A World in Transition

An excerpt from the novel, Pipeline, by Peter Schechter:

“. . .. The Americans are shortsighted; they won’t see that a long-term dependency on Russia is a strategic trap. They can’t get beyond their big cars. Their crazy use of water. Of electricity. Spend, spend. Consume, consume. The United States is incapable of change. It survives on a mountain of overconsumption and debt. They can’t change their culture, so they will jump at any chance to keep things the way they are.”

[Note: Italics are mine]

We Americans are an arrogant lot for the most part. Enamored of our ingenuity and cleverness, our privilege, we blindly stumble toward the future without regard for the consequences of our actions or critical analysis of probable outcomes resulting from the choices we make. Short-term profits override the need for long-term survivability, and critical topics like sustainability, economic stability, species extinction, environmental degradation, climate change, infrastructure repair and replacement, resource depletion, food and water security, energy independence, healthcare reform, fair elections, and myriad others are backburnered because vested interests wish to maintain the status quo.

This short-sighted approach to the future by business and political leaders—they’re virtually one and the same—all but guarantees that the U.S. will continue down the road to third-world status. But that’s probably a good thing. We Americans have been resource hogs and energy spendthrifts for far too long. Getting knocked back a peg or two will do us all some good, and give each of us pause to consider where we, as a nation, are heading, and how we plan to get there.

“In the future, our children’s understanding of what we broadly call “energy” will differ greatly from our own. How we, as citizens, relate to what we use to drive our cars, fuel our factories, heat our homes, and brighten our computer screens will change radically over the next twenty-five years. America’s leaders face choices today that will decide whether tomorrow this transition will be traumatic and impoverishing or deliberate and enriching.” —Peter Schechter

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A Message Worth Repeating

Many thanks to mahakal, at Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, for posting this video. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t duplicate someone else’s efforts, but these are trying circumstances and perilous times, and the message contained therein is one that’s worth repeating, again and again, until the small-minded weasels who purport to be our leaders get a clue and actually lead instead of dictate.

See how simple life can be?

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Chew on this!

For every 100 Americans saying, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it, anymore,” there’s an arrogant, filthy-rich motherfucker saying, “I’m glad as hell, and I’m going to take as much as I can get.”

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Medical Marijuana: It IS “The Cure”

This is the cure that the government, the pharmaceutical industry, and the medical establishment don’t want you to know about. Certainly these groups are doing everything in their power to deny people access to the medicine that can cure them.

Watch the video Run from the Cure. In just under an hour, you can learn some startling truths about medical marijuana and the underlying “reefer madness” that keeps the gift of life out of people’s hands.

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The Law of the (Asphalt) Jungle

Too many people assume (wrongly, in my opinion) that laws are put in place to protect them. In practice and in reality, nothing could be farther from the truth. Laws do nothing to protect you from the actions of anyone who willfully or ignorantly violates the law.

Laws against murder do not prevent people from being murdered, laws against robbery do not prevent people from being robbed, laws against drunk driving do not prevent drunks from driving, nor does all manner of traffic laws prevent people from being involved in all manner of traffic incidents. In short, don’t count on laws to save your sorry ass.

The primary purposes of any man-made law are to protect those who have power from those who have none, and to provide a means for those in authority to apprehend and punish those who violate the law. Another function of law is as a revenue raising device, whereby governments and corporations extract money from ordinary citizens in the form of fines, permits, legal fees, taxes, etc. Each time legislators pass a new law, they create a new class of criminals, thus lending support to the ever-growing bureaucracy of the criminal justice system.

I raise the issue of laws because of an incident last Sunday evening in which two pedestrians were struck by a car as they started to cross S.E. Foster Road in a crosswalk. One young woman was killed outright, the other critically injured.

Elly Blue, an editor for the BikePortland blog, posted an article about this incident on Monday, and Jonathan Maus, BikePortland’s founder and editor-in-chief, followed up with another article on Friday. Together, those articles generated more than 100 comments (as of this writing) from interested readers. Sadly, a large percentage of those comments expressed the idea that lower speed limits, stricter laws, harsher punishments and better enforcement might somehow, magically, reduce or altogether eliminate serious injuries and fatalities in, on, or about our common transportation infrastructure.

