Gifting, Paying Forward and Other Ideas for the New Economy

January 21, 2012

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Looking through the news this week, I see that the stock market here is up, growth in China is slowing, Greece may or may not be on the verge of making a deal on its debt and the World Bank is warning of another worldwide economic downturn worse than that of 2008 if the developed nations do not get their fiscal houses in order.  Depending on which economic thinker you read, this may mean governments doubling down on austerity measures, adding more monetary stimulation to their various economies or, perhaps, both at the same time.  Who knows?

In the meantime, our oil-dependant world continues to pay more for less in energy as the easily accessible, high EROEI fossil fuels go the way of the dinosaurs and we become more dependent on the expensive, dirtier, harder to access dregs from deep water, arctic waters, oil sands, shale and mountain top removal for our oil, gas and coal.

In complexity theory, complex systems that lose energy become more chaotic around the edges of the system until they reach a tipping point in which they suddenly revert to a lower energy state.  If they lose enough energy, the final state is collapse.

In  much of the developed world, our economies have already devolved from a production based state to a debt-based state.  In our current global financial system, the illusion of growth is maintained by debt and interest.  But we have already begun to see what happens in this state as the flow of energy into the system tightens and decreases.  Governments, financial institutions and ordinary people become increasingly unable to maintain even the interest on their debts, the lower state become ever more unstable at the edges and must devolve to yet a lower energy state or collapse.

So, while the movers and shakers continue the futile task of trying to maintain this complex world financial system in a world of diminishing energy input, what are the rest of us to do as the world economy continues downward?

I don’t know.  Greater minds than mine don’t know, (though few of them will admit that.)

Right now, some are saving rather than going into debt, some are simply walking away from that debt and, for those whose lives are caught up in the chaos at the edges, we seem to have devolved to a state of increasing dependence on both governmental and non-governmental social safety nets.  But, if we cannot find a way to introduce more energy into the system, this lower energy state, too, will begin to fray around the edges.

If we keep expending our decreasing energy on new ways to maintain the high energy system, the next tipping point may well be collapse.  But if we can nudge the unstable state toward increasingly lower energy states, we may well find a state of low energy that will be relatively stable as far as maintaining an acceptable level of quality of life.

As I tried to point out last week, we can’t do this without letting go of our illusions and ideologies about what constitutes an acceptable quality of life.  If we can’t disabuse ourselves of the religious, political or financial notions that the only acceptable way is “my way or the highway” and work together in spite of our own particular beliefs, the resulting chaos will only push us toward final collapse.  I don’t think this is something our institutions can do for us any longer.  I think we will have to do it for ourselves.  We will have to find ways to put in place our own safety nets that give each other breathing room as we make a way for ourselves in each devolution of the economy.

There are all kinds of examples of this, both current and historical.  I started thinking about this again when a friend posted about her brother and his girlfriend this week. They started their own business in this fragile economy, without going into debt and paying exhorbitant interest and are now “paying forward” the act of kindness that made it possible. http://madisonwest.channel3000.com/photo-gallery/business/64433-local-cupcake-business-pays-recent-success-forward?page=31

This, of course, started with an act of “gifting”.  The original storeowner gifted them with the space to start their business within his own store.   The gift which, rather than being repaid, is then passed on to the next person.

I posted an article in the Community section of this blog about time banks – the idea of “depositing” time spent helping a neighbor or community member with a task which earns you an equal amount of time from any other member of the “bank” who can offer a service you need.

Gifting in the form of food, supplies and shelter for those who have lost everything can be passed along as those people begin to recover.  Leaving a gleaning during harvest, pot latches (or the modern day equivalent of community pot lucks) have a long and honorable history in moneyless  or low “income” societies.  In the past, community activities involving equipment in short supply or requiring a lot of time if done individually – barn or house raisings, canning and quilting bees, for example – were common neighborhood activities.

Sociologists and psychologists say that we can keep only six or seven items in our short-term memory at one time and that we do best in groups of no more than 100 to 150.  As I’ve said before, even the largest cities seem to organize themselves in smaller neighborhoods along these needs.

This global, oil based economy will change – either by devolution or collapse – as fossil fuel energy becomes more scarce and expensive.  The Old Order seems too set upon preserving business as usual to make the necessary changes, but we can make changes individually and within our own neighborhoods that will increase our chances of surviving the periods of chaos as the system comes down.  It’s the one act of gifting we can and should give ourselves.

On Letting Go

January 14, 2012

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The ways we humans kid ourselves never ceases to amaze me.  We actually believe that standing on a table at the edge of a cliff, dropping pennies in a jar while we saw the legs off the cliff side of the table and take a pick axe to the edge of the cliff, is a sign of intelligence as a species. And, that as long as we keep adding pennies to the jar, all will be well.

Mmmm, I don’t think so.  I think the saw blade is very near to breaking through the other side of the legs and that if we don’t want to go over the cliff like those idiots with the saws, penny jars and pick axes, we are going to have to take a fast leap off the backside of the table, now.  I think 2012 will be the year when those fragile slivers of wood that holds the table legs together finally break, all the pennies in the jar go flying as the cliff gives way and a good deal of the human weight on that table slides over the cliff.

It’s not as if we weren’t warned.  The past year reminded me of what Richard Clark said after 9/11 about people in the intelligence community “running around with their hair on fire” trying to warn the administration that an attack of some kind was imminent.  Over the last year, the warnings from climate scientists, ecologists, geologists and economists have reached a pitch I’ve not seen in my lifetime.  Yet the majority of us continue to delude ourselves that if we just keep adding pennies to that jar, all will be well indeed.

Still, even as our leaders are yelling, “No, no, it’s safe. They’ve almost sawed through the legs and nothing has happened.  The penny jar’s almost full.  The tabletop is strong.  Just hang on; we’re fine,” ordinary people are looking down at that wobbly table and wondering whether they should get off before it collapses.  They may not understand why it’s wobbling, but they know it’s dangerous and much too close to the cliff.  They may even understand there’s no other way except to let go and jump.  But that’s a scary proposition.

There is a certain art to letting go.  It involves shedding illusions, questioning ideologies and resisting propaganda.  It involves self-honesty, a little humility and no small amount of courage.

We might start with the illusion that we humans are special, created by a god (who has told us that the love of money is the root of all evil) to have “dominion” over the earth so we can plunder it in the worship of money.

That we humans consider life “sacred” and only kill or destroy with a heavy heart and for the purest of moral reasons, when we actually slaughter each other and most forms of life with an avaricious joy not found in any other species – for religious and political ideologies or for profit.

That we do believe the real measure of a person is their character and has nothing to do with whether they are rich or poor, the color of their skin or whether they are gay or straight.

After we’ve shed some of these illusions about ourselves, we might tackle some of our ideologies:

That my god is bigger, better, badder than your god.

That my political beliefs are bigger, better, badder than your political beliefs.

That my wealth makes me bigger, better, badder than … well … just about anyone who thinks that wealth isn’t the be-all and end-all of life on earth.

That anyone who disagrees with me on my version of the above deserves to rot in hell, be shot for treason or banished from my country, die alone and impoverished so I can have his or her wealth.

Once we recognize the silliness of our illusions and the folly of our ideologies, we’re on our way to resisting the steady drumbeat of propaganda that supports them:

That my religion is the only way to true salvation.

That people who practice no religion, any other religion, or don’t fit the constraints of my religion beliefs, are therefore evil and must be constantly demonized until we all realize that and are willing to destroy them for the greater good.

That my political party is the only way to true fiscal health for the nation.

That  people who affiliate with any other political party are maliciously uninformed and dangerous and must be demonized until we all realize that and are willing to do or say anything to make sure my party wins for the greater good.

That wealth and power are the only criteria for judging the health of a nation.

That these criteria therefore comprise the “national interests” which must be defended at all costs for the greater good.

That these religious, political and other “national” interests really are in the interest of the entire nation and not just a few elite at the top.

On second thought, after considering the severity of the crises the world finds itself in, the futility of our delusions about how to deal with them and the length of time honest self-assessment entails, maybe the wisest course would be to go ahead and jump off the table while you start the complex process of letting go.  Just in case … you know …

“On a Phone Internet Out”

January 7, 2012

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For those of my readers who may be wondering what happened to Pam, over at the End of Empire newsblog, I received a hurried email yesterday morning that read, “linda on a phone internet out will post blog later your friend pam.”  Though I’m happy to see she’s back online today, it did start me thinking about how we communicate with each other these days over long distances.

Personally, I’m probably a closet loner.  I have an old computer with a modem and the phone it connects to.  That’s pretty much it.  I don’t even have long distance telephone service, figuring that anyone I don’t know well enough to keep in contact with by local phone service or via the internet can pay for the privilege of calling me long distance.  Other than maybe going wireless and having a web cam so I could visit with family and friends from the convenience of home, I love the way I live.

Most young people today, with their ipads and iphones cannot imagine living this way, but I am old enough to remember when even families in many cities were part of a party-line telephone system.  I think I was about ten when our family became middle-classed enough to afford a single-line phone.  We got our news, morning and evening, through the local newspaper and in the evening (until I was twelve and we got our first television set) through the radio – via a fifteen-minute national newscast.  We probably had long distance telephone service, but unless it was a family emergency, we wrote letters.  And we thought ourselves quite modern for that day and age.

When I did the research for my novel, An Uncivil War – set here in Missouri during the Civil War – I remember feeling a certain sadness at how many families, as they moved west, lost touch with each other.  And how isolated from the news of the day many families on the frontiers of American civilization were before the advent of telegraph and railroad services.  Even with the coming of the transcontinental railroad and telegraph lines shortly before the Civil War began, few ordinary citizens had access, as these were used mainly to conduct business or the War.  Away from the major cities, people relied on the Postal Service or, in an emergency, the kindness of friends or strangers who might be traveling to a town near their loved ones and would hand-deliver a letter.  Yet, I suppose they thought themselves quite modern, too.  After all, a slow postal service probably beat the signal systems or word of mouth of even earlier times.

I never was much of a letter writer (my mother used to enclose a stamped envelope in her letters to me, once I left home, and kid me by saying she hoped I would use it to let her know I was still alive.)  Nor am I one to do a lot of visiting around.  It just seemed so much easier to pick up the phone to do what talking and other business I had.  Now, unless I visit “over the fence” with a neighbor or call my son, almost all my long-distance communication with family and friends is done on the computer, as is true with many of us these days, I suppose.

And, though I still get some of my news and information from television, most of it comes from wandering around on the web.  So, like many doomers, I have wondered what would happen if our vast telecommunication system and the world wide web it supports went the way of the dodo as we continued down the back side of peak oil.

As nearly as researchers can calculate, the whole system – from making the computers, setting up and running the system, to individual use of the system – accounts for about 1-2% of global energy use. http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2011-08-02/energy-and-emergy-internet , http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2011/10/307-gw-the-maximum-energy-the.html  Not too bad if you consider that transportation – personal, business and government – accounts for about 50% of energy use and 90% of oil use, worldwide.

