Put a Fork in It
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I have developed the late-night habit of obsessively tracking through articles and reports on the global financial system. It appears that the patient is in the throes of a massive heart attack, after years of abuse and hyper-activity, and all attempts at resuscitation are failing quickly. Recent highlights include:
- A LEAP2020 report argues persuasively that the US will be forced to default on its debt next summer, and the Telegraph agrees that the current infusion of hundreds of billions of dollars from European and American central banks will only delay the next level of collapse by a few months, potentially leading to martial law in the US and many European countries.
- An editorial from Sunday’s NY Times anticipates an upcoming “rash of corporate bankruptcies” that will be “very bad news” for stockholders, employees, and lenders.
- An analysis concludes the $700 trillion derivatives market is about to melt down, along with thousands of hedge funds, according to the Guardian.
- Meanwhile, the lack of credit is crippling export of basic goods from the “developing world,” endangering the lives of millions of people whose existence depends on our purchase of their products. A mega-crisis caused by the greed of the rich is destroying the lives of the poor.
All of this data, and much more, strongly suggest that the global financial system, in its current form, cannot be salvaged. At best, we may have a year or 18 months before the system fails us entirely. After that, money, in its current form, may have no value at all, as basic trust in our institutions evaporates.
Since previous human societies used different mediums of exhange - such as the gift economies of tribal people - it is quite possible that our current form of money could also be displaced by a different mechanism. Few people in our society have considered this prospect. Nobody has developed a working contingency plan that address all of the problems we face in a systemic way. In order to do this, we need a "comprehensivist" approach - think Buckminster Fuller meets Machiavelli - that takes into account all of the essential elements, including human psychology and design science. We need a new model, along with a message that appeals to the vast majority of global stakeholders, one that speaks to both the wisdom and madness of crowds.
If the global financial system goes down, what will have value, and how will value be exchanged? How will we maintain the inextricably complex support systems that sustain billions of human lives in our globalized world? How can we evolve to a new ecological and ethical paradigm instead of degenerating into warring factions? We better come up with answers to these questions, as quickly as possible. It may help to study recent case studies, such as Cuba and Argentina, which demonstrate how complex modern cultures can reorganize manpower and resources when they have been cut off by the global system.
We can only find the answers when we share a coherent understanding of how we arrived at this juncture. With a crisis as massive and multidimensional as this one, it seems difficult to find the proper framework to interpret and understand it. While one immediate cause was the overvaluing of housing and the packaging of sub-prime mortgages into complex financial instruments, that was ultimately only a symptom of deeper structural flaws. For the last decades, financial speculation was used to extract value and tangible assets from the poor and middle class, and transfer it to the wealthy. This greed-based system has self-destructed, as happened previously when the "roaring Twenties" led to the Great Depression and New Deal.
The modern West created an economic system fundamentally based on the creation of debt. Capitalism requires constant expansion and exploitation of new markets in order to maintain itself. Economists have ignored the hard limits on planetary resources when calculating future potential for development. It was an absurd, almost cartoonish error to believe that we could continue limitless growth on a finite planet.
Capitalism has tremendous dynamism but is inherently unstable. In the future, we will look back to realize that capitalism was a transitional system, unifying the world into a single market and communications grid, before being replaced by a more durable and sustainable economic order. Ironically, considering his repudiation in recent decades, much of Marx’s analysis is proving accurate and prescient.
On another level, we can see that the current global crisis has been forced by the mindset of domination and competition that reflects our immaturity as a species. The Darwinian notion of the “Survival of the Fittest” was an imposition of our competitive and ego-centric worldview onto the natural world. As most biologists now see it, healthy ecosystems are based on complex patterns of cooperation and interdependence. As the WBAI talk show host Tiokasin Ghosthorse notes, humanity must shift from living "on" the earth, to living with her.
Put in the simplest terms, then, our global society is going to have to undergo a rapid – almost instant – transition from competitive and possessive behavior to cooperation and sharing if we want our species to survive, let alone thrive, into the future. Considering the ecological crisis of species extinction and climate change and the fragility of our support systems, this change has to happen in an extraordinarily compressed timeframe. What we don’t have yet is a realistic plan of action that gets us from here to there.
Photo by malinky, Courtesy of Creative Commons license.
Tweet- 10-21-08
- Daniel Pinchbeck's blog
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Plans of Action
I'm all for plans of action, and my personal contribution to the idea can be found in the third essay of this project: http://www.corfizz.com/Essays/Epsilon where I discuss intentional communities, alternative currencies and alternative community models in broad terms but with a "plan of action" mindset.
On the one hand, there are actually plenty of people who are considering "plans of action". People like Bernard Lietaer have come up with new economic models; there's the 'Bioneers' organisation, although I'm not sure how much they've got done; and as you know, there's Transition Towns. The latter is particularly important because it isn't possible, except in the broadest terms, to define a comprehensive plan of action for the entire world. Every part of the world has its own peoples, its own cultures, climates, resources etc. There will need to be processes of change that occur at very local, very specific levels, but these will somehow have to be integrated into a consistent, interdependent, non-conflicting global whole. And actually, there's a pretty good case that the best way to achieve such a thing is not through extremely fine control and extremely good planning so that we can predict and prepare for every eventuality and manage it at the finest scales... but through simply letting it happen on its own.
(I was going to say that the natural world itself evolved its interdependent structures and complexities without any pre-planning or careful management, but some people disagree with that!)
