Revisiting an Old Post

One of my first posts touched on some areas about which I have been talking lately, here and on other sites. I had begun to talk about my idea for a specific type of intentional community. I cannot claim that it is an entirely new idea, but I think my particular vision is a combination of and extrapolation from some currently operating entities. I would really like some feedback or to speak to people who might be interested in helping to develop the idea, so I ask that those of you lovely people who pop by fairly regularly have a read and let it roll around your head for awhile.

Reading it again, I realize that I got off the originally intended topic a bit and didn't really get into the meat of what I envision. I will try to get into that a bit more in subsequent writing.

However, reading it again I see that several issues that I (and many others) saw coming, are now...just months later...manifesting themselves. I believe this makes the intentional community an ever more viable ideal.

Also, I should note that it will likely form, if at all, on a different plot of land than I intended when originally writing the post. This other plot of land is smaller, but prettier and presenting some different opportunities that I will try to get into.

The 4th Purpose

Speaking of the military-industrial complex, GovTrack.us now contains this legislation that was introduced to the US Congress last week. This legislation would "direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to establish national emergency centers on military installations." The bill seems to be a nice and helpful attempt to be pro-active about national emergencies and major disasters, but for one line in the section outlining the purposes of these facilities. This line states that the 4th purpose of these facilities is "to meet other appropriate needs, as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security".

That's a pretty broad opening.

This bill is in addition to the nearly $4 billion Department of Homeland Security Headquarters approved earlier this month. That's a pretty nice stimulus in itself.

Considering the understandable public focus on the crashing economy, and given the soaring public opinion towards government now that The Man is in office, I doubt there will be much attention on this bill's slipping through Congress. Once enough people realize the implications of the 4th Purpose, it will likely be too late. If Gerald Celente of the Trends Research Institute is correct, as he usually is, these centers will likely be ready to be filled with broke, hungry people who used to live on the either side of the tracks from each other.



Disclaimer: I must apologize that I had to use a Fox news clip to show Celente's prediction briefly. I am not suddenly a Fox supporter and Celente tends to be completely non-partisan. Do have a listen to some of his radio show appearances that should show up as links at that Youtube page.

Ike's Warning

At the end of his 2nd term as President of the USA, General Dwight "Ike" Eisenhower issued a sobering warning to the American public, and thanks to modern technology, to the entire world. Considering that it was the ex Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in WW2 issuing such a warning against the growing "military-industrial establishment", of which he must have been intimately aware, one would think there would have been an ongoing public demand for limitations to this growing establishment.

Indeed, the 60's and some of the 70's saw a significant amount of public concern for the military-industrial complex, which continued to grow, but much of the outcry was against war itself and governmental use of war for imperial purposes...keeping the mil-industrial companies out of the limelight. And then, the emerging entertainment and marketing (and illegal narcotic) industries helped to turn the peace movement into the "me" generation of the 80's. In most ways, we are still stuck in this "me" generation, although more and more seem to be waking up and trying to take back their freedoms through living responsibly and with awareness.

But, we have also mostly forgotten about Mr. Eisenhower's important warning. We have mostly accepted this "sleep" state, continuously enticed and lulled by leisure and entertainment. Even The Man of Change himself, the new President, tapped defence contractor lobbyist William Lynn as Deputy Secretary of State. Nooo, not a pawn, he. Not at all.

What Mr. Eisenhower didn't add in his warning, however, was that this military-industrial complex would begin to team up with corporate banking, big Media, big Pharma, big Chem and big OIL, to consolidate power not only in the US, but across the world itself. Perhaps he just did not wish to step outside his primary area of expertise and knowledge...the military.

This all sums up my reasoning to be against globalization as it is being presented to us. We "masses" are not yet evolved enough to not need (and usually want...desperately) some level of control and organization. And globalization as it is being presented to us now, sees those same huge corporate interests as the driving force and the body demanding global governmental control over the activities of the world's population. It is THAT group which is telling us how we must live, in order to fix the mess whose creation THEY oversaw.

I say it is about damned time we listened to Ike's warning.

Carpe Diem




Update: Here is a transcription of the entirety of the above cited speech. I urge everyone to have a read, it is not long but it is entirely brimming in wisdom.

Federal Budget and Other Happy Thoughts

In the morning, we Canadians will be treated to a new Federal budget. Thanks to a more "open" Conservative caucus at the moment, we already have a pretty good idea that our opening commitment to the struggling global economy is a 2 year total deficit of around $65 Billion dollars. Even here on the other side of Canada I can hear the scrabbling of a few millions Canadians trying to get their piece. I guess I must be considered part of this group as I intend to get as big a piece of the billions supposedly earmarked for Canadian farmers as I can. In truth, this is one of few areas that I support spending the tax dollars of future workers in this emergency effort, provided those dollars go to local smaller scale (preferably natural) farmers and not Corporate Agriculture.

