Wednesday, June 13, 2012

A Difficult Conversation

I had every intention of posting that promised "D" post today, but something more pressing has caught my attention that I wanted to share with you. (I will be posting "D", just not today)
In March of this year, a woman named Carolyn Baker wrote wisely about current trauma to the middle class, and the future of that group of people, and emotional resilience. The more I read, the more I agreed with her, especially when she said this,
"Americans and billions of other individuals throughout the world, are not only terrified about radiation but about their economic future—an economic future which will be inexorably more ruinous as a result of the Japan tragedy and its economic ripples globally. By that I do not mean that they feel mild anxiety about embellishing their stock portfolios, but rather, are feeling frightened about how they are going to feed their families, where they will live after losing their house in foreclosure, where they might find employment in a world where having a full-time job is becoming increasingly rare, how they will access healthcare without insurance or the money to pay out of pocket, or how they will make ends meet in forced or voluntary retirement."

John Michael Greer has this to add, "The decline of industrial society is a reality we are already facing; as real incomes shrink, quality-of-life indexes stumble downhill, and high-end technological projects such as the space program wind down. As resources keep on depleting and wastes build up, in turn, the decline is accelerating, and it’s a safe bet at this point that much of what counts as an ordinary life in today’s industrial nations will go away forever in the decades ahead of us. The time to prevent that was thirty years ago, and we didn’t. It really is as simple as that."

Another voice in this conversation that so many are having is Dmitry Orlov, who adds, "There is an ever-increasing amount of mainstream media attention being paid to the looming energy crisis. At this point, very few people still argue that there is not a problem with the energy supply, immediately for natural gas, eventually for oil. There is also a viewpoint, which is ever more closely and persuasively argued, that what we have to look forward to is a permanent energy shortfall, which will cause economic and societal dislocations that will be monumental in scope, and will transform the patterns of everyday life. The current, consumer-friendly economy would be no more, replaced with a subsistence economy characterized by a good deal of privation and austerity."

So many are seeing the writing on the wall, and with the media finally being exposed little by little as untrustworthy, corrupt and manipulative, one cannot ignore the changing state of our world. When we cannot trust the media to report what is really going on...then what?
Then it is up to us to listen more carefully, read between the lines and pay closer attention to what we see, what we hear, what we witness and what we learn is not being talked about.
It's time to join in the conversation.
What do you think?

3 comments:

LindaM said...

First, my real motto is," trust no one". I mean that I trust my gut instinct more than outside sources. The media failed around 30 years ago, not since 911 as some like to think.
My dad liked to say that truth in reporting died with Edward Murrow. How long ago was that?

Learning to take responsibility for ourselves is a tough path but it's a crucial one. I am not always a part of the conversation these days but I am thinking and working and still teaching a new generation when they will listen.

Rubye Jack said...

I agree with all of what you say and is said here except that people are beginning to see what's going on. I really don't think they are. I don't think most people in the U.S. have a clue. Sure, there are those who have always paid attention and kept up but the vast majority is still out to lunch. When the majority begins to understand then we may see change, but what will that take.

Chris said...

I think the world has been (in Archdruid fashion) placed under a spell, and in biblical fashion, of blindness. So a spell of blindness.

People can talk about reality (and it's many different versions according to perspective) but until they actually take part with life experience, they will forever be transfixed on everyone's whispers.

Life experience is what shatters any illusions though. This is not to say talking about the world is a useless exercise. We just have to understand talking isn't an indicator of change, or indeed an indicator of full perception. Rather, change is what happens when a person does something with that information.

As there is such an enormous chasm between change and talking about it, I guess we have to be be more forgiving for our mistakes along the way. For example, when we didn't really succeed at being self-sufficient, I felt we had wasted our time moving to a more rural location. Especially as we kept commuting to the city for supplies.

But then I calculated the new skills I have learned which the city we lived in formerly couldn't give us, and I realise the move out here was more important than the reason to. The city was all about civilised security and we aligned our lives to that extent. By stretching ourselves out here though, we've exceeded the myth that civilised security was the benchmark.

Nature is far more intuitive and abundant than civilised security. When you align your life to that extent, suddenly more things become possible.

When I look at people who have only known civilised security, I know they don't understand they're under a spell of blindness. It's not their fault because civilised security, is what many children are born into. Only they're not stretched or challenged beyond the benchmarks mankind designs.

So yes, we are blind. It's the struggle to succeed against the odds, which often opens the world of possibilities up. Not a lot of people want to be challenged though. Maybe it's enough that we just say try anyway - try against the odds? :)