from the extraordinary Michael Leunig
“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
These are the words of the inimitable Yoda, and we see the truth of this everywhere in the world today. We all ‘know’ intuitively that Everything’s Falling Apart, and despite all the distractions, denial, propaganda, misinformation and censorship, it’s becoming pretty obvious intellectually (in our minds), as well. It’s when this realization hits us emotionally (in our hearts), that we start to become incapacitated and dysfunctional in our response to collapse. Yoda might well have added: “And suffering leads to trauma.” to his famous statement above.
When we have faced major crises in the past, it would seem that we were usually able to find a way to transcend our fear, and hence avoid some of what follows from it. (Though that may just be my sense because history is written by the victors.) But those past crises have almost all been perceived to be temporary, and overcomeable, if not for us at least for generations to follow. The current polycrisis, the collapse of all the systems underpinning our now-global civilization, cannot and will not be overcome. There is no assurance that things will ever get “better”.
And so the fear of that permanent collapse, as Yoda suggests, is now leading to chronic suffering on a mammoth scale, and hence to global trauma that is incapacitating us and rendering us all dysfunctional — just helplessly and uselessly reacting, and reacting to others’ reactions. That suffering is not only being inflicted on others, as we act out our trauma, it is being inflicted on ourselves as well.
A few days ago we lost, in Michael Dowd, a brilliant thinker and orator who warned us about all this, telling us that, in realizing the inevitability of collapse, we had to move “through the stages of grief, then beyond mere acceptance and more fully into calm, clarity, and courageous love-in-action”. I was honoured to be one of the ‘collapsniks’ he interviewed to try to put together a program to help people make that transition. He fervently believed such a transition was possible. I hope he was right.
COLLAPSE WATCH
OK, so maybe keeping temperature rise below 1.5ºC was a bit optimistic. How about we aim for 2ºC? Do I hear 3ºC?
Last rites: One of the things Michael Dowd stressed was the importance of accepting collapse as inevitable, as the first step in beginning to respond to it in a useful manner. Indrajit Samarajiva suggests some next steps: Give stuff away, write a warning, or an obit, for those who come after to learn from our mistakes, spend time with loved ones, and put your affairs in order.
Steamy September: Average September temperature was 1.75ºC above the pre-industrial average, and half a degree warmer than any previous September. “We’ve had the warmest June, the warmest July and the warmest August on record. But September has really exceeded all of the previous broken records that we’ve seen over the last few months. When I speak to my colleagues around the world, no one has ever seen climate monitoring data like this.”
But cooler ocean temps will moderate that though, right? Um, nope. Also half a degree above previous record. And hotter than average land temperature. Scientists interviewed by the mainstream media confess to being “baffled”. Perhaps the media are talking with the wrong scientists?:
And it’s not just climate change: We’ve transgressed six of nine planetary boundaries that prevent complete ecological collapse. Thanks to Just Collapse for the link.
LIVING BETTER
from the Memebrary; original source uncited
Relish the gaps: A lovely ‘intermission’ essay from the indomitable Caitlin Johnstone, on lessons learned about paying attention during a visit to a nursing home.
Sounds to help you focus, relax, or sleep: A huge, free library of calming and energizing sounds to help you stay alert, and healthy. Thanks to Naked Capitalism for the link.
Getting more affordable housing built: Governments are offering tax relief, and experts suggest streamlining and speeding approval processes, training and hiring more construction workers, and subsidizing the interest rates on new developments. But why is no one talking about public housing? Just because we mostly suck at it, and governments don’t want to run it, is no excuse. Countries like Finland can show the way.
China presents a collaborative model for global development: Call it propaganda if you want, but China’s “A Global Community of Shared Future” makes one hell of a lot more sense to me than Biden’s selfish and destructive “my way or the highway” strategy.
