I could care less if all oil drilling ends.

I could care less if all oil drilling ends, right now, the world over.

People cry and complain that the economy will tank. That we depend on crude oil for so many things and how could we possibly get by without it.

Maybe the key phrase to consider is "for so many things". See, it's not an addiction to oil that's the problem. It's an addiction to things. In other words: It's the materialism, stupid!

All the 'things' that depend on oil such as vehicles and plastic goods - I could care less if I had to go on without those precious things. My life would have to go on, and I might be forced to - Go outside and enjoy nature! Tend to my garden! Spend time with family! Oh, the horror (sarcasm). I might have to use paper bags at the store!

Actually the back-to-nature scenario isn't so scary at all for me.

Maybe cold-turkey is the best method. We obviously are not motivated enough to make necessary changes towards an oil-free society on our own time schedule.

So, why stop at the DW Horizon site - I say let's start plugging them all up, every last one of them. For the good of the planet (the planet includes us - we are not separate from it).

yeah, we're all going to starve to death without our precious oil.

:eyes:

Oh, yeah, an average of 1500 miles away. Hmm, hope you've got a few months worth of food saved up.

and if you are willing to grow some of your own food.

Those in the cities will be screwed

That's essentially what the OP is saying, cut off oil now.

Most people wouldn't be able to survive quite frankly. A city's grocery stores generally only have about three day's worth of food in them at one time. Most people generally have a few days or weeks worth of food stored up. It would get very ugly, very quickly.

I could survive, rather easily. It is one reason I moved out to the country, to become less dependent on our current food chain, which is so very dependent on oil.

But most folks in the city would be screwed.

Actually screwed, not hypothetically.

Because lord knows people did not eat before Oil and plastics were discovered. Nooooo sireeee bob.

Oil and coal have enabled humanity to overshoot the world's carrying capacity for our species. Cut them cold turkey and we would see a very hard crash.

Food and water are the limiting factors.

Oil allows fewer people to feed the population, it does not necessarily mean more food grown.

that there is a way of life that exists outside their own little convenient, modern way of life? According to them, we wouldn't even be here today, because life could not have existed before automobiles were invented.

our infrastructure, material lives in every aspect IS dependent on oil based products. That's just a fact, not an imaginary scenario. A sudden magical removal of all oil would create a world wide disaster....


sure would do a lot to reduce the human population though, there is that.

"We cannot do it suddenly" is a stalking horse for not doing it at all, for accepting whatever the corporations want to do.

We already have world wide disaster, and it is getting worse. That is not because hippies have imposed unrealistic and impractical fantasies on us.

I thought "sudden" was a premise of the OP

anyway, I disagree that " "We cannot do it suddenly" is a stalking horse for not doing it at all, for accepting whatever the corporations want to do. "

We cannot do it suddenly is just reality. Just one example that comes to mind immediately: If there were no alternative in place yet, but oil was 'disappeared', what would most people in northern climates do for heat until an alternative to oil is ready? How would all propane, gas or oil heating systems be retrofitted to a new method? In time for this coming winter? And what would that new method be, if not the current standard?

Now think of ALL the ways plastic is used, including the plastic peices that we don't tend to see, like sewage systems, containers of ALL sorts, (have a look at hospital and lab stock rooms, just for one limited example!)

Every imaginable aspect of our lives is ENMESHED with petroleum. That's a LOT of untangling and re-weaving that needs to be done.

Alternative energy needs to be invested in heavily and expanded ASAfP, yet because at this moment we have no alternative for the myriad established systems based on petroleum, those structures have no choice but to remain in place until they can be replaced.

It's kind of like replacing an old, rotten bridge..... supports for the old bridge structure must be firmly in place and accommodations for continued traffic ready before the surface structure can be gutted and rebuilt.

and, I'm not sure what you're getting at with the hippie remark....personally, I AM a hippie. Being a hippie doesn't mean one is unrealistic and impractical!

Of course the OP could not cause it to be sudden, nor could any of us. It goes without saying that by advocating "immediate" we are conveying urgency, and of course it cannot and will not happen immediately.

As I said down thread - "I call for the immediate installation of a federal system that guarantees food, water, shelter, education, work and health care to all - equally." Now, people could attack that for being unrealistic, etc.

A lot of untangling and un-weaving needs to be done, yes, but we should get started on that work. Many are fear mongering - "we will all starve!"

I do not agree, by the way, that "alternative energy needs to be invested in heavily and expanded ASAP" because it is a false way to look at this to think of it as a problem of technology or of investment. It is a public policy issue, a political issue, and what is missing is the will. Calling for "immediate" change is a way to galvanize public opinion to create pressure that will lead to political will.

Another aspect to this is that some see things as already being so bad, and certain to get worse, that they see more danger from hesitation and caution then they do from haste. Others see that the other way around. The more comfortable people are - and that is now a very small percentage of people here, let alone around the world - the more they caution us against precipitous change. The rest of the world's population is rapidly approaching "anything is better than this, and we will take our chances." I see those encouraging complacency as the problem, not the alarmists. I would bet you could plot those on a chart, and the curve for people's income levels would closely match the complacency-alarmist curve. The more resources a person has, the more they fear alarmists and radicalism. The less resources a person has, the more they fear complacency and caution and moderation.

And better.

Clearly food transportation would be the last place to transition away from oil.

Let's say that we want to cut our oil usage dramtically. Would not food production and distribution be the absolute last place to cut, the most essential use? Yet that is what (suburban) people always want to harp on - oil used in food production.

People would need to be closer to their food source, more labor would be needed. Look at the billions that suburbanites spend on junk trying to fill the void left by the absence of the things they once had for free on the farm - natural beauty, exercise and fitness, peace of mind, meaning and purpose in their lives, community, being out-of-doors, freshness, natural things. They buy all sorts of crap to get those things, and all of that crap is much more dependent upon oil than farming is.

Look at the billions that suburbanites spend on junk trying to fill the void left by the absence of the things they once had for free on the farm

Er...Farming was never for free, it usually involves a class that works the land and they that control it, whether it is a Maoist commune or a Southern Plantation, farming is brutal.

meaning and purpose in their lives, community

So people in New York or Los Angeles do not have that?

The things I mentioned are "free" on the farm. See what I am driving at here?

Because farming as it has been practiced often involves a lot of brutality and suppression. Whether it is Maoist communes, Southern plantations, Factory farms or European estates, the idea of farming usually involves reducing a lot of people to those whose whole purpose in life is nothing more than to pick, chop and plow. It requires that people stay firmly in their place, and while that may make for some "community", it also can become oppressive. The idea that life would get better if people were forced back on the farm is a bit idealistic, because along with all that fresh air, they would also get broken backs, calloused hands, and little to no chance to improve their lot. It is one thing when a family OWNS (magic word, owns) a bit of land, works it, and gets the literal and figurative fruit of their labors. It is another to force x amount of people onto plots of land, and say "see, your lot is better now."

