[onlooker]

I tend to think I am in some middle ground between Ennui and Ibon in terms of how the future will play out. Are we going to descend into barbarism or are we going to rise to the occasion and see the utility of banding together and of demonstrating resolve and solidarity in keeping some semblance of civilization and community alive and well. Very tough question. I think though it comes down how difficult Mother nature makes the predicament for those around. The more difficult the more the chance of fragmentation and descending into tribalism and barbarism. Competition brings out the worse in us in the same way that cooperation brings out the best in us. By the way though the 20th century is a mixed bag we certainly for the most part except for a few areas coexisted fairly stably and productively together. So that bolsters my point about in times of abundance we can live together, in times of scarcity more problematic. Finally, beyond the mundane impulses and calculations of everyday survival we will be challenged as I stated in our inner self to rationalize this collapse and ourselves as humans. That will present the opportunity to collectively reach some abiding consensus that we ALL must act and think in a certain way going forward. That way is and must be a positive Earth friendly and People friendly way. So hopefully we will collectively reach that sane and logical conclusion.

[Ibon]

It would be nice if it were possible, but I think something vaguely "failed state"-ish sort of like what's become of Mexico is what most of us has to look forward to, where an individual life is cheap and violence is epidemic. I'd like to believe in some sort of peaceful slide into a back-to-the-land victory garden style transition, but I just have too low an opinion of human nature to think it will happen that way. Thinking happy thoughts won't change the overall trajectory.

Earlier you argued that human overshoot is this homogenized process of our species moving from bio region to bio region leaving no "stone" of resources unturned as we ravage the entire planet into a wasteland. That is why you point to ISIS or parts of Mexico where violence is epidemic as representative of this process which will spread wholesale across our entire planet.

I argued that human overshoot will be quite lumpy, with much experimentation in cultural response and much variation in different bio regions in supporting human populations.

This will create a dynamic. Those forces that reinforce collectivist altruism and the seeds of a new sacred paradigm in how we treat our planet and each other will very much be reinforced from other areas that will fail miserably.

Ennui, you are being reductionist in your thinking about this, extrapolating forward your narrative of humans remaining fixed in a Kudzu Ape trajectory until all that is left is the last man standing before the abyss of extinction. And yet you disparage of me inventing the term Kudzu Ape.

My narrative sees cultural elasticity and the possibility of redemption.

Of course, ones narrative must stand the test of reality otherwise we are only thinking happy or gloomy thoughts.

[SeaGypsy]

I wonder when Mos (Ennui) daughter reaches debutante age & meshes her own social life & dad is exposed to that, if his views might change.

Through a few relationships & jobs & study I have maintained contact with young people most of the time since I was one. The social & spiritual elasticity Ibon mentions is not some ideal solution to fascist or anarchic chaos, it is just a fact of neuroplasticity, a trait most found in the young. Perhaps in raising our children we forget they are as much raising us.

[americandream]

Now we have two fascist threads. It's getting confusing disorderly. Who is the fascist? Who is not? If we don't get fascist moderator here to combine this stuff and make our opinions orderly . . . then I threaten to join a commune where the posts are more free-range and local.

We have two threads people feel the need to start a new thread every time a random thought pops up that they feel should be shared no matter how many times it has already been shared. Such is life in a dynamic community, we try and balance between stifling ideas and letting things go crazy with multiple renditions of the same endless arguments. If we restrict too much PO becomes an echo chamber and dies, if we let things go willy nilly the site become unusably cluttered and again the site dies.

In an ordered society with fully conscious minds, such debates would not arise. However, given our current circumstances, it is rather pointless trying to suppress this noise.

[Newfie]

In all likelihood we will never have a glimmer of the future we are discussing.

All we really have is today and perhaps tomorrow. That is a good and bad thing. Good because it makes the struggles we face more manageable: eat, love, sleep. Bad because we also then can fail to provide for the futre, our children and their off spring.

[Lore]

Amazing how this thread went from half sensible to batsh!t crazy as I was having dinner. No longer worth the time.

Goodbye.

Goodbye!

[Ibon]

In all likelihood we will never have a glimmer of the future we are discussing.

All we really have is today and perhaps tomorrow. That is a good and bad thing. Good because it makes the struggles we face more manageable: eat, love, sleep. Bad because we also then can fail to provide for the futre, our children and their off spring.

Under capitalism and in the name of the bottom line we have become absolute experts at future planning, stream lining distribution, preserving ones market, developing refined customer service strategies and manipulating the psychology of consumers to bend their will in order to buy products. These are proven skills of self regulation in the name of profit.

We have already proven quite skillfully the ability for long term future planning. We only need to change the motive behind this skill from a self serving one of making profit to the selfless skill of serving our biosphere and our well being.

Environmental feedbacks may give us the required signals to re orient our underlying motives.

Many people have already seen through the illusion of consumption leading to happiness. Add the systemic failures due to human overshoot and I don't see this re orientation as out of the question.

On top of that hypothalamus of our ancient lizard brains that directs us toward fight or flight is a remarkable cerebral cortex capable of cultural elasticity that we grossly under estimate on this site.

