If This Site Offends Your Sense of Ideological Purity, Please Stop Reading It

If you don't like full-on rants, read no further.

Warning: this is a full-on rant. I strongly recommend you stop reading now.

There was a T-shirt in the 1980s that read, "I used to be disgusted, but now I'm just amused." I am not amused, just disgusted.

I get dumped on for an amazing variety of sins against various strains of ideological purity: I am insufficiently Apocalyptic, I am "one of those right-wingers," I am "socialist" (yes, I am both right-wing and socialist at the same time), I am a "corporate shill" because there are adverts on the site, and so on.

If This Site Offends Your Sense of Ideological Purity, Please Stop Reading It.I didn't ask you or anyone else to view the site, nor did I charge you money to do so with the implicit promise of some value, nor have I ever suggested that I have any "answers" or that you would find whatever strain of ideological purity you seek.

You can go back and read the archives of this site from May 2005 when readership could be counted on fingers and toes. It was an experiment in self-expressionthen and remains that now.

The site is not posted for glory, income or readership. If readership dropped to near-zero it would actually be a relief; the trivial advert income would vanish (no loss) and my voluminous email would dry up, relieving me of hundreds of hours of unpaid work. If everyone who finds something to disagree with here (i.e. most people) would simply stop reading, it would be a great relief.

I have even been accused of seeking to disrupt various ideological purities as if this were some sort of contrarian game; It isn't. These are the meanderings of one individual, nothing more, nothing less. I am not seeking anyone's stamp of ideological-purity approval, or any other form of approval. I just find all strains of ideological purity to be cognitive traps. I'm not going out of my way to be non-ideological, I just don't find ideologies, be they Apocalyptic Doom, Left, Right, the Savior State or whatever ideology you may subscribe to as being all that useful in a utilitarian, practical sense.

I've been told my photo isn't sufficiently "serious." I've been busted for the numerous typos which soil the site; I've been trashed for not keeping up with dead links.

Hey, if any of you want to write a couple hundred thousand words of original content a year for no financial compensation other than what drifts in from generous readers, some "corporate shill" adverts and a few book sales, be my guest. This is an experiment in self-expression, not a business. Whatever expectations you bring are self-generated; nothing is promised here implicitly or explicitly.

If you want to read blogs which align with your views, then by all means do so. There are millions to choose from. Or if you have your own blog, then you can read your own work and have the satisfaction of agreeing with the author 100% of the time. There is no reason to come here, and I certainly am not offering one.

If you're squeamish, stop reading. For all those who find me insufficiently Apocalyptic, I have a couple of questions for you:

1. Have you ever been in the National Guard?

2. Have you ever been close to anyone in the National Guard?

3. Have you experienced extended Armed Forces tours involving small-arms ground combat with tactical air support?

4. Have you ever been close to anyone who experienced extended Armed Forces tours involving small-arms ground combat with tactical air support?

5. Have you ever been arrested or imprisoned by the Central State as "an enemy of the State"?

6. Have you ever been close to anyone who has been arrested or imprisoned by the Central State as "an enemy of the State"?

7. Are you a police officer with tactical/SWAT/crowd control training?

8. Have you ever been close to anyone who is a police officer with tactical/SWAT/crowd control training?

9. Do you personally know and break bread with any of the "criminal class" who are likely to make up this roving mob of heavily-armed desperados?

The less naive amongst you will probably see where this is going.

The Apocalyptic Doomer ideology is fixated on a single end-game: roving mobs of heavily-armed desperados roaming the cities and then the countryside like ravenous, murderous locusts.

This scenario is tiresome for several reasons:

1. The "good guys" will also be heavily armed and as a special bonus, much better organized

2. The one thing the State excels at is organized, directed violence.

3. There is never any mention of God or church in the Apocalyptic Doomer ideology

I don't make a big deal about my own religious beliefs and faith here; that is private, but longtime readers may have caught glimpses of my family's religious roots and of my own beliefs in my various scribblings here.

I find it extremely offensive that religious faith, worship, communion, God and church are entirely missing from the standard-issue Apocalyptic Doomer ideology. In that worldview, humanity is intrinsically evil, greedy, shortsighted, violent, rapacious, etc., and as soon as the modest constraints of civil order are loosed then the hounds of Hell will be unleashed.

I beg to differ on several accounts.

Allow me to sketch out another scenario based on my own experience and those of my close friends and family members.

-- Civil order is threatened by various calamities/collapses.

-- Central State (Federal Government) declares emergency and confiscates the Strategic Oil Reserve and all 5.5 million barrels of domestically produced oil, plus all the domestic natural gas production. Rationing is immediately instituted, with priorities given to local and national security forces, the Armed Forces and agricultural/energy production/storage/distribution.

-- A roving mob of heavily-armed desperados gathers in an urban zone, pillaging, raping, murdering, etc.

-- With modest efforts (burning vehicles, scattered small-arms fire, etc.), escape routes are cut off and the mob is quickly concentrated into a kill zone.

-- A gunship with a minigun swoops in and liquidates said roving mob of heavily-armed thugs, with minimal ground support working from established fields of fire. Or in Napoleon's phrase, the crowd is dispersed with a "whiff of grapeshot."

-- Hundreds of dead bodies are removed from the kill zone, and survivors are trucked off to the prison complex gulag which is already in place to secure hundreds of thousands of "enemies of the State." I don't mean secret gulag camps; I mean the existing prison complex which holds several million citizens right now.

Does anyone seriously believe that 5 million barrels a day isn't enough to fuel a mobile force capable of imposing order on any number of roving mobs of heavily-armed desperados? Imposing order domestically is, all in all, rather "cheap" in terms of energy and time required. The system is robust, the staffing in place.

Just within my small circle of friends with extended tours of duty either flying close support (loaches and gunships) or engaging in small-arms close combat, there are three "good guys" who could lead a small trained force which would decimate/kill a disorganized/loosely organized mob, no matter how "heavily armed," of virtually any size.

K., a retired Marine captain with two ground tours in Vietnam could set up the fields of fire and set the trap. S. would fly the loach with a gunner, and A. would fly the gunship with the minigun, landing to refuel and reload as often as necessary.

S. claimed to "smell" bad guys beneath the jungle canopy, and given that he is still alive I give his claims great credence.

These are the "good guys." That is, if they felt their families and communities were at grave risk of lawless violence, and they were ordered to complete a mission, they would be obliged to do so under threat of court-martial.

