Jan 31, 2011 | Options/ New Paradigm
The unstated premise of our society is that all of us are born at some level on a socio-economic ladder. Our prime directive is that we must dedicate a substantial part of our waking hours and efforts to climb to higher and higher steps on that ladder. At any step on the ladder we can look down to the comparatively diminished lives we had on the lower steps. And at the very top we–or our descendants–will have attained that perfect Nirvana, the frictionless existence that comes in tandem with virtually limitless wealth.
Jan 31, 2011 | Economic Meltdown
There is no “silver bullet,” no magic solution that will turn back the clock to an era of abundant resources and easy growth. For now, all that governments can do is buy time through further deficit spending—ideally, using that time to build infrastructure that will continue to function in the coming era of reduced flows of energy and resources. Meanwhile, we must all find ways to come out from under a burden of debt that will otherwise crush us. The inherent contradiction within this prescription is obvious but unavoidable.
Jan 30, 2011 | Food Security
ORIGINAL ARTICLE U.S. grain prices should stay unrelentingly high this year, according to a Reuters poll, the latest sign that the era of cheap food has come to an end. U.S. corn, soybeans and wheat prices — which surged by as much has 50 percent last year and...
Jan 30, 2011 | Feature Articles
[This article was submitted first by the author to Speaking Truth to Power–CB] At some point in our lives, most of us realized that there is no place that we could stand on the side of mother earth and not be asked, “by what right are you here?” Do we have a...
Jan 29, 2011 | Collapse of Industrial Civilization
ORIGINAL ARTICLE We have all been reading about Egypt in the newspapers, and wonder what is behind their problems. Let me offer a few insights. At least part of Egypt’s problem is the fact that in the past the government has threatened to reduce food subsidies. Now...
Jan 28, 2011 | Energy Depletion
ORIGINAL ARTICLE Several years ago National Geographic magazine published an article on oil that included a stunning photo of mature steer and the barrels of oil needed to grow an animal to that size. I recently went looking for that picture, found it, and post it...
Jan 27, 2011 | Feature Articles
From the time we were children, we’ve been taught that “progress”—as defined by capitalist American culture—is a good thing. Progress is manifest destiny. Progress is civilizing the uncivilized, elevating the inhabitants of the third world and taming the “savages”...
Jan 27, 2011 | Food Security
ORIGINAL ARTICLE Like many environmentalists, Lester Brown is worried. In his new book “World on the Edge,” released this week, Brown says mankind has pushed civilization to the brink of collapse by bleeding aquifers dry and overplowing land to feed an...
Jan 27, 2011 | Feature Articles
For the first time in human history almost all of humanity is politically activated, politically conscious and politically interactive… The resulting global political activism is generating a surge in the quest for personal dignity, cultural respect and economic...
Jan 25, 2011 | Feature Articles
The reckoning will be global because the money and banking regime is global — and deeply flawed.