If we are smart (and there’s no guarantee there), we will use the internet to cut down on much of this transportation usage as the two articles suggest.  Back in 1989, when my mother turned 79, we held a big family reunion at my niece’s home.  Family converged on her house from all over the region.  Great fun, but adding up the energy usage of all those forty people in getting there and back to their homes, probably not something most of us will be able to do as energy prices continue to increase over the coming years.  But I can see families having a “family reunion” conference call via the internet.  Probably not as much fun, but better than losing contact all together.

Right now, we use the internet for shopping, news, entertainment, education, doctor’s visit in rural communities, and even voting in some places.  As our postal and transportation systems suffer the effects of peak oil, I could envision more such uses to reduce energy and transportation costs.  We often lament the effects of the internet on our lives.  Yet much of that, as with television before it, is due to our own choices in how we use it.  Sadly, I can see us squandering it on stupidity while we continue our wasteful uses of energy and other precious resources until collapse is inevitable.  But, I can also envision us as a country held together by the internet through the troubled days ahead in much the same way the growing country was drawn and held together by other communication technologies in the past.  I hope we choose the latter.  I’d hate to see the day when the only thing I can get on my computer is a sign saying, “Internet out.”

“Your Porch Roof Is Collapsing”

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Back to doom, this week, my friends.

December 31, 2011

Living in a 112-year-old house, no matter how well built, is a series of financial adventures.  Late fall, over a year ago, after the leaves had fallen from the trees, a leak in the bathroom ceiling meant that part of the roof over it needed replacing.  We hired a roofer and, as he went around the house inspecting the rest of the roof, he stepped back toward the street in front of the house, cocked his head and said, “Your porch roof is collapsing.”

Sure enough, stepping back beside him at the edge of the yard, I could see, through the bare trees, where the long, hipped roof that coved the front porch had begun to separate from the house and was flattening between the hips.  Why hadn’t I seen it before?  Probably because I was simply to close to the problem to see the overall picture.

Had it been the neighbor’s porch roof, which I can see clearly from our yard, I would have seen immediately if their roof were collapsing.  But, walking out of our front door and looking up at our porch “ceiling”, I could see nothing amiss.  Looking down on the porch from my upstairs front windows, I couldn’t tell that the flat surface below me had begun to sink.  Walking around the porch, as I often do while checking the flower beds, I lacked the long range perspective it took to see the sinking roof.  Even my son, mowing the summer lawn, could not see it looking back through the summer trees from the easement along the street. So, the roof went unattended, probably for several years, because we didn’t see what was happening.

It seems to me, as we end this year and look to 2012, the collapsing porch roof is a metaphor for what is happening here in the United States.  It’s easy to look across the ocean and see that Europe’s porch roof is collapsing, but I am stunned at how easily we Americans have ignored our own sagging roof.

Many on the internet, and occasionally the mainstream media, have pointed it out.  Bill Hicks Is Dead, over at the Downward Spiral.  has spent over a year documenting daily – and sometimes several times a day – the popping of nails, splitting of framed wood and slipping of shingles in the national porch roof.  Sites like the Oil Drum, ASPO and others (see all links in the right hand column) have meticulously documented the decline in fossil fuels worldwide, including our newly touted “100 years of natural gas” and the quandary we are facing as a result.  As have our own and other militaries – recognizing that both “peak oil” and climate change represent security threats of serious proportions.

Agencies such as the IPPC, the IEA and our own EIA have documented the effects of increasing CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels on the global climate.

And even the IMF is warning that, unless we in the developed world get our financial houses in order, the world could face economic collapse.

So why, in the face of all this data, all these warnings, do we continue to ignore our sagging roof?  Short term, there is simply too much money to be made by those who have the power to actually fix the roof by kicking the can down the road a bit.  And, the average American, constantly bombarded with conflicting messages, hasn’t put the big picture together and assumes things will get back to normal eventually as they always have.

I suspect they are a lot like my son and I when the roofer finally pointed out the obvious state of our porch roof.  The recession and rising food and energy prices had taken its toll on our finances.  We had barely scraped together the money to do the back roof and bathroom ceiling after what little the insurance would pay.  Now, we were being told that the situation was even grimmer and costlier than we had anticipated.

With winter coming on, I suppose we could have had the roofer prop up the roof with two by fours and put the rebuilding off until spring, hoping the snow would be light, the ice storms few and traffic onto the porch minimal.  We even had him put up some reinforcement while we tried to get an equity loan from our regional bank so we could rebuild the roof and restore it to its former glory.  Alas, the loan fell through.  With the first, light snow upon us, we finally decided to have him remove the porch roof and posts down to the brick post supports and patch the siding on the house where the roof had been removed.

It seems strange, that empty space where the roof had been, though there has been one advantage.  In the winter, a lot more warming, afternoon sun comes through the downstairs windows. And in the summer, the trees still block most of that sun.  The “purity of style” of the old house has no doubt been reduced, but in this economy, I’m not sure that makes any difference since the value has dropped so much anyway.

I bring all this up because, as we move on into 2012, we, as a nation, are going to have to address our own sagging roof.  We’ve been told it’s in grave danger of collapsing and, right now, the nation seems to face the same choices about the national porch roof that my son and I did with ours.

We can keep propping it up and kicking repairs down the road until spring in hopes that it won’t collapse and catch some unlucky bastard in the debris.  We can keep borrowing money in the hopes of restoring it to some semblance of its supposed former glory.  We can do what my son and I did – and what many Americans are having to do as individuals.  We can swallow our pride and take it down, repairing the hole it left in the siding and doing what we can to maintain the porch’s functionality at a price that, with a lot of sacrifice, we can live with.