I'm sorry if the notion of killing hundreds of people is disturbing, but the idea that the State couldn't liquidate/kill "public dangers" assembled in rampaging mobs is simply nonsensical. That sort of reaction is the State's raison d'etre. The State holds a monopoly on "legitimate" violence. That and the power to tax are the great monopolies of the State as a political structure.

I am not suggesting this kind of State violence is likely, nor am I condoning it--on the contrary, I find the very possibility abhorrent. I am simply noting that the State has the oil, forces and "emergency powers" to conduct such an operation for the "public safety."

If you find a non-lethal scenario less disturbing, then substitute gunships macing the heck out of the mob and a larger ground force moving into truncheon/incapacitate the folks before hauling them away to a temporary gulag within existing prisons.

Lest you think this is far-fetched, please look up the Life Magazine dated August 15, 1969 (kindly forwarded to me by reader Ed C.) which contains an article describing precisely this kind of large-scale State security operation in Berkeley, CA. Anti-war "mobs" were beaten and hauled off to a "State security center" within Santa Rita prison--temporary quarters consisting of the bare dirt, with prisoners being instructed to lay face down in said dirt and not to speak lest they be truncheoned or worse. "Rights" as prisoners were non-existent, and the net result was a few guards were disciplined for being overzealous. The official excuse was the guards were 'Nam vets who did not take kindly to the "demonstrators."

The account is penned by a visiting professor who by unfortunate happenstance was in Berkeley to meet (by pre-arrangement--this is pre-cellphone days) another researcher on the corner of Addison and Shattuck. The visiting prof was a Korean War veteran and not active in the anti-war movement or in that particular "mob." If you read the piece, you get a taste of how those of us who have encountered the Savior State with bared claw feel about it.

Would you like an Abu Ghraib experience here at home? That can be arranged. The guards were told that you are a "security threat" to the nation, so roughing you up a bit is for "the good of the country."

You may (naively) believe that State forces would never shoot citizens in either hostile action or in cold blood (take your pick). American history is replete with citizens gunned down by state-sanctioned forces--and not just in political situations.

For instance, scores of citizens were shot down under the "looters will be shot on sight" orders imposed on San Francisco after the devastating earthquake and fire in 1906. The probability that some of the dead were innocent (not looters) is high, but the killings raised little fuss at the time. Emergency means emergency, and the State has a lot of leeway when an "emergency" is declared, even if the definition of emergency is open to debate after the fact.

After all, the Gulf of Tonkin Incident was just such a trumped-up "emergency" which offered some threadbare legitimacy to a 7-year war which killed tens of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Southeast Asians.

You can trust the State to drum up an "emergency" if the need arises.

As for rationing, those alive in 1974 may recall the State imposed gasoline rationing overnight. It was obeyed with extremely minor infractions/resistance.

I have known lots of the "criminal class" because I worked in construction. Maybe to the fearful Apocalyptic Doomers, these guys are demonic and frightening, but to me they are just average normal guys who got caught selling drugs, breaking into buddy's houses to get back at some slight, or accidentally shooting someone in the arm when their poker game got interrupted (all true stories). These are guys who carry guns in their trucks and on the jobsite.

Interestingly, none of my friends with actual combat experience own an arsenal. I don't recall them even owning a single weapon. If they really thought they needed one, then they would get one, no doubt.

If anyone has ever been in a mob, or disorganized, unruly crowd, then you would not exactly give them the edge in a combat scenario against well-trained, organized forces.

As for roving bands of hoodlums storming homes and warehouses, we might recall that the good guys are as heavily armed as the bad guys in our society. The advantages fall to the property owner: they know their layout, they are motivated to defend what's theirs, etc. The only real threat is a carefully planned "home invasion" in which the criminals have carefuly researched the layout, the residents' habits, etc.

To reckon that the average criminal will invest in all that effort is also ludicrous.

I have been interrogated by Federal agents as a potential "enemy of the State." I didn't hurt anyone, steal anything, threaten anyone, embezzle any money, not pay my taxes, etc. My "crime" was to resist the State's policies. When I visited my friend R.J.B. in Federal prison, I got a taste of how the Savior State responds when its policies are challenged in entirely nonviolent ways.

As the Federal judge noted in his trial, R.J.B. was one of the finest young men of his generation.

I am offended by the Apocalyptic Doomer ideology on spiritual grounds as well. Yes, humans are capable of great evil, violence, greed, etc., but that is not the sum total of all humanity.

If there is any aspect of this blog which goes unremarked--and this in itself is noteworthy--it is my constant references to the spiritual rot at the core of the American Lifestyle and Status Quo.

Calling the Status Quo rotten to its core on spiritual grounds is somehow embarrassing to the standard-issue punditry or purveyor of Apocalyptic Doomer ideology. It's as if calling the status quo rotten and worthy of collapse on spiritual grounds alone is somehow not quite cricket.

Assuming roving bands of heavily-armed murderous thugs will roam the countryside doesn't cause a single eyebrow to raise, but calling for a spiritual Transformation as the status quo of greed, fraud, lying and senseless violence unravels make me a threatening weirdo to every ideology. So be it.

So let me be clear here. The "enemies of the State" being carted off to the gulag will probably be friends of mine, and the guys so many Doomers fear in the unruly mob will be former workmates or employees.

I have no desire for "fame," "fortune," "security" or whatever it is that's supposed to drive us all to slave away at something. My standard of "success" is simple, because I am a KISS kind of guy--keep it simple, stupid.

1. Did I make myself useful today?

2. Did I take care of myself today and avoid burdening anyone with my cares and troubles?

3. Were I to meet the living Jesus at day's end, would I feel ashamed of my conduct during the day, or could I meet his gaze with the inner knowldge that I emulated his teachings to the very best of my ability?

That's my "definition" of success.

Americans are funny about "how much they earn." People seem afraid of being accused of being rich or something, because then they'll be asked to donate money. Hey, you worked, you earned it. My taxable gross income last year was $30,700. Out of that I paid about $10,000 in taxes (property tax--my "half" of the total bill), Federal, State and sales, about $5,000 for health insurance (since I'm self-employed, I pay my own), and about $5,000 in principle on our mortgage (again, my "half," which is not deductable of course), leaving about $10,000 for everything else. A laughably tiny slice of that came from this site.

I do not have a trust fund. My IRA holds about $15,000, a figure which fluctuates but never seems to go up due to my various speculative mistakes. "Experts" say it needs to be $1.5 million should I be looking forward to a "comfortable" retirement.

I reckon many municipal and state employees who are my age (56) have already retired. I am not sure what "retirement" even means; "taking it easy," going on cruises, working a second job to accrue even more money, I don't know.

