Pat. At last someone with the same thoughts as me.

Did you get to the bottom of this issue?

Rob

Stevie -where do you find them? Law and Ass springs to mind.

As to Merkel, I’d be more worried were I an unemployed hetro German Adonis.

Stevie -re the Oregon blogger – rumour has it, or in my opinion should cover.

Strangely enough I have just read this:-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/1482371/If-you-dont-take-a-job-as-a-prostitute-we-can-stop-your-benefits.html

I wonder if this also applies to men, presumably gay prostitution is legal also. I get more amazed & horrified by the day. Of course this will only effect those who need benefits. Merkel for instance can always rely on her pal Ackerman to see her right.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/09/world/europe/letter-bomb-sent-to-german-bank-chief.html

Yup, like a Twilight Zone nightmare, too weird to be true. Most frustratingly of all, there’s very little you can do except communicate with others. The slow task of building something new outside the crumbling state apparatus is a multi-generational process, but big things have little beginnings. We shouldn’t give up hope. That’s what the system seems to want of us, it wants us to believe There Is No Alternative.

The US is a Banana Republic, the UK is not far behind (perhaps even ahead), and Germany, where I live, is hot on their tails. I’m sure other states of the ‘affluent’ West are cooking similar soups to boil us all in. In Germany it’s illegal not to have health insurance in a system which profits from sickness and disease, not prevention, and the prices to insure are exorbitant. It’s also illegal to home school your kids once they’ve entered the state education process. I heard just recently that a couple were jailed for sticking to their guns and refusing to submit their children to state education. In short, the state-market double-whammy will hammer away at what’s left of planetary resources, including us ruled, and extract, extract, extract. Until, that is, the collapsing house of cards can’t be concealed any more.

For those who already see the collapse, the task is to build networks, pool skills, communicate, understand, discuss. Who knows what can be accomplished— right now it doesn’t look possible to do much more than blog and post comments on blogs, or moan with neighbours—but even little things, like Time Banks, farmers’ markets, gift exchanges, and so on, gently and slowly build the new. Getting out of the rat race, as I have done, is a big part of it, but for some that is flat out impossible. However small, we must do what we can.

Difficult times, and there are no easy answers. Uncertainty is what characterises this period, and it’ll stay that way for quite some time yet. Time to knuckle down, I guess, and work!

Again in the US, but perhaps a worrying precedent for bloggers.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2011/12/crystal_cox_oregon_blogger_isn.php?source=patrick.net

Well Done Charles and Dave – it seems the virus that felled the elephant has finally been exposed.

Now we only need to eradicate its effects and develop our immunity to it.

The USA is beginning to look more like a banana republic every day. Protestors are jailed everyday, and you will only hear about it on RT and on the internet. Having just read Reinventing Collapse, its interesting what the populous of the Soviet Union did in its dying day, and that was to turn its back on authority, by growing its own food, and paying as little attention to the ruling elite as possible etc, and the ruling elite was very successful in collapsing the system by itself. There is no doubt that the US will collapse no matter what the ruling elite do. However, the suffering of its people will be great in the process, I fear.

Charles Wheeler December 14, 2011 at 10:26 pm #

The doomsday ‘copula-based correlation model’!

http://goo.gl/2F0kO

Very sound explanation Charles, but it appeared UPSTREAM in the comments, because that old glitch has returned..

To avoid that, REPLY to the latest poster at end of thread.