The truth is, what we are seeing is governmental flailing in time of catastrophe. Even if logic says the best action at the time is as little action as possible (such as upon discovering that one is standing in the middle of a frozen but rapidly cracking open lake), a government does not really have this option. So even when the prudent course of action is to lay flat and assess the situation in order to slow the cracking and find the best path to safety, a government is more likely to start running for the nearest shore...intent on what might seem to be a faster journey to safety, when the opposite is more likely to be true.

Now, knowing this is the case...and in this particular situation, knowing that we`re about to accept a much larger national debt...I think we `masses` better do every damn thing we can to ensure that all this money is spend as wisely as possible. This means accepting that there`s no such thing as "too big to fail" and realizing that we are NOT born to service the almighty economy. This means demanding to know exactly where each tax dollar goes. It means remembering that we have the right to hold our representatives accountable and we MUST utilize it if necessary.

*sigh*

It sure would be nice to see some actual change but the world just seems to get darker and darker...

Now, it grows late here so I am going to close out with a few other, rather random, thoughts floating around my head or just popping in;

Regarding the "War on Terrorism" in Afghanistan(/Pakistan), Iraq, and perhaps soon to be Iran: isn't the fact that no one seems able to explain how we will know when it is won or lost kind of proof that we're no longer really fighting for anything (if we ever truly were)?

Speaking of all this ridiculous killing, does anyone think we'll hear about struggling arms manufacturers and private security firms in the near future? Highly unlikely.

To be honest with you all, I`m quite worried about the violence we are ALL likely to be seeing outside (or, God forbid, inside) our doors soon. I think many will change their opinions about gun laws. I`ve certainly changed mine. I am a very peaceful kind of person, but I am both ashamed of and concerned with my inability for personal self defense at the moment. I must admit that defense is part of why I am so interested in seeing groups coming together, be they agrarian communities or urban support and co-op groups.

And no one seems to be saying much about the fact that rapidly warming OR rapidly cooling, we`re going to start getting pretty darn thirsty soon.

It's All My Fault

A rather heavy realization dawned on me tonight, as I was reading more of The Automatic Earth. So many seem to be casting opinions around as to who bears the fault of this global economic evaporation. It's the greedy investment bankers, or it's the Illuminati, or neocons, or the neolibs, or the ignorant and lazy masses. One would not expect someone to stand up and say "uh, yeah...sorry, it was me".

Well times are changing after all, I guess.

That's it...I am here to admit that this mess is all my fault.

Now, I'm not going to go so far as to tell everyone who I am and where I live. No, no. I will take the modest and relatively anonymous route. I am not a fame-seeker.

But it does seem to be my fault. "How can that be?" is what most of you are asking yourself (I hope). According to various...sources...it seems that we create our own realities. So, years and years ago, as adulthood approached and my world began to significantly expand, I began to feel that our modern paradigm of continuous growth and debt based economies had to reach some sort of catastrophic conclusion, be that environmental or societal or a combination of both. Well it seems that all that pondering and philosophizing backfired. I went and created the very catastrophe that I was worried about. You gotta hate it when that happens....

So, you can all leave the poor greedy bankers alone. They were right to chop up all those overpriced property mortgages into little pieces and use the DEBT as ASSETS upon which to procure further investment, again and again. Leave the politicians alone too. Empires do what they do, and the environment and climate work in cycles. So stop worrying. Its just a little recession, and they got through the 30's didn't they? Go back to buying cheap, foreign (ahem, chinese) products, it's not like they're ever poisonous. There's no reason whatsoever to give a damn where your food or water come from, so long as they are cheap enough to not interfere with buying a new cellphone every 6 months and a new car every two years. Now you have somewhere to point the blame. After all, it'd take too much work to fix all the havoc I've created. Might as well crawl as high as you can on the old societal ladder, and watch the ignorant bastards below snarl over the scraps you don't want. I'll wave from my ladder.




Now, so as to avoid a mailbox full of hatemail and bailout requests, I better point out that I was being sarcastic up above there. After all, if I could create my own reality, it would NOT be -40 C outside right now...at least not where I was.

And to any greedy banker types who may stumble across this post, please pardon the amateurish generalizing simplifications, I know the heist was far more complex and well thought out. You DEFINITELY earned those bonuses.

Linkage

A new and dear blogger friend of mine, Theresa of Pondering the Myriad Things, included an interesting link in response to my last post which outlined a few of my misgivings about the new US President and his coronatio....I mean inauguration. What I found was a nice summation of many of my concerns, fleshed out a little bit. There is so much to consider that I was once again very appreciative of finding this area of the blog world, where someone else can develop such an accurate outline of concerns I share, and yet another someone else can direct me (and others) to their writings. When it comes to this kind of communication, I am very thankful for the level of technology we have which allows it.

