Winter Patriot Community Blog

I came across this excellent article from Joe Bageant last night and thought it very appropos to what we have been talking about here. And it now seems appropriate to copy it here in full.
Joe asks an important question, "Not to be a smart ass or snide, but let me ask: How much do you love your fellow man? Or do you merely want to save your own ass? "

To see the original, go here to Joe Bageant's excellent site (Italics below are mine for clarity in reading, james)

There ain't no escape from collapse

Joe,

In response to a letter from a reader (Joe, why did you crap out on us?), you wrote: "Places like Ecuador, northern California -- all sorts of places -- creating little spots of sustainability as best as possible."

Since the US is the nexus of all the fraud, empire, control, and will thus be the center of the pain in the upcoming financial collapse (AND contains a huge percentage of "useless eaters", i.e. superfluous workers) have you given any thought as to where the best places/countries in the world will be to "hang out" while the Collective Madness and Economic Collapse take over?

Thanks,
Kevin

------

Kevin,

Well, I don't think it's possible to "hang out" until the collapse is over. For starters, it could take 50 years. Or it could take five years. If we knew, more people would probably get off their asses, even in America. But I don't think it will be all at once, or even recognizable at any given moment to techno-hybridized Americans on the ground. For example, most Americans STILL do not recognize the irreversible ecological collapse so well underway. More aware thinkers are calling this "denial," but it is not. They are simply experiencing the world they see before them, as honestly as their senses and experience permit. And that ain't much.

Thanks to technology and layers upon layers of mediation by TV, movies, the Internet, etc., gadgets and manufactured imagery, we all live many steps removed from reality. Collapse is symbolized to each of us in different ways. To some it would be the sustained malfunction and lack of access of the Internet, which is surely coming.

Incidentally, this will be capitalized upon by privatizing the net and selling access at a much higher price, just as with oil. Of course they will experience it as "the consumers" they have been reduced to. So they will see it as bad guys charging money for things that used to be free. Given that their consciousness is a product of technology and its false promise of solutions and endless plentitude, they can never understand that everything is a finite resource and that technology itself can reach such a point of complexity as to be unsustainable. Even your laptop and router is made of petroleum and both eat oil or coal.

Others might perceive collapse as banking failure, given their absolute belief that money is the blood of society -- a capitalist hallucination if ever there was one. My point is that many will not even understand that collapse is going on because capitalism will provide excuses and more fake solutions at ever higher prices -- mainly at the expense of the world's poor and defenseless of course -- until it can no longer extract from them through banking, military force, or other means. This slows down the inevitable and helps the western world maintain its disastrous belief systems. None of which answers your question, but I just had to say it.

There is really no "safe place" to run. For instance, the banking system may utterly fail; actually, it already has, yet no one is calling for an entirely new system. This shows you both the thoroughness of indoctrination of the American people, and the astuteness of the overlords who profit from the masses. Gasoline for cars can become nearly unavailable, and energy prices can become exorbitant, as they are becoming in the UK. And again, people will slowly learn to suck it up, and the system will roll on for a while longer. The more perceptive among them will dream, and are now dreaming, of escape.

Escape as they conceive it does not exist. The ongoing collapse manifests itself in the least developed world too, and even harsher terms: hunger, lack of water, warfare, government corruption, infrastructure collapse, crime. It's a planetary problem and no one escapes that. They just experience it in different ways.

The question is not so much where to do it as how to do it. The question is not "Where can I run to to escape?" It is "What sorts of problems can I best deal with?" To my mind, you cannot deal with them alone, despite the romantic imagery of being "off the grid" on some homestead growing your own food. Yes, there are people doing that successfully. But it has been my experience that they are people who've wanted to do that for a long time, and that they are the kind of people suited to deal with the problems that come with that life. I've done it and believe me, it's not for the average American, who is, quite frankly speaking, incompetent in the ways of the earth. It's a very long learning curve, even if you grew up on a farm. You don't just stick seeds in the ground and wait for your food. Every spot on the earth is unique and you have to come to understand the place you are, which takes time, error and dedication.

