A wonderful essay—I think it’s one of his finest—from our super smart friend, Charles Hugh Smith, over at his Of Two Minds blog:
I am optimistic about the future because the status quo is doomed and better options abound.
One of the characteristics readers seem to like about oftwominds.com is that fundamentally I am an optimist about the future, even as I trace out the inevitability of the status quo’s devolution and implosion.
The two are inextricably bound in a yin-yang, electron/proton field: I am hopeful for the very reason that the status quo is doomed. Instead of being terrified of its devolution, I say “good riddance.” We all know it is unsustainable, rapacious and based on an interlocking net of lies; why should we mourn the passing of debt-serfdom and the dominance of interlocking webs of deceit, corruption and exploitation?
I am optimistic for the reasons laid out in Survival+
Many people expect some sort of rapid implosion of social order into violent chaos. While anything is possible, my research into the devolution of the Roman Empire persuaded me that the Roman Empire remains the best available the model for our future: a slow decline and unwinding of Empire and the Savior State.
Why might it be slow? As I have explained at length in Survival+
Devolution is not a chaotic mob of armed thugs rampaging. Such a concentration is relatively easy to control or simply liquidate by force. The State excels at violence and control, so rampaging mobs would be the State’s preferred “domestic enemy.”
Devolution is this: half the toilets in the Chemistry building no longer work, and they aren’t being fixed nor will they be fixed. The city/county/state can’t print money, and as the public unions demand higher taxes to fund their Protected Fiefdoms, then the compliant State and its parallel shadow structures of privilege will comply, raising junk fees and taxes on the dwindling class of still-productive citizenry.
This feedback loop has a consequence the Status Quo fails to understand: rather than toil ever longer to pay exploitative taxes, the productive can choose to opt out. As I have ceaselessly explained here, the Protected Fiefdoms of the Savior State simply cannot grasp that entrepreneurs and small business owners have a choice: they do not have to work long hours and endure hardships just to support the Savior State and its numerous Protected Fiefdoms. They can simply call it quits, close the doors and opt for a simpler lifestyle which generates no taxes and much less stress.
Many people moan that the U.S. is becoming a “Third World country.” I say, good; life is better in a well-ordered Third World country than in a debt-serf Empire. Not all Third World countries are equal; those hobbled by corruption, dictatorship, poor infrastructure and education, etc. are truly wretched. But those “developing nations” with lesser shares of these burdens can actually be better places to live than crumbling empires based on killing commutes, endlessly higher debts and a mindlessly self-destructive culture seeking ever-higher doses of self-medication.
Maintaining or improving the infrastructure of the U.S. requires a mere slice of the GDP. Maintaining or improving sewage, water, rail/transport electrical and Internet systems requires very little money compared to the trillions squandered on Empire, bailing out various Financial/Power Elites and the 70% of the GDP squandered on “consumerist paradise.”
Were priorities to be re-ordered, a Third World GDP would be more than adequate to fund a functioning, efficient infrastructure. The money wasted on Empire and sickcare alone could rebuild the entire nation’s critical infrastructure.
No one is forcing us to be debt-serfs. That is a voluntary choice. Nobody has to work two jobs to pay the bloated mortgage on a house which is high in cost due to large-scale financial manipulations by the Savior State to benefit various financial Elites. Nobody has to agree to buy a bloated house and take on a bloated mortgage, or pay $3,000 per month for a crummy studio apartment in Manhattan to toil for a parasitic financial corporation.
Interestingly, much of the Counterculture of the late 1960s and early 1970s was founded on the understanding that a “Third World country” lifestyle was inherently more humane and worthy than the commuter-debt-serf model of Empire.
The Counterculture was voluntary and incremental. You could pick and choose which parts of it to join. You could be a “straight” and buy your food at the co-op. It existed in parallel with the status quo, which quickly co-opted whatever features gained widespread appeal. (“Natural” products appeared as if by magic on the shelves of supermarkets.)
Nobody has to change agribusiness dependence on growing corn and producing high-fructose corn syrup to inject in essentially every packaged and fast food; as the Savior State founders, its subsidies of agribusiness will decline, rendering growing corn for sugar unprofitable. Those pursuing that model of “farming” will either go bankrupt or they will pursue some other model of growing food that is not mandated by subsidies for Protected Fiefdoms.
