

You want some minions, dorothy? Try the current party system of capitalism.

I'm looking for comrades. :-) Comrades are way more reliable than minions.

Yeah, coyoteman, And

comrades stick by you because of shared values, while minions always expect to be paid, either in gold or in kind.

But our own local universe is unfolding in ways that it should, adjusting itself regardless of humanity's existence, or in lock-step with it, synergistically speaking. If we could ever learn to do something, anything, just because of "shared values," and not place a monetary value upon it, we would succeed in delaying the coming climate catastrophe and maybe turning it completely aside. But even if the petroleum crisis was to be solved in the immediate future, the helium crisis is creeping up unannounced and ready to cause havoc.

That is progress, Dorothy?

"today, we have all this discomfort and anxiety, and that is progress"
Well, my idea of progress would be that people were having a more sedure life and less worries about everyday needs.
To my way of thinking people saw such improvements happening decades ago, but most have noticed that the trend is reversing and now people do indeed have anxiety attacks worring about paying the rent and feeding a family.
I guess we have different ideas about what constitutes progress?

Progress is an interesting topic of discussion

I know I view progress, in certain lights, as the vehicle moving humanity outside of its natural state, taking us too far from our natural rhythm.

Though I am certainly not a Luddite, I do find the discussion of neo-Luddism quite intriguing.

In 1932 Bertrand Russell wrote a short pamphlet called In Praise of Idleness which is a corollary to this train of thought.

In short, sober contemplative thought of our humanity has passed us by as we pursue the economic racket of unnatural wealth. And without reflective and philosophical thought having the time to enter our collective realm, we do not even recognize what we have left behind, in this regard, while chasing progress.

All That Glitterrs..,.

Ahhh, all that glitters is not gold... and all that passes for progress is not either.

My experience anyway, brothers, sisters and comrades. :-)

I've been busy today. I'm breaking one of my cayuses to buggy harness and pulling a buggy. The oil crisis and all... it may make me rich. :-) lol

Minions are just agents or slaves Dorothy... flunkies. Comrades are "comrades in arms" , close friends, fellow soldiers (historically men, but I think by now men and women, eh?) in a shared struggle or cause. (Again, roughly from my Oxford English Reference Dictionary, 1995... which I love.)

Nighty night all.

Nirvana, or balance of terror?

"Well, my idea of progress would be that people were having a more sedure life and less worries about everyday needs.
To my way of thinking people saw such improvements happening decades ago..."

But, see, that is exactly my point: What you describe was then not progress, but an illusion of 'having arrived'. People did not know then that there is no rest for the wicked. We just lapped it up and did not man the forts. People like Erich Fromm, Aldous Huxley, and Dwight Eisenhower issued warnings about not falling into too comfy a groove, and beware of those forces that could pull down the building, but we didn't listen. Now it seems we may have woken up, so that is progress. Progress describes movement, not a state of bliss. There is no perpetual bliss to be had on Earth. The best we can hope for is a balance between opposing forces, but it requires vigilance and an understanding of cybernetics, to keep the ship on an even keel. Asking for a 'secure' life is understandable, but it can only be had for a few at great cost to others, and so trying to apply it as the norm for all is sure to be a losing game. We must figure out how to stay within the boundaries of the planet's carrying capacity, as well as the most humane way of redistribution from time to time (long live the potlatch!), If we can get those two parameters within our collective control, we will get as close to that continued enjoyable life as possible on the globe. So the guiding principle should be that everything that interferes with those aims is counterproductive and should be fought against.

"Comrades are way more

"Comrades are way more reliable than minions."

"Minions are just agents or slaves Dorothy... flunkies."

Amen to both. Maybe I used the words somewhat loosely. Some people fashion themselves comrades but are really minions. Payment can take many forms.

The biggest difference, to me, lies in the fact that minions can be dealt with by management, while comrades require leadership. So, it would depend on what you have available in that department. Are you by any chance familiar with Scott Peck's writings on community building? If not, they might interest you.

More on comradeship issues...

You really are a nitpicker, Dorothy. Thank goodness I'm not married to you. :-D lol (I hear your curse and your slander of my character.There is not a male chauvinist bone in my body. I am the definition of the liberated "feminist" male. 8-D lol)

Actually, my experience is, and there are exceptions to be sure, including experienced by myself, but true comrades lead themselves and help lead each other, and do not need "leadership" hierarchies per se. (Though there seems to be those individuals with stronger "innate" leadership qualities than others, to be sure.) This is not the Army or the old Communist Party or parties we are talking here however... where there is some legitimacy to your observation. (Though it is important to really study ancient history for the lessons to be learnt there as well, for damn sure.)

