The American Dream is unsustainable

[Ron Green]

and this is the thing that cannot be said without instant political death to the messenger.

The "American Dream" in this case includes a level of comfort and convenience to which a huge middle class has become accustomed, and over the last 3 or 4 generations has built into our national mythos that not only do we deserve this luxury, but others around the world can have it too, if they just work hard enough.

This is just wrong, as anyone can figure out upon simple observation of the global dynamics feeding (and reeling from) our way of life. And yet how can any policymaker stand up and say that our very dreams as Americans cannot and must not be realized? The extent to which we would have to change our ways cannot be tolerated by this or any generation of Americans, without a complete cultural brainwashing.

What's the answer to this, DU'ers? I don't see any way it'll change.

[tk2kewl]

1. You are right on target there Ron.

I got into a big argument with my wife about this a couple of weeks ago, when she was talking about "our way of life" being threatened. I myself want to liquidate all assets and build a solar/wind powered home in a country that has socialized health care. This is going to be an interesting one to sell her on.

[Ron Green]

2. I wonder if we can even sustain what you're talking about.

I, too, am sorta planning to do just what you're looking at, but my sense is that this would never work on a massive scale, because there's just not enough land. Perhaps large communities with cogeneration facilities and shared resources; but again, I don't think the American temperament is suited to this kind of communal activity. Hell, we won't even build comprehensive transportation systems.

Oh, wait: You said "in a country with socialized heath care." Yep - I thought you were talking about the States.

[tk2kewl]

59. your are right again

most importantly we just need to stop reproducing so damn much. and we need to live in consolidated communities surrounded by local self sustaining industry and agriculture, and leave the rest of the place wild.

[Matariki]

149. there's a neighborhood in Seattle

that has a goal of 'getting off the grid'. a whole neighborhood.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002504741_sustain19m.html

or: www.sustainableballard.org

there's enough people who LOVE city living to probably not worry about everyone moving to the country. We're essentially herd animals, we humans. But that doesn't mean that we can't have sustainable lifestyles in the city. I think Portland is a good example of a city heading that way.

[Matariki]

148. wow, if she doesn't go for it, wanna get married ;-)

i'm working on that myself. well, in this country though (my boyfriend won't move out of the city). will have to stick to alternative medicine here i guess.

[BeHereNow]

3. The "American Dream" is a NIGHTMARE for everyone else...

Or, "Hey, that pig is wearing lipstick!"

It's still a pig.

Speaking in metaphor, of course, because I have
a lot more respect for pigs and other four leggeds than people these days.

Americans are so immersed in their "dream" that they
are oblivious to the suffering it causes others. Period.
Their sense of entitlement is astrounding.

They silently condone the suffering of others
so that they can maintain their "lifestyle."
If you can call that style living - when so much of what they
feel they are entitled to causes death for everything
else around them.

BHN

[JohnyCanuck]

107. Eating Fossil Fuels

(Mods I've posted more than 4 paragraphs, but www.fromthewilderness.com grants permission to reproduce the article for non profit purposes.

Soil, Cropland and Water
Eating Fossil Fuels

by Dale Allen Pfeiffer

<snip>

Modern intensive agriculture is unsustainable. Technologically-enhanced agriculture has augmented soil erosion, polluted and overdrawn groundwater and surface water, and even (largely due to increased pesticide use) caused serious public health and environmental problems. Soil erosion, overtaxed cropland and water resource overdraft in turn lead to even greater use of fossil fuels and hydrocarbon products. More hydrocarbon-based fertilizers must be applied, along with more pesticides; irrigation water requires more energy to pump; and fossil fuels are used to process polluted water.

It takes 500 years to replace 1 inch of topsoil.21 In a natural environment, topsoil is built up by decaying plant matter and weathering rock, and it is protected from erosion by growing plants. In soil made susceptible by agriculture, erosion is reducing productivity up to 65% each year.22 Former prairie lands, which constitute the bread basket of the United States, have lost one half of their topsoil after farming for about 100 years. This soil is eroding 30 times faster than the natural formation rate.23 Food crops are much hungrier than the natural grasses that once covered the Great Plains. As a result, the remaining topsoil is increasingly depleted of nutrients. Soil erosion and mineral depletion removes about $20 billion worth of plant nutrients from U.S. agricultural soils every year.24 Much of the soil in the Great Plains is little more than a sponge into which we must pour hydrocarbon-based fertilizers in order to produce crops.

Every year in the U.S., more than 2 million acres of cropland are lost to erosion, salinization and water logging. On top of this, urbanization, road building, and industry claim another 1 million acres annually from farmland.24 Approximately three-quarters of the land area in the United States is devoted to agriculture and commercial forestry.25 The expanding human population is putting increasing pressure on land availability. Incidentally, only a small portion of U.S. land area remains available for the solar energy technologies necessary to support a solar energy-based economy. The land area for harvesting biomass is likewise limited. For this reason, the development of solar energy or biomass must be at the expense of agriculture.

Modern agriculture also places a strain on our water resources. Agriculture consumes fully 85% of all U.S. freshwater resources.26 Overdraft is occurring from many surface water resources, especially in the west and south. The typical example is the Colorado River, which is diverted to a trickle by the time it reaches the Pacific. Yet surface water only supplies 60% of the water used in irrigation. The remainder, and in some places the majority of water for irrigation, comes from ground water aquifers. Ground water is recharged slowly by the percolation of rainwater through the earth's crust. Less than 0.1% of the stored ground water mined annually is replaced by rainfall.27 The great Ogallala aquifer that supplies agriculture, industry and home use in much of the southern and central plains states has an annual overdraft up to 160% above its recharge rate. The Ogallala aquifer will become unproductive in a matter of decades.28

We can illustrate the demand that modern agriculture places on water resources by looking at a farmland producing corn. A corn crop that produces 118 bushels/acre/year requires more than 500,000 gallons/acre of water during the growing season. The production of 1 pound of maize requires 1,400 pounds (or 175 gallons) of water.29 Unless something is done to lower these consumption rates, modern agriculture will help to propel the United States into a water crisis.

In the last two decades, the use of hydrocarbon-based pesticides in the U.S. has increased 33-fold, yet each year we lose more crops to pests.30 This is the result of the abandonment of traditional crop rotation practices. Nearly 50% of U.S. corn land is grown continuously as a monoculture.31 This results in an increase in corn pests, which in turn requires the use of more pesticides. Pesticide use on corn crops had increased 1,000-fold even before the introduction of genetically engineered, pesticide resistant corn. However, corn losses have still risen 4-fold.32

Modern intensive agriculture is unsustainable. It is damaging the land, draining water supplies and polluting the environment. And all of this requires more and more fossil fuel input to pump irrigation water, to replace nutrients, to provide pest protection, to remediate the environment and simply to hold crop production at a constant. Yet this necessary fossil fuel input is going to crash headlong into declining fossil fuel production.

<snip>

Our prosperity is built on the principal of exhausting the world's resources as quickly as possible, without any thought to our neighbors, all the other life on this planet, or our children.

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100303_eating_oil.html

[SteppingRazor]

4. The American Dream has never existed...

would be more accurate.

The idea that anyone can start from nothing, have good morals, work hard, and become a massive success is a shameful con job. Horatio Alger is the anti-Christ.

Hell, Fitzgerald wrote the quintessential the-American-Dream-is-dead novel, The Great Gatsby, some 80 years ago. Why anyone would think this idea applies to the modern United states is beyond me.

The whole idea is a come on. A slick. A lie. A cheap trick meant to keep workers' heads down, so that they don't realize that that American-Dream carrot dangling in front of them is hanging from a string, and they are being lead along like jackasses.

But maybe that's just me.

[raccoon]

9. RIght on, SteppingRazor!

Especially I liked that, "Horatio Alger is the anti-Christ."

There always have been a FEW who made it from rags-to-riches, but very few, and a lot of it has to do with luck. And that could be true in just about any country, not just the USA.

In my experience and observation, it's difficult these days to be even modestly successful, that is, having close to a middle-class lifestyle. It seems to me that there aren't nearly as many opportunities as they were 30 years ago. Or even 20 years ago.

[disgruntled_goat]

10. it's not just you

Barbara Ehrenreich (sp?) just put out a new book on this very topic, called "Bait and Switch" which is all about the shabby lie of the American Dream.

a good read so far :)

[SteppingRazor]

16. Haven't read that yet, but...

Her Nickel and Dimed is a classic.

[hfojvt]

52. it is more like a powerball ticket

somebody can win it, but not very many. Certainly there are some success stories. Dominos pizza started as a local pizza place and grew into a chain. My great-great grandfather came to this country from Switzerland, bought a farm, which went to his son who worked hard and did well enough to buy a farm for each of his two sons and a house for his daughter. It ain't Sam Walton, but it is a level of comfort and prosperity that much of the world does not have. But if I looked at the big picture I might find that my ancestors started out middle class and some of that prosperity is passed from generation to generation.

[KansDem]

91. "My great-great grandfather came to this country from Switzerland"

This reminds me of the novel "Valley of the Moon" by Jack London. I read it when I was younger and was struck by the premise that someone with no money could go to northern California and work as a hired hand on a farm or ranch. After a few years, that person could have saved enough money to go into sharecropping. And, after a few more years, that person would have enough money saved to buy land. Now, of course, that is impossible due to the cost of land in northern California, but the idea that someone with nothing can work hard and succeed is laughable in this day and age.

You gotta have a scam or a shtick to succeed in this country now days!

[Double T]

5. Most of us are going to be forced into changing our ways, whether we....

want to or not. For Americans, specially the middle class, this will be a tough pill to swallow. The American Dream will be even more difficult to obtain with basic necessities of everyday life consuming all of one's paycheck. It will take a revolution to put things back on the correct track.

[Ron Green]

8. See, I'm thinking that a some of the pain could be avoided

if we had true leadership at the top, someone who would stand up, tell the truth about the situation, and call bullshit on the liars who continue to sell us the idea that our comfort and convenience will work for us in the long term.

If Americans saw the big picture, they could lead the world.

[YapiYapo]

20. I think the world is a bit tired of Americans leading the planet.

World don't wait for americans, most countries are better prepared for the incoming world crisis than the US.

[Ron Green]

29. The world must surely be tired of Americans BULLYING the planet.

But with size and power come social responsibility (which we have not assumed), and this country, with the right message, could be as powerful a force for healing as we have been for destruction.

I just don't see any way to sell the message to the Middle Class of this country.

[YapiYapo]

40. Agreed

This is the best thing that could happen to everyone, problem is, it take time to bring confidence, most of the world don't trust the US anymore since iraq.Even with the best president we could dream get elected in 2008, it will take year for the world to trust him.Most agree the energy crisis will come before.(Even maybe this year with natural gas in US/UK)

[Greyhound]

64. You're looking for another class traitor like Teddy R.? Good luck. n/t

[CrispyQ]

79. Anyone who stands up & tells the truth to Americans won't get elected

at least not while the masses are still comfortably complacent. I don't think anything will change much until the masses are cold & hungry. Unbeknownst to them, that time is coming soon -- very soon. There are going to be some very surprised & POd sheeple in the next few years.

Hell, maybe just next year. I read an article recently that stated that we will not be the same country after the winter of '05-'06, what with gas prices, increased heating fuel, credit card minimum payments doubling & the new bankruptcy laws. And if the housing bubble bursts, that will wake up millions.


Good topic! Recommended.

[SammyWinstonJack]

185. The problem isn't telling the American people the truth, the problem

is getting the truth out there. We already know the Corporate owned media won't allow that to happen.

[Ron Green]

192. And the people won't demand it.

I'm thinking it's always been this way. Centuries ago it was the Church who controlled the message, but the message has always been controlled.

[leftofthedial]

6. the huge middle class IS sustainable

AND necessary for any progressive agenda

but not in an unregulated capitalist economy.

But you're partly right. There are not enough chickens for every pot.

Part of the problem is that "the American Dream" is ill-defined.

[YapiYapo]

13. How do you sustain middle class without cheap energy ? (n/t)

[Ron Green]

17. I think a huge CULTURAL middle class can be sustained, but not an

ECONOMIC one.

