by Sherry Ackerman
I was summoned to jury selection a few days ago. Now, you have to realize that this is about the fifth time in a year that I’ve been called to come in. I live in Siskiyou County, California — which has a human population density of 7.2 people per square mile. It’s real rural up here (that’s an understatement). So, if one meets the qualifications for jury duty, you get called upon pretty often. I don’t know, though, why they even bother to call me anymore, because it always goes just about the same. I show up, answer (under oath) their questions and, ultimately, get sent home as “unsuitable for jury service.” And, that’s precisely what happened again this time.
I arrived, summons in hand, to the County Courthouse. Yes, that is the same Siskiyou County Courthouse where $3 million dollars worth of historic gold nuggets were heisted last February. So, you can imagine what the security is like there now. After being told that having my sunglasses pushed up on my head constituted a security threat, I got the idea that the whole day might be a little rough.
There had been about 100 people called. Since Siskiyou County covers 6,278 square miles, some of these people had driven 2 or 3 hours to get there. The first order of business was to inform everyone that the County no longer offered a day stipend or mileage for jury selection. And, gasoline costs $4.47 a gallon for regular. These are not wealthy equity refugees, either. Siskiyou County people work — hard — for a per capita income of $28,447 a year. That’s $5,000 above the national poverty level. There are those here that don’t work. But, it’s not because they are financially independent. It’s because the official unemployment rate here is 18.8%.
So, with no day stipend, no mileage reimbursement and no lunch, more than 100 people settled into the task of “doing their civic duty” at their own expense. As it were, I was seated toward the back of the room and got to hear dozens of other people answer these questions before it was my turn. People swore loyalty to The Man by testifying that they would, of course, allow a police officer to stop and search them on the street for no apparent reason. I mean, after all, the police are there to protect us, right? My head was reeling. Really? I knew it wasn’t going to go well if I got asked the same question.
When it was finally my turn to be questioned, they asked me if I had ever had any bad experiences with the “system.” I thought about it for quite a while before answering (under oath) that I actually couldn’t remember any good experiences that I had ever had with the “system”. The judge didn’t look too happy about this answer and asked me to explain. Well, they asked …! So, I told them that I thought that the “system” was broken — profoundly so — and that it couldn’t, by its very design, tender anything recognizable as “justice”. You could have heard a pin drop in that old Courthouse. The bailiff’s back stiffened up and the judge looked stern. I knew that, in actuality, a whole lot of the other jury candidates agreed with me. But, they would sooner have died than admitted it. They were too busy pledging allegiance to The Man to step out on a limb.
The judge, though, wasn’t quite finished. She wanted me to detail a couple of examples of just how the “system” was broken. This was easy. The California prison system holds 143,643 prisoners in state prisons designed to hold 84,130. From 1982 to 2000, California’s prison population increased 500%. The recidivism rate, which has long been among the highest in the country, clocks in at 67.5 percent. This clearly, I responded, was not a “corrections” model, as nothing was being “corrected.” When I reminded her that California is a “three strikes” state that still has a death penalty, she shrugged her shoulders. I, on the other hand, mumbled something about barbarism.
I was just gearing up to pitch my ideas about rehabilitation and vocational training when the judge banged the gavel down and excused me from service. She announced that I might be “lenient” toward the defense and fail to uphold the letter of the law with sufficient rigor. I replied that I would certainly “see the defendant as a human being.” She wasn’t sure where to go with that comment.
I knew where to go with it: out the door. I felt a surge of relief as I left the room. I was working under a whole different operating system than all of those potential jurors who felt that “it was an honor” to serve in the “system”, or who were willing to be searched without cause, or who were OK with eating vending-machine items for lunch. Somehow, I couldn’t muster up much enthusiasm for burning 5 or 6 gallons of petro-fuel to drive to the County seat to hear a case that was already pre-determined in the “systems” mind.
On the way out, I asked the bailiff why pushing my sunglasses up on my head constituted a security threat. He scowled and told me that “hats weren’t allowed in a Courtroom.” Well, of course. And, I left feeling like I had just completed a little romp through Wonderland … because, as the Cheshire Cat so aptly pointed out, “we’re all mad here.”
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Sherry Ackerman, Ph.D., author of The Good Life: How to Live a Sustainable and Fulfilling Lifestyle, is a socially engaged philosopher who believes in doing “philosophy on the streets”. For more information, visit her website at www.sherryackerman.com.
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The pre-premiere of Mike Sosebee’s film, Somewhere in New Mexico Before the End of Time will be released at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, 17 November 2012 at Vegas Roots Community Garden, 715 North Tonopah Drive, Las Vegas, Nevada. A question and answer period will follow.
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Since summer, this website has become an unpleasant place to provide intelligent commentary, and a few who comment here apparently do so only in an attempt to draw others into senseless arguments. In the spirit of starting anew, I am asking for a voluntary return to civility. If civility in this space cannot be achieved voluntarily, some combination of moderation and blocking will be instituted. Comments intended to insult, instead of inform, will not be posted unless they are particularly clever and intended or generated by me. I don’t care who “started it” (to quote the childish line invoked in this space to rationalize continued childish behavior). Please send all hate mail to guy.r.mcpherson@gmail.com.
To clarify, because apparently it’s necessary: Off-topic comments are perfectly fine. Bringing to this arena personal attacks is not fine.
November 12th, 2012 at 6:58 am
It is getting harder and harder to appear in public and to maintain a facade. Just had a big, big football weekend here in this small college town. The delusions will continue, until they can’t, and then they won’t. (James Howard Kunstler paraphrase)
November 12th, 2012 at 7:01 am
Jury Nullification. Stay on the jury, and don’t convict people of victimless crimes. The DA will soon catch drift, especially in a rural district.
Big cities, not so much.
“When they get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe.” ~Thomas Jefferson
November 12th, 2012 at 7:04 am
I wish that all people recognized that the system is broken and had the guts to say so.
I wonder what our world would look like if we all acted on our beliefs on a daily basis.
Thank you Sherry for standing up and being counted as sane in an insane system.
November 12th, 2012 at 7:06 am
Here is the link on Jury Nullification:
Fully Informed Jury Association
http://fija.org
November 12th, 2012 at 7:09 am
Sherry,
Excelllent, simply excellent. The only choice now is to resist.
Guy,
I supportagree and support your choice. Thanks for all you do.
November 12th, 2012 at 7:17 am
Lets try that again… . . I support and agree with your choice.
November 12th, 2012 at 7:57 am
.
Sherry,
Wonderful essay, and I share many of the same observations and sentiments. There is so much to discuss in your essay, I think it needs to be broken down and addressed in separate posts. The first thing I would like to point out, is the fact that neither my wife nor I have ever been called for Jury Duty, and keep in mind, I’m 48 and she’s 43. I have always found this odd, considering almost everyone we know has been called at one time or another. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I’ve never been called, and so too is my wife, and for the very reasons you have illuminated in your fine essay.
Whereas I’ve never been called for Jury Duty, I was summoned to court
for a traffic violation (speeding) several years prior to this day. I took my children out of school and brought them with me for a Civics lesson. I was going to plead my case. Boy, was I naive, and what a wake-up call it was, and what an invaluable lesson it was. It was in Lawrenceville, Georgia, the same courthouse where Larry Flynt was shot and paralyzed, so you can understand the setting…and I assure you, it hasn’t changed much to this day. It’s clan country, and those former clan families still control the local government in these parts.
FYI, I was summoned to court because I failed to show up for the first scheduled court date. The reason I didn’t show up was because I didn’t realize it was a court-only ticket, and when I went online to pay the ticket, it didn’t show, so I assumed the officer just discarded it, which had happened to me once before in my life, so it was probable. Well, they don’t take kindly to you missing court appearances, and you are heavily fined, accordingly.
There is no presumption of innocence in this process. You are guilty, and there is no pleading with the court. It’s a formalized process that serves two goals. One, it’s a rubber stamp covered in a veneer of legitimacy, and two, it’s meant to humiliate and degrade the already presumed guilty offender.
Of course, traffic court is unique from trial by jury, but it stems from the same System, and is part of that same System….and in that sense, the purpose and effect are not mutually exclusive, but rather one and the same. Traffic violations and the traffic court process are meant to make the poor, poorer. My children are the ones that pointed this out to me, and when I considered their questions, and their ultimate conclusions, I had to agree, and in fact, based on my experience, I was thinking along the same lines.
They were handing out tickets and fines to people who were barely scraping by….people who had a hard time paying their auto insurance, and a hard time paying to have their headlights and/or taillights repaired. I felt horrible for this one woman who had to go before this no doubt corrupt judge who humiliated and degraded her before leveling her with $3,000 worth of fines for driving with a broken taillight and no insurance, and not showing up to court for her first court appearance. And here’s the catch. If you don’t pay the fines on the spot (they provide an ATM…imagine that), you are assigned a parole officer and are considered on parole. The process is to make the poor, poorer, and even more, to make being poor, criminal. It was a disgusting display, and this woman and myself were not exceptions, we were the rule. Luckily, I had enough in my account to cover it, but that poor woman did not, and therefore, she was a criminal. I told the judge that he was treating us like criminals….and he and the whole court laughed out loud, and he said boldly and tauntingly, you are a criminal, and that’s why you’re standing before me.
The motorcycle cop who issued me the citation was in the back and we stared each other down. As I was walking out, he laughed at me, so I said to him “what a tough guy you are.” Several cops moved in on me at that point, and said “what did you say?” I replied, “I said, have a nice day.” They moved out of the way reluctantly, and my children and I exited the scam.
My daughter became enraged during this process. Her bubble was burst, and she wanted to lash out at that cop and at the judge. I had to restrain her from saying anything critical. There’s no telling what these thugs would have done. She got so mad, she got a nose bleed and started crying. Some may call that child abuse….what I did, but I say that is nonsense. It was an invaluable lesson for them…one they will never forget, and it allowed them to see how these things really work…that it’s not as the propaganda says is it in school.
By the way, have you ever seen the excellent Earl Morris documentary about Justice as it’s administered by this System? I don’t watch TV much, but when I do, I watch ID TV, and after watching that, one can’t help concluding that this so-called System of Justice has nothing to do with Justice. It’s frightening. Here’s a link to the Earl Morris documentary called The Thin Blue Line. I highly suggest it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mnlq0TurT3c
.
November 12th, 2012 at 8:27 am
Sherry, thank you for being so truthful and inspirational.
I was summoned for jury duty in a federal court recently, which would have involved being on-call for months. There was a questionnaire to determine my suitability for service. I answered all the questions, including one about whether I had any children and their ages. I sent it off, assuming that I would have to go in, and preparing myself to be as honest as possible, very similar to the way you described, and wondering how that was going to pan out. Instead, I got a call from a woman at the courthouse, who wanted to know if I was with my 5-year-old full-time (the answer being, yes) and if she had other full-time caregivers (no). She said that I would be excused from jury duty since it fell under the exclusion that said it would compromise the health and well-being of someone under my care.
I wish I had said something about how I thought everyone involved in the whole system, top to bottom, should be excused because of their health and well-being being compromised.
November 12th, 2012 at 9:14 am
There’s a hidden injustice in the system far more pervasive than the pressure to eliminate humane jurors described in this excellent essay. That is the oppressive plea bargaining system which forces most defendants to cop a plea instead of exercising their constitutionally guaranteed right to a jury trial. It’s a well known fact that sentences following a trial conviction are hugely heavier than sentences after a plea of guilty.
Five defendants were charged with a series of burglaries in my jurisdiction recently. Four of them entered pleas and received sentences ranging from 4 months to 11 years. The fifth went to trial, and upon conviction was sentenced to 95 years!
There are studies looking into the question of whether or not this system results in innocent defendants pleading guilty. Hmm. I wonder.
November 12th, 2012 at 9:43 am
another Jean,
I guess that was a rhetorical question. If it was not, my response would be, “Of course!” That is the nature of the System. If you, for example, are not convinced you can prove you are not guilty, you might have to play the odds, opting for a guaranteed minimal sentence, rather than facing the possibility of being the innocent man convicted of a crime he has not committed (and subject to a much stiffer penalty for bucking the System). In many cases it seems the functionaries of the System could care less, as long as they meet their quota. All of this has nothing to do with the presumption of innocence. As Morocco Bama noted, if you are standing in front of a judge you are presumed to be guilty. It is the job of the citizens (jury) to push back against this foregone conclusion but too often, as Sherry notes, too often the jury is made up of citizens who feel as “…potential jurors … that “it was an honor” to serve in the “system”…”
Michael Irving
November 12th, 2012 at 9:51 am
Sherry Ackerman,
I can’t thank you enough for your bravery. Forgive me, but images of Harriet Tubman crossed my mind as I was thinking of you. People like you, walking their talk, are an example for all of us.
Michael Irving
November 12th, 2012 at 9:51 am
Sherry,
Interesting article and good for you for maintaining your humanity in an unhumane system. —But, wow, Siskiyou County! I graduated from Yreka Union High School a long time ago, in 1977! Old home town! Your article took me back. So the gold nuggets were stolen. I’ve thought about them on occasion. I was thinking they would have had to move those to a more secure location long ago.
–I’m a nurse practitioner and will be going up there to work for 13 weeks, come home for a month or so and go back. And continue doing that for who knows how long . . .
So thank you for the article and the trip to my my old home town – I now live in N. Wisconsin, on Lake Superior. And in a month I’m leaving to work in Barrow, Alaska – gonna go see how all that methane smells for myself-yikes
This will be my first time going up there. I leave around Dec 15th. I’m a regular reader here and rare poster, but I’ll drop in once in awhile and let you all know how it’s going up in Barrow.
As always, Guy, thanks for all you do.
Dawn L
November 12th, 2012 at 10:36 am
I’ve been practicing as a defense attorney for 26 years in our Kafkaesque court system. One of the reasons for the ever increasing incarceration rates in this country is that the prison-industrial complex has been privatized and is a source of significant profits.
The 3 strikes laws, which mandate draconian sentences for many nonviolent criminals, is about money and has little to do with public safety. In addition to corporate prisons, even state run prisons purchase huge amounts of materials from companies whose main purpose is to supply the gulags with everything from cots to restraining devices. The warehousing of people is big business and requires more and more bodies to fill the empty cell spaces (which are rented to the state). It costs somewhere between 20 to 30 thousand dollars a year to incarcerate one inmate (the equivalent of college tuition at a good school).
To make matters even more obscene, by virtue of federal laws that were enacted in 1979, corporations have been allowed to use prisoners as a quasi-slave labor force (the prisoners get paid about 50 cents an hour).
Over the last 20 years, the court systems (at every level) have been packed with ideologically right wing judges who are happy to crank the wheel of injustice in exchange for nice salaries and good pensions (plus the power trip of the black robe).
http://www.aclu.org/prisoners-rights/private-prisons
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/02/23/1066640/-Prison-and-Inmate-labor-for-profit-morally-wrong-yet-profitable-to-Pol-s-and-Corps-STOP-IT
November 12th, 2012 at 10:37 am
Good on ya, Sherry! I’m glad you were able to make those statements in open court.
I’ve noticed I only get called for civil cases now, rather than criminal. And still they don’t find me suitable to serve. Hrmm.
November 12th, 2012 at 10:38 am
Sherry,
Great essay! I served on a jury waay back in the 80s and it wasn’t too bad of an experience. It was an arson case with a white female defendant.
I wholeheartedly support jury nullification for any non-violent drug crime, and if I ever get past the voie dire again, would love to monkey wrench a trial.
Sigh. Probably I would be dismissed, just as you were.
Good for you.
November 12th, 2012 at 10:50 am
.
Speaking of this System, and specifically this System of Alleged Justice, here’s an excellent clip from Carlin about the Death Penalty. He makes a great point, in particular, that the so-called Justice System, specifically related to murder, is about revenge. I agree with this, wholeheartedly. It’s the conclusion I’ve come to after watching ID TV for several months. As Michael Irving mentioned, the prosecutors have conviction quotas to meet, and their reputations are staked upon how well, and how often they convict, Justice be damned. They sell this as bringing closure for the victim’s family, but imo, that’s just euphemism for revenge. The prosecutor gets his score, and the victim’s family gets their revenge, whether they wanted that revenge, or not. Of course, there are exceptions to this, but I do believe it is the rule. My first inclination is to not take part in the charade, but after thinking about this further, perhaps it’s important that we do take part in it when called upon, so we can be the one dissenting vote, or two dissenting votes, when we know the facts as presented don’t warrant a conviction. This way we stymie the process. Something to think about, certainly, but of course, that would require that we be dishonest in the jury selection process and the questions they ask, but if you know that it may possibly save an innocent life, maybe lying in this instance is worth it. Here’s the link to Carlin:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDO6HV6xTmI&feature=related
.
November 12th, 2012 at 10:55 am
Jurors’ Handbook
November 12th, 2012 at 11:02 am
Fully Informed Jury Association
– American Jury Institute
November 12th, 2012 at 11:53 am
i think i’ve been called to jury duty twice now, and dismissed both times similarly to sherry when questioned during the ‘voir dire’ process. totally fucked up imo. they don’t want anyone with an independent mind on jury duty. don’t want anyone interfering with ‘justice’ by use of such means as jury nullification. oh well, if it’s any consolation, the (in)justice system will die along with civilization. however, as long as it’s in force, i was heartened by the vote to legalize (sort of) cannabis for ‘recreational’ use by adults over the age of 21 in the states of colorado and washington in the election just finished. better late than never, right?
November 12th, 2012 at 12:00 pm
Guy,
I’m glad to see you have decided to keep NBL up. I have been thinking about your comments yesterday. I found it hard to sort it out. More denial, perhaps, or just slow brain. Anyway, these are some of the reasons NBL is important to me and why I’m happy you will continue:
Information of course; NBL acts as a clearing-house of ideas about AGW and the likely direction we are headed. It opens links to myriad sources, from you and everyone else, that I would likely not have tuned in to on my own. The information forces me to think through the evidence and try tease out the truth of it. The information also grounds me in reality, helping me sort through the constant dissonance set up by smart people who should know better, e.g. (In 2025 the fuel economy standard will be 54.5 mpg for cars and light trucks VS. In 2025 we may all be dead!).
NBL makes me think. I have to struggle to get ideas organized and down on paper. I have to really struggle to have any chance of communicating with the brain power constantly evidenced here on NBL. I have to research my thoughts to be sure when I say something here it is not just something I made up one morning in the shower. I have to broaden my horizons. All of this just to keep from being too timid to even speak up. Of course all this has unexpected benefits. I have become much more confident in my job, which in turn has had rewards for my local community.
Finally, NBL gives me a sense of community. I know that when I check the latest post and comments I will find a group of people who are struggling with the same horrible reality I am–we are facing the end of the world as we know it and most people don’t know it/won’t accept it. A sense of community made up of people willing to accept me into the group, to listen to what I have to say, and to offer ideas and advise, and of course question me if they think I’ve gone astray (here in Conservistan it is really hard for me to find people to talk to about anything).
So that’s my take on it. I think NBL is practice for the times to come. If we can’t figure out a way to cope with the problems resulting from the interaction of conflicting ideas here in the virtual world, how will be ever be able to do it in the physical world? Some opt for just giving up. For the rest of us, we will have to work as hard as we can to make the necessary adjustments if we are to survive. I also recognize that in the end nothing we do will save us, as a species. Individually, as Kathy C often notes, everybody dies, but that’s not reason to give up working toward the survival of the species.
Michael Irving
November 12th, 2012 at 12:40 pm
Sherry, great essay. I tend to think that Civilization is always at the root of the problem with THE MAN. We just aren’t wired by evolution to live in stratified societies, but stratification is always found in Civilizations. We can try reform it, and sometimes some things get better, but in the end the structure that encloses us dictates much of what goes on inside.
Thanks for your courage in speaking honestly. Perhaps someone heard.
November 12th, 2012 at 1:15 pm
I worked with an anthropologist who, when he taught the students about class oppression, just took them on a field trip to the county courthouse to watch the proceedings. He didn’t bother to check what was on the docket that day — since it was the same as any other day — punishing the marginalized, criminalizing the poor, and sinking the hooks of state control more deeply into the flesh of all those misfortunate enough to get swept in. That told half the story. To complete it, he had to talk about why other kinds of persons and other kinds of crimes don’t show up at the county courthouse.
November 12th, 2012 at 2:06 pm
Sorry off topic but if I don’t post this now I will forget it later
Podcast at the link, summary below
http://fairewinds.com/content/fairewinds-podcast
Yet more problems for San Onofre: According to Southern California Edison; a possible case of sabotage at the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant is being investigated; Gundersen and Hurley discuss how coolant liquid at the plant may have found its way into an unrelated system and threatened the backup power supply. – San Onofre has a long history of employee concerns, and recent layoffs may have exacerbated their employee problems. – The nation’s oldest running Nuclear Plant, Oyster Creek, may remain shut down for longer than expected following the discovery of a crack in the reactor head. – The NRC to back a new study which will re-evaluate earthquake risks and probabilities at U.S. nuclear plants.
November 12th, 2012 at 5:38 pm
“Leading up to Mr. Williams’s trial, federal prosecutors offered him various plea bargains, but he turned them all down. He believed, quixotically enough, that he deserved his day in court. He held this conviction even though prosecutors precluded him from presenting his compliance with state law as a defense to the federal charges. Without this essential context, the jury heard a deeply distorted version of Mr. Williams’s story.
After Mr. Williams’s conviction, the United States attorney general’s office came back with a new deal. If he waived his right to appeal, they would drop most of the charges so that he would face a minimum of 10 years in prison and pay a $288,000 judgment.
His response? “This is nothing more than slavery and completely disregards my rights as a citizen of the United States of America. I have declined the offer.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/08/opinion/the-fight-over-medical-marijuana.html
November 12th, 2012 at 5:39 pm
Contrast with Norway.
http://www.metafilter.com/121777/I-thought-that-modern-penology-has-abandoned-that-rehabilitation-thing
November 12th, 2012 at 5:48 pm
I was selected for jury service once. Great fun! On the first morning even before formalities began it was clear us potential jurors fell into two camps: the office workers, like myself, glad for any excuse to be out of the office, and the self employed bitter that doing their civic duty would come at a personal cost. When it was announced that a big trial was starting that might entail far longer than the usual two weeks service, guess which of the two groups volunteered to a man. Not much source for potential bias there, then.