Not to be a smart ass or snide, but let me ask: How much do you love your fellow man? Or do you merely want to save your own ass? By now you must know the answer. From what I've seen, a person can be honest with himself on this matter, then pursue either route more effectively.

If you have the temperament and character to readily love other people around you, and the willingness to labor solely for sustenance, community and friendship, then there are countless options. Because that's what most of the rest of world's people do every day, if allowed to. So you could do that in any number of places on the planet, especially here in the New World south of the US. You can do it in literally thousands of places, some of which are in the US. I get emails from all over. But I don't give out contacts anymore because I learned the hard way in Belize that human chemistry is a complex thing. And most Americans do not come into approximately sustainable situations with either the social skills or the willingness to sacrifice for the group. Hell, some Americans starting up such communities don't have those qualities.

Yet, believe me, just being in a place where life is more fundamental and simple, if hard, goes a long way toward peace of mind and discovering human normalcy. It's the learning ground. And usually one learns that people who escape at least some of the ravages of our slow collapse, always seem to do it in cooperation with a community of some sort. Either an already existing one, or an intentional one they create between themselves.

There's nothing new in this, of course. Latin America and the world have countless communities hundreds of year old. Governments come and go, rivers dry up, but the people always have tortillas, one way or another. Americans and Europeans usually see these people as poor, thanks to our heavy social conditioning, industrialization and commoditized consciousness -- not to mention the denial of the effects of colonialism by Euro-American culture. We see no connection between our iPods, high speed wireless, and, say, the present condition of the Haitian or Dominican people.

Anyway, to me, this is the bottom line:

There is no escape in the sense Americans and European culture thinks of escape. Which is mainly running away to a place where you will get something for nothing in a new and different way -- in this case, security and safety from the storm -- and also keep some or most of the stuff and gadgetry and ease that has come to represent "quality of life."

Unless you are rich, this is impossible. And rich these days, including here in Mexico, means so fucking well heeled that even a 90% devaluation cannot hurt you. Oh, there are retirees still living down here on the last shreds of the glory days of the empire. They will tell you there is nothing wrong up there, because they are still getting their checks. But I'm not seeing many newcomers join their ranks. Not at that level. Beyond that, the empire never goes away. It always claims you as its "citizen," which is to say its property. And lately the empire has been extending its tentacles toward expats, in order to extract new money for its failed system.

The rest of us, the non-rich who would prefer to take a shot at some different life -- and just about anything will do in the dark of the night when it is gnawing at your guts -- must choose another way to cross the border (the "gringo wetbacks"). But always we run up against the same barrier, the same closed gateway to what we suspect is greater satisfaction and peace of mind, but increasingly cannot afford the price of admission, if we play the same old brainwashed money game.

I have come to think the price of admission anywhere in the world, (except in America and Europe, where enough dough will get your ass kissed in any circles) is service to others. We have been indoctrinated by an earth devouring capitalist system to believe otherwise. Believe that giving only depletes. And that mankind and civilization came about through kings and warriors and "great men." But the essential glue of man the social animal has always been on cooperation and sharing. That an endless stream of elite thieves have always managed to steal the fruits of that cooperation does not matter. And the best that is in man still rests on the same fundamentals -- cooperation for the greater good of all.

So I would suggest that in planning for the future, you first spend many days pondering the question: How can I best go about giving up the world as I have known it -- which, after all, is the root of our pain and of our catastrophe -- and serve others every day and in as many ways large and small as possible. In other words, sacrifice. In truth, the sacrifice will not be sacrifice, but liberation, because Americans are buried under so much material shit and petty notions as to entitlement, that shedding such things is a blessing. A gift.

From that vantage point you can "watch the collapse" while you help put up a pole barn in Oregon or make love in a Patagonian mountain shack after a hard day of well digging, or smoke a joint in utter relaxation after rescuing orphans from the streets of Guadalajara. And chances are that the collapse of the empire will not much cross your mind.

