Recovery, you say?

I’ve written very little original material of late. Seems like an exercise in futility. Talk of peak oil and a global financial collapse in the midst of an “economic recovery” falls, for the biggest part, on deaf ears. Today the ground is wet and temperatures a bit cooler than normal, rendering talk of drought and climate change moot as well. There’s plenty of gas and diesel for anyone with a few bucks willing to buy some. Food is plentiful, and remains cheap to American citizens, free in fact, for about 35 million of us. Most that have lost jobs now enjoy perpetual unemployment checks. Farm subsidy checks continue to arrive in the mail for those that act in accordance with the wishes of their masters. With the flick of a switch the lights come on and the mind-numbing TV takes over.

Don’t be fooled. All is not well.

Matters such as peak oil are non-negotiable events. The amount of oil on the planet is fixed. We have consumed somewhere on the order of half of the recoverable supply; that which remains is harder and more costly to extract. We have no viable alternative to oil, short term, (when I say short term, I’m talking 20 years), and the alternatives currently in existence require oil and other limited natural resources to develop. I can’t convince people unwilling to see or believe this, but I believe time will convince all.

I can’t convince others that human activity has affected the earth’s climate either. But I have seen evidence of the effects of deforestation and air-borne emissions in my few short years on this planet, enough to accept the notion they have had effect without relying on some scientific study advocating (or denying) the various hypotheses.

I’m also convinced that genetically modified grains and the foods made from them are time bombs, ready to go off at any time; that they are already causing disease in humans and livestock and maladies in the larger biosphere which gives us life as well. Once again, I need not look further than the boundaries of my own experience to find evidence of this.

I believe we are moving toward larger and more powerful, more intrusive forms of government, a police state, if you will, that will spy on and dictate our every move, the antithesis of the liberty and justice for all Americans espouse.

The American model isn’t the dreaded Socialism right wing ideologues decry; instead it is Corporatism, or if you will, Fascism, that afflicts us; corporate and financial entities that kill off or suppress all competitors, supported and enabled by the state. Both Democrats and Republicans facilitate this model and the model isn’t just American, it’s global in nature. Should the model somehow morph into Socialism, or a state-owned and operated system members of the left advocate, the realities for the people will remain the same. The working class will be little more than grease to fuel the wheels of the machine; proceeds from their activities will remain inequitably distributed; the guy actually doing the work will not be the guy that enjoys the profits that work generates; a tiny parasitical class will continue to prosper under either model.

The health care debate is total bullshit. Neither Democrat nor Republican will take on the real enemies of the people: pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, or the sacred turf of doctors, lawyers and learning institutions that educate members of an elite class and license activities that rape and devastate the average consumer.

Weapons of war continue to be America’s greatest real export (excluding fraudulent financial instruments), followed closely by proceeds derived from all sides of the war on drugs, which includes the largest prison/legal complex in the world.

Most championing real issues are not interested in cures for the disease; instead they’re trying to figure out how to make money off of the condition.

Recovery of an evil system, for me, isn’t something to be desired; it represents the perpetuation of a bad thing, of a malignancy, if you will.

Collapse is the first step toward something new, but I am not naive. If and when collapse comes, those thinking they want it will be no happier than Moses’ Israelites, wandering through the desert, pissed off that they left behind the chains of slavery, because slavery provided a roof over the head and a crumb of stale bread on the plate. It’s hard as hell to derive a living from the soil.

Americans suffer from Stockholm syndrome; we’ve become like inmates thankful to see the guard’s face when he opens the hole in the door of an isolation cell and shoves in a plate of shitty food.

Bottom line: I have nothing new to say. I have been reduced to digging in the dirt, watching plants grow, harvesting crops, milking cows and waiting for change. And change has been a long time coming.

Lord have mercy.