I have mentioned to Kristina many times in the past that one of the things that I fear living here in the south is how the general population will act when and if gas becomes unaffordable and the economy completely collapses.
The general population of Alabama has been sold on the fact that it is their birthright to have multiple HD flat screen TVs, cheap steaks, and be able to drive 40 miles to work each day. They do not realize and refuse to believe that this version of the American Dream has only existed since the late 1960’s and it has only existed for the whole population for the last 20-30 years. As they sit and mindlessly absorb what the marketing guru’s sell them on TV every night they believe that if they cannot afford a tricked out Cadillac Escalade and the gas that goes in it, that their country has failed them. The majority of them go to churches on most Sundays that encourages their lack of empathy and their xenophobia about all things that are different. They seem to skip over the parts of Christ’s teachings (they are “Christians”) were he loves the poor, disenfranchised, and protects and comforts sinners. Does not lend me hope for their ability to except others and help those who are different.
The fact that their race is losing its majority and dominant status is a simple fact that many of them cannot grasp. Their naked hatred for a President of a different race is expressed by their denying his religion and citizenship, despite all of the facts to the contrary. The most startling fact is that 24% of them believe that the President might be the antichrist (according to a Harris Poll Survey). The number of armed militia groups that are forming up to prevent a Federal declaration of Marshall Law (even though that the last administration restricted Constitutional freedoms much more than the current one) is very scary indeed. These armed groups like the “Oath Keepers” are being courted by not just fringe groups but also Fox News, and the Republican Party. How can we work together to solve or deal with the very real problems that we face, when almost a third of the country is preparing for a civil war?
The push by Fox news and a large part of the Republican Party to the far right has created a powder keg of hostility here in the south. I fear that if things do get really hard in the future that we will see violence and lynching’s like there was in the 1930’s.The general population of the South will seek out to blame others for their way of life collapsing, even though that their way of life was unsustainable and a very recent development. The fact that for most of Southern history the average person was very poor and lived at the whim of rich land owners and industrialists has been forgotten and written out of the history books by groups like the Sons of Confederate Veterans. When things return to how they traditionally were in the South the southern population will lash out and I fear that and want to get my sons as far away from it as I can. They insist that America is a Christian country yet fail to remember that our founders included the First Amendment to the Constitution (Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.)to prevent arguing over which branch of Christianity is the right one. The founding fathers still had fresh memories of the religious intolerance and hatred that prevailed in Europe during the 1500-1600’s and wanted to prevent that from happening again. Yet the Tea Party types seem hell bent on inciting that same violence.
I feel sad that the things that made America great have been replaced by greed and laziness. That we are too busy chasing luxuries that we cannot see the crises that are coming and refuse to deal with them. We have allowed for corporations and special interest groups to take over our government. We have dumb down our schools and education requirements to such an extent that our children no longer can think for themselves and can only memorize facts that are given to them.
America can recover and become great once again if we can escape from our creature comforts and realize that the freedoms that our ancestors sacrificed so much for have nothing to do with owning TV’s or cars, that cheap hamburgers and gas are not birthrights. I fear that we are going to have to lose these things before we face up to our complicity in the collapse of our empire and the fact that we should have never had an empire to begin with.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Planting Season and a Prepared Lifestyle
This weekend we planted Lazy Housewife, Nance, Purple Queen, Rattlesnake and Scarlet Runner beans, Cherokee Long Ear Corn, Strawberry Spinach, Prescott Fond Blac cantaloupe, Vine Peach/Mango Melon and numerous herbs. We are trying to increase the amount of food we can grow and also support heirloom vegetables. The farther we can get from the industrial food system the better I will feel. We have half of a hog that should be coming our way sometime soon, and our local CSA starts up again in April. Now if I can find some local chickens again we would be set. Our Friends Chris and Tripp are planting their farm and are planning to put in hoop houses next year. Hopefully we can start taking the boys out there soon to run around and play. We might even be able to help out a little while we are there.
