If you haven’t been following the comments sections, there’s a debate brewing concerning the futility of resistance and claiming freedom (see Following the Money). I started to weigh in, and it turned into its own post:
I’ve witnessed first-hand the passionate fervor of real resistance and struggle. I’ve seen people do unimaginably dangerous and desperate things just for a narrow opportunity to live the rest of the week or the opportunity of landing the type of really crappy job that very few Americans would even consider. You are absolutely correct in regard to “cheap food/easy money” but we know this will not last. It can’t.
The videos in the mailbox, vicarious internet rhetoric, and stupid rapping economists are all distractions and come along for the ride with the “free bread and circus” in exchange for tax dollars to nowhere and leave us just alive enough to sap a bit more energy but not kill us. Once this goes, the disillusioned, ignorant, and supple-handed middle goes too. Once the Prozac prescriptions run out, it is likely replaced with Molotav desperation when there’s no longer anything else to lose. At least “our kind” of rhetoric leaves a thorn in your brain and prompts action vs. streaming porn or watching people more beautiful and more pathetic getting voted off some island. That’s the first “at least.”
Just from publishing this blog, I’ve discovered “the community” is thin and spread out throughout the world. I’ve learned a lot about this community and this was my primary motivation for starting this project. Many are distrustful and reluctant to place any more faith in promises. The members are confused and tired, but at least there is a community developing that is willing to acknowledge the fact that we’re headed toward the working end of a cliff and express a willingness to do something about it – even if the doing is sort of a question mark. That’s the second “at least.”
Working the land is a skill long since stolen from entire generations of Americans. In fact, a recent (serious) group conversation I witnessed about hard vs. soft skills yielded one surprising debate considering “bargain shopping” as a skill. The group consensus: bargain shopping is indeed a hard skill. I asked if anybody in the room had ever slaughtered an animal or harvested a crop (besides me)….nope. Yikes. But, how exactly is this their fault if you’ve grown up in Queens and only been shown how to score cheap concert tickets or 2 for 1 happy hours? This is part of the nonconsensual buy-in for multiple generations of the overtaxed and under utilized acquired from being born in a certain place on the globe just like building fences and fixing tractors was inherited by the country kids I know.
From growing up in Montana and acquiring all sorts of practical experience, my own skill is dusty and pathetic compared to what it should be right now. I’m FAR better off than nearly everybody I meet, however, and have at least had the experience of growing subsistence gardens and raising animals for food. Nowadays, for many of my generation, this type of lifestyle is considered a luxury after you have successfully navigated through decades of debt, wasted time, and Matrix living. I’m one of the anomalous lucky ones to have been fortunate enough to had little choice but learn real life. It’s not like I planned this, but at least there’s something there to dust off, revitalize, and grow. That’s the final “at least.”
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There’s no debate brewing, just some strong coffee. Concerning its heady aroma, “resistance” can be thought of in the electrical sense, where energy generates heat. When people speak honestly, things warm up. I’m of the opinion that’s healthy, and I certainly get more out of it than eating a bag of Doritos. I do confess, however, that I bought some Tuesday night. If this be treason, make the most of it. I come here because I like the content of the posts and those who respond to them. It’s compelling reading. I’m the last guy in the world who ever wants to fire a gun at somebody or see someone get killed. I’d rather talk with people than have a shootout. I really have no idea what’s going to happen, but there is a sword to back my pen should it run out of ink. That said, I’d rather be eating grapes. Or someone else can be eating grapes while I work on my hard skill of cooling things down with a waving palm frond.
What a great post and serendipitously, I just had a friend over yesterday to discuss the effects of “All This”. The conclusion of our discussion at the table: That small groups and small awareness can be the tipping point between total panic vs. semi-managed decline.
As you bring up the question about skills with a small group, they in turn may mention it to others. Some will investigate things like CSAs, intentional communities, etc. It isn’t resistance in the mode that I was calling ‘futile’ (mostly tongue in cheek to start with, anyway). It is an ‘awareness of alternative’ which leaves an out for the stressed millions of minds. If 100 people in a city neighborhood realize they can dismantle one house to use the parts to build a barn for a few cows and chickens and tear down the picket fences to make a commons, then that’s 100 people who don’t need Big Brother anymore.
I need maybe 50 able-bodied persons to maintain my 50 acres. Those could in turn support many more family members than that.