What we cannot do any longer is ignore the warnings we have been given until the whole shebang collapses and takes the house down with it.

Happy Holidays

December 24, 2011

No doom, today.  Just a little Christmas story that I wrote after a discussion with a seven-year-old a while back that, oddly enough, had nothing to do with Christmas.

Best wishes for a happy holiday season and enough peace and contentment to last through the coming year.

A CHRISTMAS STORY

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“Oh, Sister, I wish we could spend just one more Christmas in the old house.”  Hester Bromley sighed and turned from the picture window in the parlor.  The late afternoon sun crept under the roof of the porch with its elegant gingerbread trim, through the white sheers, and past the large Boston fern on its ornate rosewood stand, leaving complex, elongated patterns on the parquet floor.  “It’s good to see it restored with such care, isn’t it?”

“Now, Hester, we promised ourselves we would not do this.  The new family will be here in a few minutes.”  Esther Bromley ran her long, thin fingers across the newly restored oak mantle that held someone else’s family pictures; she turned away with a catch in her throat.  “We shouldn’t be here.  It’s wrong.”

Edwin Bromley, their father, had built the small brick Victorian before they were born.   Their mother, Genevieve Bouvier Bromley, had died giving birth to them upstairs in the north bedroom.  Everyone who’d known her said, with their chestnut hair, green eyes, and cupid bow mouths, the twins were the very image of her.

Although, no one would say that now.  The years had taken their toll – on the sisters and on the house they had been removed from bodily, ten years previous, by their cousin, George.

“What’s the first Christmas you remember here?”

Hester thought for a moment.  “I believe our third.”

“Oh, yes.  Wasn’t the tree lovely?  We went with Father and Nana to the country, just to select that lovely cedar.”

“I can still smell it.  It seemed huge at the time.”

Hester turned.  “And Nana showed us how to string popcorn for decorations.  Father was so proud …”  Her voice trailed away.

Esther sat down on the red velvet settee, with its carved mahogany frame, and primly smoothed the skirt of her long, faded black dress.  “I’m so glad that nice young man kept the furniture.”  She fingered the ivory cameo at her throat.

“Why, it would have cost a fortune to replace it these days.  Do you think his wife will like it?”  Hester brushed at a stubborn piece of lint on one of the matching tufted parlor chairs. “I do hope she’ll take good care of it.”

Esther glanced toward the small tree in the corner, hung with tiny lights and silver garlands.  “Not very many presents, are there?  I’m glad that young man found our Christmas angel.”

“I suppose they spent more money than they expected renovating the house.  We did let it fall into disrepair over the years, what with father’s fortune gone to take care of him.”

Esther sighed.  “What was your favorite Christmas?”

“The year we were ten.  Don’t you think?”

“Ah, yes.  Nana outdid herself that year.  The perfectly crisped goose, the plum sauce.”

“And her mashed potatoes.  Not a lump in that gravy either.  I think it was Father’s favorite year, too.”

Esther looked away and rubbed her arms.  “And the worst Christmas?”

“Any of the ones after we were teens.  Father was always away somewhere.  If it hadn’t been for Uncle John and his family, and Nana, of course, we’d have had no Christmas at all.  It’s difficult to believe that horrible George was their son.”

“Nana told me, once, she thought Father stayed away during those years because we reminded him so much of Mother.  And he couldn’t bear the pain.”

“Really?  I never knew that.”  Hester’s eyes brimmed with tears.  “I thought he just quit loving us.”

“Oh, no, dear.”  Esther patted her sister’s shoulder.  “He always loved us.  I think, after Mother died the way she did, he just had difficulty showing it.  Poor Nana.”

“What do you mean, poor Nana?”

“Don’t you think Nana was in love with Father?”

“Esther!  How could you?  She was a common servant.”

“Not so common as you think.  I heard she came from quite a good French family, though from the poorer side, of course.  She could have gone back anytime, but she chose to stay and help us nurse him after the stroke.  And I happen to know, she never took a penny of salary after he became sick.  Although Father gave her some very nice presents all those Christmases.”

“He lived too long.”

Now it was Esther’s turn to gasp.  “How can you say that?”

“Oh, I don’t begrudge the years we spent nursing him after Nana died.  But, he was miserable after his second stroke.  She had a way with him.  And a merchant of his reputation and energy, left so helpless.  As hard as we tried, I don’t think he ever had a happy day after she passed.”

“Neither did we.”

“Oh, sister.”  Hester stood and walked to the mirror over the fireplace as Esther joined her.  Identical twins, they had once been much sought after by the young gentlemen in their father’s wealthy circle .  Now, they were a sad study in grays and blacks.  Even the jade eyes had faded to a gray green.  They turned away in disgust.

“We let life pass us by, didn’t we?”  Esther grimaced.  “Though, with Father requiring so much care, I don’t suppose we had a choice.”

Hester nodded.  “I am ashamed to confess, Sister, I was relieved when Father passed.”

“I know.  Even the house had become a burden.”

“Perhaps we should have let George sell it sooner.  But we did have so many lovely years here.”  Hester tilted her head in sudden anger.  “He wound up with all of it anyway, that terrible man.”

“Now, now.  He was Father’s only surviving male relative.  As such, he was duty bound to take care of the house – and of us.”

“But to have us hauled out of here in such an undignified way … and to that awful place.”

“Well, we were quite –”  Esther whirled around at the sound of steps on the porch.  “They’re here.  We must go!”

They sailed past the large dining room table and breakfront, into the kitchen as a key turned in the lock and the front door opened.