I was one of the lucky volunteers who drew the jackpot. The trial turned out to be of two men accused of robbing about a dozen small shops at knifepoint. During the case for the prosecution, witness after witness was produced who described being held up at knifepoint and identified the two defendants as the ones who had done it. The accused had made no effort to conceal their identities apart from using black electrical tape to amateurishly disguise the number plates of their getaway vehicle.
One juror seemed unable to cope with the pressure. He turned up drunk every day and one time proceedings had to be halted whilst he ran to the bathroom to throw up. I can’t imagine what he found stressful about being a juror because it was one of the least stressful experiences of my life.
The accused were not in custody and every morning as I arrived they were sat outside smoking on the courtroom steps. They never made eye contact and didn’t look particularly dangerous.
The prosecution’s case lasted two weeks until the morning of the second Friday. The evidence for the prosecution seemed overwhelming and I couldn’t imagine what the defense lawyers were going to come up with to counter it. I needn’t have worried. Part of the defense was that the two defendants didn’t know each other, but under cross examination the mother of one of the defendants admitted the other one had been round for Christmas dinner. The rest of the defense consisted of asking repeatedly could we be absolutely sure that the defendants had carried out the crime. We could. The whole defense lasted less than an hour which, try as we might to drag it out, was about the same amount of time as it took us to come up with a unanimous guilty verdict. Not that it seemed to matter, because the defendants didn’t turn up to court on the last day of the trial and had run off. Us jury members were more disappointed that we’d be back at work on Monday morning.
The judge thanked the jury for their service and assured us that the guilty would be brought to justice and we would be informed when this was the case. This has yet to happen, so perhaps the men are still at large fifteen years later.
I don’t know that it said anything about industrial civilization, but the whole process left me deeply cynical about the justice system. Why the defendants went to trial I have no idea, but the only ones to gain were the judge and lawyers on their fat salaries. The losers were the tax payers.
November 12th, 2012 at 6:05 pm
Guilty until proven rich;
Innocent until proven broke.
November 12th, 2012 at 6:15 pm
I admire your courage, Sherry.
In UK, I have never in my entire life been asked to do jury service. A possible explanation is that I am not on any of their lists. I hope so.
In my experience, all sub-cultures here, such as bikers, gypsies, hippies, prostitutes, ethnic minorities, the working class in general, loathe, fear and despise the police and the entire legal system, because it is rarely fair and just, and frequently abusive and corrupt.
This attitude changes as you go up the class structure, to middle and upper-middle class professionals, prosperous business owners, and the elite, who get a very different treatment from police and courts. Of course, many other countries have far worse systems, but basically, as I see it, your experience of the British legal system depends entirely upon how much money you have and what your social status is. Many of the elite and police are Freemasons, which clandestinely look after their own.
Of course, arbitrary and unjust legal systems have been a feature of repressive governments and rulers forever. I’m reminded of some Russian Tsar who would issue orders for a 100 randomly selected priests to be hanged in towns and villages, merely as a gesture to show who was the boss and keep the population servile and fearful.
What seems so remarkable in the accounts of modern USA above is the willingness of some to be ‘proud to be doing their civic duty’, which strikes me as collaborating with their own oppression. But there we are. I suppose there’s plenty like that here too.
I once researched the history of laws in Wales. When William the Bastard conquered England in 1066, he sort of delegated rule of Wales to some of his mercenary Lords, on condition that they sent him lots of cash every year. So these Marcher Lords, in addition to extracting regular taxes, set up legal systems to raise money to pay for armed thugs and magistrates and courts, as a means to raise extra revenue, to pay for their license to rule whatever land they could hold onto, whilst keeping the King, the ultimate self-proclaimed ‘owner’ of Britain, rich and happy.
So the unfortunate Welsh were constantly fined for breaking laws which were never intended to provide ‘justice’, but only as traps to give the authorities an excuse to extract money. And really, although it was softened and moderated over the centuries, the system is not so very different today. Much like a mafia protection racket, you pay off the right people for permission to do whatever you do to make your living.
November 12th, 2012 at 6:18 pm
The law’s both an ass—and a choad—
Believe me, I’ve been down that road;
I’d love to join in,
But if I begin,
My whole fucking head will explode.
November 12th, 2012 at 6:46 pm
@ Michael Irving
I’m also glad that Guy has decided to keep this site going, at least for the time being, although I don’t see it quite the same why as Michael does.
I also recognize that in the end nothing we do will save us, as a species. Individually, as Kathy C often notes, everybody dies, but that’s not reason to give up working toward the survival of the species.
I don’t think that way of looking at it can work. ‘The species’, aka ‘us’, ‘we humans’, are the problem. We are the ones that are causing our own demise, and the demise of most other living things.
If we wanted to ‘save’ something, then it has to be the biosphere, because without that, there are NO PEOPLE, period.
But to ‘save’ the biosphere, means saving all of it’s component parts, that is all the ecosystems that sustain/maintain the biosphere.
Therein lies the problem. There is no chance of doing that. We have already wrecked most of it, climate change and the extra two China’s worth of humans due to arrive over the next few years, will wreck the rest.
I’m reconciled to this prospect. I don’t feel any need for comfort or community support. I’ve done my grieving and faced the horror of the reality.
I also notice the daily jarring discordance between what I know to be scientifically established facts, and people who make remarks like ‘Oh, I expect in two hundred years they’ll be….. whatever’
I think we’ll get a fairly short-lived nightmare fascist dystopia, as the powerful in control try to keep the thing going with war, violence, repression, various insane geo-engineering attempts and Monsanto-esque messing about with genetics and nanotech, all of increasing futility and desperation, and then it’ll all break down into groups scavenging through the detritus, before we all vanish into eternal oblivion…
I really don’t mind about this anymore. I’ve had decades of grief and heart ache and pain watching the story unfold. Now I believe that the situation is completely irretrievable, the fate, the destiny, is already cooked in and determined and unavoidable.
Of course, most people hate this and don’t want to hear or accept it. That’s fine too. Please feel free to believe whatever you wish and to try to change the future in any way you wish. But I don’t think it will make any difference to the final outcome.
November 12th, 2012 at 8:19 pm
sigh. it’s surreal how unjust our cultures are and have been throughout history. surreal how many sheeple can be brainwashed to support injustice, to believe lies designed to frighten, bullshit like the reefer madness that has ruled american officialdom since at least 1937, when national prohibition was begun.
pick your poison among many offered by officialdom in the name of ‘justice’. i think anyone who even uses the word now is suspect, since it’s become so tainted. the whole damned system is rigged to persecute opponents, repress the masses, and protect the status quo ’1%’ system designed to concentrate wealth and power to a very small minority, blind to science and surreality. it takes a surreal police state to concentrate wealth and power such as now exists in the usa. it takes an orwellian sheeple to support such a state of affairs. sheeple who have become so domesticated they’ll believe almost any lie uttered by a charismatic ‘authority’. almost any absurdity. sometimes the absurdities are crazy and cruel to boot, like in the war on ‘drugs’.
while reading sherry’s essay, i checked out her siskiyou (sic?) county on wikipedia. it’s ‘socially conservative’ and solidly republican, like most the rest of rural america, like the upstate new york county (steuben) i call home without much enthusiasm.
civilizations are crazy and cruel, imo. i find this to be more psychologically devastating than the threat of collapse and extinction. when i think about how crazy and cruel things like the american ‘justice’ system are, and how many sheeple support crazy and cruel ideas like persecuting ‘drug’ users with punitive legal sanctions or any of the other many many laws which seem to serve no purpose than to persecute some hated minority group, or protect high level grand theft and fraud and environmental rape and… on and on. it makes me think that collapse and perhaps extinction are gaia’s form of justice, a justice i can identify with much more strongly than the injustice that is ingrained in american ‘justice’.
‘justice’ is nothing more than an artifice and delusion. it’s a product of civilization, and like civilization, it must die. such must be the fate of all who forget that nature bats last. and as kathy repeatedly reminds us, such is everyone’s fate, regardless. ‘wicked’ and ‘virtuous’ alike. all dead.
i think it was yorchichan who recently stated that he couldn’t imagine wishing he’d never been born. well, yorchie, i’m one who has often had such a wish. maybe that’s why i can identify so strongly with the unborn who have no say about being born into a crazy, cruel, and dying civilization. it’s hard for me to imagine that most sheeple born today won’t come to rue this birthday. if civilization is crazy and cruel now, can u imagine what’s to come? this is why i think it wise to include suicide considerations among collapse preparations. things are going to get mighty crazy and cruel.
November 12th, 2012 at 8:19 pm
ulvfugl Says: I also notice the daily jarring discordance between what I know to be scientifically established facts, and people who make remarks like ‘Oh, I expect in two hundred years they’ll be….. whatever’
Cognitive Dissonance Reduction
When folks start to mess with your head
By talking about [insert number here] years ahead,
Dissonance goes away
As soon as you say,
“In [insert number here] years we’ll be dead.”
November 12th, 2012 at 9:56 pm
Personally, I would love to see both Ulvflug and the Virgin Terry’s last comments developed into larger essays. Wonderfully honest and cogent commentary. Both epitomize why I read NBL.
November 12th, 2012 at 9:59 pm
Sorry not ulvflug but ulvfugl…….is that spelling designed to confound?
November 12th, 2012 at 10:04 pm
Speaking of cognitive dissonance, I just looked at the Archdruid Report. His most recent post is titled “The Post American Future” and, wonder of wonders, it contains no mention of Global Warming (Anthropogenic or any other kind). His assessment is that the US will fail, and gives a number of scenarios, because “history is the primary resource I use to guide what’s posted on this blog” and history tells him that all empires collapse and thus ours will too. Lucky for us apparently there is nothing to worry about regarding climate. Whew, I was really beginning to stress about it. Now I feel much better.
Michael Irving
November 12th, 2012 at 10:27 pm
Michael
Read MG’s latest as well, and had a similar reaction. While I love this writing and insight, he does seem to have a blind spot when it comes to Climate Change, simply because I think non-linear rates of change, doesn’t fit into his historical comparisons………..at all.
November 12th, 2012 at 10:30 pm
Michael Irving, I agree about the Archdruid and cognitive dissonance. I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt for a while, but now I think he’s willfully ignoring the evidence for rapid collapse of the biosphere. He’s just not looking at the whole picture; his reliance on recorded human history, even if it encompasses a wide arc of knowledge, does not provide any precedent for what we’re facing.
November 13th, 2012 at 2:41 am
The Virgin Terry
I’m sorry you have sometimes wished you had never been born. Isn’t there anything you can do to change your situation? My brother announced when he was fifteen that he wasn’t going to school anymore. He spent the next twenty years of his life sat alone in his bedroom playing on the computer. Then one day he told my mother he had met an American girl on the internet and was going to America to marry her. After a year in the US he returned with his new wife (she’s a lawyer, very pretty and very nice) and they are now happily married with three young children. My point is, if he can turn his life around anyone can. But you must try no matter how hopeless it seems.
November 13th, 2012 at 3:03 am
@ Daniel
Sorry not ulvflug but ulvfugl…….is that spelling designed to confound?
Hahaha, no apology required, Daniel, my over-developed rhetorical flourishes concerning that word and its spelling meant that the proud owner is, I believe, the very first, and so far only, correspondent here, to have had a comment deleted by the esteemed Dr. McPherson, possibly with justification, I might add, my being fully cognisant of ‘the new rules’, but that’s not for me to adjudicate upon, is it
It’s a very easy name for anyone who has an elementary knowledge of European languages and etymology. Ulf is Norwegian for wolf, Fugl is Norwegian for bird, as in German, vogel, and as in English, fowl. Wolfbird being a Scandinavian and Native American name for the raven, from the wonderful book called The Mind of the Raven, by Bernd Heinrich
http://www.genomenewsnetwork.org/articles/06_00/Mind_raven_review.php
November 13th, 2012 at 3:21 am
@ Jennifer Hartley and others Michael Irving, I agree about the Archdruid and cognitive dissonance.
I also agree. JMG said somewhere that he ‘left climate to the climatologists’. I don’t think that will do. He’s very strong on history, peak oil, druidry, sci fi, etc, and hopeless on climate science.
But then this same criticism can be applied right across the board, to all of the ‘name’ authors on the doomer fringe, Ran Prieur, D. Orlov, Kunstler, Nicole Foss, etc, etc. It’s extremely difficult for one human being to get fully educated on all human knowledge. Everyone seems to have blind spots.
There are people like Michael Hudson and David Graeber who are amazingly knowledgeable in their areas of economics and the anthropology of money, who appear to have no comprehension of ecology or biology at all. Hudson believes in the abiotic oil theory, e.g., and that there is no limit to supply. Perhaps he’s right, but I don’t believe he has much support.
This is one of our gravest problems. Almost everyone specialises, and specialists only see the one piece of the jigsaw, rarely the whole picture. Seems to me, it is only when all the pieces get joined up, that one can see the truly shocking and terminal mess that we are in. It’s not easy to face, especially when the subject is so emotive, for many, concerning the children and their futures.
November 13th, 2012 at 3:35 am
Of course, another major dissonance I forgot to mention, is techno-utopianism. So many people worship all these dazzling new scientific inventions that appear in the media on a daily basis and have complete faith that they will ‘solve all our problems’… that’s another difficult area to get one’s head around, for example George Monbiot being a fan of nuclear power, Vinay Gupta having faith that we will colonise Space, etc.
As I see it, the only way to make sense of the many differing views, is to decide where you, personally, start from, as in a biocentric or ecocentric versus an anthropocentric stance.
November 13th, 2012 at 3:43 am
Yorchichan : But you must try no matter how hopeless it seems.
Not so sure about that. I wonder how you arrive at that ‘must’ ? Surely, it’s up to the ‘you’ to decide what is right for them. Personally, I think that is the key. IMHO, find out who ‘you’ really are, by following a spiritual path, vision quest, meditation, ayahuasca, or even a more secular path, like Jung’s Individuation. What is my place in the grand scheme of things ? Why do I exist ? Who am I, really ? That kind of stuff, no ? There’s no fixed off-the-shelf answer, if you address those questions at a really serious and profound level. Everyone has to find their own.
November 13th, 2012 at 3:47 am
Regarding JMG, he does end his piece with the statement that environmental concerns are the dominant factor and that the loss of our empire is only a road bump. He likes to tell stories and “We’re Done” kind of puts a damper on the stories…and his income.
November 13th, 2012 at 4:02 am
@ Daniel : …I think non-linear rates of change, doesn’t fit into his historical comparisons………..at all.
That’s another problem. None of the major belief systems, religious, scientific, cultural, whatever, have ever envisaged an adequate map for near-term extinction ( excluding of course, the perennial Apocalyptica, which JMG derides ).
I mean, we could, as a species, have all followed the teachings of the Kogi, or the Amish, or the Bishnoi, and have avoided this horrible situation. But that wasn’t what most wanted, certainly not what the dominant capitalist politico-techno-elites wanted, and so now we have Albert Bartlett’s yeast in the bottle exponential disaster scenario, and everybody tries to grab as much of what remains while they can, and rush into the final stage as fast as they can… they simply cannot comprehend the exponential factor, that at one minute to midnight, only half the lake surface is covered with water hyacinth… does not even look like there is a problem…
November 13th, 2012 at 5:48 am
.
There had been about 100 people called. Since Siskiyou County covers 6,278 square miles, some of these people had driven 2 or 3 hours to get there. The first order of business was to inform everyone that the County no longer offered a day stipend or mileage for jury selection. And, gasoline costs $4.47 a gallon for regular. These are not wealthy equity refugees, either. Siskiyou County people work — hard — for a per capita income of $28,447 a year. That’s $5,000 above the national poverty level. There are those here that don’t work. But, it’s not because they are financially independent. It’s because the official unemployment rate here is 18.8%.
So, with no day stipend, no mileage reimbursement and no lunch, more than 100 people settled into the task of “doing their civic duty” at their own expense.
Furthering the theme about the Injustice System and its ultimate intent, and I say intent because even if it wasn’t its original intent, and whether it was at one time or not is arguable, it certainly seems to be the intent now. That intent is captured linguistically by the word Kathy C used earlier, and the word that I was rolling around in my mind as well, so when I read her post, I said “bingo, yes!” That word is enclosure. The intent is an enclosure of our psychical beings. The enclosure is our mental box. The System works to create, complete and perpetuate that enclosure, and it coerces us ants who feed this System to police others to keep it in place, i.e. jury duty with not only no remuneration, but rather making you pay for the honor of taking part in the serving of Injustice and the furthering of the mental prison complex.
If you view it in this sense, it’s diabolical….and actually quite maddening. It makes you want to scream, because enclosure goes hand in hand with entrapment. All of us here can relate to this. This System is designed to accelerate entrapment the older you get. By the time you’re middle-aged, you’re so thoroughly enclosed and entrapped, escape isn’t even on the radar, let alone an option, and even when we think we’re free of it, or somewhat free of it, we’re not….not really. Sure, at least some of us still have our eyes to see it….they haven’t yet been plucked from our skulls or acid-washed from their sockets with the scouring astringent of systemical, banal and implacable bureaucracy, but that’s a small consolation, imo.
I’m not sure resistance is the answer to such an indomitable and insidious malevolence. Resistance, or at least what it’s come to mean, may only serve the purposes of the System. The System is clever. It’s like the Bill Hicks routine about how Marketers can turn any form of resistance into an exploitation scheme. No, perhaps the only thing left is to not cooperate, to the extent that’s possible….and perhaps that’s not possible at this point. I’m not sure. I know I’m trying to not cooperate, but the further I go in that direction, the greater the risk of me losing what I hold most dear to me….my wife and children, and I don’t think it’s worth it.
Entrapped, indeed. Enclosed, indeed. Where do we go now….where do we go now?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZ5F9c4Zgws
FYI, that’s my daughter a couple of years prior///and she is my Sweet Child of Mine.
.
November 13th, 2012 at 5:54 am
At least the Swiss (114% protected,) Swedes (81%,) and Finns (70%) have dug themselves a chance of surviving a “virtually inevitable” (Dr. Martin Hellman of Stanford U.) event that will end global warming.
Switzerland is unique in having enough nuclear fallout shelters to accommodate its entire population
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/specials/switzerland_for_the_record/world_records/Bunkers_for_all.html?cid=995134
November 13th, 2012 at 6:12 am
For those requiring a Leftist perspective on just how “inevitable” nuclear war is:
“When they launch war, they’re going to launch it there [Mid-East]. It cannot help but be nuclear…A nuclear war is inevitable…”
“The nuclear winter”
by Fidel Castro
Aug. 24, 2010
For those requiring a Rightist perspective, the Wall Street Journal covered Castro’s viewpoint on nuclear winter.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703865004575649141188850372.html
November 13th, 2012 at 6:15 am
Sherry
way to go!!
Judge asked your opinoin and you gave it. Great.
I find that I have changed in the regard that it is obvious now when rule based people, and I mean those abiding by say a policy of rules in a large organisation, or store, won’t adjust to a request from me that has a reasonable basis. The rules get in the way so often now for small things.
I do a lot of recycling, and reusing, and now we have a series of rules that requires all businesses, large and small to account for their carbon credits.
So now all garbage bins and large skips that a business rents are locked. This prevents people recycling items, usually the packaging.
Not even the local dump will allow me to take a 20 Litre white detergent container home from a bin. The bin i tried to do this to had at least 30 of them. It is all weighed and chocked up to their carbon credits. Can’t even spare one.
The systems people once used to assist them, eventually get bigger, and more institutionalisd, and grow such that they eventually constrain peoples choices.
Just an example of how the social and legal order of the day is more intrenched in self serving than truly serving the people.
Serving the people? , I hear someone laugh.(ulvfugl, is that you?)
Yeah, I know, silly me.
November 13th, 2012 at 6:18 am
Did Proposition 37 really lose, or was it voter fraud ?
http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2012/11/09/did-peop-37-really-lose-or-was-it-vote-fraud/
November 13th, 2012 at 6:20 am
Don’t know anything about this guy Rappoport, but more on that story.
http://www.nomorefakenews.com/
November 13th, 2012 at 7:16 am
MB, Yes, it’s like being on the Titanic but knowing there aren’t ANY lifeboats. What do you do now? What did they do?
David
November 13th, 2012 at 7:34 am
I can echo the sentiment. A couple years ago I told a judge he didn’t want me on his jury because I was bound to nullify the “buzz driving” charge, as there was no injured party. I could see the defendant’s wife was about to have a baby and I felt the funds could be more well used at home than in the belly of the Beast.
The Administrator told me Arizona does not recognize Jury Nullification; I sure did, was the retort. Well, I to was excused and have n’ere heard from them since, to the chagrin of my libertarian leaning friends that would have apparently lied at the chance to free a poor drinking soul.
November 13th, 2012 at 7:54 am
Government corruption in the United States is hundreds of times more pervasive and costly than in Afghanistan. Every day American newspapers recount the scandals. One day it involves U.S. Customs officials, the next day it is the Secret Service, then the General Services Administration, then the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms. Every month there are new scandals involving foreign aid and other funds administered by the U.S. Department of State, the latest involved the waste of billions of dollars in “global warming” funds squandered by Assistant Secretary of State Kerri-Ann Jones and her predecessor, Claudia A. McMurray. Despite the State Department being perhaps worst administered agency in the Federal Government, no one dares utter even a whisper of criticism at Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, so the corruption continues.
While billions of dollars in domestic spending and foreign aid are misappropriated, corruptly awarded and mismanaged each year, that corruption is easier to conceal, because the U.S. is a wealthy country with many distractions. Despite the publicity, few members of the public seem able to grasp the size and scope of the cancer of corruption and nepotism that is eating away at the country.
http://kabulpress.org/my/spip.php?article120954
November 13th, 2012 at 8:04 am
.
dairymandave2003,
That’s a great question, and one for which I don’t have a ready answer. I have ideas as it relates to it, but I lack the requisite conviction to turn any of these ideas into actionable plans. As it relates to the Injustice System, we know this System of Jurisprudence will be greatly altered, at least procedurally, when a collapse ensues. We also know from history, and even recent history, that Injustice increases exponentially within collapsed/failed states (see Iraq, Afhanistan and the former Yugoslavia as examples). What I think we will see with collapse is a shifting of momentum from Cold Violence to Hot Violence, or specifically as it relates to Justice/Injustice, Cold Injustice to Hot Injustice. With collapse, the System breaks down, but not necessarily its intent. The Cold Evil of systemical bureaucracy will be replaced with the Hot Evil (blood libel of the Borderers/Backcountry folk) of Mob/Mafia Justice/Injustice.