[ennui2]

Ennui, you are being reductionist in your thinking about this, extrapolating forward your narrative of humans remaining fixed in a Kudzu Ape trajectory until all that is left is the last man standing before the abyss of extinction.

Pretty much, yeah. What I detect in your narrative is a desire for doom to be heterogeneous with these bucolic oases of subsistence, sort of like the feel-good narrative of Cuba in The Power of Community. I don't deny that pockets like that WILL rise up. What I think, though, is that with 9-10+ billion plus humans playing the game of musical chairs, that those enclaves will face serious challenges which they will be ill-equipped to handle, due to their pacifistic earth-mother way of life. So the challenge is not to carve out some oasis someplace and live sustainably. The challenge is to keep everyone else from discovering and then overrunning the lifeboats.

My narrative sees cultural elasticity and the possibility of redemption.

But that is dependent on overshoot first playing itself out according to the hard rules of the thermodynamics.

I'm reminded of Rob Hopkins' self-serving study that posited that the UK could feed itself on locally grown food. The conclusion that it could do so, but just barely, and only if everything were done "just right" and if the population didn't keep creeping up and the carrying capacity of the landscape didn't keep dwindling.

It's increasingly difficult to conceive of soft landings. In a hard landings, some people are going to be stuck with no seat in the game of musical chairs and most of them will not just curl up into a ball and die without a fight.

[ennui2]

Amazing how this thread went from half sensible to batsh!t crazy as I was having dinner. No longer worth the time.

Goodbye.

Goodbye!

Trust me. He hasn't gone anywhere.

[Plantagenet]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demograph ... _Jerusalem
The Romans stomped the Zealots, but there were plenty of Jews in Palestine for centuries after these "wars".

Wikipedia is only as good as it's sources. They have very low standards for "reliable sources".

Then why are you relying on Wikipedia for your source?

[Keith_McClary]

Does this fit your definition of Fascism?

DV – In a recent interview you said that the latest attack on Gaza brought a lot of the fascists out of the closet. How is fascism manifesting itself in Israel? Is the Nakba law a manifestation of Israeli fascism and racism?

LT – Israeli fascism is complex and manifests itself in many different ways. By the early 20th century understanding of fascism, meaning a social movement that forces all to align to one communal line of thinking, and bans all others Israel is not a fascist state because the State exerts little pressure on Israeli Jews to conform. However, the pressure comes from the society itself. In essence, it is easy to indoctrinate a people that wants to be indoctrinated. Since everyone is a part of the army, or at least knows and loves someone in the army, the army’s actions are considered outside of what is legitimate to criticize, and along with it, the bigger policies of the Israeli security echelon. There are many elements to it, from Israeli media to politicians, to school education. They all play a part in Israelis’ collective ignorance of the reality they impose on the Palestinians and the justifications for that reality. They also play a major part in reinforcing Israelis’ collective denial, as we talked in our interview. In this kind of environment it is easy for fascistic movements to arise, as we’ve seen they’ve come and gone throughout Israel’s history and are now getting stronger. During the Gaza attack this summer we saw people attacking anyone who speaks Arabic or looks Arabic on the streets of Jerusalem, mobs running through major streets in both Jerusalem and Tel Aviv screaming “death to Arabs” and “Turn Gaza into a Cemetery” as you can see in my reports for The Real News Network. These people believe Israel is a Jewish state and should be Jewish-only, and that anyone who thinks differently must be silenced, if necessary, by force. I do not put the blame for their behavior at the feet of a few radicals, but squarely at the feet of the Prime Minister himself, who incites and allows politicians within his government to incite the masses in such a way. Further, I think since the very essence of Zionism has never been defined – what does it mean a Jewish state? A Jewish-religious state? A Jewish-majority state? A Jewish-only state? These ambiguities allow for all kinds of interpretations, including fascistic ones.

DV – What exactly is the Nakba law?

LT – The Nakba Law was proposed in 2009 and a diluted version of it passed in 2011. Essentially it forbids any body that receives any part of its budget from the government (such as funds, community centers, or schools) to commemorate the Nakba on the Israeli day of Independence. If they do, their budgets get slashed by a certain amount. The main impact of the law wasn’t so much the punishment that it legislated but the cooling effect that it had on the Palestinian (20% of the population) and other citizens of Israel from commemorating the tragedy that began in 1948 when two-thirds of the Palestinians who lived on this land became refugees. It basically criminalized history and the commemoration of the survivors’ pain and sent a clear message that only one version of history is legitimate, the version of the victor.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/06/05/ ... of-israel/

They have just passed a similar law in Ukraine.

LT says: "Israel is not a fascist state because the State exerts little pressure on Israeli Jews to conform". She could have mentioned Israeli military censorship of the media.

[Newfie]

In all likelihood we will never have a glimmer of the future we are discussing.

All we really have is today and perhaps tomorrow. That is a good and bad thing. Good because it makes the struggles we face more manageable: eat, love, sleep. Bad because we also then can fail to provide for the futre, our children and their off spring.