“Merry Christmas, sweetheart.  I hope you like our new home.”

“Oh, Bill.  It’s beautiful.  You did a wonderful job of restoring it.”

The two sisters stopped and peered out at the brown haired woman who’d thrown her arms around her lanky husband’s neck.

“You really like it, Jennie?”  He smiled down at her.

“Honey, when I think of what it looked like when we first saw it …” She smiled.  “I love you.”  She moved around the room, touching one piece of furniture and, then, another.  “Where on earth did you find these?”

“They came with the house.  They’d been stored in the attic.  But they had good, heavy dust covers, so …”

“Well, all I can say is, the Bromleys had good taste.”

In the pantry, the two sisters smiled and grasped each other’s hand with delight.

“Hello.”

Esther and Hester whirled around to see a dark haired girl of about seven smiling up at them.

“Who are you?” They whispered, in unison.

“Mary Kathleen Davis.  But you can call me Kate.  Everyone does.  I was named after my two grandmothers.”  She looked around the pantry.  “Do you live here, too?”

The sisters looked at each other.  “No, dear.  We used to, but …”  Hester stopped, not sure what to say.

“We just wanted one last look.  But we’re leaving, now.”  Esther assured her.  “You won’t tell –”

“Kate?  Where are you honey?  We’re going to light the tree and open presents.”

The two sisters hurried to hide behind the door.

“In the kitchen, Mom.”

Jennie Davis entered the kitchen and peered through the pantry doorway, glancing around.  “Who were you talking to?”

The sisters put a finger to their lips.

“No one.  Just myself.”

“Well, come on, then.  We’re ready to start.” She turned and walked back to the parlor.

The little girl gave the sisters a conspiratorial smile.  “I won’t tell,” she whispered, as she ran to join her parents.

“We have to go,” Esther said.  “Now.”

“Can’t we stay just a little longer?”  Hester looked at her sister with such pleading in her eyes.

“I suppose we could just watch for a few more minutes.  After all, no one will miss us.”

They gasped with delight as Bill Davis plugged in the tree and a hundred tiny colored lights reflected around the polished woods of the darkened room.

They clutched each other and smiled at the expressions of delight from each of the three family members as they opened their gifts.

At last, Jennie said, “How about some milk and cookies before bed?”

“I’ll get them, Mom.”

“Thank you, honey.  Be careful pouring the milk.”

Kate bounced into the kitchen, and peered into the pantry.  “Would you like some milk and cookies, too?”

“Oh, no, dear,” Hester said.  “We really must be going.”

“But it was very kind of you to let us share your lovely Christmas,” Esther added.

Then, as Kate clapped her hands to her mouth and stifled a giggle, Esther pushed with her feet, rose, and disappeared through the pantry ceiling.

Oh, dear, Sister,”  Hester, gave an awkward push and followed her.  “I do wish you would learn to drift up the stairs like a proper ghost.”

 

Can They, Will They and Why Would They?

December 17, 2011

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Much ado has been made, the last couple of weeks, about the so-called Indefinite Detention clauses in the National Defense Authorization Act passed by Congress this week, of President Obama’s reversal of his promise to veto it, and whether it authorizes indefinite detention, without charges or trial, of citizens both here and abroad by the US Military.

So, can they now do this?

Unless the President vetoes the bill, which he now says he won’t, the ACLU, Human Rights Watch, Glenn Greenwald (for his excellent dissection of the relevant parts of the bill, see http://www.salon.com/2011/12/16/three_myths_about_the_detention_bill/singleton/) and even the usually staid New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/16/opinion/politics-over-principle.html?_r=1 say, Yes.

But, the law only applies to citizens that are terrorists, right?

Well, according to Greenwald, “Section (1) is basically a re-statement of the 2001 AUMF. But Section (2) is a brand new addition. It allows the President to target not only those who helped perpetrate the 9/11 attacks or those who harbored them, but also: anyone who “substantially supports” such groups and/or “associated forces.” Those are extremely vague terms subject to wild and obvious levels of abuse (see what Law Professor Jonathan Hafetz told me in an interview last week about the dangers of those terms).”

Take a look at the official Government definition of terrorism:

“[An] act of terrorism, means any activity that (A) involves a violent act or an act dangerous to human life that is a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or any State, or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or of any State; and (B) appears to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by assassination or kidnapping.”

Now think of the various Occupy groups and why city governments said they were breaking up their encampments or arresting them (mostly health and safety code violations or other local laws) and whether or not an expansive interpretation of any of these terms might be applied to them or other protest groups the government would want to be rid of.

What makes us think a US President or our Congress would ever use such power against ordinary citizens?

Unfortunately, power expands to fill the spaces given it.  The original Authorization to Use Military Force, at the beginning of the war on terror did not give permission for indefinite detention, torture or assassination.  Yet, both President Bush and President Obama have interpreted the authorization to include all three over the last decade.

But, why would they do that?

The short version?  Because as oil and other resources peak and dwindle, the Empire will do whatever it deems necessary to save itself and excuse it as “saving the nation”.

For a fuller, more sweeping explanation, I recommend John Michael Greer’s article, The Future Can’t Pay Its Bills.  http://energybulletin.net/stories/2011-12-15/future-cant-pay-its-bills

“Over the last decade, for example, crude oil prices have more than tripled; over the last decade, behind a froth of speculative booms and busts, the world’s industrial economies have lurched deeper into depression. Peak oil researchers have pointed out for years that the former trend would bring about the latter, but long after events proved them right, the connection still remains unnoticed by most people.