When people become ill from self-destructive diets and lifestyles, and the Savior State no longer pays for sickcare treatments of these lifestyle ills, then they will choose other lifestyles. Choice isn’t capitalist or “free market;” it is human. We all have choices, and when the trade-offs and subsidies and incentives change, so will the choices.
When opting out of the work-harder-to-pay-more-taxes rat race becomes recognized not as “failure” but as freedom and blessed relief, then more people will opt out to do something else with their lives.
Read more of Why I am Optimistic at www.oftwominds.com
Bad Brains Switchplate Cover
Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention Ceramic Coaster Set of 4
Sally Fields Flying Nun Pocket Purse Mirror
I was poking around Etsy today and found these gems by seller Nightmarebox. I bought the Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention ceramic coaster set.
In what sounds like a plot from a William Burroughs novel, the anthrax-tainted heroin found earlier in Germany and Scotland has now reached London, authorities told BBC News:
A heroin user in London has tested positive for anthrax, the Health Protection Agency (HPA) has announced.
The case is the first in England linked to the Class A drug, but follows the deaths of nine users in Scotland from anthrax infection.
The HPA said the unnamed user was being treated in a London hospital and that other drug users in the capital should be “extremely alert to the risks.”
Not to in any way make light of the subject but the advice of the HPA for addicts to “cease taking heroin” is farcical. Clearly they’ve never met any real junkies, because a junkie is, by his or her very nature, already inclined to do things to their bodies without much regard for the consequences. An addict will happily jab a needle into their arm if there is only a small chance of the smack being tainted. If the chances become greater, well guess what, they’ll still shoot up. They need to actively set up mobile emergency methadone centers quickly in areas where smack users acquire heroin or else more people are going to die.
Anthrax found in London heroin user (BBC News)
Check out our swanky new opening graphics by Toronto-based designer Jamie White. One morning in January, Jamie contacted me over email and said basically “Dude, you really need opening graphics for your show and it just so happens…”
Jamie also did the distinctive electronic musical sting. I described—vaguely—what I had in mind and he emailed back that he’d recently acquired an analog synth kit that should do the trick nicely. When he sent me the track, the first draft was 100% perfect.
You can see and hear the gorgeous results in this week’s Dangerous Minds interview with artist Rachel Rosenthal. I can honestly say it’s exactly what I saw in my mind’s eye, only way, way better!
Thank you Jamie!
See more of Jamie White’s work:
www.signamoda.com
Signamoda gallery at Deviant Art
Signamoda at Facebook
Master archivist of music from the depths of oblivion and WFMU DJ/ blogger Tony Coulter has been unearthing these delightful early 70’s homemade 8mm art/ psychedelic drug/ comedy films as of late. I have a feeling this is the tip of the iceberg for this kind of stuff as the baby boomers have fully taken to the youtubes and the facebooks and are presently posting the contents of their closets for all to see.
“Impeach Obama: America’s Small Businesses Are Failing; Help Us Spread The Message.” And the billboard shenanigans continue. The above Wisconsin road sign will stay there for 6 months at the cost of $1,000 per month, and was paid for by a “company supported by number of area businessmen concerned about tax and spend politics.” Tom Wroblewski, a lawyer for the company (whose identity he naturally wishes to protect), is quick to point out that, “the billboard is not meant to allege any impeachable offense has been committed, it’s nothing personal.”
Bonus recipe for despair: read sign, contemplate this, repeat.
(via Alternet)
CRASH, the Gagosian Gallery‘s homage to J.G. Ballard opened in London last week. The show attempts to trace the Ballardian impact on such contemporary artists as Mike Kelley, Richard Prince, and Tacita Dean (above).
As a tie-in to the Gagosian show, Iain Sinclair, writing in today’s Guardian, offers up a wonderful account of his trip to Shepperton, where Ballard spoke of the art and artists that most inspired him. When it came to such things, Ballard was clearly a lucid, passionate speaker. You can get a rare glimpse of this yourself in the below, ‘93 interview from British television:
