Re: SC81

http://carolynbaker.net/site/content/view/853/1/

ABDICATING THE "A" WORD, FRANTICALLY FIGHTING FOR THE FAMILIAR

...........About five years ago, even before Truth To Power was born, I was reporting stories forecasting the coming global economic meltdown. I have never been nor will be an economist, but I vowed that I would learn some basic economic concepts in order to grasp what some were calling at that time a "housing bubble." I was assiduously reading and researching the dot connections between 9/11, Peak Oil, economic meltdown, empire, and the U.S. occupation of Iraq. People whose research I respected were warning of an economic collapse, an energy crash, and the catastrophic effects of global warming-none of which, it appeared, would become an imminent threat for at least another decade.

Suddenly, somewhere in 2006 it became apparent to me that the convergence of calamity would occur sooner, rather than later, and I realized that the fabric of empire was unraveling much faster than I had anticipated. I do not wish to re-state the obvious nor attempt to trace the unfolding of events in the past two years and beyond. What I argue, rather, is that the collapse of Western civilization is well underway-and that my work is not to impede but to assist that monumental, mythical, and momentous phenomenon................

............. I believe that because apocalypse is a fundamental archetype, something in us knows that that is precisely what we are experiencing in the final days of 2008 and are likely to continue experiencing for years to come. Whether we admit it or not, the archetype of apocalypse is percolating in our psyches. Economists and politicians in denial or simply wishing to keep their jobs insist that good times will come again-that everything will bounce back to "normal" in a couple of years. "A long, and deep recession" they continue to parrot, even as beads of sweat gather on their foreheads-a stunning example of fighting for the familiar. We're just sailing through some rough waters, they insist, unable to grasp that what began as a few choppy waves has now become a sea change.

What it is difficult for humans to wrap their minds around is the unprecedented nature of the current moment. We grasp for whatever straws of evidence we can produce that might prove that there's nothing really idiosyncratic about it. Species have come and gone before; the earth itself has been decimated and then restored more than once, we protest. Yet such statements, while accurate, miss the staggering reality that never in human history has our species devoured in a mere two or three centuries nearly all of the hydrocarbon energy painstakingly produced by the planet over the span of millennia; never have so many humans inhabited the earth at one time, nor fouled the earth's surface and atmosphere to the extent of the current blight. And what is even more astounding is the fact that never before in human history have all of these factors occurred simultaneously with the others. So argue as we may for continuity, the current moment is dramatically unique.

Moreover, if apocalypse is an unveiling, what is it that might be revealing itself in the current predicament? Is it the looting of billions, perhaps trillions by the federal government and corporate capitalism? Is it the impotence of presidents and politicians to reverse the unraveling? Is it the reality that they actually orchestrated financial collapse and will profit handsomely from it? Will the "revelation" be the public validation of whistleblowing economic investigators like Chris Martenson, Catherine Austin Fitts, Pam Martens, and Nomi Prins?

I for one wish that those realities were actually being revealed in the waning weeks of 2008, but it may be years or decades before the extent of the plunder becomes fully transparent. However, economic meltdown is not a cause of the collapse, but rather a glaring symptom of it. What is being revealed, I believe, is the profligate, soul-murdering toxicity of Western civilization and all of the assumptions from which it has emerged. As Derrick Jensen notes, "We are members of the most destructive culture ever to exist. Our assault on the natural world, on indigenous and other cultures, on women, on children, on all of us through the possibility of nuclear suicide and other means - all these are unprecedented in their magnitude and ferocity." From civilization, the values and behaviors that have engendered Peak Oil, climate change, species extinction, and population overshoot were birthed. In essence, civilization is ego and humancentric, refusing to recognize any limitations of its agenda, and deems itself entitled to extract, conquer, own, dominate, and destroy whatever might impede that agenda.

Has civilization also brought us unprecedented opportunities? Indeed it has, but quite often at the expense of our own wellbeing and that of the earth community. And while the majority of inhabitants of civilization are honorable and decent human beings, they have overwhelmingly been deeply wounded, if not driven mad, by it.

All traditions that include an apocalyptic aspect juxtapose an old paradigm with a new one and invite adherents to allow the unveiling of the old to purify consciousness so that they might step into the new. Without exception, according to these traditions, the transition is painful and demanding and necessarily imposes circumstances in which the world as one has known it ends.

Sadly, most individuals being devastated by the current apocalypse, reel with anguish as their homes and livelihoods vanish; as their bodies break down for lack of healthcare; as depression, violence, and suicide reverberate across this nation-yet all the while they question few of the assumptions of civilization on which their lives have been constructed from birth. They wish only to return to the comfort and familiarity of the old paradigm. Hence the delusion of magic bullet "solutions" that will painlessly allow the human race to continue its resource-devouring lifestyle. I have written and continue to believe that it will take massive individual and collective suffering before most Americans will be capable of questioning those assumptions and discerning the difference between the old paradigm and the new. Quite frankly, it is unlikely that most will.

I Told You So

Some individuals who have been forecasting longer than I have the events now unfolding are justifiably saddened, if not enraged, by the obtuseness and denial of other human beings to take seriously their persistent caveats. I share their frustration, and at the same time, I realize that none of this is about me or them or any of our prophetic research. In fact, to continue chanting the "I told you so, I warned you" mantra is to become further mired in the old paradigm. Civilization, after all, is nothing if not hierarchical, competitive, and arrogant.