[Mari333]

7. well, its amazing how little one needs to live

I guess until people get over their vainness to need crap they dont need, they will be caught up in this maelstrom of furor over losing their luxuries . Im not talking about the working poor that cannot afford heat..Im talking about people who overreach their buying and then complain they cannot keep up with it. I wish high schools taught personal economics to people.

[Ron Green]

12. I just wish high schools taught Civics to people.

When I was in HS many years ago, it was already down to a half-credit class from a full one years before, and it hasn't been around most school districts now for a long time. Instead, we are being defined as CONSUMERS rather than citizens.

But I agree - personal money management is important, and also lacking.

[Trillo]

32. Any HS class lessons are quickly forgotten in the Corporate TV

commercial onslaught that is designed to ratchet up your desire to purchase many things that aren't necessary.

I keep the TV on in the background while I'm on my computer reading in the evenings, when a repeating phrase from a commmercial caught my attention. "You can afford it" was a subdued vocal background repeated a surprising number of times.

No HS class can possibly overcome this daily, hourly, and 5-minutely propaganda onslaught to buy and keep buying, which sub-consciously programs us to lust over what we don't have and that 'consuming is happiness.'

[Ron Green]

36. Alas, you are correct. And this again brings into focus how important and

powerful are the decisions of the FCC. The people will usually choose crap, but they have to at least be given the choice of non-crap.

[buzzard]

156. In grade 10 here civics is a mandatory 1/2 credit but it still is not

enough in my opinion.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

34. Yes, I learned that when I was in graduate school, and

also studying in Japan, where I lived in a one-room apartment with no central heating and the public bath three blocks away.

Those years, graduate school and Japan, were much happier than the years I spent in a small Oregon town with every creature comfort.

[wuushew]

11. Positive population growth must be stopped

The American lifestyle is simply the application of cheap energy in the production of various goods and services.

To continue to add people to a system of fixed energy resources will impoverish us all.

[buzzard]

162. Agreed, but who is allowed to populate the world and who is not that

is something that I have thought long and hard about but still have no answer. The world can only sustain a certain population at a level acceptable to many longterm but who chooses.

[Qibing Zero]

14. 'America is still the best place to live in the world'

I hear this every day when I discuss politics or travel or nearly anything. My family and some of my friends cannot bear the fact that the American system is not perfect, and not the 'best'. They cannot bear the fact that the system gives less and less chance to the less fortunate every single day. They dislike corporations, but they still hold onto their comfort pillow: 'Everybody has a chance - look at soandso, they made it from nothing!'.

They constantly throw around the term 'hard work', yet fail to realize that our society has not ever placed the rewards out to those who work the hardest. They either fail to consider, or do not even believe in luck at all. Another thing I notice about these people is how they're the ones that are always too busy to ever be able to take a step back and look at the world in perspective. Sometimes I wonder exactly where all that hard work is getting them, and if it's so essential then how come our society rewards greatest the people at the top that do the least amount of work?

Apparently it's hard work being born into money, and damn easy wondering if you're going to be able to make ends meet every single week.

Either that or we still believe that you as a person are responsible for your ancestors' actions.

[txaslftist]

23. Is it? I think it used to be. Now not so sure.

I think if I spoke French I'd see about moving to France. Maybe I should learn Canadian.

[Qibing Zero]

31. I think it was for a while.

As for civilized nations, America took the cake around the time of the writing of our Constitution and for a little while afterwards.

Nowadays, we're falling way, way behind.

I'm going to try my hardest to change things here, but I have friends all over, and I'll be building more and more perspective travelling in the meantime.

[raccoon]

71. I think so too, America might've been the best place to live

after World War II, up to about 1970.

Then we started falling behind, and other countries, industrialized countries, that is, started catching up.

Nowadays I'd say some of those countries with a national health plan are better places to live.

[Hardrada]

176. Up to about 11/22/63 I'd say.

Having been around then.

[raccoon]

183. Who do you believe did it? nt

[Hardrada]

204. Can't make up my mind

A number of possible perps.

[Greyhound]

70. Hasn't been for quite some time. When I was a tike America had

the highest standard of living in the world. Now we're in the teens, and falling fast. We work harder and longer, and wage inequity is greater than in any other first world country. We have more of our citizens imprisoned than anybody else, including the totalitarian Chinese. Our education system is wrecked and getting worse. The national infrastructure is in ruins and there is no money to fix it. The health care "system" is a joke unless you have the means to pay for preferential treatment at a private clinic. Made in America has come to mean badly designed, poorly made, over-priced, crap in a nice box. We tolerate corruption on a massive scale, saying "the other guys are worse".
If this is the best, what will second best be like?

[Qibing Zero]

77. Ah, that line was telling

'We tolerate corruption on a massive scale, saying "the other guys are worse"'

That's exactly what it is. People are stuck, being told all of their lives that this is the best the world has to offer, and if we have to put up with a few problems here and there we shouldn't worry, because it'll fix itself in the end.

The problem is that it's slowly getting worse and worse and worse, with no sign of stopping, and people are still blind to it.

[Greyhound]

87. I've said it before, they're boiling the frog slowly,

and we taste like chicken.

[LisaM]

15. There are enough chickens for people who only have one pot

it's the people who want chickens for fourteen fricking pots that are the problem. I'm talking about families with four cars for three drivers, three bathrooms in their houses, professional chef stoves in their kitchens, vacations to vacuous destinations that cost a fortune, five televisions with DVD players, and so on. I live modestly - we have two people, ONE car, a small house, two dogs, a normal stove, one bathroom, and no Kitchen Aid Mixer. Our only splurge is books, and yet we are reasonably content.

[Ron Green]

22. You are the new American Ideal.

A family who cares about learning and citizenship, but does so with a small "footprint." Education seems to be the key to this; a liberal education that tends to allay the fear that not having enough "stuff" will prevent happiness.

[CrispyQ]

86. 14 Chickens . . .

My previous boss, her husband & their little dog live in a 10,000 sq. foot house & pay +$800 a month to heat/cool the damned thing. And they have a heated driveway so the 2 times it snows over the course of the winter where the snow isn't melted by the sun the very next day, they don't have to worry about ice.

Holy fucking shit!


Lisa, we spend on books too! And recently we are collecting many titles that we fear may not be available in the near future or those that have crucial information to living in a new world order -- like how to identify edible plants in your region.

[LisaM]

88. Do you have organized piles?

I had about 40 books lying next to the couch and I sorted them by category so I now have three neater piles rather than 1 pile leaning this way and that.

[CrispyQ]

129. Sort of organized.

We are collecting books on the sciences & the natural world, human anatomy & health, Petersen field guide types of books & philosophy. Some books on various cultures would probably be good too & languages.

I have lots of books, but I just started this project when a friend told me about a progressive title she was having a difficult time finding. She can be a bit of a tin foil hat type, but everyday I become less confident that there won't come a time in the near future where banning books in this country will become acceptable & the list will be defined by the zealots & neocons. They'll probably start burning witches, too & the witches will be identified by the same group.

:cry:

[glitch]

146. If you haven't seen this site, you should!

http://www.gutenberg.org/ lots of classics online here.

[ComerPerro]

18. Hell, even being a full-time parent is impossible

The right wing likes to bitch and moan about households with two parents who work full time, and how it is heading society down the wrong path.

Well, guess what, right wing assholes? In most cases, both parents have to work. Its all due changes you helped bring about!

[Trillo]

19. The original American dream was Independence.

The "more modern" version evolved as our Independence was removed from each of us collectively.

The Industrial revolution time was possibly the beginning of this.

[BeHereNow]

26. Independence at OTHER people's cost.

Americans have a history of gaining their
"independence" at the cost of other people.

To gain our independence, we STOLE the land
of the Native people on this land- drove them to
the reservations and left them there to rot.

To maintain out "independence" we have
continued to rape and pillage the resources and
lands of indigenous people the world over.

Even the Kogi tribe of Columbia, who managed to
avoid us for centuries has finally been plundered.
Dyncorp dumped a ton of chemicals on them
and COMPLETELY wiped out their agriculture
and therefore their lives.
http://www.tarionatrust.org

Our "independence" is a cloak of SHAME.

BHN

[Trillo]

44. Perhaps. The "first" issue with the North American Indians

as I've been able to understand it, is that Indians didn't understand the concept of 'private land.' The colonists originally purchased land from Indians, which they then trespassed upon because they didn't understand the concept of 'private property.'

This concept of private property has its roots far back in other civilizations. Civilization itself has had this nature of empire and land conquest associated with it from the beginning, some 6000 years or more ago.

It's an old tired argument of holding current generations responsible for the sins of the parents, and their parents, etc. It seems to be a variation of Christian religious metaphor called "the fall," where we are still being punished today for the sins of the first humans (as the metaphor says).

Today, look at how many Americans are trying to stop the Iraq war. The leaders, so far, refuse. Its 'profitable' for Halliburton and some other MONEYed Corporations. The MONEY aspect brings us full circle back to "The American Dream", where we have been carefully groomed to be "consumers" enabling fat bank accounts for a select few entities.

[Qibing Zero]

50. No way

The first issue, by far, was the fact that the puritans who came to America first were extremely closed-minded.

Let us please never do something that happens so often in American History classes in schools and confuse the pilgrims with the forefathers of our country, or even of being a big influence. The puritans were escaping religious persecution, but by no means did they ever want that for everyone. They just wanted to start a new country in a new place where they could worship their religion.

Of course, that's not all. They were trying to create their own 'kingdom of god', because they feared the apocalypse was coming to europe. Well, we don't often hear about that, do we?

Kind of like Thanksgiving. The pilgrims were dying of starvation and the cold. The Wampanoag Indians opened their arms to them, as was their custom. Since Squanto could converse with both peoples, the pilgrims thought this was a sign from god to show them how to live in their new land. The Indians brought food, a temporary pact was signed, and...

In 50 years, the entire tribe was basically wiped out, thanks to those good old smallpox blankets. The Indians would not be converted to the puritan beliefs, and as such, they had to die. Did the pilgrims praise god for killing the Indians? You bet they did.

So no, the land deals came much later. It took a coming together from people of all different paths of life to create the freedoms that the US was built upon. You can thank the Indians for contributing toward a good deal of that, as well.

[Trillo]

89. "Perhaps" equals "no way"?

It is not simplistic to state it was solely one or the other. But "first," it appears purchases or trades for land were made from the Indians.

Relations between the early settlers and the Indians were friendly, due mostly to the friendship and respect between Williams and Miantonomi, the chief sachem of the Narragansetts. Land was purchased from the Indians with fair negotiations and mutual agreement. The Narragansett sachem believed there was enough land around the Bay for both the Indians and the settlers, and that they could live and thrive in cooperative coexistence. The Narragansetts resided mainly on the western side of the Bay, the Wampanoags on the eastern side.

When the Warwick settlement obtained a mandate from Charles I which confirmed the purchase of that land and granted royal protection to its settlers (to protect them from land claims by the Massachusetts and Plymouth colonies), it also secured royal protection for the land of the Narragansetts, which included all the land along the Bay south of Warwick. Narragansett Country was renamed Kings Province. This was in 1646. In 1676, after the bloody King Philip's War, the territory of the Indians was reduced to a virtual reservation in what is now Charlestown, Rhode Island.

Many Rhode Islanders might not know about King Philip's War (1675-76) but have heard about the Great Swamp Fight in what is now South Kingstown. Metacomet, called King Philip, the chief sachem of the Wampanoags, felt war was the only way to save his land. The Puritan colonies were asserting claims on Indian land without agreement or purchase. Several Rhode Islanders, Roger Williams among them, tried to negotiate for peace with the Indians while the Wampanoags were still gathering allies and making preparations, but Philip could not be talked out of his war. Although the Narragansetts (Miantonomi's son was now chief sachem) did not officially ally themselves with King Philip, they couldn't refuse to help the Wampanoags with their wounded and their refugees.
http://www.providenceri.com/NarragansettBay/indians_and_colonists.html

It also appears there were many diverse interests at play.

Wikipedia has a curious entry about John Sasserman who was murdered under questionable circumstances, and that is allegedly what started Metacomet's war.