Under capitalism and in the name of the bottom line we have become absolute experts at future planning, stream lining distribution, preserving ones market, developing refined customer service strategies and manipulating the psychology of consumers to bend their will in order to buy products. These are proven skills of self regulation in the name of profit.

We have already proven quite skillfully the ability for long term future planning. We only need to change the motive behind this skill from a self serving one of making profit to the selfless skill of serving our biosphere and our well being.

Environmental feedbacks may give us the required signals to re orient our underlying motives.

Many people have already seen through the illusion of consumption leading to happiness. Add the systemic failures due to human overshoot and I don't see this re orientation as out of the question.

On top of that hypothalamus of our ancient lizard brains that directs us toward fight or flight is a remarkable cerebral cortex capable of cultural elasticity that we grossly under estimate on this site.

I on,

That's not future planning. That's reacting to market forces. It's all in the name of short term growth. "Grow or die!" is the mantra.

Look at Boeings growth plans, or OHare airport, or the recent doubling of a portion of the NJ Turnpike.

What corporation out there is looking at a 20 year Horizion? Maybe there are some, I haven't heard of them.

Well, excepting some big re insurance companies like MunichRE and even Lloyds more recently.

[Newfie]

Now that I think of it, China and the one child policy was an attempt at long term planning.

[Cog]

Most people on this board support fascism. Why do I say this? Because they support big government, massive taxation, free everything for everyone.

Fascism is impossible without big government but most people here support such. Just look at the man-love for Bernie Sanders for president. Tells me what I need to know.

[ennui2]

Fascism is impossible without big government

If for one moment you can let go of the central tenant of your philosophy that says big government = bad, then maybe you'd understand why some people here are proposing it.

You simply can't have a debate if you hold a fundamentalist belief system where you are right and everyone else is wrong because, well, because you're right!

If you want to prove that big government is bad, then you have to make your case, which is more than just cherry picking stuff like Mao and Pol Pot. It also requires that you LISTEN to the other side. Of course, listening is an endangered species in the age of internet trolling.

[Ibon]

Now that I think of it, China and the one child policy was an attempt at long term planning.

My point about the logistical expertise of businesses to do risk assessments and the fine tuning of distribution of goods and services does indicate that we are capable of optimization of stewardship on a macro level if the motive goes from profit to sustainability. That was my only point.

[ennui2]

My point about the logistical expertise of businesses to do risk assessments and the fine tuning of distribution of goods and services does indicate that we are capable of optimization of stewardship on a macro level if the motive goes from profit to sustainability. That was my only point.

That supports the case for a carbon tax. Of course, "tax" is a 4-letter word to conservatives.

[Newfie]

Now that I think of it, China and the one child policy was an attempt at long term planning.

My point about the logistical expertise of businesses to do risk assessments and the fine tuning of distribution of goods and services does indicate that we are capable of optimization of stewardship on a macro level if the motive goes from profit to sustainability. That was my only point.

Actually I think it's the time frames, or perhaps event Horizion time frames, are different.

[Keith_McClary]

The thin blue line between stupidity and Fascism:
Stormtrooper arrested outside Lynn school

LYNN, Mass. (WHDH) - Students in Lynn were surprised by a man dressed as a Stormtrooper outside their school Wednesday, and the man is now facing charges.

After snapping pictures and taking cell phone video, parents in Lynn could not stop talking about the bizarre scene outside the Brickett Elementary School.

A man dressed up in an elaborate Star Wars Stormtrooper costume, complete with a black toy laser gun, appeared on the sidewalk moments before school was about to release.

"I honestly opened my screen window, stuck my head out the window, and I was just like, 'wow,'" Jami Kelly, a concerned parent.

With no clue who the man was or whether the gun was real, the principal delayed dismissal Wednesday until police arrived on the scene, unmasked the masked crusader, arrested him, and placed him in a police cruiser.

George Cross, 40, of Lynn, was arraigned on charges of disturbing a school in addition to violating a city ordinance of loitering within 1,000 feet of a school.

"I bought a costume, I was walking through the neighborhood showing friends, and then all that," said Cross as he left the courthouse.

"We just can't have things like that taking place in front of the school," said Lt. Rick Donnelly of the Lynn Police Department.

Police were not amused by Cross' costume caper, and neither were parents - especially, they said, in this day and age.

"What if it was just like a thing saying, 'oh it was for the kids,' but actually it was, like, something bad was going to happen, you never know," said Tanya Dietz.

[onlooker]

fas·cism
ˈfaSHˌizəm/
noun
noun: fascism; noun: Fascism; plural noun: Fascisms

an authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization.
synonyms: authoritarianism, totalitarianism, dictatorship, despotism, autocracy; More
Nazism, rightism;
nationalism, xenophobia, racism, anti-Semitism;
jingoism, isolationism;
neofascism, neo-Nazism
"a film depicting the rise of fascism in the 1930s"
(in general use) extreme right-wing, authoritarian, or intolerant views or practice.
I think most governments at present exhibit one or more of these characteristics.