Apocalypse is demanding the diminution of human ego, in which case, the appropriate response to the masses who didn't listen is not "I told you so," but rather, deep compassion and deep grief. The inability of our species to read the writing on the wall is another chilling testimony to the power of civilization to mentally, emotionally, and spiritually incapacitate its inhabitants. There but for fortune go any of us.

In her article "Are Human Beings Hard Wired To Ignore the Catastrophic Threat Of Climate Change?" Lisa Bennett reveals evidence that suggests that civilization has so damaged human beings that we have been virtually unable to take action to stop climate change which due to our inaction, may now be unstoppable.

I would be the first to admit that I do not have infinite wisdom or impeccable acumen with which to discern all aspects of the current unveiling. I find little pleasure in forecasting what will happen next since apocalypse now has a life of its own. It is by definition mysterious and uncertain. What I do know is that things aren't going to "bounce back" because the "normal" and "familiar" have faded into history. We're in uncharted, unprecedented, and untested waters. How desperately we demand the familiar, but in spite of our flailing, life as we have known it is over. Perhaps the best description of our plight was offered by the late Susan Sontag, not in the words "apocalypse now" but rather, "apocalypse from now on."

Politicians, regardless of how charismatic, brilliant, and astute they may be have little to offer us because their agenda is one of expanding, perpetuating, preserving, and protecting civilization and its values at all costs. While they may be able to ameliorate short-term pain with placebos and band aids, both the overwhelming magnitude of collapse and their commitment to civilization preclude the dawning of insights that might assist them in facilitating their constituents in making a conscious transition to a new paradigm. In fact, as Gerald Celente notes, Obama's "Yes We Can" is a delusion that obscures the harsh reality that "No, we can't" because:

Going to Summers, Rubin, Reich, Tyson, Volker and the rest of them to fix the economy is like fighting the War on Crime by bringing in Al Capone, Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Seagal, and Machine Gun Kelly.

'Yes, we can,' sounds good but it is a delusion, 'No, we can't.' Nobody can, given the current socio-political and philosophical make-up of the nation. And, unfortunately, Obama's promise of 'change' is already revealed as a fraud. That won't change either.

Re-Thinking "Gloom and Doom" Definitions

None of this is pleasant to think or talk about, but today it occurred to me that the time for choosing what we get to talk about and how good or bad it makes us feel is over. We no longer have the luxury. We either deal with what's in front of us, or we actively choose suicide.

Whereas some folks who have been forecasting collapse take it personally when others don't pay heed, I tend to take personally the label of "doomer." Those applying the label would not do so if they understood things like apocalypse, civilization, and new paradigm. What I endeavor to do in my writing is clarify those concepts so that my readers can grasp that what we're living through is so much larger, grander, more compelling, momentous, and mysterious than mere "gloom and doom."

What exactly does doom mean? That depends on one's perspective. If you mean that since the earth was built to sustain 2.5 billion people riding bicycles, not 6.5 people all wanting to live in 6000-square-foot homes and that the earth must shed at least 4-5 billion people in order to sustain itself-from that perspective, collapse is synonymous with doom. The current extinction of 200 species on earth per day, and the possibility of the entire human race becoming extinct within a few generations is certainly not a cheerful topic of conversation. But if I seriously believed that these sorts of realities are the only ones to consider in conversations about collapse, then I would deserve to be labeled a "doomer." They aren't, and I don't.

If we can allow it, collapse may take us into mythic territory-to the place within us that civilization was designed to destroy but hasn't-and cannot, to the unveiling of a "new" paradigm that isn't "new" at all because something in us remembers that it is how we were meant to live with ourselves and the earth community.

Civilization does not have to die in order for any of us to experience the unveiling, but there is no question that to do so would be easier if civilization were a faint memory in our minds. I for one am not willing to save it, preserve it, prop it up, put it on life support, or apply salves of salvation. What I am willing to engage in is a vigil-a death watch for civilization while it breathes its last breath and celebrate what is revealed in the process.

Unquestionably, collapse entails suffering, and there are no guarantees that any of us will survive. Many innocent members of the human and other species will perish. Wise people from the great traditions tell us that the transition cannot be made painlessly. What is also true is that it offers something extraordinary-something like what I see in small communities where people are already creating local currencies, becoming first responders for crisis situations, organizing neighborhood watches to provide food and heat for the vulnerable, maintaining winter farmers markets, celebrating the holidays in unique ways that do not focus on consumption but rather, on cooperation. At the same time that I feel pervasive despair nationally, I see unexpected people in unexpected places seizing unexpected opportunities. Who knows if they will survive? Who knows if anyone reading this article will survive? Who knows if I will survive?

But if mere physical survival is all it's about, then we are left with nothing but doom and gloom. If, however, things like cooperation, compassion, building authentic community, and living from a new paradigm, even if only for a brief period of time, occur, then civilization will have been transcended and dealt a significant death blow. Humans who participate in those ventures will have tasted something far more momentous than mere physical survival-something civilization can only obliterate, not sustain: the opportunity to savor one's inextricable connection with all aspects of the earth community. Or as Richard Heinberg reminds us, "Growth is dead. Let's make the most of it. A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.".............