My mother read the first posts and she said "You need to be more positive". I intend, in this blog, to focus on the ever-deepening crisis that is beginning to affect the United States as well as the world as a whole. At times, it will be difficult to focus on the positives while detailing the elements of the collapse of our known civilization. We are experiencing change on a scale rarely seen in human and global history. I do believe there are inherent positives in this process. We will, by necessity, become kinder to our planet, our global empire based on human exploitation will fail due to its overreach and we will learn that it is only our local communities that can provide the emotional, spiritual and physical needs of our survival.
Here will be the constant message: a local community based democracy, confederated with other local community based democracies is the only way to provide solutions that can honestly and effectively meet our community needs. Healthcare is a local issue, food is a local issue, energy is a local issue, everything is a local issue: it is our parents, it is our children, it is our neighbors, it is our selves that we will need to depend upon to survive the impending transition.
Another constant message: it is through the perfect storm of peak oil (see Chris Martenson's crash course), massive environmental degradation (i.e. climate change, water supplies, food supplies) and over-population that our society will be irrevocably changed. When the shit goes down (and it will go down), it is only ourselves who can provide any relevant solution. Ultimately, that is the hope that I provide as an answer to my mother: through local collaboration, we can provide a more egalitarian, a more just and a better quality of life. I implore each and every one of you to commit yourselves to this cause. It truly is our only hope.
Here is an excerpt from the Vermont Commons, a bi-monthly newspaper dedicated to creating strong, local community governance through the act of secession. This excerpt, by Adrian Kuzminski, succinctly explains the historical context that can help guide us to a better form of governance:
Few Americans are aware that Vermont, the fourteenth state admitted to the Union in 1791, was not a colony like the others; it was a pre-existing independent republic spontaneously created by its residents who rejected the authority of neighboring colonies, particularly New York which had the strongest claim to its territory.
In its 14 years of formal independence, beginning in 1777, it very nearly fulfilled the textbook image of a society created voluntarily by free persons living in the state of nature – a favorite motif of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century social contract political philosophers. Texas, California, and Hawaii also enjoyed periods as independent republics, but Vermont's example reflects a greater equality of persons and resources. In the case of Vermont, in the face of a trend toward oligarchy in America evident even in the eighteenth century – an egalitarian, democratic community for a time found almost complete realization.
Here is a link to the full article: Vermont - The First Populist Republic.
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