The traumatic ‘trace’: Rhyd Wildermuth outlines a controversial theory about how traumatized people “do not need to have actually been harmed to have a memory of having been harmed, and it’s very difficult for us to tell the difference”. Not entirely sure I agree, but it’s a provocative and interesting read. If he’s right, it explains a lot about the dangers produced when “unresolved ressentiment shifts quickly to identitarian thinking”.
POLITICS AND ECONOMICS AS USUAL
Manufacturing productivity index Sep/23 vs Aug/23 (50=no change); chart by Ben Norton; thanks to Indrajit Samarajiva for the link
When we think we know, but we don’t: Aurélien explains how most of the worst war debacles, including the current ones in Ukraine and now Palestine, arise when political and military decision-makers do not understand the motivations of the combatants, do not understand the underlying history and context for the situation, and do not understand how wars in the 21st century are actually fought. “So why do you think this attack took place?” “A combination of fifteen years of imprisonment and sanctions, and a sense of betrayal by Saudi Arabia and other Arab states.” “But you can’t possibly say that justifies all this killing!” “We’re not talking about justifications, but explanations.” “So you refuse to condemn Hamas then?” “You asked me why I thought the attacks took place.” “Ah, you must support Hamas.”
Corpocracy, imperialism & fascism: Short takes (thanks to John Whiting for many of these links):
- Biden waives 26 environmental protection laws to accelerate building of Trump’s border wall.
- Bernie Sanders has Code Pink and other peace activists arrested for sit-in in his offices.
- Lavishly government-funded ‘institute’ calls for total war against Russia.
- Plans for the overthrow of the government of the Republic of Georgia are revealed.
- The war in Nagorno-Karabakh heats up, with major world powers quickly lining up to take sides in the bitter, decades-long battle between two severely corrupt republics. Thanks to Mahmoud for the link.
- Does the west support retributive genocide in Gaza to let it set a precedent for its own future battles?
- Gaza backgrounders: The long blockade before the storm. Iran sits this one out. Haaretz blames Netenyahu. Being conditioned to hate the oppressed.
- The scourge of private equity, destroying companies for profit.
- Money-launderer gets $250k fine for billion dollar crime.
- Vancouver survey shows homeless numbers up 32% in the last 3 years.
- Canadian Daniel Dumbrill explains why he prefers living in China to Canada.
- Alice Walker shows why she likes Rand Paul. (Eye-opening video.)
- RCMP launches criminal investigation into Ontario government‘s connections, and gifts, to mafia developers.
- Market economist explains how US dollar’s “exorbitant privilege” allows US to keep printing money when it’s technically bankrupt. (Thanks to David Cousins for the link.)
- European Parliament investigation reveals huge fraud and cover-up in false claims about Syria’s domestic use of chemical weapons.
- NATO chief admits the expansion of NATO provoked Ukraine war.
- Arundhati Roy explains India’s slide into Hindu-supremacist fascism.
- Indian government kills Canadian Sikh separatist; FBI warns his US counterparts of threats to them.
- Okinawa governor tells UN that US military bases there threaten world peace.
- How Biden brokered IMF bailout for Pakistan in return for arms for Ukraine.
- Obama, after masterminding the destruction of Libya by overthrowing its government, now has the temerity to offer condolences to its citizens for the massive flooding that resulted from its destroyed infrastructure.
- Although exposed by the recent Parliamentary honouring of a Nazi war veteran, Canada’s support for Nazis has a long history, including the work of the current Canadian Foreign Minister, granddaughter of a leading Nazi propagandist.
- Big Pharma has made billions from the sale of decongestants containing phenylephrine even though studies have always overwhelmingly showed they simply don’t work. And they’re still being sold.
Propaganda, censorship, misinformation and disinformation: Short takes:
- Trying to decipher the MBS era in Saudi Arabia.
- The 10 dumbest things propagandists want us to believe.
- When non-censorship becomes news: CNN (and CBC) briefly allowed interviews with those calling for peace in Gaza and Israel.
- Does The Intercept deliberately blow the cover of whistle-blowers?
