What a Way to Go: NetworkHeinberg & Martin online audio talks
Here's what I've been listening to this week:
http://www.financialsense.com/Experts/2007/Heinberg.html
A great interview with Richard Heinberg about his new book Peak Everything. It's a good summary of the whole picture with Heinberg's smart, kind, thoughtful, compassionate but truthful assessment about how dire it is. He was an amazing man to get to sit and interview. I was struck by how lacking in bitterness he was then. And now, three years later he's still working terribly hard to wake people up and there's not a shred of bitterness I detect.
http://www.arlingtoninstitute.org/dr-david-e-martin
This is an interview in some ways from the belly of the beast. The Arlington Institute is NOT the Kato Institute. It is a "think tank" that seems to be filled with the basically good, highly successful affluent crowd who knows things are not good but still hope they can hold on to their lifestyles. David Martin does risk assessment for the moneyed as far as I can tell and he's predicting dire things for the economy early in 2008. It's a really interesting insider's view of some of the reasons the American economy hangs on an ever more precarious thread.
Any assets we've got we're working to get 'em out of dollars, out of the market, out of real estate investments and into real things ASAP: place, tools, food, or in the short term, precious metals to hedge against the bursting real estate bubble and falling dollar, which may soon be the utterly collapsed dollar. Tim and I have a policy of not making predictions or prescriptions for others because it's too complex a situation. Each person has to make those calls for him/herself. But when I hear an insider saying it's time to make friends with people who live in the middle east, because they will be the only ones who have real resources (spelled O-I-L) to bale out this corrupt, criminal, system, I take notice and want to encourage others to as well. And getting out of any kind of debt ASAP is just a no-brainer.
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Weird computer glitch
Something really weird happened when I tried to listen to this second program you recommended, Sally. I went to the website with David Martin, and clicked on the first video to download it - part one. Ok, so that went fine, it downloaded fine, and I clicked on it to listen.
What I ended up listening to for an hour was a program with Ed Morrissey in an interview with Russell Means and a follow-up discussion among some white men who haven't got a clue about what the Lakota position is. It was really interesting and I was glad to be listening to it, but it sure wasn't David Martin talking about the credit crunch. Weird.
Lua
Sounding Reasonable
Richard Heinberg sounded so reasonable in that interview. He gave facts, details, figures - anyone who already knows what's going on and can read between the lines could hear conclusions like, "in other words, Richard what you're saying is we're fucked and most of the people in the world are gonna die pretty soon now." And it's all said in a calm, emotionless voice. A voice that doesn't alert someone to the reality that his news is devastating. A voice that says, "Ho hum, this is just another day at the office - and oh by the way, there isn't any hope."
What am I trying to say? Let's see - I think Carolyn Baker has been on about this lately. It's that we aren't supposed to express or feel any emotions. We're supposed to be blah. Just blah. Ho hum, the world is doomed, and what is the weather tomorrow? Richard Heinberg just seemed to slip solidly into that ho hum voice and I wish that he could have expressed his pain.
Lua
Trying to Convince the "Reasonable"
You are so right Lua. And I'm ambivalent about how reasonable Richard Heinberg sounds and presents the information in that interview and, I believe, in general. Although Tim and I have noted some of his Museletters have of late been kicking more butt about how serious things are.
I have to say there is a part of me that is comforted by that reasonable, reasoned, voice. Part of me has doubted my own perception since I was a child in a dysfunctional family embedded in a dysfunctional culture. I still find myself occasionally having the question arise inside "Are we all just making too much out of all of this?" Yeah, that still comes up for me. So I am comforted by Richard Heinberg's authoritative, calm, reasoned voice affirming the validity of my perceptions and what I've seen coming for years. That reasoned voice reassures me that I am NOT crazy to think what I do about the information. I wonder if that's the value in the world, to try to convince the "reasonable" that the horrendously sad is true.
On the other hand, as you point out, there is nothing to rouse the drowsy, poke at the complacent, scream "fire" as the blaze rages, and so there can be this weird double message: the situation is dire but nothing to worry about. And also there is no apparent companionship in the deep grief of it.
I was able to see and feel his sadness when we interviewed him in person. But it seems like, as you note, and as Carolyn Baker points out, it is way risky, especially for men, to feel deeply or admit to feelings in the light of day, in the midst of mainstream culture. But it's what we need to be doing.