Just so that you know where I am coming from, back in Puerto Rico, my father was a itinerant farmhand. He would literally travel along the island, catching whatever work he could get. One of the family heirlooms I have is the machete he would carry along with him. Now, the fact is, until he was able to be in a city, and get training, his life was very much at the whim of the elements, literally and figuratively. I also know that he did not get the education he deserved to get, because frankly, if he and his fellow "jibaros' (rough translation: Hillbilly) were not bound to the farms, then the society would have upheaval. America has taken much from Puerto Rico, and yes, it has a big debt to repay, but I also realize that the farm-based economy did not allow for much actual progress for many people, which is why many people, my father included, wound up moving to New York.

Now, if whatever system you espouse allows for movements of people from city to farm, perhaps it could be fair, but if you demonize the city for some ideal "farm life" that never was, then frankly I will need to point to history, which says that forcing people into farm life does not make for free societies. As far as ecology goes, a society that requires a lot of suppression is not "sustainable" either, for sooner or later, the people on the low end of the ladder begin to wonder about a life that is more than just the sickle and hammer.

I understand what you are saying.

I think you missed my point.

Well, I do not think I did, I do realize that the lifestyle as is now, is not sustainable. However, a large part of the reason why it is not sustainable, is, as you said elsewhere in the thread, a very old technology (OIL), has not been allowed to tiled to newer tech (like Solar.) However, there are many, and I am NOT saying you are one, that have fetishized the idea of "going back to nature" here. For example, there was a thread on a book by Derrick Jensen called "endgame." It starts off all rosy, until you realize his solution is a planned mass extinction of humanity, along with the complete elimination of cities. What irked me is that the same people who write about saving some prisoner elsewhere in the world and fighting religious exploitation were fawning over him as he talked about poisoning water supplies and talking to animals. He also fetishized "indigenous culture" Now, I realize there are good intentions behind that, but half the people who talk about how "the Indians" were a Utopia are the same people that would get mercilessly shredded by my friend Billy, a third generation Blackfoot shaman. It freaked me out when I actually heard him call out people on B.S.

Again, I do not think you were going there, but when we try to speak truth, we have to also be careful that, to rip off Kipling, the truth we speak "may not be twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools." I did not think you were going the way of Mao, who actively persecuted anyone that tried to go from "peasant" to urban, nor Jensen, but I spoke up because I saw how on this forum, people took a slice of truth and made a loaf of hell, the sorts that comes from good intentions.

so...I say do away with oil, and find another source

dick. either we get off oil or this world will be unliveable.

Biodiesel, using algae as your feedstock, is a good place to start, as are solar and wind. But even with a crash program it's going to take time.

Yes, we need to have started thirty years ago, Carter and others actually did. But along came Reagan, and there it went.

The sooner we start again, the better. I'm hoping that Obama will actually push through some meaningful stimulus of alternative energy, we'll see.

without WATER... go on, try it...

:banghead:

That if you can't grow food of some sort in a place, then what are you doing living there. I means deserts are nice to visit and all, but living there, mmm no.

The massive drive to populate the desert is foolish and wasteful since there are so very few local necessary resources. Virtually everything has to be shipped in, very wasteful. Same with far northern climes.

the weather band is moving north

But there is a reason why locals were hunter gatherers...

I am also of the opinion that many folks in this country don't have a damn clue how their food is grown or where it comes from.

I've had to field some truly inane questions concerning my orchard and berries.

I went to the market last Sunday... and I got some breakfast... as I was chomping down my tamale, a woman, your classic, I am not kidding, archetypal liberal, asked me what I did with my knives? Oh and she is in her mid twenties by the way, for a point of reference.

So I pointed out I sharpen them. I do have a honing stone. She was not aware that you could do that. She asks me, how old are your knives? Oh thirty years... I should have picked up that jaw

She literally changes her knives oh about every two years when they are so damn dull... so I offered to bring my stone and my pocket knife and teach her how to do this. It is not like this is a hard thing to do... nope she'd rather not bother learning this VERY DIFFICULT thing... never mind the waste of throwing perfectly good knives every two years or so...

Otherwise she shops at the farmer's market, and does her own bread, and things like that... we live in a truly throw away society, but she is not aware you can sharpen them. The people who used to make a living out of it are mostly gone... nor does she have the interest to learn a simple skill, and invest in a honing stone... I am sure this falls in the same category as how do you grow (whatever trees you happen to have)... at home.

And this is how deep we are in it. And how much we need to change this society.

Oh and treated myself to a LARGER Arkansas fine pink grit honing stone. Can't wait for it to get here... my large knives will be much easier to do. Could be a way to make some money after the collapse...

:-(

And I swear it might just come down to that.

grocery store? This is a corporation influenced practiced in this country. Food is shipped hundreds of miles across the country for profit..Walmart is a perfect example of this. When these companies go in and destroy a small local economy and then decides to leave then what happens? I have always believed it is a risk that states should be reevaluating.

Cities and states should be encouraging local farmers and businesses. Until the balance can be evened out the cost will be a little bit higher.

Farms have been driven farther and farther away from urban centers because of suburban sprawl and land speculation.

The collapse of public transportation - thanks to suburbanization - has made food shipment less efficient on the local scale, and more efficient over long distances since the long distance rail lines are all that is left of our rail system. Massive public investment in the Interstates, and deregulation (and de-unionization) of the trucking industry has subsidized this traffic as well.

Another factor is the decreasing return to the farmer, as the middle men and corporation and Wall Street speculators suck up more and more of the food dollar. This has forced farming to move to the crops that are most safely grown and so to specialization and away from crop diversity.

The corporations have also - to meet suburban tastes and the supermarket trade - tried to make seasonal crops year 'round commodities. People except virtually everything at virtually any time of the year. The exotic tastes and loss of cooking, food preparation, handling and storage skills in suburbia have also contributed to the problem.

All of this has led to more miles of travel per ton of food. That is not necessarily the worst energy waste, though. For example, 40 people driving once a week to a CSA to pick up a bag of veggies each is about the least energy efficient food delivery system imaginable. An ocean freighter full of apples from New Zealand is more energy efficient than that.

but having traveled to oh Mexico... apples from Chile are just as common down there as they are up here.

And here is one to wrap your head over

The Dutch cheese, as in imported from the Netherlands, is CHEAPER than the locally produced one, you know like two states over from the Federal District. (Mexico City)

I go to the market these days, and buy my cheese from a LOCAL farmer. Yes I pay premium for it, but that is by choice...

I prefer my money to stay in the local economy.

Hell will have some with strawberries in a little while

best case scenario four billion people, worst case scenario, six billion.

Pick your billion...

No it is not propaganda, it is called carrying capacity. The only reason we as a species have been able to surpass it is oil and industrial agriculture. Use the google and get some education.

By the way, on the other wide of the world, most Muricans would not give a shit... but this includes in the United States.

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It is a myth that agriculture is dependent upon oil. Use of oil allowed many people to leave the farm and mover to the city, that is all. It is whatever they are doing in lieu of farming that is dependent upon oil.

Farming is very dependent on oil. There is no way we can produce enough food without mechanization or fertilizer - Both from oil.
Without mechanization we cannot till as much land. Without fertilizer we cannot grow as much crops. Those are facts you cannot escape from. There is not enough tillable land in this country, if everyone had to leave the cities and go back to farming to survive.

And if we wait until later there will be way more than 7 billion people to worry about.