In wartime and violent revolutionary or other social upheaval situations, there is a tendency for "reversion" to past or historical "military" practise, especially given the weaknesses of some people. I concede that. I do not think however that this NEED be the case. I advocate, personally, "democratic decision making processes" in the military as well, though there may be a case there, in wartime/violence situations for, once a truly democratic decision is taken, everyone is expected to step into line.

That said, democratic decision making does not have to be long and drawn out either, but can be made on the run by those involved, no less than in long, drawn out and bureaucratic deliberation. I've seen soldiers do it, and often it works out better than with decisions from a remote hierarchical command centre, or any officers present.

There are historical perversions which arise out of the authoritarian, class and hierarchical heritage of the human species, no doubt, and likely will be again, concerning many things. But IF it is truly possible, and I am convinced it is, to carry through the creation of a truly new social order or human relationship, it is no less possible for these same folks to create a state of true comradeship between them, where there is true democratic decision making within it, up to and including in military situations, no less than marital ones... as will hopefully never arise, of course. :-)

We are just going to whistle into the new, revolutionary order of things on a breeze. There will be no reversions to past authoritarian practises. :-) Everything will be just hunky dory. Though it also much depends on the degree to which folks tolerate it too. Which is a really big issue.

It's gonna be a cakewalk, Dot. :-) Like yours, I'm sure, my whole life has been a cakewalk. 8-D

(Humming) Everything is beauuutiful, in its own way...

Dorothy

"But, see, that is exactly my point: What you describe was then not progress, but an illusion of 'having arrived'. "

You make a good point above, Dorothy. To arrive, to be secure, is largely illusionary, both in a personal, and in a geopolitical sense, despite appearances to the contrary. If you really think about it, why would we desire that permanent state anyway? Where is the life, the fun, the evolutionary magic in that sticky vat of quicksand, that is determined to hold us still.... and ultimately sink us in the process?

Our personal/political presumptions of Order and Disorder are based on our individual, and cultural beliefs and values - what we have decided.... and chosen to honor.

Where order and disorder become both sticky and tricky is that one man's/woman's/culture's "order".... often becomes another man's/woman's//culture's "disorder".

Most of us could certainly vouch for that.

Tom Robbins once wrote:

"Life isn`t stable. Stability is unnatural. The only stable society is the police state. You can have a free society or you can have a stable society. You can`t have both. Take your choice. As for me, I`ll choose a free, organic society over a rigid, artificial society any day."

Me. too, Mr. Robbins.

I agree with you, Dorothy, that discomfort and anxiety are not always a bad sign, that often, ironically, it may actually reflect the health of a society....but I can't agree that we have "woken up" - there still seems a lot of slumbering and denial going on....though if the multitudes are not yet all paying attention, they are certainly being jolted by circumstance.

The transformative improvements in social infrastructure and working conditions that occurred decades ago largely reflected how the trauma and experience of war, how WW2 re-invigorated our belief in the importance of community, in the meaning of human dignity.... of what was of meaningful value in life... and what was not. We were willing to fight for these beliefs because we had experienced what life was like without them.

The instability of war reminded us.

Unfortunately, it seems as the rights and comforts fought for increased, the memory of why they were so important decreased.

We definitely need to work on that..... :-)..our short term memory is killing us.

My feeling is Nature is determined to remind us, in an "unforgettable" take-no-prisoners kind of way....who can blame Her?

Of cakewalks ;-) ....and adventure

"But IF it is truly possible, and I am convinced it is, to carry through the creation of a truly new social order or human relationship, it is no less possible for these same folks to create a state of true comradeship between them, where there is true democratic decision making within it, up to and including in military situations, no less than marital ones... as will hopefully never arise, of course. :-)"

Well said, coyoteman. This is the adventure of it all.... And if life ain't for adventure, what is it for?

Certainly, Bhutan has made inroads in this regard with its Gross National Happiness.... while recognizing that personal happiness is our own responsibility, the GNH is viewed as the responsibility of the state in creating the right environment and conditions where the citizen can seek and find that happiness.