In case you’re wondering what I’m talking about in regard to Hot and Cold, here’s an excellent link I posted in this space several months prior that explains it. It’s an excellent and highly informative read. Will the Cold give over to the Hot readily? Perhaps not, and maybe that’s where Nuclear War comes in….it’s the trump card for Cold Evil, even though it’s technically, and ironically, the hottest thing man has ever created. That Cold Evil to end all Cold Evils is the ultimate revenge….wiping most, if not all, life from the planet in a matter of hours, and then anything surviving thereafter, facing a fate too gruesome to contemplate. But, that’s only one possible permutation of how Justice/Injustice will play out when collapse ensues. There’s a host of other permutations….enough to keep a clever and adroit author in business for the rest of his/her existence.
http://neweconomicsinstitute.org/publications/lectures/kimbrell/andrew/cold-evil
.
November 13th, 2012 at 9:16 am
Yorchichan
you wrote to Virgin Terry “My point is, if he can turn his life around anyone can. But you must try no matter how hopeless it seems.”
That is actually probably one of the least helpful things one can say to a suicidal person. It in fact suggests that something is wrong with you if you don’t turn your life around, which becomes an added psychic burden. In some different contexts Bright-sided How Positive Thinking is Undermining America by Barbara Ehrenreich deals with how the strong urging to positive thinking can in fact for many become just one more burden to bear.
Further WHY must someone try no matter how hopeless it seems? Should a cancer patient never give up treatment and call in Hospice? Should a paraplegic never decide their life is unbearable – See the movie Sea Inside for the true story of a paraplegic who finally got release from a life that was unbearable for him. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0369702/
The book The Last Policeman deals with a situation where people on planet earth all know that in 6 mos a asteroid is going to end all life. Many commit suicide, many choose hedonism, others just live as usual. While we don’t have such solid proof that humans are going extinct or as near a time frame, if someone doesn’t care to live in the very hard times that are coming it is their life and their right to make an early exit. The state likes to deprive death row prisoners of this right, because they claim the right to take their life – thus they work to prevent suicides among those they intend to kill. The church attempts to claim your life by telling the suicidal they will go to hell. But whose life is it?
I note that talk of die off, or worse yet extinction, or even suicide causes people great personal anxiety, perhaps because as a species we have denial of our mortality firmly programmed in our brains.
On my list of books to read is:
That’s my kind of book, Norman Vincent Peale be damned.
The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking
by Oliver Burkeman
November 13th, 2012 at 9:49 am
But whose life is it?
Good question, Kathy C.
I loved Ehrenreich’s book “Bright-Sided.” Now I will look up “The Antidote.” Thanks for mentioning it.
And I’m thankful as always that you don’t shy away from the reality of death.
November 13th, 2012 at 10:40 am
RE: “buzz driving” (i.e., drunk driving)
The libertarian’s narrow view is that drunk driving is a “victimless crime.” However, it is proven to cause so many victims that the law views it much as a “constructive nuisance.” e.g., you can’t have an unfenced mineshaft by the sidewalk to the elementary school, even if you’re not directly causing harm each minute it remains unfenced.
But if libertarians want to hold to their narrow view of victimless crimes, fine. Then we can all driving, which we know causes grave harm to individuals via pollution.
So when do we set up the private defense corporations to arrest all polluters? What, the Koch-funded Cato Institute and Reason magazine don’t see pollution as causing victims?
Urban Air Pollution Linked To Birth Defects For First Time; Research Links Two Pollutants To Increased Risk Of Heart Defects
ScienceDaily | Jan. 2, 2002
Which goes to show that libertarians are extremely selective about their “victimless crime” rhetoric, while totally ignoring proven harm-causing “externalities.”
RE: “church attempts to claim your life by telling”
I concur.
November 13th, 2012 at 10:41 am
*we can quit all driving
I need an editor to proofread before I smack that submit button.
November 13th, 2012 at 1:37 pm
Defense attorneys have to face the same judges and district attorneys next week when they are trying to plea-bargain on behalf of their next client. Therefore, they can’t get too aggressive defending any single client; lest all their other clients suffer.
I know this first hand. The local cops in a small town tried to railroad me for something.
I informed the DA that he was unaware of all the facts in the case. If he failed to become aware of them, I would leave this meeting and retain council from a large city, today. My council would never have to face him in a plea-bargain. If this went to trial, the big city boy would like nothing more than to notch his belt with some small town DA.
I told him that I wouldn’t stop with my criminal defense. If I had to retain council at all, I would pursue his bar card and criminal charges for malicious prosecution.
He would become aware of the facts from me in the case at trial and not before, unless he did something more than read the police report on his own. The choice was his.
He told me to wait there. I told him I was going to lunch and would be back in half an hour. His demeanor was visibly different when I returned. I suppose he had made a few phone calls while I was gone.
He said he would drop the charges. I told him I didn’t believe him and that he could always reinstate the charges unless he dismissed them with prejudice in open court. That happened 5 minutes later.
The cops were truly pissed, but I think the DA had made himself clear. They didn’t harass me again.
I even went to the bar one night, parked right in front, drank coke for a couple hours and then left, dropping my keys twice on the way to the car and fumbling to get the door unlocked. They followed me home. I weaved from side to side (but never crossing the lines). Even then, they didn’t pull me over.
After that, all I got was a few dirty looks from them.
November 13th, 2012 at 2:49 pm
Jennifer Hartley
Ah…death! Seems no matter what our angle is in looking at near term extinction, the subtext is always going to be about death, and honestly, how could it be anything else? Either it be the loss of loved ones, the loss of our planet’s biosphere, or our own life, what else is entailed in near term extinction, other than contemplating how we, as well as the rest of life, are going to perish?
And if current trends continue, as Virgin Terry has eluded, at some point, the stigma of suicide is going to take on an entirely different meaning, if not purpose.
November 13th, 2012 at 4:40 pm
Security sources have told Fairfax Media that international connections between anarchist extremists, facilitated by the internet, are ”a matter of legitimate concern” and that ”radicalisation” through contact with overseas extremists is ”something that has to be monitored”.
Of particular interest is Australian activist engagement in the potential development of ”Deep Green resistance”, inspired by the writings of American ”anarcho-primitivist” theorist Derrick Jensen, including the formation of a militant ”underground” engaged in direct action against economic and energy infrastructure.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/nothing-short-of-anarchy-20121113-29a6e.html
November 13th, 2012 at 5:14 pm
Kathy C and Ulvfugl
“My point is, if he can turn his life around anyone can. But you must try no matter how hopeless it seems.”
Better if I wrote “If you want things to change, you have to make an effort”.
TVT
If you ever want to come to Thailand and you can afford the ticket over here, I’ll put you up and show you around.
One night in Bangkok
November 13th, 2012 at 5:18 pm
Just finished reading Green is the new Red. Book is okay, but I really like the website…he’s keeping up with the bullshit the government is throwing at dissenters, especially on the left. The right wing wackos are somehow never labeled “terrorist”.
Poor, oppressed and dissenters. Who’s going to be next?
I would be very surprised if the good old USA wasn’t also keeping a close eye on DGR.
Anybody here read Glenn Greenwald? Good writer.
November 13th, 2012 at 7:46 pm
‘I’m sorry you have sometimes wished you had never been born. Isn’t there anything you can do to change your situation?’
i was struggling with my response to your quote above until i read what kathy had to say in response to it. turned out better than what i was trying to express, so i’ll just go with that, with thanks to kathy.
‘If you ever want to come to Thailand and you can afford the ticket over here, I’ll put you up and show you around.’ -yorch
yorchichan, are u a thai citizen? just wondering. i’m not very familiar with thai names, but i recall a professional tennis player from southeastern asia with a similar sounding last name to ‘yorchichan’. anyway, if u are a thai national i’m guessing u’re from a relatively well off family and received a relatively superior education that among other things made u very fluent in english.
i’m curious about such matters because i’m fascinated by guy’s international appeal, unfortunately as shallow as it is broad. europe, asia, australia, new zealand, north america.
travelling half way around the world on a whim is not for me, but thanks for the offer. also, thanks to daniel for encouragement.
November 13th, 2012 at 7:51 pm
wildwoman, what’s dgr stand for? re. greenwald, i’ve seen him be interviewed by bill moyers a time or 2. like all of moyer’s subjects, he has interesting knowledge and opinions.
November 13th, 2012 at 7:57 pm
TFT,
Ulvfugi mentioned Deep Green Resistence. It’s a book by Aric Mcbay, Lierre Keith, and Derrick Jensen on how to build an underground and a supporting network. It has become the beginning of a movement, perhaps.
If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it.
November 13th, 2012 at 8:44 pm
yorchichan, i’ll add that your response indicates u’re totally not getting what i’m saying. i think a lot of sheeple are quite offensive, quite willing to use force to impose their version of ‘morality’ on others. there’s nothing i can do to change that. what i, or anyone unhappy with life circumstances beyond one’s control, is to choose suicide as a means of escape, for that is something one can control. considering our predicament, opposing any means of voluntary population reduction at this point is absurd.
November 13th, 2012 at 10:47 pm
I spend all my spare time puzzling and struggling with the issues the posters of this board wrestle with. Someone might quip that I need to get a life, when that is in fact the nature of this post. . . getting a life.
As I see it all the political parties and so-called leaders are visioning the past. This includes Green parties, socialist parties, and all the rest. None of them are visioning the future. They wrap up the past in their lifestyle flavor and present it, falsely, as the future.
I believe a large percentage of the people, our people, have become aware consciously or unconsciously, that their dependence on the current system is lethal. This is evidenced by voter apathy, those who vote while openly admitting that not much is going change regardless of who is elected, the varying social movements and tensions. Very few people will declare that they love their work, their jobs, their bosses, the leaders, their toxin laden food, water, air, even their toxin laden bodies.
The people are becoming aware that their unquestioning support of the current myth of human progress is increasingly lethal. However, since there is no clearly articulated future vision we are creating a new myth of lock-in. The meme of lock-in is widespread and subtly embedded in much of what we take for granted.
The cultural experiment called civilizaton has a long history of failure and is the root cause of much of the psychosis, violence, addiction and oppression presently in our lives.
What has a long history of succes and is proven as a sane and sustainable human organization is society. The current paradigm incorrectly conflates globalized civilization with society. I argue that civilization is only a toxic mimic of a sane and sustainable diverse array of societies each of which are balanced, informed and shaped by its regional ecosystem.
Along the same line would be the example that the current concepts of what is feminine and masculine as visioned by advertizing, media, hollywood etc.. . . are no more than toxic mimics of what we inherently understand to be healthy men and women.
The modern method of compulsory education based on the western curriculum, which has now become an embedded global cultural meme, is a toxic mimic of the process of becoming a mature adult through gaining knowledge by direct experience and interaction with a sane and sustainable regional society as we move towards wisdom.
As more and more people openly acknowledge that their current dependence on global corporate mega-systems is lethal they will need a future vision that articulates their place and their children’s future in a sane and sustainable regional society. A society that works as tirelessly to promote the resiliency and diversity of its ecosystem upon which its very existence depends, as today’s toxic mimic works tirelessly to promote loss of resiliency and diversity through the commodification of the natural world by which corporate profit, power and priviledge depends.
The toxic mimic of modern privilege is falsely premised on material gain through commodification of the natural world, consolidation and projection of hierarchal power and the belief in linear progress through technlological innovation. Yet where is the priviledge of living on a planet with dying oceans, dying grasslands, dying forests, toxic air, toxic food, and toxic water? Where is the priviledge of living on a planet without passenger pigeons, great Auks, salmon, whales, rhinoceros’, Siberian tigers, polar bears, cod, spring peepers, whipporwills, salamanders, redwoods, ash trees, eastern white pines, western spruce, douglas firs and all the other past and present beings that are either extinct or headed towards extinction. There is no priviledge in participating in extinction.
There is priviledge, great priviledge for every one of us, to be alive and participating in a diverse complex of regional societies that works tirelessly to support and increase the salmon, siberian tigers, rhino’s , honey bees, polar bears, functional prarrie grasslands, redwood forests, douglas fir forests, great eastern hardwood forests, amphibians, blue fin tuna, herring, krill, phytoplankton.
In fact it is by each of us clearly understanding the priviledge of living in the sane and sustainable regional society of our choice that we and our children have a future. Working to support and repair natural processes is the only way to drawdown atmospheric carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulfer dioxide and all other atmospheric toxins, remove pollutants from food, water and soil, and detoxify ours and our children’s bodies and minds and allow all the other beings to remove the toxins from their bodies. The process of polluting the air, soil, water and all living beings on the planet is one of the great forms of violence of our time.
There is no “one size fits all” way to have a future. The people of each regional society will need to create their own unique vision for themselves, since each regional society will be informed by the efforts required to repair and be in balance with the ecoystem in which it is embedded.
This is a future of process, not progress. It is a future that will be cyclical, not linear. It is a future of participation rather than compulsion.
It is a vision of a future that has a future.
The beginning of a very real articulation of a regional society is found in this article:
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2012-11-12/what-is-holistic-livestock-management
November 14th, 2012 at 2:41 am
Great piece Anthony. I think the Amish are close to having that society. I sometimes wish I had been born into an Amish family.
I read the article and watched the TED talk. I agree with every word and concept. He knows soil. He knows that composting is wrong for the soil. Over the past few years I have done what he talks about except I used tractors as part of the proxy for herding animals. We cut our corn acreage down 90% and built up soil organic matter with sod and manure. I plant a small amount of corn just one year in rotation with grass/legumes. Last year, 2011 was a dry summer. Yet our corn yielded 240 bu/A. This year the national average was something like half that. The reason was healthy soil with water holding capacity. Used almost no fertilizer. In other words, I’m trying to do the things Seth talks about while still using machinery. I cheat.
But, while what he talks about what might work in Africa, to make it work in the USA we need to get rid of all flush toilets and all trucks. People are the invasive species. People must live near where the food and animals are grown; local. The food chain is another, maybe the biggest lie ever promoted. Life is cyclical. I find that TED talkers tend to be overly idealistic. Anyone who tells the truth and all the truch won’t get invited to do a TED talk. There are too many people living in shities attending TED talks.
To make a system work, all the working parts that contribute to the system must work. All of them or the system will collapse. This is true for a car, a cow, or a bio system. What about radiation? What about the warming that has already taken place? Is it runaway yet? Is it too late? Seth seems to be using willful ignorance regarding the SYSTEM currently in place. The SYSTEM needs to be plowed under to get a fresh start and even then it may take several million years to get going again without radiation and without heating. That’s my opinion. So sad because we could have gone down this road. On the other hand, we couldn’t; we’re just intelligent humans.
David
November 14th, 2012 at 3:13 am
David, Craig Dilworth has written a book “Too Smart for our Own Good The Ecological Predicament of Humankind.” which poses the theory that where we are now is inevitable.
Here is a bit of a summary http://guymcpherson.com/2012/11/justice-american-style/
Whenever humans are faced with shortages, they come up with a new technology. This could be anything from how to start a fire all the way to a modern computer, and everything in between — agriculture, the wheel, and the steam engine. The result of this innovation is that — it works! The shortages are alleviated, new resources are discovered or made available, and in fact a surplus is created. But as a result of this surplus, consumption increases and so does population. Eventually, increased consumption and population catch up with us, and we are faced with shortages all over again, which makes a new technology necessary.
Dilworth calls this the “vicious circle principle”: we get ourselves out of one fix, only to land in another, depleting resources as we go. It is not our failures that are the problem, but our successes. We are too smart for our own good.
While I don’t think we have much in the way of free will as individuals it seems we have even less as a species
November 14th, 2012 at 3:25 am
David this is a second post, since if you put more than one link in a post you have to wait for the moderator to approve it and I am not good at waiting
I also don’t know how long you have been reading NBL so you may have already read this http://arctic-news.blogspot.co.nz/p/global-extinction-within-one-human.html These folks believe that there will be human extinction in as little as 18 years due to the arctic ice melting creating various feed backs including huge methane releases. They don’t think carbon cuts are enough and are unfortunately proposing geo-engineering to prevent extinction. Whether they are right or not has been argued here and a presume elsewhere. 10 years ago when I first began blogging peak oil I thought well prepared people might survive the dieoff, then I lost hope for that and began to think scattered hunter-gatherer tribes might survive die off. Now I think none of us will and think the best strategy is to live for each day, which is probably always the best strategy.
Quick journey eh. And then on top of an ever worsening climate Fukushima has taught us all what happens when the grid goes down and the cooling pumps fail. 400+ Fukushimas worldwide unless they are decommissioned before the grid fails.
So it goes…..
But today is all we ever had regardless of what happens with oil or climate – any of us can be struck down by some accident at any time. Today matters. Hug a cow
November 14th, 2012 at 3:27 am
Oh and David keep your cows away from guns
Cows with guns – we have been warned
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQMbXvn2RNI
November 14th, 2012 at 3:39 am
Kathy, I do hug my cows.
November 14th, 2012 at 3:47 am
“sustainable…sustainability”
Last time I used that word, (on Oct. 15th, in reference to “making sustainability sexy”), Guy retorted that “Sustainability is a myth.”
Is sustainability now not a myth?
November 14th, 2012 at 4:44 am
TVT, http://www.deepgreenresistance.org/
November 14th, 2012 at 5:03 am
Government surveillance of citizens’ online lives is rising sharply around the world, according to Google’s latest report on requests to remove content and hand over user data to official agencies.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/nov/13/google-transparency-report-government-requests-data
November 14th, 2012 at 5:46 am
Yeah,
The “S” word has been coopted to such an extent that it is now a bad word. Open to ideas for a substitution.
November 14th, 2012 at 5:47 am
Dave,
I hugged my cows too.
November 14th, 2012 at 6:07 am
Kathy, ERT is doing fine and during 2012 so far has 68 posts with Guy’s name included. He has us talking and thinking.
Anthony, what happened to your cows?
David
November 14th, 2012 at 6:25 am
.
The “S” word has been coopted to such an extent that it is now a bad word. Open to ideas for a substitution.
I, for one, don’t want a substitution. It has an adequate definition already. It denotes a compulsion to control and manage, albeit in a more benevolent manner as it relates to nature. It’s a form of bargaining, an approach that says we can still have our stuff, just now with an eye toward the environment. That doesn’t cut it. That won’t cut it. If humans come through the seemingly imminent crucible of the decline and ultimate dissolution of Civilization, the idea and notion of controlling and managing accumulation will be anathema, if it’s an idea at all at that point. Civilization must go the way of the Dodo Bird, and I think it will. The when and the how is up for speculation and makes for interesting intellectual conjecture.
In the meantime, let the band play on, and let the people sleep soundly in their cabins as the Titanic sinks. If it’s going to sink anyway, and there are no life boats, there’s no need to sound any alarms. Let it go down as peacefully as possible. No need to scream from the top of one’s lungs that the ship is sinking when most are going to drown anyway. Let them enjoy their last moments of respite, and we can let those who are awake and see the horror of their fate, respond in their own unique way without projecting the burden to others unnecessarily.
.
November 14th, 2012 at 6:57 am
David, I hug my chickens (at night when one can handle them of course). I love the smell of chickens. They don’t really like being held, but the do like if you blow warm air (hot in my case) in the feathers on the back of their neck, or rub their bellies. Some like being stroked under the beak or neck or rubbed in the space where the wing joins the body. Depending on the bird some go almost into a trance with one or the other of those actions. Helps to handle and calm down jittery birds.
November 14th, 2012 at 7:14 am
Dave,
I grew up on a small organic farm on which we raised a good proportion of our food. Milked a couple of cows before and after school. Long ago and far away now.
Also loved spending time looking at the chickens as they looked at me.
My parents were friends with Ruth Stout, if that means anything.
November 14th, 2012 at 7:29 am
Two years ago we had a dozen chickens running around the yard. It was my daughter’s project. They were housed at night. Everyone enjoyed having them around watching them work away at what they do…constantly working away at it. Come to think of it, that’s what we do too.
November 14th, 2012 at 8:00 am
Hurrah for Ruth Stout! Creative laziness! Work is a curse. And I milk only once a day here, because the evening milking is the worst interruptor of social activities. (Although the morning milking was useful to get out of Sunday School back in those days. LOL!) Who wants to be riding a motorcycle around the lake on Sunday afternoon with a buxom neighbor girl pressed against your spine—then realize you have to head back to the barn to chore? Unless she offers to come help. ♫ The mid-west farmers’ daughters really make you feel alright. ♪
November 14th, 2012 at 8:14 am
.
I only have one chicken, and whilst it’s impossible to hug it, and actually I’ve never tried, I have choked it more times than I can add in my head…..and, it’s still alive and well and quite grateful for the chokings. Chickens are great.
.
November 14th, 2012 at 8:24 am
Anthony, how neat that your parents were friends of Ruth Stout. She is my inspiration. I don’t do things exactly her way due to availability of mulch and climate differences, but as soon as I read her I knew her method sounded right. I wouldn’t call it No Work, but rather Less Work and kinder to the critters who live in the soil.
November 14th, 2012 at 10:00 am
ulvfugl,
The Mind of the Raven, by Bernd Heinrich—–Great Book!
I live amongst wild ravens. If I listen, hardly a minute goes by during daylight when I cannot hear them. They never cease to amaze me. I go along for awhile thinking, “Well, nothing more could surprise me about these wonderful birds.” Then they always prove me wrong. They go from the mundane to the etherial and back again in a day, or an hour. I love how they can go from solitary and secretive, quietly sneaking through the woods hunting for birds eggs, to being a member of a huge convention of 50 or 60 birds playing on the wind above a ridge-top. If there were angels they would soar like ravens on the wind.