The spark that started the war was a report from a "praying Indian" named John Sassamon of an Indian conspiracy to attack the European settlements. Before the charges could be investigated, John Sassamon was found murdered in a pond, allegedly by Wampanoag angry at his betrayal. The settlers arrested three Indians from the area, convicted them of his murder, and hanged them on June 8, 1675 at Plymouth. The Wampanoag believed the trial and sentencing was an insult, and the incident inflamed tempers further.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Philip's_War
I can't get this link to embed properly, try cutting and pasting this URL:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Philip's_War

"No way" is an unfair title interpretation of my word choice of "perhaps." It's hard to tell what happened 350 years ago with all the various interests at play that culminated later with our forefathers Declaration of Independence and the war that followed.

Sasserman was murdered 100 years earlier, but by whom? Indians? Or Puritans? Or royalty? Everyone has their "belief."

With mankinds proven track record of propaganda and revision of history, I'd submit its a bit hard to tell what really happened back then. It looks mighty similar to a few years ago with a small band of people who at least appear to have LIHOP--then the same small group of people (bushco) who told us about Saddam's WMD.

[Qibing Zero]

103. The problem is simply what you aren't mentioning

That article you're quoting from doesn't make note of the drastic differences between the two cultures, especially not that of the belief systems invovled. To take the driving force behind a person's every move (for the puritans especially) out of the equation is doing the situation no justice at all. Saying the 'first' problem was over land and then leading it into 'no one really knows what happened' and 'we shouldn't be accountable for the problems of the past' does even less to address the problem.

[Trillo]

110. I mentioned "Civilization" in a previous post.

If it wasn't clear, that was a reference to the cultural difference of tribal hunter/gatherers and city-dweller/farmland cultures.

No further comment.

[Iktomiwicasa]

85. Boy, do you have it wrong

Many native cultures (mine included) did not have a concept of INDIVIDUAL land ownership(although other tribes DID honor individual land ownership). We completely understood the concept of TRIBALLY OWNED land that was held in common for all the members of the tribe.

Some tribes sold parts of their lands, and when we refused to sell any more, it was taken by force, even though we have clear legal titles to those lands. Your courts agree that land title laid out in various treaties are valid, yet YOUR politicians refuse to honor those titles. WTF is up with that? A treaty is an agreement between two sovereign nations, and according to YOUR laws they are Federal Law. Your country isn't built on liberty, freedom, and honor. It is built on theft and lies.

[Trillo]

97. Everyone has their beliefs, and those beliefs start wars of various kinds.

It has been my experience, in my life, that many humans lie, cheat, and steal. Perhaps we can agree on that. Perhaps not.

There are online references that support the idea that the Indian tribes of the 1600s thought they were agreeing to one thing, and the colonists something else. The agreements were allegedly written in English, which the Indians may not have understood, but I haven't actually read those agreements.

Today, near where I live, are several Indian casinos, yet they aren't allowed off-reservation. I've heard from locals that one of the tribes near here (Southern California, the name of the tribe escapes me right now) paid each of its tribal members $20,000 per month individually back in the 80s and 90s, income sourced from their casinos. Other tribes of other reservations that don't have casinos aren't as well off. I've also read in the newspaper that some of the Indian casinos have similar income distribution problems that non-Indians have, where a few top tribal leaders pay themselves like CEOs from the casino income, and some in their tribe live in abject poverty.

So where, exactly, is the truth of today? Of 350 years ago?

[Iktomiwicasa]

102. Tribal sovereignty

is not a casino issue. Casinos are a table scrap meant to appease certain people. Some tribes have done well with them, some have not. Some tribal council leaders are corrupt, but then again, the tribal council system was forced upon tribes, and in a general way serve to rubber stamp Federal policy.

The issue I'm speaking of are land claims. Treaties that were unilaterally ignored and the land that was siezed. Specifically, in the case of my tribe, the Ft. Laramie Treaty of 1868. There are others, such as the Ruby Valley Treaty in Nevada(I urge you to look them up). These are not examples of "one side agreeing to one thing, and the other side to another". They are examples of one side changing its mind, and siezing land because they found a way to profit from it. This is in violation of your own federal laws. Why don't your own people follow their own laws?

[Trillo]

131. Corporations is my quick, gut level answer,

but you do ask a deep question with multiple intricacies.

The time of the Ft. Laramie Treaty of 1868 was around the Robber Baron era, and the corporation was evolving through legal precedent.

Here's a few excerpts from one PDF:
http://www.citizenworks.org/corp/dg/s2r1.pdf

(corporate) "Charter revocation became less frequent, and government functions shifted from keeping a close watch on corporations to encouraging their growth. For example, between 1861 and 1871, railroads received nearly $100 million in financial aid, and 200 million acres of land.
...
In 1886, corporations emerged from the Supreme Court case of Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad as “persons” under the law and thus could use the 14th Amendment to protect their equal rights. This meant that corporations were now entitled to free speech, protection from searches and seizures, and could not be discriminated against. Suddenly, corporations (artificial persons) had the same rights as real people.
...
At the state level, checks on corporate power were quickly eroding. In 1889, New Jersey became the first state to permit corporations to own equity in one another, perhaps as an attempt to attract more business. A “race to the bottom” quickly followed, with states all over the country madly gutting their corporate laws to be the most business-friendly state. In 1896, New Jersey passed the revolutionary “General Revision Act,” permitting unlimited size and market share, removing all time limits on corporate charters, reducing shareholder powers, and allowing all kinds of mergers, acquisitions, and purchases. Not to be outdone, Delaware passed its “General Incorporation Law” in 1899, which set the standard by essentially allowing corporations to write all their own rules of governance. Today, nearly 60% of all Fortune 500 companies are incorporated in Delaware.

Meanwhile, between 1895 and 1904, the first great merger wave consolidated 1,800 companies into 137 mega corporations or “trusts.” When all was said and done, the corporation was transformed from a quasi-public, state-controlled organization limited in size to a gigantic unlimited private organization with limited responsibility and limited accountability.

Corporations were now the dominant institutions of society, and as their excesses provoked public sentiment, the government set out to deal with the problem. Presidents like Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson now turned to a regulatory system and applied anti-trust laws to corporations that were getting too big, engaging in a tug-of-war with corporations over who was in charge. By the 1920s, however, a string of pro-business presidents (Harding, Coolidge, Hoover) gave up on cracking down on corporate power. Instead, Coolidge proclaimed in 1925: “The business of America is business.”

Today, we have corporate Diebold and ilk to keep The People and democracy in check.


As to the future of the Black Hills and the Dakotas? Perhaps after BushCo bankrupts the whole Federal government and oil runs out, in a far distant time, new tribes will emerge. But right now that's no more than fiction.

FTR, I do not feel that our current leaders are 'my people.'

[Iktomiwicasa]

137. It is only fiction

if we as a people go away. That is what many in the dominant culture would like to happen to indians. Even liberals.

You see, it is well and good to speak about getting out of Iraq, and righting all the other injustices of which Duhmerica has participated in, but that does nothing to address the injustice that continues here. I really do think that we as indians are reminders that even many liberals would rather not look at.

[BeHereNow]

144. Hmmm. No reply to you on that point...

again.
Interesting effect you have on the usually
verbose DU posters Iktomiwicasa....
BHN

[Trillo]

145. He/she missed my major point entirely,

and only responded to the "point of hope" that I made. That was a minor point, obviously not the major one. He/she didn't respond to my observation that corporate has stolen what it means to be human and honorable.

What's to reply to? That there are poor people in the world 'and the U.S.'? It's not just the Indians(!) that have been assimilated.

[Ron Green]

115. Beyond Tribes

is where I think we must go if there will be any sort of life on earth in the future. Whether it's in Iraq or Ireland, tribalism is killing the spirit that wants to bring lasting peace to all people.

[Iktomiwicasa]

116. Assimilation

with your dominant culture will mean the end of us as a people. Not acceptable.

[Old Mouse]

153. The great nations tried and were sent on the trail of tears.

Assimilation actually happens to the invaders, not the invaded.

The whites said the indians, being without souls, were incapable of assimilation. The Cherokee nation adopted european dress, customs and language, built factories, and majestic cities on their reservations, and even invented an phonetic alphabet for their textbooks and newspapers in a miraculously short amount of time.

The were forced back into the stone age on the Trail of Tears and Americans moved into the ready made homes and jobs.

[Iktomiwicasa]

155. Please

Don't equate technological advancement and adoption of european ways as some sort of "progress". I appreciate your sentiment and intent with the post, but the fact remains that even without a high order of material technology, my people were sociologically light years ahead of the europeans in most areas.

[Old Mouse]

160. I'm Cherokee (1/4)

We were the only tribe of the great nations to adapt to the Western ways. It was done with the idea of survival... obviously in hindsight it was a mistake.

[Iktomiwicasa]

164. Sorry

I don't want to argue with any of my NDN brothers or sisters. I guess I didn't fully understand your point. Thanks for the clarification.

[CrispyQ]

90. Two really good books:

"The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight" by Thom Hartmann

Explores the differences between ancient cultures & modern cultures.

Ancient cultures: sustainable, cooperative "we're all in this together" attitude, value diversity & recognize that nature & the communities we live in provide the infrastructure we each need to fulfill ourselves as individuals.

Modern cultures: live beyond their means, competitive "you're with us or against us" attitude, value conformity & use nationalisim & religion to control the masses, & believe they can 'extract' themselves from the natural world & control it, put the needs of (some) individuals above the whole.


"Economic Hit Men" by John Perkins

One man's personal experience (& involvement) with how the US government through corporations, exploits local indigenous cultures abroad to extract (steal) their resources that we need to maintain our life style, generally with the help of the local corrupt government/corporate officials.

[Iktomiwicasa]

158. DING DING DING

"One man's personal experience (& involvement) with how the US government through corporations, exploits local indigenous cultures abroad to extract (steal) their resources that we need to maintain our life style, generally with the help of the local corrupt government/corporate officials."

It just ain't overseas indigenous people that get screwed out of resources. It is happening here as well daily, and Democrat politicians are just as involved as Republicans.

Please don't answer "I had no idea!":puke:

[slay]

170. I'd say two EXCELLENT books

but "really good books" is ok i guess. :P

[Old Mouse]

154. True dat n/t

[Greyhound]

73. Another thinker! Alert the Homeland mercs!

Freedom, Liberty, Self-Determination were the ideals they fought for. It was about the same time as the industrial 'revolution' that they were able to steal it from us. Or rather, we allowed it to be stolen. Now be a good consumer, shut up, and go shopping. :sarcasm:
It's days like this I think we're going to get what we deserve.

[txaslftist]

21. Of course it is.

If by the American Dream you mean decent home-ownership, a big screen t.v., a computer and at least one vehicle; a college education for your two point five children ...

If you take the assets that Americans generate (our GDP minus 90% of the military budget), subtract 90% of our military budget, and divvy up the pot, you've got way more than enough money to accomplish all of these things.

Even without subtracting the military budget we've got enough money to do all of these things for every American family. We could do this in an environmentally sound way, using primarily renewable resources.

There is little doubt the resources are there. The lack is one of will.

If you think the American Dream includes the dreams of a Paris Hilton or a Donald Trump, then you are quite correct. We can't all live like kings. We could all live reasonably well if that is where our priorities were.

[Ron Green]

27. The American Dream you describe, though, is built upon slavery.

Or at least an exploited workforce somewhere in the world. I imagine that to acquire the ordinary middle-class trappings you mention in your first paragraph, and to pay true cost for them (including decent wages, health care, environmental protections, etc.) would require resources of someone up around the 80th or 90th percentile in this country, and that's to not even think about exporting the American Dream to poorer parts of the world.

[txaslftist]

42. That is simply not true.

The American Dream I described does not require an "exploited slave class" somewhere in the world to be toiling away at the behest of their evil capitalist masters. It doesn't require depletion of the world's oil reserves. All it requires is common sense.

Hydro-electric power is a real, sustainable energy source. Solar power is a real, sustainable energy source. So is geothermal power, and so is nuclear power (with qualifications). Even the hydrocarbon based power sources can be converted to renewable forms if organic fuel is substituted for oil.