None of those things really appeal to me. I have no interest in retiring, so the fact that I don't have a retirement, and that I expect Social Security to fold up before I draw my "share" doesn't bother me. I hope to make myself useful until I keel over.

I have offended Doomers by declaring that the aftermath of the collapse of the Savior State and corporatocracy could be "fun." Let me give you an example.

Somewhere in the thousands of pages on this site is a crazy entry I wrote about how great it would be if two lanes of Interstate 5 from Sacramento to Los Angeles were closed to vehicular traffic and reserved for bicycles and electric bikes/mopeds: $25 per Gallon Gasoline and a Crazy Idea (375-mile bikeway to L.A.) (June 12, 2008).

This assumes that truck and auto traffic will become limited due to high cost of fuel or rationing, or both, i.e. what most people would see as "doom and gloom."

I am supposed to wear a hair shirt and be gnashing my teeth that I cannot drive a fully loaded SUV in air-conditioned comfort to L.A. anymore.

There are plans to build a high-speed rail between San Francisco and Los Angeles, but it is easy to predict this will be very expensive, just as it is in Europe and Japan. The Savior State is running out of money to fund massive subsidies.

But to the great annoyance of the Doomer crowd, the idea of bicycling 380 miles to L.A. sounds like great fun to me. I am supposed to be worried about roving gangs of heavily armed thugs who will be desperately trying to steal my 20-year old bicycle, or I'm supposed to be weeping that the status quo life of "comfort" has been superceded.

I'm not trying to be contrarian here; I'm just the kind of person who likes cycling and likes a good appetite. I ride 10 miles just to clear my mind, so the idea of riding 40 miles on flat ground sounds invigorating. All the route would need is some solar-charged, battery-powered trams to carry the bikes and riders up the mountain passes. The Central Valley has lots of sun; some solar arrays along the way could charge standard battery packs so riders of electric bikes could hot-swap their batteries for a few bucks.

A few simple facilities along the way could provide shelter/food; as for road maintenance, without the pounding of 18-wheelers, the current surface would probably last a long time with minimal maintenance.

I am not talking about 100% self-sufficiency here; I'm talking about a reduction in energy consumption on the order of 85%, i.e. the nation consuming 3 millon barrels a day of oil instead of 19-20 MBD.

I'm talking about a life in which "the pursuit of happiness" is fully enabled that requires very little energy or goods. I'd be perfectly fine with a monthly allotment of $15 a month of electricity, 10 gallons of gasoline a month and a 5-gallon tank of propane for cooking. I've gotten by with less and been quite happy.

I have built a sturdy cabin 12 X 16 with a handsaw, a square, a level and a few hand tools. I can cut a 2X4 with a handsaw in the time it takes for someone to set up their electric tool. I prefer a handsaw and hand drills, screwdrivers, etc. I rarely use a power saw unless I'm under time pressure.

Yes, this requires milled lumber, and steel for saws, but once again I am not talking about pre-industrial life, I am talking about a life with modest quantities of essential industrialization which uses perhaps 15% of today's massive (and mostly squandered) energy consumption.

If 85% of today's energy consumption goes away, it's fine with me. If 85% of the Savior State goes away, that's also fine with me. If 85% of subsidized agribusiness goes away, that's fine with me, too. We'd all be better off without any high-fructose corn syrup. If factory-meat declines as a result, no loss; better to eat real meat and real food and eat less of it. Hasn't anyone noticed that eating less crappy food might actually benefit the nation's health?

I am as tired of the Apocalyptic Doom ideology as I am of the status quo ideology which holds that reinflating the housing bubble is essential or the world will end.

Midieval pilgrims walking the pilgrimage of St. Jacques de Compostelle from France to Spain routinely walked 40 or 50 kilometers a day; they were hardly Supermen and women.

The best time I've had recently is climbing 1,000 feet in Yosemite and walking 8-9 miles over packed snow in sneakers and a light coat a few weeks ago. It was about 40 degrees F. in the daytime, quite comfortable if you keep moving. I ate and slept well and we walked another 4-5 miles the following day before we had to leave. I wish I could do this all the time; it's invigorating.

Two heaping handfuls of food is enough for the day; a lot of food can be grown on a 2,000 square foot parcel; the age of sail enabled travel and trade (albeit slower than today) between distant lands. I'm tired of hearing how a reduction in a wasteful lifestyle dooms us all. If 85% of today's energy consumption goes away, life will still be good, just as it's been good for hundreds of years before fossil fuel.

And massive reductions are not even necessary. As I noted here last week in(Why I am Optimistic February 16, 2010), it's physically possible to construct an alternative energy system which generates the same power consumed today by 2030. The only lack is vision and political will, as those benefitting from the dominance of fossil fuels have a lock on the leadership of the Savior State.

I'm also tired of people who feel so confident in their predictions of the future. Here is an experiment for all those blessed with such certainty.

1. Invest $10,000 in out-of-the-money options on some market you "know" will be at a certain level/state in six months. That should easily turn the $10K into $50,000.

2. Repeat step 1, turning the $50K into $250K in another six months.

3. Repeat step 2, turning the $250K into $1.25 million in another six months.

Anyone who is "certain" about the future course of events can surely turn that knowledge to the markets, and in a mere three turns should be able to turn $10,000 into $1.25 million.

If someone can't accurately predict the markets' actions in six months, how can they possibly know what will transpire 6 years or 10 years from now?

I'm all for guessing, and I do a fair amount of guessing here. But I'm not offended if someone disagrees with me, or threatened by their lack of ideological purity. I call it guessing because it is guessing; we're all guessing. Nobody knows the future.

End of rant; we resume our usual annoying content tomorrow. I feel better getting this off my chest. And I really don't care if anyone reads this, or reads anything here. This is only an experiment in self-expression.


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The Wider Context for Twenty-Somethings (Gen Y) in America

Gen Y, your time has come. Spend the next few years of devolution preparing yourselves to lead by example as one of The Remnant.

I received an important request from a 26-year old reader, Charlie O. I try not to give unsolicited advice more than four times a week, but since Charlie was kind enough to ask me to sketch a "wider context for the experience of a twenty-something in a rapidly changing America," here goes.

This is one of the most critical tasks we face as a nation. The Boomers and their parents have crowded round the status quo's Kool-Aid bowl for decades, and as a result the nation's future now rests with Gen X (citizens in their 30s/early 40s) and Gen Y.

Even at this late date, the Boomer-controlled government and mainstream media are pushing the status quo propaganda that all you need to do is get out there and take on more debt and spend, spend, spend, and pay more taxes, of course, and everything will be just fine.