On the preparedness front, we are ordering a Katadyn Pocket Water Microfilter capable of filtering 13,000 gallons of water at 1 quart a minute before the filter needs to be changed as well as some 5 gallon collapsible water storage bags. This will be great for camping and will also help during hurricane season (We were a week without water after Hurricane Ivan). We are looking at purchasing some rain water collection barrels to help with watering our garden during the summer, a new steel door and two decorative steel screen doors for our house. This will increase both security and energy efficiency. A wood burning stove our fireplace insert is also high on our priority list, we discovered this winter that if we turned off our power for a week (we didn’t do this, we only had to ask “what if?”) we would be miserable and have no way to heat our house. We can cook on my little backpack stove (and have before during power outages) but heating is impossible without gas and power and I do not want to have to put my boys through that.
I discovered today that a fence is needed to keep Ian (our youngest son) contained in the yard, plus we would like to have a dog soon too. But trying to watch both Ian and William was very hard today and I think that Kristina must have some secret superpowers to both play with William and keep Ian from disappearing off somewhere so the fence has moved up in priority.
There are so many things that we feel that we need to have and so many more that we think we should have. Plus there a more skills and crafts that we want to learn that we can keep ourselves entertained for a lifetime or two just trying to learn them all.
I did hear a sad statistic today, that at least 60% of American house holds have 1 or more HD flat screen TV’s but that less than 50% of the US population reads one book or more a year for pleasure. What does that say about our society? What is becoming of our culture? Are we dumbing down as our empire fades? Please read to your kids and encourage creativity and free thinking in all of the children in your life.
On the preparedness front, we are ordering a Katadyn Pocket Water Microfilter capable of filtering 13,000 gallons of water at 1 quart a minute before the filter needs to be changed as well as some 5 gallon collapsible water storage bags. This will be great for camping and will also help during hurricane season (We were a week without water after Hurricane Ivan). We are looking at purchasing some rain water collection barrels to help with watering our garden during the summer, a new steel door and two decorative steel screen doors for our house. This will increase both security and energy efficiency. A wood burning stove our fireplace insert is also high on our priority list, we discovered this winter that if we turned off our power for a week (we didn’t do this, we only had to ask “what if?”) we would be miserable and have no way to heat our house. We can cook on my little backpack stove (and have before during power outages) but heating is impossible without gas and power and I do not want to have to put my boys through that.
I discovered today that a fence is needed to keep Ian (our youngest son) contained in the yard, plus we would like to have a dog soon too. But trying to watch both Ian and William was very hard today and I think that Kristina must have some secret superpowers to both play with William and keep Ian from disappearing off somewhere so the fence has moved up in priority.
There are so many things that we feel that we need to have and so many more that we think we should have. Plus there a more skills and crafts that we want to learn that we can keep ourselves entertained for a lifetime or two just trying to learn them all.
I did hear a sad statistic today, that at least 60% of American house holds have 1 or more HD flat screen TV’s but that less than 50% of the US population reads one book or more a year for pleasure. What does that say about our society? What is becoming of our culture? Are we dumbing down as our empire fades? Please read to your kids and encourage creativity and free thinking in all of the children in your life.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Building Community
We have been thinking about moving to someplace that has more/better resources and infrastructure than our current location. We live in a small (less than 5,000) southern town with no public transportation, little shopping resources, high poverty rate and almost no infrastructure support. It does have a hydroelectric dam, good schools and relatively low crime.
We have been looking for jobs in areas that we have identified as having the things we would like to have and they have been places like Montpelier Vermont (well almost anywhere in Vermont) Charlottesville, Virginia, and Hendersonville Virginia. Jobs in these areas are scarce and do not have the same pay/benefits that my current state job has. Plus our house is paid for and the only debt that we have is my student loan (Kristina was smart enough to go through school without acquiring debt) so moving is not really the best option for us. Even though our lot is small we can raise a good amount of food on it and we do have friends that have a farm with in 12 miles of our house.
