October 4, 2014 
After reading the blog post, “The Buffalo Wind”, over at the Archdruid Report http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/ last Wednesday evening, I reread it over at Resilience.org, while I was there on Thursday, and again (twice) on Friday.
No, I have not undergone a sudden conversion from Atheist to Druid. I just like the way his blogs sometimes send my already buzzy brain into buzzing overdrive over various things I’ve been trying to puzzle out for days or weeks.
I must confess, even though I’ve been horrified by the world’s response, or lack, thereof, to the growing Ebola epidemic in West Africa, I’m not as worried about an outbreak here in America – yet – as I have been about the curious lack of compassion (even self-serving “compassion”) by the developed world toward this outbreak.
The attitudes seem to be, “Don’t worry. The Government and our sterling Medical Systems will protect us,” (which they probably will – at this time) and, “Oh, by the way, here’s a bone for those poor dogs over in West Africa; bad luck, that, but the stock market’s up, the economy’s busting out of the doldrums; let’s get on with the serious stuff – you know, sanctions on Russia, fighting Isis – the really hardcore stuff” – even though the recovery has mostly gone to the top ten percent, as will the war profits while the costs will fall on the rest of us.
But Russia is fighting back with sanctions of its own, cutting its oil prices in a big, thirty year deal with China, making deals with the other BRIC and SEO countries to buy and sell in their own currencies. The EU still flirts with recession; China’s and Japan’s economies are slowing; emerging nations are being hit with the fallout of our Fed’s winding down of QE3 and the threat of rising interest rates on all those loans they took out while rates were dirt cheap. At what point does a weakening world economy impact our (faux) recovery, or is it the other way around?
Along with the economic war with Russia, our war on IS is morphing into two wars – one with IS and one with Assad of Syria. Can boots on the ground be far behind? And if Saudi Arabia and Iran, mortal enemies currently, can work through some of their differences long enough to work with each other in the fight against IS, might they continue the relationship and, in doing so, rearrange the entire Middle East that the declining Empire has spent so much blood and treasure arranging to its own benefit?
Oil prices are dropping here and on the world market; Saudi Arabia has just begun a price war with the other OPEC nations. Yet the oil and gas companies bringing us our vaunted Shale Revolution are already buying back stocks, selling assets and consolidating to maintain shareholder value and make a profit off of $100 per barrel prices. How low can the prices drop and for how long, before that Revolution gets left in the ground? And what would happen to the oil besotted Economy and, among other things, that sterling Medical System we are so depending on?
As the Ebola outbreak doubles every twenty days.
I don’t have answers for all that buzzing in my brain, but I am not alone in that. Many of us sense a draft on the back of our necks as the chaos at the edges of the system moves toward the center.
I think that may be what John Michael Greer means when he says, “The Buffalo Wind is rising now, keening in the tall grass, whispering in the branches and setting fallen leaves aswirl.”
Buzz, buzz.
The Conflicted Doomer 
I remember the mid-eighties when I was in HR at a medium sized nursing home supplier in Minnesota and the horror and confusion and fear that surrounded the deaths of four of our employees due to the then, new, AIDS. These four deaths were harrowing because they were long, wretched deaths with horrifying weight loss and hollowing out of men who had been amazingly vibrant and in shape and on our sales force…. one of them a VP.
I worked closely with them on their planned transition out of the work force and, because I was in compensation/benefits, their plans for the future of unknown needs and length. They did know, however, they were going to die.
We never know what our world holds in store for us, do we? Mother Nature always wins and man will never totally control each other, and especially not her.
My son has labeled this a boom bust world.
Yeah, I was still working in hospitals during the earlier stages and, just like now, there were far too many people wanting to spread fear about how you got it, for their own economic or ideological benefit.
I think there is a possibility of an outbreak here if the developed world doesn’t get off of its duff and make a hugely serious effort to stop it over there before it becomes a real pandemic. Even if the buggers don’t have any compassion for the monstrous amount of suffering, you’d think their self-interest would drive them to do it.
Archdruid Report woot woot!
Indeed, Herc. 🙂
As someone who just “barely” beat pancreatic cancer these past two years, the possible breakdown of the medical system is what really scares me.
Hi Bill, (glad to see you back,) yes, if/when things go badly south, the medical system will go with it – at least, our modern medical system. At nearly 74, I’ve pretty much resigned myself to that possibility and what my prospects are as I age. Don’t particularly like those prospects, but I guess none of us outsmart Nature forever. (Though I do hope both of us outsmart the old gal as long as it’s meaningful to do so.) Big welcome back hug.