Here are Charlie's comments:

I would like to ask if you could address some issues facing younger Americans in some of your future articles. I am 26, I have a degree, and I was going to become a History teacher, but after working in the school systems for two years and witnessing its dysfunction I decided not to waste my working years in its service. Since then I have left my graduate program, internship, catering job, my apartment and my car to become a traveling farm apprentice. I started in upstate New York, then went to South Florida and now I am on my way to Illinois for the next year (and quite possibly to settle down for a while).

I simply want to convey my feeling that twenty-somethings are in a strange place. A lot of the articles about financial issues for us recent graduates that I come across seem to have a tone of admonishment as if we are "dragging our feet" or "can't get it together," when I know that many of us are savvy and doing our best. So -- they're useless, but it would be nice to have a wider context for the experience of a twenty-something in a rapidly changing America.

Thank you, Charlie, for stating the critical task so well. It is truly essential to establish the wider context. Without an integrated understanding, then all actions will be mere flailing about, misguided and largely wasted.

I know it seems like I'm always pitching my own work, but the fact remains that this "wider context" is precisely why I slaved away for a year to write the 140,000-wordSurvival+ and why I prepared a shorter version, Survival+ The Primer, for those who prefer a 140-page book to a 400-page book.

Just off the top off my head, here is a rough sketch of the wider context:

1. The status quo is doomed to implosion. Clinging to the propaganda that the American State/Empire is sustainable is self-destructive. Harbor no illusions.

The status quo cannot be "reformed," as I explain in the chapter "Insurmountable Barriers to Structural Reform." The upper-caste Elites who thrive in protected fiefdoms are mounting a full spectrum defense of the status quo. Minor tweaks in parameters ("we're raising the Medicare payment by $5 a month," "city employees agree to a 3% pay reduction," etc.) will not "save" structurally unsustainable systems.

2. Differentiate between simulacra of optimism and true optimism. The American "ethos" is supposedly "can-do," but that has devolved to a charade, a mockery and a sham of optimism. What is served up as "optimism" (everything will be fine if you shut up, keep your head down, pay your taxes and follow orders) is in fact denial on a scale so massive and pervasive that it qualifies as a cultural psychosis.

Accepting reality is optimism; denial is a sure path to self-destruction.

3. The American economy/Empire/State has a financial and cultural sickness unto death. Chimeras, illusions, delusions, denial, simulacra and facsimiles abound; artifice and propaganda rule the corporate airwaves and the State machinery. One way to start clearing your mind of propaganda is to stop watching MSM (mainstream media) TV and listening to MSM radio. Read more, watch less. Ask cui bono of all statements: to whose benefit?

4. As I noted in Why I am Optimistic, this devolution is a cause of optimism; it is truly deranged to fear the implosion of Empire, debt-serfdom, the drug-war/gulag complex, the State ruled by Protected Fiefdoms which strip-mine the middle class and the impoverishment imposed by a Financial-Rentier Power Elite.

5. Understand that the Financial-Rentier Power Elite controls the productive wealth of the nation. That is the key context to keep in mind when viewing the propaganda which attempts to present the Demopublicans as "your only choice." Both are owned lock, stock and barrel ("captured" is the current word for this) by the financial Elites.

Frequent contributor U. Doran submitted an excellent portrayal of this reality: The Economic Elite Have Engineered an Extraordinary Coup, Threatening the Very Existence of the Middle Class.

Here is researcher G. William Domhoff's summary:

In terms of types of financial wealth, the top one percent of households have 38.3% of all privately held stock, 60.6% of financial securities, and 62.4% of business equity. The top 10% have 80% to 90% of stocks, bonds, trust funds, and business equity, and over 75% of non-home real estate. Since financial wealth is what counts as far as the control of income-producing assets, we can say that just 10% of the people own the United States of America.

For reasons too complex to go into here, it is the top 1% which have the political power; the other 9% are wealthy but not politically dominant except at a local level (i.e. the real estate development interests who typically control local politics).

6. If you follow this through, it is easy to see what "the rest of us," especially young people should do: most importantly, do not take on any more debt for any reason. The Financial Plutocracy feeds off debt. It is the lifeblood of their wealth and of your impoverishment.

7. Do not count on the Savior State to pay your bills and arrange your life. As difficult as it may be, make other arrangements to care for yourself and those you care about. The Savior State has two options: destroy the currency via inflation so your Social Security check will buy a loaf of bread, or it will default on its debts and entitlements. There is not enough real money in the Universe to pay all the promises the State has made.

8. Base your self-worth on integrity, not on what you own or wear. Create anindependently constructed sense of self (Survival+ 101) which exists independently of the mass media/marketing complex ("you are nothing unless you own what we're selling"), the State ("you exist to pay taxes and take orders") and the Plutocracy ("you exist to consume and make us profit and to toil as a debt-serf").

9. Invest in yourself, not with student loans tossed into the maw of academia, but in your own experiential skillsets, social network/social wealth and well-being. Focus your energies on radical self-reliance which is founded on reciprocity ("to take care of Number One, start taking care of Numbers 2 through 9"--Survival+ 101).

10. Study, join, participate and lead voluntary, transparent, non-privileged parallel structures which exist independently of the status quo Corporatocracy and Savior State.

The mainstream media has marginalized the late 1960s/early 1970s Counterculture, but as a participant I can assure you it was a truly radical idea and structure, being entirelyvoluntary, transparent, non-privileged, networked, reciprocal and independent of the State and predatory/crony corporate interests.

I learned to fear the State. So-called "Progressives" who naively see the State as their benefactor and Savior never crossed the State's machinery of suppression. If they had, they wouldn't be so naive. The Counterculture solution was to opt out as much as possible, and that remains the best, most productive alternative to debt-serfdom, resentment and a soul-draining passivity.

As Rome crumbled, opting out was the only solution. Reform was impossible due to the entrenched interests who held sway. Taxes went up to feed the protected Elites, crushing the dwindling productive class. Government edicts were ignored, the currency was debased, etc. etc.--all the symptoms of terminal decline we see in abundance today.

11. Opt out means: pursue self-sufficiency, build social capital (Survival+ 101 again) and skillset capital, slowly assemble and own your own means of production. Seek resilient communities and entrepreneural networks. Seek to fill a niche of need; as a default setting, focus on the FEW resources: food, energy, water. Minimize debt, income and thus taxes. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, but have as little to do with Caesar as possible, with one exception:

12. Vote. Always vote, no matter how futile the gesture may seem. Vote against the incumbents, and for any voice of reason, innovation and courage (meaning anyone who says the status quo is unsustainable and borrowing trillions more to prop up Protected Fiefdoms is only hastening the implosion). Ignore party affiliations as just more mist generated by the propaganda machines. Vote for Third-Party candidates and independents.

