Time To Flesh Out Our Collapse
Putting a face on the inevitable
We all know it's coming, don't we? Even the most self satisfied, lazy, TV watching consumer drone has that nattering little monkey in the back of the head, warning that things won't last, even if it's only about the nearly empty Cheetos™ bag.
The signs are all around us, aren't they? Basically you can tell that our unsustainable society is about to implode just by how frantic all the propaganda has become in trying to convince us otherwise.
Sometimes I forget how different we tube netizens are from the vast majority of people in this country; I always have to stop and remember that we pay a whole lot more attention to what's really going on than most people who only depend the loathsome MSM to inform them. Consequently a large percentage of dumbed down americans are completely ignorant of impending catastrophe, or at least in a state of very active denial. But that's not going to help anyone avoid the inevitable.
Neverending war, economy in free fall, exhausted resources, disintegrating infrastructure, natural disasters - all coming together as a perfect storm in an EOTWAWKI moment. I think the fascist overlords know full well what's coming and have prepared for years to survive it. That could be the reason why they're seemingly uncaring and unresponsive to so many problems. They're busy squeezing the last drops of lifeblood from this society while they can, pretending that it's business as usual while they distract the rubes with bread and circuses.
It's not like living in a society that's coming apart at the seams is a common experience. Trying to put a finger on how it's all going to go down has always been tricky, which is why I was absolutely floored by this essay. I found it at Rense and it's called "Closing the 'Collapse Gap': the USSR was better prepared for collapse than the US" The author is a guy named Dmitry Orlov who went through the Soviet collapse, experienced it first hand and writes extensively about what we should expect our society's demise it to be like. He compares pre collapse Russia with pre collapse america and sizes up the strengths and weaknesses of both countries in dealing with catastrophic changes. He breaks it down into categories like politics, food, medicine and with the economy he opines:
"The subject of economic collapse is generally a sad one. But I am an optimistic, cheerful sort of person, and I believe that, with a bit of preparation, such events can be taken in stride. As you can probably surmise, I am actually rather keen on observing economic collapses. Perhaps when I am really old, all collapses will start looking the same to me, but I am not at that point yet. And this next one certainly has me intrigued.
From what I've seen and read, it seems that there is a fair chance that the U.S. economy will collapse sometime within the foreseeable future. It also would seem that we won't be particularly well-prepared for it. As things stand, the U.S. economy is poised to perform something like a disappearing act. And so I am eager to put my observations of the Soviet collapse to good use."
I like his tone as he guides us through what the Russians had to endure and what we certainly will too. And he doesn't mince words about how utterly unprepared we in this country are for a radical change in living conditions:
"It seems safe to assume that the creature comforts to which we are accustomed are going to be few and far between. But if we are willing to withstand the little indignities of reading by candlelight, bundling up throughout the cold months, running around with buckets of water, shivering while standing in a bucket of tepid water, and carrying our poop out in a bucket, then none of this is enough to stop us from maintaining a level of civilization worthy of our ancestors, who probably had it worse than we ever will. They were either depressed or cheerful about it, in keeping with their personal disposition and national character, but apparently they survived, or you wouldn't be reading this."
It's easy to get complacent and smug complacency will kill us when the plug gets pulled. As for dealing with the fascist scum who will most definately and immediately attempt to capitalize on the chaos, I like his quote from Alexander Solzhenitsyn -
"Don't believe them, don't fear them, don't ask anything of them."
"An economy collapses one person, one family, one community at a time. First, the dreams evaporate: the future starts looking worse than the present, and ever more uncertain. Then people are forced to withstand ever greater indignities and privations, which they tend to accept as their personal failings. The resulting stress causes them to experience a variety of physical and psychological symptoms. Our pride, our habits and expectations, and our unwillingness to adapt, can kill us faster than any physical hardship. But eventually something has to give, and even if life does not get any easier, one morning we wake up, and not only has life all around us been transformed out of all recognition, but everyone we encounter recognizes that times have changed. And we realize that none of this is about us personally, and feel better."
We all know it's coming, don't we? Even the most self satisfied, lazy, TV watching consumer drone has that nattering little monkey in the back of the head, warning that things won't last, even if it's only about the nearly empty Cheetos™ bag.
The signs are all around us, aren't they? Basically you can tell that our unsustainable society is about to implode just by how frantic all the propaganda has become in trying to convince us otherwise.
Sometimes I forget how different we tube netizens are from the vast majority of people in this country; I always have to stop and remember that we pay a whole lot more attention to what's really going on than most people who only depend the loathsome MSM to inform them. Consequently a large percentage of dumbed down americans are completely ignorant of impending catastrophe, or at least in a state of very active denial. But that's not going to help anyone avoid the inevitable.
