Dismantle Civilisation

by: Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor.

Let’s not beat around the bush on this issue: The swine flu vaccines now being prepared for mass injection into infants, children, teens and adults have never been tested and won’t be tested before the injections begin.
In Europe, where flu vaccines are typically tested on hundreds (or thousands) of people before being unleashed on the masses, the European Medicines Agency is allowing companies to skip the testing process entirely.

And yet, amazingly, people are lining up to take the vaccine, absent any safety testing whatsoever. When the National Institutes of Health in the U.S. announced a swine flu vaccine trial beginning in early August, it was inundated with phone calls and emails from people desperate to play the role of human guinea pigs. The power of fear to herd sheeple into vaccine injections is simply amazing…

Back in Europe, of course, everybody gets to be a guinea pig since no testing will be done on the vaccine at all. Even worse, the European vaccines will be using adjuvants — chemicals used to multiply the potency of the active ingredients in vaccines.

Notably, there is absolutely no safety data on the use of adjuvants in infants and expectant mothers — the two groups being most aggressively targeted by the swine flu vaccine pushers. The leads us to the disturbing conclusion that the swine flu vaccine could be a modern medical disaster. It’s untested and un-tried. Its ingredients are potentially quite dangerous, and the adjuvants being used in the European vaccines are suspected of causing neurological disorders.

Paralyzed by vaccines

I probably don’t need to remind you that in 1976, a failed swine flu vaccine caused irreparable damage to the nervous systems of hundreds of people, paralyzing many. Medical doctors gave the problem a name, of course, to make it sound like they knew what they were talking about: Guillain-Barre syndrome. (Notably, they never called it “Toxic Vaccine Syndrome” because that would be too informative.)

But the fact remains that doctors never knew how the vaccines caused these severe problems, and if the same event played out today, all the doctors and vaccine pushers would undoubtedly deny any link between the vaccines and paralysis altogether. (That’s what’s happening today with the debate over vaccines and autism: Complete denial.)

In fact, there are a whole lot of things you’ll never be told by health authorities about the upcoming swine flu vaccine. For your amusement, I’ve written down the ten most obvious ones and published them below.

Ten things you’re not supposed to know about the swine flu vaccine
(At least, not by anyone in authority…)

#1 – The vaccine production was “rushed” and the vaccine has never been tested on humans. Do you like to play guinea pig for Big Pharma? If so, line up for your swine flu vaccine this fall…

#2 – Swine flu vaccines contain dangerous adjuvants that cause an inflammatory response in the body. This is why they are suspected of causing autism and other neurological disorders.

#3 – The swine flu vaccine could actually increase your risk of death from swine flu by altering (or suppressing) your immune system response. There is zero evidence that even seasonal flu shots offer any meaningful protection for people who take the jabs. Vaccines are the snake oil of modern medicine.

#4 – Doctors still don’t know why the 1976 swine flu vaccines paralyzed so many people. And that means they really have no clue whether the upcoming vaccine might cause the same devastating side effects. (And they’re not testing it, either…)

#5 – Even if the swine flu vaccine kills you, the drug companies aren’t responsible. The U.S. government has granted drug companies complete immunity against vaccine product liability. Thanks to that blanket immunity, drug companies have no incentive to make safe vaccines, because they only get paid based on quantity, not safety (zero liability).

#6 – No swine flu vaccine works as well as vitamin D to protect you from influenza. That’s an inconvenient scientific fact that the U.S. government, the FDA and Big Pharma hope the people never realize.

#7 – Even if the swine flu vaccine actually works, mathematically speaking if everyone else around you gets the vaccine, you don’t need one! (Because it can’t spread through the population you hang with.) So even if you believe in the vaccine, all you need to do is encourage your friends to go get vaccinated…

#8 – Drug companies are making billions of dollars from the production of swine flu vaccines. That money comes out of your pocket — even if you don’t get the jab — because it’s all paid by the taxpayers.

#9 – When people start dying in larger numbers from the swine flu, rest assured that many of them will be the very people who got the swine flu vaccine. Doctors will explain this away with their typical Big Pharma logic: “The number saved is far greater than the number lost.” Of course, the number “saved” is entirely fictional… imaginary… and exists only in their own warped heads.

#10 – The swine flu vaccine centers that will crop up all over the world in the coming months aren’t completely useless: They will provide an easy way to identify large groups of really stupid people. (Too bad there isn’t some sort of blue dye that we could tag ‘em with for future reference…)

The lottery, they say, is a tax on people who can’t do math. Similarly, flu vaccines are a tax on people who don’t understand health.

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Introductory comments by Dmitry Orlov: A small but already by no means negligible number of Americans is starting to realize what their future looks like: no retirement, no job, no savings, plus they are getting old. Their only possible means of support in old age is their children.

Here is the story of a Russian woman’s experience with pulling her three children out of school that I thought would provide some valuable perspective to people in the States who are confronting the same decision, so I translated it.

In the UK, home schoolers are under threat. See earlier article.

by Ksenia Podrova, St. Petersburg, Russia
Translated by Dmitry Orlov

During this time, two of my children have received high school diplomas while sitting at home (since it had been decided that these could turn out to be useful to them during their lives). My third child passed exams for the primary grades without attending classes, and is not about to stop there. Honestly, I am unconcerned. And I don’t get in the way of them choosing whatever substitute for school they manage to think of.

When my eldest was in secondary school, I started noticing that all too often he would recall situations of the following type: “I started reading a really interesting book during math class today;” or “I started composing a new symphony during history class;” or “It turns that Peter plays chess quite well — we played a few games during geography today.”

And I started thinking: why is he going to school? Is it to study? But then he does completely unrelated things during classes. Is it to socialize? But then it’s possible to do that outside of school.

Shift of consciousness

And then a sudden shift occurred in my consciousness. And I thought: “Maybe he shouldn’t go to school at all?” For a few days we discussed this idea. Then I went to see the school principal and told her that my son will no longer be attending school. (Afterwards many of my friends told me: “You were lucky to have such a principal! What if she didn’t agree?”) But it had nothing to do with the principal. If she didn’t agree, this would not have changed our plans at all. It’s just that in that case our further steps would have been slightly different.