See, there's always an up-side to everything:-)

There is more than enough manure for fertilizer.

Just as much land can be tilled without oil - it just takes more people.

All sorts of farm acreage is going out of production all of the time. There is not a shortage of farm land. It would not take more land to grow the same amount of food without oil - obviously - it would just take more labor.

You would not have any need to "get food to almost 7 Billion people" because they would all be back working on the farm. It is whatever they are doing now that requires oil, not food production.

Also oil is not the oil source of fertilizers. It so happens that humanity figured out how to fertilize the land sans petrochemicals for thousands of years before (and this is very important) and after oil was discovered. Plenty of organic farms manage to produce plenty of crops in a far more sustainable and healthier for you fashion.

Also mechanics can be powered by other sources of energy other than oil.

I grew up in a farm (summers mostly), I always find it ironic when city slickers parrot the supposed "reality" of farming.

Mostly oil is used to make up for labor shortages, and to get food to a public that is more and more divorced from their food supply.

Suburbanites do not have a clue. If we use fertilizer - "OMG poop in the fields and bacteria in our food!' If we use synthetic fertilizer - "OMG corporate factory farming!" If we shoot the deer eating the crops - "OMG they are killing Bambi!" If Bambi shits in the field and an E. Coli outbreak arises then "OMG why are their animals in the crops???" If we pasteurize food - "OMG all of the essential nutrients have been destroyed!" If we don't - "OMG this food is not safe!!!" If we sell only in season - "why don't you have any peaches now?" If we dry or freeze them or can them - "why can't we get fresh?" If we use pesticides - "OMG you are poisoning us!!" If we don't - "OMG there are things crawling in my food!"

Never before has any population been so divorced from and ignorant about their food supply.

:rofl:

I didn't write "city slicker" and I didn't edit it out. I edit for typos, and have a sprained wrist right now making it worse.

Kibuts, to be exact. I can parrot what was told to me, while dealing with chickens

Yes manure is good, but petrochemicals actually increase land production, as well as heavy use of tractors.

Subsistence agriculture, which is what you are describing, does not produce the amount of food a heavily industrial farm (as far away as you can move from that lovely image of a farm) can. Nor does it pollute as much either.

There is quite a bit of thinking that is in the realm of myth as to how lovely life is in a sustainability farm, but we haven't done any of that for over two decades, at least. Our cheap food policy depends on the black stuff, heavily... and since you grew up in a farm you do know the dangers of monoculture, RIGHT?

It doesn't matter that 60 percent don't use oil, when those 40 percent produce the VAST VAST majority of the world food supply. You don't eat farmers, you eat food.http://www.pecad.fas.usda.gov/

This is a common error, made both by liberals and by apologists for corporations.

Oil replaced manpower. A smaller number of people can produce the same amount of food with tractors. Without oil, it is not farming that would be threatened it would be people in non-farming pursuits. More people would have to be involved in farm work.

To look at farms and see tractors and think that this has increased food production, or represents the extent of what has increased food production, is to have a very poor understanding of agriculture. Any five year old can say "look Daddy, tractors instead of mules." Tractors have become the symbol of modern ag, and the oil company propagandists want us to believe that this gets credit for increased yields and that without their oil we will starve.

Oil allowed most people to leave the farm and move to the city - where they work for corporations - and it also is how corporations then get food to those people. That isn't about farming, and it is not farming that would need to change, it is the corporate suburban lifestyle that is unsustainable and must change.

What, you think that farmers are still using Belgian horses and mortarboard plows to break the soil? Hauling produce to market in a buckboard pulled by the old gray mare?

And let's not even get into the amount of petroleum to be found in various fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides.

I am sitting in the barn looking at the fields, and am an expert on the areas you mention.

:-)

... ergo the number of illegals working on the fields. Good luck getting a strawberry intact through a conveyor belt and a mechanical separator ;-)

he harvests wheat with a sickle ;)

It is not my crop. Get it?

It is not some manufactured junky consumer item. It is not some get rich quick scheme. It is not some trend or fashion.

Food is a public resource.

:-)

Good luck planting and harvesting those by hand.

Many do. We open it all up first with every crop to the public.

If you want to sit wherever you are and have it delivered to you, nice and sorted and washed, inspected, properly stored and packaged, that will require is to use some oil - on your behalf. Enjoy your dinner.

Why not read the thread? Just an idea.

Without one of these?



I live in Kansas. We grow wheat...Lots of it,on farms that cover tens of thousands of acres.

Any VIABLE oil free ideas to harvest 100,000 acres without a petro powered machine would be appreciated (and thats one farm)

They've set up deals with local eateries to collect the used veggie oil. The trouble is we can't do that on a large scale basis until we start getting biodiesel from algae. There simply isn't enough used veggie oil in the country.

"The trouble is we can't do that on a large scale basis until we start getting biodiesel from algae. There simply isn't enough used veggie oil in the country."

As much as I hate to say...We still need petroleum

I just went out back and took a stroll. I wanted to make sure I was not mistaken.

All of those crops are growing just fine, and will continue to grow, and no oil is involved. Turkey manure for fertilizer, so that isn't an issue. Lots of sun and rain. All being done the way it has for thousands of years.

We do use a tractor - that reduces labor by a factor of 100 - and we do ship stuff to nearby cities. That is to support the suburban lifestyle, and it is the suburban lifestyle that is dependent upon oil, not farming. Everyone wants to move to the suburbs for the glamorous and wasteful life - trading in food future or whatever they do down there - so be it. We will do our best to get food to them so they don't starve.

But people are welcome to come here and work and eat. It is those people who are dependent upon oil, not us. Everyone (from suburbia) demands that we make radical changes to farming. They are highly resistance to any talk about making radical changes to suburbia, however. Farming is obligated to keep getting food to people no matter what the hell they are doing and where they are.

Those farms in your area are big, and use those big machines, and mono-crop, in order to support suburbia. That area was once full of small diversified farms. There are still people alive who remember what it once was like.

"Those farms in your area are big, and use those big machines, and mono-crop, in order to support suburbia. That area was once full of small diversified farms. There are still people alive who remember what it once was like."

And the Cost to Income ratio of those small farms got so horrible that people could not afford to run their farms....So they sold them to move to the citys long ago.

And who owns them now?

Archer Dainels Midland,

ConArgra,

Monsanto,

Take my word for it most folk here wish ADM or Conag would go to hell...but the reality is that without BIG Commerical Farms we would have food prices that would curl yer hair,and lots more would go to bed hungry.

I hate it as much or more than most...But it is the reality...for now.

This narrative - "oh gosh, there were so many glamorous things happening in the cities, and folks just up and moved" is a lie told to us by the rulers, by the wealthy and powerful few.

People have been forcibly driven off of their land, and it is still going on. That clears the way for the Capitalists to exploit the resources fully and creates a large pool of desperate and dependent people to use in industry.

Everyone has this backward. Read about the Enclosure Acts in England - that is where it started, and it has spread everywhere. People were driven off their land and into the cities and only then could the "industrial revolution" happen. This is happening right now all over Central and South America, in Africa, and in Asia.

I did notice it was odd that there was suddenly this huge labor pool in American cities in the late 1800s.

