Is that a flock of black swans I see, or is it merely a clutch of grey-crested canaries?

Perhaps because it’s summer we have succumbed to a kind of somnambulant stupor. As usual. We seem to be caught up in a mind-numbing holding pattern of raucous and noisy inaction by our politicians, from the top on down. Once again there’s a cacophonous continuation of the same-old-same-old pattern of life in the USofA. On the one hand, we’ve got the micro-partisan politics of such distractions as “Obama ain’t got a fucking birth certificate”, and “What did you mean by that ‘wise latina’ remark?”, and on the other hand, we’ve got the macro-economic politics of “fixing the system” from the not-changing the rules on Wall Street to the not-changing the rules on health care. The weather for both remains unsettled with drizzle and occasional hot, gusty winds. No matter how we often and loudly we as citizens shout for action and change everything remains the same. No one, entrenched in a position of political power is willing to propose substantive change unless their ‘seat’ is secure. And with rare exceptions, nearly everyone is convinced the that game as it has been played up to now, is not only the best game ever, but that it can go on like this forever. They want to believe, and they want us to believe not only that the system can be adjusted --- notice all those ‘green shoots’ --- but that it will be adjusted and the future will come up roses everywhere, sans thorns, of course, and money, dandy, dandy green stuff will be flowing freely and endlessly from the big rock candy mountain. As evidence: just look, the stock market has gone back up 9000! Soon it’ll hit 12,000 again and all of your ‘losses’ will be recouped.

I would like to join their chorus, imbibe their kool ade, maybe even gather up some of the kool kash, and nod smilingly, but I can’t. Maybe it’s just some innate contrary, ornery bleakness of spirit that holds me back. But I read the tea leaves differently. I certainly don’t have a plan for myself or anyone else to follow, but get f’in real, guys! Toto is someone’s road kill plat du jour and we aren’t in Kansas anymore. The patterns and practices of the past 20 years can’t just be retuned, readjusted and replayed to provide us with more bloated excess. Unless you’re high on White House Wall Street Fangel Dust you cannot make the numbers add up. The resources just do not exist. And actually, why the fuck would we want a repeat performance of the late 90s anyway? Please, spare us the tacky encores and sequels. Please, no “The Billy C. Boom Years Redux.”

I don’t have a doomsday outlook exactly, I just can’t imagine and seriously don’t want a techno-hooked culture coked up on ceaseless, mindless entertainment, mobility and consumption. Why would anyone think this is a desirable future? In the USofA we are enthralled by the visions of prosperity and the “good life” that the corporate spinners and their political lackies drool out at us out 24/7. Most of us are dazzled by the glitz and glamour; we’re sucked in by the sexy gratification that seems to be available to any or all of us if we just work harder, get fabulously lucky, or just have a bigger credit line. We are smitten and addicted to the ready availability of anything and everything from everywhere. Just look at the settings and circumstances of TV shows like “Burn Notice” (set in swanky Miami) and movies like the James Bond series which are awash in glorified luxury and privilege. We want it and we want it now. And the beat goes on.

Given the persistent and pervasive selling of Americus Triumphus even now, the ironic fallacy of our “business as usual” practices still doesn’t seem to have gotten through to those who game the system. And why would it? The scum floating at the top remain relatively unaffected by the overall state of decline. After all, less for others means more for them. In fact, many of them are reaping even greater profits from the misfortune of others than before the tanking. The foxy ones are just a little less blatant about displaying their accumulated avarice. And so, with some carefully re-adjusted PR, the fleecing continues. Even our President seems to have joined the cheerleading squad. True, there has been some readjustment of expectations downward in some places, but most of the people I meet seem to believe that all of “this current dip” is just a “temporary condition” and soon everything will get back to “normal”. But no matter how they spin it, and despite the stock market, a wholly owned subsidiary of mega-banks, and their affiliated brokerage houses by the way, the current financial and economic climate is a definite and continuing downer for most folks in the USofA. And as of yet there is no real public outcry. The monarchs of old France should have been so fortunate. At least then they would have kept their heads.