13. A New American State is possible and indeed, inevitable. Right now the corrupted, venal, rapacious American State is dominated and controlled by parallel shadow structures of privilege which operate behind the facade of legitimate governance. The apparently powerless voluntary, transparent, non-privileged parallel structures which are slowly self-assembling will be the template for the New American State.

Yes, there is a role for government, if it is truly transparent, limited in scope and under the control of an engaged citizenry. Such a New State becomes possible when the current State implodes into insolvency.

14. Be productive. Even if you're not being paid, be productive. I pick up the trash on the curb and in the street around my neighborhood; that small work is unpaid but productive. Beauty (flowers, art, live music, etc.) is a form of social capital; ugliness, trash and passivity are core elements of the cultural sickness unto death.

15. Seek a life of hybrid work: some paid, some unpaid, some grunt work, some creative, some community/family/networked, some individual. The structural instabilities which are devolving the status quo are large-scale, but the opportunities for well-being and full-spectrum prosperity are small, local, regional, networked and individual.

You are what you do every day. When 20% of the populace have opted out then the Pareto principle suggests their influence will grow dramatically. Become one of that 20%.

There are no "disabled" people except the severely mentally ill and people who have lost all motor control. People now dismissed as "disabled" can perform useful tasks: maintaining "eyes on the street" is a useful task. Taking care of pets is useful and life-affirming. Much work can be performed online.

16. Invest in your own health by eating well, cooking well, sharing good food, and by stretching, being fit and working productively.

17. Turn off the TV, iPod, iPhone, PDA, radio, gaming device and computer for several days a week. The digital fire hose destroys reflection, contemplation, and appreciation; it fosters distraction, disorientation, anxiety, distorted thinking, depression, and passivity, which is the mortal enemy of truth, creativity, innovation, growth and beauty.

18. Prepare for leadership by leading by example. The Remnant leads by example, not talk-radio exhortations.

19. Grow some food, even if it a single tomato plant in a pot on the patio of an apartment. What you gain from this experience cannot be easily summarized.

20. Trust in failure, rejection and mistakes. They are the teachings we remember. Seek them out. Embrace the courage of learning from your mistakes and failures. Try something else; keep learning, keep building your own means of production and social capital (resilient, self-organizing, voluntary, entrepreneural, sustainable networks); seek social networks of reciprocity, avoid the Savior State mentality of entitlement/resentment.

21. Be accountable, first to yourself and then to others. Stop making excuses. The only operant phrase with any meaning is "I made a mistake, I'll do better next time."

22. Put another way: Nurture the Divine within.

23. The future will be more humane, more liveable and more fun than the tottering, rapacious status quo Empire of "eternal growth, rising consumption and never-ending debt-serfdom." Focus on learning and innovation, exploration and trying things.

24. Learn from those elders who have not drunk the status quo Kool-Aid; you will find them mostly willing teachers. Even though Baby Boomers have failed on a generational level, as individuals many have achieved incredible mastery through unceasing work and dedication. Seek them out before they pass on.

25. Innovate with new social and economic models. We have been brainwashed to see consumer electronics as "innovations" (iPhone, iPad, etc. etc.) when the truly revolutionary innovations are social and economic structures which bypass the predatory crony capitalism which has the State by the throat and the insolvent State itself.

The technology already exists to end our dependence on fossil fuels. What is lacking is the political will and the non-global-corporate/financial-rentier Elites structures to fund and build it. Don't wait around for Big Oil to own the solar power plants; raise capital via new or hybridized non-Wall Street structures on a small scale and construct a distributed, parallel, resilient, locally owned network of providers of the FEW resources. (Food, energy, water)

I have already rambled on for 140,000 words in Survival+. This is a taste of the integrated understanding I attempt to present in the book.

Emerson's dictim--"Do the thing and you will have the power"--came to mind as I read Charlie's followup email:

As an organic farming apprentice I am getting strong, healthy, solid skills and friendships with some of the most honorable and interesting people I've ever known.

Congratulations, Charlie--you are now part of the Remnant.


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Institutional Darwinism: Adapt or Perish

Technology and the financial firestorm have over-run institutions both public and private. They face a stark choice: adapt or perish.

Today we turn to two powerful concepts to help us understand the devolution of "advanced" neoliberal capitalism/State institutions. They are: institutional lag and punctuated equilibrium.

You may want to refill your coffee or tea cup because these concepts play out on multiple, interlocking levels of feedback.

My goal is to integrate these ideas into the Survival+ analysis of windfall exploitation, over-reach, profound political disunity, phase shifts, opting out,internecine conflict between protected fiefdoms, asymmetric stakes in the game,full spectrum defense of the status quo, structural stagnation and when belief in the system fades.

Correspondent Phillip H. introduced me to the concept of "institutional lag,"an idea developed by Clarence Ayres (1891–1972), author of The Theory of Economic Progress. Ayres propounded a theory of "institutional lag" between technology and social-economic institutions.

Phillip H. submitted this quote about Ayres' work:

"Ayres propounded a theory of "institutional lag" whereby technological changes inevitably kept economic technology one step ahead of inherited socio-cultural institutions.

The process of Veblenian "evolution" Ayres envisaged was that technological changes were generated by spurts of instinctive inventive activity to innovate in technological processes but that the relatively slow, inherited socio-economic structures would be maladapted to these changes. With glacier-like gradualness, institutions would eventually respond to the new technology, but by the time they adjusted, the next round of inventive activity would have been skipping along further ahead, thus maintaining a permanent lag and thus incogruity between social structures and economic technology."

I was immediately struck by the similarity of these concepts to the notion ofPunctuated Equilibrium in the study of natural selection and adaptation in Nature. Initially, naturalists reckoned that organisms adapted to changes in their environment at a slow, steady rate. Given the immense time frames being studied--millions of years of adaptation and species development--this was understandable.

But the fossil record revealed a less orderly reality: species remained more or less the same for long periods of time (in equilibrium with their environment) and then experienced brief periods of rapid, profound change: equilibrium punctuated by spikes of adaptation in response to abrupt changes in the environment.

In other words: adapt or perish. Punctuated equilibrium is a commonsensical idea; if a creature is already well adapted to its environment--say, the shark--then there is no selective pressure to change. But should some profound climate change occur, then the organism must adapt rapidly or the species will perish.