To be fair, the way most people and nearly all economists think about economics makes this sort of blindness to the obvious hard to avoid. It’s standard these days to treat the circulation of money—the tertiary economy, to use a term from my book The Wealth of Nature—as though it’s all that matters, and to insist that the cycles of nature and the production of goods and services (the primary and secondary economies) will inevitably do whatever we want them to do, so long as there’s enough money. This is why, for instance, you’ll hear economists insisting that the soaring price of oil is good for the economy; after all, all the money being spent to buy oil is getting spent in turn on other things, right?

What this ignores, of course, is the fact that the price of oil is going up, in large part, because petroleum is getting steadily more difficult to extract as we exhaust the easily accessible sources, and so the cost of oil production is going up while the amount of oil being produced is not. As a growing fraction of industrial civilization’s capacity to produce goods and services has to be diverted into oil extraction in order to keep the oil flowing, the amount of that capacity that can be used for anything else decreases accordingly. Notice, though, that this diversion isn’t an obvious thing; it happens one transaction at a time, throughout the economy, as laborers, raw materials, capital, and a thousand other things go into oil production instead of some other economic sector …”

This is precisely what has happened to our and the global economy over the last three or four years.  Today, the Senate is supposed to vote on a two-month extension of unemployment benefits and social security tax cuts tied to faster approval of the Keystone pipeline that President Obama postponed until 2013.

Although Republicans insist the pipeline would create 100,000 new jobs, the pipeline would cost around $9,000,000,000 to build and produce an estimated 5-10,000 jobs (which includes jobs along the 1/3 of the pipeline that runs through Canada and only a few hundred of which, according to TransCanada, would be permanent).  The pipeline would carry about 700,000 barrels per day of the nearly 20 million bpd of oil that Americans use. http://money.cnn.com/2011/12/13/news/economy/keystone_pipeline_jobs/index.htm

This is just one measure of the desperation of the Empire as peak oil consequences set in and the race to find energy enough to maintain global growth sucks the economy dry for the rest of us.  As the reality of our quagmire sinks in, the 99% of us bearing the brunt will become more vocal and angry.  It’s not surprising, then, that the Empire is putting in place laws that will allow them to tighten the screws on such protests by American citizens using the existing laws on “terrorism”.

So, can they?  Yes.  Will they?  Undoubtedly  And probably sooner, rather than later.  Why would they?  It’s the nature of empires bent on saving themselves from collapse at any cost.  Take them at their word.

Insults, Insults Everywhere …

November 10, 2011

In reading through the news this week, it seems to have been a week of insults, great and small, both here and around the world.

The actor, Alex Balwin, who was apparently removed from an airplane last week for causing a fuss over having to turn off his i-pod or something, issued a written apology to his fellow travelers that managed to insult both the airline industry and Greyhound Bus by pointing out the “filthy planes, barely edible meals and paramilitary bearing of the industry” and comparing flying to a “Greyhound bus experience”.

Of course, poor old Alex can’t hold a candle to politicians at home and abroad when it comes to insulting or feigning insult from others.

Great Britain’s David Cameron apparently insulted the entire European Union this week, when he said, “Thanks, but no thanks” to their little treaty that would give national sovereignty over the various countries’ budgets and borrowing to a European commission.

Pakistan, our staunch ally in the war on terrorism – despite our penchant for blowing up their people with drone attacks meant to kill terrorists – insulted The Homeland for our kind efforts by entering into peace talks with our enemy the Taliban.

And Iranian politicians insulted our government by producing a video of the CIA stealth drone we so carelessly lost while using it to secretly spy on them for the last several years.

On the home-front, our own Newt Gingrich showed – not once, but twice this week – that he’s no slouch at insults, himself.  He started the week insulting just poor Americans by deciding that their children – having no “role models” at working, even though about 70 % of the poor are working poor – ought to be taught work ethics by firing school janitors and putting poor people’s tykes to work in their place, starting at, oh, about age nine.

Yeah, that ought to teach the little lay-abouts some responsibility.

But by the end of the week, Newt had managed to insult millions of Palestinians around the world by asserting that they were simply Arabs who we had apparently invented as Palestinians back when we gave Israel statehood.  (Umm, hey, Mr. Historian, ever read Herodotus?)

Not to be outdone in the “I am stupid” department, Rick Santorum managed to insult both poor people and obese people this week by stating that, if elected President, he would discontinue the food stamps program because the obesity epidemic among people who receive food stamps means we don’t need them.

Well, all righty, then.  Problem solved.

And GOP Rep.Trent Franks (AZ), instead of working on jobs creation, has insulted every American with a brain larger than a peanut by introducing a bill (I kid  you not) to protect the civil rights of fetuses by banning abortions based on race or sex.   Because, y’ know, those black women are all running out to have abortions as soon as they find out their fetuses are (gasp) black.

Yeah, that’s the ticket.  Sigh!

But for sheer, unmitigated hubris in the insults department, you’ve got to hand it to the unemployed and Occupy DC.  Those people actually invaded the hallowed halls of Congress this week to demand their representatives sit down and talk about the jobs situation with the people they represent.  This outrageous insult so shocked the delicate sensibilities of the good congresspersons that some literally fled to their offices and locked themselves inside to keep the riff-raff out.  One, Darrell Issa, called the police to remove them and another, Mitch McConnell, sent out one of his staffers to inform the interlopers they needed to make an appointment if they wanted to see him.  Though, to be fair, one or two of the ninety or so Representatives thus visited did actually take time to talk to these unruly constituents who had so inconsiderately invaded their sanctuary.

No wonder, then, that three out of four voters in a Gallup released yesterday were insulted enough to say most lawmakers don’t deserve re-election.  Yet with all the hard feelings against the Congress, fifty-three percent said their lawmakers deserved re-election.