The principal (whom I remember with sympathy and respect to this day) was sincerely interested in our motivations, and I was quite open with her concerning my opinion of school. She herself proposed how we should proceed: we should write a statement requesting that my child be transferred to home schooling, and she will make arrangements with the Department of Education, so that my child (supposedly because of his superior talents) will, as part of an experiment, study independently, and take tests as an external student at this same school.

And so we forgot about school almost until the end of the school year. My son was absorbed in all the things for which he had never had enough time. He spent entire days composing music and performing it on “live” instruments. He spent nights in front of the computer, building his own BBS (those of you who were fans of Fidonet know what that means). He also managed to find time to read anything he wanted, to study Chinese (just because he found it interesting at the time) and to help me with my work in translating and typing documents in various languages, installing email (still a difficult task at the time that involved consulting an expert), entertaining the younger children… In all, he was incredibly happy with his new freedom from school, and did not feel that he was missing anything.

The Price of Freedom

In April, we suddenly remembered: “Oh, we must prepare to take exams!” My son pulled out the dusty textbooks and concertedly read them for two or three weeks. Then we went to see the principal and told her that he is ready to take the exams. At this, my involvement in his school affairs ended. On his own, he caught up with the various teachers and arranged with them when and where they would met.

He managed to pass in all the subjects in one or two visits. The teachers themselves decided on the form of the exam. Sometimes it was just a conversation, sometimes a written test. Curiously, almost none of them wanted to give him an ‘A’, although my child certainly knew no less than the others. Our favorite grade became ‘B’, but this was not the least bit upsetting: this was the price of freedom.

Some time ago it had been considered that a child must attend school every day. If it turned out that someone doesn’t do this, one could get a visit from some special government agency (with something like “guardians of childhood” in the title, but I am no expert in these matters, so I could be wrong). In order for a child to gain the right to not go to school, it was necessary to receive a medical certificate that he is unable to attend school due to bad health. This is why I often heard confused questions such as: “What are your children sick with?” “Then why aren’t they in school?!” “They don’t want to be.”

An awkward silence ensued. By the way, later I found out that some parents simply bought such certificates from doctors they knew.

But in the summer of 1992 President Yeltsin issued a historic decree which announced that henceforth any child (independent of medical condition) has the right to study at home! Furthermore, the local schools must pay to the parents of such children, because they are spending the government’s education funds not on teachers and not on school buildings, but independently and at home!

And then there were two

When my daughter became old enough, I told her that she didn’t have to go to school at all. But she was a socialized child, having read many children’s books which stressed the idea that going to school was highly prestigious. Since I was in favor of a free upbringing, I wasn’t about to forbid it. And so off she went to first grade.

She lasted almost two years! Only around the end of the second year did she get sick of this empty waste of time, and she announced that she is going to study at home, like her older brother.

I delivered yet another statement to the principal. And now I had two children who did not go to school.

Yet another statement

Once in September I went to see the principal and give her yet another statement that this year my children are studying at home. She gave me the text of the presidential decree to read. (I didn’t think to write down its title, number and date, and now don’t even remember. If you are interested — search the Internet, and let me know.)

And then the principal said: “Nevertheless, we aren’t going to pay you for not sending your child to school. It’s too complicated for us to get these funds. But, on the other hand, we won’t charge you for their exams.”

I was quite satisfied with this. It would have never occurred to me to take money from her. And so we parted satisfied with each other and with the changes to our laws.

Spelled out in black and white

Last year I went to arrange home schooling for my third child.

Imagine this situation: i come to see the head teacher and tell her that I want to register my child to attend school, first grade. The head teacher writes down the name of the child and asks for the date of birth. It then turns out that then child is ten years old. And now — the really pleasant part: the head teacher reacts calmly, and even shows me an official document that stated that any person has the right to come to any school and request to take exams for any grade, and is not required to show any documents regarding completion of previous grades. The school administration is required by law to create a commission to administer all necessary exams.

That is, you can go to any school when you reach 17 years of age (by the way, along with my daughter, there were two bearded fellows who had suddenly decided that they wanted their diplomas) and directly take the exams for 11th grade. And you will receive that same diploma, which so many people consider to be so necessary.

As they explained to us

Once, after we moved, and more out of curiosity than need, I went to the school nearest to our new house, and asked to see the principal.

I told her that my children have long since and irreversibly stopped going to school, and that I am currently looking for a place where they can take exams for 7th grade, quickly and inexpensively. The principal (a pleasant young woman with progressive views) was very glad to meet me, and I was glad to tell her about my children. But at the end of our conversation she suggested that I look for some other school.

They were, by law, indeed required to accept my children, and indeed required to allow them to study at home. That would not be a problem. But, she explained, ordinary teachers, which are the majority at this school, will not agree to my conditions of home schooling: letting the child pass the entire annual course at one go. The child cannot pass the entire program in one visit! The child has to work a certain number of hours. That is, they have absolutely no interest in what the child actually knows, they are only interested in the time spent studying. They want the child to attend all quarterly exams. And, of course, the child is required to participate in the life of the school: wash windows on Saturdays, collect trash on school grounds, and so on.

Obviously, I refused.

We just do not understand

But in spite of this the principal gave me what I needed, simply because she enjoyed our conversation. Specifically: I needed to borrow all the textbooks for the 7th grade from the library, to avoid having to buy them. And so she immediately called the librarian and ordered her to issue me all the textbooks free of charge until the end of the school year.

And so my daughter read all these textbooks and, with no fuss or “class participation,” passed her exams somewhere else. Then we brought the textbooks back. After that, if only she wanted to, she could have gone to any school and studied alongside her peers.

But somehow she doesn’t want to. Quite the opposite: she, just as her brothers, just as I do, considers such a suggestion to be pure nonsense. And we just cannot understand why a normal person would want to go to school.

