Hold onto your candles (yeah, and your matches too!)

I had made a resolution, which obviously now turns out to be something rather soft and mushy, that I wouldn’t get dragged into popping off about politics. Making a pledge NOT to talk about politics in the USofA is akin to making a Buddhist-like promise that you’ll never crush another bug. Sometimes events become so irritating and nauseating that they provoke a reactive response.

We all knew it was only a matter of time before GWB emerged from rehab, again. It’s pathetic really, but it is certainly no surprise to see the forces bent on resurrecting his reputation reappearing right after the recent election. These guys just love debasing everything. Would all of this be happening right now if the election tide had been in Obama’s favor? Who knows? But things worked out the way they worked out; the dems were drubbed. SO now we have the distinctly unpleasant salvo of images of the smirking Dubbya being spit out across TV screens around the nation. How is it that he manages to look as though he’s strutting even in still photos? But, there he is, hawking his “autobiography”. With solemn mien, he seems to believe that we will believe in him; that we will revere his words as sagacious and reveal him to a be a stalwart warrior against all of the evils of the world. As Bugs Bunny said once about one of his fellow characters: “What a maroon!”

I am watching all of this unfold on a large screen TV over a bar in a working class neighborhood in Somerville, MA. Mercifully I am on the other side of the room and the sound is muted so I can’t make out all of what is actually being said. Actually, it wouldn’t matter since all of it is pure spectacle anyway and has no more meaning in the larger scheme of things than a Punch and Judy show. Hauntingly, in the split screen CNN images, there is also the hunched and brooding figure of Dick Cheney to the right, and in the center, the dancing image of a rather skeletal Scooter Libby. I thought, hoped fervently actually, that Halloween was over. Oh well, I should have known better, after all we’ve had several days of the orange visage of John Boehner doing his Mr. Pumpkin-head routine for our delight and edification. Maybe this is all just some clever “Day of the Dead” routine. We should be so lucky.

After the brief flurry of light, that lasted no more than a few days immediately after Obama’s election, we are now rushing back to the primeval darkness. BTW:I am not crediting Obama with bringing any real illumination. He’s managed to snuff out just as many tapers as he lit, maybe more. I may be being unduly harsh on him and I am often chided for that by my liberal friends who insist he’s actually done some positive things. My scorn and lack of respect for him emerges from his fundamental failure to live up to even a tiny percentage of his own rhetoric and image. I didn’t expect perfection, but I expected candor, flint and some steel, but we’ve only gotten pandering, waffling, and even outright dissembling. He hasn’t earned our respect. It’s a shame.

So the question must be asked again, as it has been so often in the last couple of decades, and especially after the horror of the Bush administration: How much more of the light can the malignant political dumb show being played out on the national stage manage to suck away? I have the feeling none of our elected zombies and their corporate sponsors will be satisfied until the darkness is complete. Save your matches for a more appropriate time. With luck, either good or bad, we will definitely have need of them, sooner or later.




just as an aside: Having Dubbya out on a book tour reminds me of a comment about the erstwhile fashion plate, Fabio, when his ‘autobiography’ was published: “He ‘writes’, but can he read?”

It's time to stop waiting for change

It’s a near-certainty that repressive, even malignant, backward-looking forces will once again wield dominant political power and control more of the public purse strings than ever before. That makes the necessity for tangible and highly visible progressive projects even more urgent. Though many of the efforts towards progressive change may seem foolish, even simple-minded or ‘primitive’ and smacking of ‘socialism’, that is no reason to turn your back on them. In this era of corporate domination of nearly every aspect of our lives and culture from finances to entertainment to food, it is more important than ever to engage in real resistive actions. Politics as played today is not merely moribund, it is destructive and counter-productive. By all means, vote, but, unless you are absolutely dedicated to disappointment, giving any of your time and energy and money to the current political process is usually worse than pissing in the wind.

There are other, more effective ways to initiate and promote change. If you like and are comfortable with some of the good things about socializing and politicking, then you should consider getting involved in a Transition Initiative. This movement, now an international one with efforts in countries from Europe to the US to the Orient, is one place to find like-minded people who are committed to working towards a more congenial and equitable future. I applaud their endeavors and their spirit. And I whole-heartedly agree with their goals. But there may not be enough time for the Transitioners to accomplish their agenda. Their goal is ambitious and lofty: TO craft a sane, sensible and just living accommodation to a changed world, in which energy and other resources that we currently assume are abundant and take for granted will be greatly diminished. Who wouldn’t sign on for that? But their methodology for getting there may be too cumbersome and wearying for many. Trying to achieve consensus can take too much time and, as we see all the time, may precipitate watered-down and insufficient responses. TO have any substantial clout, Transition has to begin to embrace dis-sensus (a word coined by the Arch-Druid, John Michael Greer) as heartily as it embraces consensus. And ultimately I think they will.