What is "Progress" anyway?

Look: anxiety attacks over a dishwasher that is leaking is one thing, worrying about basic necessities is another.
Once the basics are secured for all citizens, then we can venture forward!
Once again progress seem to be defined differently here.
It was progress when the workweek became 40 hours and it was damned stupid when we all began to work 60 to 80 hours a week in order to keep up with the Jones's.

Now, it's going to take more than a little chaos...

"Life isn`t stable. Stability is unnatural. The only stable society is the police state. You can have a free society or you can have a stable society. You can`t have both. Take your choice. As for me, I`ll choose a free, organic society over a rigid, artificial society any day." writes Tom Robbins via Lynn to us. :-)

Amen to that, sister. Amen.

"Once the basics are secured for all citizens, then we can venture forward!
Once again progress seem to be defined differently here.
It was progress when the workweek became 40 hours and it was damned stupid when we all began to work 60 to 80 hours a week in order to keep up with the Jones's." writes great to be alive.

And I hear you too brother. What manner of human weakness and failure ever allowed "the system" to get away with pulling this over on us, or our consenting to allowing it to be necessary to have two family incomes to "make it"?

I really hate criticizing working class folks, truly I do, but this was total "Duhhh." Sometimes, it's just true, as my Daddy used to say, that working class are their own worst enemy. I'd only add, with a little help from their unions.

Now it's going to take more than a little chaos to get all this straightened out... again.

Sterilize ?

"We must figure out how to stay within the boundaries of the planet's carrying capacity"
Very true!
A man was shot to death when he took drastic action with the Discovery Channel lately; He wanted them to feature the idea of human sterilization, and apperantly that is a taboo?
So far China is the only country that has taken any action to stop overpopulation, while Bush and the Pope agitate for more people.

Well, At Least

some people (like us, f'r instance) know enough to talk to each other in lieu of closing discussion off at the end of a gun. We've seen that method of forced conversion happen too many times in humanity's history, perpetrated within all the different physical variations of our species because of the animal instincts bred within us. But we are spiritual beings as well, gifted with the knowledge of good and evil along with the free will to choose between them, a characteristic which is also bred in the blood and bone of our existence.

If the talkers prevail, there is hope that solutions to unhappy conditions will be found in words. If words fail to convince world leaders that survival of the fittest is not related to wallet size or contents, then the weaponmakers will ensure that humanity will become just another bunch of fossils to be unearthed some millions of year from now by visitors from another planet.

Not to be a f@#^%*U intellectual, but

maybe this is the time to set our teeth into the stuff Ed Deak has been talking about for so long: the thermodynamics part. I hope, Ed, that you will correct me if I am wrong. In my understanding, every living being is a focus of negative entropy, i.e. it represents a 'going against' the general overarching trend in the cosmos that says that entropy is always increasing. Entropy is an expression of the disorder, i.e. sameness, so that if things are segregated into compartments or 'ordered', then their mixing into each other or becoming 'disordered' would mean an increase in entropy. Since the total entropy must increase, each living being is a very costly commodity indeed, and the careless creation and destruction of one brings Ragnarok just a little closer. Hence the mythology of the ship of war being built from the clippings of dead men's nails.

If we look at life, including our ow, this way, it is easy to see why it is so incredibly criminal to mess with the 'natural order' of things, why we must strive, with all our power, to slide into the organic whole with all life around us, without disturbing more than we absolutely must for survival. Also, the compelling need to limit our numbers becomes clearer. Interestingly, quite a number of years ago (when I was young), a German biologist , or was it epidemiologist, named B.E.Kann, wrote a book called 'instinct and procreation'. In the book, he claims that the presence of homosexual people were, in the hunter-gatherer society, part of the set of mechanisms that kept us from 'overrunning' our habitat, inasmuch as our brains enabled us to do so. I think if this is true, it is no coincidence that these people have been the target of the wrath of every paternalistic religion that wanted miserable millions to manage and exploit.

So, maybe this can add a new angle to how we see ourselves and what we do. I see that Ed Deak has done extensive work to share his insight, yet it is not possible to meet any tom, dick, or harry, who have heard of it, let alone understand it. At the same time, I believe if we could somehow get it to go down with a pack of skittles, we would really add that last piece of the puzzle to the picture that would make it finally open for people 'in general' to make sense enough of the 'environmental' evangelium that we might see them willing to act on it. Right now, the understanding for many amounts to how thin are the woods around me if I go out and have a walk in them, and do I really care?Isn't it in fact comforting to be able to see the highway thru the trees in case I should get lost. WE ARE ALL LOST, and that in plain sight of the six-laned atrocity!