Michael Irving
November 14th, 2012 at 10:34 am
ulvfugl,
Re: Tien Shan Fruit Forest
Stalin vs apple trees
Hitler vs Jews
Spanish monarchy vs Americas
1% vs the world
“Same as it ever was.” Talking Heads
Michael Irving
November 14th, 2012 at 10:43 am
Yes, indeed, Michael, aren’t they impressive and fascinating. Never seen 50 or 60 together here, maybe 10 or 12 at most, but I see them everyday. Kinda primaeval. Ancient wisdom.
http://3lbmonkeybrain.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/in-anticipation-evolution-of-raven-in.html
November 14th, 2012 at 10:58 am
Jesus spins stories that undermine the sanctity of wage-labor (Mat 20:1-16), and that pit rebellious peasants against wealthy landowners (Mk 12:1-10). He advocates the right of the hungry to steal food (Mk 2:23ff) and invokes the cosmology of divine gift: “Consider the RAVENS: They do not sow or reap…yet God feeds them” (Lk 12:24). Despite the captivity of modern Christian theology to the Protestant work ethic, the Bible’s Sabbath ethos (including Paul’s theology of grace) privileges being over doing, celebration over work, and gift over possession—again resonating with indigenous wisdom concerning personal, social and physical ecology.
~Ched Myers(2005) The Fall; Bible & Anarcho-Primitivism. Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature, Continuum, edited by Bron Taylor, Professor of Religion and Nature at The University of Florida.
November 14th, 2012 at 11:02 am
Ravens! How I love them! We have both crows and ravens here and the crows go south for the winter but the ravens stay. When I lived in the far north, I had horses in a barn out of town with a bunch of other folks, a co-op type arrangement out in the muskeg. Every morning I’d drive out there and feed the barn cats because I was often the first one to arrive and get my horses out of their stalls and into the corrals. The ravens would hang around looking to pick oats out of the horse shit. They flew down and sat on fence posts, waiting. I began to bring out some cat food and put a few pieces on top of a fence post. The ravens would sit a few posts away and watch. Then I would talk to them. The First Nations people said the ravens could learn to talk. I love to hear them squawk loudly as they fly low over my house and gardens now, but what they sounded like back then and up close was soft and voice-like. I’d make them talk to me and then back away from the food so they could come and get it. They learned they couldn’t eat the cat food until they talked first. Sorta like magpies that way (I’ve raised baby magpies, but that’s another story). It sounds like words but isn’t. When they are that close you can see how huge they are.
Some people here in southern Canada don’t even know the difference between crows and ravens because they don’t pay attention. I have these frustrating conversations with the town folks. Rural folks are more likely to pay attention. Crows don’t seem to be self-aware, but ravens definitely are.
Every spring we trap Richardson’s ground squirrels because they eat every new sprout that pops up in the garden. Every year we put their little dead bodies out in a row on the ground. Every year the pair of bald eagles that have their nest down by the river fly up, land on the ground and walk over to the row of dead ground squirrels. I watch from the house with binoculars. When you see the eagles on the ground, walking like sumo wrestlers as their legs are so far apart, you can see what big birds they are, about three feet tall, because you can see them next to a piece of equipment or a water bucket or something you know is, say, three feet high. They walk back and forth, checking out the offering. They always choose the oldest and most decayed squirrel first. Then they will come back and choose the next oldest, etc., maybe the next day. My husband remarked that we should put little toe tags on the bodies to indicate “worst-before-date” and help the birds choose. There seems to be a never-ending supply of squirrels every year.
So I ask again, just what was it exactly that was wrong with hunting and gathering? Anyone here ever eaten Saskatoons?
November 14th, 2012 at 11:05 am
“Same as it ever was”…
So many humans as SO depraved and disgusting, why I chose that name, I wish to disassociate myself in any way I can….
This inexcusable and violently cruel festival has been taking place in Medinaceli since 1977 and has been accorded special cultural status by the authorities of Castile and Leon in Spain and the municipality of Medinaceli is applying for it to be awarded Intangible Cultural Heritage status by Unesco.
http://www.league.org.uk/blogpost/752/Horror-of-the-Fire-Bull-Festival
November 14th, 2012 at 12:09 pm
BC Prof: “…wrong with hunting and gathering?”
It was THE TEMPTATION of the euphoria of alcohol—”your eyes shall be opened” (Gen 3:5)—depicted by the fruit in the paleolithic Garden of Eden before Man’s Fall into the curse of laboring “by the sweat of they brow” (Gen 3:9) in agricultural civilization.
Possibly the euphoria of magic mushrooms (see “The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross” by John Marco Allegro) is a factor also, but alcohol was the reason humans started growing grain. And humans grew grain for a long time (1500 years or so) before we made bread.
Did a thirst for beer spark civilization? | The Independent (UK)
independent.co.uk/life-style/history/did-a-thirst-for-beer-spark-civilization-1869187.html
How Beer Created Civilization | Forbes
forbes.com/sites/frederickallen/2010/11/09/how-beer-created-civilization/
Why Intelligent People Drink More Alcohol: More intelligent people are more likely to binge drink and get drunk | Psychology Today
psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/201010/why-intelligent-people-drink-more-alcohol
November 14th, 2012 at 1:13 pm
BC nurse what a fine story. No ravens here. I know people who don’t know the difference between a robin and a cardinal or a blue jay and a blue bird. And then one time when I was talking about killing roosters because too many roosters was hard on the hens, a woman I worked with asked if all roosters were male. Ah well………..
Nothing wrong with being a hunter-gatherer – ever eaten a maypop? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passiflora_incarnata As an oldtimer around here said, looks like snot but tastes sweet and good. Bout right….
November 14th, 2012 at 1:28 pm
I have never eaten a maypop! I would if they grew here. Saskatoons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saskatoon_berries are native here, but I bought a hundred seedlings from a place in Alberta that grows the cultivars used by “U-pick” farms there. I have “Northline” and they are delicious. They are like blueberries but better tasting. I tried to make a deal with the local bears – they should eat the wild ones up the hill higher than the house, I get the ones lower than the house, by the road. Didn’t work. Seems they, too, like the fatter and jucier ones.
November 14th, 2012 at 1:57 pm
.
Well, speaking of eating fowl, I’m of the opinion many more people should be eating crow than is currently the case. The world would be a better place.
.
November 14th, 2012 at 1:58 pm
Kathy C: “I don’t think we have much in the way of free will”
“[I]t is not wrong to think that one can think, that we can mull over arguments, weigh the options, and sometimes come to a conclusion. After all, what are you doing now?”
Free Will Does Not Exist. So What?
by Paul Bloom (Yale University)
The Chronicle of Higher Education | March 18, 2012
http://chronicle.com/article/Paul-Bloom/131170/
November 14th, 2012 at 4:11 pm
An intelligent appraisal of chemtrails.
http://youtu.be/-o_8Dp0OoXI
November 14th, 2012 at 4:30 pm
MB, the original EPA/USDA forbade eating crow.
“Ye shall not eat of their flesh…Every raven after his kind.” ~Leviticus 11:11,15
Interestingly, the anthropologist Marvin Harris has applied his cultural materialism lens to such prohibitions and concludes:
“[T]he most important food aversions and food preferences of four major religions—Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Islam—are on balance favorable to the nutritional and ecological welfare of their followers.”
~Marvin Harris (1987) “The Sacred Cow and the Abominable Pig: Riddles of Food and Culture.” Simon & Schuster, NY.
November 14th, 2012 at 5:45 pm
.
Interesting presentation on Chemtrails:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Yg8FBnGXIk&feature=related
.
November 14th, 2012 at 7:21 pm
‘Ravens generally attack the faces of young livestock, but the more common Raven behavior of scavenging may be misidentified as predation by ranchers.[83]‘ -wikipedia raven article (i love wikipedia; so much info at my fingertips!)
i was enchanted by your comments on ravens and eagles, bc nurse prof (bcnp for short?). i didn’t know ravens were such large, intelligent, interesting birds who can mimic a wide variety of sounds including human language. didn’t know how playful they were. then i came to the wikipedia article quote above, and it connected with my recent observation of culturally ingrained human cruelty. it’s just a part of nature it seems: killing, predation, savagery. perhaps this is why what seems to be crazy and gratuitous cruelty, i.e. bullying, legal persecution of certain minorities and social outcasts, etc., is so common in civilized human cultures. the dark side of existence, an existence of dubious appeal imo. having great intelligence, insight, and empathy, this dark side of nature is troubling, nightmarish. too bad awareness can’t be free of pain and anguish. hmmm. i suppose this is why heaven/nirvana is imagined; an existence that is all light, pure bliss, without predation, bloodshed, savagery, cruelty.
anyway, to re-emphasize, interesting comment, bcnp. thank u, teacher.
November 14th, 2012 at 7:36 pm
THE RAVEN
OR, A Christmas Tale, Told by a School-boy to His Little Brothers and Sisters.
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1798)
Underneath an old oak tree
There was of swine a huge company
That grunted as they crunched the mast:
For that was ripe, and fell full fast.
Then they trotted away, for the wind grew high:
One acorn they left, and no more might you spy.
Next came a Raven, that liked not such folly:
He belonged, they did say, to the witch Melancholy!
Blacker was he than blackest jet,
Flew low in the rain, and his feathers not wet.
He picked up the acorn and buried it straight
By the side of a river both deep and great.
Where then did the Raven Go?
He went high and low,
Over hill, over dale, did the black Raven go.
Many Autumns, many Springs
Travelled he with wandering wings:
Many summers, many Winters–
I can’t tell half his adventures.
At length he came back, and with him a She
And the acorn was grown to a tall oak tree.
They built them a nest in the topmost bough,
And young ones they had, and were happy enow.
But soon came a Woodman in leathern guise,
His brow, like a pent-house, hung over his eyes.
He’d an axe in his hand, not a word he spoke,
But with many a hem! and a sturdy stroke,
At length he brought down the poor Raven’s own oak.
His young ones were killed; for they could not depart,
And their mother did die of a broken heart.
The boughs from the trunk the woodman did sever;
And they floated it down on the course of the river.
They sawed it in planks, and its bark they did strip,
And with this tree and others they made a good ship.
The ship, it was launched; but in sight of the land
Such a storm there did rise as no ship would withstand.
It bulged on a rock, and the waves rush’d in fast;
Round and round flew the Raven, and cawed to the blast.
He heard the last shriek of the perishing souls–
See! see! o’er the topmast the mad water rolls!
Right glad was the Raven, and off he went fleet,
And Death riding home on a cloud he did meet,
And he thank’d him again and again for this treat:
They had taken his all, and REVENGE IT WAS SWEET!
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Raven_(Coleridge)
November 14th, 2012 at 9:31 pm
TVT
I am English and Yorchichan is a made up name. I live in Thailand and the offer is open unless my circumstances change.
i think a lot of sheeple are quite offensive, quite willing to use force to impose their version of ‘morality’ on others. there’s nothing i can do to change that. what i, or anyone unhappy with life circumstances beyond one’s control, is to choose suicide as a means of escape, for that is something one can control. considering our predicament, opposing any means of voluntary population reduction at this point is absurd.
Most people who write here can be quite offensive too, including yourself when you use the term “sheeple”. Admittedly, I shouldn’t have written that anybody can turn their life around because there are many people for whom it is not possible. It is more difficult to turn one’s life around in the West at the moment than it has been for a long time due to the collapsing economy. Even in the “good times” for some people change would not have been an option. I don’t know you well enough to know if you want to change or can change. I was only trying to help.
I am not opposed to suicide but don’t wish to write anything more on my views because if you have suicidal thoughts I don’t want to encourage you. I don’t want to impose my morals on anyone; I’m not even comfortable telling my children to do their homework.
November 14th, 2012 at 10:54 pm
u’re still completely missing the point, yo. u write as if there’s nothing wrong with our world, as if anyone extremely unhappy with it is at fault and should want to change themselves in order to be happy. it’s not myself i’m unhappy with, it’s our world. and as for happiness, when collapse hits hard, it will be an increasingly rare commodity. happiness does not exist as an independent entity: it’s a product of one’s environment. this u shall see, if u live long enough.
November 14th, 2012 at 11:00 pm
as for taking offense at the term sheeple, i don’t care if it offends. it isn’t meant to offend. it’s simply met to convey the perception/surreality that civilization tames everyone just like livestock. if u’re civilized, u’ve been tamed, your inherent wildness, essence, freedom, have been curtailed. u have become a sherson, part of a herd of sheeple.
November 14th, 2012 at 11:08 pm
i tend to think there’s something wrong with anyone who isn’t unhappy with civilization, who doesn’t hate it enough to at least entertain suicidal thoughts sometimes. it’s fucked up, stupid, crazy, and cruel.
November 14th, 2012 at 11:33 pm
it’s fucked up, stupid, crazy, and cruel.
I’m with you, TVT.
I hear there are people who have never been suicidal even for a moment, but I don’t really understand them.
November 14th, 2012 at 11:37 pm
maybe i just hate people/sheeple. i hate being consumed with fear, loathing, loneliness, and despair, day after day after day, every day. for aware, supposedly intelligent beings, sheeple are awfully stupid. i hate belonging to a herd of morons, bringing on our own extinction, powerless as one individual among billions. i hate being powerless. hate fearing death and living like this. hate the absurd pointlessness of it.
November 15th, 2012 at 1:55 am
tvt
Agree with everything you say.
Except, have reached the point of shrugging acknowledgement,
has been a long journey to this:
It is the way it is.
And this makes me love and adore life as such even once more.
Peace.
November 15th, 2012 at 3:32 am
Welsh Permaculture
http://www.permaculture.org.uk/our-work/welsh-land-tir-dysgu
November 15th, 2012 at 3:49 am
Yorchichan you wrote “It is more difficult to turn one’s life around in the West at the moment than it has been for a long time due to the collapsing economy. Even in the “good times” for some people change would not have been an option. I don’t know you well enough to know if you want to change or can change. I was only trying to help.”
Not to pick on you but your assumption is that it is the one who is suicidal or depressed that needs to change, rather than the people or circumstances around them. The very words “know if you want to change” again are words that a depressed person might read as “I am a bad person or I wouldn’t be depressed”.
I speak here now not about TVT because I don’t know him enough to speak for him, but I will speak of myself because that is the person I know, as much as any of us can really know even ourselves.
I used to let my family use me because I wanted to be good and have everyone love me. Pent up inside where they could not see was a deep anger about being used. When with counseling I began to change and refuse being used, my family wanted the old me back even though that meant me being depressed. I have broken off relationships with the worst of the lot. But for one who let themselves be used so easily it is hard to keep fending off the new users who consciously or not recognize a usee. Sometimes standing up and fending them off triggers the old guilt feelings so much that it seems it would be better to just do or be who they want me to be, yet I know that reverting is worse. The “Nos” that others are able to say with ease, cost me. Were it not for my current husband, I would not be here.
I remember as a teen and young adult that I loved reading so much it was hard for me to put a book down, and among the authors I enjoyed was Leon Uris. Thus I had read many books about the sad state of human existence – The Good Earth by Pearl Buck was a revelation as to some of the trials in the lives of people of China. The Grapes of Wrath the same for the US. 1984 opened up the world of torture to my young mind. Milo 18 by Uris told how the Polish gentiles would not fight with the Polish jews even to save themselves. About half way through Uris’ book on Berlin, I suddenly couldn’t take it any more. Man’s inhumanity to man overwhelmed me, I put the book down mid read and for probably 20 years never read a book, novel or non-fiction that had anything to do with the dreadful nature of humanity.
Depression for people who don’t have rose colored glasses, for people who can see the world as it is, is a valid and honest state. 3 billion people live on less than $2 a day. Our country is allowing hard fought for rights slip away over an obvious lie – the official conspiracy of 911. Climate change is poised to bring most life on earth to an end. I found for 20 years I could look away, but once you have absorbed the truth about the state of the world you cannot put on the rose colored glasses. You cannot unsee these things once seen.
per wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism
Depressive realism is the proposition that people with depression actually have a more accurate perception of reality, specifically that they are less affected by positive illusions of illusory superiority, the locus of control and optimism bias.
November 15th, 2012 at 4:13 am
tvt,
++++++++1
“I hate belonging to a herd of morons” is just so great.
If I had been drinking coffee it would have come snorting out my nose!
November 15th, 2012 at 5:04 am
Pessimist by policy, optimist by temperament — it is possible to be both. How? By never taking an unnecessary chance and by minimizing risks you can’t avoid. This permits you to play out the game happily, untroubled by the certainty of the outcome.
~Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love
Live each golden moment as if it were eternity — without fear, without hope, but with a sybaritic gusto.
~Robert Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land
Grok?
November 15th, 2012 at 5:54 am
By “feelings of inferiority” we mean not only inferiority feelings in the strict sense but a whole spectrum of related traits; low self-esteem, feelings of powerlessness, depressive tendencies, defeatism, guilt, self-hatred, etc.
~Feelings of inferiority
Industrial Society and Its Future
http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/fc-industrial-society-and-its-future
When you put your hand on the stove and you feel pain, you reassess the wisdom of your choice and reverse course.
When you put a collectivist ideology in your head and it makes you feel psychological pain, what do you do?
November 15th, 2012 at 6:15 am
The private worry of US Marines in Afghanistan
AP foreign, Wednesday September 21 2011
CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA
Associated Press= FORWARD OPERATING BASE JACKSON, Afghanistan (AP) — It is a conversation, the military surgeon says, that every U.S. Marine has with his corpsman, the buddy who is first to treat him if he is wounded by an insurgent’s bomb.
The Marine says, “‘If I lose my manhood, then I don’t want to live through it,’” according to Navy Lt. Richard Whitehead, surgeon for 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, which is fighting in one of the most treacherous combat areas of Afghanistan.
“They ask us not to save them if their ‘junk’ gets blown off,” said Whitehead, using a slang term for genitals. “Usually, we laugh. We joke with them about it. At the same time, you know that you’re going to treat them anyway.”
This is a world of fear, resolve and dark humor that is mostly hidden from accounts of the human cost of the war in Afghanistan. American troops who patrol on foot in bomb-laced areas know they might lose a leg, or two, if they step in the wrong place. But for young men in their prime, most unmarried and without children, the prospect of losing their sexual organs seems even worse.
Whitehead said: “It’s one of the areas we can’t put a tourniquet on.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/9857623
Clearly the will to live is tied directly to the circumstances of life. And what constitutes unlivable circumstances vary from person to person. And since each life belongs to the person living it, it is theirs to say what conditions make when their inevitable end should come.
November 15th, 2012 at 6:23 am
Circumstances can force your hand. So think ahead!
~Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love
Clearly.
November 15th, 2012 at 7:09 am
.
The decision to take one’s life is a very serious issue….one not to be taken lightly. One of my first posts to this blog was a link to a PBS Program about suicide. In fact, it was titled The Suicide Tourist. Here’s the link:
http://video.pbs.org/video/1430431984/
Is this a choice everyone should have? That’s a question in the video. I have a problem with the word “everyone,” and here’s why. The individual in the video was dying of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, or more commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. He says that if he had other options, he would not do it. He truly did not have any other options, and if their is certainty in our shared reality, this is about as certain as one can be.
However, here’s the catch. From viewing this PBS offering, it seems clear to me that this individual is rational, and therefore his decision is an informed and rational decision. Apply the same to what is being discussed here. This is serious business. The End is being discussed, and a number of people here are concluding that they are certain of this. On top of that, and based off of that certainty, suicide is being proffered as an option. That’s all fine so far, and I agree that if things deteriorate to a point of horror, and you are of sound mind, and therefore your decision is informed, then suicide should be an option, and the state, or no authority for that matter, should be able to interfere with that informed consent, and the manner in which it is accomplished, if it is accomplished by commercial means via an organization that provides this service, so long as it is done commercially in a humane and dignified manner.
The operative word/phrase here is “informed.” People who are mentally ill, diagnosed or otherwise, are not in a position to make an informed decision as it relates to suicide. If vulnerable individuals, meaning they have some form of mental illness, say they’re bipolar for example, make there way to a blog that discusses the The End and offers suicide as an option, it can possibly serve as a trigger for that individual to take their life…..and the taking of that life in this example would not be an informed decision.
All of us here have a duty and responsibility to foresee that possibility and choose our words wisely with that in mind. If you’re honest about it, certainty takes on a whole new perspective. Your words have influence. Some real life people reading this blog and its comments, and perhaps even posting here, may be highly influenced by the vibe here, and if they are mentally/emotionally compromised and vulnerable, they could very well do something violent to themselves, or to others based on the certainty that The End is nigh. Do you want that on your conscience? I don’t, and when I adopt this perspective, I know I am not certain about the destiny of Humanity, or all Life on Earth.
Think of it like a pseudo Milgram experiment. A lethal injection system is hooked up to someone who is mentally/emotionally compromised who wished to commit suicide and the button to activate it is placed before you. You are asked a simple question, and your answer to that question will determine whether that person injects, or doesn’t. The question is, are you certain about The End as it has been described? If you answer yes, and hit the yes button, the lethal cocktail is released into the person’s blood stream and within minutes, they are gone. If you answer no, the cocktail is not released, and the person lives….for now. Sure, the person can still take their life at any time thereafter, but at least it won’t be because of you, and maybe in the meantime, you can help that person find appropriate treatment for their mental illness, and thus enable them to make more informed decisions in the future.
That being said, incessant bleating about the certainty of the extinction of Humanity in the next thirty years and nonchalance about suicide in the face of that discussion is not only not constructive for those who are reading and posting who are at risk, it’s rather cruel and unempathic.
.
November 15th, 2012 at 7:27 am
Kathy C
This article raises the ridiculousness within the war industry to a new high. Soldiers more afraid of loosing their balls (and giving up their life then) than with what they are doing to a people in yet another country, bombing and killing them, whilst defending, yeah, whatever..
But look there’s fantasy in this. The sickness industry can join in, find so ever concerned doctors to diagnose another sickness, the “fear of balls loss disease” and treat this with another outdated pharmaceutical drug so them soldiers can keep on marching without fear.
None the less,
Peace.
November 15th, 2012 at 7:52 am
The whole soceity, the whole culture, is mentally ill, otherwise it would not be destroying the future of its own children and grand children. What could be madder than that ?
A sane soceity, a sane culture, would be cherishing this Earth, not trashing it. The ones who are convinced of their own sanity and rationality are maddest of all, the leaders who lie and cheat and exploit everything and everyone for their own advantage, for power and for money.
None of us asked to be born. We did not have a choice to enter this world. To insist that people must stay here, even if they find it intolerable and unbearable, is just adding additional brutality and cruelty to a brutal and insane system.
