Twelfth Bough

i run my own damn think tank

Archive for October 31st, 2007

Survivalists

Oct 31

Posted by Marlena in Sustainability | No Comments

I found a new site today, and I’m looking forward to digging in. It looks like a brand new blog with lots of valuable information.

There is always one in every family. The one that gets pointed out as weird or crazy or paranoid during family gatherings. I am the one in my family. I am always trying to remind family members to buy extra food or even a first-aid kit. Essentials that most modern people don’t think they need. In this essay I seek to give some clarification to the survivalist archetype.

He makes this one particular point that I completely agree with:

I also see the survivalist as a keeper of traditions. I feel it is extremely important to keep alive the primitive skills that our ancestors depended upon. These very advanced primitive skills include: Fire making, shelter building, hunting/fishing, edible and medicinal plant foraging and making clothing, tools. I am hardly a master of these skills but I am studying them one by one. When I think back at our ancestors and I think of all the knowledge they had to have to simply live it amazes me. They had to know: which plants make anything from rope to medicine, which rocks makes sparks, which can be sharpened, which can be used to break other rocks, which trees are best for all their needs, the habits of animals, the weather, weaving natural materials into clothing and tents. It truly is mind boggling especially in juxtaposition with the specialized modern mind who barely can cook with a microwave. Where typing is the only real skill one has, to earn a living. Even after a little bit of study you have a hard time saying the word “primitive”, cause the level of skill involved is really beyond anything modern man can comprehend.

The question is: how many people would be able to survive without all the technological comforts we’ve grown accustomed to? Could you feed your family and keep them clothed and warm if you did not have a car, a house and money?

One amazing book I read last year was Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond (W.W. Norton, 1997). In the prologue he begins to lay out the argument that so-called primitive people are in all probability more intelligent than so-called civilized people. They can survive under conditions that would cause most of us to perish. Even our more recent ancestors were probably a lot scrappier than the average Joe today. They had to be, just to survive. So do yourself a favor and brush up on some basic skills. If you never need them, no harm done. And get to know your neighbors, because they might know how to do some very important things, too. In the old days, before we got to be such smarty-pants, that’s how communities functioned.

Here We Go Again

Oct 31

Posted by Marlena in Bush/Cheney, Iran, Media, Stupidity | No Comments

You may have seen the recent Zogby International poll results which conclude: “52% Support US Military Strike in Iran”. You may say to yourself, WT*? I like to find nuance in things like this, but unfortunately, it probably does mean that people have been misinformed about extremely important matters again.

A majority of likely voters – 52% – would support a U.S. military strike to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon, and 53% believe it is likely that the U.S. will be involved in a military strike against Iran before the next presidential election, a new Zogby America telephone poll shows.

The survey results come at a time of increasing U.S. scrutiny of Iran. According to reports from the Associated Press, earlier this month Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice accused Iran of “lying” about the aim of its nuclear program and Vice President Dick Cheney has raised the prospect of “serious consequences” if the U.S. were to discover Iran was attempting to develop a nuclear weapon. Last week, the Bush administration also announced new sanctions against Iran.

That’s rich. They seem to be following the exact same plan they used to drum up the war with Iraq, and most unbelievably, it seems to be working. How on earth can they have any credibility? Why do people still listen to them?

I believe the answer has several components. 1) A certain portion of the population is hopelessly afraid. Bush refers to this as his “base”, and the administration whips them into hysteria pretty easily. 2) The media gets away with blatant bias. Tony Snow recently bragged that people should learn from Fox instead of complaining how successful they are. (He also claims that the White House has a lot of “intellectual vigor” and the president has actually “gotta make some choices”. Whatever, Tony.)

So so far we have a group of suggestible, histrionic, desperately afraid people being completely catered to by media organizations that don’t adhere to journalistic standards and also sleep with the White House. But the Big Reason this all keeps going and going and going is 3) the mainstream press has been delivering Republican scripts for years, and nobody will talk about it. Read Bob Somerby and understand. Nothing will ever change as long as this continues.

Why aren’t neo-cons and Republicans on the defensive? In large part, it’s because they get puffed—and Democrats get jeered—within the sprawling public discussion constructed by the “mainstream” press. Josh is always eager to throw you bones from the world of Fox, and Rush, and Republican scandal. But he has refused to discuss this larger story, going all the way back to the mainstream War Against Gore. And yet, this larger story helps explain the matter that has his reader justifiably puzzled. It helps explain why there’s a good chance that a Republican will get elected next year.

Why are Republicans on the offensive? Duh! Within the boundaries of our “mainstream” discourse, Democrats are quite easy to ridicule—and Republicans are very hard. You can’t explain that if you’ve spent the part decade—as Josh has done—refusing to discuss what happened to Gore. (And to Bill Clinton before him. And to those who followed, including Dean, Edwards, Hillary Clinton.) But let’s say it again: Within the boundaries of our public discussion, Democrats are constant figures of ridicule—and Republicans simply are not. This framework is being extended today, even as liberals like Josh refuse to discuss it. In large part, that’s why it’s easy for scum-bags like Giuliani to go around mocking Big Dems. And that is why it’s much, much harder for Dems to return the favor.

For those who live in the world known to Josh, it’s almost impossible to explain this matter. But let’s consider a bit of what’s happening, right now, in our gong-show “mainstream” discourse.

This is an intellectual scotoma, a blind spot to most people. But once you clear it up, you will notice this bias everywhere.