Not with a bang, but a whimper

Brilliant post, I agree with you 99.9%, the only bit I disagree with you on is violence. Unfortunately America is a very violent place already and will only grow worse when the economic collapse comes. People will fight to keep what they have while others will fight to get what isn't theirs.

Birth of the new never comes without pain of delivery.

This just may be what it is going to take to rise up to the next level of consciousness.

They say from chaos comes clarity.

We are just a microcosm of the greater forces that control the entire universe.

reply to post by antar


Exactly what I said in my post on page 1...

Only you summed it up in a very short posts, where as mine no one will read because its to long..

reply to post by dr_strangecraft


Do empires crisis begin with the pessimism of their elites ? Dear Doctor, please have a look on there :

www.jesusradicals.com

If Americans were able to see that Capitalism isn't the last stop on the way to social organisation, then maybe America -which still the bigger cultural empire of christian obedience is - will not collapse at all...




[edit on 26-4-2008 by Rigel]

I just took a look at the resources my group has put together over the past 6 years.
2 people who do not move very well but shoot at an expert level – permanent guard duty.
4 people who love to fish, hunt and trap, and are good at it.
1 good blacksmith also a hunter and substitute teacher.
10 kids current ages 10 – 17 from 5 different families – all can learn and work the gardens
6 women who are already into gardening and canning
40 acres with 6 horses, 2 bulls and 12 milk cows – Electricity already provided by 1 small dam, 3 windmills, and 15 solar panels (adding more shortly), with battery storage – 4 inch 125 ft well.
3 lakes either bordering the farm or within a short walk – currently lots of fish.
Reloading shop with 1200 lbs of gunpowder, molds for lead bullets, approximately 6000 rounds of ammo for 4 different calibers of rifles and handguns. 4 good recurve bows with arrows.
I think we will survive ok.

reply to post by RedmoonMWC


Sounds like a cultish compound?

Who are these people in your "group" and what are you guys planning for exactly?

" My opinion, just thinking about economics, we need to stop the hemorrhage of money that we're spending in Iraq. I believe that it's about 12 billion a month right now. (I realize that this could result in a bloody civil war in Iraq)
The government then needs to think about stimulating the economy perhaps with a public works program to rebuild the infrastructure of our country and/or establishing our country as energy independent. This would put Americans back to work in industries that pay a decent wage(allowing them to pay their mortgages) and it improve our existence. "

Quote from above.



Perhaps the only thing that can save America. Lady liberty needs to massively invest in alternative fuel technology, eg. " water car ".
Whatever Nation develops the next energy source, wins the next round.

America is in the premier position to develop such technology. If they don't already posses it.

reply to post by Rockpuck


Just a group of friends who decided that IF TSHTF we will get together for mutual support and survival.

I wish that becoming self-sufficient were possible in my hectic life, but as it is, I am working three jobs to support my family. I think that the government wants us this way so that they can accomplish their agenda without having to worry about any backlash from the people. As it stands now, I'm trying to stock up on nonperishables and we are stockpiling weapons and ammo. I know that I can't grow anything (I've tried, but I swear that I have black thumbs). I'd love to get solar panels, but honestly, I don't think that we will stay in this house for long if this all goes down the way I expect.

If things were going to go out with a bang, there would probably be quite a bit of panic about it - thus providing us the time and awareness to deal with the problem before it hits a critical level of social destruction.

It is far more likely that society will be destroyed by it's own foolishness, than being destroyed by events beyond our control.

A number of posters have mentioned the fed's role in the deteriorating US dollar. Personally, and professionally, I am convinced that the Fed, and the central banks of the G8+, no longer have effective control over any exchange rates. The free market in currencies arrived about 15 years ago, but the repercussions are only now affecting the consumers. The true price of credit is determined at the bond auction in Chicago; the fed's policy for member banks is only one factor. Any nation on earth can (and does) lend money denominated in USD, and this affects the global money supply---without the FED even having a way to measure it!

But back on topic.

A number of folks have speculated about violence. What I anticapte is isolated public acts (like riots) interspersed with periods of relative calm. Most civil violence happens when people are positive about their futures, and feel like some force is in their way. Fans riot when their team wins the championship. Immigrants demonstrate when they feel pride and entitlement, but want even more.

On the other hand, when people feel threatened, they become docile. The Jews who used force against Nazi oppression were mostly middle and upper class intellectuals; the peasants were used to being served a mud sandwich, and had no sense of umbrage left.

In the late 1920's, there was a great deal of unrest in the US, as unemployed farmers rioted nationwide. But in the depths of depression, 1932, the "bonus army," --jobless WWI veterans demanding their pensions, were turned aside from their march on washington with only the briefest violence.