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An interesting piece on wildness contrasted with sustainability, from the new going feral blog:

Wildness

Everything on this earth is inherently wild – if it lives and dies, it is part of the wildness that is life. Our word ‘will’ is rooted in the word wild; the will of a creature – the will of the land, is it’s wildness. In a culture dedicated to denying this truth, we tend to think of wildness as an exception – as something that exists in isolated pockets of wilderness here and there. Wildness is the rule, not the exception. If it exists, it is either living unhindered in a wild state or it is the victim of domestication. The keyboard I type this on comes from different parts of this wild earth – tortured and mangled together into the image of a keyboard. Everthing has will; a desire for how it want’s to exist and express itself – everything is inherantly wild.

domestication

Domestication is what we are surrounded by – and it is something that has happened to us, so it’s not surprising that we don’t notice it. It is a pretty polite word for a violent process – it might be better called ‘killing the wildness’ – since that’s what it means. A domesticated creature is one that lives according to it’s human master’s will, not it’s own. The more that creature (or plant, land, river etc.) can be helped to forget it’s own will the easier for it’s master to maintain control. If the cows forget that there had ever been anything other than the feedlot, they won’t feel confined.             How is it a violent process? A living thing’s wildness is something potent - it’s strength lies in every cell of the body. Nothing was born to live in captivity, to be droned, subdued, submissive; and nothing goes into such a role without being forced. In order for a feild of wheat to grow, every other living thing in that space must be eradicated. The feild is tilled, loosening up the soil (so that it can wash away), chemical fertilizer is applied, irrigation, pesticides, all to keep the field from remembering how it wants to live. Year after year, the feild is plowed planted and sprayed, consuming enormous amounts of energy, because year after year it wants to go wild, to remember, to heal - and must be beaten into submission.

The final dream of domestication – total control. Soy monoculture in the wake of one of the most biodiverse environments to have ever existed; the rainforests of Brazil.

Once human societies start domesticating each other and their landbases, it seems to become obsessive, it feeds itself. A look around should prove the point. It may be that humans began domesticating and developing agricultural societies with beautiful intentions, but once the process of taking wild space and turning it into a human designed ’production’ begins, things get out of control. Humans are capable of taking forests - home to countless species of plant, animal, bird, insect, mycelium - and after killing their wildness, turning it all into a production space for human food. The possibilities of expansion are limited only by how much earth there is to exploit. The final dream of civilization is that everything will be controlled, organized, categorized; all wildness and spontaneity will be eradicated. Fish will live in fish farms. Trees will grow on forest farms. Animals of utility will live in feedlots. Humans will live in cities completely isolated from any other creatures (except cute pets), isolated from anything that might remind them. The earth will be remodeled in the name of production. Any spontaneous, uncontrolled expression of life will be crushed.              Of course, it isn’t really the future I am describing…..

sustainability

How does this relate to sustainability? Is domestication unsustainable? I would say yes, but that isn’t the issue I want to talk about here. There is alot of buzz in mainstream society right now about who’s ‘going green!’, about how industrial society is voluntarily making the transition to green energy and thus becoming sustainable. Look at the picture above – the brazilian rainforest is cleared to make way for vast plantations of soybeans. What if those tractors were powered by biodeisel? What if they were powered by methane trapped from composting human shit, which was then used to fertilize the feild? Imagine that picture as an example of sustainability – vegan food being farmed using green fuel and human compost. Why would anyone want to sustain that?

The popular concept of sustainability paints a picture something like this:      Humans are burning too much fossil fuel. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with how we live, or how we interact with this earth, there are just some glitches in the system. Acidifying oceans, ozone holes, and most importantly global warming. If we can only make a few simple changes - switch to green energy, organic farming, cloth bags instead of plastic, phase out fossil fuels – the earth won’t burn and industrial civilization will be able to continue indefinately. I don’t want to argue too much here over the issue that it is impossible for this culture to become sustainable – I think it is more important that we consider if it is even desireable! In the sustainability movement, there is no discussion on what it is we want to make sustainable, or even what has been sustainable in the past. A culture of hunter gatherers lived sustainably in the brazilian rainforest for thousands of years, now eradicated and subdued into producing soybeans (pictured above) for the eco-conscious north american. Can a domesticated, modern human have any concept of what is sustainable, being so removed from any real point of reference?  Remember, one of the most important parts of being domesticated is forgetting, or having your memories erased -  your wild nature – who you are and what you need, erased.

The only proven models we have for existing sustainably as humans (the only way humans have ever actually existed sustainably) are hunter-gatherer societies, who did cultivate their landbases in many subtle ways, the important difference from agricultural socety being that they directly depended/depend on the health of their wild landbase – where agricultural society depends on fighting/destroying the health of it’s wild landbase. One way preserves the land, one way rapidly destroys it. Hunter-gatherers are tied to a limited resource base; a culture that kills too many Bison will soon after starve. This gives incentive to not get too big or too greedy. If an agricultural society gets too big or greedy, however, it just clears mor land to plant more grain – and so on, and so on, untill…. it becomes sustainable!

Future plans for Gothenburg, Sweden, transitioning to become a sustainable city.

what do we want to make sustainable?

This is a very important question. Do we want to be able to continue abusing all life on this planet – conforming it to our twisted visions of what is needed? Do we want to have a sustainable human engineered earth, completely ordered and controlled to maximize efficiency? A sustainable world where everyone and everything is tagged, drugged, kept submissive, orderly, tame? Or do we want to give up on the project of controlling all life on earth? Becoming sustainable does not mean allowing the wildness of living things to flourish; letting blackberries and dandelions grow through the concrete, turning the pavement into soil (and food!). It doesn’t mean healing our relationship with the land, or ourselves. Infact, the popular concept of sustainability, if enacted, would simply mean making the war against wildness perpetual. Domestication is the root of the giant chasm between humans and the non-human world, it is the engine that propels us towards killing the planet. Yet, somehow, it has completely snuck under the radar of the ongoing discussion on ‘going green’, probably because it is a much more ancient and deeply rooted problem than burning fossil fuels. It makes the solution much more complex.

