[crapattack]

Coyote, thanks! I still haven't spoken to my friend - I really don't fell like it and I'm inclined to just let it go. But I'm giving it some time. What get's me, like you, is some folks just ignore all the facts you put in front of them and assume you've suddenly lost your ability to evaluate an argument. It's very sad because these folks who where warned and are going to be most angry when TSHTF because they'll feel like they believed a bunch of lies. I don't care if I'm wrong but I figure I'm safer anyway because even if I'm wrong I just end up with a kickass earthquake kit, solar power and a garden. What I don't get is why they are betting their lives and their children's on being right.

You bring up art and it made me think that maybe because we are artists we see the world in a slightly different way - we look at the spaces between things, see colours, patterns and connections. We know that what looks like line is really just shading, for example, and how impossible it is to capture a moment because we experience the futility in trying. We know that change is constant, everything visual is about lighting and human skin is hardly ever pink but shades of beige, yellows, browns, blue, greens, greys and red. We perceive nuances that writers, poets and musicians feel. We're looking for the sameness and the differences and find the beauty and the ugliness there. Good artists, like comedians, tend to be good observers - it makes sense that we, along with the scientists, would be tuned into things that the rest of the public might not pick up on for a while. My friend was not an artist and saw the world very conventionally but ultimately it seems that PO has become the break up issue.

[Revi]

They can't see. All you can do it tell people what's going on. My own mother doesn't believe me. My sister and her family won't do anything to save themselves. They laugh at what I'm doing. They can't hear what I'm saying. What am I going to do? I can't make them do anything.

Us artists are way more perceptive than the majority of humanity. We are targets of derision, but we do see what's up long before the mainstream. Deconstructionism was an art movement long before the majority of America discovered it. Post modernism was showing it's face in the 60's long before it moved into the minds of the masses.

Look at what a great job GWB is doing at turning the world into a deconstructionist piece!

[crapattack]

What gets me is how the rich elites who are orchastrating this actually think we're all going to be quiety content as serfs in the feudal aftermath. Then again, why do I think we won't.

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('crapattack', 'W')hat gets me is how the rich elites who are orchastrating this actually think we're all going to be quiety content as serfs in the feudal aftermath. Then again, why do I think we won't.

[crapattack]

I don't think the elite are causing PO, just getting as much money out of it as they can and planning to stay on top for what will come after. The symphony is playing, they are orchastrating the tune. If you're in any doubt that these elites are not in control, then I give you GWB and his gang, PNAC (Project for a New American Century - who are quite open about their plans for world domination), who subverted a democratic election to gain power, are presently engaging in an a brutal war to control oil resources, have removed constitutional freedoms and rights and have muzzeled the free press - the only real check on power. Currently they are trying to win support for a second war to control oil. I don't "know" what they think, I don't have to - I see what they do.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist and I don't claim to "know", I'm not a prophet, but I look at the fact that GWB and friends all seem to have sustainable off-grid ranches, off-shore accounts, as do many oil execs, top brokers and elites such as the Waldens (the richest family in America) with their underground self-sustaining bunker, and apply some deductive reasoning. The powerful elite are not going to let themselves get taken down with the crowd when TSHTF, and after all the dust clears they'll probably end up owning the writs on your forclosed morgage and your defunct bank. They might let you subsistance farm for a yearly tithe. Welcome to the future.

[Revi]

I think that some of the rich elite will have progressively less power in the future. They may not even be able to control Washington DC soon. When things change, the power shifts. If we go to a solarized economy who controls things? The energy is diffuse. Those who provide the services will be in a good position. Instead of 3 internal combustion car dealers in my town, how about a solar buggy dealer? How about solar hot water installers? We will get most of our food and heat from farms and woodlots within 50 miles of our towns. The ingredients for solar panels will still have to be manufactured far away. Aluminum in places with hydro power. Solar panels in places with lots of sun. Busses and trains will make a comeback. We'll become more dependent on regional authority.

What will we need those elite rich people for? Forget them. They are not providing enough bread and circus to hold our attention now. We may just wander away from the spectacle and start to make our own lives. We were "enthralled" for a while. (A "thrall" is a slave in old Norse) Once the circus is over and they aren't throwing out as much bread (cheap gas), we'll all start to figure out other ways of providing for ourselves.

Right now they are trying to scare us into staying in the oily arena, watching more and more of their misadventures. They are throwing out badly baked loaves and screaming shrilly to try to keep our attention. A few people have found the exits and are heading back to the hills. It may be a great show, but I would stay close to the exit door! Even better, skip the last quarter. It could get nasty when the bread runs out!

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Revi', '
')What will we need those elite rich people for?

[Liamj]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Doly', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Revi', '
')What will we need those elite rich people for?