BUT even more importantly, Transition has to get past the stage of talking and talking and talking. They’ve pulled that off in some of the places in Great Britain, where the movement started. Over there they’ve had successful nut tree planting projects and community gardens and other tangible manifestations of Transition’s goals. There hasn’t been so much of that here in the US. Granted TI is still in its formative stages, and awareness/education is a key component to its growth and success, BUT there has to be, and damn soon, an active cadre of people, clearly identified as being involved with Transition, who are actually making and creating tangible, visible projects. This isn’t the time to knit and fiddle. The wolves are circling our straw house culture. The continuing insistence by many Transition advocate leaders to rely primarily on a consensus-based (i.e., politically accepted and acceptable) EDAP – Energy Descent Action Plans -- to kick-start or initiate actual work on the ground and in the streets is unrealistic. Putting together these plans is certainly rewarding and enlightening. But, despite being infinitely more warm and fuzzy, it’s as ponderous and precarious as relying on conventional/traditional political action. The many houses of Transition need to make more room for tangible action-oriented folks as well as those who are more comfortable with process. No one should expect all, maybe not even most, of these on-and-in-the-ground projects to be ‘successful’, let alone enduring, but there needs to be some touchable, viewable, even smellable evidence of action from the folks in Transition. Otherwise the movement risks suffering from the failures that have so far bedeviled Presiident Obama and his administration.

In a spirit of lively dis-sensus and good faith, go out and build something. Start with your place. Create a food garden; better yet, join with your neighbors to make a neighborhood garden. Then start learning how to cook, if you don’t already have those skills, and share your successes and failures with family and friends. These are not empty, windy, wordy gestures; these are concrete, and, ultimately, highly political actions. They’ll even help restore your faith in your own abilities to accomplish something. DO they involve spending and giving of your body and spirit, your time and labor, even, lord forgive us, your $$$? Yep. Got any ideas of a better investment that will give you a more satisfactory, as well as a very pleasureful, return? I’ll bet you don’t. (Well, maybe making your own brew would stand next to it on the awards stand, but this is easier to pull off.) It may be ‘4th and long’ but go for it.

"Once upon a time ....."

As usual the techno-fantasists are trotting out the old horses – mea and culpa – while promising that they have learned some valuable lessons and that next time, there won’t be a next time. In an article in the NYT, William Broad and the ‘ scientific experts’ he cites, point out that scientific and technological progress always comes at a cost and that failures inevitably bring improvements in the way things are done. And the resulting re-tinkering of things yields a progressively wonderful world of achievement that inevitably benefits all mankind. Uh-huh.

Well guys, it is one thing to improve the stability of bridges and the aerodynamic stability of aircraft; those can be easy fixes. Piercing into the planet’s skin and risking the pollution and degradation of entire ecosystems over thousands of square miles is another thing altogether. An air plane or two falling out of the sky, unless it is carrying an armed nuclear weapon that detonates on impact, isn’t capable of wreaking the sort of havoc that has resulted from the ruptured and exploded Deep Horizon oil well. We are talking about risks of an entirely different category and scale. Even the inclusion in the article of the 1982 incident where an oil rig capsized is fundamentally irrelevant in scope, scale and category to what has happened in the Gulf. Engineering hubris and short-sightedness continues unabated and unrepentant.

Already today the ‘tragedy in the Gulf’ is no longer front page ‘news’ in the NYT. The cap is holding, the oil is invisible, and most of us can just go back to BAU.

Of course it is isn’t really that simple, and the issues haven’t actually been forgotten nor have they disappeared, they've just been 'archived'. Sadly there has been no fundamental discussion of the way we live and work in the US. There still is no real culture-wide questioning of our addiction to oil. Despite all that has happened in the last few weeks, like all junkies, we are still, as a society, in deep denial; We are in no way ready, nor capable of giving up our petroleum blow. Our need for a fix will cost us our home. “And so it goes”, to quote the prophet KV.

I’m just guessing here, but I probably shouldn’t be looking for reality in the op ed section of the NY Times.

