RANT: THE WAY THINGS SEEM

 

THE WAY THINGS SEEM to be trending these days, well into a cocked hat and spinning madly in the Four Horsemen’s gyre of Conquest, War, Famine and Death, what with the war in the Middle East possibly/probably escalating into an even more dangerous regional conflict, and Donald Trump winning handily in the Republican Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada caucuses earlier this month (the false Messiah is among us!), and with Ukraine’s Zelensky, that other phony demigod, tin-cupping at the annual Davos confab a couple of weeks ago, that faux Mount Olympus with its pantheon of rich and uber-rich; with German and French farmers totally pissed at their governments; with NATO doing its darnedest to cornhole back-door Russia through Finland and Sweden, as the flailing Western military alliance encroaches still further along the borders of the Slavic giant; and with economies most everywhere looking like microscope slides of brain tissue shredded by mad-cow disease; with so many things seemingly so broken now—from borders, to tax bases, to elections and peaceful dialogue, to failing governments and untrustworthy elites scrambling ‘panopticly’ to monitor and control their restive populations, to war drums sounding doom, to the environment, our cities, our faith in social orders we assumed would have shelf-lives longer than the life cycle of gnats, and on and on from apostasy to Armageddon and back again—then, dear reader, it’s probably time we start being a little more proactive in our daily doings on our good planet, Earth. 

SO, here’s a few hopefully helpful hints to guide our wanderings in the times to come: 

  

👉STOP READING mainstream news and watching mainstream media (MSM). Why? Because the narratives they promote are by and for the rich and powerful, not the great unwashed. In recent decades, newspapers, radio, and television stations have been bought up by giant media conglomerates. In the United States, six corporations control 90% of that country’s media! Local newspapers and editorial boards have been consolidated, along with standardized talking points, mandated ledes, and headlines that are disseminated throughout newspaper chains and cable news groups. In Canada, as elsewhere, we have seen the decline of local newspapers/radio/television in favour of digital versions offering homogenized news and information dictated from distant corporate headquarters, as well as a dearth of local news coverage. And fewer journalists are being hired to report the news, local or otherwise. In other words, MSM outlets operate at the behest of their corporate masters (and political elites and “deep state” interests, though that’s a story for another day).*

AT THE SAME TIME, there is growing interest in alternative digital news outlets, pod-casters, and bloggers that provide news and information that challenge and often refute the weak gruel that MSM’s propaganda machines spoon feed us 24/7. And as we continue to access alternative news and media, the more aware we become of the inexorable (and well-deserved), heat-death of cable networks and legacy news outlets. RIP.

 

👉FOOD. We can’t live without it. Food security will become more important in the coming decades as long-distance supply chains begin to fray and break down. Local food initiatives—truck gardens, home gardens, especially organic gardening methods—just make sense as food prices rise along with the cost of artificial fertilizers and pesticides. Supporting local and regional seed banks also seems like a smart thing to do. Seed sharing at the community level is, I think, more important even than preserving seeds in distant bunkers like Norway’s famous Svalbard “Global Seed Vault”, because “seeds are living things and will gradually die in storage, typically over years or decades depending on the type of seed and how it’s kept.” (ucpress.edu) Gardeners and local food providers who share seeds within their locale, or experiment with food plant species imported further afield, help keep seed stocks vital and adaptable to the changing climate patterns and local weather conditions that will challenge us, going forward.

IN THE YEARS AND DECADES to come, reliable supplies of artificial fertilizers and pesticides, so central for today’s industrial-scale agriculture, will not be as available in near enough quantities to enable the kind of agricultural outputs we’ve come to expect. Thus, the need for small-scale food production serving local and regional needs. And, BTW, there will be a need for more labour to work farms that will become less mechanized as fossil fuels become scarcer and more expensive, and industries that manufacture farm machinery  become unprofitable due to higher energy costs and fewer customers.

 

    Farmer protests, Paris, 2 weeks ago

IN 2019 we saw farmers in the Netherlands protest government policies to regulate nitrogen emissions,⁺ forcing small farmers to adopt different animal husbandry practices or else sell their properties to the government.  In Canada, in 2022, similar protests occurred with respect to pending government regulation around nitrogen emissions from livestock and fertilizer use, but are less 'biting' than those proposed in Europe, with the Trudeau Liberal government wanting to regulate maximum nitrogen emission levels for agricultural concerns by 2030 on a 'voluntary basis'. Voluntary, at least for now. In recent months their have been more farmer protests in the EU over a number of issues. Suffice it to say, food production's twinned challenges--how to do it sustainably and how best to optimize  our future food system's ecological resilience--will be central concerns for the majority of us in the years ahead.¹ [More on this in another post. Ed.]