"At best, we may have a
"At best, we may have a year or 18 months before the system fails us entirely."
That is what my gut has been "telling" me! I think we'll have an immediate correction that will seem to have plugged the seal, then in a year or so the whole damn boat will sink, fast.
I really don't see the current system lasting longer than that, and that means it's fucking crunch time! We have to do our best to start learning/configuring new, self-sustainable ways of living and fast. . .maybe we're wrong though?
Also Daniel, are familiar with the work of Tom Atlee and Robert David Steele?
Tao of Democracy by Atlee opened my eyes to effective decision making processes that are scalable. Steele's work covers a lot of ground, and his main trip is the Earth Intelligence Network.
Here's a good intro to Steele: Earth Intelligence Network - World Brain as Earth Game http://www.thelasthope.org/media/audio/64kbps/Earth_Intelligence_Network...
Black Light in the Attic Podcast w/Serpicody & Sancho
http://blacklightattic.podomatic.com
I'm a bit intrigued and a bit confused
I just can't see the end of capitalism any time soon. Not because of the lack of vision for it, but because of the harsh reality that I've seen from the people who are controlling our government. Even if the 'capitalism' that we run is but a shell of the actual thing. The bailout bill proves that the government puts its faith in businesses over its people. I'd like to rant on about the bill, but I'd rather spare everyone that.
I see an error (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) with your leap in logic. Capitalism does need innovation, but innovation doesn't 'need' natural resources. With the push to use renewable resources, innovation is actually being encouraged. I've seen more fuels for cars in the past two years than I've thought possible. Everything ranging from air to water (although, it wasn't regular water: HOH).
Furthermore, it looks as if there will be a new 'global bank'. This will very likely remove the dollar as the standard for international trade and put every country on equal footing in the international market. I see this as a future for capitalism, not its undoing.
I agree completely that capitalism is going to come to an end. I see that transition beginning when the gold standard was dropped and countries began to use a fiat currency. I see this as a step in ending the money system entirely. If the value of our currency has no physical backing, then the next step is to remove it entirely. I'd love to see what is coming next. I believe that I won't see the day though.
I'd love to read a reply. I believe your ideas were well thought out and very well articulated.
_______________________________________________
Don't beg for things. Do it yourself, or else you won't get anything.
Pump and Dump
Jedd- Daniel's main point is that our system requires infinite consumption within a finite world. Logically we will hit a wall at this rate of consumption. If we aren't prepared it's not going to be pretty. On CBS Sunday Morning a couple weeks ago the argument was made that it's actually better for the environment to get a used car than a hybrid, because many more resources go into making new cars, and the ultimate benefit gain from hybrids isn't realized until 10+ years "down the road." Much of the "innovation" you speak of then is just switching seats on the Titanic.
With relief, with humiliation, with terror, he understood that he too was a mere appearance, dreamt by another. - Jorge Luis Borges, The Circular Ruins
Thank you for the reply.
Thank you for the reply. That fact about used cars is pretty sweet. I've been buying used cars because they are affordable, now I can say that it is for the environment!
I speak of innovation towards renewable resources, because we can control it. I did use fuel as an example, but I wasn't limiting it to that. There have been pushes to find new materials that could replace plastic using renewable resources. I didn't mean to limit it.
I agree that if we, as humans, don't change our habits at all, we'll hit the limit of what we can take from the Earth. This is also the leap of logic that I couldn't get my head around. That's an assumption that I believe to be unfounded. In 20 years, will we still be using the same resources? In another 20 years, we may even use the products and by-products of our manufacturing industries as new resources. Humans have a history of finding ways to do the impossible.
My overall point is that I'm seeing things going in a slightly different direction. The underlying causes are all the same, but the results differ due to the human variable that is difficult to understand, much less predict.
On a complete side note, writing that previous paragraph has got me thinking of string theory again.
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Don't beg for things. Do it yourself, or else you won't get anything.
Anarchy and Marxism
Again, a very lucid piece Daniel.
I have to agree with the other comment left here regarding such efforts as Transition Towns. It seems to me that this kind of shift into anarcho living (i.e. locally managed and co-operative models of existence) is happening and will continue to happen quite naturally. In this way too I agree with the acknowledgement of Marx's presience, despite him falling out of favour in recent years.
I am reminded of what i thought at the time to be a rather contrived definition of anarchism that described it simply as being an ideology promoting organization based on small autonomous communities where individuals freely cooperate towards common goals in order to achieve the best of human potential. Whilst this described things perfectly I felt it didn't quite do justice to the colour of the whole picture.
I am reminded then too of something I read by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guatarri, regarding the Body Without Organs, a piece of socio-political critique itself written rather anarchically and metaphorical on a number of levels, not least of all, the Body as state. It said something along the lines of choosing one's moments, finding a strata on which to situate oneself, experiencing them, deterritorializing them, which upon reflection seems to point towards the possible fluidity of living in a world without state centralized power.
We need to be adaptable and fluid. We need to experiment and reintroduce play into all areas of our lives and do so cooperatively. Perhaps this is the way one can apply a Bucky Fuller design approach to these matters? Perhaps this is how we can move into living peacefully and cooperatively, anarchically and communally?
ahaha!
Profits from Prohibition
Must Act Fast
Distorted Terms Abound
With all of the turmoil in the global market right now there has been a lot of talk about the collapse of capitalism and the rise of socialism, etc. Personally, I think it's pretty irrelevant to use terms like these in describing what's happening, for a couple of reasons.