The ancient civilization of what is now called Iraq successfully deforested rainforests of giant cedars, planted them with wheat, and turned them into desert in just a few centuries using primitive stone, bone and wood tools, as well as farming organically. Phasing out fossil fuels isn’t enough. Going back to a pre-industrial level of technology isn’t enough. There is a darkness at the heart of this culture, something very powerful and destructive that we need to see. We need to enter into a conversation with the land we take from in order to live; allow ourselves to hear it’s screams. We need to have relationships that aren’t manipulative and abusive, with one another and the earth. ’Sustainability’ is not primary, it might even be a destructive goal - that wild aliveness flourish is what matters.

the only war that matters

is the war against wildness

all other wars are subsumed by it

We agree – the sustainiability proposed by many green organisations and commentators will perpetuate the system which has destroyed the earth in the first place.  Why should we perpetuate this destructive and suicidal system any further?  True sustainability lies in undomesticating people, rewilding our economies and communities and promoting wildness as opposed to civilisation.  Whenever you see the term sustainability used, look beneath the surface greenwash and see the real message – is it perpetuating civilisation or is it rewilding and dismantling civilisation?

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The Uk Govt is planning to stop people home educating their children, another ancient right being removed.

Please help us keep our freedom to home educate as we, and our children, see fit.

Please support us in petitioning the Prime Minister of Great Britain to reject the recommendations of the Report to the Secretary of State on the Review of Elective Home Education in England by Graham Badman.This report is a totally disproportionate response to a ‘perceived’ problem full of unsubstantiated allegations that home educated children are more at risk of abuse than those at school. This simply is not true, as the report itself makes clear. Enacting the recommendations in this report would establish the state as “parent of first resort”, even though current legislation makes parents responsible for providing a suitable education for their children.

The report proposes to introduce monitoring and registration of home educators. Local officials would be given automatic access to private homes to interview children without their parents or any other trusted adult present. This is outrageous and a serious challenge to civil liberties. Registration may be refused or revoked on safeguarding grounds, though so far it is unclear what these grounds may be and Badman in his report stated that such grounds could be “any other concerns” that the local official had. Under such conditions, “registration” could really mean “permission” especially when home educators come up against inspectors who are anti-home education.

The proposals also introduce the need for the parent to submit an approved 12 month plan and for their child to “exhibit” at the end of the year that their plan has been successfully implemented. This will put an end to autonomous education/unschooling, as any such child-led philosophy would be decimated by having to implement such a structured scheme. This would also seriously curtail the flexibility that many structured home educators enjoy.

Across many countries there seems to be an attempt to undermine home education and to make sure that all children receive the state’s approved version of education, Sweden is moving to ban home education and it is already against the law in Germany.

Please help us stop this happening in England. This is becoming a global problem for home educators/homeschoolers. Let us unite and say with one big voice, “enough is enough!”
Petition:
We the undersigned call upon the Prime Minister of Great Britain to reject the recommendations of the Report to the Secretary of State on the Review of Elective Home Education in England by Graham Badman.

Online petition – Support home educators (homeschoolers) in England

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www.cindysheehanssoapbox.com

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Asks Luis de Sousa, at the Oil Drum, Europe.

Consulting an on-line Dictionary, a definition for Sustainability can be retrieved as the ability to perpetuate existence. In the same resource the definition for Development will be given as growth or progress. A concept gathering these two words together forms what the Greeks termed an oxymoron, an idea devoid of logical sense. Can Sustainable Development be sustainable? Naturally not, for merging together two antonymous concepts, it simply cannot exist.

So why is this oxymoron in the order of the day? Why does it get such attention? Why are so many so willing to discuss it so passionately?

Sustainable Development is one of several philosophical concepts (having as much eeriness as mythology) that emerged in the wake of a series of decades of breathtaking, unprecedented growth. Growth as in development, the physical expansion of the Human-sphere, its population and interactive processes with nature, harnessing energy and concentrated matter, deploying waste heat and dispersing matter. These mythological concepts are simply a reflex of a society intoxicated with growth in front of the first signs of physical constraints to its development.

Sustainable Development became the language of those that promise perpetual growth, and more, the profits that should come along with it. It is the language of those that do not want to reconsider their way of life. Of those who expect the XXI century to be the same as the XX century. Of those that expect to run all the cars on french fry oil or firewater. Of those who call Carbon Capture and Sequestration an energy source. Of those who promote the Hydrogen Economy, forgetting about the Nuclear energy system for which it was conceived. Of those touting Nuclear as Salvation. Of those touting Nuclear as Condemnation. Of those who expect Carbon Trading to reduce the OECD’s dependence on OPEC. Of those dreaming with a CO2 atmospheric concentration of 1000 ppm by 2100, accompanied by a 6ºC global temperature rise. Of those saying that the Earth’s hydrocarbons are not fossil fuels. Of those drilling their way forward. Of those waiting for the Free Market to replace Fossil Fuels. Of those thinking all they need is changing light bulbs to continue living in 400m2 cardboard houses. Of those claiming to be in their hands a reduction of Fossil Fuels consumption.

Sustainable Development is the philosophy of those fooling themselves, thinking that the Earth is flat, refusing to accept that the planet is a spherical object and thus finite. Of those refusing to face reality, refusing to wake up from their dreams.

A decade from now Sustainable Development will be out of the agenda. By then the word of the day shall be Survival. The Survival of a Culture, a Social and Political Framework, a Civilization.

Hopefully some will be able to wake up in time, leave the intoxicating dreams behind and face reality, however grim. Because then they’ll be able to devise a New Future. A Better Future. A Future founded on the real physical entities that run through our Economy, not in abstract, growth dependent, illusions. A Future where each man and woman have their place and are not enslaved by a spiral of virtual accumulation and spending. A Future where having more than the next man isn’t a goal in itself. A Future were work and excellence are rewarded by things that have real physical and meta-physical meaning.

A Future.

George Draffan: “We can fantasize about living however we want, but the only sustainable level of technology is the Stone Age. What we have now is the merest blip—we’re one of only six or seven generations who ever have to hear the awful sound of internal combustion engines (especially two-cycle)—and in time we’ll return to the way humans have lived for most of their existence. Within a few hundred years at most. The only question will be what’s left of the world when we get there.”

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Social change comes down to communication. Great efforts have resulted in fine books, stories for films and books, and there have been some wonderful speeches. But it must really start and end with the conversation wherein the top topic is the issues of the day approached honestly and without fear.