 

👉DECLINE AND FALLING. John Michael Greer writes on his excellent  Ecosophia blog about the need for clear thinking and facing up to hard truths as our civilization enters its long decline.² He says that "...there’s no way to make the standard lifestyles of the Age of Extravagance sustainable in a post petroleum future." (JMG, "Impact")

SO, it's becoming clear to anyone not infested with brain worms that our modern, industrial civilization (like all civilizations) comes with a pull-by date, and  there's not much we can do to halt its inevitable decline. Peak oil will again become a familiar topic among the chattering classes. The fracking frenzy of the last decade shows signs of weakening as oil and gas fields produce less and less each year. Extraction costs³ will increase, making the purchase price of fossil fuels more expensive along with the numberless host of other goods and services that need reliable and affordable inputs of petroleum distillates and fossil fuel energy. Germany, foolishly denying itself access to cheap Russian gas, is a good example of the kind of woes fossil fuel dependent economies will encounter as supplies dwindle or become prohibitively expensive, in either case resulting in predictable economic face-plants.

 

NO DOUBT there will be fiscal and monetary crises ahead. And conflicts such as those seen in Ukraine and Palestine will also also occur in the coming years. The age-old flash points of resource wars: land disputes, water rights, access to trade routes, to fishing grounds, minerals, etc., will all be seen in spades as the new century unfolds. But, while empires fail, civilizations contract, the rich become poor and the poor rich, what the rest of us can do in our everyday, bill-paying, baby-burping lives, during this most clusterfuk of times, is to adopt some positive habits, and hone skills that may have atrophied during these years of pampered excess, some of which may save us from stepping off the cliff edge entirely.

For example, JMG further adds the helpful and hopeful vision of thriving communities in a post-petroleum society:  

 

“It’s possible to support a literate, urban, humane society on a tiny fraction of the energy and resource consumption modern industrial societies consider necessary; the proof is that this has been done many times. What’s more, many discoveries and inventions of the last few centuries could be put to work to make a future society with modest energy consumption much more comfortable and viable.  Consider how much has been learned about the physics of energy, for example, and how that could be combined with architecture to make buildings that are comfortable 365 days a year on little or no heat input. That can be done; I studied how to do it in Master Conserver classes in the mid-1980s.” ("Impact")

 

GREER reminds us that a "literate, urban, humane" future can be had using a fraction of the energy and resources we're accustomed to using. Why is he so confident? Because many such societies have existed in the past. Why can't they exist in the future? 

 

“In the year 1800, the region where I now live was full of thriving communities with their own libraries, newspapers, democratic governments, and trade and information links to the rest of the world, without any dependence on fossil fuels. In the year 2100 the same thing could be true, with improved sanitation, super-insulated homes, shortwave radio, and ultralight aircraft, among other things, making things even more comfortable and interesting than they were in the Federal era.” ("Impact")

 

THE PROBLEM, of course is getting there. We first have to go through some tough times--we're on the downside of our current civilization's bell curve, after all. Contraction and hard scrabble lay ahead and, it must be said, higher death rates--there's no getting around it--this is the way civilizations fall. BUT if we look for ways of making ourselves, our families, our communities more independent, more resilient; to consciously do more with less, to work with nature and natural limits and not forget we are a part of nature, then those who follow us just might have a future that's worth living. I, for one, wouldn't mind seeing more zeppelins and clipper ships hereabouts.👌😀  

 

DID YOU KNOW? One of the things that the 20th Century will be remembered for, besides two world wars, a cold war, nuclear detonations and platform shoes is the number of genocides accomplished. A cursory examination of known genocides throughout history gives the reader the impression that the rise of the nation state during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries freed up time, manpower and resources to make possible various projects of mass killings of subject peoples and other undesirables, and with increasing levels of success. As things developed over the centuries, there were just too many feet stepping on too many toes, one hazards a guess.

The 19th Century made a strong showing in the genocide/indigenous slaughter race, (though it was but a warm up for the century to come). The 1846-1900 massacres  of upwards of 120,000 or 80% of California's Amerindian⁴ west coast population and, in South America, the complete eradication by 1900 of the Selk'nam, an indigenous people from the Tierra del Fuego region are two standout examples of that century's genocides and both were accomplished without modern weapons.  But it was the 20th Century that stepped the genocides up a notch. 