Of course, we are told that the immigrants came for the "American Dream", but it was nothing of the sort.

Thanks.

Subsistence farming is a harsh lifestyle and standard of living is poor. Once there is the opportunity to work at a factory for a dollar or two a day, they leave the farming for a better life in the city.

There is nothing glamorous about that lifestyle unless you are wealthy enough to pay for people to do work for you.

Colonialism has had an enormous impact.

The history of Capitalism - ongoing today as we speak - is driving people off of the land so as to create a dependent and desperate work force. It started in England with the Enclosure Acts and is playing out in India today in a murderous assault to drive people from their lands and lives to make way for the profiteers

So then, there is something glamorous about the suburban lifestyle?

Who is glamorizing anything? This "you are being a romantic" or "you are being nostalgic" can and is used against any and all critiques of the murderous and destructive path we are on.

Yes, I think that the path that the human race was on for 99.9999% of its successful existence was better than the suicidal path we have been on for the last few decades.

Yes.

...by the apologists for colonialism and capitalism. They glamorize the suburban consumer culture all the time. It's sickening.

They are unwilling to look at themselves - they benefit from the system, and they live the suburban lifestyle - so they project all of the evils caused by the very things they are supporting and promoting onto others.

It is like having a gun held to our heads. Wall Street says "give us all your money or we will really wreck the economy and then you will be sorry!" The health insurance industry says "give us everything we want, or no one will have health care!" The mortgage banking industry says "you are lucky we even let any of you have homes. Better not mess with us, or you will all be on the street." Corporations say "better accept these pay decreases and layoffs or there will be no jobs and you will all starve."

The difference is, some recognize that they're hypocrites and so are striving to change the conditions that are requiring them to be hypocrites.

Others, however, just don't care, and have their heads in the sand.

Is that all you have?

I am also living in a country with a government that tortures people. Does that make me a hypocrite if I speak out against torture?

Your argument could be used, has and is being used, as a "rebuttal" to any and all calls for any social change whatsoever. That makes it reactionary in the extreme.

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You should stop now because you're losing the debate.

You are acting like life was okay back then when it really wasn't for the majority of society.

Past civilizations were supported by slaves and dirt poor peasants. Many people starved to death because there was a drought one year. The life expectancy was around thirty. The only people who were comfortable were the ones who were wealthy enough to employ others or own slaves.

At least in the suburbs, you don't have to worry about digging a field 12 hours a day, starving because of a drought and you are protected from many diseases that killed people in the past. It has its perks.

yes, in the suburbs you don't have to worry about digging a field 12 hours a day, because you can count on an illegal doing it for your for way under the minimum wage in a field far far away, so your beautiful mind doesn't have to worry about it.

At least in the old times, many of the patricians were honest enough as to not blame their own hubris on their slaves though.

Even the crops that require work form illegal pay them far more than they would get in their home countries. The amount of exploitation is far less than what goes in developing countries.

It is so bad that people think they are lucky to get a sweatshop job that pays two dollars a day.

You guys are all comfortable in climate controlled houses, electricity, cars, computers with Internet and jobs, and then complain how you feel like your life is worst off.

As bad that the problems are in America, it is no comparison to what most people experience around the world.

the anti small farm thing

I know lots of small/organic farmers, selling crops, eggs, cheese, beef, medicinals

they would absolutely die laughing at the description of their lives as "brutal"

they are some of the happiest people I know

I can't believe so many people are so clueless about the evolution of their own food supply

like in 1776 they had Kellogg's Freedom Flakes...because nobody ever ate well without combines and monoculture and the Piggly Wiggly

and another thing

Americans throw away more food than some small countries consume

not enough food? my ass

we need less food, and more of it to the poor

I live in a farming community- one of, if not, the most innovative agricultural communities in the country; I know tons of farmers and I've done farm work, and yes, it's a demanding and hard life. Not saying it's not rewarding- most of the people I know, find it so, but it is a tough life.

Oh yeah, here's some info about my town:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/08/dining/08verm.html

http://www.gourmet.com/travel/2008/10/hardwick-revival

http://www.grist.org/article/a-new-vision-of-credit-crunch

eating Fritos and watching American Idol and 24 is "brutal" and "a Hard Life," I'll take the hard life, thanks.

Now, what does "brutal" mean to me?

Brutal and "a Hard Life" is what my fellow countrypeople are enduring on our Gulf Coast.

THAT is my definition of "brutal."

Many lazy Americans will no doubt disagree.....

We are taught history from the point of view of the winners, the rulers and the wealthy few. They of course want us all to think that life would just be horrible and brutish without them, and the many blessings they shower down on us.

Their history ain't our history.

We know, for example, that this is not true - "life expectancy was about 30" - because we know of people from virtually all different eras who lived to be quite a bit older. when infant mortality is high, it brings the average life expectancy number down. One person lives to be 90 and two die in their first year, and we have a "life expectancy of 30" - on average.

What you are describing about the bad old days all exists today. "The only people who were comfortable were the ones who were wealthy enough to employ others" is the reality today, and now in this country we have people who are given perks and status and comfort in exchange for being shills and apologists for the wealthy few.

"Digging in the fields for 12 hours a day" plays into people's ignorance. Yes, at certain times of the years everyone is working very hard sun up to sun down.

Peasantry and slavery are not good examples to use, because those support what I am saying. The fact that exploitation existed in the past does not make it OK today.

As bad as things are here, they were much worst a hundred years ago.

Maybe you could argue things were better 30 years ago, but by that time oil already ran the economy.

So hard to say if things were better, or worse. Food borne and water borne disease were much worse in the past. Medicine was much more primitive.

I am thinking specifically about the things that oil usage changed. I think we can, at the least, say that it is not clear that things are better because of oil.

Africa is the prime example of the destruction wreaked by colonialism.

What is with the sneering brutal responses? "Why don't you go live...?" People sure get angry about this.

Pretending that people are noble savages living peaceful lives before they were spoiled by colonialism. It is just plain ignorant.

Life has been harsh in all cultures even before it was corrupted by the west. Being a poor peasant or subsistence farmer is going to be harsh whether you are facing colonialism or not. There was war, exploitation and slavery in those cultures way back in the day too and it is far worst than what happens in a modern developed nation.

I've worked in Uganda and everyone there wants development so that they can enjoy a decent standard of living just like we take for granite. Living in poverty and digging 12 hours a day sucks.

Of course bad things have happened in the past.

That is no justification for examining what is wrong with things now, and what could be done to improve them.

;)

Seriously, people need to stop justifying and promoting the bad side of humanity.

don't know... and I forgive Rousseau for the noble savage, he had no clue... we have no excuses.

Many an African society had institutional slavery built into it. Some slaves were sold and bought like they were in the South, and their children were property too. Others worked their debt that way and were closer to indentured servants. Why many of the EARLY African American Slaves went into the business themselves once they became free men in the early colonies.

When the slave trade started with Africa, many of those slaves were captured and provided by other more powerful tribes.

Ah facts that many folks in the US don't learn... I mean after all we were the only ones that lived on with that particular institution... :sarcasm: and others doing it don't justify the horrors either.