(1) Both terms have distorted meanings (perhaps "capitalism" more so) and encapsulate different notions to various people.
(2) The complexity of what is occurring and what may occur cannot be justifiably articulated with such generic categories.
However, I would like to note that the mainstream media and the U.S. government have been quick to blame the current crisis on a lack of government regulation and oversight. I think it is absolutely crucial to inform as many people as possible that nothing could be further from the truth.
This whole economic crisis can be directly attributed to the actions of the state. Let us not make the mistake of entrusting our lives to the government.
Voluntarism is not the problem. The state is the problem. Thank you.
what is the problem
my impression is that the state itself is a violent and "obscene" intruder; many have said this before me.
yet i work for a nonprofit and we do tech support work for large state agencies that are usually staffed by humorous people i feel are good. i feel warmth and communal feelings working with them.
it is useful for us to know the truth of the bodies that we allow to control us. it also true that many of these bodies are composed of us. we have internalized the need for systematic politics, we crave their suit-wearing attempts at ordering the world even when we live to criticize them. what are we doing to our minds? what playfulness will let us see what IS real in impeccable, loving detail? so we can begin to work from there....
the United States has been a colonizing state with brutal tactics for centuries, and financial institutions and other seemingly normal things like health insurance are so exploitative in nature that it's impossible for me to defend them at all. Rome fell, only to rise again. Jesus, some would say, is still around.
We can use a synthetic logic informed by an empathy so Christian it's suicidally unafraid of death (ego or physical) and then we have something. Or maybe that point there are no words.
i hope to see you all there.
I'm wearing plastic shoes with a faux fur lining...
point of interest
interview w/ taleb & mandlebrot
a lil virilio
you might like this one then don from the mystic of speed space paul virilio:
http://cryptome.info/virilio-crisis.htm
also references Hannah Arendt for you Empire junkies.
the last lines are beautiful:
"Faced with absolute fear, I counter with hope absolute. Churchill said once that an optimist is somebody who sees opportunity hiding behind every calamity."
for anyone that has ever read virilio, that ending should give even the most hardened gloomdoomer a ray of light...
share a coherent understanding
Hello Ecolocal,
"...we don't understand the present... "
Who exactly is the "we" that does not understand the present?
Daniel: "We can only find the answers when we share a coherent understanding of how we arrived at this juncture."
I think Daniel realizes the similarities between what is suggested and what has happened in the past, but he also understands that before this "New Order" can be built, we will all, coherently; have to understand ourselves, and our situation. 200 years ago, 2000 years ago, this was not the case, so here we are studying the aftermath, and the "state of russia today". The point is not to copy line for line Marx's system, it is to learn from our mistake's and create a new, holistic approach. What agenda would you like to be a pawn of? Unification individually and globally is essential to our survival whether you like it or not, and it only makes sense from there, to live under one banner.
Oh, the things that have
Oh, the things that have been carried out in Marx's name! The old Marx/Bakunin debate, like any debate, needs to be looked at without dualism. They were both right. Capitalism is unsustainable. The global race for control of resources has reached such a remarkable speed that the system as we know it, is imploding, it's wheels are flying off the track. The system is cancelling itself out. That means that the next few years will see an even faster reactionary response from it's cohorts and defenders. Who knows if we'll even be able to communicate with one another on websites such as this much longer. Let us not become too dependent on these means of communication. After all, they too are unsustainable, at least if you were to source everything that goes into being able to have the privilege of typing on a laptop. I used to think that living off of the grid was selfish, because I thought that living on the margins of society wasn't really helping anybody else. But isn't it?
If you're jaded stay home because we're building it.
myspace.com/alanpatrick
let us not!
Selfish is a funny word. especially when your talking about what's best for your...self
Go off grid my friend!
marx & bakunin
Great discussion
Wall Street's sacred cow
What We Fail to Recognize.
The etymology of Finance involves "fin" c.1400, "an end," "ransom" (1439), c.1200, "termination," and Finish c.1350, from O.Fr. finiss-, stem of finir, from L. finire "to limit, set bounds, end," from finis "boundary, limit, border, end," of unknown origin, perhaps related to figere "to fasten, fix.
So the entire thing has been doomed from the start. Finance is a boundary creating, self-limiting, self-fulfilling prophesy.
***
Hasn't the financial system always been a failure? It has provided many things, yet it has never provided balance, and the growth it proposes is obese and artificial. So good riddance.
Interesting that Wikipedia describes the "field of finance" as the concepts of time, money and risk and how they are interrelated.
Time, Money, Risk. That's the fuel this vehicle has been running on.
The risk has been run, and time and money are running out. Now those who hold Values , real Values in their heart, walk on.
Again, I point out that Economy is from the Greek; "management of house". Clearly there is, and has been, bad management. Ecology is from the Greek "knowledge of house". We now have ever more knowledge and wisdom and symbiosis regarding our house and home, how it works and how we work with it.
In my estimation, to move on from the poor management of our house & home, we dive deeper into the knowledge of our home and what it can and does provide for free, depending on the (personal and cultural) values and rates of one's relationship with that ecology, that ecosystem.
I'm not attempting to be Mr Happy Green here, it's not easy, it's harsh, it's the harsh reality of an integrated relationship with nature.
