www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06...rvival.html


This article fails to mention that the falling value of the dollar on the global market is the true cause of the increase in oil prices in the US. I do not see it as a question of scarcity, as the author seems to imply (Has anyone figured in "newly retrievable oil reserves" to the peak oil models?). Countries that produce oil are not asking for more Euros, they're asking for more Dollars. That's because the Bush regime, installed by the globalist script writers to further their goal of breaking down the social and economic infrastructure of the US, has spent trillions of dollars that the US simply does not have. And we have only just begun to suffer for it.

Neither does the author mention that, in a sense, our fate rests in the hands of China and Europe, who continue to invest in US currency despite it's falling value and general instability. We could be cut off at China's' whim, overnight if they so choose. I believe the situation may be more dire than anyone cares to fathom, and if more people don't realize what's happening soon, panic and periods of chaos will be the inevitable result.

So... What do we do?

Relax. Take a deep breath. Stretch out a little, shake out all that anxiety and let the energy flow. Close your eyes. Forget what you know. Forget what you've been told. Remember that change is the only constant, and that change is always coming at a quicker rate, time spiraling in on itself as we approach the singularity. Consider the probabilities and decide upon a course of action that may increase the likely hood of the future of your choice, and begin to live it.

Plant a garden in your lawn, front and back. If you have friendly neighbors, ask if they will let you plant a garden in their lawns. If you live in an area that is subject to drought, build rain water collection tanks from supplies retrieved from the waste stream (assuming, of course, that waste is still flowing in your area). In Austin, TX and the surrounding areas, humanure is the latest trend amongst the genuine do-it-yourself hippies, and, believe it or not, its even catching on with the bohemian bourgeois. That's right, we're using human shit to grow our food, and wer'e doing it safely. Many are installing greywater systems to reclaim water from the shower, dishwasher, and laundry machines. Some of the greatest minds in the world are presently devising genius methods of living sustainably without "the shit-kicking life of peasantry" usually associated with "going back to nature". Sustainability is not just about getting by, it's about getting by brilliantly, using simple, genius methods to live comfortably in balance with nature, while simultaneously recognizing that she is a bloody bitch. This is not a return to the old ways, but a progression forward into new territory.

Talk to everyone you meet about scarcity, specifically in terms of food and water. Ask them why there is nothing edible growing in the fields, parks, and lawns in the area they inhabit. Point out to them how recent this development is in human society, and ask them whether it has benefited the community or the corporations. Now suggest something a little batty. They may even be ready for it at this point. Here it is: We live in a garden. You don't have to fight the traffic anymore, don't have to do all the stupid shit every day that makes you say "same shit different day" or "I'm doin" when I ask you "how ya doin?"

Imagine this: Wake up in the morning grateful that we live in a garden. Go outside and talk to your neighbors, who also realize that we live in a garden. You notice Greg has some peppers growing in his front yard. They'd taste great in an omelet. Feed the chickens, gather some eggs, pick some tomatoes, head over to Greg's place to trade for some peppers. Stop to talk to Annette along the way, who is gathering lovely smelling herbs to make essential oils that can be mixed into the soaps that Jane makes. This is a possible universe, and it's not as hard of a life as you may think.

We are constantly subjected to a barrage of negative images of what society would look like if the present system were to collapse. We are programmed to believe that if the means of production and transportation of goods were to fail suddenly, it would be every man for himself, a dog-eat-dog nightmare in which feudal warlords will control the wealth. This vision is repetitively reinforced by each new Hollywood post-disaster movie that comes along.

I say that we NEED the present system to collapse in order to see each other again. I have the audacity to believe that people are not as bad as Hollywood makes them out to be. For the past few decades, we have been conditioned by the media, govt, police, and entertainment industry to fear each other. We are convinced that we can't trust each other, that we do not need each other. Once we actually need each other again, everything will begin to change, and we will no longer be able to shut ourselves off from each other. We would quickly learn that our fellow man is not as bad as we've been led to accept.