When people talk about a problem openly, then there is a chance of solving it. There may be no solution, but the attempt to converse about it may have other beneficial effects and lead to unexpected breakthroughs.

by Jan Lundberg at culture change

With species extinction now at the highest rate since the disappearance of the dinosaurs, one might assume this crisis is on everyone’s mind and discussed widely. One would be wrong. No one knows if it’s 100 species a day, many of which have not been named. Massive species loss has been known for many years, but it is “old news” or “boring.”

Neither are other critical topics discussed enough to match their import: melting of the ice caps and glaciers, nuclear weapons and nuclear waste, out of control arms sales, ongoing starvation or malnourishment of hundreds of millions of people, overpopulation, the greed of financiers openly stripping nations of wealth, etc.

In reality, they are all related. It comes down to compassion and taking action wisely. When people manage to discuss the most pressing issues, they can see past the immediate crisis possessing the power to distract. Then a whole-systems approach can serve to unite people into one movement.

In the 1960s there was “The Movement.” People had many definitions for it, and some members were more interested in stopping the bombing over Indochina than securing all rights for the Afro-American population, for example. But The Movement included those concentrating on expanded consciousness, back-to-the-land agrarianism, communalism, armed revolution, women’s liberation, environmental protection. It could all be seen as a whole: challenging “plastic society” and the false materialistic values of the flag-waving pro-war older generation.

We can blame the end of The Movement on its splintering into separate movements, or on the end of the Vietnam War draft, or the commercialization and corporatization of popular music, or assassinations of leaders in the 1960s — or all of them combined. The biggest mistake was to stop having the conversation about society in general. Instead people began to take the easy way out and earn more money and stay out of trouble, Those who did not cease the conversation became known as activists, and it was no longer “the youth” or “the students” or “The Movement.” Instead activists were on the fringes and mocked by “being stuck back in the 1960s.” The federal COINTELPRO operations against organizations and leaders took a toll, and there were pleasant distractions such as disco music or take your pick.

Social change comes down to communication. Great efforts have resulted in fine books, stories for films and books, and there have been some wonderful speeches. But it must really start and end with the conversation wherein the top topic is the issues of the day approached honestly and without fear.

When people talk about a problem openly, then there is a chance of solving it. There may be no solution, but the attempt to converse about it may have other beneficial effects and lead to unexpected breakthroughs.

When people avoid talking about serious matters, much harm can be done by others who are intent on opportunism or worse. Distracting people with other issues is therefore the prime tool for those trying to maintain an advantage in the status quo. It can also be said that the main tool is enslavement through economic dominance — a giant distraction from realizing a liberated life style. Many robotic or sheep-like people today have no concept of liberation except personal enrichment.

Talking about food security

We would not know it from the corporate media or our politicians, but we should be worrying big time that food supply will fail untold millions of people. All one has to do is look at energy, topsoil, pressures of the market (such as rising demand for food), and mix in some catastrophic weather that is assured, and we have a huge disaster ahead. It is just a matter of time.

There is a movement to appreciate local food, slow food, organic food. But it has not reduced the average number of miles a piece of food travels via petroleum in the U.S.: 1,500. To produce industrial food — probably 95% of what is eaten in the U.S. — ten caloric units of fossil-fuels produce one caloric unit of food. Farm workers are among the lowest paid in the nation, which is strange when everyone wants to eat. Time in the hot sun, subjected to pesticides and possible immigration raids, make the profession all the less attractive. There is no longer a designation for farmer in the U.S. census when so few people live on their own farms anymore. It was no wonder that when Max Yasgur, who hosted the Woodstock Festival in 1969, began his welcome with “Now I’m a farmer…” at that he was drowned out by cheers and applause. That was The Movement expressing itself for nature. Get the record album and hear it.

Today I picked three pint-sized baskets of three kinds of berries. It took me about an hour, even when the season is just right. I still had to pay eight dollars for the fruit. It is not designated as organic, which would allow for a higher price, but it was unsprayed. If the value of my time is $20 an hour, my overall cost was $28. I spent no money on transportation because I bicycled. There’s a problem we don’t have a name for: a labor problem? We are not producing our own food locally because we “cannot afford to.” Rather, we subsidize the food in unsustainable ways while upper classes of consumers can afford to pay others to grow, gather, process, truck and prepare the food. This system only works for a few people in a division-of-labor society geared toward surpluses for the elite: i.e., Western Civilization.

In the berry patch a father said bitterly to his daughter, “You guys dragged me here and I don’t have time for all this work.” She replied “It’s fun!” I’m glad to report that he had no further retort. Perhaps he should have a conversation with his family and friends about what he thinks he can do with his time, what he is allowed to do, and how he may provide for his family as well as raise a child directly.

Inane conversation or prattling

More alarming than empty talk and avoiding critical issues is no talking at all, when some modern humans live in a computer-game world, or they communicate mostly in isolation using a cell phone or email. Of these, many don’t have much in the way of friendships, and family is something to occasionally visit. Meanwhile, conversation is still key, especially if it can be elevated beyond the personal need to connect to another human being (even to just discuss clothes or beer). The art of conversation is getting harder to encounter. People don’t seem to have time.

Before we can work toward starting the conversation on our survival, what is going on all around us that passes for discussion? My observation is that the quality of conversation is almost always and everywhere inane. Wars being fought in the name of the United States of America, in Iraq and Afganistan, are not prime topics of discussion or debate at any given time by “the average person.” After all, there’s endless celebrity news, the latest unemployment statistics, the latest iPhone technology, a fire in southern California, President Obama’s latest pronouncement on medical care, and a lost doggy found in another city after a heart-rending odyssey.

Admittedly, there is also news in the background on climate change, assassinations, bankruptcies of iconic corporations, and other serious stories. But there’s never a common thread in the corporate news media or in a politician’s speech. On the street you’re more likely to hear something real: “the system sucks.” If it does, what do we do about it?

It should be no wonder that the quality of conversation — whether in the living room of “the average person,” in the employee lunch room, or at a bar or party — is usually inane. Sports news or a review of a television show are favorites, along with gossip or tales of a weekend adventure. When the subjects of politics or ecology come up, these are treated with argument, jokes and derision as often are statements of concern. Rare is a vow of “I will bicycle to work and get rid of my television.” As for everyday banter with meaning, there can be comparisons of home gardening techniques.