I'm always somewhat uplifted to learn of new folks who are awake, thinking, learning, trying to be responsible and urging others to strive for the same. Where I live, so many still seem to be stuck in the mentality that things will just turn around and return to "normal", that it can be real tempting to start cave-hunting. But once in awhile I see glimpses of real positivity, even here in Exploitationville. Yesterday at the grocery store, I overheard a young couple trying to buy non-GMO margarine. I think the top of my head must have nearly slid right off, my grin was so wide. I likely should have tried to speak with them, take that first step in generating a local network...but in all honesty I was worried that I'd come off like a freak...after all, they were just looking for decent margarine and I was planning them as another cornerstone for a local common sense movement. Hah, talk about a sense of desperation.

My Gut and The Inauguration

January 20, 2009. Day of hope, Day of change.

So why does my gut say its all wrong?

Why do I look at this guy and see such difference between his words and his actions? After all, there've been so few actions to see, really. And so so so many words. Granted they were pretty and well spoken words. It seems like he was campaigning for the last guy's entire last term. And wasn't that supposed to be his first term as a Senator? Where did he find the time to do all that campaigning while fulfilling all those duties in the arduous existence of a Junior Senator? He certainly worked hard for that one week to get that banker bailout passed.

Why did my eyes reject the soothing yet resolute words that my ears were hearing today? Was it the horror of seeing such a crowd of humans so desperately needing SOMEONE to tell them what to do, someone to save them...someone to worship. Sure it was nice to see that many people standing around together and not kicking the heck out of each other, but I wonder how they will live after today. I have no doubt that a great deal of them would be willing to work their butts off to make their country and the world a better place, but even they seem to be in some kind of daze.

Why is the fact that a person of a non-pink or grey skin color finally being seen as equal enough to hold the seat of President of the USA just not enough for me in this day and age? Especially with my "conspiracy theorist" gut telling me that this guy is just as much a pawn as Powell, only now with a lot more power. Yes, let's be pleased that society has come SO far...but this guy still has to do the darned job!!! Are we children that we have to celebrate each achievement so much that it takes 4 years to get to the next achievement (relatively speaking) and rarely even know exactly what it is that was ACTUALLY achieved?

I'll lay it out plain here. What I see today, is the coronation of a Caesar.

Neither I, nor my gut ( I don't think), are here to bash hope. Hope can be an absolutely positive thing...but it can also be a vicious and misleading illusionist. Hope MUST be based in practicality or it is worse than wasted effort...it is misdirected and potentially dangerous effort. And I will always say that if hope doesn't come from within, but instead from some external source...then this hope MUST be carefully investigated for falseness.

Speaking of hope...I hope I am wrong about this guy, as I think I have said before. If I am right, however, it's going to get even worse for a whole lot of people in this world.

My suggestion to everyone is to start seriously pondering national soveriegnty and responsible individual freedom versus globalism and corporate feudalism.

A Pain in My Heart

The new picture in the title pane of this blog is land on the farm that I grew up on. Over the holidays, paperwork was signed that solidifies the sale of this land. I was successful in putting thoughts on this to the back of my mind over the holidays, in order to not shoot my mouth off around family, but this picture brings it all back.

By this time next year, that land is likely to be no longer in my family's name, tho my parents may get to keep using it for a few years. This causes me more personal conflict than anything in my life so far. I know that my parents need the money that the sale will bring them. I know we can do a lot with the quarter section that remains, thanks to the money from the sale, but...

I feel that overall and in the longterm, we are losing out desperately. The land that is being sold, is some of the best kept farmland in this part of the province. It's soil has not tasted petroleum based fertilizer or modern herbicide methods in over 30 years. It is my pride in this land as family land that keeps me a supporter of private land ownership (albeit within limits). I could go on and on about its merits, but I also cannot. It's too hard.

I could really only see two ways that I could keep this land in the family. The first would be to assume operation in its traditional family farm setup. This has never been a reasonable option to me, as I have said in previous posts. I do not believe it to be a sustainable endeavor, in the single family paradigm. As well, it is clear that it is nearly impossible to exist at a reasonable standard of living on a family farm nowadays, certainly as a single person. Our systems are set up to stifle local farming, and to support corporate agriculture. So yeah, this was never a reasonable option, unfortunately.

The second option was to find an alternate business plan, which would focus on sustainable operation of the land and also provide a reasonable amount of income to those members of the family now in their retirement years. While I have all sorts of ideas that I believe will eventually be successful, without stumbling into a million dollars I just did not have enough time to achieve this option.