MOST of us are acquainted with the Armenian massacre during WWI, the Jewish holocaust of WWII (which added the word "genocide" to the lexicon), the "killing fields" of Pol Pot's Cambodia, and, of course, Rwanda. Lesser known culls include the colourful 1918 Oklahoma, USA,  "Osage" Indian murders, about which a popular Martin Scorsese flick, "The Killers of Flower Moon" arrived in movie theaters last year. [Incidentally, Robert de Niro is nominated in the best supporting actor category at the Oscars this March for his portrayal of the psychopathic curmudgeon, William Hale. Ed.]       

THE first genocide of the 20th Century occurred between 1904 to 1908 in the colony of German South West Africa (now Namibia) whereby up to 80% of the Herero and 60% of the Nama peoples were killed for a grand total of around 100,000. Not bad for starters! (Tip-of-the-hat to the Germans who upped their game by orders of magnitude in the coming decades.) And the colonial troops no doubt came with the latest kit, including the new invention of "water-cooled" machine guns for those hot days in the jungle. Hillaire Belloc's engaging and piquant poem of European colonizers making use of then-state-of-the-art Maxim guns to cull rebellious natives is on point. His "The Modern Traveler" ends with a bulls-eye final stanza:

 

 

 

😏 THE 21st Century is no slouch when it comes to genocide. The killing of upwards of a half million Darfuri people in Sundan's Darfur region is often cited as this century's first genocide. The more recent culling of 70,000 Rohingya in Myanmar by government forces is a a distant, but respectable, second. 

And we'll keep watch on Israel's current slaughter of around 30,000 or so Palestinians in Gaza since the 7 October attacks last fall. We'll wait and see if those plucky Israelis score a big win on the genocide meter....

 

Cheers, Jake.

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* Large digital platforms—the “public squares” of our day—censor and "shadow ban" digital content of creators and producers of all sizes. There are only a few portals and hosting sites available to disseminate digital products to audiences. Platforms like Facebook (FB) and Google are monopolies that use their position and power to censor and ban media that does not support the corporate agendas of their owners or the agenda of political elites who use and regulate their services. 

Our right of freedom of expression in Canada can be curtailed at the whim of multi-national corporations. One related example is Facebook’s refusal to negotiate user-fee agreements with local Canadian content producers (news outlets both legacy and alternative), saying FB will no longer host any Canadian news content if the platform is to be charged for their use, in defiance of the recently passed “Online News Act”. Hence, the development of local news ‘deserts’ where Canadian news is unavailable on Facebook. Such is the power of today's digital social media organizations.

 

+ Nitrogen (an inert gas) is naturally occurring in the atmosphere and is more common than oxygen (78% N2 versus 20% O2, along with other trace gases). N2O, is a powerful a green house gas (GHG) that is produced in manure and artificial fertilizers, and in automobile exhaust. To achieve lower nitrogen emission figures country-wide, the Dutch government introduced a policy in 2019 to buy-out small farmers and eliminate their emissions. [The Netherlands, it should be noted, is a major exporter of food. Ed.] The draconian deal came with a provision that the disenfranchised farmer's must not take up any kind of farming again, even raising chickens! At that point, Dutch farmers felt the policy was a bridge to far and that it favored developers and large farm operations at their expense. Hence, the protests, which saw a pro-farmer party BBB or BoerBurgerBeweging (Farmer-Citizen Movement) gain seats in the Dutch Senate. 

IN RECENT weeks, there have been farmer protest in France, Germany, Poland, Spain and other EU countries over quotas, taxation, and grain prices. Point is, over the coming decades, things will change, food production more than most.

 

1.  For a good discussion on the differences and commonalities between "resilience" and "sustainability", read the ScieceDirect study here. 