Unfortunately it is often the nicest, most sensitive, gentlest ones that find living the hardest. The callous ignorant idiots don’t even notice most of what goes on.
That doesn’t mean I am encouraging anyone to take their own life. I had a friend who did the Samaritans ( suicide helpline ) for several years, which meant having a phone beside the bed all night and being woken by calls from distressed people and spending hours listening to them. He said that the variety was enormous, there is no single typical individual. Teenagers worried about exams, businessmen going broke, people having illicit affairs, drug addicts and alcoholics, people with incurable diseases, rich, poor, educated and uneducated, on and on. Just a slice through the whole population.
I’d recommend anyone who finds life unbearable to follow the Buddha’s path, because it wholly concerned with suffering and how to find a way through suffering. But, ultimately, IMO, any individual is the owner of their own life, and if they decide to end it, then that’s their own choice and right, and should be respected.
November 15th, 2012 at 8:12 am
To insist that people must stay here
Nobody is insisting “people must stay;” to assert such is a straw-man fallacy.
But there are those who persist in advocating Mandatory Melancholia, and disparage those who doesn’t share in the collective “powerlessness, depressive tendencies, defeatism, guilt, self-hatred” of Leftist ideology.
if they decide to end it, then that’s their own choice
I concur with your individualist perspective.
November 15th, 2012 at 8:24 am
Nobody is insisting “people must stay;” to assert such is a straw-man fallacy.
Not a straw man in UK. Nobody here has the legal right to take their own life, and anyone assisting or advising them to do so is committing a crime. Ergo, the soceity insists the individual remains alive, regardless of their suffering or circumstances.
It’s not as bad as it used to be, but that has only changed during my life time.
“Self-murder” became a crime under common law in England in the mid-13th Century, but long before that it was condemned as a mortal sin in the eyes of the Church.
For a death to be declared a “Felo de se”, Latin for “felon of himself”, an old legal term for suicide, it had to be proved the person was sane.
If proven, they were denied a Christian burial – and instead carried to a crossroads in the dead of night and dumped in a pit, a wooden stake hammered through the body pinning it in place. There were no clergy or mourners, and no prayers were offered.
But punishment did not end with death. The deceased’s family were stripped of their belongings and they were handed to the Crown.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14374296
November 15th, 2012 at 8:34 am
“Self-murder”
If you’re merely critiquing archaic United Kingdom law, then I concede you have a valid point; however, suicide is presently legal in the UK according to this article:
Suicide is legal, helping someone to die is not. Must the law be changed?
The Independent (UK) | Sunday 28 June 2009
independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/suicide-is-legal-helping-someone-to-die-is-not-must-the-law-be-changed-1722465.html
November 15th, 2012 at 8:47 am
Suicide being ‘legal’, i.e. not illegal, is not the same thing as ‘having the legal right’. If a person wants to end their life, they have to have the means to travel to Switzerland.
http://www.dignitas.ch/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=20&lang=en
November 15th, 2012 at 9:01 am
“I’d recommend anyone who finds life unbearable to follow the Buddha’s path”
While I acknowledge the sincerity of religious proselytizers, the Path of Jesus is just as valid a practice to ease suffering, and much more accessible in Western culture.
Access to quality suffering management practices is an issue, just as accessibility is in healthcare.
“Religion is the opium of the people.” ~Karl Marx
Suits me. Pass me a hit on the Jesus(or Buddha, hardly any difference anyway) pipe that isn’t physically addictive.
November 15th, 2012 at 9:17 am
I’m not proselytizing buddhism. I’m addressing the problem of human suffering, which is something entirely different. The whole message of the Buddha, the entire reason for his teaching, is/was concerned with the problem of human suffering. It is a rigorous and thorough philosophical analysis of why humans suffer and what they can do about it.
You may claim that there is ‘hardly any difference between Jesus and Buddha’ and that ‘Christianity is more accessible’, but I do not accept either claim.
November 15th, 2012 at 9:33 am
You may claim that there is ‘hardly any difference between Jesus and Buddha’ and that ‘Christianity is more accessible’, but I do not accept either claim.
1. It’s not my personal claim that there is hardly any difference between Jesus and Buddha; I reference scholarly material, as summarized here:
/wiki/Parallels_between_Gautama_Buddha_and_Jesus
/wiki/Buddhism_and_Christianity
jesusisbuddha.com
Fundamentalist adherents to either tend to discount the many parallels, while they accentuate the differences. That’s fine; it is difficult to be inclusive.
/wiki/Inclusivism
2. Count the Christian churches (or practicing Christians) in Wales. Count the Buddhist temples (or practicing Buddhists.) If my guess is correct, Christianity offers much better accessibility.
/wiki/Accessibility
November 15th, 2012 at 9:53 am
A person can be a Buddhist and a Christian, and a Buddhist and a Marxist. The Buddha’s teaching is not incompatible with other beliefs, because what the Buddha was primarily concerned with is human suffering, not with setting up some sort of exclusive club for members only.
Wales is a post-religious soceity, as is the UK generally. If someone wishes to learn about buddhist teaching, there are hundreds of buddhist centres, it’s all easily available to anyone, just as much as Christianity and many other belief systems. Anyway, all that’s needed is an internet connection.
November 15th, 2012 at 10:04 am
I watched the video on suicide. there is one thing with which i do not agree. it is when they are in the park and he says that he will die but the rest (nature around him at that moment) will continue to live. I know it is not true. the first unmistakably remarquable change in my environment that i personnaly noticed was the presence of strange clouds veiling the sun in the sky from air traffic almost permanently from 2007. then, there was the first huge outbreak of sickness (fungus) in trees in 2008 that got worse every year since. this to say that in the video, because i am trained to recognize the very symptoms of mass destruction of trees by tropospheric ozone caused by burning fossil fuels (that is fast happening all over the world), I saw those symptoms every time there was vegetation filmed in the video. tropospheric ozone acts by weakening the immune systems of the plants to the point where they become vulnerable to all forms of insects and deseases (because insect’s job is to dispose of sick and dead trees).
now, i see the signs of decay in every image filmed anywhere in the world and it is progressing very very fast at this point. the million trees of all kinds and ages that fell from Sandy did not fall from the wind (that was far from strong enough to do the massive damage it did to the trees), but from combined winds and rot (it is absolutely clear in the thousands pictures taken from the storm, the trees are down on their sides with no roots attached and often empty and rotten inside).
the damage is done, the roots ARE going or GONE, and the trees are condemned. short term. short short term. Gail from wit’s end (new jersey) sent me pictures of leaves taken a few days ago and no way those trees are going to produce leaves next spring. can we humans continue to live with no trees?
November 15th, 2012 at 10:10 am
the Buddha was primarily concerned with is human suffering
It is the same with Jesus, who is not significantly different from Buddha.
/wiki/Parallels_between_Gautama_Buddha_and_Jesus
/wiki/Buddhism_and_Christianity
jesusisbuddha.com
Which is why The Buddhist symbol of the eight-spoked wheel is also found in Saint Peter’s Plaza in Vatican.
The various religions founded after civilization became established to alleviate the suffering of civilization all have the same root, and are about as different as the several breeds of dogs: Collies and German Shepards may think they’re different, and they are slightly different, but not by much.
Which is why Daniel Quinn (author of Ishmael and The Story of B) writes:
“To you, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism look very different, but to me they look the same. Many of you would say that something like Buddhism doesn’t even belong on the list, since it doesn’t link salvation to divine worship, but to me this is just a quibble. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism all perceive human beings as flawed, wounded creatures in need of salvation, and all rely fundamentally on revelations that spell out how salvation is to be attained, either by departing from this life or rising above it.”
November 15th, 2012 at 10:15 am
“all that’s needed is an internet connection”
Should one’s spiritual path to reducing suffering be dependent on oil?
“It’s just not sustainable…”
Power, Pollution and the Internet
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/technology/data-centers-waste-vast-amounts-of-energy-belying-industry-image.html
November 15th, 2012 at 10:23 am
Gail from wit’s end
She’s quite perceptive.
continue to live with no trees
About as well as the survivors where the great cedar forests of Lebanon and Syria once stood, what was once a Fertile Crescent.
November 15th, 2012 at 10:28 am
.
Both Buddhism and Christianity are responses by the System to allegedly remedy the suffering caused by the System. There is no way to verify that these two System-generated remedies for suffering actually do as they claim, other than testimony given by their adherents, except, since it’s a cult of sorts, the adherents are of course going to claim that their faith alleviated their suffering. A stronger argument can be made, and has been made, that religions of any stripe, to include Buddhism, have enabled and perpetuated the suffering of Civilization precisely because they lay the blame at the feet of the downtrodden, and disempower the downtrodden from returning to personal sovereignty. There is much written about this as it relates to Christianity, but amongst Liberals, Buddhism often gets a pass. Parenti obliterates that pass.
http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html
.
November 15th, 2012 at 10:51 am
FRANKFURT — Global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2011 rose 2.5% to 34 billion tonnes, a new record, Germany’s renewable energy institute said on Tuesday.
The IWR, which advises German ministries, cited recovered industrial activity after the end of the global economic crisis of recent years.
“If the current trend is sustained, worldwide CO2 emissions will go up by another 20 percent to over 40 billion tonnes by 2020,” IWR director Norbert Allnoch said.
http://business.financialpost.com/2012/11/13/world-2011-co2-emissions-up-2-5-report/
Say, Ozman, how’s the weather down under right now? Hot? Are the wheat growing regions of Oz getting enough rain?
November 15th, 2012 at 10:56 am
Buddhism was founded 2,500 years ago, upon a Hindu base that was several thousand years older. To talk about it as a ‘response to The System’ show a complete lack of understanding of historical context. The human suffering that buddhism addresses is the perennial human suffering that people have endured ever since they evolved.
…the adherents are of course going to claim that their faith alleviated their suffering.
‘Faith’ does not have any place in buddhism. Buddhism is empirical and pragmatic. The final teaching of the Buddha was, to the effect that, ‘Try and and if it doesn’t work, reject it. Don’t accept anything just because I said it’.
What’s more, there is solid indisputable scientific support for buddhist claims that has been demonstrated for decades, so anyone dismissing buddhism is simultaneously dismissing science.
Anyway, I am not the least bit interested in trying to change the minds of Morocco Bama or Ivy Mike. They are both welcome to suffer as much as they want. My recommendation regarding buddhism was directed towards anyone who contemplated suicide as a result of intolerable suffering.
http://youtu.be/NFS0dZSTPLg
November 15th, 2012 at 10:58 am
.
And Germany’s answer to that, as is witnessed by its actions toward Greece and Spain, is to take it out of the hides of the downtrodden, and make more downtrodden, while further enriching the Plutocrats.
.
November 15th, 2012 at 11:00 am
.
The System is Civilization….and it’s been with us Humans for 10,000 to 12,000 years now.
.
November 15th, 2012 at 11:18 am
Paul Beckwith’s latest blog post:
http://www.sierraclub.ca/en/Climate2.0
November 15th, 2012 at 11:25 am
“perennial human suffering”
That is a Hobbesian viewpoint popular within agricultural civilization; however, it is contradicted by anthropology and history.
They suffer, although perhaps only fractionally… ~Marshall Sahlins, The Original Affluent Society
“The life of an Indian is a continual holiday…” ~Thomas Paine
There was a great increase in human suffering upon man’s descent into agricultural civilization, which is why salvationist religions—Hinduism Buddhism, Judaism, and derivatives—were all invented about the same time.
I like Daniel Quinn’s take on the history of religious evolution within civilization:
Signs of distress: 1400-0 B.C.E.
…For the first time in history, people began listening to religious teachers who promised them salvation.
It’s impossible to overstate the novelty of this idea of salvation. Religion had been around in our culture for thousands of years, of course, but it had never been about salvation as we understand it or as the people of this period began to understand it. Earlier gods had been talismanic gods of kitchen and crop, mining and mist, house painting and herding, stroked at need like lucky charms, and earlier religions had been state religions, part of the apparatus of sovereignty and governance (as is apparent from their temples, built for royal ceremonies, not for popular public devotions).
Judaism, Brahmanism, Hinduism, Shintoism, and Buddhism all came into being during this period and had no existence before it. Quite suddenly, after six thousand years of totalitarian agriculture and civilization building, the people of our culture — East and West, twins of a single birth — were beginning to wonder if their lives made sense, were beginning to perceive a void in themselves that economic success and civil esteem could not fill, were beginning to imagine that something was profoundly, even innately, wrong with them.
Signs of distress: 0-1200 C.E.
…Adherents tend to concentrate on the differences between these religions, but I concentrate on their agreements, which are as follows: The human condition is what it is, and no amount of effort on your part will change that; it’s not within your power to save your people, your friends, your parents, your children, or your spouse, but there is one person (and only one) you can save, and that’s you. Nobody can save you but you, and there’s nobody you can save but yourself. You can carry the word to others and they can carry the word to you, but it never comes down to anything but this, whether it’s Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, or Islam: Nobody can save you but you, and there’s nobody you can save but yourself.
THE BOILING FROG
by Daniel Quinn
Excerpt from the book, “The Story of B”
http://www.oilcrash.com/articles/frog.htm
November 15th, 2012 at 11:26 am
Bernhard you wrote “This article raises the ridiculousness within the war industry to a new high. Soldiers more afraid of loosing their balls (and giving up their life then) than with what they are doing to a people in yet another country, bombing and killing them, whilst defending, yeah, whatever..”
But in fact some of those soldiers are concerned about what they are doing to people in another country. But unlike Vietnam, once in the service they can be deployed multiple times – and many are in only because they could not get jobs elsewhere. There are options for getting out of duty that some take, but the military doesn’t make it easy.
Suicide Is Now the Leading Cause of Death Amongst Active-Duty Soldiers http://gawker.com/5937258/suicide-is-now-the-leading-cause-of-death-amongst-active+duty-soldiers In other words among the deployed more die at their own hand than from the “enemy”. And the rate for vets is now about 18 a day. Some number of these are because of what they did while in Iraq or Afganistan.
I am in no way defending our military, I am just saying that the soldiers are often people caught up in a machine they don’t know how to exit. Not dissimilar to all of us caught up in a civilization we don’t know how to exit.
November 15th, 2012 at 11:30 am
“Ivy Mike…welcome to suffer as much as they want.”
Who perennially complains of suffering more, you or me?
November 15th, 2012 at 11:37 am
The System is Civilization….and it’s been with us Humans for 10,000 to 12,000 years now.
And how long have humans been suffering ? From illness and disease, from bereavement and loss, from hunger and fear, from dissatisfaction, loneliness, envy, jealousy, etc, etc ?
Maybe a million years, depending how ‘human’ is to be defined and how ‘consciousness’ is to be defined.
Civilisation may have begun with the first cities, in Mesopotamia, 8 or 10 thousand years ago. It didn’t spread to the rest of the Earth for a long, long time, and the system, The Matrix, as now exists, the nexus of globalised industrialism, capitalism, science, imperialism, population overshoot, etc, is much more recent still.
To compare present day with India 2,500 years ago, is patently absurd and has no bearing upon the teachings of the Buddha in any case.
Take away civilisation and billions of people will be dead in short order. The only thing worse than that, in terms of suffering, is to keep it going, until the biosphere collapses and humans and most other life forms become extinct.
It’s not a good v. bad, or a right v. wrong, it’s either the one catastrophe or the other.
November 15th, 2012 at 11:38 am
Did hurricane Sandy cause the earthquake off Haida Gwaii?
http://arctic-news.blogspot.ca/2012/11/did-sandy-trigger-major-earthquakes-off-vancouver.html
November 15th, 2012 at 11:40 am
Arctic Ice set to collapse in 2015.
http://arctic-news.blogspot.ca/2012/11/arctic-sea-ice-set-to-collapse-in-2015.html
November 15th, 2012 at 11:42 am
Wolfbird ulvfugl
http://wildancestors.blogspot.co.at/2012/10/dont-sleep.html
Suffering?
November 15th, 2012 at 11:57 am
Bernhard: This is a wonderful description, echoed by Jared Diamond re: New Guinea highlanders. The only question I have is how they kept their population numbers from getting too high for their environment to support. In New Guinea, they did it by infanticide. Do you have any idea about this?
November 15th, 2012 at 12:01 pm
Who perennially complains of suffering more, you or me?
What do you think ?
My main complaint here – which has not been ‘perennial’, you obviously don’t know what the word means – has been directed towards trolls and idiots who cannot conduct an intelligent adult conversation, but who post self-indulgent infantile nonsense and inflammatory jibes to deliberately wreck this blog.
November 15th, 2012 at 12:10 pm
Bernhard, thanks, yes, I have read it before.
So, how does a person find that sort of pleasurable carefree existence, in modern oppressive social circumstances that lead people to become depressed and even suicidal ?
That is the problem that I was speaking to, by suggesting the buddhist path.
Those people have it naturally as part of their cultural heritage. Nobody I have ever encountered in this country, and in Europe, has that as their legacy. So, to find their way to bliss and serenity is much more difficult.
November 15th, 2012 at 12:10 pm
ulvfugl “trolls and idiots…self-indulgent infantile nonsense and inflammatory jibes”
Thanks for once again proving who cannot courteously debate a subject that they bring up, and who stoops to insults.
Even Guy finally figured you out, and removed one of your worst posts last thread.
But I wasn’t talking about that sort of contrived “suffering” that you normally complain about nearly every day I’ve been posting in the comments.
If you think that you can postulate claims about your religion in public without being critiqued in public, perhaps it is you “who cannot conduct an intelligent adult conversation.”
November 15th, 2012 at 12:14 pm
BC Nurse Prof, re Jared Diamond, Annie on my own blog, recently posted several pieces where Diamond is accused of many distortions and errors, to the extent, I believe, that legal action has been taken against him. For example :
http://www.imediaethics.org/News/170/Rebutting_jared_diamonds_savage_portrait__.php
November 15th, 2012 at 12:16 pm
And here
http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/category/jared-diamond/
November 15th, 2012 at 12:21 pm
Thanks for once again proving who cannot courteously debate a subject that they bring up, and who stoops to insults.
Even Guy finally figured you out, and removed one of your worst posts last thread.
But I wasn’t talking about that sort of contrived “suffering” that you normally complain about nearly every day I’ve been posting in the comments.
If you think that you can postulate claims about your religion in public without being critiqued in public, perhaps it is you “who cannot conduct an intelligent adult conversation.”
I have, as yet, said nothing discourteous, not have I insulted anyone.
Nor have I said anything about ‘my religion’. I have recommended, to anyone who suffers, that they study what the Buddha taught. People are completely at liberty to accept or reject that suggestion.
November 15th, 2012 at 12:39 pm
Nice article, Sherry. The way you handled your summons to jury duty was revolutionary.
November 15th, 2012 at 12:50 pm
To claim, as Morocco Bama did, that buddhism is a ‘faith’ response to ‘Civilisation’, or as Ivy Mike did, that it’s ‘almost the same as Christianity’, is obviously untrue and incorrect.
As I have already stated, and there’s masses of easily accessible documentation and videos to confirm, the claims of the Buddha are supported and substantiated by modern neuroscience, so any rejection is a rejection of the scientific evidence.
Neither Morocco Bama nor Ivy Mike are being required or obliged to accept anything that I say, nobody is compelling anyone to ‘become a buddhist’.
Both individuals, as all other people, are free to suffer as much as they choose. For those who are weary of pain and find life too hard, the Buddha provided a map, a way, a path. Here is a very brief synopsis.
“I teach suffering, its origin, cessation and path. That’s all I teach”, declared the Buddha 2500 years ago.
The Four Noble Truths contain the essence of the Buddha’s teachings. It was these four principles that the Buddha came to understand during his meditation under the bodhi tree.
The truth of suffering (Dukkha)
The truth of the origin of suffering (Samudāya)
The truth of the cessation of suffering (Nirodha)
The truth of the path to the cessation of suffering (Magga)
The Buddha is often compared to a physician. In the first two Noble Truths he diagnosed the problem (suffering) and identified its cause. The third Noble Truth is the realisation that there is a cure.
The fourth Noble Truth, in which the Buddha set out the Eightfold Path, is the prescription, the way to achieve a release from suffering.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/buddhism/beliefs/fournobletruths_1.shtml
November 15th, 2012 at 1:04 pm
.
Some suffering is a good thing, although in its proper context, it wouldn’t even be imagined or acknowledged as suffering. Read Richard Reese’s latest book review to underscore this. Without the wolves to keep us honest, a different type of acknowledged and conscious suffering sets in….the suffering resulting from enclosure and and entrapment brought to you by Civilization, and more importantly, Symbolization as Zerzan so aptly indicates. What we did, and are doing, to the wolves, we are doing to ourselves, but the System is clever….it doesn’t spin it that way, and so people are indoctrinated to not see it that way, and each year they add to their lives, the difficult journey to knowing that, becomes all the more difficult to complete if one is so inclined…and many aren’t…inclined.
.
November 15th, 2012 at 1:09 pm
Teh Interwebs discusses religion:
http://cheezburger.com/6761386496
November 15th, 2012 at 1:21 pm
BC Nurse Prof, thanks for the smile. I maintain that ‘religion’ is a spurious category. It was invented by eurocentric academics, in 18th and 19th centuries, as they peered out at the rest of the world and tried to make sense of, to them, the rather strange and bizarre behaviours they observed amongst other cultures.
For Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, the term ‘religion’ makes no sense. There is only Dharma, or its equivalent, which is the totality of the flow of life.
I think it is much better to think in terms of belief systems, or similar more or less synonymous, terms, worldviews, cosmologies, mind sets, meta-narratives, etc.
November 15th, 2012 at 1:23 pm
.
Of course, there’s always psychiatry. It helped me save my mother’s life. She’s 83 and bipolar. She had a very nasty manic bout about five years ago….when Obama was campaigning for his first term. She was living with my brother at the time, and he has train tracks that run behind his house…..don’t ask….and my mother thought Obama was the Anti-Christ and that the train that had parked itself just outside my brother’s back door was a whistle stop for the campaigning Obama and they were there to kill my mother. She freaked and locked herself in the bathroom and considered my brother, his wife, and children to be agents for Obama…even though they are diehard Repubs and were firmly for McCain. He somehow managed to get her to the psychiatric clinic near his home, but she did try to throw herself out of the car whilst he was on the highway. She’s a Christian, so that didn’t help, nor do I think my brother setting her up with an internet connection to learn about Buddhism would have helped, or even some quiet time and gardening. What did help was a good psychiatrist and meds. I have overseen her care since then because my brother was neglectful in keeping an eye on her and he let her slip into the abyss. She hasn’t had a relapse since. No Buddhism, no Christianity….but believe it, or not, plenty of Fox News…and her trusty meds. I don’t like it as much as the next person, but in her case, and cases like hers, they do work.
