Heat Wave

It’s Sunday, about 9 PM and it’s still 101 degrees outside my door. The official high for the day was 108. I am told it’s worse out West. A couple of weeks back I told Sean Paul Kelley that we’ve done OK this year on rainfall. I lied. While we had timely showers during the spring, this killer heat wave has scorched the land, leaving green grass kiln-dried, like hay in a bale, and corn crops withered, several weeks before they should have.

We made hay on irrigated land, but what dry-land grass the heat didn’t kill, biblical swarms of grass-hoppers decimated. Livestock ponds are going dry and the fish die from the hot water. Without rain, and soon, we are in trouble.

Cattle hide from the sun’s sweltering rays during the day, coming out to eat only in mornings and evenings. My poor milk cows are confined to a paddock with limited shade. I fear for their lives when it gets like this.

I had a really nice garden this spring and Leah has filled the panty with canned goods. We have eggs and cheese and meat and grains, but money is tight. I need money to pay the bills.

Production costs on the farm are high, and while food costs may seem high to you, they’re not high enough. The same can be said for just about any essential product, including parts and supplies I think too expensive.

A lot of this comes down to the cost of energy and it’s not going to get better. Call it peak oil or resource depletion or what you will. I call it a fact. It affects everything we do. The cheap and easy oil is gone and gone for good, never to be had again.

We remain in a crisis period. It’s world-wide and it’s not going to get better until it gets far worse.

Politicians and preachers may tell you otherwise but they’re either full of shit or have something to sell.

Revolution is in the air around the globe. It will be long before it arrives here.

War will follow.

It’s better to know than not to know.

 

 

Treason

In light of recent charges filed against Edward Snowden, I, as a citizen of the United States charge members of Congress, the White House, the Department of Justice, The FBI, the CIA  and the NSA with aiding and abetting enemies of the United States (citizens).

With violating your oaths to defend the constitution of the United States.

With misprison of a felony (multiple counts).

And treason.

You are liars.

You are cowards.

You are scum.

NSA Whistleblower

It comes as no surprise to me that the NSA leaker is a Millennial.

Nor that he will be targeted as a criminal for what he did.

Shame.

His interview:

http://youtu.be/kaRvzQ887HM

It's not just Horizon

The NSA is recording all domestic phone calls, emails etc.

And more.

Neo-prophets

Last week I made it to San Marcos and the Lonestar Music store. While there I bought a bag full of CD’s, many from artists I once admired and also a few produced by young up and comings. I am sad to report that most of my own peers are putting out music that goes down like lukewarm piss. Gone is the outrage and anger that fueled protest during the 60’s and 70’s, and even later during the bush years. Gone is the soul of a generation, aside from a select few, and most of those have gone silent.

Oh, my peers gripe about jobs lost and so forth, but it sounds a whole lot more like, where’s mine, than true righteous indignation over injustices of the world. The crimes Obama and his crew have committed, one-upping bush and clinton across the board, suddenly don’t matter anymore. Perhaps it’s because they’re fucking Democrats, and we all know Democrats are better than Republicans….

What happened to our cojones?

Strauss and Howe refer to the baby boom generation as the current manifestation of prophets. I got news for Mr. Howe. He needs to add Neo to the prophet. As in False. We have neo-conservatives that aren’t conservatives, new-liberals that aren’t liberals and now Neo-prophets, all guiding our country to its own destruction.

Why is Bradley Manning on trial for exposing the crimes of our own government employees? Why is Julian Assange hiding in a British embassy? Why is our news a mix of propaganda and distractions, with almost no real substance?

Why is it OK for drones to fly above the people of the world, killing at will? Why do we maintain illegal prisons around the globe and subject people to torture? Why do we start new wars and continue to act like we run the whole world?

Why do we enable the Monsanto Corporation to monopolize our food industry, poisoning populations with genetically modified grains and driving those that would plant and raise good food into bankruptcy? Why do we arrest small scale producers of raw foods and or deny them access to markets?

Why do we continue to conduct this insane war on drugs?

Why do we maintain the world’s largest prison population, both in gross numbers and also o a per-capita basis?

Why do we spy on our own law-abiding citizens?

Where is the outrage?

I pray today. I cry today. I seethe in anger today. But I won’t be crying when we get our just reward.

We will have earned it.

Every goddamned bit of it.

 

The social cost of capitalism

This article, penned by Paul Craig Roberts is essential reading but alas, sure to be ignored by most.

We all have our reasons.

(Tip of the hat to Michael Collins.)

Joe Bageant--bearer of the torch

I was recently reminded of the passing of Joe Bageant. Joe was an unusual sort, best known for a book called Deer Hunting with Jesus. Joe was raised poor, a working class southerner. At some point in his life he developed leftist leanings, went off and received a good education and became a magnificent writer. However, Joe never fully forsook his roots; the people, the plants, the animals, the soil, the smells, the blood, and the spirit of the South remained alive in his heart and soul and sprang to life in his words, despite having left that world behind.

Over the years Joe became disillusioned with the intellectual elite of the left as well as hard right Capitalist barons, both of which seemed exceedingly willing to allow his kin to work in poverty, trapped by ignorance: to fight the wars, feed the mouths, man the mills, and toil in mines for minmal compensation, only to be discarded when bodies failed. For the biggest part Joe's kin were unwilling to take handouts, preferring to earn the meager life they had, a hard and proud people. He admired them for these traits, yet simmered in anger at those that took advantage of their ways.

Most of Joe’s kin considered themselves libertarian minded when it came to beliefs in governance, but in actuality, were very much practicing socialists on a local scale, though they’d be loathe to admit that fact. They shared meager provisions with neighbors, lending helping hands when needed. They did charity work through churches and local organizations like unpaid volunteer fire departments, coaching little league teams, or conducting charity drives and bake sales for any number of good causes.

Joe traveled and lived in Mexico and Belize in latter years, finding other poor hardworking people, differing in color and language but similar in spirit to those he grew up with. He joined them in their daily lives. Over time he became less hopeful of political solutions; his tone became bitter and angry, but all the while, cognizant of the great capacity humans have to love and care for each other on a personal scale. Joe documented random acts of kindness and sharing and savored what he could of the simple world of the poor in all its various manifestations.

He shunned big money and fame for with that money and prestige comes censorship and Joe refused to be censored, nor would he toe the party line when the party line lacked merit.

Joe fought for the things in which he believed because he gave a damn. He really cared.

It wasn’t some intellectual pursuit or a game of one-upmanship that spurred Joe to write, it was seeing others in pain and misery that by damn could have been avoided by   more sensible thinking. He became the voice they did not have.

The opposite of love isn’t hate. It’s apathy.

Joe cared.

We should, too.