I am clear the feeling work, the grieving, needs to be done and I need companions to help make a safe place for that to happen.
public and less-public personas
I have also been struck by Richard Heinberg's often dispassionate tone, which really resonated with my cerebral, academic self (a-ha, I thought, someone whose writings and speeches I can trot out to the "reasonable," "objective" folks, mostly male, in efforts to convince them of our common predicament). I also felt itchy that he wasn't more emotional. Then I saw him in person when he made a speech locally, at Smith College. A young man was very confrontational towards him and held up a sign that said something like "Heinberg believes in eugenics" or some such nonsense. (The same young man, who I think was a student at nearby Hampshire College, arranged for Michael Lynch to speak at Hampshire.) During the Q&A at the end of the speech, the young man asked something about overpopulation and Heinberg's implication that we could be facing massive die-off. That was when I saw Heinberg show quite a bit of emotion-- his face fell with grief as he acknowledged that such death and suffering were indeed possible. His whole bearing was different somehow-- as if he had given his polished performance and now he could let his hair down. I was glad to have witnessed this. I think Richard Heinberg has been working extremely hard, and I worry about the emotional toll he may be paying as he continues to put forth his even-keeled, rational persona, trying mightily to speak with the sort of language and tone those in power might be able to hear, at the same time that there are some inescapable conclusions-- as in, this stuff is *scary*. The kind of scary that wakes you up screaming in a cold sweat.
Speaking of scary...
I've been about coming unglued the last few days. It seems that actually making the passage into 2008 has had a huge impact on my own "even keel." There are so many things various experts are expecting to happen this year, like total economic collapse, starvation en masse around the world by next winter, and another ramp up in the political coup in the US. I've read the recent stories about arctic ice melt breaking all records and then some, about how we'll know by next summer just how fast it's going to disappear, then there's the Pakistan fiasco, the Kenya crisis, and the feeling that no way is the sociopath in Washington going to let someone else take over next fall. It's like 2008 is the tipping point for everything.
To make things worse at home, my youngest daughter found a piece of land with "the perfect" house on it four hours drive away from here. In previous times, when I wouldn't have thought anything at all of getting into the car and driving for the afternoon to go visit for the weekend, it would've been just fine. But now all I feel is panic that she'll be too far away and I might never see her again. My elder daughter's husband is going through some major personal problems and he just might take it into his head to accept one of the jobs he was offered up in Portland, Oregon, which would take those grandchildren WAY beyond my reach and I'm in a dead panic there too.
It's being very hard to continue action. When I get too depressed or scared, my personal body reaction is to stop. Stop everything dead. I need to keep my focus, continue preparation, not let anything stop me, but it's being damned hard right now, because the whole world feels like one giant shoe waiting for the other one to drop.
Lua
2008 angst
More than one person in my circle expressed the same feelings upon rising on the first. Tim and I have had a couple of days of heightened anxiety as the legal new year begins. It is a scary time of great uncertainty.
I am pondering a spiritual principle that I've heard or read a number of places. This is the principle: The unseen forces for good, the gods or goddess, guides, spirits or Spirit, ancestors, however one conceives of "that which is greater than ourselves," cannot intervene in human affairs unless they are requested, asked by us, to do so. There may be untold guidance, support, resources, that await but if we do not open ourselves by asking, they cannot, except in rare circumstances, intervene.
So Tim and I walked out to the east side of the pond where we live as the sun was setting yesterday, burned a little sage, and ASKED.
It helped.
scared of losing family
Lua, I hear you so clearly. One of the hardest things for me in being awake is having to witness my family members choosing to remain asleep and choosing to be distant from me. I have no family near me and it breaks my heart. My sister is married to a German diplomat, so they get posted to different countries for 2-4 years at a stretch, with their "home" being in Berlin. Right now they live in Kuwait. My sister has four small children who I love dearly but almost never get to see. My parents have decided to spend half of every year in Italy (my mother is from Italy originally) and half in the US. They are in Italy now. Sometimes I just cry and cry at the prospect of never seeing them again. I can't understand how I ended up in a family that insists on living on separate continents.
I also feel agitated now that it's 2008 and feel that this is going to be The Year. I keep feeling like I need to throw up.
"In Debt We Trust"
I sat down to watch "In Debt we Trust" last night. When Tim & Sally had mentioned it, I filed it away thinking interesting, but I don't have much debt, I'm aware of the Bank and their agendas to enslave us, probably don't need to watch that one. I'm a bit of a documentary junkie. Not long after Sept 11th, I'd phoned up and cancelled all my credit cards. I'd thought that was the signal of the start of the collapse I'd envisioned for so long. The conversations I had with the people on the other end of the phone at the Credit Card companies were really interesting, when they got to the question on their form of why I was cancelling. Last night I saw the DVD in the local video store of my small suburban town, so I rented it. I DID need to watch it. Yes I know that stuff and I am still sucked in. Those credit cards I cancelled I got talked into re-activating. It's amazing how creative my mind can be at creating elaborate evasion techniques rather than facing head on what needs to be done. Thanks Tim & Sally for mentioning it. I'm going to invite my two adult sons to watch it tonight and mention it to others. I urge anyone reading this even if they think they know it already if you haven't seen it and have a chance take a look at it. It's a good motivator to break some more chains.