I'm reminded here of a situation this summer when I was deep in the Amazon jungle. Our Matses guides had built an amazing dugout raft from two trees, the oars were made from the same tree. One night while we slept it rained a tremendous rain, the raft nearly sank and one of the oars was washed away.
We were, quite literally, up the creek without a paddle.
There was no panic, no big plan was hatched, no conference was called. The solution was intutive, instinctual. I think there was even a few good chuckles.
And so, we simply carried on for a few hours, at a slow rate due to the lack of oar. Soon enough we came upon a fallen tree, the same kind of tree our raft was made of. One of the Matses jumped to shore with his machete and carved and crafted a beautiful new oar out of that fallen tree in a matter of minutes.
And we were on our way.
that is a nice story morgan
thanks for sharing (and the etymology lesson!)
you should post this onto more mainstream blogs filled with people freaking out about their homes and their disappearing 'wealth' (which has become quite the opposite of its original meaning: a synonym of health).
we must remember that there are many many many right now in this country that are undergoing a mass identity crisis....perhaps very similar to a slow IV drip of terrence's 'heroic dose of mushrooms'.
those of us who have already gone through such experiences must be ready to awake the 'shaman inside' and give them some bearings before they get lost at sea.
p.s. and even if you believe that this is well-deserved comeuppance, karma or whatever, think of it as a gift. remember the gentle comforting touch that was given to you right when you were about to be swallowed by the void. now it's time to touch someone else.
i/o/w -- be the matses guide and carve the oar.
everyone around here (and i'm not just referring to 'reality sandwich', but rather this particular subspace of consciousness) talks about the new economy, new world, new blah blah blah, yet when the end of the old arrives, we all sit around amongst ourselves in our cave and say 'i told you so', instead of extending a hand to those who are coming up from behind us.
are we that superior to those who have yet to receive the shocks we voluntarily imposed on ourselves through the use of psychedelics, etc?
were not those psychedelics a preparation for moments like this in so-called reality?
didn't most receive needed guidance from someone who has gone before us and did not those helpers give us that guidance from a place of true compassion & equality?
just some questions i'm asking myself right now.
Gently Down the Stream
Cheers s.tristero.
I do actually feel that RS, and places and spaces like it, are the mainstream. What is generally thought of as the Main Stream, is just a polluted tributary, a Weak Creek.
;)
***
"...our ability to cope with the possibilities will only benefit from equanimity in the face of it." -Will Self
touche amigo
that reminds me of the hopi proverb actually.
melikes that metaphor mo'betta.
with that said, perhaps an occasional detour to help clear the clog of consciousness wouldn't hurt?
like the zapatistas do it -- ninja style bodhisatva waylike
more eytomological fun
<“Calendar” is a more complicated word than most people think. Meaning “a chart of the year,” it comes from the Latin calendarium, which was an account book kept by money lenders to keep track of debts due to them on the calends – the first of each month. This word itself came from calare, “to call,” which was what was done to proclaim the due date!>
http://www.teachervision.fen.com/new-years/activity/8451.html
I don't get it.
don't really know
Hi Conner,
Good question. I don't really know if i have a great answer for you. Personally, I find I have to go through levels of understanding before I can really integrate something. I have to come at the same subject at different days and times, from slightly different angles, taking in slightly different levels of information.
I totally agree with Gurdjieff's idea that understanding is linked with being - that you have to get to a different level of being to reach a new understanding. This is a process that takes time, generally, and happens in stages. I had already stated in "2012" and even in the Rolling Stone profile of me that we would undergo "socioeconomic meltdown" around the year 2008, but stating it from a distance is different than experiencing it as it happens around us. One example of this phenomenon is the difference between reading endless novels where someone's parent dies, and then experiencing it for yourself - you undergo an ontological shift that can't be transmitted in language.
By repeating and reiterating the situation as new information comes in, I hope that it helps myself as well as others to gain clarity of mind and intention, so we can begin to move into a mode of active engagement. I also found that by putting this article in the form of a series of questions, it acted as a provocation, which has led to some great responses. So we may see more repetitions and variations on these themes, which hopefully will then lead to easing the next, deeper shift.
By the way, many of the commentators here should consider writing a feature for RS from their own perspective. I learned a lot from these comments, and continue to appreciate the deepening thoughtfulness of this community.
"Will the transformation."-Rilke
Writing a feature
I think it would be a lot of fun to write a feature once and a while. How do I go about this process?
"You must *be* the change you wish to see in the world." Mahatma Gandhi
email me
send me an email with your idea or send me the finished draft, if you have it: daniel@realitysandwich.com
"Will the transformation."-Rilke
Pirates
s.tristero: yes, an "occasional detour to help clear the clog of consciousness" is necessary. That sort of thing simply becomes part of the process. So by referencing Will Self's qoute (from this article) and his suggestion of equanimity in the face of crisis, doesn't imply that tranquility=some kind of ignorance, just that crisis is best approached with calm. Cooler heads prevail. A stich in time saves nine. Haste makes waste. And so forth.
***
I don't know the full deal with this financial transition, and I'm guessing no one really does. But, Bruce Sterling over at Wired brings up an interesting possibility/speculation. I'm not a big fan of conspiracies, and maybe this pushes the conspiracy button, but in a post about cyberterrorism he connects some dots between what is possible with cyber-terrorism (ie stealing big money) and this confusing financial crisis. It's not too far fetched, or maybe it is. But it does put a new perspective spin on the financial situation and, the kind of world we live in.
