[The administration] is characterized by powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism, identification of enemies as a unifying cause, obsession with militaristic national security and military supremacy, interlinking of religion and the ruling elite, obsession with crime and punishment, disdain for the importance of human rights and intellectuals who support them, cronyism, corruption, sexism, protection of corporate power, suppression of labor, control over mass media, and fraudulent elections. These are the defining elements of fascism.

The situation has progressed, and not in a suitable manner from the perspective of the typical self-proclaimed progressive. Along with fascism, we’re firmly ensconced in a totalitarian, surveillance-obsessed police state. We’ve been in this state for many years and the situation grows worse every year, but most people prefer to look away and then claim ignorance while politicians claim we’re not the people indicated by our actions. As long as you’re not in jail (yet) or declared a terrorist (yet) and subsequently killed outright (yet), you’re unlikely to bring attention to yourself, regardless what you know and feel about the morality of the people running ruining the show.

But why? Is fear such a great motivator that we allow complete destruction of the living planet to give ourselves a few more years to enable and further the destruction? Is the grip of culture so strong we cannot break free in defense of planetary habitat for our children? Have we moved so far away from the notion of resistance that we can’t organize a potluck dinner without seeking permission from the Department of Homeland Security?

I know many parents who claim they can’t take action because they want a better world for their children. Their version of a “better world” is my version of a worse world, as they long for growth of the industrial economy at the expense of clean air, clean water, healthy food, the living planet, runaway greenhouse, and human-population overshoot. I’ve come to call this response “the parent trap.” Trapped by the culture of make believe, these parents cannot bring themselves to imagine a different world. A better world. A world without the boot of the police state on the necks of their children. A world with more carnivores every year, instead of fewer. A world with less pollution, less garbage, and less lying — to ourselves and others — each and every year.

All evidence indicates we prefer Fukushima forever, if it means we can have electric toys. We prefer near-term extinction by climate chaos, if it means we can cool the house to 68 F in the summer. We prefer genocide, if it comes with a milkshake and an order of fries. Henry Ford was wrong when he pointed out, “It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.” On the other hand, General Omar Bradley’s sentiments from 1948 ring true: “The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner.”

Even though we’re willingly tapping six scary extreme energy sources to fuel the post-peak oil industrial economy, power outages have become exponential within the last decade, as indicated in the figure below. We clearly don’t care about the environmental consequences of our greed, so we keep soldiering on, wishing for a miracle and ignoring the evidence for imperial decline, human-population overshoot, runaway climate change, and a profound extinction crisis. Will the final power outage come in time to save us from our unrepentant selves?

Ultimately and sadly, I suspect it comes down to this: When all is said and done, a lot more is said than done. We simply can’t be bothered to contemplate a single issue of importance when the television calls or the shopping mall beckons. Political “activists” spend hours every day elaborating the many insignificant differences between the two dominant political parties in this country, but they cannot bring themselves to throw a wrench into the gears of industry. They continue to ignore the prescient words of Desmond Tutu long after the consequences of inaction are obvious: “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”

The only reason I can imagine wanting to retain this horrific system for a few more years is to safely shut down the nuclear reactors that are poised to kill us. But increasing the number of these uber-expensive sources of electricity, as President Obama desires, means shoving more ammunition into the Gatling gun pointed at our heads. One bullet does the trick. In classic American style, we prefer more. Always more.

How much of this is too much? When have you had enough?

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Please join me in supporting Mike Sosebee’s film. To learn more, click here.

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This essay is permalinked at Counter Currents and Island Breath.

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My monthly essay for Transition Voice was published today. It’s here. After the essay was submitted, new data appeared to substantiate that all life on Earth will be gone by mid-century: methane release will accelerate exponentially, release huge quantities of methane into the atmosphere and lead to the demise of all life on earth before the middle of this century. Carpe diem.
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There’s still time to support Mike Sosebee’s film. Click here.

My recent trip to the northeastern United States included 13 presentations. At least one was recorded. I presented on the topic of three paths to near-term human extinction to the New Roots Charter High School in Ithaca, New York on Tuesday, 3 April 2012. The incomplete video, in four parts, follows (big thanks to Wendy Bandurski-Miller for the venue and the video, and also big thanks to Vickey Kaiser for organizing the trip and hosting and to Karl Klein for hosting and loaning his vehicle to a stranger for nearly two weeks).

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There’s still time to support Mike Sosebee’s film. Click here.
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I’ll be presenting on Saturday, 2 June 2012 at the Bueno Vista Audubon Nature Center, 2202 South Coast Highway, Oceanside, California. Topic is “The twin sides of the fossil-fuel coin: Prospects for humanity in light of global climate instability and energy decline.” I hope to see you there.

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There’s still time to support Mike Sosebee’s film. Click here.