Reviving the economy back to growth is the hottest topic in the serious realm, with climate change ranking at bottom. The latter is denied by some, or is too scary to tackle. The tendency is to let “the experts” or public officials deal with it — as they’re dealing with the economy and everything else.

They’re not bringing us peace. They’re not stopping species extinction. They’re not redistributing the wealth or jailing the white collar criminals (Madoff is an exception, a sop). If the rulers should not rule, shouldn’t this be a major topic of conversation?

What we need is the conversation that’s not happening. In the 1960s and into the 1970s the politically minded street threater group The Yippies (Youth International Party) took matters into their own hands to bring attention to the issues. One method was disruption of business as usual. Stunts included burning dollar bills, sewing the American flag on to one’s pants, or kissing during college lectures. A book by one of the main instigators, Jerry Rubin, was titled Do It. (The author became a stockbroker, a fate probably from losing his hippie support system.)

Who is “doing it” today? Bloggers? Internet activists? Artists? Obama? There’s some good journalism and activism, but the masses of people are somehow left out of the conversation. They want to be left out, when they avoid discussing serious issues relating to their survival on an imperiled planet. The question is, can they be made to discuss it before things are totally out of control, when rational discussion may be impossible? No end of secret government subversion can overcome a big enough conversation.

We Are Many, They Are Few – Really?

If all the able-bodied homeless people in the greater New York City area decided to converge on Wall Street and seize some wealth or demand housing, they could do it. If the millions of minorities discriminated against by ruthless corporate employers staged sit ins and used economic boycotts, such action could earn large concessions. But instead, masses are herded like sheep by a small number of agents of the elite. The corporate state does have effective tools such as the military, prisons, police — the “stick” — to go with bribes and perks and promises of mild reform — the “carrot.” Yet, numerically, if enough people wanted to bring about a truly equitable society, or in particular end the unpopular wars, this could be done with little or no violence in a short amount of time.

The reason it does not happen is that the right conversations are not taking place except by the very few. Even with the huge and growing number of people on mood-control and psychiatric drugs, that sad population unwittingly enriching pharmaceutical companies rather than actually healing is in good enough condition to talk sensibly and stimulate some community action.

The greatest crowd control of all time may be happening right now when a popular U.S. president can give the idea that he is pursuing meaningful change. The sleight of hand includes the idea that he can make substantial change. Obama knows his limitations, as every top politician comes to know. In addition to promising improvements and the impossible return to a growth economy — and the trickle-down prosperity that never really worked — Obama and his allies have some key issues dear to many hearts. Unfortunately, they are bogus: the technological fix for climate mitigation, cleaner energy upon peak oil, and better cars. Obama is such a nice and eloquent guy that most people want to believe he will bring about more jobs, higher wages, peace, and an end to terrorism, the threat to polar bears, etc.

Smooth propaganda — hard for most people to pick apart:
President Barack Obama: “These are some of the challenges that our generation has been called to meet. And yet, there are those who would have us try what has already failed; who would defend the status quo. They argue that our health care system is fine the way it is and that a clean energy economy can wait. They say we are trying to do too much, that we are moving too quickly, and that we all ought to just take a deep breath and scale back our goals. These naysayers have short memories. They forget that we, as a people, did not get here by standing pat in a time of change. We did not get here by doing what was easy. That is not how a cluster of 13 colonies became the United States of America.” – Fourth of July Statement, 2009
Obama is a perfect maestro for keeping people from dealing directly with the global mix of crises. Above all, we should regard Obama as personifying the hierarchy which is seldom questioned. The hierarchy certainly sets the tone at all possible times. Obama is the current “one,” and everyone else is many, but because of laws and convention he is given the right to be master and Pied Piper for a time. Then, in 2012, and only then, he can be re-elected or replaced by a Republicrat or Demopublican. Who the next president might be is NOT the conversation that needs to take place.

The fact that the U.S. can feel it has cleansed itself of racism by electing Obama is a perfect distraction from more serious issues of extinction. For if we consume enough plastic, are exposed to enough radiation, and cling to a lifestyle divorced from nature and health, our species can indeed go extinct — even without the extinction of the Earth’s climate as we know it. Our best hope to avoid waiting for the worst may well be collapse of the economic system. This may usher in a sustainable culture. Maybe people will talk about it and take action in anticipation.

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Wealth itself is unsustainable. This is a hard message for people who have lived their whole lives being told that affluence is their goal. A practical and painful reality is that the world cannot afford rich people anymore. By rich, I do not mean the absurdly wealthy, although certainly those too – but I also mean people who are simply well-off by developed world standards.

Sharon Astyk once again says some sensible things.

I know a lot of people who read “shelter magazines” – which is just a fancy way of saying magazines full of pretty homes. I admit to liking to look at them in checkout lines myself, since they do help me beautify my house – just not the way they are supposed to. I think: ”Wow, that’s a gorgeous sleigh bed – I’d love that…hmmm…8,000 dollars….yeah, my futon’s looking cozier and more elegant already!”

I admit, though, I’m not totally immune to the call of the pretty – I mean, who is – aesthetics are important. They are also not something I’m naturally good at. One of my sisters is – she’s one of those people who always looks cool and pressed, whose clothes are nicer than everyone else’s, even though she buys a lot of them used, and who just knows instinctively what looks good – she never has to make beauty a separate project, it just flows from her as part of her way of being.

Whatever portion of our genome that proceeded from, I don’t have it. I am casual and sloppy by nature, and while I appreciate beauty, it feels like it takes a lot of effort to create, an effort I don’t always have time or energy for. Instead of beauty flowing out of my actions, it is something that has to be added on top of “functional” for me most of the time. The only exception for me is with language – I don’t find it much harder to “write purty” than I do to write bluntly, or in any other mode. This gives me hope that maybe, someday, I’ll learn to make my home purty automatically.

Until then, I keep thinking that the best possible thing I might be able to do would be to start a shelter magazine for normal people trying to Adapt-In-Place. In my head I’ve been working on “Better Homesteads and Ratholes” (ok, that probably wouldn’t be the best sales inducement, but it is just a working title ) for a long time – a magazine that would aestheticize function and sustainability – but not in the way that fake sustainability magazines like “Real Simple” and “Natural Home” do it, with 7,000 dollar eco mattresses and 4,000 square foot green built homes with a 30K solar array on it do.