I also had a feeling that the bailout was mostly about ransom or a mugging.
From Beyond the Beyond:
(((You look at a boondoggle like this, and... gee whiz, people. If there ARE any "cyberterrorists" -- and after all the dry runs lately, there have got to be at least a few -- all they've gotta do is whack a big bank someplace, create some anklebiting annoyance, and then hit the media with a scare report that they've crashed the world financial system. Everybody will believe it. Civilization will be instantly returned to the year 1931 AD.)))
(((I dunno... but if we can't even secure the financial system, how can we secure "critical infrastructure" -- whatever that is? Time to pull the gas nozzle out of the McCain-Palin SUV, sit down in a bar someplace, have a few Pabst Blue Ribbons and thoroughly search our souls.)))
ya mon
****
nick linked john robb b4.
here's a particular post that is along the lines of sterling's thesis:
http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2004/05/4gw_fourth_...
if this is indeed a part of this is attributable to 4GW, then this begs the question:
who are the terrorists? (or to put it less inflammatory, who are the individuals who are using these techniques?)
of course this question has been debated ad infinitum over the past 7 years and everyone has their own answer.
perhaps the real answer to this question will only come if we all follow bruce's soulsearching suggestion.
(tho i'll take Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout por favor)
Very nice discussions here
I'll toss in my $0.02. ^_^
I agree completely with Kivie's idea that it will have to be approached with a sort of ad hoc methodology. Trying to systemize everything is part of what got us into this whole mess in the first place. Much work on this sort of community organizing has been done by Marxist/anarchist writers, and here on RS.
The communication and coordination between disparate communities will be the hardest part, I imagine. People near one another will naturally work together, by and large, out of pure instinct. But how do we keep that sort of thing from degrading into a 'gang' like situation of turf and competition for scarce resources?
Part of that will come from there being enough people who understand that necessity. Therefore, we mustn't be afraid to talk to others about this sort of thing. Politely, not as a sort of end-times proslytizer or anything, but still it is too important to just let lie.
Remember the Tao-Te Ching's line, "only words softly spoken will take root in their own time". Just casually mentioning something, without taking it to the point of argument, puts an idea in their head without too much of a personality-source attached to it. Ideas have a way of rumbling around in your head, until you forget where you heard it from. You begin to think of it as your idea. And, if there is a strong truth reflection in the meme, it can allow an understanding much faster than if you just had to figure it out on your own.
In response to togue123, I would say hat is also why 'just sitting around and commenting on a story' is actually a reasonably important thing to be doing right now, while we have the capacity to talk to so many at one time, which may not be more than another year or so, as Alan Scheurman pointed out.
It certainly isn't sufficient unto itself, I know what you mean. But spreading these memes as far and as wide as possible is part of the solution. We can't know who will and won't survive the coming crisis. Therefore, these ideas must be carried by as large a percentage of the population as possible. Even if they don't believe them now, just the fact that they heard them will help them find their feet that much faster when it all starts to hit the fan.
And besides, the Internet is a communications medium. All you are ever going to see on it is people talking. That doesn't mean that's all they are doing.
I can only speak for myself. I can say that I grow my own veggies; I practice primitive survival techniques -- including foraging, shelter building, cordage making -- as a sort of spare-time hobby. I have accumulated, over several years, everything I need to live out of a backpack indefinitely. I walk everywhere, and work hard to get into a shape that will allow me to be as unfazed as possible by the new way of living. That's the one thing you find, practicing these old techniques: the main thing we are running from in this world is our body. The old ways of doing things are not generally complicated, or hard at all really -- except the amount of elbow grease involved. So try to get in shape.
I talk to people, and try to get something organized...but it usually only lasts a few weeks before it is washed away in the tide of responsibilities thrust upon the populace in this culture. Schedules change, jobs are gained, or lost, and people move or just stop coming/participating. Its sad, but that's the way it works. I've come to accept that no one is going to be able to really form the sort of community I want to help build until things advance a bit further in the rest of the world. The entire system is designed, almost specifically, to stop that very thing from happening.
In case the capitalists manage to prop up their monolith for another decade or so, I'm working hard at getting a degree from an online seminary school so that I can buy a piece of property and have it designated a church, so I can avoid taxes. I am also working on carpentry, electrician, and plumbing certifications, so I can build facilities on a portion of it.
Then, I will invite people to speak at or hold events during a few months out of the year, purely for donations as I intend it to be a non-profit. I always feel left out of a decent portion of the movement because I can rarely afford to take time off of work or travel to places, or pay entrance fees/"love donations". Use that money to maintain the place, grow and make as many of my own necessities as possible. Create a nice commune, ideally.
I'm also working on a series of novels to (ideally speaking) finance the whole thing with some kind of style. If I get any kind of real money from that, I want to invest in solar panels and whatnot, so there can be basic electricity. Send the excess power from the rest of the year to the grid. Get paid by the electrical company to bring down the system by providing a viable alternative. We'll see about all that, that's the 'win the lottery' type dream.
The one thing I can say, and I've mentioned this in other comments, is that we need to really be prepared for those who have a vested interest in the current mode, who also have control of the resources and the most effective means of defending those resources, will come after us at one point or another. They are unlikely to simply see the truth of our movement and accede power to the masses.
I'm not saying we need to (or even can) be ready for it necessarily in any militant sense (although having some capacity to defend ourselves would be nice. I'm not about offense, but if someone comes at me, guns a'blazin', I'm pretty sure I'm not evolved enough to let them shoot me and not try to do something about it); but mostly in the sense of being mentally prepared for that eventuality.