 

2. The western half of the Roman Empire is said to have 'ended' in 476 when the German general Odoacer kicked the wet-behind-the-ears Romulus Augustus from the throne  and took over the place, sending the youthful emperor, who'd ruled Rome for a year or so, into a comfortable retirement in Campania. [Nice! Ed.] In fact, Rome was falling apart for decades--arguably centuries--before the titular head of the Empire got canned. And it continued to decline for centuries. Some historians place the time frame that most clearly denotes the change from Roman to European rule at around 800 AD, with the rise of the Carolingian Empire under Charlemagne. Incidentally, Big C. had himself crowned "Holy Roman Emperor" which meant he could deck himself out in imperial purple, but that was about it. In other words, Charlemagne adopted the trappings and ceremonies of the Roman Empire, even as its state functions withered away. After all, his seat of power was Aachen, Germany, not Rome. And it is around this time that the proto-European states we are familiar with came into being, thus giving the coup de grâce to their Roman legacy. [Though, Roman law remains the basis for European jurisprudence to this day. Ed.] 

ANOTHER point to take away from the Roman Empire's decline and fall is that civilizations can take a long time to collapse. JMG's motto for how to cope with changes we are currently on the cusp of is to "collapse now and avoid the rush." His cheeky  aphorism reminds us that we can do a number of things in our everyday lives to better prepare for the challenges ahead as our own civilization begins its long decline into "the dustbin of history."

 

3. Extraction costs will rise significantly in the future due to the unavailability of easily accessed deposits. We are rapidly drawing down the "sweet" oil reserves of yesteryear and deep offshore drilling, fracking, and "tar" sands are examples of scraping the bottom of the barrel, so to speak. Cheap oil will become a thing of the past in the near future, with all the downstream effects that will bring.  
War is another way that oil prices might climb. Retired U.S. Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson said in a recent interview that some years ago he'd participated in a "tabletop" war strategy session at a think tank, in which one scenario had the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waters between Iran and the UAE, closed due to conflict. The price of oil that gamed out as a result of the blockade was in the neighbourhood of $300 a barrel! Such a price would tank economies world wide. Will we see such an event in our future? If today's gaggle of dumfuk politicians have their way, such an outcome could come a lot sooner than we think.

 

FINALLY, demand destruction will be also be a factor in the future, when falling oil prices are seen because economies no longer operate at the levels we are accustomed to and with manufacturing sectors hollowed out, and businesses shuttered. (Think: the American Rust Belt). Of course, low oil prices, if too low, will tank the oil companies that can no longer make a profit. [Catch-22. Ed.]

SO, as the 'ever-announced-but-never-arrives "Green New Deal", whereby renewables are envisioned to supplant fossil fuels 😀 disappears in history's rear view mirror, the one deal we've all got to reckon with is that we will have to get by with a lot less stuff in the future. But, as long as we all get along, what's wrong with that?

 

4. STATISTICS on California's original indigenous population vary considerably, but it is safe to say that the term "slaughter" is  an apt term to use when describing the near-eradication of tribal Californians by 1900. Fueled by California's recent statehood and the discovery of gold in 1849, hordes of white settlers arrived, and the murder, displacement and confinement to reservations of native Californians began. 

IN RECENT WEEKS we've heard the term "genocidal intent" being used to characterize  the current actions of Israel towards the Palestinian people of Gaza. In  its brief to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, the South African delegation presented quotes from numerous Israeli politicians and military personnel calling for the elimination of all Palestinian people by forced emigration, or outright killing. [Over 28,000 men, women and children in Gaza have been killed by Israeli bombs and bullets since October of last year, according to Reuters. Ed.] THE VICIOUS and racist statements made by the highest ranking politicians in Israel is evidence of the genocidal intent of the Israeli government. 

AND RETURNING to 19th Century California, a quote from its first governor, Peter Burnett, (1849-51) makes plain the genocidal intent on the part of the state. His words would be more shocking to our ears, 170 years later, if not for statements made by Israeli officials of exactly the same intent  that are on record in text and video. 

What do they say? The more things change, the more they stay the same.

 

"That a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the races until the Indian race becomes extinct must be expected. While we cannot anticipate this result but with painful regret, the inevitable destiny of the race is beyond the power or wisdom of man to avert. (Governor Burnett, Wikipedia)

 

REMNANTS of various tribes existed on reservations in California, many succumbing to disease. After 1900, the new 'science' of Eugenics fueled a program of enforced sterilization of "unfit" persons which included black, Latino and indigenous women in prisons or state institutions. THE LAST KNOWN "wild" native Californian, "Ishi" (the Yahi word for "man"), spent the later part of his life in San Francisco at the Parnassus campus of UC, where he worked as a janitor, was studied by anthropologists, and where he was sometimes used as a 'live exhibit'. He died of tuberculosis in 1916.

 

 

 

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