I admit it; This is an exercise in nit-picking. I love Tom Friedman. He's well worth reading, and he’s sort of cuddly, but I think he should mount a new picture of himself to accompany his op ed pieces in the NY Times site. The new photo should show him wearing a red-white-and-blue American flag sports shirt and a little green beanie, one with a tiny little windmill on it. Also he should be probably be sucking on a rolled Benjamin as well. But hey, you gotta love his incorrigible go gettum optimism. He truly believes the fiesta should and will continue unabated, except for a few minor glitches here and there. His role in this carnival: He’s always there to show us the indomitable human knack to conjure up bright and shiny objects whose manufacture and distribution will keep us, well some of us anyway, in high cotton forever.

Underlying all of the hype in his latest nearly breathless op ed piece is the assumption that our ways of doing things may alter somewhat, but that the fundamental features of the current world, a reliable global energy and transportation network will continue to function ad infinitum – with a little help from the glowing angels of technology. His worship of whoop-de-doo global capitalism bolsters all of his remarks. Hell, if I had any money and wanted to make some more I might be bet on the great implantable acid reflux device too. I smell the oil and ozone of the Borg collective Moving closer all the time.

Before going any further I should make it plain that I am not opposed to bringing comfort and joy to those folks with acid reflux. Maybe these gadgets and gimmicks can really provide an essential treatment. But I think their actual medical necessity is far overshadowed by their economic and financial allure. As for the economics, it is probably safe to say that the real value in these devices is more likely to lie in the busy-ness they may provide for hundreds of humans making, selling and pushing them around the planet. If successful, it will keep several thousand of them occupied, off the streets, and paying taxes. Ha-cha. But wouldn’t it be sort of uplifting to provide something more along with mucho profits.

In my opinion, the project itself and Friedman’s relentless boosterism illustrates not the resourcefulness of the human spirit, but the smirking, continuous self-congratulation of us uber-apes as cunning tool makers. Given the prevailing dominance of international corporate culture, maybe this is the best we can right now. This slick device could be one of the safest, most benign and creative sideshows to come along in a while, but honestly, there is no art in this, merely cleverness and shrewd promotion in a world that can’t ever seem to get its fill of spectacle and circuses.

Maybe a more systemic approach could be considered. Perhaps the whole of the condition of acid reflux could be addressed by some attention to the influence of the foods we eat and our relationship to toxins in the environment as well as the stresses they inflict on the body and spirit. Perhaps we could re-tool and reconfigure the food system itself. Another device, no matter how nifty, that creates the illusion of health through ‘miracle’ of machinery and ‘modern medicine’ might just be another attempt to avoid looking at the values and validity of our world-view as a whole. Just a thought.

Dragons and Dungeons

Everyone who has an interest in the thievery and mendacity being perpetrated by Wall Street should read ‘Automatic Earth’. Ilargi and Stoneleigh are our guides, spiritually and literally, through the tortuous caves and passages of the financial underworld of Wall Street. I can’t thank them enough for their efforts at shining some light into the darkness. It can be fascinating, but it’s really quite numbing after a while. I’m glad they’re there to report out what’s going on. Frankly I prefer to work above ground, to plant some seeds, spread some compost, do a little weeding, pick a few peas and eat. How about you? Maybe if we just choked off the food supply coming into those guys on Wall Street some of this chicanery would stop. It would be satisfying to put some of the dragons away in the deepest dungeons we can find.

my own wing nuts flung across the table top

It is hard to argue convincingly that the US is emerging like a phoenix from the ashes of our current financial firestorm. There is certainly a range of opinions on the subject. Even reading the tea leaves of the ‘facts’, e.g., housing sales and starts, unemployment numbers, etc., produces a variety of analyses from various economic pundits and financial know-it-alls: there are the boosters on Wall Street and the White House (yes, Virginia, pigs CAN fly if you burn enough money under their wings!), the moderately rosy prognosticators at the NY Times (including Nobel laureate Paul Krugman), the sad sack Republican sore losers (who want to give financiers even more license to steal and gamble), the gloomier views of the folks at Automatic Earth and Baseline Scenario among others, and, finally, the downright doomers like James Kunstler, Joe Bageant, and Dmitry Orlov, who are even now painting up the signs on the Welcome Wagons of societal descent. I tend to come down on their dark side, if for no other reason than at least these guys are people I want to share a meal and drinks with. Besides they write with panache, grace, style, and balls. Each of them always garners a lot of style points in their columns and blog posts. They are a necessary antidote to the all things bright and beautiful elixirs that are being peddled by the shills for American triumphalism.