Perishing is normal. Evolutionary biologist Ernest Mayr estimated that perhaps as many as 50 billion species have evolved on Earth, and only a fraction remain alive today.

Is change "good"? That is a value judgment; all we can say is that change is necessary. The only other option is to perish.

There is no "one rate of change/adaptation" in punctuated equilibrium:

Richard Dawkins dedicated a chapter in The Blind Watchmaker to correcting, in his view, the wide confusion with rate of change, surrounding the theory of punctuated equilibrium. His first, and main point, is to argue that phyletic gradualism in the sense of uniformity of rates--what he refers to as "constant speedism"—is a "caricature of Darwinism" and "does not really exist."

His second argument, which follows from the first, is that once this caricature is dismissed, we are left with only one logical alternative, which Dawkins calls "variable speedism." Variable speedism may be distinguished in one of two ways: "discrete variable speedism" and "continuously variable speedism."

Eldredge and Gould, believing that evolution jumps between stability and relative rapidity, are described as "discrete variable speedists," and "in this respect they are genuinely radical." They believe that evolution generally proceeds in bursts, or not at all.

"Continuously variable speedists," on the other hand believe that "evolutionary rates fluctuate continuously from very fast to very slow and stop, with all intermediates. They see no particular reason to emphasize certain speeds more than others. In particular, stasis, to them, is just an extreme case of ultra-slow evolution. To a punctuationist, there is something very special about stasis.(emphasis added: CHS)

In other words, the stasis enjoyed by employees and fiefdoms of government and other large-scale institutions only appears "normal". In reality, the last 60 years of "stable growth" and "rising taxes/prosperity" were based on two historical accidents which are ending: abundant cheap oil and favorable demographics--an exploding population which enabled vastly expensive defense and social programs to be funded by ever-larger future generations.

There is an element of Losing the Red Queen's Race here as well. The protected fiefdoms of the State and other institutions are mounting a full spectrum defense of the status quo by borrowing trillions of dollars to maintain their salaries, benefits, pensions and perquisites, and by selling the notion that raising taxes is necessary to "protect the services you want."

But this is the Red Queen's Race writ large: the more the State fiefdoms succeed in raising taxes, the more businesses will fold and the more taxpayers will opt out. The State is already seeing tax revenues plummet as sales, transactional churn, wages and profits all drop precipitously. As the body of taxable income and transactions drops, then those dependent on State swag/taxes must raise taxes on the remaining Plantation Debt-Serfs to stay in the same place, i.e. keep their "guaranteed" incomes, benefits and pensions.

A peach tree provides an insightful example of how punctuated equilibrium works on a small scale. I have a peach tree as well as a citrus tree, so I have observed how each responds to stress (cold, drought, etc.) and abundance ("perfect" growing conditions).

In prime growing seasons, the peach tree will produce so many blossoms and then fruit that the weight of the fruit exceeds the carrying capacity of the branch, and the branch will snap off.

This is Nature's method of "pruning." Rather rough and ready, with unsightly results, but this is how the peach tree survives windfall exploitation: when conditions are good, the tree over-produces, exploiting the windfall of water, sun and soil fertility. In effect, it quite literally over-reaches and the overloaded branch breaks.

In the windfall of post-war cheap oil and expansion of credit, the State and its minions, fiefdoms and dependents (defense contractors, sickcare, etc.) expanded to exploit that windfall.

Now the State has over-reached; there is no way the non-State economy can fund the State's revenues without breaking. (That's the nature of debt-serfdom; most income goes to paying debt, so there is only so much left to fund State swag).

In response, the Federal government has borrowed $1.5 trillion a year, fully 40% of its entire revenues, to fill the gap between what the private sector can pay without breaking and what the State demands as "normal" (the fundamentally "abnormal" stasis it has come to believe is "equilibrium").

By throwing hundreds of billions of dollars into local government, the central State has put off the reality of this disequilibrium for a year. But now states, counties and cities are facing tens of billions of further reductions in revenues; they are losing the Red Queen's Race.

Government at all levels has a single adaptation strategy: raise taxes on the dwindling productive class. Here in California, the Democratic political machine has a single goal to adapt to changing financial realities: persuade the public to change the rules so the Democratic-dominated State Legistlature can raise taxes by a simple majority.

To re-establish equilibrium, the State seeks a spike in tax revenues.Unfortunately for the State's factotums, they are not a majority of citizens, and so their consensus "adaptation"--sharply higher taxes and junk fees, across the board--is creating a profound political disunity.

Since their income depends on maintaining State swag/tax revenues, they have anasymmetric stake in the game: to maintain their desired "equilibrium," they will throw every ounce of energy and political power into raising taxes. The only other "adaptation" they pursue is internecine conflict between protected fiefdoms, that is, political in-fighting to protect their share of the swag at the expense of some other protected fiefdom.

While the State's protected fiefdoms demand that taxes rise (in effect, running faster to stay in the same place), the non-State productive class sees only devolution: poor service from the bloated State which is completely at odds with the rising costs of supporting the State, and with declines in their own wealth and income.

Unfortunately for the institutions currently living on borrowed money, they are also living on borrowed time. At some point, a phase shift will occur and the Red Queen's Race will be lost: the branch will suddenly break. At some point, the world will awaken to find there isn't enough money in the Universe to fund all the government debt being sold to fund protected fiefdoms worldwide.

And the "adaptation" of simply printing money to buy its own debt has consequences: the destruction of the currency.

Both institutional lag and the State's defense of the status quo--are examples of structural stagnation. Nothing is really changing; simulacra are being presented as reality, accounting trickery is being deployed to mask the rot at the heart of the State's finances (Federal, state and local government), and those not dependent on State tax revenues have only one option when their belief in the system fades: opt out. Buy less (thus generating less sales and transaction tax), work less (generating less income tax), shutter their businesses (reducing junk fees, employment, etc.) and move to lower-tax climes (overseas or low-tax states).

The State is helpless to stem this rising tide of opting out. Technology and the implosion of credit/asset bubble economies has opened an institutional lag of unprecedented depth and width; raising junk fees and taxes to fill this Grand Canyon is The Red Queen's Race: the State demands everyone run faster to stay in the same place, but people can choose another adaptation: stop running.

Institutions, like all organisms faced with profound changes in their ecological niche, have a harsh choice: either make radical adaptations to align with reality, or perish.

I know it seems like I'm always pitching my own work, but the fact remains that this analysis stems from the 140,000-word Survival+ and Survival+ The Primer, the abridged 140-page version.