A good friend of ours (that’s you Carey) suggested that we try to improve our community instead of leaving it and seeking greener pastures (I’m paraphrasing). This is a wonderful idea and I am actually a little ashamed that this wasn’t my first thought. I should have started by trying to improve our community instead of seeking a new one. There are lots of things we can do to help our small town, like getting the city to allow us to use some of the vacant downtown area as a local farmers market., or petitioning for an old rail bed to be turned into a rail for trails (or ideally a light rail line) type walk way.
We have decided on taking steps to improve the energy efficiency of our house and want to put in a wood burning stove, drapes and numerous other relatively low cost things. We still want to have a house with at least 5 acres but that is a ways off. There are several things that we can and need to do to prepare ourselves for the coming energy crisis and the changes to our society that it will bring. We can start to live more simply so that any adjustment that we have to make will not be as difficult, produce more of our own food and find local sources for most of our food. We have a long list of skills and things that we think that we need for any coming emergency. We do not want to be unprepared for a crisis and have to rely on the swift response of the government to save us. These are things that we can and should be doing and we are just now really serious about doing them.
I am still worried about racial tension, tea party type militias and all the Bubba’s being mad that stuff at Wal-Mart starts costing so much more or that all of their stores in our small town went out of business when a Super Wal-Mart opened 30 miles away. I don’t think that the unthinking masses that populate our town will be able to process how and why our society is changing, but will just become angry and very susceptible to a charismatic leader who can tap into their resentment. But these problems can happen anywhere in our country.
Basically we have decided that we need to be prepared in the spot that we are at now, than looking for the perfect spot and preparing when we get there.
We have been looking for jobs in areas that we have identified as having the things we would like to have and they have been places like Montpelier Vermont (well almost anywhere in Vermont) Charlottesville, Virginia, and Hendersonville Virginia. Jobs in these areas are scarce and do not have the same pay/benefits that my current state job has. Plus our house is paid for and the only debt that we have is my student loan (Kristina was smart enough to go through school without acquiring debt) so moving is not really the best option for us. Even though our lot is small we can raise a good amount of food on it and we do have friends that have a farm with in 12 miles of our house.
A good friend of ours (that’s you Carey) suggested that we try to improve our community instead of leaving it and seeking greener pastures (I’m paraphrasing). This is a wonderful idea and I am actually a little ashamed that this wasn’t my first thought. I should have started by trying to improve our community instead of seeking a new one. There are lots of things we can do to help our small town, like getting the city to allow us to use some of the vacant downtown area as a local farmers market., or petitioning for an old rail bed to be turned into a rail for trails (or ideally a light rail line) type walk way.
We have decided on taking steps to improve the energy efficiency of our house and want to put in a wood burning stove, drapes and numerous other relatively low cost things. We still want to have a house with at least 5 acres but that is a ways off. There are several things that we can and need to do to prepare ourselves for the coming energy crisis and the changes to our society that it will bring. We can start to live more simply so that any adjustment that we have to make will not be as difficult, produce more of our own food and find local sources for most of our food. We have a long list of skills and things that we think that we need for any coming emergency. We do not want to be unprepared for a crisis and have to rely on the swift response of the government to save us. These are things that we can and should be doing and we are just now really serious about doing them.
I am still worried about racial tension, tea party type militias and all the Bubba’s being mad that stuff at Wal-Mart starts costing so much more or that all of their stores in our small town went out of business when a Super Wal-Mart opened 30 miles away. I don’t think that the unthinking masses that populate our town will be able to process how and why our society is changing, but will just become angry and very susceptible to a charismatic leader who can tap into their resentment. But these problems can happen anywhere in our country.
Basically we have decided that we need to be prepared in the spot that we are at now, than looking for the perfect spot and preparing when we get there.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)