If you took 45% of the military budget and devoted it exclusively to the development of alternate energy sources, we could have a sustainable energy system within fifty years. That's without sacrificing most of our lifestyle. If you get rid of the SUVs, encourage, construct and maintain better mass transit, switch personal vehicles to hybrids and electric powered vehicles then you've eliminated your energy crisis.

If you mandate recycling and production of recyclable consumer goods and devote 45% of the military budget to that effort and to the effort of renewable product packaging and such, you don't need "slaves" working in Asia to produce your product for you. Our own unemployed and underemployed and underpaid can do the same labor with efficiencies that make it possible for them to earn a decent wage doing it.

We currently spend hundreds of millions of dollars in crop subsidies to support the growth of crops we don't need. How about using that money to construct plants that take the grain and turn it into something marketable, like fuel?

There are vested commercial interests who do not want the US to take this path. There are vested energy interests (the ones currently in charge of our government) who don't want us to take this path. That does not mean the path is not there.

This is not pie in the sky pollyanna stuff. It is scientifically very doable. The OP on this thread is positing a bleak, zero-sum, dialectical world economy on the verge of apocalypse. It is simply not true.

I am not going to flagellate myself for having a car and a nice house when someone else in the world is starving. I'm going to work for the change that gives that person the ability to get food. While a rising economic tide does not always lift all boats, a rising technological tide usually does.

[Ron Green]

47. I like what you're saying, but I'm not convinced it's all doable.

I don't have the expertise to know how much of the total energy picture will allow us to continue to live the middle class life while so much of the world is in dire poverty, but I agree that we are called upon to make the needed changes. I wish Lester R. Brown were the President, because he understands this stuff and can explain it. However, we're going to get the politicians we've got because we WANT THEM. Unlike you, I DO flagellate myself (just a little) about my nice house and car. At my age I'm not going to become a total ascetic while others still drive their motor coaches, but I will sell my house within the next 3 years and get off the grid as much as I can.

My main point, however, is that whatever the technological possibilities may be, we don't have the political will to do the right thing. We're just too comfortable, and we don't want to be like the poor parts of the world.

[txaslftist]

53. Look, we DO have the political will.

What I'm saying is nothing new. It's not Pollyanna stuff, really. Check out Al Gore's writing. It Democratic dream stuff. Cut the military budget, spend the money on the economy, stupid. Spend the money on alternative technologies.

It takes electing people with VISION. It takes articulating that vision and putting people into power with the ability to follow through.

I'm not suggesting Gore, although he does have that kind of vision. Will we encounter resistance? Sure. Did today's automobile giants encounter resistance from the horse and buggy people?

A law was once passed in New York that said that if the driver of a horseless carriage should cross paths with a horse and buggy and the horse should get startled, the driver of the horseless carriage was required to disassemble his automobile.

Outmoded technologies ultimately fail and ultimately cannot hold onto their monopolies. And the world gets better. The question is whether our party is going to be the optimistic leader in that process or the sky-is-falling naysayer.

You know, man was really meant to fly, despite the lack of wings.

[Solon]

69. First off, we don't have 50 years for said transition...

think of us as having a transitional time deficit of -20 years for said transition, with maybe, a BIG maybe, of another 5 years as a grace period. Think of our entire lifestyle being when we jumped out of a plane, at the top, and have been in free fall since, alternative energy solutions, etc, are what will allow us to fall BACK onto a more sustainable lifestyle, on the ground, rather than in the sky, softly of course. The problem is that right now, we are five SECONDS from the ground, and the parachute cord broke. I believe we'll end up being in a crater for a while before we reach level ground again.

There are a few things to keep in mind, one, as the oil crisis worsens, food production is going to decline, mostly grains. So forget about using those as energy sources, we'll need them to prevent ourselves from starving to death. The only reason why we have the surplus you noted is because of Hydrocarbon based Pesticides, Herbicides, and Fertilizers. Second, our lifestyle is predicated on everyone having a quarter acre of land to themselves, with all the other stuff I mentioned in my other post that's too much space for most families. It doesn't matter whether a car is hybrid, electric, or runs on BS, it still takes a HELL of a lot of energy to BUILD the damn things, most of it from fossil fuels. Plastics are Oil based as well, you seen that chemistry commercial yet? It shows, in detail, what life would be like without chemicals, and most of those that disappeared in the commercial were derived from hydrocarbons.

Radical changes ARE going to happen, two things, right off the bat, are the return of multi-family homes and units, and a general re-urbanization of the nation. No more of these "Towns" and "Villages" that sprawl over almost a 50 square miles. For mass transit to work, another idea of yours, that has merit, we need people to live closer together, population density isn't nearly high enough in the areas that lack mass transit to even warrant the cost in energy or money.

[sendero]

130. I think...

... in the coming years you are going to find that you are quite mistaken. I could go on at length to debunk your analysis, but I'm not going to bother.

Cheap energy is over. Cheap exploitable labor isn't, but it comes at the expense of full employment at home.

Our country is being bought up as we breathe. Americans have no net savings. We are selling our country to China for plastic bullshit.

I'm not talking about feeling guilty about what I have, I'm talking about the FACT that the next generation will have less, and less, and less and really at this point there is almost nothing we can do about it.

[Solon]

30. That dream, as you describe it is only attainable...

as both sustainable and enviromentally friendly, if the primary transportation is either a bicycle or a scooter, the home is NOT in the suburbs and ain't a McMansion either, and that big screen TV means 32 inches and uses one half the energy a normal 32 inch TV uses. Other than that, No way.

[txaslftist]

43. See my post 42 for my reply...

And if you think a big screen TV in ten years is going to require the same amount of power as a big screen tv today, you are mistaken.

[YapiYapo]

54. Without cheap Oil

It's not matter of cutting the energy we use by half or 4 times , we will have to use 50 times less energy.

America is the most wastefull nation on earth, for 5% of the world population we use 30% of the ressource.In Europe or japan (where they also get plasma TV computer etc) ,they used half energy per habitant as in the USA.

[txaslftist]

66. Cheap oil is one component of a very complex economy.

Without cheap oil we will shift to vegetable oil and coal oil and our own sources. Our gasoline will cost as much here as it does in Europe. Boo Hoo. It OUGHT to cost the same. Maybe then we'd drive sensible little European econoboxes instead of friggin' hummers (the dumbest vehicle ever purchased by an American homeowner).

Artificially cheap oil is and has been a drag on our innovation for decades. We should be paying the going rate.

[Solon]

75. Oil isn't just another component, its the FOUNDATION for modern...

society. Its more than gasoline, its the shoes you wear, the toothpaste you use, the food you eat, and the computer you are typing on. Combined with the other fossil fuels, they constitute a 90% or more of what the current world economy is based on. We need REAL practical solutions to getting us off of fossil fuels entirely. Coal and Natural Gas have the same restraints as Oil as an energy source, for Coal, we probably have about another 30 years, at CURRENT consumption levels, for NG we have probably 2, maybe 3, it CANNOT be imported from overseas(Canada and Mexico only). If you wish to use Coal as an oil substitute, then cut off 15 years from its timeline before peak and decline, because consumption of coal will skyrocket. I'm not against using nuclear either, but then again, its only a stop-gap of sorts, but even assuming increasing energy needs, it will last thousands of years, thankfully. That could be radically shortened in the future of course. Kinda like the predictions back in the 70s that Coal will last 500 years, stupid numbers, forgetting to take into account INCREASING consumption of electricity over the past 30 years.

The point being that the dream of having a two story house for JUST your family, with a front and back yard, and any hope of having 2 cars in a garage, is gone, simply gone. That is just a pipedream, but for crying out loud, we don't NEED that stuff, people have not only survived on less, but prospered, the point being that having material things does NOT reflect quality of life, access to health care, adequate leisure time with family, basic necessities are what TRULY matter. Who knows, maybe that is a good thing, let's just try to ease the transition.

[hogwyld]

119. It ought to cost more

I'm all for jacking the price of oil to $100 per barrel. Make gas 7.00 per gallon with taxes. Take all that tax money and dump it into mass transit, and environmentally friendly renewable energy. People will find a way to get where they want to go. People went coast to coast in the 1800's for goodness sake. We will have to change and reduce the world's population by 1/2.

[lostinacause]

163. American oil isn't any cheaper then the oil in other places it is just

subject to lower taxation.

[raccoon]

184. If that's true, and the tax was jacked up in the US,

where would the tax money go?

a. Social programs
b. To build up the military
c. Tax breaks for the well-off
d. Both b. and c.; a.= no frigging way.

[sweetheart]

24. Where there is a functioning political body...

anything is possible, and this is the very place where the US has failed.
The government has no relationship at all to the actual political
agencies of the population, and this dissociation of interests has
been a disaster.

A political agency, as wise as the bush people are stupid, would indeed
be the core issue in sustainability.... but this is a crap shoot, not
a sustainable system of government, one where its all about personality
politics. But isn't the deeper failure with constitutional law, that
in making rules "explicit", the moral agency behind the rules is
erased from the collective mind, and in future generations, a stupid
culture makes even more stupid rules until the legal system has
destroyed the sovereign citizen for corporate profits in the short
term, leaving the society stripped and barren of moral aptitude.

[Ron Green]

33. You nailed it. And the next question is:

Can the People be sufficiently educated in their "higher nature" to overcome the base desires that drive this erasure from the collective mind?

Not by television, is my guess.

[Jamison]

25. True, the American Dream is unsustainable...unless...

We stand up and fight for it and elect this administration out of office. I fear if we don't do this and they take the next series of elections again, the American Dream will disappear, and the former middle class will live in 3rd world squalor.

[YapiYapo]

28. You miss the point.

It has little to do with politic.Democrats won't magicaly create another cheap source of energy.

[txaslftist]

46. But Democrats could...

see my post 42 above.

Beat the damn spears into plowshares (or giant windmills, if you like).

[YapiYapo]

68. This take time

It will take years before something can be done.I agree it's more a social problem than a technical problem ,if we started 20 years ago it would have been almost unoticable.We didn't and haven't much time left, maybe it's too late already maybe we get a few years ,a decade at best,certainly not more.

[bryant69]

35. You may be right

You may be wrong. But no politician of either side is ever going to get up and say "If you elect me I promise to make your life harder. I promise your kids will have less than you do."

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[YapiYapo]

38. I know but it will make the crisis 10 times worse when it happen

Make no mistake , every geologists agree,it's not matter of if but a matter of When.It will happen in the next following years or decade at best.If nothing is done millions will die in the US, billions worldwide.

[Jamison]

39. Bush is not actually saying that, but...

that's what his actions and policies are saying. It's known that the poverty rate in this country is up since 2001, and also wages have been stagnant while consumer prices are going up. Let's face it, the middle class had it better under Clinton.

[Solon]

41. That's all but assured regardless of what politicians say...

The American way of life IS unsustainable, as defined today(house in the burbs, 2 cars, 2 kids, family pet). With the economy falling, energy prices rising, this is simply a fact. The question is, when we do fall, how do we want to go? A controlled descent, or free fall, that politicians can control. Right now its free fall, I'm hoping SOMEONE will pull the parachute.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

37. The poor are growing weary of carrying us on their backs.

While we spout off about "spreading democracy" and the "free market" they starve, do without virtually everything we take for granted, and resent the hell out of it.

We rob them blind to so we can enjoy the luxuries while not even leaving them the necessisities. And, then, we're shocked to discover that they don't like us.

Fortunately for the rest of the world, the American Empire is crumbling. Our much vaunted military might has shown itself to useless unless it can push buttons to make things blow up. Our society is now seen as hopelessly degenerate (and, I'm not talking about sex) and our politics hopelessly corrupt.

The only people who remain willfully ignorant of it are the American people who want to believe, in spite of all the evidence, that America is the "Shining City on the Hill".

Any student of history can look at the state of America now, and see a repeat of what happens to empires when they've reached this stage.

[loveandlight]

45. we will be forced to change

I think you are right, no politician will be able to say that outright. We have been abusing the world's resources, Americans I mean, for so long with no thought that it would ever have to end, that we could just go on this way forever. We hide the poverty and environmental destruction this has caused to our own country, and especially ignore it in other countries, but it is coming home in a way we can't ignore now. This is just the beginning.