Note of apology: Due to the laziness of some clerks at the U.S. Post Office who did not process my packages properly, some books I mailed last week were returned and hence delayed. Not only do I have to stand in line because the books weigh more than 13 ounces, I must now select competent clerks lest the books be returned. My apologies for the unexpected delay.


If you haven't visited the forum, here's a place to start. Click on the link below and then select "new posts." You'll get to see what other oftwominds.com readers and contributors are discussing/sharing.

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Order Survival+: Structuring Prosperity for Yourself and the Nation and/orSurvival+ The Primer from your local bookseller or from amazon.com or inebook and Kindle formats. A 20% discount is available from the publisher.

Of Two Minds is now available via Kindle: Of Two Minds blog-Kindle

Thank you, Robert B. ($10), for your very generous contribution via mail to this site. I am greatly honored by your support and readership.

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Losing the Red Queen's Race

The Red Queen's Race is an apt analogy for the meltdown in assets and debt now swamping the global economy.

The Red Queen's race refers to running very fast to stay in the same place. As asset values fall globally (except where massive government stimulus has pushed the day of reckoning forward a bit), debt holders are frantically paying down or writing down debt--running very fast--but finding themselves in the same place--zero equity--despite their prodigious efforts.

I've prepared a chart to illustrate The Red Queen's Race in assets and debt:

Owning an asset as it catapults ever higher in a credit/asset bubble offers a fateful temptation to leverage that rising equity ("free money") or extract it to enjoy. Millions of speculators did so by borrowing against their stocks (margin accounts) and tens of millions did so by borrowing against their home equity via second mortgages or HELOCs (home equity lines of credit).

Alas, when the asset bubbles bursts, values quickly begin a long and painful retrace to pre-bubble valuations. In very short order, those who bought with high leverage or borrowed 90% of their equity find themselves underwater, owing more than the value of their asset/property.

Those with 80% of bubble-top value mortgages who cling to the hope of a rapid recovery in valuations soon find they too are underwater.

Lenders who thought they were "safe" extending 80%-of-value loans at the bubble top find their 1-2% reserves against losses are woefully inadequate as assets continue their ceaseless decline to rational valuations.

In a desperate attempt to stave off losing the Red Queen's Race, The Federal Reserve essentially hands the banks billions in easy profits, loaning them unlimited funds at near-zero interest rates so they can "re-capitalize" by loaning their unlimited "free money" at higher rates of interest.

But even the incantations and legerdemaine of the Fed are no match for the inexorable punishment of running in place just to avoid falling behind; no matter how fast the Fed-induced profits flow, they cannot gain on the declining assets. Banks pocket billions yet their net equity remains far below zero.

At some point, the lender or owner tires of writing down or paying down debt to no avail, and they lose the Red Queen's Race. Having lost, some lenders, owners and even governments (see Japan, Inc. for a woeful example) maintain the fiction that equity is above zero by continuing the fraud of pricing assets at "mark to fantasy" valuations.

In other words, they list a mortgage at full nominal value, as if the underlying asset--the house--was still worth more than the mortgage.

Here's the desperate game being played now on a global scale: mark the debt as if the bubble had never burst ("mark to fantasy") in the hopes that government stimulus and lending will re-inflate the bubble, enabling owners and lenders alike to exit the asset at a price which makes them whole (no losses incurred).

That is the entire raison d'etre for quantitative easing, near-zero interest rates and massive support of the mortgage markets, from China to the U.S.If only another generation of suckers can be conned into believing that bubble prices are "rational" and can even be exceeded (greed is not just good, it is necessary), then various financial Elites can exit their liquidity and debt traps by selling at the "new top."

Unfortunately for global financial Elites and homeowners alike, there has never been a bubble which was reinflated for long. Running faster (expanding credit in a futile attempt to spark another bubble frenzy) never wins the Red Queen's Race, but it certainly sets up a higher bubble and a catastrophic exhaustion of credit, debt and belief in the system (loss of institutional credibility).

Welcome to the Red Queen's Race, which can only be lost. Writing down debt as assets fall is simply staying in one place. At some point the runners--lenders and debtors alike--tire of maintaining the futile fiction that "equity" still exists, and the race is lost: losses are finally accepted, debt is renounced, and bankruptcy wipes out the fictional equity.

We might call this inevitable reconciliation with reality the Red Queen's Revenge.

Note of apology: Due to the laziness of some clerks at the U.S. Post Office who did not process my packages properly, some books I mailed last week were returned and hence delayed. Not only do I have to stand in line because the books weigh more than 13 ounces, I must now select competent clerks lest the books be returned. My apologies for the unexpected delay.


Special offer: receive signed copies of both Survival+ ($19.95) and Chris Sullins' strategic action thriller Operation SERF ($14.99) for a donation of $33.33 to this site via PayPal. Perhaps it is mere fantasy or wishful thinking, but I thought a few readers might like signed copies of both books. At my request, Chris signed 10 copies of his novel and sent them to me, seven have already been spoken for so a maximum of 3 readers can avail themselves of this offer.

Since ordering the books costs $34.94 on amazon, and since I have some small affection for the days of vinyl albums, the price has been arbitrarily set at $33.33, shipping included.

Will signed copies have any value? That is unknown, but I can guarantee thatSurvival+ will eventually be issued in a 3rd edition at a higher price, so this 2nd edition is a limited run. I have signed about 60 copies as a token of my appreciation for those contributors and subscribers who have been outrageously generous ($40 or more). As it stands, that's the only way to get a signed copy, other than this little special offer.

In other news: Luke, the proprietor of the always provocative blogsuburbanempire.com recently interrogated me at length--the results are posted on his blog. Thank you, Luke, for the opportunity to spout off even more absurdly than I do here....


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Order Survival+: Structuring Prosperity for Yourself and the Nation and/orSurvival+ The Primer from your local bookseller or from amazon.com or inebook and Kindle formats. A 20% discount is available from the publisher.

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Why I am Optimistic

I am optimistic about the future because the status quo is doomed and better options abound.

One of the characteristics readers seem to like about oftwominds.com is that fundamentally I am an optimist about the future, even as I trace out the inevitability of the status quo's devolution and implosion.

The two are inextricably bound in a yin-yang, electron/proton field: I am hopeful for the very reason that the status quo is doomed. Instead of being terrified of its devolution, I say "good riddance." We all know it is unsustainable, rapacious and based on an interlocking net of lies; why should we mourn the passing of debt-serfdom and the dominance of interlocking webs of deceit, corruption and exploitation?