Sustainable Societies 1. To Be #@#&( Working Class Intellectual

"In the book, he claims that the presence of homosexual people were, in the hunter-gatherer society, part of the set of mechanisms that kept us from 'overrunning' our habitat, inasmuch as our brains enabled us to do so. I think if this is true, it is no coincidence that these people have been the target of the wrath of every paternalistic religion that wanted miserable millions to manage and exploit." wrote Dorothy.

Without even being aware of this B.E. Kann writer, I have previously advanced this theory here before, that homosexuals are a kind of "prophylactic" on human populations. (Currently not proving adequate of themselves to the task I think, but certainly removing approx., with exceptions of course, about 10% of the population from the "breeding herd", if you will. A number which, it seems I've read somewhere in the mists of time, that has been fairly consistent for as long as sexual data has been being kept. Which is not a great long time, to be sure.)

Which is really just an interesting aside here.

But overall again, ever surprising me once in awhile Dorothy, from an interesting "comment" you have written here.

There is no question that there needs to happen, a change in the way people see themselves and each other, and the social and economic arrangements they create, and to what purpose and result. For example, if the waste, war and environmental destruction is going to be reduced, at least, to somewhere approaching long term sustainable, we are going to have to begin to seriously address the issue of individual and class driven "greed", and the insecurity that lies at the root of it, in my view.

Likewise, if we are going to have anywhere near sustainable social peace within, as well as across societies, this situation of such great obscene wealth at one end of the socio-economic spectrum and grinding poverty at the other, is likewise going to have to be addressed. Which again raises this, in my mind, central issue of the ongoing existence of classes within societies, and its extended manifestation into the global relationship of nations and peoples in the form of the existence of "imperialist" states and "lesser subject" or "colonial" states and societies.

continued next post...

Sustainable Societies 2...

From Previous Post...

Without the resolution of these issues within and between peoples and their societies, there can be and will never be "peace". For it is simply true, that there cannot be peace without Social and Economic Justice between peoples within and across different societies... Which suggests to me some significant measures of social and economic equality are going to have to be taken, or there will ever be such as labour strikes and other manifestations of resistance, unrest and disruptions, including some forms of crime within societies. As well there will ever be imperialist wars of conquest for land and resources control, however they are dressed up to be noble causes for appearances, in turn driving the various insurgent forces that will invariably arise to resist and drive out the invader. Again, however this latter manifests itself as well, around politics and or religion.

If we are going to create anywhere near stable societies at peace within, and across the global relationship, these pivotal drivers are going to have to be addressed. There is no avoiding them. They are getting in the way of our relationships with each other and other peoples. And, they are getting in the way of our building a sustainable relationship with the rest of the natural world.

And we are living in a time where all these elements are again rapidly moving on a collision course, within and across societies and economies.

The End

alive:

"Once the basics are secured for all citizens, then we can venture forward!

Once again progress seem to be defined differently here.
It was progress when the workweek became 40 hours and it was damned stupid when we all began to work 60 to 80 hours a week in order to keep up with the Jones's."

I don't disagree, alive..... but the anxiety and discomfort I was referring to was not about leaking dishwashers - more that we should be feeling anxiety and discomfort over these desperate times on Earth but we are not - instead we are shopping and sleeping our way through the nightmare.

We seem unable and unwilling to extricate ourselves from the insane machinations that are destroying us.

Anxiety and discomfort would be a normal healthy reaction - but living inside a perverse system for too long obviously warps our sense of reality, and our animal instinct for survival.

Coyote

Yes, I see where you're coming from. And believe me, the guy who IS married to me and have been for 37 years is by no means silent about his plight. But it helps him to be an Aquarius. They say their age is coming up...

Now to the Authoritarian aspects of the leadership idea. I think I am thinking more about leadership in the sense of shared wisdom, maybe from a bunch of 'elders', than one top gun. So, I didn't mean 'A' leader as much as leadership as a commodity if you will. I am all for people working in the old fellowship way, as it is my ancestral tradition. Vikings took pride in 'having no master', and certainly if you know Danes in general, they are probably that hardest people on Earth to wring any deference out of. Yours truly is no exception. I do what I do, and if we can trade, that's OK. If not, have a good day!

