Peak Empire: The 99 Percent Solution

All the lessons of history in four sentences:

Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad with power.
The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small.
The bee fertilizes the flower it robs.
When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.

Charles A. Beard

Know that peak oil is just the beginning. Just think how much excitement you can have with the ravens of peak water, food, pollution, temperature, and population! [See, for example, Lester R. Brown, Outgrowing the Earth: The Food Scarcity Challenge in an Age of Falling Water Tables and Rising Temperatures (W.W. Norton & Co., NY: 2005)]

Know that, unlike the shire where Hobbits dwell, the lover’s lane is right smack in the middle of the theater of war. Brownouts will come before the blackout. Mark all the garbage dumps and landfills in your area on a map for your children to use as a resource for metals, glass, wood chips, paper, and anaerobically preserved food among other essentials.

Know that it will take a much bigger upheaval to wipe out humanity. Just how gracefully or ineptly the humanity will survive the energy crisis is the question. Peak empire plutocracy will survive famously; it has more in common with plutocracy in China or the new emerging plutocracy in Iraq than it has with the 99 percent of the citizenry.

The 99 percent can win but it will require great perseverance, education, and education. It will involve great sacrifices, dissent, disobedience, and non-violent resistance to the plutocratic social construct. You may have to steal the “improbability drive” all over again. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_of_Gold]

I write this since I am told some of you do not have the electronic thumb to flag a Vogon ship to go places around the galaxy. Have no fear, and above all “Don’t Panic.” Grab your towel, drink a few beers, and wish real hard for the “heart of gold” to pay you a visit.

Walkabout.

I have three lists, one for community action, one for individual action, and one for useful professions for the 21^st century. I would absolutely love it if you can add to these lists with your comments. [If you see weird numbers in the lists, just put them in your search engine to enlighten yourself with a totally useless concept.]

1. Community Action List

Here is the a-to-z of the best things you can organize about in no particular order.

a. Demand the draft, but only with a loaded lottery that decrees: (i) no one is exempt, not legislator, not the mentally deranged president and his henchmen, not the pregnant mom, not the handicapped priest, (ii) the citizens 35 or older are 3.14159265 times more likely to get drafted,(iii) legislators and high government officials are 3.14159265 times more likely to get drafted, (iv) the members of the families that make more than 10 times the living wage are 3.14159265 times as likely to get drafted, (v) legislators who vote for the war are automatically drafted to serve at the frontlines, and (vi) if there is an on-going war, apply the above rules all over again to send the soldiers to the frontlines.

b. Demand your city or state’s right to opt out of federal adventurism in foreign lands.

c. Demand Equal access to public airwaves requiring all information media using public airwaves to reserve 1.61803399 hours within 6pm to 11pm local time each day for commercial-free free community programming.

d. Demand movement or gathering of citizens shall not be restricted within or without the country for any reason whatsoever.

e. Demand “pursuit of happiness” requiring lawmakers to make no law to regulate citizen’s (a)moral, immoral, or (anti-)social behavior, no matter how contrary the behavior is to their stodgy common sense.

f. Demand population rationing, reserving 1/3.14159265 children for every female for the next 25812.807449 days. Females shall have the right to sell this credit in open market.

g. Demand Carbon rationing at home and among nation-states.

h. Demand taxation pyramid where only the local government receives the say-so to collect the taxes. Only taxes especially collected for specific state or federal services are contributed to the state or federal governments.

i. Demand radical overhaul of property and ownership laws to eliminate obnoxious accumulation of wealth in a few hands.

j. Demand laws that ensure maximum to minimum wealth ratio between the top 2.71828183 percent to the bottom 2.71828183 percent of the population to be less than a factor of 9.80665.

k. Demand laws that ensure maximum to minimum compensation ratio of any organization, business entity, or corporation for its employees to be less than a factor of 9.80665.

l. Demand law to classify Churches and religious organizations as for profit businesses. They sell feel-good opiates for roman candles and golden steeples.

m. Demand all business entities including and especially the information media shall control less than 376.730313461 ppm (parts per million) of its market.

n. Demand all elections be based on (i) direct vote, (ii) “instant runoff,” (iii) public funding, and (iv) require that no one serves in an elective office by more than 8.314472 years over a lifetime.