I have to put that there for the many round these parts that will make that exact argument. It does help to explain the ease of trade though. (Oh and of course even less known the trade in white slavery)

You are promoting two of the most popular revisionist ideas from Confederate sympathizers and racists.

"Black enslaved blacks" and "whites were slaves, too."

While those "factoids" may be true to one extent or another, they are only used for mitigating and obscuring the truth about the institution of slavery in this country, to whitewash racism out of the picture.

Don't go there, really.

Do you see where your thinking leads?

"White people were slaves too."

"Black people enslaved their own."

just that it's not so close to home in the US that you might notice it.

Thanks to Wall Street, thanks to speculators and hoarders, thanks to the "free market" and "free trade" and thanks to privatization, and thanks to the collapse of the public agricultural infrastructure, and thanks to the energy corporations preying on farmland, thanks to the ongoing destruction of sustainable cooperative farming communities and cultures here and around the world to clear the way for the rapacious and greedy few.

The same land will grow the same amount of food with or without, and enough can be grown to feed all. Farming is not the problem. But people are unwilling to look at Wall Street, and unwilling to question the suburban lifestyle. The two do go hand in hand.

make sacrifices. We planted gardens instead.

We might as well do it sooner than later, while we still have an environment and stuff

The best way to end the oil addition is to cut off the source.

And plunge the world into chaos. I would love to get off the oil addiction, but the fact of the matter is if we don't want our society to collapse, we need to have an energy source in place to take up the slack for oil.

The apologists for the current system - which threatens all of us and everything on the planet - love to use this extortion on us.

"Keep giving us all your money or else there will be (mass starvation, an economic collapse, no jobs, etc.)"

We will not be the first society/group of humans to be stuck in a shitty non-sustainable system. And we will not be the first (and sadly nor the last) to have to be held accountable to nature's rules.

For hundreds of years people used human sacrifice because it was the best system they knew of keeping "the gods" happy and the sun rising every day. For decades before the French revolution plenty of people said that cake was not that bad when compared to the 100 year war they just went through and that a country without a king was impossible to rule. Etc, etc, etc. One thing is constant in human history: the ability of some people to justify rather arbitrary and completely nonsensical social systems. In the end most people are lazy, and nothing terrifies the conforming like having to change.

The free market, Wall Street, free trade - the whole weird set of beliefs that underlie people's acceptance of the current state of affairs. People do not see their notions about Capitalism as a faith-based set of ideas, but that is a function of how deeply and completely they believe in the various myths about invisible hands and rising boats and progress and human nature and such.

People "justify rather arbitrary and completely nonsensical social systems" to the degree to which they personally profit from them, or hope to. That is why we see so much anger and so many personal attacks in response. People are not really "giving opinions" in a "discussion," they are protecting their own selfish interests in any way that they can. They do this with fear, threats, or just by keeping everything in such an uproar that it is impossible for people to compare notes or think about any of this clearly, or even to trust their own observations.

It is an ignorant sort of self interest, a willingness to accept trinkets and drivel in place of true self interests, which is solidarity with our fellow humans and our natural posterity, which is solidarity with the future too.

That's a funny thing to call people who are trying to change the system. Some people seem to think that if only we allow things to collapse that a new and better world will magically spring up, created by an invisible hand maybe. "Keep giving us all your money ..." Dude, your money right this very now goes where you want it to go. If you want to live without electricity you have that option. According to you and this ridiculous OP that would be just dandy. If you want to walk the ten miles to your job, you have that option.

How about if you and the OP and all those who agree go off to 1,000 acres in Missouri and start your own little self-sufficient, back to nature commune. Once you show us how easy and wonderful it is, I, and many others, would be more than happy to join you. In fact, I already tried it myself in 1986 when I was more like the college sophomore that you and the OP seem to be. I spent a year in the wilds of Wisconsin. It was cold, wet, buggy, muggy, and stank of soot, and walking seven miles to buy groceries really sucked. I ran back to civilization as fast as my little feet would carry me. Which doesn't make me George W. Bush and all rah, rah for capitalism and the American way of life.

So allegorical. I love that.

So you tried, in your youth, to break the mold - as you then understood it to be, and in a way you understood to break it - but you were uncomfortable and ran back into the fold as fast as you could. Now you counter critics with the sneering suggestion that they should go suffer the way you did, face reality the way you did, or else what they are saying is invalid and should be dismissed. But you are not Bush, and somehow you think people are saying that you are (?) so therefore no one can question your point of view about all of this.

That is a perfect allegory, describes exactly how we are frightened and confused and seek security and then become very powerful voices for reaction and the existing conditions and arrangements. "Realistic" and "practical" ones.

The horrible way that you were compromised is exactly the way that the entire group of educated intellectuals have been. Obviously, it does not it well with you, you are no very happy with it, or you would not feel the need to interject it into this discussion. "Misery loves company" covers it, I think.

Yes, everyone. Stop questioning the domination by the oil corporations over our lives, or else you will be cold, wet, buggy, muggy, and stink, and be walking seven miles to buy groceries. Then you will come back to reality, start being practical, and gratefully accept what your masters give you without complaint.

Again, suggesting that we avoid the ridiculous idea of "going without oil right now" doesn't seem like the same thing as reaction. Every American has choices to live their lives without oil. Myself, I bicycle to work and bicycle to the grocery store and bicycle to buy dog food, etc. I am not the one as dependent on oil as the rest of this pick-up driving country is. And that has been true even when I left the woods.

The OP and yourself are not "questioning the domination by the oil companies". The OP suggest that we could all have a decent life on this planet without using oil. My comment is very practical. If that's true, then why don't you and the OP go show us all how it is done. "Critics" in this context are people who are saying that we all can live in the woods with no oil, and no electricity, and none of our toys, and still have a decent life. I've actually tried that, and they/you have not.

Further, even my experiment was only survivable because an oil-based economy was still delivering groceries to a store I could walk to. It certainly would not work on a national scale without many people who know a whole lot more about hunting, farming and food processing than I do (and yes I know that there are many such people, but there are also lots of people who know much less or about the same as I do.)

This line - "everything we do depends upon oil" - is right out of BP sales and marketing. "You probably didn't realize how many of the everyday things you use are all thanks to us." Then we have pictures of Moms washing babies, and kids playing in the field, and Dad waxing his car in front of their nice little suburban house, and friendly neighbors waving to one another. The announcer has a nice pleasant authoritative and reassuring voice, and soothing music is playing. That is a very familiar corporate pitch, and that is all that it is.

Yes, the OP is questioning the domination by the oil companies. This is what questioning the domination by the oil companies looks like, how it starts.

No one said anything about "living in the woods." That is in your imagination.

Groceries were delivered without oil quite well. Steam and electric railroads brought produce to cities fresh every day. People picked up produce at open air markets. When I was a kid, bread, milk and other things were still delivered door-to-door by horse-drawn wagon, and that was in one of the five largest cities in the country.

No more experts in farming and food processing would be needed were we to eliminate oil. A lot more unskilled and semi-skilled labor would be needed.

"We all can live in the woods with no oil, and no electricity, and none of our toys, and still have a decent life" is what you claim I am saying. First, people before the modern era had no shortage of toys - they made them. Secondly, electricity does not necessarily mean oil.