Ooookey-dokie, we are so doomed.

Well, I thought I bring all this to your attention to a) point out why we’re doomed and b) recommend that, after you’ve prepped as much as you can as fast as you can, c) you sit back, laugh and enjoy the sheer lunacy of the coming crash, because d) it doesn’t appear it’s going to get much better than this, folks.

Now, I’m going to put my feet up and have a cup of tea while I see if I can find anything these days not to be insulted about.

Comfort Food

December 3, 2011

4' x4' porch garden

Winters always mean comfort food, to me.  A pot of vegetable-beef soup simmering on the stove (though in this economy it’s usually vegetable-hamburger soup).  Corned beef with cabbage, potatoes and carrots (again, with hamburger in this economy).  Tomatoes and okra simmered with slices of smoked sausage (or – yep, you guessed it – hamburger).  Chicken and noodles, with peas and carrots (no, no hamburger, but I have been known to make a mean pot of hamburger and noodles in brown gravy if chicken is too expensive).  Beans and ham.  Chili.  The list of comfort foods around the world is endless.

I started thinking about this after reading an article over at msnbc.com about the toll the economy and subsequent joblessness has had on food banks around the country.  http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/01/9123979-lingering-joblessness-taxes-nations-food-banks  Everywhere, we’re getting worried about how we are going to feed people if this globally entangled economy doesn’t improve.  Maybe we’re looking at it the wrong way.

When you get right down to it, most of what we call comfort food started out as peasant food at a time when peasant farmers and small businessmen had a vegetable patch, a few chickens and maybe a pig, milk cow or goat.  Most comfort food consists of several types of vegetables, herbs and spices, with a little meat for flavoring or some kind of meat substitute such as eggs, milk or cheese augmenting a meal of vegetables and starches such as potatoes, rice or other grains mixed in or on the side.

We humans ate this way for much of our history.  Most of us still do, except that – as the oil age dawned and big agriculture, globalization of crops and processed food spread around the world – our consumption of meats and fats increased while our consumption of vegetables remained the same or decreased, even in those dishes we now call comfort food.  This is a very expensive way to eat.  And, it will become increasingly so as the world economy moves through peak oil and climate change.  That could be a good thing, because almost everywhere the “American way of life” has spread, so has the American way of death – obesity and early age onset of coronary artery disease, diabetes and, perhaps, even some  cancers.

As the global economy – propped up by fossil fuels and a fossil fuel based military – fails, we will have to localize our economies once again – including our agriculture.  Perhaps, with local farmers no longer forced to compete with giant, international agri-corporations and more people growing at least some of their own food again, we will go back to the roots of what we now call comfort food in order to feed everyone.  Over time, we may even see a genuine reduction in the deadly fruits of our modern way of eating.

How could that not be a comfort.

Seventy-One

Image by flyingroc via Flickr

November 26, 2011

Last Tuesday, I turned seventy-one.  Not a big deal; I felt no discernable difference –

physically or mentally – between being seventy the night before, and seventy-one that next morning.  Still, I was surprised to find, as I went online to read the (mostly dour) news of the day, a sudden rush of gratitude to be living in these extraordinary and interesting times.

I blame it on curiosity.  With twenty-nine years to go before I turn one-hundred, I find I do still want to stick around as long as possible just to see how it all turns out.

I know, for example, that Europe faces economic calamity now, with all the dire implications for both the Europeans and the rest of the world. And, as some point out, for democracy itself. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/24/inevitable-eu-democracy-survive-mess  Yet, I remain curious as to just how long the technocrats and oligarchs and other movers and shakers can continue this delicate dance toward the cliff of financial collapse without actually slipping and plunging over it.

And, with the fossil fuel industry’s claims that we have a hundred years of oil, coal and natural gas right here at our fingertips, I can’t help wondering why they have spent so much time, money and energy in places like Kazakhstan’s coastal waters with so little return on investment http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/for-big-oil-a-cautionary-kazakh-tale-11232011.html and are contemplating even more dangerous and expensive places like the Arctic Sea as global warming takes its toll on the Arctic sea ice.  Even at seventy-one, I find myself curious as to when or whether these movers and shakers of our oil-dependant world will ever grasp that, in a post-peak oil world, they are increasingly vulnerable to the battle between energy returned and energy invested, just as I wonder about their consummate abilities to deny the growing evidence supporting global warming and climate change http://www.climatehotmap.org/ and its relationship to our dependence on fossil fuels.

I’m curious as to whether their economic ideologies and worldviews convince them these events can’t happen simply because they have too much to lose, or their hubris makes them believe they will be exempt from the consequences as they do happen.

Mostly, though, I’m curious about the rest of us – the ninety-nine percent who are not technocrats, oligarchs or movers and shakers.  We do, after all, have the same propensity for denying what challenges the stability of our own little worlds that they do.

Even as I pare down and rearrange my life in preparation for what I believe is coming, there are creature comforts I’m not willing to do without just yet.  I will unplug my microwave and my television to cut off the residual power when I’m not using them, but I like the convenience of the microwave and the belly laughs I get from watching the fractious, socially clueless nerds on The Big Bang Theory.  I’m not willing to give up my old and cranky computer yet, though I am (fortunately) too poor to buy into the multitude of i-everythings with which the world of commerce would like me to replace it.  And I must confess, I’m happily munching corn chips dipped in cheese sauce and sipping a diet soda as I write this blog post.  What I’m not willing to do any longer is deny that these events are occurring, that their effects on our collective way of life will be dire, that the window for meaningful change is fast closing and that all of us will be called upon to make difficult choices about who we are, what is truly important in our lives and what the relationship is between us and our fellow human beings if that window slams shut.

