The Collapse

[pan]

OK, I'm an idiot - how do you upload video?

Watch this

[BO]

Check out Stonefruit's latest post--'Trouble'. Sad, indeed. Brought me to tears.

http://www.stonefruit.blogspot.com/

...and Joe Bageant's latest--The Audacity of Depression

http://www.joebageant.com/

Hopelessness seems to be going around. It's simply a natural form of grief for those things we see dieing around us--including our former way of life. It's much healthier to feel your grief than to stuff it.

[pan]

One of the things that is good about life:

Zappa's More Troubles Every Day

[Cal]

Good essay that 'Beyond Hope' - thanks Waldo.

With all that's going on in the world we now have a movement at work which wants to ban smokers from smoking on the company premises. Smokers now have to stand outside the perimeter fence for their periodic puffs. The message they want to send out is that smokers will not be eligible for employment by the company. Should the powers that be manage to implement this ruling on the handful of smokers in the office all will be well in the world ..... Aaiiee ... am I missing the point somewhere?

[Mouse]

I am sorry to have to tell you that the magic phrase "just like Nazi Germany", which Waldo had appended to the USA, no longer works for me.

Oh, it's alright, it's back, wheezing and crying with laughter again. Truly. How wonderful.

Just like Nazi Germany. Ha ha ha..........he he....... drumming my jee;s pm tje f;ppr// heels on the floor

[curt]

my German friends use the @ charachter to adress people in forums...

@Bo
the place has changed a lot, of this I can be certain. This place here has changed a hel of a lot but one hardly notices the day by day, subtle changes. It's only when you go away and come back much later that you notice the real impact of the changes. Have the changes been for the good? In some cases, yes. On such change, I discovered while looking for accomidations in what was destined to become a ghost town, in southeastern Arizona. Most anything one can read about the place points to a dismal end, with most families moving away, only the old and desperate staying on. There is no motel in town. There is no Hotel in town. Used to be. Back in the late 1800s when the place was booming. It's a mining town. Over 80% of the residents work at the nearby copper mine. Copper. Back while I was living near a copper mine, copper prices took a dive. The mine was laying people off by the hundreds. They eventually stopped digging which was more like scraping, actually blasting....blowing the hell out of the earth. Sounds terrible but it's not half bad. This is reality. If it were profitable, they would keep digging, grabbing up the copper ore and what little gold it brings with it....and it does, it always does reap gold....until they come out in China. Things are booming in China. The housing industry, electrical appliances, any and everything that needs copper is booming. As a result, that little supposed to soon be ghost town, is now going the other way. The mine is hiring by the hundreds. All Hotels and Motels in the area are full to the brim. All houses are occupied. Still not enough room for all the workers so they put up boxes for them to live in. Stacked, metal boxes. The company pays for it all. You can't spend your money on anything out there. It's a few hours drive to the next McDoofs. So there you have it. One small sector is growing, for the time being. It's profiting from the growth in China. So where does that leave me for that one night? Fuckall, I'll probably have to put up a tent on the grassy area of the only RV park in town. I sure as hell aint gonna ride backwards to grab a motel room for 48 squares of toilett paper.

Changed. Well, I have too. I changed a lot. That ghost town I mentioned above. It was the sight of the beginning of the collapse of the american worker's rights. The name is Clifton. The miners went on strike for better wages and better working conditions. A few people killed each other. It was fairly bloody. I don't know the details but from what I gather, the fed stepped in and stripped the workers of their right to strike.
Back in the days, I wouldn't have noticed. I wouldn't have cared. Yip, I've changed.

@Lara
There's is hope. You're young and the world awaits you. Don't give up. And don't let us drag you down or rob you of your dreams.

@Mary
Power is a strange thing. We've robbed ourselves of the knowledge how to get on without power. GasProm and other major powerCo.s have us by the juevos. They'll wait until it's cold, shut the power off and squeeze.

@Pan
We lost a lot when Frank left us. Indeed, trouble every day. You know that's a really old song? Their first real hit, I believe. Was it a hit at all? Chin up, and keep plugging.

@Eric
writing to congress helps us bullshit ourselves into thinking it helps. Oherwise, it helps us retain our ability to read and write. No more, no less. The congress doesn't give a flying fuck what we want or say. The congress is a farce. Crooks and liars.

@waldo
I not only see more cops running around, my friend, the one I mentioned that could be using me as prey....yip. But I'm certain he's not using me. He just happens to be a cop. A job is a job is a job. We have something in common and that's our love for bikes and riding.

@All
the "like Nazi Germany" phrase is used to draw our attention to the reality we may not be seeing. No, the USA is not identical with Nazi Germany and no, history

[curt]

fucking software kils my messages over and over again.

continued..........

doesn't repeat itself. It does come back and do it again, in a similar manner, sometimes in a more refined manner. That's the fascism we are living with....a refined fascism. To really get to know and understand it, one must first study Nazi Germany. What a task. The Weimarer Republic, the boom. The rise of power. The recession, the fall, the turmoil, bla bla bla. While studying German history, somewhere along the line .....it goes CLICK in your head. A Deja Vous occurs. You see parallels.

