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I am reading Killing the Host by Michael Hudson, and was sitting with a feeling of sadness at the bailout of the banksters and Goldman Sachs. I was saddened that the American government and the American people suffer consequences of corruption of the government by the financial elites. The government of the USA is now an oligarchy. I then thought of the culpability . . . → Read More: Bailouts, Finance, Greed, Mammon, God and Gaia I was wondering as we see the devolution of so much of the modern period’s industrial capacity, would we see a devolution in major modes of thinking. It takes some historical perspective to see the modern thought, capitalist modes of production were actually an ADVANCE over tribal and feudal/aristocratic/autocratic modes of thinking and organizing. Future historians may note that there was one brief . . . → Read More: Integral pipe dream John Michael Greer in his estimable Archdruid Report in one of his articles talked about dealing with various aspects of climate denialism a wishful thinking fantasy which twigged a recognition in me. The North Carolina legislators who are trying to pretend that sea level rise won’t happen, like their equivalents in Texas and Virginia, remind me of nothing so much as six-year-olds who . . . → Read More: Evolutionary spiritual fantasies I have recently been reading a lot about the potential for rapid collapse of idustrial society. As an exercise in compare and contrast I decided to read the classic Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Gibbon. Gibbon is of course a man of his times. His prejudices, in favor of monarchy over republican forms of government, against people of color (Arabs, . . . → Read More: Arms in the decline and fall This has been a difficult post to write. I write mainly for my friends and my children, so I don’t have many pretensions. I try to make things clear, and get to the root of things. In that sense I am radical. My children cut me some slack, so if you, reader, are neither my friend or my child, please read this and . . . → Read More: Dealing with Near Term Extinction My rainy day Saturday got a little sadder today. Glenn Greenwald: …US policy planners have adopted an explicit doctrine of “endless war”. Obama officials, despite repeatedly boasting that they have delivered permanently crippling blows to al-Qaida, are now, as clearly as the English language permits, openly declaring this to be so.It is hard to resist the conclusion that this war has no purpose . . . → Read More: Endless War Steven Lukes: Is it not the supreme exercise of power to get another or others to have the desires you want them to have – that is, to secure their compliance by controlling their thoughts and desires?…Is it not the supreme and most insidious use of power to prevent people, to whatever degree, from having grievances by shaping their perceptions, cognitions and preferences . . . → Read More: Power to prevent people from having grievances We are faced by an oligarchy that is tending to steer the ship toward the rocks; we should expect it to hit the rocks. When that happens the people will rise up, and will be confronted by the power system violently. I believe that when confronting the real power in the system, the aroused people will face violence both privately from the oligarchs and publicly from the state. . . . → Read More: Somnabulism There have been many occasions over the past few years where I thought (and many others thought) that this could break the bank again, and put us firmly back into a financial crisis like 2008. To clear my head I thought about what I look for in the news to keep me on my toes about the potential for severe negative short term . . . → Read More: Reading the tea leaves: signs of coming crisis A good friend of mine recently became Swiss. He is looking to let go of his American passport to escape the madness of the American Empire as much as possible on this planet. He asked me in a recent email: The USA has become a very weird place in many ways – or maybe I have over the now 25 years I have . . . → Read More: The USA morality play |
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