I am optimistic for the reasons laid out in Survival+: voluntary, transparent, non-privileged parallel organizations and productive structures are self-assembling under the leadership-by-example of The Remnant. Once 20% of the populace is permanently unemployed and permanently lost to the consumerist corporatocracy/Savior State status quo, then the Pareto principle suggests The Remant's influence will grow rapidly.

Many people expect some sort of rapid implosion of social order into violent chaos. While anything is possible, my research into the devolution of the Roman Empire persuaded me that the Roman Empire remains the best available the model for our future: a slow decline and unwinding of Empire and the Savior State.

Why might it be slow? As I have explained at length in Survival+, various feedback loops are actively resisting collapse. History is not a vector so much as a slowly orbiting mass of complex feedback loops.

Devolution is not a chaotic mob of armed thugs rampaging. Such a concentration is relatively easy to control or simply liquidate by force. The State excels at violence and control, so rampaging mobs would be the State's preferred "domestic enemy."

Devolution is this: half the toilets in the Chemistry building no longer work, and they aren't being fixed nor will they be fixed. The city/county/state can't print money, and as the public unions demand higher taxes to fund their Protected Fiefdoms, then the compliant State and its parallel shadow structures of privilege will comply, raising junk fees and taxes on the dwindling class of still-productive citizenry.

This feedback loop has a consequence the Status Quo fails to understand: rather than toil ever longer to pay exploitative taxes, the productive can choose to opt out. As I have ceaselessly explained here, the Protected Fiefdoms of the Savior State simply cannot grasp that entrepreneurs and small business owners have a choice: they do not have to work long hours and endure hardships just to support the Savior State and its numerous Protected Fiefdoms. They can simply call it quits, close the doors and opt for a simpler lifestyle which generates no taxes and much less stress.

Many people moan that the U.S. is becoming a "Third World country." I say, good; life is better in a well-ordered Third World country than in a debt-serf Empire. Not all Third World countries are equal; those hobbled by corruption, dictatorship, poor infrastructure and education, etc. are truly wretched. But those "developing nations" with lesser shares of these burdens can actually be better places to live than crumbling empires based on killing commutes, endlessly higher debts and a mindlessly self-destructive culture seeking ever-higher doses of self-medication.

Maintaining or improving the infrastructure of the U.S. requires a mere slice of the GDP. Maintaining or improving sewage, water, rail/transport electrical and Internet systems requires very little money compared to the trillions squandered on Empire, bailing out various Financial/Power Elites and the 70% of the GDP squandered on "consumerist paradise."

Were priorities to be re-ordered, a Third World GDP would be more than adequate to fund a functioning, efficient infrastructure. The money wasted on Empire and sickcare alone could rebuild the entire nation's critical infrastructure.

No one is forcing us to be debt-serfs. That is a voluntary choice. Nobody has to work two jobs to pay the bloated mortgage on a house which is high in cost due to large-scale financial manipulations by the Savior State to benefit various financial Elites. Nobody has to agree to buy a bloated house and take on a bloated mortgage, or pay $3,000 per month for a crummy studio apartment in Manhattan to toil for a parasitic financial corporation.

Interestingly, much of the Counterculture of the late 1960s and early 1970s was founded on the understanding that a "Third World country" lifestyle was inherently more humane and worthy than the commuter-debt-serf model of Empire.

The Counterculture was voluntary and incremental. You could pick and choose which parts of it to join. You could be a "straight" and buy your food at the co-op. It existed in parallel with the status quo, which quickly co-opted whatever features gained widespread appeal. ("Natural" products appeared as if by magic on the shelves of supermarkets.)

Nobody has to change agribusiness dependence on growing corn and producing high-fructose corn syrup to inject in essentially every packaged and fast food; as the Savior State founders, its subsidies of agribusiness will decline, rendering growing corn for sugar unprofitable. Those pursuing that model of "farming" will either go bankrupt or they will pursue some other model of growing food that is not mandated by subsidies for Protected Fiefdoms.

When people become ill from self-destructive diets and lifestyles, and the Savior State no longer pays for sickcare treatments of these lifestyle ills, then they will choose other lifestyles. Choice isn't capitalist or "free market;" it is human. We all have choices, and when the trade-offs and subsidies and incentives change, so will the choices.

When opting out of the work-harder-to-pay-more-taxes rat race becomes recognized not as "failure" but as freedom and blessed relief, then more people will opt out to do something else with their lives.

"Failure" is what we have now. "Success" is what lies ahead as the status quo loses its revenue stream and the Protected Fiefdoms of the Savior State engage in internecine conflict over the remaining spoils. The parallel shadow structures of privilege will continue buying influence within the Savior State, but as the State itself devolves, so too will the power of the Financial Power Elites.

We are not crippled or beholden to the financial Plutocracy. There are other options at every step of the way. Consider this article from Scientific American: A Plan to Power 100 Percent of the Planet with Renewables by 2030: Wind, water and solar technologies can provide 100 percent of the world's energy, eliminating all fossil fuels. Here's how.

You will have to visit your library to read the entire article, but the gist of it is this: from a physics point of view, it is a straightforward project to harvest a large enough slice of the renewable power sources which exist in abundance to power the planet.

Will such a project be cost-free or free of problems? Of course not. But you need only look at the desperate and unceasing propaganda issued by Big Oil and its well-compensated partner, the Savior State, to sense that the status quo is terrified of losing control of the revenue stream of global energy.

If they control the transition to renewables, then Big Oil is very keen on the project. But if alternative structures arise which are not dependent on Big Oil, then renewable energy will be "death by decentralization" to at least that slice of the financial Power Elite.

We are not enslaved or crippled; voluntary, transparent, non-privileged, parallel organizations and productive structures are possible. We choose what we support with every purchase and every decision, just as we choose our lifestyle by what electronic devices we turn off or on every day and by what we put in our mouths three times a day.


If you haven't visited the forum, here's a place to start. Click on the link below and then select "new posts." You'll get to see what other oftwominds.com readers and contributors are discussing/sharing.

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Order Survival+: Structuring Prosperity for Yourself and the Nation and/or Survival+ The Primer from your local bookseller or from amazon.com or in ebook and Kindle formats.A 20% discount is available from the publisher.

Of Two Minds is now available via Kindle: Of Two Minds blog-Kindle

Thank you, Isabelle G. ($120), for your outrageously generous contribution to this site from Hong Kong. I am greatly honored by your support and readership.

Thank you, Russell J. ($50), for your extremely generous contribution to this site. I am greatly honored by your support and readership.

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