what’s good for the masses of people can be boiled down to what’s good for small communities of people, and for families, and for individuals. And what does that look like? It seems pretty simple to me: a healthy planet, cooperative communities, existing to better oneself and the community in which one lives without regard for profit, good food, good music, friends. I would argue that, were the planet to consist of 6 million communities of 1000 souls or fewer, all independent of one another and yet connected through sharing resources and celebration and mutual aid, that this could be, overall, a relatively happy planet.
Systemic collapse is about change for the better. Yes, I know this sounds grim and scarily depressing, and in some ways it is. And there will be suffering. But is there no suffering already? And will there be no suffering in the future? All I'm putting out there is that systemic collapse allows us the chance to return to sanity, for freedom from a global system of usury and debt-slavery. And while our leaders cry and plead for us to help them NOT allow the system to collapse, we in fact may be better off as a species if it did.
http://ashizashiz.blogspot.com/2009/02/what-does-systemic-collapse-really-mean.html
Look, we have a choice here. You may not think so because the jerks have done a helluva job convincing us that we don’t have a choice. But we do! Yes, I am angry. The planet is dying. Billions are starving. A 3000 year old system of conquest and colonialism and slavery is, at this very moment, up for a revote. As the economies of the world collapse, a new world is waiting to be born. I happen to believe that if we can face this struggle with clarity and courage, we may be able to save the future. It truly is time to get busy living.
http://ashizashiz.blogspot.com/2009/02/screw-em.html
Mother Earth is speaking. She's telling us something. With Bleached Coral and Melting Ice Sheets and Acid Rain and Disappearing Atolls and Poisonous Peanut Butter and Diasporic Tropical Diseases and Deadly Desertification, Mother Earth is telling us to stop growing.
She is telling us to relent in our seeming obsession with economic expansion. She is telling us to live smaller, quieter, more sustainable lives.
...
The answer to this economic crisis lies not in our ability to stimulate growth, but in our ability to live within our means: ecologially, financially, communally.
http://ashizashiz.blogspot.com/2009/01/shhhhhlistencan-you-hear-her.html
The old patradigm of continuous economic growth was never sustainable - it is simply impossible, mathematically, to keep expanding our use of resources at a constant growth rate, especially as this means, in effect, exponential growth. Exponential means accelerating. Accelerate, accelerate, accelerate, and what happens? Crash.. kaBOOM. This is very simple to understand, and yet none of our governments or their economists seem to understand it. And so we find ourselves being led out of the darkness by the blind. Will they find the light? No chance.
The new paradigm is of sustainability. This means reducing our economic activity. As Dan says, we must learn "to live smaller, quieter, more sustainable lives". Not growth, but shrinkage. Less, not more. We have to simplify, and we have to regroup in smaller communities.
back to Dan:
Let’s return yet once again to the subject of growth. This spring and summer, we will be growing spinach and kale and carrots and tomatoes and parsley and turnips and radishes and squash. We will be canning and drying and saving and preparing for the future. I suggest you do so as well. As a family we will spend many-an-hour at the local orchard, picking apples, lugging them home, drying them out, and storing the product for the lean times to follow....
The only growth that matters now are the foods that you grow to save your family and the connections that you nurture in your communities to band together during this nuclear winter of an economic meltdown. We are truly entering the wilderness.
http://ashizashiz.blogspot.com/2009/02/growth.html
He says it so much better than I can.. we must start preparing for the simple life, or else get ready to perish.
The existing systems are already broken. They are beyond repair. We should waste no more of our time or effort on attempting to repair them. Instead we must prepare the new systems to replace them.
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