Neverending war, economy in free fall, exhausted resources, disintegrating infrastructure, natural disasters - all coming together as a perfect storm in an EOTWAWKI moment. I think the fascist overlords know full well what's coming and have prepared for years to survive it. That could be the reason why they're seemingly uncaring and unresponsive to so many problems. They're busy squeezing the last drops of lifeblood from this society while they can, pretending that it's business as usual while they distract the rubes with bread and circuses.
It's not like living in a society that's coming apart at the seams is a common experience. Trying to put a finger on how it's all going to go down has always been tricky, which is why I was absolutely floored by this essay. I found it at Rense and it's called "Closing the 'Collapse Gap': the USSR was better prepared for collapse than the US" The author is a guy named Dmitry Orlov who went through the Soviet collapse, experienced it first hand and writes extensively about what we should expect our society's demise it to be like. He compares pre collapse Russia with pre collapse america and sizes up the strengths and weaknesses of both countries in dealing with catastrophic changes. He breaks it down into categories like politics, food, medicine and with the economy he opines:
"The subject of economic collapse is generally a sad one. But I am an optimistic, cheerful sort of person, and I believe that, with a bit of preparation, such events can be taken in stride. As you can probably surmise, I am actually rather keen on observing economic collapses. Perhaps when I am really old, all collapses will start looking the same to me, but I am not at that point yet. And this next one certainly has me intrigued.
From what I've seen and read, it seems that there is a fair chance that the U.S. economy will collapse sometime within the foreseeable future. It also would seem that we won't be particularly well-prepared for it. As things stand, the U.S. economy is poised to perform something like a disappearing act. And so I am eager to put my observations of the Soviet collapse to good use."
I like his tone as he guides us through what the Russians had to endure and what we certainly will too. And he doesn't mince words about how utterly unprepared we in this country are for a radical change in living conditions:
"It seems safe to assume that the creature comforts to which we are accustomed are going to be few and far between. But if we are willing to withstand the little indignities of reading by candlelight, bundling up throughout the cold months, running around with buckets of water, shivering while standing in a bucket of tepid water, and carrying our poop out in a bucket, then none of this is enough to stop us from maintaining a level of civilization worthy of our ancestors, who probably had it worse than we ever will. They were either depressed or cheerful about it, in keeping with their personal disposition and national character, but apparently they survived, or you wouldn't be reading this."
It's easy to get complacent and smug complacency will kill us when the plug gets pulled. As for dealing with the fascist scum who will most definately and immediately attempt to capitalize on the chaos, I like his quote from Alexander Solzhenitsyn -
"Don't believe them, don't fear them, don't ask anything of them."
"An economy collapses one person, one family, one community at a time. First, the dreams evaporate: the future starts looking worse than the present, and ever more uncertain. Then people are forced to withstand ever greater indignities and privations, which they tend to accept as their personal failings. The resulting stress causes them to experience a variety of physical and psychological symptoms. Our pride, our habits and expectations, and our unwillingness to adapt, can kill us faster than any physical hardship. But eventually something has to give, and even if life does not get any easier, one morning we wake up, and not only has life all around us been transformed out of all recognition, but everyone we encounter recognizes that times have changed. And we realize that none of this is about us personally, and feel better."
posted by nolocontendere at 7:46 PM
3 Comments:
Experience with homelessness and camping out may come in handy. The worst part about homelessness, after the discomfort and never-ending search for food and water, is the law, which works for the land-lords. Nobody that is homeless really wants to do time in prison, unless they just want a bed and board for a change, without caring about the company or the lack of freedom.
If and when the economy collapses and the US falls to pieces, the very worst problem will be fascists with big guns who think they have a green-light to boss everybody around. Like cops harassing homeless people, only worse.
Having good friends will make all the difference, especially if they have fire-power on their side.
Absolutely correct about being used to hardship coming in handy, actually having a negative turn into a positive as the author often mentions. We're so vulnerable, aren't we, for a huge fall? Us, with our sniffy sense of entitlement and childlike reliance on forces we as a whole know so little about.
This guy might have been around for awhile but his stuff is new to me and oh so timely.
As I shared with you a couple of weeks ago, the (survival) answer will come from relying on those in our own community. But people have still yet to realize that given most of us are enslaved to greedy fascist employers at such gross wages we're too damn exhausted at the end of the day to do anything BUT open those bags of cheetos.
It is nice though to wake up and see reality so that the trend of beating oneself up mercilessly, thinking the main reason one has fallen down through the cracks is due to some character flaw, ends. The author does an excellent job describing how this occurs. Been there, done that. And yet, thankfully I saw the light and began to wake up to what was going on behind the facade.
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