There is no escape, but there is freedom. And if our fellow Americans long ago forgot that, well, one can still get there alone.

But it's not for the faint of heart.

In art and labor,

Joe

I added a new forum category "Just For Fun" to the General Forum. Obviously, I had way too much time on my hands today coupled with a need to get away from all this investigating the dark side.

There is a new post there titled "The King of the World and The Boysen Bill".

Snip:
"WPIA (Winter Patriot Intelligence Agency)

CLASSIFIED
Forward on a 'need to know' basis only

Dear Sally,

RE: The King of the World election and a proposal for the enactment of The Poysen Pill Boysen Bill

As you know, it's become increasing obvious that James is positioning himself to make a run for King of the World..."

And piling onto Ghandi's archived gem, you may also like to check out some of our excellent forum articles and maps stored here.

I remember being shocked at the brazen chutzpah of this late 2006 political endorsement from the neocons' favourite bankers. It was like the Batman beacon flashing across the sky of Gotham City, but this was no Hollywood movie.

For anyone who was paying attention, the truth was all too plain to see. Alas, those who knew what was going on were mostly applauding madly, queuing up for favours, and raking in the money. The rest of us could go f--- ourselves.

Some midnight musings from the always thought provoking Joe Bageant. His take on 'hope for America' is sobering and perhaps timely considering some of our recent discussions.

"Americans are hope fiends. We always see hope somewhere down every road, chiefly because honestly looking at the present situation would destroy just about everything we hold as reality. Personally, as I often state and catch readership hell for, I do not like hope. When Obama ran it up the flagpole for us to salute, and so many saluted, my blood chilled. Made me feel that we were all in deeper shit than I had supposed...Hope is magic thinking, believing that somehow, some larger unknown force is in motion to set things right.

The world is what it is, and its injustices are set right by peoples and nations morally intact enough to challenge its malevolent forces."

Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good. - Gandhi

On the Sunday after the 9/11 attacks, Vice-President Cheney appeared on Meet The Press, where he famously told the late Tim Russert the following:

"We also have to work, though, sort of the dark side, if you will. We’ve got to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world. A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies, if we’re going to be successful. That’s the world these folks operate in, and so it’s going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal, basically, to achieve our objective."

Cheney's fascination with the dark side has produced a country that fears shadowy villains, and a society that, on the surface, is psychologically unable to examine the slimy details of what the dark side truly entails, and who governs it. The election of Obama did not stop America's dance with death in the dark side, in fact, the music of violence is now even louder, and the movement of the empire's steps are speeding up. It seems like the party in the war room won't crash until the roof caves in. But we have to avert that. Obama is already singing the tune of a war with Iran. And we all know, that the ramifications of an attack on Iran for humanity and modern civilization are beyond unthinkable.

The suffering caused by such a earth-shattering attack will either unleash mass love, or mass violence. And my money is on the latter. But since I don't have any money, I'm working to unleash mass love. That is the reason why I write. If I don't try to create a deeper public understanding of the crises that are currently facing us, and expand the potentialities for forgiveness, justice, and societal restoration, then I will have let myself down.

In order to gain some understanding, we can't be afraid to examine the many troubling truths about the lack of democracy, justice, and liberty in contemporary society. To be clear, America's fall into tyranny started generations ago. Many people believe that the creation of the Federal Reserve began the whole ordeal, but even before 1913, state terrorism was an everyday reality for Black Americans, so we have to ask ourselves, when has America ever been truly free for all its peoples? No era comes to mind.

A lot of progressives have the unhistorical notion that the Bush Administration is responsible for anything and everything that is bad in America. But that view is way too narrow. The CIA operated in the dark side long before Cheney, so although Cheney is best suited to put on a Darth Vader mask, the derailment of American democracy and the attack on public liberty did not not begin during the Bush Administration, and it has not even begun to reach its apex.