Transforming our sense of what is beautiful, elegant, cozy, etc… is going to be such a big project. Some of it will come, as we are impoverished, by necessity. But some of it is still required. We have to learn to look at what we are creating as in itself lovely. And yet, that’s hard – really hard. I know intellectually all the arguments for the pointlessness of lawns, of course, and yet I still cannot help seeing my waist high grasses (which normally would have been cut by now, but haven’t been because of ceaseless rain) through the eyes of someone trained to see cut grass as tidy and neat, and my yard as a mess. And if I can’t always see the beauty of my meadow, how can someone who has had banged into them since infancy “this represents beauty, neatness, order, affluence”

The reality is that we’re going to have to offer other images of beauty, neatness, order and affluence to help people change what’s floating in their heads. And one of the things we may have to point out is this – a working homestead – whether rural, urban or suburban – does not look like a home that is mostly a showplace. It should not. It cannot. So creating images of homestead beauty – beauty that can exist within the realities of a home that is used is an important project.

How can you tell if you have a homestead, rather than a showplace home? Well, first of all, you are there a lot. Whether you own or rent, have a private place or a collective one, a homestead is a place where you really live.

At a minimum, this means that you invest your time and energy into the place, to adapting it to you and you to it. In aesthetic terms, that means there’s almost always a project getting done, and the accoutrements of that work-in-progres about. Your hoes and shovels don’t come out once in a while, there are tools and sawdust about, furniture being moved about, and most of your home tours include the sentences “eventually that will be…” or “that’s a work in progress.”

The other reality is that you probably use your home more than most people. Maybe you work full time, but you spend your evenings gardening and cooking and building things. Or maybe you have a cottage business, or work from home. Maybe you homeschool, or your kids spend more time at home and playing in the neighborhood than they spend at camp and more structured programs, because they are learning home-based skills.

That also, frankly, means that your home does not look like a magazine spread – remember, in those pictures, people are always lounging around or having a barbecue – I’m sure you do some of that too, but the reality is that you are going to have your office full of work, or your barn full of boards, homework spread all over the dining room table, tomatoes on the counter – not a bowlful, decoratively laid out, but buckets of them, waiting to be canned.

The major feature by which a homestead differs from a home is that more and more of one’s needs are met at home, rather than elsewhere. That does not mean we live in caves and never come out into the light – but it does mean we’re more likely to eat with our friends at our own table than at restaurants, or replace trips to the store with trips to the garden, the fabric stash or the accumulation of “potentially useful salvage.” Not only does this mean projects, but it also means storing stuff for some people (others like to come at this lightly).

All of which means there is exactly no chance that that your house will look like a magazine – some people’s do, of course, but except for those with that instinctive gift for beauty, most of the ones that do look like they do because no one is home – adults work, kids go to school and to activities if they are middle or upper class, or to jobs if they are older and not.

The other thing that makes it a homestead is attention to caring for one’s place, and for one’s larger community. Many of the things typically used to meet modern aesthetic standards are toxic, unsustainable and dangerous to the environment. Now in some cases it is possible to find a replacement – you can get rid of the bleach in your laundry and use the sun or natural whiteners, get rid of the power mower and switch to the push mower, and achieve much the same effect. On the other hand, without a dryer, your towels simply won’t be a soft, and without chemlawn and a sprinkler, your lawn won’t be as green. The brown lawn and the crunchy towels are the better choice by far – but it is hard to get people with strong aesthetic assumptions to grasp shift – to find the brown and weedier lawn more beautiful, or even better, the beds of vegetables or appropriate natural plantings.

Wealth itself is unsustainable. This is a hard message for people who have lived their whole lives being told that affluence is their goal. A practical and painful reality is that the world cannot afford rich people anymore. By rich, I do not mean the absurdly wealthy, although certainly those too – but I also mean people who are simply well-off by developed world standards. That does not mean we cannot afford ornamentation, beauty or elegance – after all art, ornament and beauty are a part of many societies that live far more sustainably than we do – but it does mean that each of us cannot have our own private palace, decorated with expensive (in both ecological and monetary terms).

The deep fear of “looking poor” that underlies so much of our actions is one we have to deal with – it is a tough thing to navigate, because it is much more complex than wanting to “keep up with the Joneses” – there’s that, of course, but there are other impulses – the desire not to have to apologize for not meeting the conventions of hospitality or neighborhood aesthetics, the fear of pity or contempt from others if they think you can’t afford “normal” things. There’s the fact that we too were taught to think of homely things, as well, homely.

I find myself apologizing to people, and warning them before they come to my house. I’m afraid they’ve read about what we do, and they hold in their head an image of what it should look like. A visiting friend of mine recently said to me, kindly, “Don’t worry, the real farms are never the pretty ones.” I know she’s right in some ways, and being kind in others, but what I wanted her to say is “your farm is beautiful.” And parts of it are – the woods are beautiful, the pasture dotted with sheep are beautiful (if you can see the sheep over the tall grass the sheep haven’t actually gotten to), the gardens are lush. But the kids bikes are scattered around the yard, we still haven’t stacked our wood and the broken window on the front porch is covered with a board. There is enough squalor here to read “squalor.”

And some of it truly could be a lot prettier than it is – we could stack the wood faster, we could cut the grass more often – it is just that doing that would come out of something else. Right now the wood is sitting where it is because, well, we haven’t gotten to it yet – I’ve been making the cherries into cherry jam instead. I can make beauty blossom on the shelves in my kitchen as red jars fill the shelves – but only at the price of the rathole look out on the driveway .

Thus, I find myself dreaming of the day I can go up to the checkout stand and see “Glorious Homestead” Magazine, with pictures of real people in their gardens, the old wooden tools and the bursting eggplant alongside the real gardeners, who do not look like the people at the barbecues in the magazines , showing what life looks like in a real homestead – the rich potential for beauty in made over and made do, in homegrown and home cooked, in mended and patchwork, in home built and fresh made, and the art of hybridity – the transformation of an ordinary suburban ranch or an apartment in the Bronx into a place that is full of art, and life.