We must be able to reach down deep, and remain steadfast in the face of the most powerful weapons and highly trained soldiery the world has ever seen. I don't mean to be doom and gloom, but that is what has stopped every single other revolution that failed: the people involved dissolved when the going got too tough.
I don't mean that in a mean, critical way. One can hardly blame them, looking back on what they suffered. It will undoubtedly be very much as Daniel describes conceptualizing something, and then living the reality of it. (If I'm being honest, I'm not even sure we can fight against them effectively. The weapons they have access too, versus what we have, is pretty lopsided at this point. Hopefully much of it will be crippled by the collapse of the economic system, and enough soldier boys will be on our side.)
I mean it only in the sense that this may be the last chance we get. Everything is beginning to spiral down pretty fast. We can't back down, no matter how hard it gets. We must gird ourselves, and prepare ourselves.
This is the internal struggle of humanity over the last 8,000 years or so coming to a peak, a culmination. Are some people better than others, born to rule over them and have the best things in life while the rest suffer and struggle in destitute poverty? Or are we all equal, every person and creature deserving of respect in equal measure?
I throw my cap in with the "common" human, for better or for worse.
Sorry for the length of the comment. I think about this stuff a lot. =P
"You must *be* the change you wish to see in the world." Mahatma Gandhi
Soldier boys and the Illusion of Safety
"Hopefully much of it will be crippled by the collapse of the economic system, and enough soldier boys will be on our side."
Just a brief comment on that, since I know quite a few soldier boys who swear it'll go down much like the wars they've participated in, although they also hang on to the hope that it won't. They are fully prepared, militarily speaking, because the training they've received in our armed forces and the connections with their fellow soldiers both on and off the battlefield (oh yah, and their gun collections). And yet they have found through meditation and yoga and the lessons life introduces through synchronicity, etc. this hope that it won't come to that - a kindof shedding of the fight-fight-fight-until-the-bitter-end (and it will be bitter with all the fighting) mind-set that had been programmed. Also I realize this is not the norm. The soldiers I know have prepared for chaos because they feel they will ultimately be protecting people they love in these here united states.
Many soldiers coming home suffer from PTSD as they have inwardly travelled so far from their natural selves in order to fulfill our nations desire for the illusion of safety.
The Illusion of Safety
Think about it, it's hold on us, this ingrained desire to be safe. People's anxiety about losing their percieved value of their home, thier investments... They thought that would be the base upon which they could solidify their own safety, comfort, life-as-they-know-it, along with their dreams for the future, i.e. retirement. They followed the rules, put x% away per paycheck, took care of their homes and yet now it's "all" gone. They didn't question the method because they saw their parents and others succeed by the method. Many still want to believe in the methodology of the stock market, and many investment brokers are pitching the sale idea - Buy cheap now because OF COURSE the market will stabilize within the next 10 years and you'll be kicking yourself if you don't. Does anyone here really believe that??? Pa-lease!
"The only thing constant in life is change" -François de la Rochefoucauld
2 coppers back 2 chibi 1
tao te ching reference is beautiful, thank you.
one could make a case that this whole crisis is commodification of certain memes floating around between us for centuries.
one of those memes being scarcity*, which is a fundamental root of economics itself (so far that is).
but what if that meme of scarcity (at least in terms of what we consider <energy>) turns out to be a noble lie?
would that change your <doom & gloom> forecast?
if this is indeed the culmination of 8,000 years of human history, then would it be a stretch to consider that we might just all be like those characters in flatland?
perhaps there's a gaggle of black swans still flying about?
would you be willing to expect the unexpected?
and even if the expected (as you choose to see it) comes one day to any or all of us before the unexpected arises again, may we also be willing to consider not only the lessons of gandhi but also those of MLK who said,
<We must use the weapon of love. We must have the compassion and understanding for those who hate us. We must realize so many people are taught to hate us that they are not totally responsible for their hate. But we stand in life at midnight; we are always on the threshold of a new dawn.>
? ? ?
memes to chew on --
spoken perhaps not softly enough,
if so, please forgive me,
still learning to whisper...
* scarcity being the meme which may be the root of many other memes like what MLK called <the drum major instinct>. memes that may even have pre-human origins (that is, if you choose to believe in the meme of evolution or have watched some discovery channel).
Certainly
I am perfectly aware that my perspective is limited, by definition. The thing, though, about the unexpected is that you don't expect it. There's no way to prepare for it. So, all plans and conceptions must be kept fluid, must contain their own critique so as to allow for their eventual replacement.
To quote Ken Wilber, "A good theory is one that lasts long enough to get you to a better one."
But that doesn't mean you shouldn't act from your current level of understanding because tomorrow you may think differently. If that were the case, you would never do anything.
I believe absolutely in meme evolution. In my worldview, memes are the 'Other' that I hear so much about. They are a form of life, in a wholly different realm of existence; we are their hosts, and our emotions their food. Their microbes formed in reptiles, their bacteria in the earliest mammals, into more complex forms in the higher mammals. In humans they gained the complexity of ideology (just as we are a collection of cooperating cells guided by a 'central processor', they are a collection of cooperating ideas guided by a central principle). Some of them are parasites, and are willing to sacrifice their hosts, or use them unsustainably, for their own growth and benefit. Some are symbiotic, and live with us in a way that enriches everyone. That's what I think.