Let’s face it, no matter how you frame it or what colors you try to drape over it, most folks out there are not experiencing anything that resembles a genuine ‘economic recovery’ they would recognize, and they aren’t ever likely to. We are drifting aimlessly around in unknown waters in a murky swamp for which there are no maps and for which there are no reliable guides. Those blustering self-aggrandizing Kool Ade peddlars on Wall Street and in the corridors of the White House are demonstrably not certified to lead us out of this. It is more likely that they have compromised any chance at ‘recovery’ by virtually opening up the entire vault to take care of the thieving CEOs and their henchmen at financial corporations and in the Big Banks. Any ‘stimulus programs’ that were reluctantly set in motion by Congress to help ‘main street’, municipalities and state governments were too lame and too feeble from the get go. While these efforts may have saved a handful of old jobs here and there, they haven’t inspired the creation of many new ones. After all, those DC boys take care of their own. Moreover, their targets were too ill-defined. In fact, the entire ‘ recovery program’ lacks clear definition and sharp vision. This was an opportunity to recognize and acknowledge the changed reality of the world’s inherent resource circumstances as well as those in the US. Our national ‘leaders’ failed absolutely to grasp the significance of the moment and chart a fresh course for the nation. But I suppose we shouldn’t have been surprised at their lack of vision and fortitude. Congress and the Executive Branch owe their souls to the highest bidders, usually corporations.

Consequently, virtually the entire nation is sleepwalking at the moment. Many millions people are trapped in debt, despair and disappointment. TO cope, they zone themselves out on medications that they hope will get them through the dark night of our plight, and cauterize their wounds with mindless mirth from the media. The Bread and Circuses machines are constantly alight with gaudy and brainless distractions. Hey, it’s our only real homegrown industry these days. Save for some of that medicinal weed in CA.

I am sure there are those out there who will choose to blame all of our current malaise on ‘the events of 9/11’. During the years of the Bush dauphinage it was hauled out anytime they felt the need to whip up ‘patriotic’ frenzy. And there are those out there who are still doing it. There is a cadre of politicians, pundits and plastic patriots (read: Tea Party) out there who are trying to peddle fantasies of ‘reclaiming American values’ and ‘restoring our freedoms’. The fact is that the events of 9/11 only shattered the illusions we all held about our invulnerability and invincibility. The ‘wake up call’ needn’t have led us to where we are now, but it has. And we are all complicit in our descent. America’s freedoms are usually won and maintained on foreign soils and with a lot of heavy arms.

As a nation we began hocking our freedoms at the Company Store a long time ago. The Company Store I refer to is that elaborate money laundering operation set up as a joint venture between the Corporations and the Government. And the Store is, in turn, beholden to the bankers and the financiers, the money lenders and money changers. While once folks like this were routinely driven from the temples, and excoriated for being the mendacious, rapacious, and sanctimonious scum they really are. NOW they own ALL the temples and charge us exorbitant fees just to stand in line at the door, let alone actually participate in the action. They’ve even been trying to convince us that they’re actually doing God’s work.

Every aspect of our lives in this country is monetized and monitored. The system even affects our children in the womb. They emerge into unending debt, and virtual perpetual servitude, none of it of their own making. The guys who control the money dominate this Vast Machine; they set all of the rules of the many and various games that comprise the System, their system, and they operate it all with ruthless and ceaseless fealty to the bottom line. Resistance is essentially futile. The only available option, if you don’t want to play with them, which is always costly to you, not them, is to try to figure out ways not to participate, as much as possible, or to not to play at all if you can. But finding a safe haven, amiable companions and crafting a meaningful existence is an increasingly difficult endeavor in this culture. And you have to be willing to be an outsider and an outlaw in many respects. That doesn’t mean proclaiming your ‘right’ to be an ass hole and bluster on about ‘values’ and ‘liberty’. It doesn’t mean toting your AK-47 around to rallies and threatening to kill anyone who disagrees with you. People like Sarah Palin and Glen Beck who protest and declaim with the vehemence and venom of spoiled, bratty, know-it-all children are, very wrongfully, getting all the press, and raking in a lot, a lot of $$$. Clearly our once clear-eyed ‘press corps’ can no longer tell the difference between magical thinking and reality. And even if they tried to, they would be fired. The longer the media can prolong the artificiality of it, the more easily these self-serving and extraordinarily canny, crafty schemers can chhisel away at our nation’s last remaining fig leaves of morality and decency.