Look at the last few years, foreign terrorists on our own soil, natural disasters on a scale unimaginable in the past. And a world population that is beginning to take control of their own resources. Why are politicians like Chavez and even Saddam Hussein the hated enemy? Because they want to control their own resources.

I believe we will be forced into living a less comfortable life. We have not been prepared to live differently. We are a selfish wasteful society, as a culture. To learn to live differently is going to be hard. We will not give it up easily. Certainly, those in power will not concede. I can hope that some enlightened politician will come along and try to guide us through this in a more gentle fashion, but I don't really see that happening either.

As a people, we can try to organize in our own communities and our progressive organizations, but I fear that we may be too late and the powers that be will bring about destruction on a world scale (thinking nuclear destruction and environmental devastation) before we can get control back from them.

Gloomy thoughts indeed, but I have trouble keeping them at bay.

[CrispyQ]

105. Welcome to DU, loveandlight!

:hi:

I agree with all that you say. We hate leaders of other countries that won't let us exploit their natural resources & stomp all over the rights of their people so we can rob them of their resources.

Enlightenment will not come to the sheeple from anyone else telling them the way it is, but rather through the hard & terrible times that past due in coming to the masses in America thanks to our arrogance, sense of entitlement & total lack of regard & respect for everyone else on this planet.

The bigger you are the harder you fall. Or as Lily Tomlin says, "Things are going to get a lot worse before they get worse."

[raccoon]

186. Good points, loveandlight. Welcome to DU. nt

[JohnyCanuck]

48. Check out Clusterfuck Nation, the blog by author Jim Kunstler

Kunstler is the author of the recent book on Peak Oil, "The Long Emergency." He usally updates his blog every Monday.

Half the houses in America are heated with natural gas and most of them are elsewhere than the Gulf Coast. On the markets, the price of gas is now heading north of $15 a unit (1000 cubic feet). It could easily hit $20 by Christmas, which would be about 700 percent higher than the price in 2002. Everyone in the non-Sunbelt is going to feel the pain this winter, and quite a few of the poor and infirm may freeze to death.

This is going to be a whole new kind of crisis for America and will set off a new kind of political fury. Both parties will get it in the neck but, of course, the Republicans led by the Bush White House will get it worse, because they are nominally in charge of things. There will be nothing they can do about the natural gas crisis. You can't get any significant amount more of it from overseas because it requires special tankers and terminals to receive it, and those terminals will not be built before the robins come back to Kalamazoo. The Democrats will have to prove that they don't deserve to join the Whigs in the Hall of Extinct Parties.

The political allegiance of the American public will be fully in play. Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum, and we are likely to see the emergence of something new, perhaps something like the British National Party (BNP) which combines a very aggressive agenda on energy policy with overt fascism. The American people will be starved for action, too, and will be waiting for a man of action to embody their desperation. Let's hope that the characters who percolate out of this mess are not maniacs. The outrageously wealthy had better duck-and-cover -- the half-billion-dollar-CEOs, the $20-million-a-picture movie stars, perhaps even the relatively humble drivers of Hummers and Beemers. The sinking middle class will want to eat them.

Oil prices may hang back in the low $60s for a little while -- a combination of less driving, relief over the refinery situation in Houston, and some financial monkeyshines like shorting in the markets (perhaps by government-connected entities seeking to soften up futures prices). But the basic fact is that global oil supply and global demand are now so close that any loss of crude inputs anywhere is going to result in both spot shortages and higher prices. Right now, the supply crunch is being borne by third world countries. The catch there is that some of these third world countries are also oil-producing countries, like Indonesia and Nigeria, and the latter is in the process of falling into social anarchy, which will further impact the global supply. In any case, I don't expect oil prices in America to lay low for long. By Christmas, gasoline pump prices will have joined home heating prices in a vicious pincer around the neck of the non-rich classes.

http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/

[txaslftist]

49. What an unbelievably bleak and untrue post.

The "level of comfort and convenience" you've described has been the middle class norm in the US for about twenty years. Before that it was 1 car and a modest home. Before that it was simply a modest home and a nice horse or carriage. Before that is was 100 acres and a mule.

Our level of comfort and convenience has increased every generation in the US. For the vast majority of that time, America had very little foreign trade, and thus we didn't have to rely on any slave class in some other country. Technological innovation has consistently led us to an increasing level of comfort.

It is true that right now our economy relies heavily on non-renewable sources of energy. It did not always, and in fact the development of the petrochemical industries were innovations in their time. To think that we Americans are incapable of harnessing wind power, solar power, nuclear energy, hydroelectric power, geothermal power and organic hydrocarbons is to ignore technology that exists today. It is to ignore the forests of ginormous windmills springing up across West Texas and the rest of the windy west.

Our level of comfort and convenience will likely continue to increase as technology increases. Twenty years ago I would have had to mail this reply in and wait a week for your reply. Now you can flame me in minutes.

This gloom and doom scenario you predict is simply not going to happen. Just like the predictions of the Rapture coming and the apocalypse coming that were made around the year 1000. We will have our disasters and our plagues and our famines and our problems, sure. We will continue to exploit lower classes (and in turn be exploited), but to think the American dream is not attainable is to ignore all of the advances we've made in the past century.

What happened to the 1930s through the 1980 sense of amazement and wonder at what we could do technologically? What happened to the amazement of the first transcontinental flight and the man in the moon occurring within the same generation?

There are changes we need to make. There are priorities that need to be re-examined. But believe me, we are in more danger of losing our liberty than our property at this point in history.

[Ron Green]

51. Then who will be the new slaves?

Our country was built on slave labor, remember? And then on the labor of underpaid sharecroppers, and then on that of children in the Third World (most of them are still at it.) And all along, the slavery of the labor-saving machinery that in 200 years has used up most of the fossil fuels that took a couple of hundred million years to lay down.

Who will be the new slaves?

[txaslftist]

60. Windmills, dams, grain distilleries, power plants, factories...

And we will all be the masters IF we make the choices that enable technologies to be realized.

As for the third world children/slaves, would they be eating without employment? Is this the first generation of the third world that has experienced famine? Is this the first generation of the third world that has experienced disease?

Should we do more for them, certainly. Should we try to make their lives better? Obviously. Are we ultimately villains in their lives because we exploit their cheap labor without ensuring that they work in safe & decent conditions? Probably. Is our economy going to collapse without cheap imported goods? No. It will stumble, but not collapse.

As for the slaves who "built our country", first, they are free now. Second, there were no slaves in Wisconsin, ever, and it has a vibrant, functioning economy. We could have (and should have) built this country without slavery; we didn't. That is to our shame.

And we won't need slaves in the future, IF we are smart.

[Iktomiwicasa]

63. tap tap tap

"Our country was built on slave labor, remember? And then on the labor of underpaid sharecroppers"

Forgetting someone there?

[Ron Green]

113. If you're referring to the native people from whom the land was taken,

I haven't forgotten. But they didn't really supply the labor in the same way the slaves did. They were just lied to, ignored and wiped out, then moved into "reservations."

[Iktomiwicasa]

117. Hey

I am refering to my people

We are still here. Against all odds we still have our own languages, customs, culture. Pressure your politicians to restore treaty rights.

[Ron Green]

121. How many of your people would be willing to give up all the modern

conveniences and adopt a pre-Columbian way of life, though? I don't think anyone who's driven a nice pickup for the past 20 years is eager to go back to the harsh beauty of life on the plains or in the pueblos.

[Iktomiwicasa]

128. Excuse me

Legally binding treaties have nothing to do with driving pickups. It has to do with illegally seized land that we have legal title to. Why are you opposed to honoring those agreements? Treaties are Federal Law. Obey your own laws.

FWIIW, I believe what my elders tell me about your modern industrial ways. It IS a doomed system that is unsustainable.

[Strelnikov_]

55. "Predictions Of The Rapture Coming And The Apocalypse Coming "

I tend to view geologic limitations, thermodynamic limits and Malthusian overshoot as being more imminent problems than mythology.

[txaslftist]

76. Yep. And gravity cannot possibly be overcome either.

If men were meant to fly, God would have given us wings.

[YapiYapo]

58. Don't forget that

No matter what we do there will be a gap in the energy available/energy needed.That gap will make the price skyrocket.

If someone invented today a engine that run on water as a fuel source, it will take 15 years for most of the cars to get that technology.
If you wait for the crisis to be there to take action, it cost expotionaly more to buld those nuclear plant etc.

[Iktomiwicasa]

56. Fuck your "American" dream

This not addressed to any particular person, but to your party and country in general......

I am happy that I am not an "American"

Your nation is built on the blood of my people. Both of your rotten parties are equally guilty.

Your "dream" is aquisition of material goods, accumulation of financial wealth, and feeling good about your "self".

The democratic party is full of armchair warriors who champion black civil rights, latinos, gays, lesbians, palestinians,(and rightly so) yet when faced with indians, your image of your nation and yourself crumbles like a dried out buffalo chip. We are the shadow of your national conscience. It is a nation built on a lie, no matter how you change your foreign policy. You aren't willing to give anything up, in your own self centeredness. It hurts a fragile ego to realize that not everyone aspires to be like you.

Your government has made agreements with my people that are legally and morally binding. There are lands that we still have legal title to, and courts have affirmed this, yet your politicians actively participate (Yes, democrat politicians) in preventing their return. Why in the world do you people continue to elect "leaders" like this? Your worldview is fucked up, and your industrial way of life is a doomed one. Your people are out of control and things WILL be rebalanced.

Untill the lie is undone, your country deserves every shitty thing that happens to it.

edited for spelling

[BeHereNow]

72. Shhh...there you go again Iktomiwicasa

Bringing up that nasty stain on the
robes of the self-righteous.
Shame on you...
BHN

[AngryAmish]

57. Are you talkng about Dusty Rhodes?

[whosinpower]

61. It is easy my friend

CHANGE THE DREAM. America needs to get off the material needs bandwagon and examine what is really important in life.

Change the American dream - to reflect a more restrained view of living the good life - reframe the dream.

[SeekerofTruth]

81. I like your thinking! When people die...

they usually say 'I wish I had spent more time with my family'. Why isn't that more related to the American Dream than having the biggest badass SUV in the neighborhood?

[CrispyQ]

108. "Time is the essence of our lives."

Yet we spend more & more of our time chasing material wealth, wondering why we're never happy.

On our death beds, will we wish for a bigger, better house? No, we will wish we had more time.


He who dies with the most toys, still dies.

[Greyhound]

62. Carter just alluded to the inescapable facts and has been excoriated

in nearly every camp. The Dems joined right in with the raygun repukes.
I'm afraid it will get much worse before it can get better.

[YapiYapo]

65. There is a no return point

If the economic collapse is worldwide and really bad (it will since world industry and economic rely heavily on transportation and our agriculture on petroleum product)at some point it will be too late.
You will need to wait a few generations before even thinking of solving the problem.Simply put you will have to wait untill enought peoples have died.

[Greyhound]

74. Welcome! I'm afraid you're correct & we may have reached it.

However, I believe it could be stopped, or at least minimized if We The People take our country back. I am too old & cynical to believe we have the commitment and balls to do what it will take.

[YapiYapo]

96. Thank you

I also believe there are some answers but as you said the main problem will be the people, not willing to make sacrifice.

[hogwyld]

167. It is coming

Change that is. Whether we initiate it, or it is forced down our throats. I can assure though, it will get very nasty indeed.

[sendero]

67. Our economy..

.... is now being propped up by "debt culture".

The Federal Reserve is "printing" money like crazy.

Why buy a car when you can LEASE, and never actually own anything!

TVs, furniture, ZERO DOWN, no payments until 2007!

Your "Credit Limit" is how much money you have.

and so on.

It really cannot go on much longer. The laws of money are similar to the laws of nature - you can mitigate, ameliorate, postpone, but eventually they always get their way.

[Walt Starr]

78. Actually, not only do I believe it is sustainable, but that it can go even

further!

Hear me out.

#1) The first prime driving factor for the "American Dream" was fast cheap transportation. Now, gasoline and other petroleum products were how we achieved this in the past. This model is no longer sustainable, however, other cheaper and cleaner models do exist and can be developed. It is the development of this which will broaden the American Dream into a Terran Dream.