Anyhow, I consider collapse the next frontier, and as such, I think a new field of psychology should open up in anticipation of it. Let’s call it Frontier Psychology.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8BWBn26bX0
.
November 15th, 2012 at 1:29 pm
Religion is like a penis. It’s fine to have one and it’s fine to be proud of it, but please don’t whip it out in public and start waving it around.
But if you do whip it out in public, please don’t tell me that’s not what it is.
ulvfugl one minute: “Nor have I said anything about ‘my religion’”.
ulvfugl the next minute: “bbc.co.uk/RELIGION/RELIGIONS/BUDDHISM/beliefs/fournobletruths_1.shtml”
Oh well, par for the course:
ulvfugl 12:01 pm: “…trolls and idiots..self-indulgent infantile” nonsense…”
ulvfugl 12:21 pm: “…nor have I insulted anyone.”
November 15th, 2012 at 1:54 pm
I think it will be clear to everyone who reads this blog, that you, Ivy Mike, are intent upon baiting me, rather than engage in constructive dialogue.
Anyone who reads this thread can see that what I have said here, is a recommendation to people who are disheartened, discouraged, despairing, even tempted to give up and kill themselves, that there is an option available which is to take a look at the Buddha’s teaching. That is because I feel an obligation of compassion towards those who in distress.
I have not said anything about ‘my religion’, because that is the truth. I have said NOTHING whatsoever about ‘my religion’.
I have been pointing people towards classical buddhism. That is not ‘my religion’. If someone happened to ask me about my personal belief system, I would not refer them to the BBC definition of buddhism. That is NOT ‘my religion’.
I have shown you the respect of replying to your comments. As you are not willing to reciprocate in good faith, I shall return to my previous position and ignore your replies henceforth.
November 15th, 2012 at 1:58 pm
Off topic, with apologies to Sherry and thanks for her excellent essay: What Really Happened When Lehman Failed … And Why Spain Will Be Much Worse
November 15th, 2012 at 2:10 pm
you, Ivy Mike, are intent upon baiting me
You need to take personal responsibility for your own public conduct.
ulvfugl 12:01 pm: “…trolls and idiots..self-indulgent infantile” nonsense…”
ulvfugl 12:21 pm: “…nor have I insulted anyone.”
Ah, you’re going to ignore me. What is this, your Public Proclamation XVI by now? Can you stick to it this time?
November 15th, 2012 at 2:30 pm
I thought that the Lehman’s thing, as outlined there, was fairly well understood, as common knowledge ?
Commentators have been predicting a financial implosion for a few years now, yet somehow the system staggers on and on.
As I understand it, that’s because it is basically a Ponzi scheme, like pyramid selling, of the kind that Amway do. Money, in one of its guises, is just tokens, and the people at the apex of the pyramid can create as many as they want, out of nothing.
So, they keep on sending more tokens down the pyramid, which only finally collapses when people finally see them as worthless…
So long as someone, somewhere, still wants dollars, or yen, or euros, etc, they still retain some value….
Yes, there can be some more collapses of major banks, and a great many people can be ruined, but the rich and powerful want to keep it going, so they’ll keep patching it together, whatever it takes… until they can’t… no ?
November 15th, 2012 at 3:16 pm
I concur, ulvfugl. The cruise ship struck the iceberg, and the band will keep playing until the ship is completely submerged.
November 15th, 2012 at 3:19 pm
The whole financial system is a game of claims like musical chairs. There are 100 chairs, and 100 people with about 1,000 paper claims on those chairs.
Still, the 100 chairs remain. There are plenty for everybody to sit down and rest. Problem is when 10 players claim 90 of the chairs. Then the riots start and the chairs get broken.
But who needs chairs anyway?
November 15th, 2012 at 3:43 pm
I concur, ulvfugl. The cruise ship struck the iceberg, and the band will keep playing until the ship is completely submerged.
Ah, so to extend the metaphor, floating further off topic, the ‘superior person’ ( of the I Ching ) would see the situation with perfect clarity, and resort to a more appropriate craft, such as, one of the most sublime, exquisite, efficient and elegant of all human technologies ever, the kayak…
http://www.traditionalkayaks.com/Kayakreplicas/types.html
November 15th, 2012 at 3:54 pm
Game theory suggests current climate negotiations won’t avert catastrophe
November 15th, 2012 at 4:06 pm
kayak = fallout shelter on a rural homestead
Gen. Nikolai Makarov, chief of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, cautioned over NATO’s expansion…”risen sharply…conflicts may develop into a full-scale war involving nuclear weapons.”
businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9R2I9480.htm
Great metaphor, ulvfugl; 36″ of good earth between you and ionizing radiation is sublime indeed.
“It is 5 minutes to midnight.” ~Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
thebulletin.org/content/doomsday-clock/
November 15th, 2012 at 4:20 pm
This is also off topic. The essay is excellent, but speaks for itself, so there is not much to say about it.
Anyway, here is a link to a clip of a U.S. Senator talking about on the possibility of the climate warming by 8 degrees:
http://agonist.org/bernie-sanders-climate-change-must-be-a-priority/
This is the most or really the only left-wing member of the US Senate, so he is a bit of an outlier, and its rare to see his views on a major network.
However, I have to admit that he talks as if the consequences of an 8 degree rise was “more hurricanes”. I was pretty sure it meant the extinction of the more complex forms of life on the planet!
November 15th, 2012 at 4:27 pm
BC Nurse Prof,
Saskatoons:
They are serviceberries here. Same thing. Some people call them Sarvis berries. We pick them every year and use them for pies, jam, frozen on our cereal, and popped into our mouths right off the bushes. We had an especially good crop this year (all wild of course). I had not heard that anyone would be selling domesticated cultivars. It seems at first blush like someone from this area buying buying a Douglas fir to plant in the yard when the forest is filled with them. Of course, on second thought, all of our fruits came from the wild originally. I remember reading how the locals of Maine reacted when the Nearings planted hybrid blueberries for a cash crop, i.e., “What would you do that for when blueberries grow wild everywhere?” Your “Northline” variety sounds great. Our serviceberries sure aren’t sweeter than blueberries, nor as juicy. My wife would say they aren’t anywhere near as good tasting either, although I really like them. Just because the are the same size and same color as blueberries there is no reason to think they should taste same, but people always make that comparison–same with huckleberries.
Michael Irving
November 15th, 2012 at 6:01 pm
Buddhism and ecology both refuse to separate the human and natural worlds – and demand that we act accordingly
November 15th, 2012 at 6:01 pm
the virgin terry,
As you know, without predators herbivores likely would breed until they had over populated their habitat and would all starve. Also, by culling the weak and sick the predator strengthens the genetic makeup of the herbivore population. Extending the term from a biological to a social context changes it. Equating the nature of predators, such as lions (who kill to eat and are part of the natural functioning of an ecosystem) to the rapaciousness of humans (who are smart enough to know better) is not an exact fit. A member of the 1% that you might describe as being a predator behaves more like a weasel in a hen house, killing every one of the hens–not to eat, just for the sake of killing. That kind of killing, by the weasel, is outside the norm for nature’s predators. The behavior of the predatory 1% should be considered outside the bounds of morality for humans and they should be shunned. Instead we give them the reins and allow them to control our destiny, likely ending in our extinction.
Speaking of which, did you note that Obama is crowing about the 17 % reduction in emissions below 2005 levels we will achieve in the US by 2020 (suspending the idea that none of us will make it to 2020). That is a whopping 3% reduction from 1990 levels. How is it that the UK is already 18% below 1990 levels and expects to be 34% below by 2020 (again suspending the idea of an extinction event). Obama also noted that nothing he does will negatively effect the economy, i.e., if it starts to sting a little we’ll back off our commitment.
Whoopee! we’re all gonna die. (Country Joe and The Fish)
Michael Irving
November 15th, 2012 at 6:12 pm
@Michael Irving:
“did you note that Obama is crowing about the 17 % reduction in emissions below 2005 levels we will achieve in the US by 2020″
He knows it will be because consumption will be, and has already been, drastically reduced by economic distress. But he’ll want to take the credit for the reduction in emissions while still blaming the distress on the Republicans. Huh??
To BC NP and MI: I had a serviceberry pop up in my back yard during the initial makeover into a permaculture system. I concur with your wife, Michael, that what is on my bush is not something I would ordinarily seek out. However, famine can rapidly change my perspective. Also, I discovered that there are several chokecherry trees growing on the north side of my property, as well as raspberry canes I did not plant. The birds are busy.
November 15th, 2012 at 6:30 pm
This study considers the relationship between a global systemic banking, monetary and solvency
crisis and its implications for the real-time flow of goods and services in the globalised economy. It
outlines how contagion in the financial system could set off semi-autonomous contagion in supply-
chains globally, even where buyers and sellers are linked by solvency, sound money and bank
intermediation. The cross-contagion between the financial system and trade/production networks
is mutually reinforcing.
It is argued that in order to understand systemic risk in the globalised economy, account must be
taken of how growing complexity (interconnectedness, interdependence and the speed of
processes), the de-localisation of production and concentration within key pillars of the globalised
economy have magnified global vulnerability and opened up the possibility of a rapid and large-
scale collapse. ‘Collapse’ in this sense means the irreversible loss of socio-economic complexity
which fundamentally transforms the nature of the economy. These crucial issues have not been
recognised by policy-makers nor are they reflected in economic thinking or modelling.
http://www.feasta.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Trade-Off1.pdf
November 15th, 2012 at 8:43 pm
In my opinion, one of the greatest books written about suicide, is Camus’s “The Myth of Sisyphus”. For those who haven’t read it, the summation is simple: Life is nothing more than an endless series of suffering, hence Sisyphus. Camus concludes that the only way out of this suffering, is to relish in whatever boulder one decides to indefinitely push uphill.
The obvious difference between today, and the early 1940′s when the book was published, are the factors contributing to “the absurd”. Something tells me, that if Camus were still among the living, where the contributing factors to our current absurdity, now include an additional five billion people, non-linear rates of change, triggered feedbacks, ocean acidification, nuclear proliferation, a collapsing Arctic……….etc, basically, every contributing factor to planetary collapse being in near exponential ascension, leading to the possibility of near term extinction (forgive the acronym NTE), he might have an entirely different perspective.
So, if the locus of this blog, is that of NTE–and honestly, how can it be anything else at this point–regardless of whether or not we agree, the topic of suicide, is going to be a permanent recurring theme. And rightly so. So we had all better get use to wrapping our minds around one of humanities greatest stigmas.
Suicide, as with literally everything in existence, is going to be utterly redefined very soon. I don’t think anyone here is advocating killing ourselves at this point, but if one does “accept” that our fate is truly sealed–and the degree of that acceptance is sine qua none for this debate–then our near term existence, will eventually constitute one of three options: Predation, starvation or suicide. And of those three, the latter, in almost in every regard, the most humane option. My personal motto: Kill yourself before you’re directly responsible for killing someone else.
What I am almost desperate to see, is a conversation about what signs others are looking for, in determining whether they accept NTE or not.
Guy dropped a series of mind bombs, and I believe many of us are still shell shocked, given we’ve been forced to concluded a similar scenario over the last couple of years ourselves.
One of many associative dilemmas with NTE, is attempting to remain productive, while having to contemplate the near end of everything. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m having a terrible time focusing on………………..well, anything else in my life!
I personally don’t even know if Guy subscribes to NTE in less than twenty years. I know there are some who believe this to be true, but put it at a later date (2050). Some see it as inevitable but refrain from assigning an exact date. Some see it as possible, but see no need to contemplate such a dire scenario without more definite proof. Like all things, the spectrum is wide, with limitless righteous cause to criticize others opinions. And given the severity of the subject, this is probably a good thing.
If ever we were going to seriously debate an issue, I can’t think of another event of more import than the reality of NTE.
So, all I can say at this point, is I am more than willing to accept any and all evidence proving NTE to not be an increasing reality, as well as, all evidence that NTE is going to occur within the next twenty years or so. Because I am in complete agreement with TVT, as things now stand, this interim reality is becoming impossible.
November 15th, 2012 at 8:54 pm
….this interim reality is becoming impossible.
More impossible for some than for others….
Zionists bombing civilians with jet fighters, filling the hospitals with dead, injured and traumatised men women children, all over again… no electricity, tanks invading across the border, Israelis phoning people to get their GPS coordinates so they can be zapped with drones…
Indy live stream from inside Gaza, somewhat sporadic due to difficulties with internet connection and explosions all around…
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/27051479
November 15th, 2012 at 9:22 pm
.
Indy Livestream from inside Gaza? That is absolutely perverse. This takes the cake. Now you can watch the action on Live Cam 24/7. War Porn. It’s sick. Sorry, I won’t be watching. Soon enough, it will be coming to a theater near us….a home theater with real live mortar rounds you can touch and soldiers who can rape your wife and children and then shoot you. No, this interim reality isn’t anywhere near impossible yet, not even close, and pointing to Gaza doesn’t prove it is. That shit’s been going on for time immemorial….since Civilization began. The impossible hasn’t even begun, and you will know it when it arrives. When it does, think the former Yugoslavia for both Europe and the U.S., and that’s before the nuclear war breaks out. Humanity may beat nature to the punch, and if that’s the case, Humanity Bats Last….at least as it relates to Humanity’s existence.
.
November 15th, 2012 at 9:54 pm
How long till we say goodbye?
Till we give up and no longer try?
How much more pain
Will our lives contain
Before we all finally die?
November 15th, 2012 at 10:21 pm
Predation, Starvation, or Suicide
Our lives depend on predation:
Refraining, we end in starvation;
If those don’t look good,
The other choice would
Be to end it with self-termination.
November 16th, 2012 at 12:57 am
Well said…….Benjamin D.
November 16th, 2012 at 3:19 am
Meanwhile in other places babies are being bombed again – we have been insulated from such carnage, but the possibility of war on our land again is real.
“Journalist’s 11-month-old Son Killed in Gaza Strikes”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33037.htm
per washingtons blog this am
Petitions from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas residents have accrued at least 25,000 signatures
November 16th, 2012 at 3:25 am
“Kill yourself before you’re directly responsible for killing someone else.”
Do you think you can weasel out of being directly responsible for the CO2 coming out your tailpipe the CO2 from the coal plant to run your computer right now, that killed all those people in Haiti with Superstorm Sandy?
“Every person on the planet is implicated in this wicked situation.” ~Steven Earl Salmony (November 3rd, 2012 at 9:54 am)
• im·pli·cat·ed (n.) shown to be involved in a crime
• You won’t quit filling up at the gas station.
• You won’t quit demanding electricity.
“Be to end it with self-termination.” ~BenjaminTheDonkey (November 15th, 2012 at 10:21 pm)
“Well said,” say you? What’s stopping you? Really, can you name what’s stopping you? Do you not have the courage of your own convictions?
November 16th, 2012 at 3:43 am
Daniel “My personal motto: Kill yourself before you’re directly responsible for killing someone else.”
Good motto
How to remain productive if you believe in NTE? Plant annuals and skip planting trees? In fact all through our lives we should be balancing the now with the long term as the length of our individual lives is always uncertain even though the fact of our eventual death is certain.
I find my life is very little changed since finding out extinction may well be nearer and more certain than I thought. I plant less each year, not because I have given up due to NTE but because my body complains more and the well is in danger of drying up if I water too much.
Make the most of your moments – NTE or not, its a good plan, for our lives are far more fragile than we think –
A suicidal woman who jumped from an eighth floor window crushed a passer-by to death in an horrific accident.
The woman hurled herself from the balcony in Viladecans, near Barcelona, and landed on top of a 50-year-old pedestrian who was walking below.
The jumper died instantly, and the man, from the Ukraine, died in hospital shortly afterwards from his injuries.
http://m24digital.com/en/2009/09/02/barcelona-man-dies-crushed-by-a-suicidal-woman/
As for NTE from climate change, I think by next summer we will see what taking the carbon sequestered in the ground and putting it in the air is going to do.
November 16th, 2012 at 3:46 am
Story this morning on Google illustrates again how unexpected the Grim Reaper can be
MIDLAND, TEXAS A freight train slammed into a parade float carrying wounded veterans on Thursday, killing four people and injuring 17 others as the float tried to get through a West Texas railroad crossing on its way to an honorary banquet, authorities said.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57550850/many-jumped-from-float-before-train-rammed-it/
Survive the immoral wars only to get killed in a parade…..
November 16th, 2012 at 3:55 am
/barcelona-man-dies-crushed-by-a-suicidal-woman/
/many-jumped-from-float-before-train-rammed-it/
♫ Eye on the TV
’cause tragedy thrills me
Whatever flavor it happens to be
Part vampire, part warrior
Carnivore and voyeur
Stare at the transmittal
Sing to the death rattle
La, la, la, la, la, la, la-lie
I need to watch things die
From a good safe distance
Vicariously I, live
while the whole world dies
Much better you than I ♪
TOOL – “Vicarious”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUXBCdt5IPg
So why the interest in Near Term Extinction?
Because NTE is the best THRILL yet for the vicarious tragedy seekers.
November 16th, 2012 at 4:04 am
Arctic Methane: Why The Sea Ice Matters
Featuring: James Hansen, Natalia Shakhova, Peter Wadhams & David Wasdell
In this twenty minute documentary, four of the worlds leading authorities on climate change science explain what is going on in the Arctic and why losing the summer sea ice poses such a risk to humanity:
http://www.envisionation.co.uk/index.php/projects/arctic-methane-why-the-sea-ice-matters
November 16th, 2012 at 4:14 am
thrill /THril/ (n.) A sudden feeling of excitement and pleasure: “the thrill of contemplating Near Term Extinction”. (v.) To have a sudden feeling of excitement and pleasure: “the train wreck thrilled her.”
People talk of getting their “DOPAMINE RUSH” from chocolate, music, the stock market, the BlackBerry buzz on the thigh, tragedy — anything that imparts a small, pleasurable thrill.
Like Guy says, “it’s all been said.” But they just can’t stop saying it, because the daily reiteration of Near Term Extinction is a daily dopamine rush.
A daily feeding on tragedy.
♪ ‘Cause I need to watch things die.
Vicariously, I.
We all feed on tragedy
It’s like blood to a vampire. ♫
November 16th, 2012 at 4:40 am
• BDSM Porn: a sadistic thrill from others’ suffering.
• War Porn: even better thrill, especially cheap Palestinian babies.
• Extinction Porn: the nearer term, the more thrilling; the most intense dopamine hit of all!
November 16th, 2012 at 5:05 am
@ Daniel: Your Three Choices was the inspiration, and I thank you!
November 16th, 2012 at 5:45 am
Daniel’s Three False Choices aren’t “inspiration,” unless you’re quite literally thrilled <to death.
If you desire a more palatable choice, read the following:
Most commonly, people starve to death surrounded by edible matter — just no food. There is the essential issue, because “food” is not just edible matter, it’s the culturally constructed subset of edible matter. That mismatch has garnered a small fortune for the producers of “Fear Factor.” Bull’s penis is entirely edible — it’s even a high-priced delicacy consumed by China’s elites to bestow sexual potency — but it isn’t “food.” At least not in our culture.
One of the examples of this mismatch are simply astounding. The single most famous example of cannibalism in American history is that of the Donner party — a group of 31 settlers bound for California who became trapped in the Sierra Nevadas in the winter of 1947. Though fed with pine nuts by Paiute Indians earlier in their travels, they still resorted to cannibalism and ultimately starved to death — in the middle of a large pine grove. They used the pine trees for fuel and even cut many of them down, but they never used them for food. It simply never occured to them: pine nuts and pine bark simply were not “food.” Pine had long been a “starvation food” for Native Americans in these areas; when all else failed, you could always eat the pine. It was rarely the first choice, but in desperate circumstances, it would suffice. The Donner party was desperate, and ate every “food” they could think of — even rawhide, bones and leather. But they didn’t eat things that weren’t “food” — and pine simply wasn’t “food,” even though they had been fed a meal of pine nuts a short time before.
Thesis #28: Humanity will almost certainly survive.
The Thirty Theses | Jason Godesky
http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/jason-godesky-thirty-theses
November 16th, 2012 at 5:59 am
Ivy Mike, the reason people who anticipate that when things get bad they might commit suicide is the same reason that people who fill out a living will don’t commit suicide. One can contemplate in what circumstances one would want to cut short their life and not do it until those circumstances occur. Living wills are popular because people are well aware of what suffering others go through because they or more often their families want them around for a while longer or go into denial about the coming death. I know people who have made living wills yet have not yet made wills for distributing their property. Despite the big death denial in this country, underneath most people know that end of life living can be nothing short of torture. Likewise climate/peak oil people are aware of how horrible life on this planet may become and thus want to talk about the possibility of skipping to worst of it. When it becomes intolerable, and what condition makes it intolerable varies person to person.
November 16th, 2012 at 6:15 am
Normal people who make out a living will don’t repetitively go over and over and over all the grisly possibilities by which they might need their living will each and every day in a public forum.
So anyway, what do the following Vicarious Tragedy Porn you posted have to do with living wills?
/barcelona-man-dies-crushed-by-a-suicidal-woman/
/many-jumped-from-float-before-train-rammed-it/
I think you rather enjoy it; especially with your sermonizing:
“Survive the immoral wars only to get killed in a parade…”
So the veterans got their comeuppance, eh?
Again, what does gloating about just deserts have to do with living wills?
Got Schadenfreude (pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others)?
November 16th, 2012 at 6:37 am
Mike “Again, what does gloating about just deserts have to do with living wills?”
No I did not say “just deserts”. I meant it was ironic to have survived the war and then die in a vetrans parade. As you well know my point in both was that death can come at any unexpected time, sometimes in ways you cannot possibly expect.
More twisting. You have toned down the obvious insults, but you insult by misconstruing what people say.
Last reply to you, last comment by you I read.
