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?

Monday, June 11, 2012

Brief Update

Just wanted to let you all know that I've not fallen off the face of the planet. With only 37 days to go until the big move, we're busy packing in between all the other aspects of our lives. I will posting  "D" in the next couple of days, hopefully tonight!
Hope all of you are well.