Joan Mellen, author of "A Farewell to Justice" believes that the crisis of democracy was brought about by the assassination of President Kennedy, a sitting head of state, and the immediate cover-up by the American government and the mass media. In her speech entitled "How the Failure To Identify, Prosecute and Convict President Kennedy's Assassins Has Led To Today's Crisis Of Democracy," delivered on January 24, 2006 in New York, Mellen said:

"I would like to suggest that the truth about the Kennedy assassination, far from being a matter of interest only to historians, and not even to most of them, will help us understand how we have arrived at a point where people as respectable as New York attorney Martin Garbus are comparing the current U.S. government with the rise of fascism in the mid-twentieth century. It's my belief that the present state of our political culture is a direct result of the fact that those responsible for the murder of President Kennedy have never been brought to justice.

To sum up: “A Farewell To Justice” suggests that the clandestine service of the CIA not only covered up the truth about the Kennedy assassination - that's easy to demonstrate from the four million documents now residing at the National Archives - but organized the event itself. That the CIA escaped without penalty, this extraordinary fact, has been integrated over these forty-two years into the body politic. It has produced a political culture where the unthinkable has become accepted practice. Meaningful freedom of the press has fallen into serious jeopardy."

Mellen also mentions the ever-dominant National Security State, which pretends to shepherd the weak and protect them from foreign enemies, but as it turns out, the dangers facing America's liberties and well-being originate from the military establishment itself. As Stephanie Westbrook writes in "Occupied Washington, DC," the always present military establishment does not serve America's national interest. People who are kept in constant fear are less secure, and less willing to defend themselves because they believe that they require protectors to get out of any dangerous situation. And the corruption of violence by the country's ungrateful leaders trickles down to potential revolutionaries who view the path of violence as the only path to redress grievances. As Westbrook says:

"The signs of militarism in our country are ever-present to the point of becoming virtually invisible, while subconsciously persuading us to accept violence and war as not only a suitable solution to conflict, but the only one."

Commentators on the Left fear that right-wing militias could resort to violence to overthrow such corrupt leaders, but rarely do they take a step further, and critique the full-blown police state, that has been masked with a young and liberal face. They are forgetting a key lesson from Martin Luther King Jr. How can you object against violence by the oppressed, and say nothing of the violence by the government oppressors? Dark deeds are not being advanced in foreign lands alone, but in places all across America, in Waco, LA, New York, and every other city. It's not just the CIA who acts in the dark side, but many government agencies do.

Wendy McElroy lists the characteristics of a police state in her article, "When is a government a police state," and according to her, America is a police state, but the judgment is not final. There is still hope she says. But not if we shut our eyes to agencies like the BATFE and crimes like the Waco slaughter. McElroy:

"In America today, enforcement agencies often act with no accountability whatsoever. For example, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) is notorious for invading homes without warrants, destroying property and harassing legitimate gun owners. Even the dozens of deaths caused by BATFE's 1992 armed seige and storming of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas did not bring down penalties against BATFE or its agents. Instead, BATFE continues to operate with neither transparency nor accountability. Indeed, it operates virtually 'in secret', which is another characteristic of a police state."

If those on the Left wants to get serious, then they must join forces with anti-war libertarians and conservatives, and make it their chief aim to hold such corrupt agencies accountable, and end the illegal wars overseas. Silence in the face of institutional murder and crime has undermined America's democracy, national pride, and the people's liberties. It is no longer acceptable to tolerate wide-scale government abuse and fraud. A new political coalition, made of principled progressives and principled libertarians, along with the many politically independents, is not a pipe dream anymore, it can become a reality.