Another example is the history of Russia. The aborted revolution of 1905 was caused by wildcat strikes---workers demanding freedom and better pay. These workers were successful in 1917, as the govt was losing a foreign war that deeply embarrased the common Russians. Those same workers were starved by lenin, without staging an uprising in the 1920's, after the communist takeover; the second time around, the workers were no longer enthusiastic about their bright future, and the dissidents against the new communist government were docile while they were herded into cattle cars bound for Siberia.

My point is this: people are violent because they are optimistic about their future, and feel a sense of entitlement or inevitability about the success of their cause. Or they feel rage at being denied their destiny. The German people from 1914-1945 are examples of this.

On the other hand, people without hope are passive, and unwilling to stand up to oppression and even starvation. A student of history might predict that the USA would have succumbed to a socialist revolution in the 1930's, but it didn't. The people passively accepted that the future was going to suck, and tried to make the best of it.

In fact, the crime rate actually goes down in times of recession or national crisis. THe "9-1-1 Effect" of lessened crime is the wake of the September 11 attacks is receding, but still visible in US demographics.

The upshot of this is, while I am committed to gun ownership for both sport and home security, I think a range of other tools will be priority if the whole system really is falling apart.

[edit on 28-4-2008 by dr_strangecraft]

You could perhaps compare that to a wolf that gets it's leg trapped in a bear-trap, and then chews it's own leg off in order to get free.

Then it dies slowly from disease - whimpering.

Of course, in our situation the bear-trap would be our planet's finite resources, and we're chewing our own society to bits in order to sustain ourselves.

[Thread Bump]

In the two years since I started this thread, events have vindicated my intuition. I've also done a lot more research on the decline of complex societies / communities.

I keep finding the following scenario, with variations, throughout history:

Phase 1. Increasing Complexity
A given community solves its problems by increasing the complexity of its technology and social networks. (Examples include the Egyptians in the Old Kingdom, harnessing the Nile flood for fertilization and irrigation, and the priests developing the bureaucracy to administer it all. Another is the Anasazi, who built massive irrigation systems in NM/AZ in the American Southwest. Or Medieval European Christendom, with its system of traveling fairs throughout western Europe, plus the monastery and banking networks to control production. The best example of course, is Rome, which built aquaeducts to provide water to the seven hills of the city, and thus increase its population to become the largest city on earth.)

As this stage, problems are solved by technology, and by overcoming the limits of time and space through upping the complexity of the technology, as well as through a process of social specialization. This means specialized craftsmen: engineers, architects, bureaucrats, etc.

Stage 2. Increasing Costs
This is where the system has grown so big that it begins to bog down. Costs of maintaining the system threaten to overtake profits. Most of the best fields have been irrigated, all the neighboring tribes have been subdued, and it costs more and more to maintenance the system. This is the point in time where mercenaries are hired, special police forces created, special rules made to maintain order and control how society divides up the more expensive remaining resources.

Stage 3. Cutting costs by simplifying the system
A newcomer (often an invader or criminal element) creates surplus by dismantling the overly-complex system. When the components are simplified, many people lose their livelihoods, and emigrate. This negative population change frees up even more surplus, and creates a temporary "green time" as few people work as hard to maintain the simplified system.

Examples of this stage are Egypt during the invasion of the Hyksos: irrigation declines rapidly, and the diet shifts over to livestock, which further reduces the population of workers needed by large households. For the Anasazi, conjectured bandit raids mean that far-flung communities are disbanded, and move into cliff-dwellings, which are easier to defend, but leave more farmland unprotected, which causes further contractions. In Europe, the fairs are halted by local chieftans waging war. In Rome, I believe this moment came in 537 AD when Witigis, unable to fully invade Rome, destroyed the Aqua Claudia, the aqueduct that made Rome's population of 1.2 million unsustainable. The bulk of the population began leaving the city at this point, and it didn't recover until the Renaissance.

I believe that this process of cutting, "down-sizing" etc., accelerates until the whole system is replaced.

I think this is what is going on economically world-wide.

Having gone through the recessions of the 1950's, 1970's, and 1980's, and witnessing Russia's collapse in the 1990's, what we're going through now is no surprise to me. I pretty much figured it was coming when I heard about the house-flipping, and saw the "No Down Payment!" signs plastered all over the telephone poles.

Seems like the last 8 years they've been trying to raise the standard of living for the rest of world, and now they want us to lower our standard of living. I can remember when gas was 26 cents a gallon, and canned food was 20 cans for a dollar. So, I think we've been messed with financially for a long time.

I don't think anything will dramatically change in my life because I've learned to adapt/adjust over the years.

I think if they make a collapse so painfully slow, the next generation will just accept it as the "way things are."

I'm leaning more toward a false flag/disaster type scenario because they would be able to control the masses in the midst of the confusion.

"Do what we say... and everything will be okay... "