The failing economy has already pushed many of us into making those choices.  Though it may be the area of the country I live in, so far I think we are doing pretty well in helping one another through.  I am curious about whether we can maintain this as state governments – and eventually, the federal government – are forced to further cut back programs that support us in those endeavors.  And I’m curious whether those of us who are more prepared can resist the fears of those who suddenly find they are not.  I hope so.

Perhaps my own belief that we can is as ideological as the beliefs of those who do not feel they are so obliged.  I suppose that’s one of the things I will be most curious about over the next year, as I head for seventy-two.

The Empire and the OWSers

November 19, 2011

What a busy week for the Empire.

Image via Wikipedia

This week, the Empire finally struck back at those pesky OWSers, big time.  In a coordinated effort by mayors across the country, aided by “advice” from DHS and the FBI. http://www.examiner.com/top-news-in-minneapolis/were-occupy-crackdowns-aided-by-federal-law-enforcement-agencies,  http://wonkette.com/456282/surprise-homeland-security-coordinates-ows-crackdowns-nationwide, http://capitoilette.com/2011/11/15/oakland-mayor-jean-quan-admits-cities-coordinated-crackdown-on-occupy-movement/ From New York to Oakland police forces, militarized over the last decade by DHS, tore down Occupy encampments and drove out the OWSers. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/nov/15/occupy-movement-police-crackdowns, http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/11/ows-cellphones/?mid=52.

Some of the scenes were heartbreaking, some horrific. None seemed more horrific to me than the picture of the NYPD police commander – fist raised, face contorted with anger – caught in the act of striking a young protester turning away from him and the one of 84 year old Seattle protester, Dorli Rainey, her face and clothing dripping with pepper spray at the hands of Seattle police. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/16/dorli-rainey-pepper-spray-occupy-seattle_n_1097836.html

I suppose the Empire thought that if they could roust them out of their encampments and tear them down, they would roust them from the consciousness of its Imperial subjects.

Of course, the Imperial Trolls immediately spread out across the internet (as they have for months now) chortling with glee and spreading disinformation about how these bands of lazy, dirty, jobless hippies – whose camps had been infiltrated with murderers, rapists, socialists and (gasp!) the homeless – had finally gotten their comeuppances.  For a more accurate picture of the movement, see this http://wepartypatriots.com/wp/2011/11/09/get-a-what-a-job-70-of-occupy-wall-streeters-are-employed-compared-to-56-of-tea-partiers/

Thankfully, that comeuppances thing has not been the case.  On Thurday, the OWSers –as strong as ever -marched in cities and towns across the country to mark the two-month anniversary of the movement. http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20111117/news/711179341/photos/  and http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439×2330140 (This has to be my all time favorite series of pictures from the New York marches. You go, girl!)

The reason the Empire couldn’t stop the movement is because there is so much more to it than slogans on protest signs.  It has inspired a new type of activism at the very heart of the protests which Glenn Greenwald talks about in this piece from Salon  http://www.salon.com/2011/11/17/ows_inspired_activism/singleton/, as well as in its supporters https://donate.firedoglake.com/weatherize/contribute.  And in the encampments, as this statement from the Occupy Wall Street Sustainability Working Group – issued the day after the raid – clearly shows in the items that were among those destroyed or removed by the New York City police. http://www.seismologik.com/journal/2011/11/15/statement-from-occupy-wall-street-sustainability.html

There is no doubt that the Empire grows ever more fearful.  It shows in the militarization of  our police departments across the country as well as in the increasing use of private security forces here in America. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/privatizing-liberty_b_1100606.html?ref=daily-brief?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=111811&utm_medium=email&utm_content=BlogEntry&utm_term=Daily%20Brief  And it shows who the Empire is most afraid of,  The ideas and activities of the OWSers challenge the very heart of an Empire that is struggling to maintain its position in an increasingly turbulent world.

This is why the Empire has been so busy in this very busy week.  While the covert mongering for war with Iran continued, Leon Panetta called China and India “threats” in an interview this week, before backtracking on the statement when questioned. http://www.vancouversun.com/news/defense+chief+calls+China+India+threats/5728027/story.html

The military tested a new hypersonic weapon that can bomb any place in the world in under an hour. http://www.businessinsider.com/yesterdays-hypersonic-missile-test-2011-11, http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jTJeu2vLniWcT_-Sqc5IQQUOPesQ?docId=CNG.1e15397ba6f112f35bec6eb7fd662ef1.1b1  What a marvelous idea.  I’m sure the people of Whereverthehellistan are cheering us on as I write this.

And they expanded the military reach of the Empire a little more by making a deal that will land the Marines in Australia http://www.businessinsider.com/us-marines-australia-2011-11  to protect who knows what possible national interests way down there. http://www.blacklistednews.com/Australia_at_the_very_center_of_a_new_world_order./16598/0/38/38/Y/M.html

With the threats of peak oil and climate change growing daily, the Empire shows, both here and abroad, that it will not go quietly into that good night.  And we, the ninety-nine percent who are left out of the Empire except when needed to fight its wars or prop up its finances with our consumption, must make a choice, now.  We can wait until the crumbling weight of Empire crushes the nation or we can work with the OWSers and other transition and sustainability groups to bring about a different outcome.  We do not need Imperial permission to change the nation of the ninety-nine percent; we do need the courage to make that choice and the persistence to see it through.

The Empire drew the battle lines this week in its attacks on the OWSers.