Meanwhile, my personal project is to stop apologizing for my home being what it is, and try harder to make other people see it as I do on the good days. I like the exuberance of our lives, the piles of books and musical instruments, the sight of the bikes that says “my children are learning to make their way in the world.” I like the full pantry and the richly colored jars, but also the canning kettle out on the counter. I do need to work on the dirty dishes and the stacked wood, on prettying things up, simply because I like it that way. But I also want to stop letting myself see it through old eyes, and invite others to see it the new way.

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It has become obvious from recent press releases, campaigns and actions that the environmental movement has started to focus on the upcoming Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in December 2009 (COP15).  The rallying cry is that this is the last opportunity world governments will have to agree to start reducing greenhouse gas emissions and cut these massively over the next few decades – beyond this, they say, governments and nations have little chance of accomplishing the cuts necessary to avoid disastrous tipping points in the earth’s warming climate system.  So all hopes have been pinned on politicians and governments at this conference for saving the earth on our behalf.  But there are several dangers in pursuing this logic that could ultimately lead to the very thing the movement is trying to prevent.

The first danger is that despite the outcome of the talks, whether positive, neutral or negative, it is likely there will be a ‘demobilisation’ across the environmental movement.  An article at The Change Agency elaborates on the results of an apparent failure:

If the second or third post COP ‘Outcome’ outlined above come to pass, the Australian (this article focuses on the Australian movement, but is applicable globally) climate movement’s may find itself in what could be called a ‘Perception of Failure’ stage. This is often cited as a ‘Stage 5’ following a movement ‘take-off’ period’ and often seen to be preceding a period of mainstream acceptance of movement goals.[4]

According to Moyer, the characteristics inherent in this stage include: the widely held belief amongst movement activists that its goals remain un-achieved and power-holders remain unchallenged. Numbers are down at demonstrations as people feel that repetitive and formulaic actions are ineffective. Despair, hopelessness, burnout, dropout are common, membership, particularity active membership of groups declines. Numbers of ‘negative rebels’, those activists willing to take high risk actions without movement support emerge and garner negative public attention, which further alienates concerned people.

Paradoxically, the results of an apparent ‘success’ are also undesirable:

Deliberate movement co-option and demobilisation may not be the intention of the Copenhagen Conference of Parties and the climate negotiations process in itself. But the dynamic is what the movement needs to be aware of and respond to. Elites are practised in providing outwardly impressive policy statements with little substance or which hide covert practises. Elite groups also have the advantage of influence over powerful communication channels. Many, if not all, national delegations at Copenhagen will be seeking the most politically profitable outcome at the conference and the appeasement of their domestic climate movements will be a part of their considerations. Whilst it is likely that experienced climate activists and lobbyists, already well versed in climate negotiation politics will be able to perceive duplicity in the COP outcomes, less engaged activists and the concerned public will be more likely to adopt the predominate messaging received via mainstream media.

…
If COP results in something like Outcome 1 described above, even dedicated climate activists who already regularly attend movement events may find themselves wondering if all the effort is worth it now that the US, alongside the rest of the world have come on board and started to turn things around. Surely the thing now is to sit back and see how the international targets are met? Those people, who are looking for a reason not to come to the next rally, may well find one after COP.

The result either way, whether or not serious cuts are agreed on a sensible time scale, will likely results in large-scale demobilisation of the environmental movements.  By setting such a definitive deadline, either they will feel so successful that they’ve done the job and need do no more for the earth, or so defeated and depressed that further action seems pointless.  Either way, the total focus on the results of this conference could torpedo future efforts in preventing climate chaos.

The second danger of the Copenhagen logic is the growing reliance on high-up elites to solve the climate crisis for us.  As  the timings of these talks has been identified as so crucial by the various organisations and groups of the environmental movement, there has been a massive shift to the line of thinking that only #they# can make the difference needed – the politicians, leaders and elites.  However, as it is these people’s jobs to maintain the status quo, to keep our modern industrial economies running as smoothly and profitably as possible and to facilitate the liquidation of the earth’s natural capital to finance these economies, it is inevitable that even with a ‘positive’ outcome of serious cuts that these promises will contain extensive loopholes, flexibility and wriggle room covered up by dense greenwash language.  I have no doubt that communiques from the gathered politicians, that have been pored over by PR reps in order to maximise greenwash, will claim a victory nonetheless, whether or not their promised cuts will make a difference or not.  Indeed, to expect anything more from these talks is naive.  Minor progress may well be made, but enough to finally turn around the battle against impending climate chaos?  Unlikely.

This potential ‘perception of success’ poses differing challenges to the current climate movement. In a similar way to the movement’s downturn in the months following the election of the Rudd government and the symbolic signing of the Kyoto Pact, people, lobbyists and NGO leadership groups, can be deceived by an apparent successful political compromise. The belief that politicians hold the strings of capital and can make the structural shifts actually necessary to halt runaway climate change is mainstream and ubiquitous. This feeds directly into the commonly held belief that elites are essentially powerful and popular movements (and their activities) are not.

What will happen is that the cultural concept of dependence on the leaders, politicians and elites to take action for us and look after us for our best good will become further entrenched.  The existing system will fail to be challenged by those who run it and depend on it for wealth and power, and so will continue to wreak havoc and create climate chaos.  The push for changing our destructive western lifestyles will fall by the wayside, and attempts to overthrow the destructive culture behind it will falter.

As long as we believe it’s their job to fix this, all will be lost.  But as soon as we accept that our leaders and elites are incapable of doing enough to stop climate chaos, then there is a chance.  If we instead focus on overthrowing the destructive culture they and we are embedded into, abandoning consumerist lifestyles and stopping infinite economic growth, we have a hugely better chance of stopping the juggernaught of industrial economy before it breaks the 2C tipping point.  Through local economies, local currencies, local food production, extensive permaculture, stronger communities and cultural subversion we can make a difference.  We have to see beyond Copenhagen and its result either way – it’s time to focus on the real action each of us can achieve that’s infinitely more valuable than the greenwashed communiques of Copenhagen.

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