Michael Reid
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Right on Dr. D. People are going to get a wake up call when infrastructure like electricity, gas, fuel delivery and grocery supply chains fail. It is worthwhile to know how things were done in the past and work on putting yourself in a life where that can be done.
I feel the essay was very well written and exposed many of the issues we are facing.
PlanetOfTheHumans provides more context.
With respect to a sustainable path forward the only solution I see is a massive culling of world population and a return to lifestyles experienced hundreds of years ago but I suspect instead we will pollute, poison and destroy ourselves in all possible ways prior to arriving at the next steady state
Enjoying life while it lasts
@ D. Benton Smith,
Please educate me sir. I have read some of your posts in the past and have felt they were in agreement with my thinking.
Today my worldview is no longer intact. Is yours? I have spent most of my life developing weapons for the USA. At this point I am ashamed of that. The USA is the biggest bully in the school that wants to beat you up and steal your lunch money. Where have I gone wrong in my thought process?
Leave Venezuela alone and every other country for that matter is my current thinking. Military should only be used for defense and not extracting the wealth out of the rest of the world…which in my opinion is what sanctions are all about.
What are your thoughts?
@ V. Arnold,
I feel everyone is on edge and alcohol may play a part but we are imperfect beings. I enjoy the intelligence that exists here. Certainly some things are said that offends others at times however I was not troubled. Freedom to express one’s feelings whether fueled by intellect or alcohol should not be wrong and a subject of offence. Simply disregard it. These are maybe the end of days. Who knows but I know that I have enjoyed communicating with you during these trying times
@ Raúl Ilargi Meijer,
Regarding today’s essay, our perspectives on this issue have aligned. And I have noticed how your perspective has evolved with more time and information from various sources. Good on you. Had it not been for your writing and John Michael Greer, I would not have decided to collapse my life 4 years ago and prepare as John Day is articulating with respect to gardening and others have with respect to lifestyle. I am still no way fully self sufficient however I am less vulnerable. I sensed implosion 4 years ago and acted on it. One thing that I can add is living in harmony with nature seems to be the correct way forward.
I know nothing, just like John Snow. I can’t help but feel concerned about about what will come to pass. If the technology and infrastructure remains intact then probably not the worst. The urban areas are very prone to undesirable consequences. I can’t imagine living in a high rise should the power fail, or what about the water supply in such an event…very vulnerable. If survival comes knocking, think about where you are. Prepare is my advice. There is a whole movement on the internet called preppers that have worked out many of the logistics. I feel it is worth a read if you have concerns. I wish you well.
@ Ilargi,
So I have been making my own stout the last few years and we had a tremendous laugh with The main rule is implied: just start drinking and don’t stop for the next few years.
With respect to the other day vodka played a part and I apologize.
@Dr. D,
My first thought was maybe the USA would blow itself up with nuclear weapons and then the rest of the world could get on with living without the bully being around.
I have spent a fair amount of time in the USA and the people that I have met have been beautiful. I don’t know if your country will ever recover but from my perspective the wealth needs to be taxed and spread throughout the population.
So I have come to the conclusion, which may be incorrect, that what is going on is as I read on the Off Guardian, those that own the debt are making a play to bring the western world to its knees for the main reason of bankrupting most so they may purchase the remains at bankruptcy prices. I know very little about economics but this is where my mind is these days reflecting on our situation. Respectfully
@ Geppetto,
Ok. I will tell you from experience if this is not yours, people get along very well if they have the same income and societies work much better if rich fucks are taxed down to level of their workers so the wealth is spreads round.Trickle down is bullshit.Kill the the billionaires and millionaires. That’s the way forward.
@ Bill7
I totally agree with you. The majority of the population has been captured and are ready for slaughter.
@V. Arnold
@ John DayYes we are all a collection of our experiences and how we connect to nature is probably the truest truth that is real.
There is so much shit going on in our abstract lives, the connections to nature that we are not aware of and our world view that formed in our youth and has been modified by reality is not always consistent.
I have challenged everything in my life growing up and it is no different today. I thank you both for your causing me to think deeper and providing further sources of exploration.
@V. Arnold, regarding this article,
Your comment that it was not so unsettling to you is perhaps because you have recognized with your life experience that this is the way life has been proceeding but the reason I felt the article was so unsettling is because it destroyed my worldview.