But, either way, I believe memes to be at the heart of what is going on here. Memes "controlling" human hosts to enact their specific worldviews. They can do this because consciousness of thought is, as yet, rare. People just think, without examining their ideals and beliefs. Asking themselves why they believe such and such, why they want to believe such and so, where they picked up X idea. Do they really believe that, or was it just phrased nicely to make it stick in the head, where it remained -- unexamined-yet-regurgitated, over and over?
Being humans, we can't avoid memes; but we can become aware of them, and become the hosts of much more beneficial ideologies -- beneficial for ourselves and the world.
From belief flows action, and through action the world changes.
"You must *be* the change you wish to see in the world." Mahatma Gandhi
plan of action/against the end of the world.
the more i think about it, the less i feel a comprehensive plan of action is necessary (we should be prepared for anything). what is necessary, more than a blueprint for a new world, is to broadcast, promote, propagandize the idea that another world is possible. the more people wake up to that realization, the more easy the transition to other ways of living, with fluidity, spontaneity and genius. i think we should put together a sort of creative manhattan project, where we figure out the most effective ways of spreading the memes of a sustainable society built on co-operation and voluntarism far & wide.
also - i too fear that fascism and martial law may be around the corner. but perhaps we are looking for fascism where it doesn't need to be. argentina showed that a society in economic collapse can learn to fend for itself and that the impulse of mutual aid arises spontaneously in people.
i feel like our fears are colored by the judeo-christian apocalypse. america's national religion is the end of the world. we look for prophecies of doom being fulfilled all around us. shit is going down, no doubt, but, my hope, and my intuition, is that people, given the choice, are more inclined to co-operation than the totalitarian boot.jung wrote in 'answer to job' that john's vision of the apocalypse as utterly destructive was the result of his inability to integrate the shadow nature of god into his understanding of the universe. it was impossible for him to view the revelation otherwise, but it is not impossible for us. we have discovered what jesus could never make his compadres understand - that we are not separate from god, that we are conscious co-creators of the world. as hakim bey said, 'i am officially bored with the end of the world.'
when people say that society is going to collapse into 'anarchy' - i like it. anarchy is good for society.
peace, D
www.myspace.com/thedeclineofthewest
Don't be retarded
Anarchy would not be good.
The best thing would be for the bullshit facade to limp along until the end. The message is clear: store up treasures in heaven, cause this world aint worth a shit. I still can't believe how many people think they are going to grow old, live a lot longer...
smile
Space Migration, Intelligence increase, Life Extension
=SMILE
This world is worth more than a "shit."
Okay, so haven't absorbed all of the last two comments here
but I notice that we're designating one singular meaning to anarchy here. I think that anarchy is a many sided shape of meaning. Literally taken it comes from an - without, arkhos- ruler/rule. Thats doesn't necessarily mean chaos. It can in fact mean harmony. Or a measure of both. I guess whats being said though is that birth pains hurt for a reason. If a new society or financial/value/moneu system is to be born then there may be pain at its inception for a while. Things may continue to be anarchic thereafter though, which doesn't necessarily connote violence and isn't therefore necessarily bad.
raf - i meant 'anarchy' in
Sure man
i totally agree! I think my comment was aimed more at billy joe, who i think perhaps took your comment incorrectly??
Anarchy in the sense we're talking of now is all around us all the time, its the weeds growing through concrete cracks. Its growing stronger and wilder and beautifuller - i hope :-)
But I do agree that some chaos is needed to restore balance. Just got done reading charles eisenstein's article on the true pagan meaning for the impending all hallows eve- - dunno if you read it yet - but he puts some good points across for the need for chaos in an ordered structure. The more we suppress it the bigger and badder it comes back to bite ya!
Anarchy
Is most definitely good for society. It reminds us -- far more often than not -- of how good people can be to one another. There are the occasional looters. But these folks are actually the ones betting that society-as-they-knew-it will be meaningful later (I don't consider persons taking tools/hardware/food/water to be looters in Katrina/Darfur-esque situations. Just the ones taking T.V.'s and bass guitars and whatnot).
The majority of the stories you hear from these situations are stories of coming together to make the best, of forging community ties. It really is instinct for us. It is the true human nature. The only variable is the extent to which we see ourselves in the potential other. In fact, all "others" are simply those we do not yet realize are ourself (its very hard, one must keep in mind, to recognize yourself in the person pointing a gun at you and telling you to give him all the food you have on you).
Even in the Judeo-Christian book of Revelation, the end-times are meant to be a coming of a new age, a new way of living, and a new understanding of the divine. The tales of destruction, the various trumpets and thunders that shake the world, all portend the coming of a glorious rule of 'the saints', those that have purposefully given their lives for the benefit of others throughout history. 1000 years of that, and then you have a time of 'Final Judgement' where the lives of everyone are measured for their merit, and 'to those much were given, much will be expected. To those little was given, little will be expected.' (paraphrase, but very close.) And then god comes to live with man and his creation, never to be separated again.
Non-dual mythic teachings. Apocalypse was a style of writing at the time, in which the writer purposefully obfuscated his true meaning so as to avoid persecution by the authorities.
John of Patmos was most likely speaking of the Roman Empire (the only name in history -- that we know of -- whose germatria adds up to '666' is Ceasar Nero) and what he saw as its eventual collapse. Our own civilization will suffer a similar collapse, for similar reasons (decadence and arrogance among the 'ruling' class stressing the actual productive capacity of the system, when taking into account the needs of the producers themselves).