Despite the attempts by our ‘national leaders’ to paint over the graffiti on the planet’s walls, there is little doubt that our world, this ‘little blue planet’ that we inhabit is in crisis. At the rate we’re going, this little blue planet is more likely to to be “this shitty brown planet” awfully fucking soon. Why does our nation continue to ignore not only its profligate affluence, but also its moral hazard? I probably shouldn’t pose questions in quite that way; It’s scolding and preachy and ultimately ineffective. Low church stuff really. But, on the other hand, why not? The questions remain legitimate and connected.

Looking at the facts, there is no doubt that those of us who live in the USofA are the beneficiaries of the labor and the resources of billions of poor people elsewhere in the world. (Note the oft repeated and oft confirmed stat: 4% of the world’s people devouring 27% of the world’s resources.) Billions of our fellow humans may be in a crisis of food deprivation, polluted water and chronic disease; ours is a crisis of too much affluence and convenience, lack of moral fiber and erosion of spirit. We live at the top of the food and resource chain, the very top. We benefit from resources ripped from places around the globe and yet for all our sophistication and glittery technology we live in a country that is perhaps the most smug, provincial and parochial place on the planet. We are not a civilized nation of culture. We’re a rag tag hot pot of corrupt venal corporations, chiseling, servile accountants and spineless voracious “consumer groups”. We are, in the words of NY Times columnist David Brooks, a “boob-ochracy”. What little actual news we receive from our major ‘national media’ is slanted and meager; the bulk of the ‘news’ fawns on celebrity (including politics), sucks up to sports and absolutely ejaculates about money. What happens in the rest of the world is an after-thought, way after. Out of sight, out of mind. So long as the oil keeps flowing, the food is cheap and always available, starlets show their shaved and shiny pubes, the stock market keeps rising and there aren’t “‘merican tourists” being hassled somewhere or beheaded too often, we really don’t want to know what’s going on “over there.” Ain’t patriotism grand?

Most Americans seem to have an aversion to being exposed to “bad news”. They certainly have an aversion to “seeing” unpleasant images. It has always amused me that devout Christians have no difficulty hanging gory images of the crucified and bleeding Christ in their places of worship, but complain about real images of mayhem, maiming and violence being shown in the media. Yeah I know that Evangelicals tend to sanitize everything down to actually removing Christ from the cross altogether and merely raising a slick minimalist symbol instead. That may be an even worse hypocrisy. Anyway. They carry on about how these images will “damage the children”. Do American kids in particular have the most tender and fragile psyches of any living creatures on the planet or what? We certainly wouldn’t want them to know the truth about the effects their excessively affluent lifestyles have on the rest of the planet’s peoples and environment now would we? It might “damage the children” if they saw how almost everything they take for granted and expect to be there for them in their lives rides on the backs of billions of people who are virtually slaves; it might damage the children if they learned the truth about how their toys and gadgets actually float on the skin of cheap oil and decimated landscapes and societies. It might interrupt their texting about their next blow job. Given the circumstances, many of them violent, that have led to and maintain our affluence, it is easy to come to the conclusion that the whole rotten mass of corporate USofA is corrupt and, ultimately, unstable. Many of us believe that the whole system is destined for a nasty, nasty unraveling.