"The Accountability Movement," as described by authors Kristina Borjesson, Charlotte Dennett, and Peter Dale Scott, can become politically feasible as public anger continues to rises, and the crimes of the government are further exposed. People across the political spectrum can come to very substantial agreements and move forward in union. Justice is not a partisan issue. Everyone has a stake in creating a just world. Where we go wrong is when we try to recruit others to our political sides, and get mad if they refuse to join us. Many progressives are eying disgruntled students, the unemployed, and returning vets, as potential progressive fighters, but what they don't seem to realize is that it's not about left vs. right anymore. It's about preserving the Constitution, restoring civil liberties, restricting government bailouts to Wall Street, and holding America's criminal leaders accountable for their crimes. I'm sure a wide political tent can be created to voice that agenda. And it doesn't have to a progressive label or a libertarian label on it.

The country is in such a dangerous state that stationing oneself one on political camp, and fighting for potential converts to one's side, is anti-productive, and very stupid. Party, class, and race differences must be laid side for the country, the Constitution and the rule of law. To say that America, and Canada as well, is under a military occupation is not as paranoid as it once sounded. This blog describes the twenty reasons why America might be a fascistic police state. The good news that can come from such a situation is that under an occupation, people generally tend to come together to throw the occupiers out, and restore popular sovereignty and their liberties. The problem is that the propaganda in America is so huge that to suggest the country is under a military occupation makes you an outcast. But I hope that will change, as people's experience and knowledge of the present evil system grows, and come to discover that the national interest can be served by coming together, and then to collectively face the national dark side rather than deny the truth and divide oneself along traditional class, race, and party lines.

When WWII ended, George Orwell wrote that the people of Europe learned a very significant lesson about the reality of national survival under Nazi rule. "The experience of German occupation," said Orwell, "taught the European peoples something that the colonial peoples knew already, namely, that class antagonisms are not all-important and that there is such a thing as national interest." In a fully-expressed police state, Americans may too realize that, and even reach into its own history to see how a people united in liberty can defy tyranny.

The articles that are mentioned in this post are linked at my blog, if you want to read them in full.

http://disquietreservations.blogspot.com/2010/04/facing-dark-side-bipart...

My physical condition, which has precluded my blogging for most of the past year, has taken a sudden and unexpected turn -- for the better!

I am still struggling with pain (and painkillers!) and still having problems with mobility and strength, but these aspects of my daily grind are much improved recently.

I expect to be able to blog again, if only on a very limited basis.

None too soon, I might add.

"Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movement well and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us." - Martin Luther King Jr. (April 4, 1967)

Exactly a year after Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a speech about America's moral responsibility in the world and its unsustainable militarism, he was assassinated. The date of his death has probably had a greater effect on the nation's psyche than December 7, 1941, when the Japanese struck Pearl Harbor. In his speech, the revolutionary non-violent sage called for an end to the "tragic war" in Vietnam, but he also revealed his skepticism about America's willingness to make the right decision about its destiny in history, saying "the world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve." Forty three years later, America is still not mature enough to take the right course. Will it disengage from needless conflicts around the world, and terminate its war machine and criminal empire, or will it continue its unjust and destructive ways? Before such a decision can be made, the American people must look within the shadows of the nation, and face the darkness that King said "seems so close around us."

The country has been buried in silence about MLK's tragic death, due in large part to the national media, but not everybody has been quiet and lethargic. The King family carried on the tradition of seeking truth and justice through non-violent means. In December 1999, Coretta Scott King and her children took a huge step towards healing the country's psyche, by recovering the details about the murder of their husband and father in a civil court. Twelve jurors reached the still unmentioned verdict that the death of Martin Luther King Jr. was the result of a criminal conspiracy, consisting of the Mafia, and local, state, and federal government agencies. At the trial's end, Mrs. King and the King family addressed a small gathering of reporters, expressing their gratitude for the American justice system, and their commitment to reconciliation and love.