Sure, there may be a period of great unrest, panic, violence and "mad max" scenarios immidiately following such a collapse, but people would quickly catch on to the fact that they can work together to build a much saner society in which the myth of scarcity has been dispelled. And by the way, in this world, hemp would be growing from every crevice.

From the NY Times

Duck and Cover: It’s the New Survivalism

By ALEX WILLIAMS
Published: April 6, 2008
THE traditional face of survivalism is that of a shaggy loner in camouflage, holed up in a cabin in the wilderness and surrounded by cases of canned goods and ammunition.


It is not that of Barton M. Biggs, the former chief global strategist at Morgan Stanley. Yet in Mr. Biggs’s new book, “Wealth, War and Wisdom,” he says people should “assume the possibility of a breakdown of the civilized infrastructure.”

“Your safe haven must be self-sufficient and capable of growing some kind of food,” Mr. Biggs writes. “It should be well-stocked with seed, fertilizer, canned food, wine, medicine, clothes, etc. Think Swiss Family Robinson. Even in America and Europe there could be moments of riot and rebellion when law and order temporarily completely breaks down.”

Survivalism, it seems, is not just for survivalists anymore.

Faced with a confluence of diverse threats — a tanking economy, a housing crisis, looming environmental disasters, and a sharp spike in oil prices — people who do not consider themselves extremists are starting to discuss doomsday measures once associated with the social fringes.

They stockpile or grow food in case of a supply breakdown, or buy precious metals in case of economic collapse. Some try to take their houses off the electricity grid, or plan safe houses far away. The point is not to drop out of society, but to be prepared in case the future turns out like something out of “An Inconvenient Truth,” if not “Mad Max.”

“I’m not a gun-nut, camo-wearing skinhead. I don’t even hunt or fish,” said Bill Marcom, 53, a construction executive in Dallas.

Still, motivated by a belief that the credit crunch and a bursting housing bubble might spark widespread economic chaos — “the Greater Depression,” as he put it — Mr. Marcom began to take measures to prepare for the unknown over the last few years: buying old silver coins to use as currency; buying G.P.S. units, a satellite telephone and a hydroponic kit; and building a simple cabin in a remote West Texas desert.

“If all these planets line up and things do get really bad,” Mr. Marcom said, “those who have not prepared will be trapped in the city with thousands of other people needing food and propane and everything else.”

Interest in survivalism — in either its traditional hard-core version or a middle-class “lite” variation — functions as a leading economic indicator of social anxiety, preparedness experts said: It spikes at times of peril real (the post-Sept. 11 period) or imagined (the chaos that was supposed to follow the so-called Y2K computer bug in 2000).

At times, a degree of paranoia is officially sanctioned. In the 1950s, civil defense authorities encouraged people to build personal bomb shelters because of the nuclear threat. In 2003, the Department of Homeland Security encouraged Americans to stock up on plastic sheeting and duct tape to seal windows in case of biological or chemical attacks.

Now, however, the government, while still conducting business under a yellow terrorism alert, is no longer taking a lead role in encouraging preparedness. For some, this leaves a vacuum of reassurance, and plenty to worry about.

Esteemed economists debate whether the credit crisis could result in a complete meltdown of the financial system. A former vice president of the United States informs us that global warming could result in mass flooding, disease and starvation, perhaps even a new Ice Age.

“You just can’t help wonder if there’s a train wreck coming,” said David Anderson, 50, a database administrator in Colorado Springs who said he was moved by economic uncertainties and high energy prices, among other factors, to stockpile months’ worth of canned goods in his basement for his wife, his two young children and himself.

Popular culture also provides reinforcement, in books like “The Road,” Cormac McCarthy’s novel about a father and son journeying through a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and films like “I Am Legend,” which stars Will Smith as a survivor of a man-made virus wandering the barren streets of New York.