Sorry to pop your bubble of self-delusion, but you’re dreaming if you think that laws do anything more than provide a means for dealing with a bad situation after the fact; laws have never been able to regulate personal behavior on a reliable basis. Regardless of legalities, rights-of-way, blame assessment and all the rest of it, expecting someone else to look out for your well being when you do not is suicidal under the best of circumstances. Abdicating responsibility for one’s safety to others is beyond comprehension.

Keep in mind that the laws of man can be (and often are) broken, but that natural laws—physical laws—cannot. If you’re on foot or on a bike and you tangle with a car or truck, you lose by default (I’m pretty sure that e=mc² has something to do with it).

Please, people, maintain a high level of situational awareness; pay attention to your surroundings and all that’s going on around you, and disabuse yourselves of the notion that laws are a good substitute for good sense.

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Intelligent Design?

Ferraris, maybe. Certainly not humans, despite what legions of believers on the religious fringe believe.

Any organism that requires more maintenance than a Formula One Ferrari for its day-to-day existence and continued survival cannot be logically argued to be a product of intelligent design. Nor can any organism sporting (or sprouting) hair around its anus.

But there are other design flaws, as well. What’s with teeth that need a near-constant regimen of brushing, flossing, scraping, picking, grinding, drilling and filling to keep them relatively healthy and pain free for the duration of a normal human life span? Intelligent design would incorporate natural chemicals and chemical processes—delivered via saliva glands and activated by tongue action—to keep your teeth their whitest white and make you wonder where the yellow went, wouldn’t it?

And what about all those organs and other parts that humans seem perfectly capable of living without? You know, tonsils and adenoids, the appendix, sometimes the spleen, and—far too often—the brain. It’s kind of like adding extraneous parts to the bodywork, undercarriage and suspension of a Formula One Ferrari just so there’ll be something to fall off during a race. So much for intelligent design.

Speaking of brains, I really must take exception to the packaging of the human CPU. Were any actual intelligence involved in designing an effective housing for the brain, that fragile organ would be packed in Styrofoam peanuts before it’s inserted into the skull. As things are, it’s free to slosh around and bang against the inside of the skull at every forceful impact or sudden deceleration—occurrences that often cause cerebral hemorrhaging, coma, permanent brain damage, and even death. How intelligent is that?

6.7 billion prototypes (not counting those billions that have already been scrapped and gone to graveyards, every one), and human beings still aren’t ready for production. It’s enough to send a rational, intelligent designer back to the drawing board—with a fresh approach and a clean sheet of paper.

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Revolution or Renaissance? Why Not Both?

The whole damned system is broken. International bankers and financiers broke it. Corporate capitalism broke it. Bought-and-paid-for politicians broke it. Cronyism, insatiable greed, lust for power, willful ignorance and more than a little insanity broke it. But let’s not forget that mindless consumerism and devotion to celebrity culture contributed their share to the breakdown, too. Nothing sinks a participatory democracy faster than a disinterested, apathetic public.

Everywhere you look, the underpinnings of a stable society are crumbling. Education is dumbing down, joblessness and homelessness are on the rise, infrastructure is in disrepair, crime is on the increase, soaring healthcare costs put healthcare out of reach for many, wages are flat or diminishing, job security is nil, the Constitution is under attack by those who have sworn to defend it, and hope for a quick turnaround is plunging at freefall speed into the basement of despair. Add to these the imminent collapse of the nation’s currency and you have the perfect recipe for serious trouble.

For additional background information, see these videos featuring Gerald Celente, founder of Trends Research Institute, who calls ’em like he sees ’em. Most of the time, he’s right.

The reality is that nothing less than a full-scale revolution comes anywhere close to providing the means to fix this mess. Although essential to bringing about widespread changes throughout society, a cultural revolution need not necessarily lead to the violence, bloodshed and destruction typically associated with civil war. A peaceful revolution is possible, but it requires a second component. Along with a revolution in human thinking there must come a renaissance of human imagination.

One provides the means for change, the other shows the way.

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