A "decent life" you say. Would you call this modern tyranny a "decent life?" Maybe for a few. Maybe you are among that few. A "decent life" does not depend upon corporations. They want us to believe that, and that message is pounded into our heads from everywhere 24 hours a day.

The city of Kodiak installed a wind farm about a year and a half ago, plus they have a little hydro project and now get 89% of their energy from renewables, which meant 800,000 gallons of diesel that they didn't have to buy last year for the 4,000 consumers. Diesel sells for over $4 in Kodiak. That is a HUGE savings.

The bad news -- our governor, Sean Parnell (SP v. 2.0), just vetoed millions of dollars out of the budget prepared by the legislature which included several such projects around the state. The guy is a moron, and I'm really hoping he loses in November.

That mistake kills me.

Don't people realize that if they "could care less" that means they do care, at least a little? :shrug:

Oh well.

Or there is no food because fertilizer can't be obtained?

who's with me???

the better part of that speech is when he is yelling, "Wormer? Dead! Marmalard? Dead! Niedermeyer..." I love Mr. Blutarsky...

sP

People that can't accurately quote Animal House = DTM

FFS, what do you think Youtube is for:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q47bpOCTcaY

forgive me for not looking it up... :-)

sP

Obviously, were we to transition away from being dependent on oil, food distribution would be the last thing to eliminate.

This "we can't give up oil because people would starve" nonsense is just fear mongering. Food production does not require oil. Fertilization does not require oil. I am not talking some pie-in-the-sky fantasy. When oil prices went up, all of the several hundred small farmers in my community switched to manure - quickly and easily. Getting food to the population centers requires oil today, yes. It will take time and a public commitment to turn that around. But there is no reason in the world that we have to accept the sprawling and wasteful way that population centers and transportation are now organized.

I can easily imagine continued oil use for a decade or two during the transition, and certain critical applications - such as medicines - using small amounts of oil indefinitely. We would want to continue to use tractors for food production during the interim period. But the innovation, adaptability and technical skills ion the farming community are legendary, and absent the huge pressure from corporate domination of the food supply system, that would be the sector of society that would most quickly adapt to new methods. Changing suburbia will be the big challenge, where most of the resistance will be. Not because suburbia represent a large percentage of the global population, but rather because that is where the people are who have the most power and influence.

People are looking at these challenges from the point of view of the investor class, and taking the suburban model for organizing society as the given, as the standard around which all else must be organized. This bias is preventing people from thinking about these issue creatively or productively - or even logically. They are taking the position of the ruling class, the dominant and powerful few who control everything. That is the problem, and can never be part of any solution.

Worldwide famine, angry food riots. Starvation. People dying by the hundreds of millions...

And that's just the first month.

After that it would be rule by he who can wield the most violence upon his neighbor. The vast majority of those who survive that first month would become the literal slaves of those who are the best armed and most capable of killing. Little cliques in tiny areas where people will be put to death simply for looking at the wrong person.

Fascinating world of anarchy and chaos you desire.

I'll pass, thankyouverymuch.

Why, then, the fear of changing it?

you've got problems.

The idea that the alternative to an economy and society dominated by oil is mass starvation has been thoroughly debunked.

Certainly were oil to suddenly be unavailable, chaos would ensue. But there is nothing wrong with envisioning and discussing alternatives, and that is what the OP encourages.

like people who depend on plastic medical supplies and devices for quality of life, or even survival.


But hey, fuck 'em. They're part of the problem too, so let them die or be miserable without the items they need.


:eyes:

;)

Neither housing nor medicine are dependent upon oil. Brick existed long, long before oil, for example. Many great medical discoveries happened before we became dependent upon oil.

These fear tactics and extortion attempts have no place in serious discussions about this issue.

This absurd idea that we must accept everything about modern society, or else we will have nothing, could be used to defend every sort of horror and injustice and destruction. It is so used.

All thinking people should reject this line of argument.

:rofl:

If you have something intelligent to say, why not say it? If you don't, why post at all?

What is the point of posting snark? I made a reasonable and logical case for my point of view. Are you unable to respond in kind?

Those who defend the system and are apologists for it know that the evidence is not on their side. So all they have is ad hominem and snark.

It really says something about the system when the apologists for it are mean-spirited and bullying.

I thought you were defending our consumer culture, and our oil-based culture.

But now you insinuate that William Z. Foster and I are attacking technology?

Keep shifting those goal posts.

whatever. it isn't working.

:rofl:

I see.

That is the problem, the only problem.

It is good to get clarity. The same people are arguing the reactionary or conservative side of every issue, and becoming more and more strident and hostile. Not everyone will be an ally, but it is good to know who is and who is not. Many deeply conservative people have been able to hide on the left and steer and influence it for a while now, because there was so little clarity and because there was no crisis. Now it is getting easier and easier to see just exactly what is happening.

uh...yeah. OK.


If you ever find yourself needing oxygen, just tell the ambulance horse and buggy driver to put a brick on your face.


Insulin injections...now how creative can we get with those? Ooooh...I know!!! We'll hire little Pygmy Bushmen to shoot darts at the diabetic from 20 paces! Cuz there's no plastic hypodermic needles, don't you know.

Heating pads with vinyl coverings? Nahhhh....we'll just heat up some bricks.


So here's a little list of medicines with benzene base



The vast majority of medicines, are summarized as from benzene, and derivatives, and benzene is derived from petroleum, some examples are all those drugs which carry a bencenic ring , such as aspirin, acetaminophen, salicilic acid, sertraline, benzodiazepines, barbiturics, antiseptics,antiemetics, ulcer treatment, like aloglutamol, ranitidine, famotidine, omeprazole, lanzoprazole, pantoprazole, antiespasmodics, like hioscine, fluopropione, thiopramide, phloroglucinol, lidamidine.It is correct to say, that for all the areas it covers Medicine at present, each has medicines derived from petroleum, through synthesis of benzene or derivatives of benzene.

Best Regards.
Source(s):
I' Chemist-Pharmacist,Phd, MSc. 30 years experience, Medicines Quality Control, Manufacturing, Synthesis research.





If you don't depend on any of these, then yes...I suppose it's easy to call it "fear tactics". Easy enough to say it's unnecessary when it's someone else who's going to be affected.

I mentioned brick in response to the "we will all be living in grass huts" remark.

Clearly, medicines that you describe would require very little oil in the big picture. No one is talking about eliminating any and all uses of oil, are they?

Clearly, emergency response and transportation could be handled as well or better with electric power. Then again, that would be a relatively small use of oil and where it is essential or exceptionally desirable I can't imagine that we would ban its use or anything.

This is fear mongering and a red herring argument.

and wondered why you were throwing the brick argument my way.



As far as the rest of it goes, you can't have it both ways.

You can't cap the oil wells and keep making all the things that are made from oil.

You agreed with another poster who did, and I didn't accuse you of talking about straw huts, and my post makes it clear that I wasn't talking about medicine when I mentioned brick.