All is not lost. Land remains in the possession of the immediate family and I can still pursue the business ideas with that land. But it still pains me to know that I will no longer be able to walk anywhere on that beautiful land, whenever I want to. To build what I want, or grow what I want. I would have been happy to share it in many ways, but to lose it completely....

Instead, it will likely become an expansion of the adjacent landfill operation. About the best I can do is get involved with the land that remains, becoming a member of the County, thereby allowing me to go to meetings and try to see that something positive happens to the land. It is ideally located for wildlife preservation status, for example, other than that damn landfill.

Anyway, there it is. Best I not dwell on this pain but use it to re-focus my efforts on what remains. The more success I can achieve with that, the more I will be able to influence the future of that which is no longer family land, and beyond.

Peace to us all.

Update: Since it is likely that I will change the photo in the title pane, I have now attached the photo to the post itself.

On Junior Hockey Championships and A New Year

My urge to write here seems to have been waning over the last month or so. I have sat down to write about this or that thought a few times, but somehow they just would not congeal into a coherent bloggable topic, and I am just not one to blab away journal-style (yet).

However, here we are in 2009 now, and I find myself with a few thoughts that I would like to jot down and share.

First off, a sincere congratulations and "great job boys!!!" to our Canadian Junior Hockey team. These young men displayed some real poise and depth in facing some serious obstacles as they won Gold at the World Junior Hockey Championship in Ottawa over the holidays. Sticking together and working hard, never giving up, led to a tying goal against the Russians with only 5 seconds left in their semi-final game. Our boys went on to win the game in a shootout, where it was the goaltender's turn to shine. This team was far from a shoe-in to win, and they truly earned that Gold medal. Congratulations and thanks for the example, fellows.

I also must mention the Slovakian team. Playing with less raw talent, and a far inferior development program, that group of young men played their absolute hearts out in every game I saw them play. This effort led to their upsetting 2 teams that were considered far superior, and led to their playing for the bronze medal overall. Unfortunately they were not able to beat the Russians and went home without a medal but those young men have nothing to be ashamed about. I hope they returned home with their heads held high. Their effort was truly remarkable and perhaps an even stronger example than that given by our own Canadian team.

I really do love this tournament. The hockey is of the highest calibre and the energy is amazing. These are young men playing for the pride of their country, not for money. Every game is intense and the players chalk full of passion and focus. If it was the only hockey I could watch in a year, I think I would be satisfied.

As is often the case in this situation, I was moved by the spirit of the Canadian crowds, as they sang our anthem over the recorded music. By the time the semi and finals were reached, the music was actually turned down and the crowd sang alone, at tremendous volume. This often happens in Canadian cities during the NHL playoffs as well and is always a moving experience to me. My blood pounds and the hair stands up on my arms. However, it has begun to weigh on me, especially during this championship tournament...that we basically only come together to truly celebrate being Canadian, during these sporting events (and on Canada Day tho I do not believe to as large an extent). Now, granted, hockey is one of our greatest sources of national pride but I wish we would come together in this sort of celebration more often. I wish we would pay more heed to the words of our anthem as well, because we are no longer standing on guard for our country. Too much we are only worried about ourselves, our immediate concerns. Our nation is in danger and is hockey enough to hold us together? Should it be?

Damn, a brand new year and I am complaining already...

Personally, I am not sure it feels like a new year. Renewal isn't that simple a process to me. Sure I feel the energy of solstice and I know in my soul that nature will do it's thing. Spring will come, in some form, renewal will occur. Yet at the same time, we humans are mired in the same old status quo. We're making our guesses at what the new year will hold, we're making our resolutions (and usually breaking them shortly thereafter). We're going back to our jobs now that the holidays are over again. We had our rest time, but how many of us actually took any time to reflect on from where we have come, and to where we are headed? I think most of us bustled our way through the busy time, dreading having to return to work but knowing those christmas bills need paying.

Still, 2009 is likely to be a very difficult year. We are facing disruption on so many levels, I just don't see any rational hope of a return to "normal". Not only are we going to be dealing with escalating climate, environmental and economic catastrophe, our "leadership" seems more interested in consolidation of power than in actually trying to address some of these huge issues. More importantly, the lower and middle class seem more interested in hoping that someone will come along to put things back to "normal", than in recognising "normal" was pretty fucked up and that we ALL need to make some serious priority changes.

For myself, I am just going to take it day by day and continue to try to live responsibly and with as much awareness as I can muster. I'm just going to keep reading and initiating real conversation, and trying to strive for wisdom as well as knowledge. I'm going to keep doing my damnedest to not just give up and stick my head in the sand (or snow as the case may be). I'm going to keep trying to develop my local and sustainable business ideas and trying to bring like minded people together to form an common sense community. I'm going to keep striving for balance.

I hope we all will.

Peace to all.