November 16th, 2012 at 6:37 am
@ Daniel
What I am almost desperate to see, is a conversation about what signs others are looking for, in determining whether they accept NTE or not.
The problem, as I see it, is defining the ‘near’ in near term. There’s a big stretch of views on that. The vast majority are all still in lalaland, following the MSM and politicians lies, ignoring the evidence.
Of the serious ones who actually pay attention, even among the doomers, there’s quite a broad range of views. E.g., Greer, Foss, Orlov, Prieur, etc, some think it’ll drag on for decades, even centuries, seeing historical parallels with the Romans, Mayas, etc. and Diamond’s and Tainter’s ideas about the collapse of civilisations.
There’s an important element of uncertainty, but this is how I see it :
Economic collapse.
We could get global financial collapse. That means the whole economic machine implodes, because of cascading bank crashes, the $600 trillion derivatives black hole, whatever.
That would mean something like we’ve often seen before, in say Argentina, where, even if you can actually get your money out of the banking system, it becomes worthless, global trade grinds to halt. Most urban folk everywhere depend upon money to survive. Once that breaks, there’s riots, chaos, and a lot of people die, because no food, no medicine, lots of violence, etc.
Russia recovered from that sort of collapse of the Soviet Empire, because elsewhere on the planet the system remained intact. If it were to be a truly global collapse, where all the major industrial economies imploded, it’s possible there’d never be a recovery. The complex systems for, say, building oil platforms, aircraft, computers, maintaining nuclear power stations, might be impossible to restore, because there’s likely be other disruptive disasters running in parallel.
Or, there might be partial recoveries, a stepped collapse. It could happen, this year, next, the year after. The global money markets are basically a casino, everybody is gambling, bluffing, cheating, conning everybody else. Everybody knows that most of the chips are dodgy, but they try to make a buck and pass the crap on to the next guy, before they get caught. The big players, Wall St. and the Fed, the City of London, China, Japan, Russia, etc, all know what the game is, and know it can melt down in a cascade of unforeseen and uncontrollable events. But while the circus is still running, they play.
Total global economic collapse, a wild guess, perhaps a billion die. So it’s not extinction. Still 6 billion to go. People out in the backwoods living on veg and chickens in some obscure mountain range, or ponies ans sheep in Mongolia, probably scarcely notice. People living from investments suddenly have no income, and nobody else can or will help them.
Next up, revolutions and war. That gets overlain with economic collapse. Millions of hungry, angry, people with no money overthrow governments and blame other countries, and call on allies, and the whole mess gets out of control. There’s so many tension points around the geopolitical scene that some ignition is inevitable, say, India and Pakistan, or revolution in Saudi Arabia or China. Nuclear is perhaps the most dramatic, but we now have bioweapons that any kid with a PhD can cook up in a garage, that can, potentially, wipe out a few billion more.
If/when we have the economic collapse, and the wars, then Mother Nature joins the fun, with her own collection of pandemics. But still doesn’t get us to total extinction yet. A few billion left.
But then we put the lid on the pot, which is collapse of the biosphere. Global warming runs away with itself, meaning we get well beyond any of the very cautious and optimistic estimates that are floating around in the mainstream. The droughts, famines, floods and extreme events, getting more severe every year, are just the new ‘normal’, and then much of the planet becomes uninhabitable. Perhaps a few wandering small clans here and there amongst the crap left over form ‘civilisation’. By that time, you may as well call it ‘extinction’. Not that anybody will care either way, by then.
The dates are the hard part. If the human population crashes soon enough, hard enough, then that slows down the climate change. But once the methane release really ramps up, that’s going to be going for centuries, and there’s no way back. Dead oceans, noxious toxic gases instead of oxygen. Very little survives.
Whether it’s five, ten, fifteen, twenty…. whatever, years, the tough part is still facing it. Nobody wants to do it….
I’m sure I’ve overlooked plenty of stuff that could be added, but as a rough sketch of such an appalling scenario, the detail hardly matters.
The worst thing that could possibly happen, IS happening….
November 16th, 2012 at 6:43 am
Kathy C. “More twisting. You have toned down the obvious insults, but you insult by misconstruing what people say. Last reply to you, last comment by you I read.”
My sentiments exactly. All that rubbish about people here enjoying doom as porn is crass, ridiculous, and grotesque. I think everyone here is deeply effected and aware of the horror and tragedy, and I find Ivy Mike’s flippancy and distortion highly offensive.
November 16th, 2012 at 6:48 am
.
If nobody wants to face it, then that’s that. At this late date, you’re not going to make anyone see what they either cannot see, or don’t want to see. So why bother? Let them sleep in their cabins until the water fills their lungs and suffocates them. If it’s as dire as you say, and the worst IS happening now, and they’re still sleeping….let them sleep, and for all those here who can make an informed decision about suicide, meaning they’re not mentally ill, you can go silently into that night, as the saying goes. You don’t have to bring everyone with you…..because of what you say is true, they’ll be “there” soon enough…..whatever “there” is.
.
November 16th, 2012 at 6:51 am
Kathy C, if you were actually worried about insults, you’d nail the real insulter around here, ulvfugl. But you didn’t. That is because you’re not really worried about insults; you’re just pissed because I caught you in the following fabrication:
You conjured the pretext of “living wills” to justify your posting Tragedy Porn that obviously has absolutely nothing to do with “living wills.”
Go ahead, spin more excuses for the daily dopamine rush you get by posting tragedy porn.
November 16th, 2012 at 6:56 am
.
I wonder if Cesar reads and posts here? Would it be wise to convert Cesar to this line of thinking if he doesn’t read and post here, considering his fragile state? Would it be empathic? Would it be merciful, or would it be cruel?
http://tv.yahoo.com/news/dog-whisperer-reveals-suicide-attempt–turnaround.html
Cesar Millan may have been in tune with pup psychology, but the famed dog whisperer suffered a breakdown that led to an attempted suicide back in May 2010.
Two years later, the animal expert has finalized his divorce and ended his National Geographic show “Dog Whisperer,” but he’s talking about being on the upswing in his documentary, “Cesar Millan: The Real Story.”
His 2010 overdose had been precipitated by several stressors, among them the death of his pit-bull Daddy, then his wife Ulsion’s plans to leave him. Both had been a part of his life for 16 years (Daddy had originally belonged to rapper Redman). The pressure of their loss led him to abusing the antidepressants.
News of a suicide attempt should come as a shock to any fan (“Dog Whisperer” aired in 110 countries with 38 million viewers), given Millan’s constant urging for pet owners to be more attuned not just with their dog’s psychology, but their own behavior. He did write to his fans about his depression on his website, the Associated Press reported, but didn’t mention his overdose at the time.
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November 16th, 2012 at 7:01 am
ulvfugl, what does a train wreck killing veterans have to do with climate change? hmmm?
Isn’t posting such Vicarious Tragedy Porn what is truly “crass, ridiculous, and grotesque?”
November 16th, 2012 at 7:13 am
.
Off the Off Topic, here’s some interesting keyword news. Two movies of which I am fond are mentioned and used for nefarious purposes in this story. The first is Orca starring Richard Harris. I liked Richard Harris and I liked the movie Orca and its glorious and abundant cheese. I also like The Wizard of Oz. What’s interesting about this slant is that it is never considered that the election could have been thrown in the opposite direction, as well. I’ve always contended that either clown will do, but those who must choose camps as though it’s the NFL when we know it’s really not, feel some clowns are more worthy than others.
http://occupyforaccountability.org/index.php?q=node%2F1075
Karl Rove Loses Election After Being Checkmated By Cyber Sleuths?
On November 12th, we received a letter from “The Protectors,” apparently a group of white hat cyber sleuths, mentioning our reward and stating that two months ago, they began monitoring the “digital traffic of one Karl Rove, a disrespecter of the Rule of Law, knowing that he claimed to be Kingmaker while grifting vast wealth from barons who gladly handed him gold to anoint another King while looking the other way.”
“The Protectors” said that they had identified the digital structure of Rove’s operation and of ORCA, a Republican get out the vote software application. After finding open “doors” in the systems, they created a “password protected firewall” called “The Great Oz,” and installed it on servers that Rove planned to use on election night to re-route and change election results “from three states.”
The letter indicated that “ORCA Killer” was launched at 10am EST and “The Great Oz” at 8pm EST on November 6th. “The Protectors” watched as ORCA crashed and failed throughout Election Day. They watched as Rove’s computer techs tried 105 times to penetrate “The Great Oz” using different means and passwords.
Finally, they issued the following warning to Mr. Rove: don’t do it again or they would turn over the evidence to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
We are not in a position to vouch for the contents of this letter anymore than we can vouch for the video by Anonymous warning Karl Rove not to rig the election. However, we can analyze that content under the prism of Mr. Rove’s history and facts over the past few weeks. We do so in the hope that this will lead to an investigation of Mr. Rove’s entire operation ala General David Petraeus. In that spirit, we provided this information to the FBI prior to publication, and followed up after publication. For years, we have campaigned for a complete investigation of Mr. Rove. And we have provided extensive legal memos and evidence to the FBI to support such an investigation.
We urge others who have information to about election tampering or other criminal violations by Mr. Rove, including violations of campaign finance laws, to provide that evidence to the FBI. We also urge people who gave money to Mr. Rove and his organizations to contact the FBI if they were misled, promised things that did not happen, or were otherwise defrauded.
Notice how the FBI is being used as an enforcement tool for all the dissenters and “occupiers.” If that’s not telling, nothing is. Of course, sometimes a cigar really is just a cigar. The decision as to whether it is, or not, is always subjective and arbitrary.
.
November 16th, 2012 at 7:31 am
Couple of thoughts:
When there is an elephant in the living room, honest folks will talk about it, thrill or no thrill.
Running down people is just like running up stairs; it’s bad for your heart.
Having been a farmer for 60 years, I’ve survived hell and high water. We take responsibility for our welfare and solve all problems. There are no excuses. No one else even cares. With that mentality, I can’t stop myself from looking for a way to fix this problem (predicament) or a reason why it may self correct. There must be a hole in it somewhere. So far I haven’t found it. That’s a reason some of us keep talking about it. Is there a secret door that we didn’t find yet?
David Mc.
November 16th, 2012 at 7:56 am
Hi David Mc,
Is there a secret door that we didn’t find yet?
Some people think they found one. Insulate the planet from incoming solar energy with nanoparticles in the atmosphere, and simultaneously reduce the population by poisoning them with crap that falls on them from the sky that they can’t even see.
The missing element in that picture, is giving an antidote to the crap, to the people who you want to survive.
Of course, if this is what is occurring, nobody is likely to admit it in public, and so it remains in the realm of paranoia and speculation, until some indisputable evidence comes out.
Due to the severity of the situation it is mandatory to maintain public calm for as long as possible. The Earth is dying. Humanity is on the road to extinction – without the Shield mankind will die off with in 20 to 50 years. Most people alive today could live to see this extinction take place. This means that an announcement of the situation we face boils down to telling every man, woman and child on earth that they have no future, they are going to be killed. People would panic. There would be economic collapse, the production and movement of goods would collapse. Millions would die in all cities on earth, riots and violence would reduce civilian centers to rubble within days. Half of the population in dense metropolitan areas would try to leave the cities seeking ‘safety’ in the rural areas thinking that they would be safe. Those left behind in the cities would be at war with their neighbors, fighting for the remaining supplies. We would be telling the world that the world is coming to an end, and even with the Shield the chances of survival are small…..
…..All of these factors combined have produced a scenario that in shorts boils down to the end of the world in 50 to 75 years. Even if we were to stop all emissions of pollution today, the inertia of past decades is enough to carry us over the brink in 100 years. However we cannot stop the production of pollution, to do so would mean shutting down every factory, every auto, every train, truck, ship and every household on the planet. Electricity is used to heat many homes in the Western World. The production of electricity produces fewer pollutants than heating all homes with wood or coal. Cutting our power generation abilities down to hydroelectric and fission reactors would leave a good chunk of the world in the dark. It is an impossible situation, our civilization is geared to the use of energy, take away our energy and civilization will collapse.
http://www.holmestead.ca/chemtrails/shieldproject.html
November 16th, 2012 at 8:15 am
looking for a way to fix this problem (predicament) or a reason why it may self correct
Me too—we ol’ country boys don’t just cower and mewl about suicide every day—but your attitude of bootstrap tenacity is not a popular sentiment here.
Dave, if you want to be popular, get on the “OMG we’re all gonna die, and here’s the reason why” bandwagon.
Unless it’s nuclear war; apparently that’s a verboten subject, since the Swedes and Swiss and Russians are way ahead of us on shelters, and have plenty of coats packed for a nuclear winter.
November 16th, 2012 at 8:26 am
.
One of the ways I’m preparing for what may lay ahead is Mountain Biking and Running. These are huge mental/psychical and physical challenges, and it’s why I said yesterday that some suffering is a good thing. Yes, suffering can be both physical and mental/psychical, and these two activities address both. A few weeks prior I pushed the envelope on a ride and paid the price with a broken toe and a bruised kneecap and elbow. I was limping significantly when I visited by bro in Houston. That suffering was a good thing. I tested limits and learned from it. I replaced irrational fear with informed caution and persevered. That which doesn’t kill me makes me smarter. These physical and mental/psychical skills will be necessary as we approach the frontier of Collapse. I have a link to a great value for the money Mountain Bike if anyone’s interested, by the way. Just let me know.
.
November 16th, 2012 at 8:35 am
Global warming (a real threat) is like nuclear war (a real threat.)
• With nuclear war, the right got to scare everybody, and the left poo-poo’ed the threat.
• With global warming, the left gets to scare everybody, and the right poo-poo’s the threat.
Round and round it goes! And that’s how two serious threats are handled in America.
November 16th, 2012 at 8:45 am
Dave, it has been the constant of civilizations to keep solving themselves into ever larger problems until the problem is so large that it cannot be solved and the civilization collapses.
The folks at Arctic News believe that it is too late to just reduce emissions, they propose geo-engineering including aerosols in the sky and using HAARP to break up the methane. http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/search/label/HAARP If as some have suggested the chemtrails are an attempt to reduce or hold back global warming, then when peak oil prevents the planes from flying climate change goes into overdrive. If they aren’t augmenting the emissions from jets, we still have a problem as pollution creates on its own creates dimming which holds back temps, but particulates don’t last long in the atmosphere. On the three days after 911 when US jets were grounded a significant temp increase was documented. And I personally don’t want anyone doing one more thing with HAARP.
You can google BBC Global Dimming to get more info on the whole issue of dimming as well as the 911 effects.
Joseph Tainter in Collapse of Complex Societies shows how solving problems ultimately gets a civilization into trouble, and Craig Dilworth in Too Smart for Our Own Good shows in another way how solving problems gets our species in deep trouble.
November 16th, 2012 at 8:49 am
This image, released by Nasa, was created by a supercomputer designed to model aerosols in the Earth’s atmosphere. It shows how dust, sea salt, smoke and sulphates travel.
November 16th, 2012 at 8:58 am
constant of civilizations to keep solving themselves
Why think of solving problems in a hierarchical/collectivist way that is the pattern of civilization?
How about an “economizing process”?
As Joseph Tainter writes in his The Collapse of Complex Societies: “…a return to the normal human condition of lower complexity…collapse is due to declining marginal returns on investment in complexity, it is an economizing process.“
November 16th, 2012 at 9:13 am
michele/montreal:
Yes, the Silent Spring scenario isn’t fiction and it’s tragic. Here’s more info
http://www.youtube.com/user/dutchsinse
talks about the barium, aluminum and other toxic elements (and their adverse effects on humans if nothing else) used in cloudseeding by our government (and the US is not alone in this) to experiment in weather modification – a military backed and funded WEAPON.
November 16th, 2012 at 9:16 am
HAARP
Why can’t I talk to those fellows in Alaska on 40 meter with my amateur radio rig when they do a moonbeam bounce?
My gawd! People talking on HF frequencies! Radio is a conspiracy!
HAARP QSL Card
Well I got a QSL from the 40 meter moonbounce experiment back in January.
http://shuttersparks.blogspot.com/2008/05/haarp-qsl-card.html
I’ll wear a scarlet letter A for amateur radio operator if Kathy C insists.
November 16th, 2012 at 9:40 am
“…911 when US jets were grounded a significant temp increase was documented…”
Debunked here:
http://guymcpherson.com/2012/06/were-done/#comment-43054
November 16th, 2012 at 10:09 am
Judy,
Yes, birds are busy all the time, like rust never sleeps. I get surprises all the time that must be the result of carefully fertilized packages left by the birds.
Michael Irving
November 16th, 2012 at 10:50 am
So is it all life goes extinct or is it most life? Life has been around 3 billion years, I hear. How many extinctions is that? My ancestors go back 3 billion years, and so do yours, who ever you are. Or did life get started several times? Is this going to be the BIG ONE?
Let me add that having farmed 60 years I did learn that you may cheat your neighbor but you can’t cheat a cow or a plant. Nature bats last; we know that. Had to shoot a cow the other day. She collapsed due to a lack of just one mineral. It was our fault and we paid. (she did too) A reminder that a cow contains a kind of mini biosphere inside her, quite complex, and it must be respected, every detail.
David
November 16th, 2012 at 11:24 am
Off-topic here, but very relevant to a preceding post at NBL:
Clay Shirky’s take on online education, at his blog:
Napster, Udacity, and the Academy
November 16th, 2012 at 12:08 pm
When there is an elephant in the living room, honest folks will talk about it, thrill or no thrill.
I agree, Dave. I’m grateful that there are living rooms, virtual or otherwise, to talk in.
Regarding talking about near-term extinction as a form of dopamine-rush thrill-seeking similar to porn: I’m sure that’s probably true for some, at least. Anything can become an addiction. I don’t think that it’s true for all. And I think it’s hard to discern what’s really going on for any one individual, in terms of their motivations and beliefs, especially in a digital environment.
When I think about near-term extinction, or about how sudden death can be regardless of the big picture, am I getting a charge from it? The idea seems repugnant, on the surface. But if there’s a charge, this is what I experience: consciousness of mortality can lead to a deeper appreciation of the life that remains, an expansion of love and compassion, a desire to Be Here Now.
November 16th, 2012 at 12:12 pm
.
Ravens are cool. I like them, too, and they’re so Goth…which is all the rage these days. But I don’t think they’re the ideal mascot to replace the Eagle as the official symbolic creature. A much more fascinating and appropriate creature considering the possibility of nuclear war and the 400+ Fukes waiting to happen, is the Naked Mole Rat. Now there’s a sexy animal and highly adaptive. It doesn’t experience cancer and it knows how to live underground. It’s also a cold-blooded mammal….how cool is that. Here’s to the Naked Mole Rat. May we learn from it in time.
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/animals/mammals-animals/rodents-and-rabbits/weirdest-naked-mole-rat/
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November 16th, 2012 at 12:44 pm
a desire to Be Here Now
Amen.
November 16th, 2012 at 1:15 pm
.
a desire to Be Here Now.
One often desires that which one doesn’t have or one isn’t experiencing, or what is lacking in one’s life. By virtue of that, the statement indicates that the individual is not in the moment….not here now, and so they desire to be. But why are they not in the moment…why are they not here now? Because the pursuit of the awareness of mortality is like a flame that draws one closer and closer. As one gets closer, the heat becomes increasingly unbearable and the light of the flame is blinding. Awareness of mortality quickly becomes the only reality, searing all the senses, leaving one desirous of a bygone state that once brought them visceral fulfillment.
.
November 16th, 2012 at 1:50 pm
Be Here Now ?
So Morocco Bama and Ivy Mike were closet Hindus all along ! Who would of guessed ?
http://youtu.be/8WPcpb2GHR4
November 16th, 2012 at 2:13 pm
I’m just a closet Hindu,
I hug my cows like Dave,
They like to cud chew,
Here grass is all the rave.
I think we’re gonna set that magnificent verse to music and get rich in Nashville. Dave, can you pick?
November 16th, 2012 at 2:37 pm
With respect to all here, a little light relief and satire may be of use.
Also this one is specifically dedicated to the special ‘love ‘ relation formed here over the months between Morocco Bama and ulvfugl:
“Global Warming,” by Hannah & the Gentlemen
http://planetsave.com/2012/11/02/global-warming-by-hannah-the-gentlemen/
An alternative title to this song:
‘Making Global warming Sexy’
!!!
November 16th, 2012 at 2:37 pm
No, Ivy, I did trombone a long time ago. I don’t chew or do grass and I’m not Hindu. I’m a dictator/serf, owner/debt-slave, manager/laborer, jack of all trades farmer. Never been to Nashville, either.
November 16th, 2012 at 3:03 pm
Jennifer, Maybe we go through the 5 stages of loss, this time loss of Earth. I’m having a hard time setting goals. Need to rethink everything. The simple things seem more important now and I’m growing to hate anything with a motor on it. We have a lot of motors here on the farm. After a while, I suppose one gets adjusted to the whole idea. A couple of years ago I intended to just own the land so when the time came I might be able to develop some sort of local living arrangement.
David
November 16th, 2012 at 4:37 pm
Although many people who frequent this blog already accept ETE, it is interesting that Dr. Kevin Anderson, Deputy Director of the Tyndall Centre in Britain, gave a speech a few days ago at the Cabot Institute in Bristol, asserting that we are looking at 4 C by mid-century and ensuing global catastrophe.
He accuses the climate scientists of colluding with the TPTB to hide the dire truth from the masses.
http://www.ecoshock.info/2012/11/kevin-anderson-what-they-wont-tell-you.html
Does anyone here think that this information has any chance of going mainstream?
Does it even matter at this stage?
November 16th, 2012 at 5:40 pm
Collapse of the status quo
Will cause many minds to blow;
Since there’s no cure,
I’m not so sure
I’m eager for people to know.
November 16th, 2012 at 5:51 pm
I understand BtD, if people know and blow it is worse than their ignorance. But it doesn’t matter, because getting people to know is pretty much impossible.
So we have some time before the explosion of minds. But oh when it becomes clear watch out.
As Gerald Celente says “when people have nothing left to loose, they loose it”
November 16th, 2012 at 6:14 pm
Ivy Mike
Thanks for finding my comment debunking the claim contrails are masking global warming. I noticed that despite Guy refusing to acknowledge his mistake at that time, he went on to write elsewhere on the blogosphere that following the 911 grounding there was an increase in the diurnal temperature range (which was correct).
