Peaked to the limit

I don't know why I seem to read only books that were written by Henny Penny (the sky is falling, the sky is falling) but I've been on a real role lately.  If I am not immersed in the history of the mistreatment of women and the corresponding rise of the male hero, then I am reading about our tainted food source and how corporations covered up decades of cancer-causing activity in the name of the almighty dollar.

And while they are not all doom and gloom, there are times when I have to sit back and take a deep breath and realize I can't take anymore right now!  And that is how it's been the past few days -- so much so I couldn't even begin to blog about one topic or the other because they are so grim.

Then a thought occurred to me -- if this society is really as messed up as it appears to be -- and if our government is completely and totally corrupt, and the corporations that rule it are as hideous as they seem to be ... then the end of the world might not be such a bad thing.

Chilling perhaps.  I know.   Doesn't even seem to be something that should be said -- but I was doing some research on Peak Oil (again ... it's one of those topics you have to walk away from because the information is just too overwhelming) and while it would be nice to think that there is some magic replacement "they" are working on that will replace oil seamlessly, the truth is, "they" have never done one thing positive for society or our planet to date. 

"They" have been attempting to cure cancer for as long as they have caused it, and yet ... cancer is about as prevalent in our lives as television -- everyone has one, some have bigger ones, some have smaller ones, but there are VERY FEW homes without tv/cancer.  And those screens just keep getting bigger and bigger.  Heck, people even build rooms around them.

"They" have been creating Terror Dreams that feed on society's paranoia as a whole to engage us in wars that have never been the answer.

"They" have been dumbing down our society through an absolutely fraudulent educational system that is steeped in negativity and chaos.

So quite frankly, if "they" are supposed to be our saviors ... we are SCREWED.  Hmmm, wait a minute, let's be reasonable here.  Think about all they did in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina ... those people were JUST FINE.

Another thing that concerns me is that the government ("they") are obsessed with scaring the shit out of us.  In the 1950's civil defense authorities encouraged people to build personal bomb shelters because of nuclear threat (how many of us have heard our parents talk about having drills where they had to hide underneath their desks in school?)  In 2000 there were very few assurances that the Y2K bug wouldn't kill us, and that particular disaster was proven ridiculous by the turning of the clock.

In 2003 the Department of Homeland Security (THEY THEY THEY) encouraged Americans to stock up on plastic sheeting and duct tape to seal windows in case of biological or chemical attacks -- which any sane person would realize would do absolutely nothing ... but it was used as a terror tactic.  Keep the masses in fear, we got a war to start.

But here ... here we get bupkus.  Nary a word about Peak Oil from THEY ... no, no, no.  Which leaves people to believe that they are safe.  When obviously, if we were safe they would be telling us to stockpile food and buy horses and buggies!

Get it?  That is the reason I am concerned the most!

But ... then again, if you think about it, where we've been going is out of control.  As a society based on MORE MORE MORE -- like any ill-behaved child we need to be punished.  And sometimes punishment hurts.  And because we've had no parents -- because we've been a society as a whole unleashed on the planet with no rules other than to consume as much and as often as possible -- there are so many of us who have no skills.   Think about this:  Home economics -- that class we took where we learned how to sew and cook, is no longer allowed to teach sewing.  Why?  Well, think about it.  The powers that BE ... my "THEY," must sit there and think, what is the point?  We have all that slave labor we've been using overseas there is never going to be a reason for someone to have to know how to SEW.  Banish that class and replace it with Shopping With A Vengeance 101 and How to Abuse Your Credit Card.

Here is the thing -- there is no dispute amongst anyone -- politicians, lawmakers, oil specialists, etc. etc. that there is such a thing as peak oil -- what is up in the air is how long the downward slope lasts.  The greatest problem is that our demand so far exceeds the potential supply that the time span keeps getting narrower. 

I read an interesting analogy that helped me to understand this.  The body of a 200 pound man holds 140 pounds of water.  Because water is so crucial to everything the human body does, the man doesn't need to lose all 140 pounds of water weight before collapsing due to dehydration.  A loss of as little as 10-15 pounds of water  may be enough to kill him.

In a similar sense, an oil based economy doesn't need to deplete its entire reserve before it begins to collapse.  A shortfall between demand and supply as little as 10-15 percent is enough to wholly shatter an oil-dependent economy and reduce its citizens to poverty.

In 1970, shortfalls in production as small as five percent caused the price of oil to nearly quadruple.  And there were also shortages.  I can remember huge lines at gas stations -- and I can recall adults discussing that there were certain days you could get gas depending on your license plate numbers or something.

It almost seems insane that American's had a taste of what it would be like to not have carte blanche access to oil THIRTY FIVE YEARS ago, and nothing was done to begin to reduce our dependency then.  Heck, everything was done to create an astronomical dependence by creating a global economy.

I don't really have any answers right now -- I could list things that various survivalist sites have instructed as must-haves in a post-peak-oil society, such as guns and food and whatever, but I am not much interested in living in such a world.  I don't want to spend my days sitting on top of my horde of food and shoot people who are starving.  If someone knocks on my door and is starving, I will feed them.  I am going to learn how to garden organically (though I'd rather eat worms, I do so hate gardening) and while I might not have a huge garden right away, at least I will build up my skills.  Because apocalypse or not -- our food is tainted and inedible right now.  But I am interested in keeping organic farms in business right now, and it would be selfish of me to take away business by having a garden of my own.  (Oh baby, can I spin!)

And I guess I'll keep reading and reading and reading and wondering and wondering and always, absolutely always knowing that "THEY" are out to get us, if only with mass stupidity.