Really, as Daniel pointed out, its a sort of cartoonish error to believe that you can just keep taking more from the people beneath you, as though there is no end to what they can give. And yet, the rhetoric of the elite, throughout history, is replete with statements of the 'selfishness' and 'stubborness' of the masses to give what 'rightfully belongs' to their 'betters'.
Anyone who has worked at a Ritz-Carlton, or a really high-end restaurant, will tell you from conversations they've overheard: the superrich think of us as nothing, as less than nothing. Its as if we get in the way of their making millions, rather than being the ones who make the millions for them.
I don't mean to be a separatist between the 'poor' and the 'rich'. As I said, this is all memes. What you want to watch out for are persons that think they are better than those who 'just don't get it', and think that, 'if everyone thought the way I do, everyone would be happy'. That sort of ideology leads inescapably back to elitism.
The previous "communist" revolutions show us that. These were all lead by beauracracies that claimed to 'represent' the working people. They incited them with their rhetoric to overthrow the governments...and then -- rather than dissolving and allowing the persons they claimed to represent to take power -- they became the next ruling class. Except the official line was there was no ruling class. So, to be a part of the ruling class, you had to be a part of 'the Party'. You had to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you thought as they did, through speech and through action.
Most knowledgeable, or most radical? One would hope there is a middle ground somewhere in there. But Bakunin does appear to be a little more right, as you say. Or, at least, as history seems to tell us (we'll have to see how Chavez does).
"You must *be* the change you wish to see in the world." Mahatma Gandhi
Guy Debord
Is definitely one of my heroes. Others who are not familiar with the Marx/Bakunin debate may find this passage helpful to familiarize yourself with the basics. From The Society of the Spectacle:
91
The First International’s initial successes enabled it to free itself from the confused influences of the dominant ideology that had survived within it. But the defeat and repression that it soon encountered brought to the surface a conflict between two different conceptions of proletarian revolution, each of which contained an authoritarian aspect that amounted to abandoning the conscious self-emancipation of the working class. The feud between the Marxists and the Bakuninists, which eventually became irreconcilable, actually centered on two different issues — the question of power in a future revolutionary society and the question of the organization of the current movement — and each of the adversaries reversed their position when they went from one aspect to the other. Bakunin denounced the illusion that classes could be abolished by means of an authoritarian implementation of state power, warning that this would lead to the formation of a new bureaucratic ruling class and to the dictatorship of the most knowledgeable (or of those reputed to be such). Marx, who believed that the concomitant maturation of economic contradictions and of the workers’ education in democracy would reduce the role of a proletarian state to a brief phase needed to legitimize the new social relations brought into being by objective factors, denounced Bakunin and his supporters as an authoritarian conspiratorial elite who were deliberately placing themselves above the International with the harebrained scheme of imposing on society an irresponsible dictatorship of the most revolutionary (or of those who would designate themselves as such). Bakunin did in fact recruit followers on such a basis: “In the midst of the popular tempest we must be the invisible pilots guiding the revolution, not through any kind of overt power but through the collective dictatorship of our Alliance — a dictatorship without any badges or titles or official status, yet all the more powerful because it will have none of the appearances of power.” Thus two ideologies of working-class revolution opposed each other, each containing a partially true critique, but each losing the unity of historical thought and setting itself up as an ideological authority. Powerful organizations such as German Social Democracy and the Iberian Anarchist Federation faithfully served one or the other of these ideologies; and everywhere the result was very different from what had been sought.
"You must *be* the change you wish to see in the world." Mahatma Gandhi
bakunin
absolute freedom and absolute love
666
i think it is weird how the 666 recurs in history, how revelations is like a temporal palimpsest... like 666 is nero, and the apocalypse refers to old rome - but it's also encoded into the barcodes that people eventually expect to have implanted in their hands to fulfill prophecy. nero is like the numerical spirit of empire, the black number, making weird pentatonics on his fiddle while he burns the world. kind of a cool guy in a diabolical way. an inevitable and unperfectable archetype...
Kabbalistic meaning of 666
Propaganda Anonymous
The Kabbalistic meaning of 666 also translates to mean 'The Sun' or solar.
There is also a strange relationship between The Sun and Jesus.
speaking of the sun
i'm sure many know this already, but there is also a strange relationship between sunspot activity and human activity, or what McKenna called novelty.
some nice graphs here:
http://tinyurl.com/69vr9r
or google <A. L. Tchijevsky>
interesting that after the slowest year in recent record (with a spotless month in Aug), the spot count picked up significantly in Sept/Oct.
http://tinyurl.com/6bv88d
this is just the beginning of cycle 24, what some astronomers have predicted as perhaps the most active cycle since they've been counting. i'll leave you to guess when it peaks.
speaking of terence, according to timewave zero, the latest novelty minimum peaked right around oct 7th and is headed in a straight line freefall (meaning novelty skyrockets) over the next 6 months or so before leveling out briefly.
http://tinyurl.com/6x5n56
if there is either or both these theoretical relationships hold any water, get ready for a wild ride
...stay fluid...
Well now
That is a fascinating little tidbit there, as it isn't unfair to think that John of Patmos may have had some understanding of, or at least familiarity with, the Kabballah.
"You must *be* the change you wish to see in the world." Mahatma Gandhi