Mrs. Coretta Scott King:

"There is abundant evidence of a major high level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband, Martin Luther King, Jr. And the civil court's unanimous verdict has validated our belief. I wholeheartedly applaud the verdict of the jury and I feel that justice has been well served in their deliberations. This verdict is not only a great victory for my family, but also a great victory for America. It is a great victory for truth itself. It is important to know that this was a SWIFT verdict, delivered after about an hour of jury deliberation. The jury was clearly convinced by the extensive evidence that was presented during the trial that, in addition to Mr. Jowers, the conspiracy of the Mafia, local, state and federal government agencies, were deeply involved in the assassination of my husband. The jury also affirmed overwhelming evidence that identified someone else, not James Earl Ray, as the shooter, and that Mr. Ray was set up to take the blame. I want to make it clear that my family has no interest in retribution. Instead, our sole concern has been that the full truth of the assassination has been revealed and adjudicated in a court of law. As we pursued this case, some wondered why we would spend the time and energy addressing such a painful part of the past. For both our family and the nation, the short answer is that we had to get involved because the system did not work. Those who are responsible for the assassination were not held to account for their involvement. This verdict, therefore, is a great victory for justice and truth. It has been a difficult and painful experience to revisit this tragedy, but we felt we had an obligation to do everything in our power to seek the truth. Not only for the peace of mind of our family but to also bring closure and healing to the nation. We have done what we can to reveal the truth, and we now urge you as members of the media, and we call upon elected officials, and other persons of influence to do what they can to share the revelation of this case to the widest possible audience."

Though many commentators on the left and right will laud the man on the forty-second anniversary of his death this Sunday, few will draw attention to his uncompromising words about restoring peace in the world, and sanity in the nation. At a time when the war in Afghanistan is declared as being "absolutely essential" by President Barack Obama, there is not a King in the land who can stand up and raise the conscience of the country. The people are yearning for a leader with the moral courage and wisdom of Martin Luther King Jr, but no one has risen to the occasion yet. The pain is carved too deep, the problems are too great, if any man was to step forward and lift the ills of the country he would have to be a Messiah. If such a leader is unlikely to emerge, then the destiny of the country falls on the shoulders of the people; but can the people be great? If they can settle their petty political differences, and come together as one, then a leader won't have to be a Christ figure, or a Saint, he would just have to be competent and honest enough to voice the concerns and love of the people.

In "The Silence of the Liberal Lambs" Chris Floyd addresses the silent left who have bowed down to Obama's war on Osama, the same bunch who only two years ago denounced the criminal imperial policy of the Bush administration. Floyd writes:

"Unless there is some profound shift in American consciousness, of the sort that Martin Luther King Jr. was trying to effect in his last years, all of this will continue -- even if we have genuine health care reform, genuine rescue of those ravaged by our financial sharks, genuine environmental protection, and so on."

The time to raise our collective voice is greater now than when King was alive. Many are predicting a summer of hell in Afghanistan. The Washington Post reported in February that nearly 1,000 American combat troops have already died in that country. All to ensure "democracy" and "women's rights." But despite the President's strong commitment to troop escalation, the consensus in the government is not as it appears in press reports and news releases. In November of last year, Gen. Karl Eikenberry, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, made his frustrations known by sending classified documents to the New York Times. It was a move reminiscent of Daniel Ellsberg, the famous whistle-blower whose efforts in leaking the Pentagon papers helped bring the Vietnam war to an end. Ellsberg, who was once described as the "most dangerous man in America," by Henry Kissinger, recently told Democracy Now:

"There is no prospect of any kind of success in Afghanistan, any more than the Soviets achieved in their ten years there, just as in Vietnam we really had no realistic prospect of more success than the French. But countries find it very hard to learn from the failures of other countries."

It would be miraculous if America avoided the fate of not just the Soviet Union, but the Roman Empire. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are producing empty coffers at home, and filled coffins abroad. Financial and moral bankruptcy of the current criminal regime is certain. The American sleep will come to an end. But it is not up to a president to declare a national nightmare over, as Gerald Ford prematurely did upon the resignation of Richard Nixon, rather, the entire country has to breathe a sigh of relief after a prolonged national crisis. And that may take a long time. Only a great and virtuous people are capable of bringing justice to their deprived leaders, and correcting the wrongs endorsed by generations of government officials. But if there ever was a people in history who could pull off such a task, it is the American people.

"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson