From Jenna Orkin
Economy
Fresh global crisis fears
Roubini: The coming sovereign debt crisis
Sovereign Debt Crisis Coming As Recovery Stalls
Small Business Trends Suggest No Recovery On Horizon
Six Months To Live? by James Howard Kunstler
JPMorgan Earnings More Than Quadruple on Fees as Retail Bank Reports Loss
Fed Debate Intensifies on How, When to Drain $1 Trillion From U.S. Economy
More Than Half of Wealthy Americans Fear Outliving Savings, Survey Finds
The end is a little less near
Doomsday clock gets pushed back.
Do bulls have eyes wide shut?
The smaller the better
Estonia Looks Ready to Join the Euro Zone
The Sad End of the Orange Revolution
Quote of the Day: (from Jon Noel)
A man empties out the refrigerator of his home. 'Money is worth nothing right now. Water is the currency,' one foreign aid worker told Reuters.
Energy
China to launch first national water conservancy survey
Pentagon: No evidence that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons
Oil and gas exploration falls to lowest level in five years
Terror
Poll: Majority of Americans would give up liberty for security
Environment/Science
HIV vaccines in Zambia leaves 46 women infected with the virus
Badly written article. Contrary to the implication of the title, the drug trial discussed may or may not have caused the infection.
Major Antarctic glacier is 'past its tipping point'
Arctic permafrost leaking methane
Voodoo wasps that could save the world
The cricket that pollinates plants
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12 comments:
Food security collapses in Haiti as machete-wielding gangs fight in the streets
Mike Adams (The Health Ranger) gives a similar message to MCR about how western society is just one step away from being another Haitian disaster.
quote
Haiti isn't so different from wherever you live -- a city in America, Canada, Australia, the UK or anywhere else. Everywhere in the world, people will fight for survival when the situation becomes desperate. The only reason the streets in your town aren't overrun with firearms and machetes right now is because food is plentiful. The electricity works. The water supply is functioning and police keep the relatively few criminals under control. But wherever you live, your city is just one natural disaster away from total chaos. Hurricane Katrina proved it: Even in America, a civil, law-abiding city of people can be turned into looting, stealing and dangerously armed bands of gang-bangers.
.....
Most people aren't prepared for the unknown. They live lives that are entirely dependent on the continued successful operation of public infrastructure, law and order. And if that infrastructure is ever interrupted, they are completely unable to fend for themselves.
unquote
I’d also include a collapse triggered by peak oil in with natural disasters....
Namaste
Eyeballs, I did some reading re global guerrillas, and I do see where you are coming from re "lying low". However, I think attempts at any form of mass movement now would be too much of a diversion of personal energy. Most people just don't get how deep in the shit we are. I, and I suspect many of the posters/readers here, have spent years being "the weirdest person in the room" people don't want to get it, there is a form of mass denial going on globally. Trying to “awaken” people just turns them off, and makes the job in hand much harder.
I've wasted much time over the last 8 years looking at various "movements" Zeitgeist, FMOTL, La rouche, Venus Project etc. etc. all have diverted me from building a lifeboat. It is so easy to get caught up in the potential of these, but the reality is a drain on practical action.
Transition towns, and to a lessor extent permaculture (because TT is really an extension of PC IMO), have really impressed me with the speed at which real preparation action has taken place. But too many regular folks remain in denial for these movements to gain the mass momentum required at any national level which would challenge the PTB paradigm. Lets say TT does mushroom to a level where the movement would challenge TPTB, what happens then? Exactly what has happened to the “Eco/Green” movement – TPTB take it over for their own agenda. I may one day get involved in TT, when enough people “get it” in my local community (at least one other person besides me) that time may not come, but my lifeboat will be built regardless.
If building a lifeboat, by actually planning and doing stuff on the ground, encouraging my local community to join in my permacuture project, teaching food production and providing the land, knowledge, and support for community resilience – without trying to “awaken” them, without being the weirdest person in the room – is lying low, I stand guilty as charged.
What happens to any “virtual tribe” when TPTB switch off the internet, or control it to the point where involvement in the “tribe” labels them terrorist? What happens when some of the tribe start “insurgent action”? That my friend will be the time anyone involved is crushed, bigtime, and none of that energy will provide food or security when it is needed most.
We don't need further distraction, we need real practical on the ground action.
Now is not the time to stand up and shout about what you are against – now is the time to build your own future, a real tangible future, a lifeboat, a time to stand up and shout what you are for, a time for practical preparation.
Plant a fruit tree before March, or plant many :-)
all the best mate.
I agree 100% with hotspringswizard's last post that RanD start his own blog. Your writing is very incoherent, and while it somewhat pertains to the mission of this blog, it is a lot of blabber for most of us. Most of us here are already enlightened and come here to follow the map and venture into new territory. While what you say is enlightening at times, it really should be it's own blog. You might enlighten more that way because you could post videos and lectures and develop your own following. For me, it seems that you should already know this, since you are so much more enlightened than the rest of us.
Thanks for all the work Jenna! It's also great to hear MCR chiming in a bit more these days. Saw Collapse last weekend. I really think your work is doing it's job. If people can't wake up after seeing it, than they are stuck at the picnic. The bear will get them anyway. Thanks for all you do!
gamedog...Great post! I love so much of what you have to say and I feel that you make very solid contributions to this Blog.
Yes, the feeling of being very "different" from everyone is something I carry around with me all the time. My customer base is extremely conservative...and very clueless at the same time...much like the general public. The media within my industry are continually predicting when we'll be pulling out of this "recession", and continually extending that date further out into the future.
I sit here with all that I've learned from MCR, this Blog, and other resources, and I try to let people know what I've learned, while doing my best to both be informative to them while not being perceived simultaneously as being nuts. And this is a very interesting tightrope act for me to engage in.
About 1-2 months ago I wrote an article for my industry, telling them in my own words about what we're dealing with, and recommending that they see MCR's movie "Collapse". So at least I feel good that I've led the horse to the water.
Now it's up to them to decide if they want to drink.
Gamedog, completely agree on the comments re. distractions from building lifeboats.
Mass movements for many are a form of venting and an excuse from taking real personal life changing action. Permaculture and Transition are part of the solution. Global campaigns to change lightglobes are not.
Local actions groups, once they reach a certain size, invariably come to rely on funding from some power base, whether it be government, corporate, or wealthy individual. Then they become useless as agents for real change.
A good example is the many sustainability groups that started in our area, encouraging households to install solar panels and organising bulk buy deals.
Then the sustainability group turns around and sells the energy/ carbon credits to large multinational banks so that bank can claim to be "carbon neutral". Net benefit to energy use and carbon output? Zero.
We're seeing an exodus from these sustainability groups into smaller Transition groups, started by leaders in (you guessed it) permaculture.
We're fortunate to have numerous world leaders in the subject close by, including the co-originator. They all get it, and are there to help anyone who asks for it, but you wont see them creating a "World Permaculture Federation".
I'm on board with Hotspringswizard, thelonelybarbarian, and stu.
I think that true spirituality doesn't require the grandiose embellishment that RanD gives to their writings. When you read what the great spiritual masters have said throughout the ages, they communicate very directly with few words, not many words.
True spirituality means that we are all equal, and that no one is better than, or superior to, anyone else.
Yeah Paul, I was thinking about the same thing as discussed in your quote when seeing whats going on in Haiti right now. It seems to me that our slide down that road of despair and dysfunction will turn out to be a longer affair. But I also consider viable that a series of catastrophic events could bring us into times of severe disruptions rather quickly too. Its hard to predict with so many variables.
Alot of good points there Gamedog. Doing what we can reasonably do on a localized level I think will utilize our efforts most efficiently ( like you suggested ) to give us some realistic goals towards building some means of greater sustainability. But if things say for the US situation just come apart at the seams akin to what we have seen in Haiti, well, then of course its going to get real ugly and precarious even for those who have well planned lifeboat situations.
For instance my brother has done a great deal of preperations in a heavily forested area of northern cal. But if the social fabric comes apart due to converging catastropic events, I think it would be very problematic for him to defend what he has built as a lifeboat since the roaming Zombies will find his retreat soon enough, and with only a few inhabitants residing nearby he and his family will be sitting duck.
No easy solutions in any of this. Still we must do what we can, inform those who will listen, because I think its a better option for most to work with a good, thoughtful group of folks towards these goals than to be a lone survivalist eeking out an existance out in the far reaches of some remote place.
And Stu, I too like that Mike is commenting a bit more of late. I know he's much more involved with his music efforts these days but clearly many here would like to hear his thoughts about the developments of ongoing collapse more if he's so inclined to share his view of things :-)
Here is a must read for F.Kamilov, & others Blindsided by politics!
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/whirlwind
If you think the old way will Survive, you are asleep, under the old paradigm
Any time you give someone else "the power to decide" what is the best for YOU you Forfeit your "Best interest"/Life/Future! Look up 1 Samuel Ch. 8 v. 10 to 18,
http://www.familyradio.com/graphical/literature/bible/bible_index.html
Have you ever heard Anyone Preach on this subject? Bet your Life not, any Controlling group that Collects "The Coin of The REALM" must subjugate/USE those who follow--that is what rules are about! Envision a better way, Think fresh Thoughts. Forget The "Enemy", The "Outsider", the old words/expressions which
Constrain, restrict, imprison progress.
http://www.trib.com/news/local/article_a9dbd48f-656e-5b15-bd78-bbe3ec21a249.html
They have been "sometimes" Customers of ours, Sad, sad SAD, such sweet Children!??!
More about "The Other" soon,I Love, Respect you all; every post seems better than the last!
Amae.
If collecting for your lifeboat may I suggest that you include a wood fired cooking stove.
Not only will it cook your food but also keep you warm and provide hot water. In the oven you can also dry food for future use and on the cook top you can bottle food for leaner times. It will make you independent of gas and electricity utilities and when supplies are no longer available (for whatever reason)you will bless the day you purchased your stove.
As for cutting down our precious forests, I suggest you do as we have done. Over the past twenty years or more we have planted three times more trees than we shall ever use in our lifetimes.
Thus we are also providing for future generations. Do, however, ensure that you purchase a model which burns the gases formed when the wood burns.
With ref. to Agapes' last comment,
the following is a classroom sign I devised for my students at High School
If you cannot think for yourself
Others will do it for you.
Will they have your best interest at heart?
If you cannot think for yourself
You will never know!
A belated New Years Greeting to one and all.
Does anyone know if the Video on Demand services showing Collapse are available for overseas customers?
Haven't been able to get a reply from Bluemark.
Gamedog -
Absolutely. Not the time to stand up and be counted, nor the time to struggle to form a group of (otherwise) strangers. Where global guerrillas got it right, though, is that the failure of the system will increasingly provide opportunities to co-opt both people and resources into more intelligent projects. How individuals choose to do this, is of course up to them.
As soon as life evens out a person should attempt to slowly re-build their credit. Keep in mind that lenders like lending money to recently bankrupt individuals because the
law prevents a person from filing for another bankruptcy for eight years, making them liable for any new debt incurred after their first bankruptcy.
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