CoVid-19 the pandemic that keeps on giving: Short takes:
- The Economist estimates the global pandemic death toll is now 26 million people, with 7,000 more dying every day. Virus counts in water samples are spiking again, as are hospitalizations.
- Please get the latest booster, mask in crowded indoor spaces, and test and self-isolate if you get sick. It’s not a lot to ask to save the lives of the vulnerable. The number of people I know personally who’ve caught it again is up sharply.
FUN AND INSPIRATION
from John Atkinson via the Memebrary; did you catch the extra wordplay in the final panel?
The neurobiology of transexual orientation: Fascinating short video wherein Robert Sapolsky suggests there is a biological marker for trans orientation.
The process of mourning: A moving essay by Indrajit Samarajiva describes his personal struggle to mourn after his relative was murdered, so there’s no closure.
The science of cringe: Rebecca Watson explores what might lie behind our propensity to find some things unbearably cringeworthy. And in another video, she again corrects Sabine Hossenfelder, this time for Sabine’s rather reckless claim about the virtues of capitalism, pointing out that without public research and public funding, we’d likely never have made penicillin available to everyone.
The long and the shorts of it: Lyz Lenz skewers the US Senate for its kerfuffle over its dress code. And reports on how Joyce Carol Oates killed arch-conservative David Brooks for lying about his expense account.
When everything falls apart, it’s government vs government: Several municipalities in BC Canada have jacked up development fees. The idea is that future growth needs to be funded by developers, rather than the current residents. This of course denies the reality that development is a Ponzi scheme, and that future expanding development forever is essential to pay for the maintenance of the current sprawl. Without that development, municipalities would all soon be bankrupt. But the federal government, which had pledged billions to help subsidize development costs to help spur new housing development, saw through this, and is now withholding the subsidies for municipalities jacking up their development fees.
Why ‘social sciences’ are not ‘sciences’ at all: A fascinating review of the way in which research done in the so-called ‘social sciences’ is so easily prone to manipulation and misrepresentation, that it’s mostly just opinion, prettied up with selective ‘data’ to support popular but unprovable hypotheses. It’s come back to bite researchers like Dan Ariely into — you guessed it — the subject of lying.
THOUGHTS OF THE MONTH
Midjourney AI’s attempts at cubist art; not my prompt
A couple from Indrajit Samarajiva; the first on the causes of human violence,
Too often the reaction to human violence is beatings until morale improves. This is both immoral and doesn’t improve things. Most public policy about human violence ignores the connection to resources, and the lack thereof. With a dog and cat, it’s obvious that if they’re hungry, tired, and competing for resources they’re going to fight. We somehow miss this point in human animals. In modern society we have created an artificial world where humans are crammed together in spacetime (cities), resources are made artificially scarce (an economy), and competition is elevated to a virtue (capitalism). Is there any wonder that violence erupts? It’s inevitable, not from the sinful nature of man, but from the system.
and the second on the wisdom of children, animals, and the dying:
The important things simply cannot be put into words, numbers, or represented at all. I’m not saying that children, animals, and the dying are arahats [what Buddhists call perfected souls], I’m just saying that in their general not talking about this stuff, they are sages of sorts. And, in action, they are at least not awful. Given the state of the world, that’s saying a lot. These neglected philosophers of the crib, cage, and coffin, they are not mired in illusion and live closer to the moment, and thus it’s a blessing to be close to them, to feed and care for them, as one gives alms to a monk. This is what I think about all the time, surrounded by children, animals, and old people.
From Jeffrey McDaniel, in The Forgiveness Parade
THE QUIET WORLD
In an effort to get people to look
into each other’s eyes more,
and also to appease the mutes,
the government has decided
to allot each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.
When the phone rings, I put it to my ear
without saying hello. In the restaurant
I point at chicken noodle soup.
I am adjusting well to the new way.
Late at night, I call my long distance lover,
proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.
When she doesn’t respond,
I know she’s used up all her words,
so I slowly whisper I love you
thirty-two and a third times.
After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.