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I’m featured in an essay published online today: Can you grow your own food?, by Cindy Salo

Fast-forward a few years, and I fall again. I’m older, perhaps more mature, maybe even wiser. But I fall just as hard. She’s seductive, and I’m seduced. This time, it sticks for a long while. This time, she’s alluring, attractive, dream-like, sexy, desired by every man I know. She plays hard to get, but I catch her and the dream she represents. For decades, I switch to cruise control, taking for granted the dream I’ve corralled. For decades, she’s always there for me, and me for her. Thinking we’re working hard, we entertain often, buy the expected baubles, and travel when we want.

It’s coming apart now. She’s familiar with the thoughts of Marcus Aurelius, which makes her afraid of the future: “Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too.” I’m excited about the future, and I can no longer live in the past. I’ve done the entire Kübler-Ross cycle of grief, slipping back-and-forth as frequently as I once dined with her.

My denial was profound. How could it be over? We’re perfect for each other. We’ve never really known another, not like this. Please, tell me it’s just a phase.

My anger was brief and deep. Sometimes I look back on those days through my Buddhism-inspired lens, aghast I could have been so ridiculous. It was nobody’s fault, really. We grow. Sometimes we grow together. Sometimes we grow apart.

I still bargain, if only in my mind. What about shorter showers or, better yet, longer showers together? Surely we can merely cut back a little on our excesses, and we’ll be fine. I’m willing to compromise. But of course I know better. There’s no putting the air back in these shredded tires.

Depression visits, too. Trading in the comforts of familiarity for a new and different set of experiences is difficult at my advanced age. Dark nights alone at the mud hut drive me to tears. Tears come on sunny days, too, as I lean against the stem of a big cottonwood tree or lie on the ground near the river, reduced to a trickle by the insults of industry.

Acceptance came late, and skips away too often. But I’m building a new relationship now, one based on trust and mutual respect. It’s not about the sex, though she’s sexy. It’s about love, and she’s lovely. She’s kind, playful, and passionate. She doesn’t judge me, though my inadequacies are legion. She’s courageous and strong, in sharp contrast to my ever-present fear and fragility. I’m a tree-hugging dirt worshiper, and she likes to play in the dirt; when I’m feeling particularly flirtatious, I refer to her as my dirty girl. She accommodates my whimsy, and I love hers. I can scarcely believe she’s the same one I knew, and left, so many years ago. This time, I’ll not let go. I want to spend my remaining days with her.

After constantly taking from others and occasionally giving to me, Athena is dead to me. I miss her now and then, but I’m back with Nature now. Although I was slow to the realization, Nature provides all I need, and all I’ve ever needed. Color me smitten, yet again.

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Same-day update: I’m one of a few interviewed for the C-REALM broadcast released today and titled, “The rhetoric of doom.”

I’ve embedded one of the thirteen presentations I delivered over a span of eight days. It’s my final presentation, excluding Q&A (which might come later), which partially explains my on-and-off incoherence (the remainder is inexplicable, as usual).

The presentation includes a half-hearted pitch of my final book. The book is available, a couple months earlier than anticipated, and can be found at this link as well as the usual online outlets. If all goes according to plan, I’ll receive a few copies later today. The book has already been reviewed by Sandy Krolick, the kulturCritic and Cameron Conaway, the poet. Krolick’s review was picked up by Transition Voice, and Conaway’s review was run by Examiner.

I’m trying to produce video from my presentation at a Harvest Gathering Festival with a barn as venue. I may post it at a later date, if all goes according to plan. It includes no slides, and the material differs considerably from the one above.

Reaction was mixed, as usual. Some people, such as this college student, found my messages unbelievable. Others quibbled with the timing of the sources I presented (I carefully avoided pushing my own predictions). Standing ovations were rare — even though I begged for them — but in the end several people understood the importance of collapse if we are to extend our run as a species.

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Huge thanks to Shelley Youngman, who facilitated, organized, chauffeured, and hosted. A kindred spirit, Shelley was kind enough to make many of the arrangements and also to spend large blocks of time with me. Voluntarily, no less.

Thanks, too, to my many new friends and hosts (in the order I met them): Mike Draney and Vicki Medland (University of Wisconsin-Green Bay), Steve DeGoosh and Brooke Isham (Northern Michigan University), Sarah Redmond and Dan Redmond (Alger Community Transition), Shelley Youngman and Frank Youngman (Transition Cadillac), and Kimberly Sager and Aaron Wissner (Local Future).

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This post is permalinked at Plan B Economics and Survival Acres.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is what systemic collapse looks like. We’re awash in tell-tale interactions between climate change, “natural” disasters, and the industrial economy. Fire and flood are both on the rise. We used to be able to exert a modicum of control over both phenomena, back when climate chaos wasn’t exploding and the industrial economy wasn’t imploding.

On the other hand, we used to contain nuclear power within nuclear power plants, too. Well, except the occasional Hiroshima and Chernobyl.

And we used to busy ourselves with the quaint concept of one war at a time. Now we’re committed to Iraq and Afghanistan for the duration of the industrial age. Tack on a few more oil-rich, Muslim countries — say, Pakistan, Libya, and Yemen — and a reasonably intelligent person might conclude an increasingly desperate United States is beginning to lose its global hegemonic grip.