I once tried looking up comments I half remembered from previous blogs. It took a long time and I vowed never again. May I ask why you devote so much time to NBL? Same question to Morocco Bama.
November 16th, 2012 at 6:26 pm
Does anyone here think that this information has any chance of going mainstream?
Does it even matter at this stage?
I don’t think it has much chance of going mainstream, although I applaud Dr. Anderson for speaking out. I think he is doing the right thing, regardless of how many people actually listen.
Does it matter? Do you mean, in the sense of averting near-term extinction? I don’t think so. But does it matter, in the sense of allowing people to practice integrity while they are still alive? and to awaken to their priorities? and to minimize suffering, potentially? and to experience love and compassion more fully? Yes, I think telling the truth matters in this sense.
November 16th, 2012 at 10:18 pm
In loose response to Ulvfugl excellent comments
Sorry, but my time on a computer is limited, so I have to rejoin all at once.
Once upon a time, not all that long ago, many of “us”, saw the “Big Three” factors of collapse (Climate Change, resource depletion, and permanent economic contraction) colluding at relatively the same time, with the economic crash being the most likely front runner, preceded and followed by undulating resource depletion and finally catastrophic climate change.
What’s bewildering about concept of near term extinction NTE as a result of recently observed non-linear rates of change–and as we all know it’s impossible to overstate the significance of this phenomena–is it sort of flips the doomer script a bit. And in the process, up-ends virtually every preparedness plan under the sun. Especially, in regards to the vested interests of homesteaders.
Now, we’re being faced with yet another round of stages of grieving. Lest we forget, our awareness of non-linear rates of change, has only just been discerned in hindsight, and has only been observed for about three/four years.
I don’t know how much stock I put into economic collapse happening anytime soon, simply given the sheer interdependence of fiat currency exchange in the global system. I mean, thirty years ago, who would have thought America would be borrowing 2 billion dollars a day, just to stay afloat, and countries would still be buying our debt? Few of us know the full extinct of the coercion at play.
Capitalism has always been a Ponzi scheme, and given the potential of disaster capital finding ever more ways to keep the system on life support to the bitter end, I believe capital flight will simply condense ever more around urban commerce, letting non-essential outlying areas wither under attrition and abandonment. And resource depletion, at least for developed countries, can be temporarily mitigated through mercantilism, demand destruction and war.
So again, what’s so disquieting about Climate induced NTE, is as Ulvfulg stated, it’s the timing. Timing has been the primary problem with preparedness planning from the start. And what is so alarming about what Guy has postulated in his last several essays, is how utterly useless any preparedness plan now is, regardless of the timing.
As for anyone who has been tracking the contributing factors of collapse over the last several decades, can attest, the last several years of observing climate change, is in the process of turning everything upside down. EVERTHING! NTE makes even the gloomiest doomer seem like a Pollyanna. My entire preparedness scheme, just came to a grinding halt after over a decade of preparation.
The reason why I’m so particularly fixated on accumulating as many details on NTE as possible, even in spite of its adjunct masochism, is that similar to Kathy C, food scarcity in my opinion, has now become the primary culprit to NTE. If we are looking at only another year or three–and I suspect we are–before the global food system/trade is significantly curtailed, due to sustained drought/extreme weather events and the speculative threat of scarcity, then we really only have another year or three to “enjoy” this life, before utter chaos ensues, and directly impacts the entire world.
Isn’t this the reality, many of us here are now obsessively mulling around in our heads? We can attempt to alleviate our despair through notions of somehow minimizing the suffering of others, but this is an easy palliative to imagine sitting on our advanced industrialized privileged perches. Come the brutal advent of NTE, no one will be in any position to lend a helping hand in absence of any available surplus.
I’m not so interested in knowing what dates we think all/or most of life on earth will become extinct. IMO that seems irrelevant to our immediate lives. I’m far more interested in parsing together as much information as possible, as to when “we” think society at large, will reach a critical mass of comprehending the dilemma we’re in, where permanent and exponential chaos becomes intractable. Because for all intensive purposes, that’s really “the end” our existing lives.
We can say we are living through the beginning of the end, right now. And in many ways we are. Collapse isn’t a future reality, but an ever more present one. But again, we are still observing it in relative immunity of wealth and security, even while collapse has already consumed numerous parts of the world.
The old paradigm of collapse theory/preparedness (homesteading), just got traded in for the potential threat of NTE, and I can’t even say I fully accept it yet. But just the potential threat of it, alone, is enough to put almost everything–at least in my life–on hold until I’m able to decide whether or not it’s something I agree with.
In some ways, I’m in agreement with a few of the skeptics on this blog. NTE is probably the last thing any of us should rush to judgment. Personally, I’m not comfortable with how little actual data is available supporting such a potentially catastrophic reality. Most of the science coming out AMEG is extrapolated conjecture based on very limited empirical evidence, and that’s just bad science.
Yes, intuitively, I suspect NTE is now inevitable, but given the implications, intuition at this point, isn’t enough.
November 17th, 2012 at 12:17 am
Daniel, thank you for your thoughts. Your comments mirror many of the issues I have been struggling with for some time. As far as the uncertainty of the NTE predictions, although I don’t disagree with the notion that we should maintain an agnostic attitude until we know more, the empirical evidence now strongly suggests that we may have gone over the CO2 cliff. For example, the loss of summer arctic ice by 2016, the triggering of the methane bomb (and the evidence is building with respect to this factor). Moreover, when someone in Dr. Anderson’s position publicly accuses the scientific community of knowingly minimizing the seriousness of the crisis because of pressure from the PTB, it indicates that he now believes we have reached, or are about to reach, a point of no return.
(It is unclear whether the data and models on which Dr. Anderson is basing his dire assessment take the feedback mechanisms into account. If they don’t then the situations is even worse than he claims it is.)
But, as you pointed out, since we’re still living high on the carbon hog in North America and the system has managed to maintain the disco puppet show of growth and prosperity it is psychologically difficult for us middle class sans-culottes to accept that this vast, monstrous machine is about to implode. We can’t even imagine a world beyond the matrix of industrial Capitalism.
November 17th, 2012 at 2:30 am
Flipped over – for 10 years, Peak Oil was the worst news I had ever heard. Now it seems to be the best news but should have happened 30 years ago. At that time we could have chosen a different path. I’m ashamed to be a member of the human moron race. We managed to burn our house down. But it isn’t “our” house. It’s the house we had the privilege to share with other life forms. That arrogance was the mistake.
November 17th, 2012 at 2:32 am
Fwiw, Naomi Klein on Climate Change
November 17th, 2012 at 3:16 am
This year has convinced me that any long term survival in Alabama is a mirage. Drilled wells are beginning to go dry around here and new drilled wells are going twice as deep. Once electricity is gone watering much of anything from our hand pump well will be impossible. Dr. Masters sees drought as the most dangerous impact of climate change, and IMO rightly so.
Lessons from 2012: Droughts, not Hurricanes, are the Greater Danger
By Dr. Jeff Masters
Published: 3:34 PM GMT on November 16, 2012
The colossal devastation and loss of life wrought by Hurricane Sandy makes the storm one of the greatest disasters in U.S. history. The storm and its aftermath have rightfully dominated the weather headlines this year, and Sandy will undoubtedly be remembered as the most notable global weather event of 2012. But shockingly, Sandy is probably not even the deadliest or most expensive weather disaster this year in the United States–Sandy’s damages of perhaps $50 billion will likely be overshadowed by the huge costs of the great drought of 2012. While it will be several months before the costs of America’s worst drought since 1954 are known, the 2012 drought is expected to cut America’s GDP by 0.5 – 1 percentage points, said Deutsche Bank Securities this week. “If the U.S. were growing at 4 percent, it wouldn’t be as big an issue, but at 2 percent, it’s noticed,” said Joseph LaVorgna, the chief U.S. economist at Deutsche. Since the U.S. GDP is approximately $15 trillion, the drought of 2012 represents a $75 – $150 billion hit to the U.S. economy. This is in the same range as the estimate of $77 billion in costs for the drought, made by Purdue University economist Chris Hurt in August
rest at http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/article.html
November 17th, 2012 at 4:03 am
Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come. ~Revelation 18:10
/wiki/Alas,_Babylon
I knew it. I knew it was coming. There is a storm on the horizon. A time of hardship and pain. Humans have a strength that cannot be measured. This is John Connor. There is no fate, but what we make.
/wiki/Terminator_Salvation
Global Thermonuclear war + Nuclear Winter = The Path of Salvation for the Biosphere
♫ TeH ClEaNsIn’ PoWeR ♪
November 17th, 2012 at 5:08 am
“I’m open to alternative views — in fact, I’m begging for them.” ~Guy McPherson (We’re Done)
When I reference the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and the best you can utter is sophomoric mockery, “Ooooh…..yawn” (#comment-53150) there’s only one conclusion.
No, you’re not.
November 17th, 2012 at 5:52 am
♪ My old man’s that old man,
spent his life livin’ off the land,
dirty hands, and a clean soul…
won’t buy nothin’ that he can’t fix,
with WD40 and a Craftsman wrench
he ain’t prejudice he’s just, Made in America. ♫
~Made in America (with lyrics) Toby Keith
1. Living off the Land.
2. Buys durable goods made by his neighbors.
3. Localization.
Transition culture! What’s not to love?
Sure, Toby Keith supports the military efforts necessary to putting gasoline in Kathy C’s smokin’ chokin’ pick’em’up. Do we ding him for just that?
November 17th, 2012 at 6:11 am
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Considering the effects of drought, Humanity’s prognosis of survival will largely depend on its ability to adapt in a timely manner. I concur that Homesteading can be a transitional step back to Hunter-Gatherer, but so too can a Bedouin lifestyle. I mentioned the Bedouins in my essay here entitled The Last Crusade. There are some who took umbrage with T.E. Lawrence’s characterization of his Bedouin comrades, but my reading of it after ferreting out Lawrence’s prejudice, was complimentary. I envy the Bedouin, and in the years to come, what many people today who read Lawrence’s account of the Bedouin and believe it to be politically incorrect will be no longer a stigma, but rather a survival guide in a harsh and forbidding land that stubbornly offers little to no fruit as recompense for past transgressions. To all you befuddled Homesteaders who feel you may have put your eggs in the wrong basket, don’t be disheartened. There’s still time. Buy camels….NOW, and start taking long walks, runs….even biking….to build your stamina and mental toughness for the violent and mean years ahead.
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November 17th, 2012 at 6:15 am
Daniel: “how utterly useless any preparedness plan now is”
Somebody better inform teh Russians!
SENSE OF CONGRESS ON NEED FOR RUSSIAN OPENNESS ON THE YAMANTAU MOUNTAIN PROJECT, House of Representatives – June 19, 1997 Congressional Record
“The only potential use for this site is post-nuclear war.”
~Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, June 2000
Looks like Mr. Peak Oil is as perceptive and forthright as I am.
November 17th, 2012 at 6:37 am
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In that Brave New World that develops reflexively in the wake of the collapse of Industrial Civilization and the effects of Climate Change on the biosphere, I’m pretty sure Justin and Ketchup (or is it Catsup?) will not be selected by nature to survive. Of course, I could be wrong. You make the call. Empty your bladder before watching the following. These people are real….as hard as that is to believe. What would Ted say about them?
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/401092/october-31-2011/colbert-super-pac—occupy-wall-street-co-optportunity—stephen-on-location
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November 17th, 2012 at 6:42 am
@ Yorchichan “May I ask why you ( Ivy Mike ) devote so much time to NBL? Same question to Morocco Bama.”
November 17th, 2012 at 6:47 am
befuddled Homesteaders
Agrarian “anarchists” invoking Monticello?
“The small land holders are the most precious part of a STATE.” ~Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, Oct. 28, 1785
“The voluntary support of laws, formed by persons of their own choice, distinguishes peculiarly the minds capable of self-government. The contrary spirit is anarchy, which of necessity produces despotism.” ~Thomas Jefferson, to Philadelphia Citizens, 1809
“…repairs to the standard of the laws. Do this, and you need never fear anarchy or tyranny. Your government will
be perpetual.” ~Thomas Jefferson, Manuscript, 1801
“Our falling into anarchy would decide forever the destinies of
mankind, and seal the political heresy that man is incapable of
self-government.” ~Thomas Jefferson, to John Hollins, 1811
“Agriculture creates government.” ~Richard Manning, Against the Grain, p. 73
November 17th, 2012 at 6:53 am
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NASA, NASA everywhere, or so it seems. Per Bartlett’s bio, he worked for NASA….and lo and behold, so too did the current leader of Egypt. An organization, mind you, created by a former Nazi psychopath, Wernher Magnus Maximilian, Freiherr von Braun. And for anyone who thinks he wasn’t a psychopath, do a little research. He was certifiable.
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/36/122/41716/Presidential-elections-/Presidential-elections-news/The-Brotherhoods-Mursi-Wildcard-of-Egypts-presiden.aspx
The Brotherhood hit back by reminding everyone that Morsi is a scholar, an engineer, a professor and a genius who worked at NASA in the US at one point but opted to return to the motherland to fight a regime that repressed Egyptians; a man who earned the title of the “best parliamentarian in the world,” in 2005.
What will Egypt’s response be to Israel’s murdering of their Muslim brothers in Gaza with the former NASA employee, Mursi (or is it Morsi?) at the helm? We’ll see.
Keep your eye on NASA.
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November 17th, 2012 at 6:54 am
MB we still have to deal with 400+ nuclear plants going Fukushima after the grid fails. But you are right that the Bedouin lifestyle was a intermediary between H-G and settled agriculture that had a long run.
I think you would enjoy seeing Grass A Nation’s Battle for Life. Link below is for part 1 of 8 = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfj3I3UuXj8
Per wiki
Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life (1925) is a silent documentary film which follows a branch of the Bakhtiari tribe of Persia (today Iran) as they and their herds make their seasonal journey to better pastures. It is considered one of the earliest ethnographic documentary films. It was written by Richard Carver and Terry Ramsaye.
But that in no way describes the awesome nature of this journey. Something you just have to see. Netflix carries it too. Being and old silent the quality is not good but better of course on DVD than on Youtube. It starts slow, the best parts are about about part 4 where they cross a large fast flowing river. This is no small tribe, rather a gathering of tribes I guess – we are talking 50,000 people plus all their flocks of sheep, goats, and cattle plus donkeys and horses.
November 17th, 2012 at 6:57 am
@ dairymandave “So is it all life goes extinct or is it most life? Life has been around 3 billion years, I hear. How many extinctions is that? My ancestors go back 3 billion years, and so do yours, who ever you are. Or did life get started several times? Is this going to be the BIG ONE?
4,500 million years, is the time frame, I believe. Most life forms that existed during that period are no longer around, something like 90% are extinct, although descendants in different forms may still be here.
I believe the consensus is that life only began once.
It is impossible for this human-caused global catastrophe to eliminate all life. There’s bacteria twi miles down in solid rock that only reproduces once every hundred thousand years. They don’t care what we do up here. There’s extremophiles that can live in boiling water, or under the pressures in the deep ocean trenches. Even if they were all that remained, eventually, over millions of years, they’d evolve into new larger organisms.
To kill absolutely everything off, would take some sort of cosmic impact sufficient to shatter Earth to pieces, or a runaway greenhouse effect of the Venusian kind, which, as I understand it, cannot occur in Earth for various technical reasons.
But the extinction of everything we are familiar with, trees, large mammals, birds, fish, well, that’s a work in progress, it’s already underway, faster every day.
Once we humans – the cause of the problem – are gone, then life can re-evolve from whatever remains. Ants, cockroaches, jellyfish, zillions of micro-organisms, even maybe rats, all waiting their chance….
November 17th, 2012 at 7:24 am
pastoralism “intermediary between H-G and settled agriculture”
Wrong; that’s old Marxist crapulence from Engels; anthropological evidence shows different.
Pastoralism is a very rare adaptive strategy, that always occurs alongside agriculture. I tend to think of it as a special case of agriculture, but little more, as it seems incapable of appearing independently.
~Jason Godesky
Thesis #8: Human societies are defined by their food.
The Thirty Theses
theanarchistlibrary.org/library/jason-godesky-thirty-theses
“- Virtually no examples in ethnographic record of pastoralist societies that don’t depend directly or indirectly (via trade) on agricultural products”
~Dr. Eric Smith
Department of Anthropology, University of Washington
Lecture Notes on Pastoralism
http://courses.washington.edu/anth457/pastoral.htm
November 17th, 2012 at 7:29 am
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Actually, since we humans are nature’s creation, then logically, it is nature that is the cause of these problems. No nature…no humans….and no chance of something like human coming along afterward. Maybe the point of this simulation is that nature was the wrong path, or maybe the experiment is to see how often nature will lead to this path. I’d love to see an array of the other outcomes achieved by these highly advanced simulations.
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November 17th, 2012 at 7:38 am
@ Yorchichan “May I ask why you ( Ivy Mike ) devote so much time to NBL?
What Stephen Colbert is to Bill O’Reilly, I am to Guy McPherson (and his acolytes.)
“If you imitate someone, you owe them a royalty check. If you emulate them, you don’t. There’s a big difference. Check you lawyer.”
Stephen Colbert on The O’Reilly Factor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QquTUR9nbC4
November 17th, 2012 at 7:39 am
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Those 400+ nukes are a problem, but I’m sure creative minds are at work on how to solve it. One such way I can imagine might be considered, is to have slaves load and pack all the dead bodies from across the planet onto trucks, trains, barges and ships and deliver them to the failing Nuke sites, where they will be piled on top of the critical reactors thus entombing the reactors and the radiation in massive skeletal sarcophagi.
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November 17th, 2012 at 8:06 am
slaves
Agrarian society will require those again, as soon as the petro-energy slaves depart. I’ve got a few rusty collars stored in the barn for Justin Case, for when I run out of pen and ink to write paper contracts.
And don’t forget, anarchists love slavery (just as long as it has been properly stamped and blessed with the redeeming term “voluntary”.)
With contracts come the whips.
“He’d like more than anything else to boss me around, and then whip me every time I displeased him….would never shell out the cold cash if, after he paid, I could haul him into court on assault and battery charges when he whipped me.”
~Voluntary Slavery, by Anarchist Economist Walter Block
Professor of Economics at Loyola University
lewrockwell.com/block/block134.html
Anarchy means no rule against voluntary slavery, right?
November 17th, 2012 at 8:26 am
ulvfugl: I believe the consensus
Galileo didn’t.
November 17th, 2012 at 8:32 am
Related to the topic ‘American justice’ and also a link to Andrew Bell’s piece on ‘Spartan virtues’.
http://youtu.be/MQNitCNycKQ
November 17th, 2012 at 8:34 am
MB, I like your nuclear reactor solution
November 17th, 2012 at 8:56 am
I like your nuclear reactor solution
~Kathy C, November 17th, 2012 at 8:34 am
“…excuse me for not being amused…Actually have you considered that you made a joke because you couldn’t deal with the future I was projecting? Not an uncommon defense mechanism.”
~Kathy C, October 26th, 2012 at 1:39 pm
Ironic, isn’t it? Is turnabout fair play?
November 17th, 2012 at 9:25 am
A new Dutch book written by ‘the climate-lawyer’ Roger H.J. Cox has sparked a lawsuit being filed against the Dutch government, claiming that the Netherlands is under a legal obligation to reduce its CO2 emissions by as much as 40% by 2020 and up to 95% by 2050.
The book provided not only the impetus but a blueprint for such lawsuits, and a call for similar suits to be levied against many other Western nations.
The book is backed by world-renowned American climate scientist James Hansen, who was the first to receive an English translation of the work at the book’s launch in The Hague. Author and Dutch attorney Roger H.J. Cox thinks reaching a wider audience with the English translation is important: “Multiple climate cases throughout Europe and in other Western countries will speed up the process toward an energy revolution that is demanded by citizens. This is why we worked hard to make the translation available as soon as possible, so potential petitioners in other countries can use it as a working document for their climate suits.”
“In the climate and energy debate we need more pressure and involvement from the public, willing to defend our rights and those of our children and grandchildren using all the means of our laws to achieve justice,” added Hansen.
Author Cox argues that without the legal intervention outlined in the text, Western nations are at risk of “committing domestic human rights violations on a scale nobody had thought to ever see again after World War II.”
With the fast-paced readability of a crime novel, Revolution Justified leaves no room for reassuring doubt or denial about the huge societal challenges of oil decline, climate change and the failure of democracy. Meticulously substantiated with a wide array of international scientific, journalistic and even military sources, the text draws readers into a tightening stranglehold that eases only in the final section. Here, the reader learns how the judiciary may yet rescue the climate and break through the status quo in the energy world to prevent the literal downfall of Western society.
The book can be purchased from the website RevolutionJustified.
http://cleantechnica.com/2012/11/17/new-book-sparks-climate-suit-against-the-netherlands/
November 17th, 2012 at 9:46 am
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Probably one of the greatest tragedies concerning imminent Collapse is North Korea refusing to modernize and democratize like their brothers and sisters in South Korea. They’ve missed out on so much…..like Gangnam Style. Instead, with undernourished and emaciated limbs, they’re digging for increasingly scarce grubs and tubers….the price they’re paying for eschewing progress and Gangnam Style.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60MQ3AG1c8o
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November 17th, 2012 at 9:55 am
With thanks to Sherry Ackerman, I’ve posted anew. The essay is here.
November 17th, 2012 at 9:02 pm
‘We could get global financial collapse. That means the whole economic machine implodes, because of cascading bank crashes, the $600 trillion derivatives black hole, whatever.’ -wolfbird
if/when this happens, i wonder if a consequence will be extreme hyper-inflation of fiat currencies (currencies like the u.s. dollar backed by nothing but a corrupt government) all over the globe. wouldn’t that be something? like a quantum phase change to a more severe stage of collapse. a rude awakening to a new surreality.
most of your comment yesterday @ 6:37 a.m. was spot on with my own views of a most likely collapse scenario, ulvfugl. it will begin with currently unimaginable financial collapse, and from there it’s all down hill, a cascade of calamities leading to extinction or near extinction. the biggest question is time. how long will it take to play out, and when will it begin? lots of disagreement there here on this blog. but we all pretty much agree it’s only a matter of time now.