I need to stop the gibberish and send this off. Have written so many letters only to jumble them up and fil the waste bin with them......

[Mouse]

You should for the time being learn the art of consolation in this life: you should learn to laugh, my young friends, even if you wish to remain thoroughly pessimistic. From that, as laughing people, some day or other perhaps you will ship all that metaphysical consolation to the devil—and then away with metaphysics! Or, to speak the language of that Dionysian fiend called Zarathustra:

"Lift up your hearts, my brothers, high, higher! And for my sake don't forget your legs! Raise up your legs, you fine dancers, and better yet, stand on your heads!"

"This crown of the man who laughs, this crown wreathed with roses—I have placed this crown on myself. I speak out my holy laughter to myself. Today I found no one else strong enough for that."

"Zarathustra the dancer, Zarathustra the light hearted, who beckons with his wings, a man ready to fly, hailing all birds, prepared and ready, a careless and blessed man."

"Zarathustra the truth-teller, Zarathustra the true laugher, not an impatient man, not a man of absolutes, someone who loves jumps and leaps to the side—I placed the crown on myself!"

"This crown of the laughing man, this crown of rose wreaths: my brothers I throw this crown to you! Laughter I declare sacred: you higher men, for my sake learn to laugh!"

Friedrich Nietzshe, The Birth of Tragedy
August 1886
http://www.mv.helsinki.fi/home/tkannist/E-texts/Nietzsche/tragedy_a...

[littleoldme]

U.S. Economy Shed 80,000 Jobs in March
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/04/business/apecon-web.html?_r=1&...

[waldopaper]

"Believing that from the ashes of this empire will grow a new, peace-based, eco-harmonious and sustainable society - that is my hope!"

It's not just a "hope," it's a done-deal. How painful the transition will be is anybody's guess. Yesterday our wi-fi went out and I was moved to: a) shoot myself, or b) medicate myself into a stupor and sleep through it. I did a combination of b and something else. Went to the big-box store and bought some seeds and ammunition... along with Hoppe's solvent and some oil... then proceeded to do b.

The great revelation (which occurred some time ago): by the time the politicians and mainstream media start talking about it, it's already a "done-deal." Like "recession." The visible voices are not "leaders" at all... they are "followers" in the strictest sense. The good news: as things become increasingly fucked-up and intolerable for most people in their day-to-day lives, a "visionary" (ie- what-to-do-next instead of done-deal) WILL emerge.

The bad news: the "solution" is usually (not always- but usually) "beat the fuck out of "them."" Whether it's the niggers or the commies or the Hutus or the Tutsies... there's usually (not always) a "them." In our (rbc) case... the "them" is the clueless fucks who can't see the signs until it affects them personally. Really easy to hate those assholes, but "they" are not the problem. The problem is the divergence of two intellectual systems.

The ammunition was not for "them," it was for bunnies and raccoons... that (in this neighborhood, anyway) gobble the shit out of anything you plant even before the weeds and bugs can get at it. Seems simple enough to me... the bunnies and raccoons can be a meat supplement to the veggies. NOW the problem is not having the bang attract the armed bureaucrats doing their job for whatever to put one into the dungeon-deep shackled with orange suits slave system.

Methinks the grow-the-food and eat-the-scavengers is a powerful metaphor here... for all "sides," but must prepare Monday's "literary discussion" of Hurston's Sweat, and don't have time to get into it now...

Does anybody here see a connection?

[Cal]

Eat-the-scavengers brings to mind James Clavell's book 'King Rat' where one prisoner-of-war got 'rich' in camp off his rat farm.

We're down to 3 afternoons a week off because of the electricity shortage (which effectively takes us to a 4 day week) and petrol prices just went through the roof ... and the papers say we 'might' be in for a bit of a recession. I am getting transferred at work back to the rural operations later this year and I need a new vehicle for the job (what do you guys call a 'bakkie' ... pick-up ? ... a vehicle with a cab and an open carrying area at the back ... suited for dirt roads) but I really don't think it's a good thing to get into that kind of debt right now ... so I will make do with my current ancient dog haired car ... and maybe be around for the bargain picking when other unfortunates default on their loan payments.

[waldopaper]

I'm guessing that your current dog-haired car can make it down the dirt roads most of the time already... and the days that it can't- fuck it. The main thing is to avoid getting stuck on the "other end" of said dirt roads.

Really- these days if an "employer" asks me to spend a bloody farthing on something I weren't buying already... and even THEN I would put a gimlet-eye on how much I am using up for "employer's" benefit... FUCKIT- sezeye. We all need to say it:

FUCKIT.

[littleoldme]

I don't know about over there, but over here 18 wheelers blow the tread off there tires all the time leaving behind large strips of tire tread. Gather a couple of them up, they work great for traction if ya get stuck in the dirt. Cram one under your tires and they'll give ya enough traction to go.