Phenomena that formerly captured our attention every few decades now appear weekly. The new normal is a mad scramble to steer clear of nature’s wrath while ratcheting up resource wars to stay one step ahead of complete socioeconomic collapse. Amidst the chaos, long-time political insiders warn of civil unrest.

Meanwhile, 300 million self-absorbed Americans watch the feel-good “news” to see which models of beer and automobile are being pimped by which of their favorite celebrities. It seems the personal game of “who’s screwing whom” is more important to the typical television-addicted American than the international, imperial game of “who’s screwing whom.” Oblivious to the carnage of industry and the lunacy of our lives, we keep praying the stock markets go up while bickering about who’s to blame for our economic misfortune.

There is another, better way to live. But we can’t be bothered. Please pass the guacamole, and don’t tell me how it got here. After all, extinction is for lesser species.

Until it’s not.

A model for a better way of living is demonstrated by a pair of former teachers: Mike Sliwa and Karen Sliwa, who wrote an essay in this space late last year, have boldly walked away from empire. They’ve joined us for a few months at the mud hut, where they are learning new skills. Among other things, in the first two weeks they’ve extended the water-delivery system (hence, learned some plumbing), added to the drip-irrigation system, expanded the orchard, done some carpentry and generally fix-er-up tasks, milked and walked the goats, and spent many an hour in the garden. I encourage you to visit their blog as they pursue World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms.

The Sliwas abandoned city life on moral grounds. Others will take a pragmatic approach to transitioning away from fossil fuels and toward climate chaos. In either case, my latest essay at Transition Voice provides a summary and charts a course. It’s been picked up and re-posted several other places. Perhaps it’s worth a look and a comment, on the original site or this one.

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This essay is permalinked at Counter Currents and Island Breath.

And we might not break the $120 mark, considering the impending hard landing for the Chinese industrial economy (improperly termed a black swan here) and the associated reduction in demand for crude oil. We might see Dow zero before the per-barrel price of oil hits $140. Whether oil soars or China swoons, the race to the bottom is on, with 2011 looking a lot like an ugly version of 2008 for the industrial economy.

Even the vaunted killing machine known as the U.S. military, with its essentially unlimited budget for bodies and technology, cannot maintain the flow of crude oil into the country. Military and political constraints are slapping the U.S. around already, and we’ve only begun to fall off the oil-supply cliff. A bunch of those military personnel and contractors are about to find themselves stuck in unfriendly territory without so much as a bicycle or fraudulent passport to aid their escape.

The oil-price trigger on which most folks in the echo-chamber are focusing is turmoil in the Middle East, and the demise of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia certainly could accelerate a price spike. But, as I’ve pointed out before, we’re due for a spike this year even without unrest in the Middle East. That’s what declining global extraction rates (e.g., Iraq) and increasing global demand does to the price, even if our vaunted military manages to conquer Libya for its oil. Even Forbes knows what most media outlets are afraid to reveal: Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest exporter of oil, has no spare capacity.

Or maybe this time is different, and a spike in the price of oil won’t bring the industrial economy to its knees. The ever-clueless cabal of economists at The Economist suggest an oil shock this year will transform the world economy. I agree about the transformation, though not in the direction they think.

In response to the good news about skyrocketing oil prices, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency finds itself in an uncomfortable position. Seems one of their spooks killed a couple of the wrong people in Pakistan, and subsequently was found with embarrassing documents in his possession. The documents indicate we’re trying to “ignite an all-out war in order to re-establish the West’s hegemony over a Global economy that is (sic) warned is just months away from collapse.” So the best measure we can come up with, in terms of preventing collapse of the world’s industrial economy, is to provoke global nuclear war? That’ll almost certainly slow the warming of the planet, but I’m still unconvinced it’s a good idea. Talk about curing the disease by killing the patient.

Although western pundits have completely misjudged the situation in Saudi Arabia, a big war hovers even without meltdown of the kingdom. So predicts noted trends forecaster Gerald Celente , financier Marc Faber, and former Goldman Sachs technical analyst Charles Nenner. World War III would be quite a sequel to the final Super Bowl.

That big war might take American minds off the ongoing global insurrection, which otherwise is coming to the United States, in part because of our capitalism-for-the-poor, socialism-for-the-rich political system (also see this analysis at Zero Hedge). Alas, that’s one of the many consequences of expensive oil and food, not to mention horrific inequities between the wealthy and the rest of us: riots.

On the other hand, we might not need the war to destroy ourselves. Ongoing nuclear issues aren’t restricted to Japan. Rather, the entire Pacific Rim is vulnerable. This is the stuff of nightmares, and it haunts my waking hours, too: a nuclear event, whether or not it results from war, and the subsequent release of radiation into the atmosphere.

As the industrialized world comes apart at the seams, I’m about done waiting for people to get it. Increasingly, it’s becoming a matter of waiting to see it get them.

Next-day update: Upon request, I submitted a brief essay to Transition Voice yesterday morning regarding the disaster in Japan. It’s on their website today.

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This essay is permalinked at Island Breath.

My monthly essay for Transition Voice, barely modified from an earlier essay in this space, was posted here today.