Picking out small details from posts - which is happening quite a bit on this thread - and then making a big kerfuffle over them, shows that the people doing that really have no argument but are playing a debate game by using logical fallacies and distraction and disruption. It weakens their case. The format and dynamics of a message board allow that to work better here than it would in a real life setting. It is the verbal equivalent of guerrilla warfare, and guerrilla warfare is used when the side using it is weak and has no other choice.

You think every single person with a job in the world could up and find non-motor vehicle means of commuting just overnight? And obviously, you can't say "public transportation," either.

visiting nurses and home health care aides.

My daughter is a home health care aide, and sometimes she travels 50 miles in one day between clients.

But hey...fuck them too. It's their fault for getting old and unable to care for themselves. Or being too stupid to have kids who could provide care in their homes, or in a nursing home.


And people who have jobs far away from where they live? That's their problem. They should have given that more consideration, or maybe even move closer to their jobs.


See...it's all so easy when people don't stop to think of the implications of dumb ideas like capping all the oil wells.


:dunce:

Of course.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/10125768.stm

Either Ethanol or Hemp. or vegetable. It can be done.

The human race thrived for eons before oil, and that was the case not so very long ago. It is amazing how many people cannot even imagine it now.

Many here are claiming that giving up oil means mass starvation. That is a lie that keeps us trapped in the same thinking and enslaved to the energy corporations.

Food production does not require oil. People moving off of the farm and into suburbia is what requires oil - to get the food to them and to make up for the lost labor.

If there were no oil, we would lose malls and suburbs, not farms. It would be better for food production, not worse.

"There will be mass starvation!!!!" We already have that, and it is being caused by Wall Street and it is being caused by suburbanization. But many here are not willing to look at either of those, so they lecture us all about how farming needs to change.

In this country we have something unique in history. Never has a population been so divorced from its food supply, as most Americans are now 3,4 or 5 generations removed from the farm. People take the new way of living - Capitalism, consumerism, suburbia - as the given, as the norm and standard, and demand that the rest of the world conform to that model. That is social suicide.

guest

That talking point was utterly destroyed the last time you used it.

I have been wondering whether some of the people here who are so frantically beating down any and all criticism and dissent were simply sincere if perhaps misguided partisans, or if they were using "loyalty" to the administration as cover, as a vehicle for the stealth promotion of conservative and right wing political positions. It becomes more clear every day which is which. Too many coincidences.

I refuted both of your points - about grass huts and about 30 years old.

Anyone can merely claim "you haven't refuted anything!" Doesn't make it true.

You must know that I have, or you would make a stronger argument than "you haven't refuted a damned thing."

You refuted the grass huts line by responding with "bricks". That is one thing you refuted. :)

And how many people were living then? A hell of a lot less than are alive right now. Why, because human and animal power could not support all that many people.
To do without oil, we need a replacement. Growing plants for oil takes away from food production, especially if you are doing it by hand. We cannot do it now. It's a no win proposition. Look at ethanol as an example.

How can we give up oil when there is nothing on the horizon to take it's place. No there isn't, not on the scale that is needed.
I don't think you realize what all we use oil for.

Why are people upset about even beginning to explore this issue, and to hear challenges to some of the "standard wisdom" about why we must have oil for everything?

You say "how can we give up oil when there is nothing on the horizon to take it's place?" I say how can we find any other path when we are unwilling to consider giving up oil?

I well realize what all we use oil for. Very up to speed on that.

Anyway, I am not talking about giving up oil. I am talking about giving up Wall Street and suburbia.

:spray:

:-)

Not for misspelling the word, but for making an illogical and malicious argument that attacks the messenger rather than addressing the message.

:rofl:

Name one thing I have said that is "woo."

:hi:

Sid

:hi:

You are clueless.

Even the tiniest amount of questioning of the domination by the oil corporations over our lives - and the OP was mild and reasonable - elicits such belligerence and hostility.

If we stopped using oil, coal would become the dominant source for energy and our economy and society would likely collapse. Even the most liberal of liberals would not want that. We are stuck with oil until we can find a realistic acceptable alternative.

I understood the OP to be the beginning of an important discussion that we need to be having, not the final word.

The OP does not claim to not be naive, and there is nothing wrong with that. Those who think we can continue to entrust our future to corporations - and that is exactly what many on this thread are actually arguing - are asking us to be far more naive than the OP is.

We are not "stuck with oil until we can find a realistic acceptable alternative" we are and will continue to be unable to find alternatives so long as we believe we are stuck with oil.

That argument - "we are stuck with oil until we can find a realistic acceptable alternative" - really means "WE are stuck with oil until THEY find an alternative" which means that we are stuck with being abused by corporations - on the oil issue and in every other area - until the corporations stop abusing us. "Realistic" according to whom? "Acceptable" to whom?

WE have found alternatives, and those alternatives are realistic and acceptable for us. THEY - the corporations - say otherwise as they rake in billions by keeping things the way they are.

That is unacceptable.

Its a great example of why many perceive liberals as clueless unrealistic dreamers.

BTW, there are no good alternatives yet.. We can only replace a fraction of the oil with solar, wind, wave, hydro, nuclear, fuel cell etc, and each of these has major problems with cost, scalability, etc. I think it will take a "Manhattan" type effort to develop real practical alternatives. But I just dont see that happening now especially with the economic crisis hanging over us. But eventually the effects of "Peak Oil" will force us to do what we need to do. Unfortunately, by then, it may too late.

I think we can be a lot more tolerant of those questioning the existing conditions, and a lot less tolerant of those defending the current conditions. I guess that would depend upon a person's point of view on the conditions. I would be the first one to challenge someone who claimed that organic or CSA or farmer's markets are the solutions to farm and food problems. So I am well aware of "why many perceive liberals as clueless unrealistic dreamers." But I am not talking about unrealistic dreams, I am talking about food delivery systems in detail right from the field, I am talking about successful public projects that have in facet happened, I am talking about things that can be done, have been done, and are already being done.

There are many good alternatives that already exist. I think what most people mean by "alternatives" are alternatives based on the centralized large scale thinking, so conducive to investment but not necessarily the best for the needs of the users, the public. You say "with the economic crisis hanging over us" we cannot put a public plan into motion on alternative energy. This is backward. This is exactly the best and most appropriate time to make public investment in infrastructure - look at the TVA and the Hoover Dam for example, and the CCC. We put people to work, we build public infrastructure for everyone's benefit, we solve social problems the only way that social problems can be solved, ever have been solved - with the commitment, direction, resources and authority that can only come from the government.

People avoid talking about de-centralization, public transportation, and public investment. Why? Because they think of this issue from the point of view of Wall Street, of the investor class. What is hanging over "us" - if by "us" we mean the working people, is the assault from the predatory investor class who are preventing anything from happening that would benefit the public and interfere with their game. What is hanging over "us" - if by "us" we mean the investors - is, as you say, this "economic crisis." The crisis for them is that it is getting harder and harder to exploit workers and resources to maximize return into the pockets of the few, and it is getting harder and harder to get people to meekly do the bidding of the investor class.

The whole world is addicted to cheap oil and I dont think we will crack the habit it until it gets very very expensive.

Thanks for the interesting discussion. I see what you are saying.