The one knotty issue that comes up when these parameters are on the table is that of accountability. At least that has to be clear, who is accountable to whom for what. Making 'everyone' accountable for something generally means that ultimately, no one is accountable. I have seen a lot of well-intentioned 'community-based' efforts founder on this particular rock. I work in an environment, where there is a love of 'shared responsibility' for things, and while that works part of the way, it is also the thing that causes the most bitch-fights..

Interestingly, I saw that Fazil Mihlar in the SUN the other day had an article, where he advocated that the organizational configuration used by traditional pirates, egalitarian, elected captains, rules and codes of behavior agreed on by all, etc., might be worth adopting as a business model. I would say it is likely a model that works fora lot of enterprises, including political avantgardism, community reform or what you will. The Scots clan system also comes to mind, as well as many other ancestral tribal systems. Let's face it - the authoritarian idea was really only possible to bring to reality on by the unholy alliance between church and state, which I believe is why the modern constitutions so adamantly forbids the two going in cahoots.

By the way, I am not so hung up on this stuff with chauvinism, at least not male and female. I adhere to the live and let live idea. Maybe it helps that I am the parent of at least one child of either gender, and so I can see things from both sides. We are all people before the Gods. The bit about not being married - yes, I can be trying, but my significant other tells me his worst dislike in this life is to be bored, so I do my best to keep his annoyometer functional at full scale...

Running on empty: Insecurity and Capitalism

"For example, if the waste, war and environmental destruction is going to be reduced, at least, to somewhere approaching long term sustainable, we are going to have to begin to seriously address the issue of individual and class driven "greed", and the insecurity that lies at the root of it, in my view."

You nail the heart of the matter here, coyoteman.....in your observation that insecurity drives greed.

In fact, it is an insight that could change the world.

So, it looks like we were crossing our emails here...

I like everything you say about the conditions for sustainability. A Danish poet and church reformer says that 'we have come far in wealth, when few have too much and even fewer have too little'. This has always been my creed. The problem we have is: As I pointed out, there are all these countless examples of old-type egalitarian tribal communities, which fell prey to the more ruthless theocracies, church and state in one. Contrary to popular belief, they did not lose because they represented some kind of 'dark ages', while the churches and kings who acted out their greed on them, were bringers of the great light. They lost, because they were less ruthless. You just have to look at the quiet, factual manner in which our own First Nations people here will describe some episode of being stepped in the face by members of our own race. Their patience and acceptance is almost galling. A few may hate, but the general patience is downright baffling. We are simply, I believe, meeting here genuine people, not beset by our brand of greed and self-importance, and we just walk all over them instead of learning something.

So, my question is: How do we stay human and yet mobilize the needed ruthlessness to defend that humanity?

My family and I borrowed and watched all the tapes of the series "Russia's War' from the public library (it is a fabulous work!) It seems the Russians at last managed to mobilize that ruthlessness, which is why they won against the Nazi forces, but at what cost? And, how did they mange to 'turn it off again?' It looks like they didn't, really, at least not as a people.

We need to find answers to this, I believe...

Let's be careful

Reasoning by analogy - and extrapolating too radically (or generally) from 'some' kinds of actions by individuals - has its limits.

The suggestion that James Lee's (the fellow who had his brains blown out over his concerns about Discovery Channel programming) actions has anything whatever to say about the desirability and efficacy of 'forced sterilization’ is fanciful.

The man was, frankly, crazy as a loon. Using his unfortunate meltdown and subsequent death as a form of argument for anything is absurd.
He was neither left wing nor rightwing. The man had so thoroughly ‘lost the plot’ that he was suggesting the best way to save the planet was to call upon a cable television network to run game shows which pushed the idea of promoting sterilization and infertility! This was a man who had lost his employment, had been homeless, had family members die and who had sunk into a state of total despair. He was, if anything, a testament to the failings of the American mental health system. As a police officer who was involved in this incident said:

“At times during the negotiations, he was calm, but I wouldn't call him lucid. The conversation was indicative to me he was dealing with some mental issues.”
No kidding!