The reason I say this is because I grew up in a very pristine environment where I can drink the water out of any brook or river not in town. Then I moved to Toronto for my post-secondary education where I saw the Don and Humber rivers running with a green water that if I had tried to drink I probably would have died. Lesson 1. What was this world with green river water that is probably unsafe to drink? It was my first clue that giant cities are not good for life. So as I proceeded with my education and eventually got my engineering degree and eventually spent some time in Hong Kong and China and I see in China a man on a bicycle with a steel king sized mattress positioned on his head as he transported it which I suspect was to another factory to be finished. In China there was an old woman with a baby smacking my arm and asking for money. What is wrong with this place I thought. So sheltered from life was I that I could not understand how this situation was even possible. Having grown up in Canada, I could not understand why the government was not feeding you, ensuring you are healthy and providing you with a place to live. That was my world.
So when I reflect on Capitalism, I have discovered that my idea is similar to that of FDR.
Hyperinflation, Fascism and War: How the New World Order May Be Defeated Once More
When I think of the USA as a country, I feel that they are very cruel to their poor and everyone else in the world who are poor. I have consumed the mainstream media and I mistakenly thought that the USA was a force for good in the world. No longer. I feel shame that I contributed to the AAAV, M1A1, and Bradley fighting vehicle.
What to do? Live in nature, work my ass off and try to survive for as long as I can as long as it is pleasant.
@ John Day
Regarding fungi, I understand that they provide a beautiful solution to the decomposition of organic matter but as a person who is trying to survive, I would encourage anyone else to forget about paints and stains and simply apply bleach once or twice a year. Your wooden structures would last much longer.The concept reminds me of The Game of Thrones and the spore drive on Star Trek but life is a serious mystery. And yes I am certain there are many things that we have not figured out and the more I reflect there is a requirement for an unknown force to shepherd our souls.
Essential reading for those scared of the virus
The following article is very well written and hits on many of the points that I have been making and proposes an explanation for what is going on but be warned it is very unsettling.
@ Mr. House, you guys need to remake yourselves, beautiful people in your country despite the social paths. I wish you well
The world seems to be going into a mess in a hurry. It feels very ungrounding. I don’t what to think anymore. I don’t know what is truth and I don’t know what is lies. Maybe I should disconnect from the matrix.
@ a-kullervo,
I am a man and for most of my life a very dominant man. Men usually can always dominate women physically and this may have been the history of our existence but acting on this is simply wrong. All souls need to be respected and relationships need to be negotiated so all are satisfied and embrace a path forward otherwise there it is not a pleasant existence. Sure history is slavery and maybe that’s where we are heading again but there is so much more possible with mutual consent. This in my opinion the correct way to think of this issue. Certainly barbarism will eventually arrive again but it is not a positive way forward.Engineering taught me with money and intelligence worthwhile things may be created. Nursing taught me that me live your fullest at this very present moment because it is uncertain if another moment will occur
COVID-19 is not droplet precautions, it is airborne precautions. This is way more than droplet precautions. Take this from a surgical/ICU nurse
I am sorry and sad because my previous post to you vapourized when I posted it and I spent so much time constructing it and I felt it was profound. I hope that I can reconstruct it from memory which is failing. I doubt it will be nearly as well written but I got to get this out.
Regarding masks, the current political directive to wear any kind of crap over your face is simply retarded nonsense. It will not protect you. As a surgical/ICU nurse I can tell you the mask that will protect you is a N95 mask but you need to have it selected and fitted and tested by a professional who sprays this nasty smelling aerosol that if you can’t smell it with the mask on then you are protected. If you smell that nasty crap then it is the wrong fit for your face and retest and retry until you get the one so that you cannot smell that nasty aerosol they test with and then you can be fairly certain no viruses will go into your lungs. And you will be safe but these lesser masks are nonsense.
These useless masks have been mandated by the political establishment and although useless for protecting you from airborne COVID-19 seems to soothe the general population who know no better.
But beyond this issue is why are the political leaders implementing lockdowns and destruction of human contact and the general living of a free life. I have worked out the numbers and the death rates are less than influenza which occurs every year.
I am of the option that the western countries follow the USA like submissives in a dominant relationship. It seems to me that the capitalists that run the USA want to continue the hollowing out of the western world. Think vulture capitalism.