These important discussions need to focus on the bottom-up way of living. Meanwhile, I guess I should go back and catch up on the comments…;-), then get back to real work. -Dan
I really want to jump into this topic, but I have other things going today. I’ll try to get back to it soon.
Finally got the comments fixed. I tried to comment a few weeks back and…
But anyway, I have discussions nearly every day with my coworkers and friends on this topic. Nearly universally they know nothing. Nothing about food and where it comes from. I’m blue collar and I expect more knowledge on the topic from the working class than others, but alas…
I too count myself fortunate that as a youngster I worked on a ranch and a dairy farm. Cutting, raking, baling and stacking alfalfa hay. Mending fencelines. The sort of basic veterinary work that doesn’t require an actual vet. Milking 400 Holsteins twice a day. Cleaning out the loafing pens and yards for fertilizer.
At the time it was just a job. Maybe someday soon I’ll do it again if I’m not undercut by illegal hispanics.
If you want a vision of what the future could be, look here: http://thevenusproject.com/images/stories/a-designingthefuturee-book.pdf
It’s recently been brought to my attention that I am now a part of the online community. That may sound obvious, and I suppose it is, but I still feel very much on my own. If anyone out there is tired of just sitting in front of their computer screen night after night and wants to meet up or talk about solutions, I can be reached at verticalsurfer@gmail.com, or at Vertical Surfer, PO Box 3692, Seattle, WA, 98124.
For those who might be in the area, I’m taking the train to Vancouver, B.C. for ZDAY 2010 in mid-March. If you want to check it out, let me know. Thanks.
http://www.zday2010.org/
I scanned through the VenusProject and found this:
“The amount of housing, food, water, health care, transportation,
education, and such needed, must be compared to the available
resources the planet has to offer. This has to be balanced with the needs
of other species that make up the web of life on Earth.”
A GREAT statement, but then they say, “The main objective is to overcome scarcity and provide for the needs of
all the world’s people.”
These are contradictory statements, and they negate the premise (mostly) of the book, which falls under the “Myth of Progress”.
I like the overall concept that we need to change our direction, but I think it begins with questioning the primacy of human beings’ right to consume, or “Any true environmentalist would commit suicide.”
I’m not an environmentalist: I don’t separate human beings from the environment. Maybe I’m a ‘universalist’ but I don’t go to the big round church in the suburbs.
Lots of good stuff in the book, though. Thanks for the link.
Oh, as for another look at a possible future, read “Haze” by Modesitt. Like the movie, “Star Trek, Insurrection”, it is one of those encounters where the consuming ‘advanced’ people encounter a ‘backward’ people, only to find out they are not so backward after all.
The Scientist meets the Amish and finds out that he’s just another horse’s ass and they already have more than they need.
I don’t see the contradiction you’re referring to. There’s no reason every person in the world can’t have the basics, and I’d like to see that happen because the world would be a lot better place to live. Naturally that includes your point about “the right to consume.” Our monetary system generates inherent disregard for human well-being and perpetuates extreme waste, having a directly negative impact on the rest of non-human life. It doesn’t have to be this way. Seems to me there’s not so much a scarcity of resources as there is an abundance of greed, ignorance, fear, and lack of vision. The stated purpose of the Zeitgeist movement (the activist arm of the Venus Project) is “to transition to a new, sustainable direction for humanity as a whole.” They’re the only group I know that’s actively trying to create the global awareness necessary to start moving in this direction. They don’t claim the direction is perfect, just a lot better than the one we have now, and I agree. Thanks for your input. It’s everybody putting their minds together that’s going to make the real difference. Thanks for the “Haze” tip. I’ll check it out.
The contradiction is that they still imply that people are a priority over the welfare of the planet.
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The pie-in-sky attitude of the Venus Project also implies that there are infinite resources available and that anything humans want, they can have.
I also agree that most of the problems of hunger, etc. are political in nature. I joined up to the project, and sent an email to the address for Jacque himself, but I suspect it will be blown off, going by the egotistical artistry of the whole thing. (once you put a bunch of engineers and designers into a ‘team’, they forget that without ‘me’, there’s no ‘meat’ in it)
If they’re implying that, I guess I’m not picking up on it. I listen to their weekly radio broadcasts, and I haven’t heard anything to that effect. I’ve written Jacque too. We’ll see what happens…