Recently in Orion, one of our leading ‘environmental’ magazines, there was a piece by Derrick Jensen. Derrick is a deft and ardent advocate for the ‘environment’. In his article, “Taking Shorter Showers….. Jensen laid out the case that individual, personal actions, like recycling, taking shorter showers, eating only locally grown foods, and vermiculture, are insufficient in themselves to changing the inexorable decline of the planet. Jensen maintains that these behaviors however well-intentioned are almost inconsequential in stopping or reversing the rape and sodomy our national lifestyle in forcing on the planet. Certainly these solo acts of responsible behavior are worth doing, and they provide the actors with a sense of accomplishment perhaps, and so they should continue, but in the long-run we shouldn’t expect that these activities alone are going to make the changes we need to make to save ourselves and the planet. Moreover, as Jensen reminds us, playing nice-nice with those in power isn’t going to work either. The corporate/congress/cabal has an agenda, a schedule and a play book with personnel capable of out-foxing, out-spending and out-maneuvering even the most determined of environmental activists who follow the usual namby-pamby, soft-gloves, hand-in-hand practices. ‘Working with’ the powers in charge accomplishes very little, despite some much bally-hooed successes, most of which are, in the end, minor. Mutual genital manipulation feels good and may even make pretty good photo ops, but it doesn’t really alter the fundamental practices of corporate/gov’t rapine. If the powers in charge feel threatened enough, they will always fall back on their means of last resort: intimidation and violence. Those in power may propose ‘solutions’ to global climate change, but these solutions are in the end shell games that will accomplish little of substance will but do much to further line the pockets of big corporations. The ‘solutions’ to global climate change are not going to come from those with ‘profit’ as their primary and mandated legal mission.

There are some small-scale alternatives to government/corporate programs. Permaculture is one of them advocated by a dedicated cadre of believers. There is certainly every reason to practice permaculture or to start practicing it if you aren’t already; it’s a fantastic way of working with the world and in the world. It’s a gentle, embracing life-affirming path and maybe, one day, there will be a permaculture world of collective harmony and plenty. It’s a wonderful goal to work towards. Embrace it whole-heartedly. But it’s a slow slog and it requires the cooperation of virtually everyone to make it work on a large scale with genuine effectiveness. Soldier on by all means, just don’t expect miraculous and instantaneous societal transformation as you impart to others the good news.

I’ve tried to imagine a cadre of militant permaculturalists, but that would be antithetical to their fundamental principles. Besides it would raise all those screeching cries of ‘environmental fascism” from all those corporate Nazis. The snuggly permaculturalists I’ve met are more likely to be the hobbits in the next Lord of the Rings, (subtitled “The Descent of Everything”) and if we and they are lucky enough to have a fairy tale ending like that particular saga, more power to them. Don’t hold your breath.
The reality is that while permaculture can be an answer to all that is ruinous in our life styles, maybe even the answer in the long-now, in the short-now, it isn’t. Mostly it isn’t because it isn’t a short-now solution, it isn’t a fast solution, and right now we need some of those. And some of those fast solutions will likely provoke ‘violent’ reactions. Permaculture isn’t prepared for that.

The ‘Transition’ movement is another admirable, appealing and site-specifically effective approach to our current conditions. Except for its occasional touchy-feely exercises that some people find a bit cloying, it’s overall emphasis on community actions, re-skilling and cooperative endeavors is terrific. Transition encourages encourages people to find their own targets and develop their own ways of hitting them. It’s an empowering and engaging enterprise that has already attracted advocates and practitioners around the world. The capacity of the Transition Town folks to mobilize communities into taking at least some direct actions towards managing and controlling their own futures is marvelous to watch. They are having some noticeable successes and are producing results. One particular highlight is the work Transition has done in Totnes, Great Britain. The quality and breadth of the studies and proposals that have come out of their efforts far surpasses the work of most professional experts who usually have a corporate or governmental client to assuage.

In the USofA, it seems to me that the most important achievements of the Transition movement have been in the areas of raising community and individual awareness of the current conditions of global climate change and peak oil. Bringing these subjects out into a public forum for discussion always has a positive impact. As these real conversations about the world around us have proceeded, many people have been inspired to undertake studies of their own local circumstances and suggest action plans that may lead to greater community resilience and self-sufficiency. Again, plaudits all around for Transition Town. Keep on keeping on! But once again, like permaculture, out of which Transition was spawned, Transition may be too slow and too gentle for getting the job done that needs to be done now. No one wants a nasty, violent, Road Warrior-like devolution of life style and societal integrity in the USofA, but no one seems to be preparing realistically for anything else.
So what’s next? Is the sky falling? ……… ummm, yes. Stay tuned. And pass me that glass please.