A sincere desire to change things is important and helpful. But one needs to be careful not to sink into a pit despair like Lee did in which he came to loathe humanity on the one hand and suggest that the way to fix things is likely to lie in forcing a “better” sort of cable programming.

10/10/10 Global Work Party

So, what do you want to do. Sit around and observe how nobody is doing anything about the climate crisis, or get off yer duff and join those who are?

350.org has organized the 10/10/10 Global Work Party for Sunday Oct. 10, 2010. The Council of Canadians and GatewaySucks.org are holding a 10/10/10 Dig in for Climate Justice where we will start digging up a proposed freeway and bagging the sand to raise a nearby flood control dike. You can register, or find an event in your community, at http://www.350.org/dig-climate-justice

Sitting around and waiting is not the way to get a movement rolling.

"Sitting Around And Waiting

is not the way to get a movement rolling." But a good photo op like this event of bagging sand is not necessarily going to wake up a sleeping giant. The sleep-walking public will get a good laugh, then go back to playing with their Wii. The subject of this blog, after all, is "The Phony War." Which turned into the War To End All Wars. But which reflects the current attitude toward our Climate War, refusing to see the forest for the trees.

And Dorothy, while I respect your Viking approach to civilization, I must object to your condemnation of religious attempts to advance civilization beyond the point of rape and pillage. It has always been politics and politicians who manipulate religiosity, nationality, liebensraum, and 72 virgins into personal advantage over erstwhile companions - the Egyptian Pharoah, the Oriental Genghis Khan, the Spanish conquistadores, the German Adolf Hitler, the Russian Lenin and Stalin. The latter even made religion into "the opiate of the people" in their efforts to transfer loyalty to religious practice from the Church to their State (unsuccessfully).

So it is currently politics and politicians who are preventing us from dealing meaningfully with Climate Change, partially by tacitly saying that because AGW does not exist, then we do not have to legislate any kind of prevention, control, adjustment, or preparation for the calamity looming over us. Coyoteman's horse-and-buggy may become more important to his survival than he knows, more power to him. And the Dragon Boat navigation skill inherited from your own ancestors may be called up from your unconcious racial memory sooner than you think.

Eric and his Sandcastles.

I see that you and your followers are going to relieve Mother Earth's stress, down at the Gateway highway site.

Taking what is referred to on 350.org's web site as "... an environmental crime that cannot go unchallenged.", we wonder how would you categorize Barak Obama's announcement of earlier today.

6 September 2010

"Barack Obama announces $50bn infrastructure plan

... Over the next six years, we are going to rebuild 150,000 miles of our roads - enough to circle the world six times," Mr Obama told an event in Milwaukee marking the Labor Day holiday in the US."

The 24 mile South Fraser Perimeter Road looks a bit like chump change.

My anxieties

"we should be feeling anxiety and discomfort over these desperate times on Earth but we are not - instead we are shopping and sleeping our way through the nightmare."
Yes, Lynn and Dorothy, we should, but as I said previously 85% of us are stupid and that fact does not change!
That is what we have to deal with, so you go ahead and fight the windmills, I gave up on that at age 18, realizing it is a wasted effort.

Certainly we are going to the dogs, but stupid people are stupid people, and nothing you can do will make them wake up and change their ways.

What worries me is that you guys sit there and preach about how people were complacent once they had a roof over their heads, not realizing that nowadays many people no longer have that comfort!

Obviously you have no financial worries, but try to understand that many people do!

I have a friend on disability who cannot afford to buy raingear and so has to slosh through puddles to her medical appointments; Had she been living on the streets, then help would be available --- the homeless get more consideration than those who try hard to maintain a regular lifestyle.

Yes, I can see all the unfairness in our society, and I wish that there was any action that could wake up the voters; hell I would prefer a revolution to this situation, but even the poor are so brainwashed they think they deserve to be starving.

Gwynne Dyer is not pessemistic

I saw him speak a few months back, and he said that despite the evidence, he is optimistic that most of us will manage OK. He is expecting a combination of scientific advancements and inexpensive but drastic geoengineering, we will manage to keep the temperature increase in the 3-4 degree range.

For our part, the political will to make the necessary changes will take time, and it can be argued that its our job to slow the pace of growth as best we can, until society starts moving. That means that our local eating and other efforts that may feel insignificant do indeed matter.

And when we do start to feel depressed about it all, and we all do, seek out family and friends. Human connections are what keep us going.