So here I am sputtering and spewing. What do I choose? What am I going to do about the situation? On a macro-level, I am convinced that there really isn’t anything I can do. As for my own life, I can try to resist and try to participate as little as possible in the grand faloon (or is it saloon) of our culture. I can search out, and hopefully find, a place in which to settle for the rest of my days. I cannot actually set paths or build scaffolding for others. If I were a Buddhist perhaps I would just surrender to all of it, just acknowledge the existence of the System, accept it and move on. Usually that procedure doesn’t work, particularly well for someone with like me with such a high anger and disappointment level. Still, I flirt with that stance every day. Frankly, part of me longs for the ‘normal’ and the familiar of the last three decades. It was an easy and convenient life for the most part. Though it consisted mostly of relatively uneventful days and little in the way of fulfilling accomplishments, it was satisfying and quiet, a pastel USA version of a hobbit-like comfort and stability. We consumed too much and saved too little, of either $$$ or resources. Alas, that life is gone with the wind. On many days and more often, I think that may not be a bad thing.

So, Poke the Worm Already

My nudgy friend Bill regards posts like the previous one with some disdain or at least, ‘it-ain’t-enough’ disapproval. He never lets me off the hook. He believes it isn’t fair to just vent. It’s not enough just to hang your opinions out on the line like soiled laundry, you’ve gotta have some positive suggestions. What kinds of things should someone do to counteract the current conditions, and perhaps lay the ground work for something fresh and new to emerge?

In that spirit, here’s a short list, though it’s just a beginning:

1- Grow something, anything. Preferably grow something you can eat, but growing anything is a good first step. Ideally you should start something from seed, but that isn’t necessary. Seeds are like prayers, or good thoughts. Once you plant them they have an innate urge to grow and proliferate. They require some nurturing and attention, but with time you can make them flourish. Plus, with seeds there is always the magical moment of seeing the leaves emerge from the soil and flex towards the sunlight. If you’re comfortable with a bigger move, start a garden or help someone out with theirs. There’s nothing quite as invigorating as the fragrance of moist warm soil on a fresh Spring morning!

2- Turn off the TV and READ! Here’s a short list of authors that will/can provide some information and/or inspiration. Not all of them are readily available; not all of them are positive tonics. To stoke your worries but open your thinking: Derrick Jensen, Richard Heinberg, Joe Bageant, Jim Kunstler To explore some new ways of looking at the world: Daniel Quinn, Alan Watts, Rob Hopkins, Sharon Astyk, Gene Logsdon, Kirkpatrick Sale, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Wendell Berry – probably start with him.

3- Learn how to cook. This is a skill everyone can use and share.

4- Repair or recondition something -- A bicycle, a wheelbarrow, a chair.

5- Make something by hand. A wooden spoon, for example. Just try carving one and you'll discover just how rewarding working with your hands can be.

6- Give something away. It has to be something you like and something that is useful, not a piece of junk.

7- Consume less. Yeah, I know, everyone says this and for most of us it is a reality anyway these days. In some, but no means all instances, you can reduce the pain by making your choices more conscious and deliberate. From energy to water to gadgets to clothing making conscious choices about what and how you ‘consume’ helps to make those choices not only less wrenching, but actually fulfilling. I know you may not believe it but it’s true.

8- Buy used whenever possible; you can’t exist without some consumption after all. Even better than used, is free. Join ‘Freecycle’ in your community and ask for what you need. If there isn’t a freecycle group nearby, go here -- to find out how you can start one.

9- Consider starting a Transition Initiative in your community. Go to this website for more information: http://transitionculture.org. If that seems like an insurmountable task, start small and organize some REGULAR potluck meals with some like-minded folks. You can probably find quite a few souls wandering around who share your concerns but feel powerless or at least stymied. You can use ‘Meetup’ (just a Google click away) or similar sites on line. Church congregations can be another good place to look.

10- When you shop, shop at locally owned and operated stores. Support the merchants in your own community. Going to BBS (Big Box Stores) may save you money, but BBS don’t tend to keep much, if any, of their profit money in the local community. Worst of all, they are relentless predators and muscle smaller retailers out of business. Not only that, if you have to drive more than 10 miles one way to a BBS, you may not be saving any significant amount of money any way, at least not on small to medium purchases. Moreover, you will be adding CO2 and other pollutants to the environment as well as putting wear and tear on your car.

11- Form a shopping pool. When you must go shopping, try as often as possible to buddy up with someone you know who is likely to be wanting or needing to go on a similar errand. It may add a little extra time but it will pay you back major social dividends and save some money too.

12- Go find a vernal pond and listen to the peepers for about half an hour.

Addendum to the previous post: It is actually important to Immerse yourself in all your dark fantasies about the present and the future. If you don’t explore that side, it will just keep infecting your thoughts. Don’t just ignore and push away the despair, frustration and fear. It’s there and it’s real. But it doesn’t have to run you all the time. Then try to envision a fresh future that has in it only those things that truly fulfill you. What would that look like? How would it feel? Go on, run with it. Envision away!

This is just a starter list. Add to it whatever works for you.