#2) The second prime driving factor for the "American Dream" was affordable housing. Again, cheap petroleum driven energy is what provided the means for this part of the dream to follow. Again, cheaper and cleaner alternatives exist and the development of those alternatives are another prime driving factor to take the "American Dream" global.

We're getting there. The way we sustain the dream and take it global is Alternative Energy sources. Through this means, the ability to wipe out poverty and sustain a middle class existance as the lowest end of the economic scale becomes a reality. In fact, wiping out poverty will be a primary driving force in the ability to have consistent economic growth!

All it takes is intelligent resource management and alternative renewable sources for energy, fiber, and food. Obviously, this is not something that is achievable under teh regressive/conservative political model, but it is achievable.

[txaslftist]

80. Thank you Walt Starr!!!

I thought I was the only optimist here!

[YapiYapo]

92. Being optimistic is a very dangerous thing

That's how the economists react to the peak oil problem which is also exactly why the peak oil problem is so bad.

That's how most people reacted to jimmy carter policy, who need to use less fuel ? We will just find more.
Who need to change their livestyle, we will just find another cheap source of energy.

You have to be realistic ! Do the math, american way of life is not sustainable, especially for 3 billions people (china and india are getting there slowly)

About alternative energy source, if you compare to oil (cheap,easy to find,portable etc) there are none.The only solution we get are liquid gas from coal and nuclear.So sure it will delay some part of the problem (the poor will still be unable to buy gas) until we reach peak coal by then the earth will be a mess and if fusion is not ready yet (probably won't as peak coal will be in 30 year) we will be doomed.

[wuushew]

93. The problem is one of scale and transition time

Otherwise everything you list is technically and politically possible




lets say were are comparing pure Btu per acre of hemp per year.

9 tons * 5,000 btu per pound(lower limit) = 90,000,000 BTU

28,000,000,000,000,000/90,000,000 = 311,111,111 that is the gross amount of acreage needed to replace the heating value of the liquid fuel we consume on an annual basis. Obviously not all bio-mass will be converted to fuel and energy will also be lost in the conversion and transportation process. Be it either land farming or growing algae the infrastructure for such a large industry is practically non-existent. The rate at which we could build such an industry no doubt will be slower than the rate at which we are currently depleting petroleum.

If you going the hydrogen route you will need to double the electrical generation capacity of the United States to cover the necessary amount of water electrolysis needed to replace current levels of gasoline consumption.

[Walt Starr]

100. You're completely leaving out photovoltaics, wind, etc.

I think that PV should start becoming a requirement for all new homes.

Fortunately, I live in a state which gives great incentives for PV intallation and will probably be adding it to my next home.

[wuushew]

101. Photovoltaics don't make liquid fuel

they can generate electricity for making hydrogen however.

We need large volumes of bio-mass AND electricity to continue using common and mature technology of hydrocarbon combustion.

Going quickly to all electrically derived transportation will be a costly and monumental undertaking.

[Walt Starr]

104. Ahhh, I was concentrating on the housing bit

Admittedly, transprotation is a trickier issue. The problem is, there has been no movement to replace hydrocarbon combustion technology.

[YapiYapo]

112. EROEI : Energy return on energy invested.

EROEI on Photovoltaics,wind power, etc isn't so good, barely positive even negative in some case.In short we will use more energy building them than they will ever produce.
Don't get me wrong , solar and wind are good source of energy but it's too late and won't work for a mass cheap source of energy.

Photovoltaics will only be at best 15% of US energy production in 2015.

[Karenina]

111. Hey Walt!

You and txaslftist are living in la-la-land. HAD there been the political will to implement the ideas you espouse, there would be a monorail in L.A. today. Reagan DISMANTLED the solar panels Carter installed on the White House. There IS NO INTELLIGENT RESOURSE MANAGEMENT in the U.S. TODAY. It is NOT ACHIEVABLE as faulty computers control your votes, so even if you scream "THIS IS WHAT WE WANT" the answer will be, "WHO CARES WHAT YOU THINK?" Please do wake up and smell the coffee. You can be sure that unless you pay a "premium" it is NOT fair trade.

[Chicago Democrat]

82. AMEN! Move back to the land! Get AGRO Raise Animals!

Eat what you raise. Know your customers. Love one and other.

[geniph]

83. When did the American Dream morph

from being having a decent shelter, enough to eat, and the ability to clothe one's children to having MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE plastic crap? That's what's making the American Dream unsustainable, the fact that a modest dream of having enough has become a horrendous nightmare of always needing more. We have become a nation of crack addicts, and the crack we're smoking is NEW SHIT. We all have to worship at the altar of more material goods, because now our entire economy is based on that fragile, shifting sand; if we stop consuming, our economy will collapse ignominiously. We are no longer a people who MAKE things, we are a nation of people who BUY things, who CONSUME things.

Why does a couple with two children need a six bedroom home, three cars, seven bathrooms, four TVs? Our parents' generation did fine with four kids in a three bedroom home, one bath, one car, no TV. Our grandparents did fine with six kids in three bedrooms, an outside bath, and a saddle horse if they were lucky. When did we start thinking that our lives aren't worth living unless we have TIVO and Hummers and the latest Manolo Blahniks?

When is it ever ENOUGH? When do we stop filling our emotional black holes with material goods? When do we realize that buying clothes and electronics and toys doesn't really make you feel better?

[Strelnikov_]

106. Hey There, Fella. I Don't have A Hummer, . . .

and I don't know what the hell 'Manolo Blahniks' are, but they sound French, so I wouldn't have nothin' like that, but don't even think about me givin' up my Tivo.

Seriously, I think electronics may be the only 'toys' we will be allowed in an energy starved future.

My first test of what will be viable in the future is how much energy does it consume.

Tivo/TV, not much. Hummer/Expedition/(insert SUV here) racing down the highway at 75 mph, heating/cooling 4,000 sq. ft. McMansion in suburban Chicago, lots.

[raccoon]

187. Amen Amen to your second paragraph! nt

[MsTryska]

84. how about changing the dream?

slowly and subtely of course, and really it's marketing - but there's got to be a way to make the change glamorous.

for instance - eating all you want and living a life of leisure isn't glamourous anymore.

low-carbs, high-protein and getting up to go to spin class at 5 am are.

[YapiYapo]

94. Light Sweet crude oil price :

For those still doubting how imminent the energy crisis is :

[hunter]

125. Something's gonna pop...

That's a scary curve, the kind you see just before something breaks:



A penetrator is pushed at a constant rate into and through a fabric target. The measured force–deflection history can then be correlated with the videotaped images and acoustic emissions of the fabric deformation and failure. This gives us a clearer understanding of the evolution and phenomenology of fabric target deformation and failure during fragment penetration.



http://www.sri.com/psd/fracture/quasistatic_tests.html

[Tactical Progressive]

95. I don't see any way it'll change either

The ideological corruption has been too deeply inculcated. I'm an optimist so I don't like to dwell on it, but I think America has entered its death spiral.

[Iktomiwicasa]

98. Oh it will change alright.

If you don't change, it will be changed for you.

[baby_mouse]

99. The only reason it's looked as if it was successful thus far...

is because the founding father's generation happened on an enormous landmass with exploitable natural resources and land that wasn't being exploited to the same technolocial level as them. Also they had no natural competitors at the same technological level. It had nothing to do with any sort of philosophy.

The American Dream has survived as a myth by accident, the natural resource exploitation curve carried it for generations and now that curve is reaching the end of its life-cycle. The myth will die when the curve crashes, which will be soon.

[Dark]

109. Yes it is sustainable.

It will require enormous amounts of work (that won't happen) but it is possible to keep our standard.

But, with the Bushes in office, it ain't goin' nowhere.

[nvliberal]

114. Of course it's sustainable.

The problem we have is an administration representing a sector of the population who don't believe in the American Dream, who believe in a type of feudalism where the rich have almost everything, and the rest are there merely to serve them.

Any view stating the Dream isn't sustainable is spewing nonsense.

[Lorien]

118. If every human being on earth maintained an American lifestyle

we would need five additional planet earths-WITHOUT any humans on them-to sustain this "standard". At current consumption rates the world's rainforests will be gone within about 45 years (this is not adjusted for population growth). Without rainforests and healthy oceans, the planet will not produce enough oxygen for us-or other life forms-to survive. Sustainability without significant change is a myth.

[tom_paine]

122. That is correct, Lorien. In and of itself that indicates something very

wrong.

The American Dream, as it stands now, is predicated on a lareg number of people who live perpetually without it.

There is no way around that.

[Ron Green]

124. However, I would suggest that it was ever thus.

Consider that slavery is the natural state of mankind, and that our brief experiment with liberty and equality, imperfect as it has been, is about to come to a close. There have always been a ruling group and a subjugated group, and now they've been globalized. The "higher mind" that wants to share, to love, to give, to be vulnerable - is addressed by spiritual and educational principles, but the Lizard Brain always rules, because it's about fear and want. And the Free Market cares only to our fears and wants, and that's not about to change on this planet, not in this millennium.

[tom_paine]

142. In that event, humanity is an evolutionary dead end

Maybe the next species that gains intelligence and self-awareness will do a better job.

"our brief experiment with liberty and equality, imperfect as it has been, is about to come to a close"

Yes, that does seeem to be the situation. But as long as there is a hope and chance that it's NOT the situation, we can't stop trying.

[raccoon]

188. Exactly, and the average American consumes a hell of a lot

more than the average citizen of a Third World country.

My guess is, more than 15 times as much.

If anyone has an official stat from somewhere, please post it.

[Dark]

189. I said with work it is sustainable. That includes finding a green fuel,

conserving, and not going to war with countries who have done nothing to us.

We don't need the Rainforest for lumber. Hemp can be used to make paper, and it can be grown every year.

We don't have to dump our waste into the oceans, we can dispose of it cleanly and efficiently.

Again, that would require work on our part and money, something the majority of Americans would rather spend on beer and war.

[Lorien]

196. Work, innovation, and progressive thinking would help

the problem is that billions more on this planet see the "American standard" as the ultimate goal, and supply cannot possibly hope to meet those demands; now or any time in the future (check out "affluenza" on amazon.com). We could minimize our impact using crops like hemp, but solid wood furniture and carpentry will always be in vogue.

Having more "stuff", though, does not lead to personal fulfillment and happiness. Studies have shown that personal relationships, contact with nature, and creative self expression (from art to organizing non profit groups)do more to bring about a sense of "happiness" than the acquisition of things; yet our society promotes materialism as the be all/ end all of our existence. It has created "afflenza" ; a condition where the constant pursuit of wealth and goods brings about exhaustion, resentment,fractured relationships...and the belief that just because that new flat screen TV didn't bring a sense of bliss, a new just iPod might.

For more on this issue see the DU "Economic activism and progressive living" group.

[tom_paine]

120. Interesting discussion

I still wonder whether a "responsible version" of the American Dream is still possible. This includes alternate sources of energy, especially the fact that every house should come with a solar panel on top as standard equipment.

But of course, with the Busheviks, feudal oligarchists at best, Nazis at worst (we still have yet to find out their Ultimate Final Solutions to the problem of American Freedom), we are perhaps damaging any chance of salvaging something, perhaps irreperably.

When IS the Point of No Return, have we passed it already?

Of course, there are at least TWO unique Points of No Return, both of which may have passed.

1) Political -- Is there any chance Amerika will ever be free again or has The System been so parasitized and corrupted that it can never be restored without (REDACTED)?

2) Energy/environmental (by far the most important of the two, but I'm not sure we can salvage #2 without #1) -- Are we too close to Peak Oil to save Industrialized Civilization? Is there an alternative we can apply before Peak Oil ends the ability to sustain technology? Add to this approaching dilemna the almost certain to be catastrophic long-term effects of global warming and environmental change. If these two things hit at the same time, where will it end and what will be left when it ends?

[trekbiker]

123. Personally, I'm looking forward to the big change.

I look forward to the day when giant assinine 15mpg pickups dont rule the road. When eating beef (about the most wasteful animal to produce per/input) is a rare thing. A time will come when we dont need 3,000+ sq ft homes, giant swimming pools, 50mile commutes, huge electric grids.

This change will be forced upon us because we have no real leadership from either party and are incapable of thinking beyond the next year or our own self interests (and I'm as guilty here as the average american sorry to say). Our sick American wastefull selfish society is going to be forced into some painful changes unfortunately. And I say, GOOD.. the world will be better off for it in the end to knock the USA down a peg or two. I just hope that as we go down we dont do something really "sore-loser" stupid like nuke China or something.

[hogwyld]

126. It's inevitable

We are past the point of no return. We have abused this planet and her resources for far too long. All species are about to pay a high price for the folly of man. After nature corrects this imbalance through the ravages of starvation, plague, and war, this world will have a fraction of humans living. The dead will become the oil of future civilizations.

[atim]

127. USURY IS UNSUSTAINABLE MATHEMATICALLY

Usury is the foundation of Capitalism via monopoly Central Banking

Mary's Cent

The example of `Mary's Cent' is often used to illustrate the injustice of usury in general and the mega-usury of compound interest in particular. If the Virgin Mary had invested one cent for the baby Jesus at 6 percent compounded annually, the worth of that investment would grow as follows:

after 10 years $.018 (or 1.8 cents)

after 100 years $3.39

after 200 years $1,151

after 300 years $390,625
after 600 years $15,258,757,071,928 (more than US GDP)

after 1000 years $202,239,165,600,000,000,000,000

after 2000 years (assuming the price of gold is $278 US an
ounce this figure is equal to a mass of gold
209 trillion times the mass of the sun)

If the interest was not compounded the value of Mary's investment after 2000 years would be $1.21.



World's Richest 6 Million People Get Richer

New research by Merrill Lynch, the investment bank, with Gemini Consulting found the wealth held by individuals with more than one million dollars of financial assets grew last year by 12 percent to $21.6 trillion.

George Graham, Financial Times (May 17, 1999)
http://www.basicincome.com/basic_gendata.htm#fractional

[womanofthehills]

133. Living off the grid

I live way out in the country in New Mexico and am totally off the grid. Because the sun shines so much here just having a whole wall of south facing windows will pretty much keep your house warm most of the day. (and act as air conditioning in the summer).
However, I have a row of 50 gallon drums filled with water along the window which keeps the temps from falling much in the night. Most of my neighbors are off the grid. Many have build earthships and most have built their own homes. There are a lot of woman in their 50's, and 60's building their own earthships. I don't know of anyone who has a mortgage. Because everyone is freeked out by the economy and Bush & Co. we are working on having more community. We started by having pot luck every Wed at each others houses, we are going to make a community chicken coop, and everyone is trying to grow and share as much of their food as they can. Carpooling into town to get our mail etc. and fishing at a near by lake to get some free protein.

[tom_paine]

140. Good for you...off the grid may be the only way to go

to avoid the tumultuous change and likely catastrophe that awaits us, brought ever-closer by Bushevik corruption, greed and mismanagement.

I would also suggest arming yourself, regardless of how you feel about guns (they are like umbrellas before a threatening rain...if you don't need it, all the better, but you will be full of regret if you are caught in the middle of the coming storm without one) because when the shit hits the fan, the Busheviks will be coming for you...either to steal your shit or burn you at the stake as a witch.

Back to the 1590s it shall be.

[BeHereNow]

151. Can I come live there too?

I love New Mexico.
What part are you in?
BHN

[BeHereNow]

152. Forgot to say...WELCOME TO DU!

BHN

[Singular73]

132. Disease and War

[dcfirefighter]

134. Bullshit, sure it is

#1 Capture the external costs of everything, return them to those who 'pay' the costs, e.g. Worldwide Carbon Tax
#2 Share the economic returns to natural wealth and community created wealth (site values, broadcast licenses, etc.)
#3 End fractional reserve debt based money

If you do the above, you can pick any size of government, and the people will have the resources to live, learn, love, etc.

FWIW:
Private banks create ~$250B a year - could be created by the US Gov't instead
Land values are derived from demand, there is no production.
Total 'Rent' of land & natural resources in the US is nearly $5 TRILLION a year (~$17,000 a person)

[mom cat]

135. Are WE willing to live sustainably...I mean us right here. If we vant do

it then we may as well kiss this sweet planet goodbye. Are we willing to have no more than one child per couple (excluding multiple births) voluntarilly, jerk out the AC, rearrange our lives to drastically cut fuel dependance, eat low on the food chain...preferably vegan, stop buying all but necessities? If we can't make these changes, Mother Earth will do it for us.

[Gregorian]

136. Sooner or later people will finally hear what I've been saying all along.

It's about population. Period.

[raccoon]

191. I agree the world is overpopulated, but the US is taking the

lion's share of the world's resources.

I posted somewhere earlier, the average American probably uses more than 15 times as much as the average Third World citizen.

The US needs to control their population too, as well as consumption.

[Ron Green]

194. Ah, but do you think the consumers in the US will voluntarily cut back

while the Third World starts to import automobiles, and China builds McMansions?

I think it's just a fundamental problem of human nature, and I don't know that we can be educated out of it.

[raccoon]

197. No effing way! (to answer your question)

What I'm trying to say is, sometimes people think it's the poor countries with the high birth rates that need to reduce their population, not the Americans with low birth rates. I think it's both. It's the Americans and citizens of other industrialized countries who are consuming the most resources and putting more of a strain on the planet, though they make up a relatively small percentage of the world's population.

[Nihil]

200. I think you're exactly right:

> "I think it's just a fundamental problem of human nature, and I don't
> know that we can be educated out of it."

I think there is an amount of greed ("I want more for me") in everyone.
This co-exists with the desire to protect the existing situation,
regardless of what the current level happens to be.

This amount varies from person to person along with all the other human
characteristics but is offset by the complementary attribute of empathy.

When the "greed" component exists without the "empathy", it produces
the type of person that most would describe as 'heartless' - a prime
example being George W Bush. When these 'heartless' people flock
together and take over positions of power, we end up with wars for
resources, suffering and death on a wide scale.

Unfortunately, by their very nature, such people are not easily
displaced from their positions of power. Hence, despite all of
the kindness, the generousity and the forward-thinking of the normal
people, it will take a major catastrophe to restore the equilibrium.
And it will be very painful for those living through that time.

[Martin Eden]

138. The American Dream is what we make of it

If your definition of the American dream is commuting to work in an SUV, then no -- that's not sustainable. But prosperity is not necessarily contingent on the unsustainable consumption of finite resources and the despoliation of the environment that gives us life.

Technology fueled 20th century American prosperity while converting resources into pollution, but it can also sustain a comfortable lifestyle in this country. It's all a matter of how we apply technology, which is contingent on the development of an enlightened poltical/economic system.

Unfortunately we have been going in the wrong direction, our democracy is dysfunctional, and the citizenry is ill-informed, poorly educated, and prone to manipulation by the corporate media entertainment complex.

So I'm not saying that we WILL sustain our comfortable lifestyles -- I'm saying that we CAN if we can overcome some formidable political obstacles and the entrenched power structure that profits from our ignorance.

[StellaBlue]

139. Every American should spend considerable time abroad

By this, I mean more than a booze cruise to Cancun or a study abroad term in France, spent hanging out, drunk, with a bunch of other sorority sisters. :puke:

And obviously many millions of poor, regular Americans could never afford this. Having spent four years living and working in the UK, I can say that changed my worldview significantly. I can only imagine what four years in Italy, or Argentina, or India, or Zaire would do for a person.

We are not the greatest country in the world.

Everyone is not jealous of us.

Everyone doesn't hate us; those that do, however, do not hate us out of jealously.

Everyone cannot live at the middle class American standard of (comparative) luxury.

We are far, far more religious than most everywhere else (and, I would say, philosophically immature).

Most foreigners who are at the same lifestyle/income level as middle-class Americans have passports and have travelled to several foreign countries.

Most foreigners love Americans and the better parts of American culture (the Western, the blues and rock 'n roll, blue jeans and T-shirts), but not our foreign policies or smugness or insularity.

[raccoon]

193. Thank you for your observations, StellaBlue, especially,

"Everyone cannot live at the middle class American standard of (comparative) luxury."

[bonito]

141. kick (so I can find it later) and voted n/t

[prof_youngblood]

143. In 85 I read a piece in Newsweek predicting the collapse of the

middle class by 2000, up pops Bush, and he's on his way to this accomplishment.

3 more years, anybody's guess...!

[Matariki]

147. Please define the American Dream

as i understand it, a home of one's own, a chicken in every pot.

I don't see why it *can't* be sustained, it's just the way we're going about it that is ass backwards. We could have clean, sustainable energy, fair distribution of 'the means of production' (meaning that as technology advances we ALL get to work less), and so forth. It has just been greed and politics that prevents that, not middle class comfort.

on edit: i wrote this *before* i read through the whole thread. i see that 'chickens in the pot' was a bit of a running theme.

[Ron Green]

173. What I'm trying to suggest is that middle class comfort has an element of

greed in it. I don't believe the world can support even a modest amount of "stuff" for 6 or 7 billion people, and yet we as Americans expect this stuff. My suspicion is that even our standard middle-class lives are driven by the fear of not having enough, and the message that we are complete as we are is not being articulated by our "leaders."

[Matariki]

177. I agree with you

although i think the word "comfort" isn't really what you're looking for.

[Ron Green]

190. Maybe "comfort" only in the sense of not wanting to confront the

inevitable fears of change. Americans have found such clever ways of insulating ourselves from the reality of life, and have mistaken instant gratification for meaning, I think.

[glitch]

150. Here's a place to start

Nice overview on the system: Rocky Mountain Institute http://www.rmi.org/ and http://www.natcap.org/ for online Natural Capitalism by Amory & Hunter Lovins and Paul Hawkens.
And design with nature in mind: http://www.bioneers.org/
And a practical guide: http://www.simpleliving.net/

Smaller footprints are not only possible but desirable, as opposed to consuming your way through a television-stupified life.

[Old Mouse]

157. Our entire economy

has always been based on slave labor. It's more hidden now then before. As the information age progresses more people will realize the true scope of global slavery, disguised in plain sight by treaties of elegant diction.

Then people will have to make a serious choice about lifestyle versus mercy. The precedent of history favors lifestyle.

Case in point: Who here has a mobile phone? I do. The chips in it were made from columbite-tantalite, paid for with the genocide and torture of innocent Congolese so that I can easily snap pictures of my toddler. same with my PS2, my digital camera, my anti-lock brakes, my tivo and DVD player, the computer I'm typing on right now...

[Seansky]

159. Well, we can always look back at Rome's history, any parallels?

[leeroysphitz]

161. No question, we've got a LONG row to hoe but the longer we

wait to get on top of it the harder it is going to be. IMO

[lostinacause]

165. If it is unsustainable it will either adjust or crash.

Naturally I believe the first is more likely in the areas that are currently unsustainable such as energy consumption. It is the inability for the average American voter to see what economic issues America is currently facing that will end up hurting the most. Institutions can respond to these problems with relative ease and even in the midst of a increasingly competitive global economy their is room for the kind of wealth that the American middle class to be shared among a greater number of people. Whether or not this transpires is another thing.

[kestrel91316]

166. My contribution to the cause: I live humbly and have no children.

I try to tread lightly on the earth and use less energy than I did for years. Home garden provides fruit and veggies, I don't eat much meat or processed food, bike or walk to work when I can, etc. And I didn't produce more Americans to perpetuate the cycle. We have plenty of immigrants coming in to replace me when I die.

[slay]

175. I may one day have kids - if we ever turn things around and stop killing

the planet. No need to bring them into a dying world. :(

[Tsiyu]

168. I see tremendous opportunity in a new dream

Some are actually trying to realize this "new" dream. I picked up the latest Mother Earth News where I buy animal feed and found:

*A cool consumer guide to fuel efficient vehicles (47 cars that get over 35 MPG)

*Article on earthbag (sandbag) construction of dwellings and walls

*DIY info on building with structural insulated panels

* A great overview of the pros and cons of electric chain saws

* How to fell a tree

* Plans for a rowboat

The list goes on and on....

There are people looking for - and either finding or producing themselves - alternative means of providing food, shelter, transportation and energy. When Ted Turner wanted old fashioned paper drinking straws for his restaurant, he revived a factory to produce them, so I've heard.

Now is a good time to invest in these endeavors. You will be a pioneer, in a sense.

I really think the TV version of The American Dream is what throws people. And all the gadgets - blackberries and i-Pods and cell phones and GPS devices and cable or satellite HDTV and blah blah blah. How in the world do you keep up with all that crap and have a life? I know some folks like their toys and baubles, and I am no exception, but there comes a time when we have to ask, "At what cost?"

You can be aesthetically comfortable - which seems to be the aim of most people these days - and healthy and impacting the environment less, but you have to stop watching the ads for toe fungus. :hi:


bhg

[hogwyld]

172. It's just a matter of time

Saw a program on the science channel about the efforts to track the various space junk. Anyway, the gist was that they were worried about a crash up there either sat to sat or sat to rock, and this would start a huge chain reaction of debris colliding into everything. So, pretty soon, we won't have to deal with Faux, or anything else requiring satelites.

[YapiYapo]

180. fuel efficient vehicles

*A cool consumer guide to fuel efficient vehicles (47 cars that get over 35 MPG)

Do you know that most of new european cars get more than 70 MPG some close to 100Mpg (3L/100km) ? They are not even hybrid ,just diesel car.

You call that being a pioneer ? I call that stopping being selfish...

[Tsiyu]

182. The "pioneer" part was concerning investing in new (old) technology

but I'm sure you feel better.

The cars are those that get over 35 MPG. Some listed get as high as 60 MPG in their table.

A reading comprehension class might help?

[YapiYapo]

201. You sure get it right...

Being called a pioneer by investing on "technology" which is nothing new just more efficient,that's conserving like rest of the industrial world (EU,Japan)is doing for the last 3 decades.So i stand correct it's not being a pioneer is just stopping being selfish.

America use 25% of world oil resource for 5% of world population.

About the car "as high as 60mpg" did you actually read my post ?
In france government made it mandatory for every new cars to do 100Mpg in the next 3 year.Best US car will do 60mpg,excuse me for not being amazed by the fact that your best will only be half as efficient as the average European car.

[Tsiyu]

203. Excuse me for not getting your point OR your fecking superior attitude?

The larger point is that new ( and much of it is yet to be discovered by the curious and diligent, so it is not all "old") technology IS a pioneering attitude in America. SO you think that encouraging others to think of alternative ways of doing things should be INSULTED? You want to continue to INSULT me for raising this issue?

What the fuck? Go harrass somebody else, 'kay?

I'm putting you on ignore.....you really are THAT special to me.

[YapiYapo]

205. Superior attitude ? Insults ?

Because i said the US is the most wasteful country on earth when it come to resource ? Prove me wrong then...

You seem to be the one that cannot control his nerves...

Alternative energy (with positive EROEI) are good and should be promoted but it has nothing to do with conserving, especially when conserving isn't even half of the standard of other country.Conserving should have been the logical thing to do for decades.

Now as we are talking about conserving i'm sure you have heard of jevons paradox ?

"In economics, the Jevons Paradox is an observation made by William Stanley Jevons who stated that as technological improvements increase the efficiency with which a resource is used, total consumption of that resource may increase, rather than decrease"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

How is this going to help in the long run ? Even if the jevons paradox fail.

[slay]

169. Here's part of the answer that THEY DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW

Did you know we can grow our own fuel, that's right, GROW OUR OWN RENEWABLE ENERGY RESOURCE FUEL and never be a slave to these oil criminals ever again! Only problem is - our government has made the ONE PLANT we need to accomplish this illegal.

Check it out:

"About 6% of contiguous United States land area put into cultivation for biomass could supply all current demands for oil and gas." (and employ farmers instead of subsidizing them.)

HEMP FOR FUEL

Excerpted from "Energy Farming in America," by Lynn Osburn

BIOMASS CONVERSION to fuel has proven economically feasible, first in laboratory tests and by continuous operation of pilot plants in field tests since 1973. When the energy crop is growing it takes in C02 from the air, so when it is burned the C02 is released, creating a balanced system.

Biomass is the term used to describe all biologically produced matter. World production of biomass is estimated at 146 billion metric tons a year, mostly wild plant growth. Some farm crops and trees can produce up to 20 metric tons per acre of biomass a year. Types of algae and grasses may produce 50 metric tons per year.

This biomass has a heating value of 5000-8000 BTU/lb, with virtually no ash or sulfur produced during combustion. About 6% of contiguous United States land area put into cultivation for biomass could supply all current demands for oil and gas.

more:
http://fornits.com/curiosity/hemp/biomassa.htm

[Greyhound]

171. Do you know which engines are easiest to convert? n/t

[slay]

174. Diesel - here's a bit more info:

Studies have also been conducted to demonstrate the viability of hemp oil as a fuel. Hemp oil converts fairly simply into a biodiesel fuel once mixed with caustic lye dissolved in methanol, a technique which makes the oil less viscous and more combustible. Environmental defense attorney Don Wirtshafter, (proprietor of the Ohio Hempery, the company providing the oil) notes that fuel and glycerine are generated from the process, and the glycerine can be used to make soap or candles. Potassium hydroxide used as the caustic agent results in fertilizer. The only modification made to the hemp car was the replacement of rubber hoses with synthetic rubber tubes - biodiesels erode rubber.

more:
http://members.tripod.com/~INDIA_RESOURCE/alternateenergy.html

And:

Biodiesel - Biodiesel comes from renewable plant sources, such as oils from vegetables, peanuts, soy beans, canola/rape seeds, hemp seeds and some grains which are domestically and abundantly available. More specifically though, biodiesel refers to plant-derived diesel that has been subjected to the process of transesterification

more:
http://www.noendpress.com/caleb/biodiesel/index.php

And my favorite - America's "Secret" Petroleum Alternatives

In the beginning, car and trucks did
just fine without petroleum fuels. Henry Ford designed a car in 1880 to run solely on an alcohol fuel called ethanol. His first mass produced car - the Model T - could operate on either ethanol or gasoline. In the 1890s, Rudolf Diesel, the inventor of the more efficient diesel engine, wanted to empower farmers, so he built his engine to run on hemp and peanut oil.

Early cars and trucks utilized all sorts of fuels: coal for steamers, electricity for electrics, and some began using the newly discovered fossil hydrocarbon called petroleum, out of which gasoline and diesel fuel could be made. It didn't take long for the hydrocarbon hegemony founded by a Mr. John D. Rockefeller to begin raking in huge profits by monopolizing the global oil business. But that's a story for another day.

Fortunately, we have other means to fuel our cars - biofuels. These fuels have been available, and we've been using them, for years. This is the "secret" our government, the oil companies, and the car manufacturers apparently don't want you to know, as they have conspicuously refrained from publicly discussing the enormous national potential of biofuels.

more:
http://www.psyearth.com/journal.html

[YapiYapo]

181. What's the EROIE ?

What's EROIE of hemp ? They said soy bean is 3:1 which is plain wrong and don't take into account the transportation and fertilizer needed.

Why didn't japan used it as they are very dependant on oil and get no production ?

Why didn't south africa used it and they choose coal liquefaction instead ?

Why french european prime minister said bio diesel are not a viable alternative source of energy ?

[Greyhound]

202. Q: What do all 3 counties have in common?

A: Huge 'contributions' coming from the energy consortium.
Looking at a map of bio-diesel suppliers shows where this fuel is being used. Guess what, it's all over the midwest where they're fighting for their very existence against the agri-corps.
Don't be fooled by anything those bastards say. They will lie, distort, smear, even murder, to protect their turf. I'm definitely considering a diesel for my next vehicle.

[YapiYapo]

206. Huge 'contributions' coming from the energy consortium.

That may be true for Japan,lot of cars producers but their oil import hurt their economy a lot, and Europe (car+oil company), defintly not for south africa.

BTW You didn't answer my question about the net energy balance of hemp to produce fuel.

[Greyhound]

209. Any 'capitalist' country will oppose any alternative that allows

virtually anybody to produce a product that they consider 'theirs'. Hemp, or other crops that can be used, can be easily grown anywhere in this country. Small refineries(?) can pop up and distribute their product locally, thus removing the e-corps strangle hold on production and distribution. Make no mistake, they will do anything to maintain this control.
I don't know anything about the net energy balance, perhaps you should do your own research and find out. I do know smokable hemp is called weed because it is. It doesn't deplete the soil and requires practically no care to grow abundantly.
I don't know why you would insist the South Africa is not controlled by corporations, it obviously is (ever hear of De Beers?) and has a long and gruesome history of subjugating the citizens of that unfortunate region for corporate profits.

[YapiYapo]

210. Hemp fuel

I'm currently overseas, in a country where it's legal to grow your own weed, i know how easy it is :)

The good thing with hemp,it doesn't require fertilizer or other petroleum product.

However i'm still not convinced that a biomass energy can sustain even a decent part of our fuel consumption.We need about 85 millions barrels per day worldwide, 25 for the US.

I've visited a few website about hemp fuel,

http://www.artistictreasure.com/learnmorecleanair.html
http://www.globalhemp.com/

They claim it would take only 6% land mass to cover the fuel consumption of the US (around 15% of US arable land).However they don't talk about the net energy balance require to produce the fuel (which may increase the surface needed).Keep in mind that if oil run short, food production will drop by at least 50%, we will need twice the surface we used now to grow food.

[NickB79]

207. We'll need that land for food production

6% of the US land area is ~212,000 square miles; this is slightly smaller than all of Texas (286,601 sq. mi). It is not as simple as saying "only" 6% has to be converted; the 6% figure fails to take into account that there are substantial areas of the US that are unsuitable for almost any kind of crop production. We can't grow biomass in the Rocky Mountains or most of Alaska, can we? We could clear-cut massive amounts of forested land to increase arable land, but that would leave ecological destruction in our wakes.

Growing our fuel is not a sustainable proposition with one exception: growing algae in man-made lakes in the Southwestern US. Other than that, ideas such as hemp production to grow fuels is illogical. As natural gas and oil prices have shot up, fertilizer prices have gone up as well. My father, a farmer in MN, has reduced his fertilizer input drastically because of costs. His yields have also fallen. I am currently researching info for him on a more sustainable crop rotation that will work with his current farm equipment, soil conditions and climate. As fertilizers become more inaccessible for farmers, more land will have to be farmed to make up for the decreased yields. That puts biomass from conventionally grown crops out of the picture almost entirely.

Another possible exception just popped to mind. If the entire US population switched to an 90% vegetarian diet, with the reduced meat and milk consumption coming from more sustainable sources (such as free-range livestock, chicken instead of pork and beef, etc) THAT would free up millions of acres of farmland for biomass. Also include new rules on suburban sprawl, limiting cropland losses to city growth, and that could save millions more acres of land.

[ladylibertee]

178. What's the answer to this, DU'ers?

Overthrow the government?

[Kazak]

199. Not good enough.

Major (and, unfortunately, painful) lifestyle change for ALL is needed.

[eridani]

179. What about a revised version?

I think that somewhere between the simple living efforts of the American middle class trying to recover from affluenza, and the success of the people of Kerala, India, who have almost achieved the birthrates, literacy levels, and life expectancy of industrialized countries on a per capita income of $300/head, there is a happy medium. Our goal should be modest comfort for all, with far, far less throughput of energy and raw materials.

[natrat]

195. the american dream of freedom and democracy

also seems to be unsustainable. Bummer, we could live without the corvette but it would be nice to have all those quaint other freedoms.

[Kazak]

198. With every drop of energy we steal,...

air conditioning, transportation, countless other contributors, we contribute to the warming of our planet.

Not sustainable is right, and I've known it for years and years. It seems this obvious fact is becomming more obvious to the masses though, finally.

[Fox Mulder]

208. You're absolutely right...and that's why...

our gas prices have skyrocketed. A lot of us have this mentality that we live in America so we should be able to drive SUVs that get 10 m.p.g. Well, as you could tell w/in the last year, they were wrong.

I wouldn't be suprised to see water become the next utility to become insanely expensive.

[hogwyld]

211. kick n/t