Middle-class survivalists can also browse among a growing number of how-to books with titles like “Dare to Prepare!” a self-published work by Holly Drennan Deyo, or “When All Hell Breaks Loose” by Cody Lundin (Gibbs Smith, 2007), which instructs readers how to dispose of bodies and dine on rats and dogs in the event of disaster.

Preparedness activity is difficult to track statistically, since people who take measures are usually highly circumspect by nature, said Jim Rawles, the editor of www.survivalblog.com, a preparedness Web site. Nevertheless, interest in the survivalist movement “is experiencing its largest growth since the late 1970s,” Mr. Rawles said in an e-mail, adding that traffic at his blog has more than doubled in the past 11 months, with more than 67,000 unique visitors per week. And its base is growing.

“Our core readership is still solidly conservative,” he said. “But in recent months I’ve noticed an increasing number of stridently green and left-of-center readers.”

One left-of-center environmentalist who is taking action is Alex Steffen, the executive editor of www.worldchanging.com, a Web site devoted to sustainability. With only slight irony, Mr. Steffen, 40, said he and his girlfriend could serve as “poster children for the well-adjusted, urban liberal survivalist,” given that they keep a six-week cache of food and supplies in his basement in Seattle (although they polished off their bottle of doomsday whiskey at a party).

He said the chaos following Hurricane Katrina served as a wake-up call for him and others that the government might not be able to protect them in an emergency or environmental crisis.

“The ‘where do we land when climate change gets crazy?’ question seems to be an increasingly common one,” said Mr. Steffen in an e-mail message, adding that such questions have “really gone mainstream.”

Many of the new, nontraditional preparedness converts are “Peakniks,” Mr. Rawles said, referring to adherents of the “Peak Oil” theory. This concept holds that the world will soon, or has already, reached a peak in oil production, and that coming supply shortages might threaten society. While the theory is still disputed by many industry analysts and executives, it has inched toward the mainstream in the last two years, as oil prices have nearly doubled, surpassing $100 a barrel. The topic, which was the subject of a United States Department of Energy report in 2005, has attracted attention in publications like The New York Times Magazine and The Wall Street Journal, and was a primary focus of “Megadisasters: Oil Apocalypse,” a recent History Channel special.

Another book, “The Long Emergency” (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2005), by James Howard Kunstler, an author and journalist who writes about economic and environmental issues, argues that American suburbs and cities may soon lay desolate as people, starved of oil, are forced back to the land to adopt a hardscrabble, 19th-century-style agrarian life.

Such fears caused Joyce Jimerson of Bellingham, Wash., a coordinator for a recycling-composting program affiliated with Washington State University, to make her yard an “edible garden,” with fruit trees and vegetables, in case supplies are threatened by oil shortages, climate change or economic collapse. “It’s all the same ball of wax, as far as I’m concerned,” she said.

Scott Troyer, an energy consultant in Sunnyvale, Calif., said he was spurred by discussions of peak oil — “it’s not a theory,” he said — and other energy concerns to remake his suburban house in anticipation of a petroleum-starved future. Mr. Troyer, 57, installed a photovoltaic electricity system, a pellet stove and a “cool roof” to reflect the sun’s rays, among other measures.

Mr. Troyer remains cautiously optimistic that Americans can wean themselves from oil through smart engineering and careful planning. But, he said, “the doomsday scenarios will happen if people don’t prepare.”

Some middle-class preparedness converts, like Val Vontourne, a musician and paralegal in Olympia, Wash., recoil at the term “survivalist,” even as they stock their homes with food, gasoline and water.

“I think of survivalists as being an extreme case of preparedness,” said Ms. Vontourne, 44, “people who stockpile guns and weapons, anticipating extreme aggression. Whereas what I’m doing, I think of as something responsible people do.

“I now think of storing extra food, water, medicine and gasoline in the same way I think of buying health insurance and putting money in my 401k,” she said. “It just makes sense.”