I have some experience in this as a computer engineer when I travelled to China to help them make product of sufficient quality to sell in the western world and they make it for a fraction of the cost that we could in the western world but the capitalists sell it for a slightly lower price but at a massively increased profit. The result is a transfer of employment to the east and unemployment or try to retrain in the west. I have seen so many industries close and manufacturing transferred to the east. Free trade is a problem. It does not protect the citizens of a given country but it allows the capitalists to strip the rich countries of value.
Abbey Martin seems wonderful to me and she does the empire files and a podcast on apple called media roots radio with her brother Robbie Martin that I have been following this last year. I have enjoyed most everything they have said but most recently they have said that they were excited that Trump might die because he got COVID-19. Other than that I have enjoyed their podcast.
Financial matters are not an area that I consider myself well versed in. However I recently stumbled upon references to this book:
Giants: The Global Power EliteFront Cover
Peter Phillips
Seven Stories Press, 2018 – Business & Economics – 384 pages
0 Reviews
A look at the top 300 most powerful players in world capitalism, who are at the controls of our economic future.
Who holds the purse strings to the majority of the world’s wealth? There is a new global elite at the controls of our economic future, and here former Project Censored director and media monitoring sociologist Peter Phillips unveils for the general reader just who these players are. The book includes such power players as Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Jamie Dimon, and Warren Buffett.
As the number of men with as much wealth as half the world fell from sixty-two to just eight between January 2016 and January 2017, according to Oxfam International, fewer than 200 super-connected asset managers at only 17 asset management firms–each with well over a trillion dollars in assets under management–now represent the financial core of the world’s transnational capitalist class. Members of the global power elite are the management–the facilitators–of world capitalism, the firewall protecting the capital investment, growth, and debt collection that keeps the status quo from changing. Each chapter in Giants identifies by name the members of this international club of multi-millionaires, their 17 global financial companies–and including NGOs such as the Group of Thirty and the Trilateral Commission–and their transnational military protectors, so the reader, for the first time anywhere, can identify who constitutes this network of influence, where the wealth is concentrated, how it suppresses social movements, and how it can be redistributed for maximum systemic change.And a review of the book:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335591123_Giants_The_Global_Power_Elite/fulltext/5d6f235ca6fdccf93d3874f3/Giants-The-Global-Power-Elite.pdfAnd a video of Abbey Martin speaking with the author:
It seems to shine some light on how capitalism has transformed governments and societies
Experts with integrity explain why and how the health policy implemented in the western world is incorrect
https://off-guardian.org/2020/10/06/another-10-experts-questioning-the-coronavirus-panic/
The linked video describes why and how the west came to adopt the incorrect COVID-19 health policy and what can be done about it
@ Bill7 posted deep in yesterday’s comments an article that I feel is essential reading
OPEN LETTER: Belgian Healthcare Workers Call for End to Lockdown:
OPEN LETTER: Belgian Healthcare Workers Call for End to Lockdown
@ Bill7
OPEN LETTER: Belgian Healthcare Workers Call for End to Lockdown:
Thank you for bringing my attention to this letter which reflects my view as I have expressed in my comments on this website.
Again I thank you from the bottom of my heart. The article linked in comment is a must read for all
Going around with a N95 mask that has not been fitted and tested in the manner I described is like playing Russian Roulette with a revolver that you think has no ammunition in the chambers. You are not safe even if you think you are. Keep pulling that trigger until your head explodes or better yet get a N95 mask properly fitted and tested and know that you are truly safe or just live your life and take the consequences. My recommendation is don’t live a lie.
@ V. Arnold
I have butchered a moose putting some in brine and freezing the rest as steaks, soup, stew, burger and stir fry. The the .337 Win mag is the correct firearm.However as I was trying to express previously, there is always trauma taking a soul for your survival. Everything wants to live. I have seen many American hunters in search of the big game so they can check it off the list. What a sad state of humanity that is possible due to money. Any comment?
Comedy is a spectacle for the masses and you have a valid point but the real truth in my mind is nothing compares to the joy felt when one’s comments causes one’s partner laugh in a way that touches her soul. It is time to live fully without fear. These are dangerous times but embrace life and don’t hide.
Betrayal, Infuriating Betrayal
Mike WhitneyThis article provided a wide enough perspective and plausible explanation of what has been going on the last four years that when I shared it with my mainstream media consuming dad he did not reject it outright and said there seems to be some truth in this article.