o. Demand prosecution, instant removal, and perpetual disbarment of government functionaries at all levels who attempt to influence the election process before, during, or after the election.

p. Demand prosecution, instant removal, and perpetual disbarment of government functionaries at all levels who publicly profess or exhibit in speech or in action any association with or belief in any religion or religious cult or organization.

q. Demand prosecution, instant removal, and perpetual disbarment of government functionaries at all levels who (i) attempt to restrict freedom of speech in any way shape or form, or (ii) apply punitive measures to include, but not limited to, withholding of financial and other resources or use legal proceedings for the purpose of suppressing dissent, and (iii) keep lists of citizens in any way shape or form for any reason whatsoever.

r. Demand Anti-secrecy laws that force the government at all levels to be totally transparent to the public by publishing all information regarding the conduct of government in real-time without any hedging or restrictions whatsoever.

s. Demand Anti-law law by requiring that all laws have an expiry date not to exceed 8.314472 years.

t. Demand citizens’ unlimited right to bear arms.

u. Demand citizens’ unlimited right to inquire into and spy on government activities, and disclose of its dealings with groups and people within and abroad with impunity. A citizen cannot commit acts of treason.

v. Support Anti-incarceration laws to limit prison population to less than 376.730313461 ppm.

w. Demand drastic reduction in the laws on books to help drastic reduction or elimination of uniformed forces around town.

x. Demand abrogation of laws that regulate citizen behavior like the drug laws.

y. Demand abrogation of rules, procedures, and laws that institutionalize “pre-crime” persecution or harassment of citizens.

z. Hope you can contribute one more. If there is enough of a response, I will build the best of Community Action a-to-z and post it here.

2. Individual Action List for extra credit

a. If you cannot support a fight with the peak empire plutocracy, move to Dorothy’s Kansas and plan to meet your maker on an accelerated schedule.

b. Move to cities that you can circumnavigate in 3.14159265 hours on foot.

c. Move to cities that have natural water supply.

d. Grow your own food and share.

e. If you are the city Prosecutor, try the real-estate agent masquerading as the mayor of your city on trumped up murder charges.

f. Accept death gracefully rather than spending the last 1 year of your life, attached to sundry tubes in a hospital, wasting resources that the community can’t afford.

g. Learn form the dwindling Native American and African tribes struggling to keep the mammon away from their sustainable enclaves.

h. Demand your grocer/retailer label foods that are genetically modified or grown using unnatural feeds and chemicals.

i. Demand your grocer/retailer label goods and foods that were transported to the store from a distance of more than 100 km.

j. Question law before you obey the rule of law.

k. Learn from the experience of Cuba and North Korea. The two countries went through their peak oil after the fall of the Soviet Russia with greatly different outcomes.

l. Ask your congressman and senator when was the CIA privatized?

m. Hug a child in Kirkuk, Kabul, or Kinshasa and tell him he is more likely to die of hunger or AIDS before he is 18 than the friendly fire from US Marines.

3. Skills for the 21^st century

a. Brewers/vintners to ensure a rambunctious future.

b. Teacher/Researcher, all subjects, to offer education to the public and to develop ideas for an unknown future. The 99 percent will not succeed without a healthy cadre of teachers and researchers.

c. Organic farmer/gardener to rekindling the art of farming without petrochemical fertilizers and heavy machinery.

d. Garbagologist to practice the art and science of harvesting garbage dumps, landfills, and abandoned industrial sites for resources. (It has nothing to do with mudslinging news-people or combing for the social security number in your garbage.)

e. Storyteller/balladeer to enthrall the old and the young with paperless entertainment and history lessons around campfire.

f. Medical doctor/herbalist/healing artist to prepare for a time when energy intensive medical procedures and petrochemical pharmaceuticals will fade away or be too expensive for most people.

g. Market maker for carbon credits. The only booming business to last the century.

h. Militarist. Those who wish to betray the 99 percent can join the military and other security forces to protect the life and property of the plutocrats.

i. Animal husbandry experts to provide muscle power for the farm and transportation.

j. Hunter/archer/gatherer/fisherman for the sustenance of the family and community.

k. Craftsmen/tradesmen of all kinds. Blacksmiths, bakers, millers, carpenters, masons, shoemakers, tailors, tanners, and weavers.

l. Gunslinger cowboys for meat and to keep everybody honest.