The supply of oil is finite, and it is running out. This is what happens when you create a culture-the consumer culture of America, in this case-that is dependent on one finite, unevenly distributed resource.

There is going to be mass starvation if we don't get off petroleum. It's already happening in some areas, as William Foster pointed out earlier in the thread.

The people who make excuses for economic neoliberalism and for American greed and consumerism, sicken me.

it had looked as if the great recession would provide a temporary cure; people spoke of returning to a simpler way of life, and adopting a new set of values which placed priority on human values, nature, meaningful pursuits, and not on the endless attempt to accumulate possessions; but now it seems everyone is back to spending and consuming

as well as the two that he was so damn critical off...

You might guess which two.

It just strikes me though that if he were alive today he'd not make that statement of let's cap the wells and I don't give a shit.

The man analyzed things carefully, just saying...

And I fear this is what EVERYBODY has to do. Oh and I find myself agreeing with Marx on many points... but hey, he was a man who did systems analysis...

I recommend that so called Marxists read the books and start doing that too. While you are at it, read the other two books too. I know it is a tall order.

Democracy is a wonderful thing.

Political solutions to social issues are a matter of public policy, not personal choice.

He said, from his computer, made of plastic parts, powered by the very energy source he suggests shutting off, from a house or apartment, most likely climate controlled by same power source, with boundless other items powered by...wait for it...same power source.

:spray:

:rofl:

Obviously you prefer backing down.

I'm sorry to have wasted my time....

:hi:

Easy.

Turn off your computer. Get rid of your modem. Get rid of the computer. The cords. Your vehicle. Your dwelling.

Then you can come shrug and say you don't care if all oil drilling stops right now.

before simply stating that I would actually survive without it?

You've spent the entire thread chastising people about their disagreement with your OP, yet you continue to be a consumer of the same products they consume. You consume fossile fuel energy. Your life choices show that you have no desire to give them up, or you would have done so already. I've seen enough of this attitude on DU though, I know you're a special snowflake...if only the rest of us would give up our reliance on fossile fuel energy, you would to!

Yeah, right...

I get it now, you have a set of pre-conceived notions about what me and my "ilk" are all about, and have therefore become unable to engage in discussion, choosing instead to go around condemning me and my "ilk" (whatever that means).

I've chastised noone that didn't come slamming me first for stating an opinion here.

But don't let things like facts stop you from your ramblings.

:eyes:

on edit: No, I'm not required to throw away my computer prior to coming here stating my opinion. Sorry that doesn't fit with your pre-conceived notions about me and my "ilk"

Happy to be part of the "ilk" to which you belong.

Morally, the argument people are using against you is the equivalent of telling a slave "hey you are still eating thanks to master, so calling for ending slavery and overthrowing master makes you a hypocrite." Of course we have to also add this - "I am opposed to slavery don't get me wrong BUT it is the way you are going about it that is wrong. We should be nice to master - he isn't evil like you try to portray him - and work withing the system and gradually improve things." The person saying that was living in master's house, of course, or hoped to.

many opposing responses to the discussion here can be chalked up as "but master feeds us! how will we survive without the master?"

Another thought I have: The suggestion that one most throw away their oil-based products prior to speaking about life without them really amounts to this: "I cling to my precious material things, and therefore, it makes me feel uncomfortable when others talk about a world in which those things don't exist" ...

If you don't know the word, that's your problem, not mine.

I have engaged you in discussion. I have pointed out (twice) that your OP is simply "feel-good" liberalisim and that you - as the person presenting the argument for stopping all drilling - are unwilling to give up the use of the product you espouse (look that one up too) we stop drilling for.

I'm not sure what presents the most difficult block here for understanding your own hypocracy. As I pointed out above, I have seen, on plenty of occasions on DU, people come along with the suggestion that we stop using oil, stop doing this, stop doing that, all the while continuing to use the products and by-products of the thing they think we should stop doing/using.

The topic of your OP is that YOU DON'T CARE IF WE STOP DRILLING FOR OIL.

You continue to use petroleum based products. You continue to use oil based energy. The logical conclusion that is drawn is that you DO care, because you're still using it. Imagine driving to the grocery store while you tell your passenger about how you wouldn't care if you didn't have a car. Would you expect them to take you seriously?

Thanks for clarifying your position on the matter.

All this damn liberalism must drive you crazy eh?

Now where have I heard condemnations of "feel-good" liberalism before ... hmmmm.

and things that can actually be done. You pat yourself on the back for being a "free thinker" without a pause to consider the disasterous situation an immediate and complete stop to oil drilling would cause. In a way, it's funny, as most of the people I've met with this sort of "free thinking" are probably the least capable of taking care of themselves in the brave, new world they think to bring about.

Yeah, feel-good liberalism does drive me crazy because it provides fodder for the right when they point at our side and say "look what those crazy liberals are suggesting now!"

Your "I'm just thinking outside the box" bullshit is just that, bullshit. You have the same responses as the entire family of woo-woo "free thinkers" do, and that is to attempt to discredit attacks on your "idea" by claiming those doing so are not open to discussion when it is you who is barricade in your bunker, fingers firmly stuffed in your ears, going "I can't hear you, la-la-la!"

You're a hypocrit. It's that simple. You claim that you would not care if you we stopped drilling for oil but you continue to use it. You have a choice not to. You've made your choice, and that's to continue to be a user while looking down your nose at the rest of us.

Change my avatar? That's what's left of your argument?

I'll just delcare victory and move on then...

You're the winner! Chalk another notch in your expanding win column over out-of-touch-with-reality feel-good liberals!

:party:

Congratulations and much continued success defeating us feel-good liberals.

I wouldn't use it against you, for instance. The people you are arguing with have a wide variety of views on this, and are not all lockstep members of some group - some ilk. The one thing they share is that they are questioning corporate hegemony. You object to that, and then throw everyone who disagrees with you into some category of people who are then to be summarily dismissed and ridiculed. That means that you are defending corporate hegemony - no other conclusion is possible - and using questionable tactics to do that.

The "hypocrisy" argument needs to be put to rest, and utterly rejected by all thinking people. It is malicious and illogical, and is a clever type of personal attack. The debate is about people profiting from oil - the few - not those using it - all of us. To say that we cannot criticize those profiting from it, and the social arrangements that support that, so long as we are using it could be employed, and is, to defend any and all activities by corporations and employed to promote the needs and desires of the very few at the expense of the rest of us.

Definition of ilk, just for you

–noun
1.family, class, or kind: he and all his ilk.
–adjective
2.same.
—Idiom
3.of that ilk,
a.(in Scotland) of the same family name or place: Ross of that ilk, i.e., Ross of Ross.
b.of the same class or kind.

What about this word is ugly or dismissive?

In this case, the "ilk" I'm refering to are the woo-woo left who pat themselves on the back for being free thinkers while dismissing any facutal attack on their random idea they figured they'd post on the internet as "people who want to shut down free thought."

I'm in no way defending corporate hegemony, I am, instead, attacking a stupid idea. You want to talk practical ideas for reducing oil/petro consumption, I'm all ears. The OP is in no way a practical idea. You can call the hypocracy argument a personal attack and call it a poor argument if you like, but I think you're wrong. Beyond that, we're just arguing in circles.