Received a new larger food dehydrator this week and JoJo is drying and storing vegetables and fruits in mass-----

We have planted the greenhouse for the overwinter vegetable experiment---

I am getting ready to go out and patch our driveway shade shelter that a windstorm ripped up--

and wire up one of our small solar panels to a couple of AA battery chargers as a small experiment.

The heat is starting to break a small amount in the mornings although the afternoons are still deadly---but it's a sign that the season is changing---this summer was an incredibly tough one for humans, plants and animals---coyotes in town---a bad sign.

0% job growth last month---in a society which requires 130,000 NEW jobs to be created each month merely to accept new members entering society--the young, the immigrant, the laid off by closure unemployed---how can the-------- USA---USA---- shouters and chest beaters remain so fucking blind----We now rank 40th among nations in the world in infant survival----40th !! A drop from our previously held position of 26th.....and what we will get from our supposed leaders----a speech.

Today we are negotiating the possible purchase of a 1999 Volkswagen Eurovan Camper. The concept that it is impossible to retire...that it is better to have a useful physical thing as compared to forced participation in scam stock market retirement accounts is what pushes this purchase...JoJo and I after much consideration have decided on a vehicle represented by the sample photo above...self contained with a small kitchen, bunks, water and electric...the Camper will serve as an ability to escape the low desert summer heat which is increasing with global warming by traveling to the nearby mountains on the weekends---a possible bug out vehicle if necessary....and like our greenhouse a method of investing in something that has actual, physical, useful returns for the world we are facing. It is not huge, it is within our means, it is not conspicuous consumption of resources....it will be a useful tool in our lives and at the homestead.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurovan_camper

Currently reading "HE, SHE, and IT" by Marge Piercy- a cyberpunk novel of the corporate future where an independent commune in the environmental wasteland build a cyborg to protect themselves from corporate domination----and the woman programmer who falls in love with it---the book is just completely excellent--------- populated with characters such as a female ninja from a surviving community of a handful of women who grew up in the post nuclear wasteland of the middle east who are both Jewish and Muslim....to how they survive beneath tent like shelters to avoid the power of the sun...to cyborg hand to hand combat against enhanced humans...I haven't finished it yet but I will be sorry to see it end. Written in 1999 I have no idea how I have missed this excellent novel all these years---

Just stop it about the 9-11 anniversary....today's 18 year old soldier dying in Afghanistan was 7 when it happened for Christ's sake! When does it end---we are like some old asswipe yelling "remember the Maine" while feeding fresh youth endlessly into a meat grinder. Stop this manufactured industry of forcing remembrance, of the required political speeches designed to do what? Stir emotion, guarantee continued billions to the anti-terror industry, insure re-election by flag wrapping? A couple of guys with box cutters won----- they've made us live in fear, they bankrupted us---they lured us to kill our own freedoms----because they knew us better then we knew ourselves...so just shut up.

ANARCHISM:--The philosophy of a new social order based on liberty unrestricted by man-made law; the theory that all forms of government rest on violence, and are therefore wrong and harmful, as well as unnecessary.

Emma Goldman, "What is Anarchy?"

Some God shouters, with their kids, rang my doorbell today, nice people, but wanting to "read me just one bible passage"... I told them I admired their dedication but "I'm an Anarchist" between that statement and my pony tail, they rapidly beat feet, herding their children off my porch before they were contaminated.....this is an accidental but massively elegant solution to to the ongoing, God shouters at my door problem---

In further considering this incident and it's accidental solution it reinforced my current thinking that I need this simple, clean, anarchist symbol below tattooed on my arm...

Never had a tattoo before, maybe next weekend, in honor of labor day, I'll see if I can get it done.

I don't know if you share this experience but many people at work and in casual contact recently have been speaking of signs....the east coast earthquake is a sign, the damage to the Washington monument is a sign, the east coast hurricane is a sign--blahblahblahblahblah---blah. As if they can understand these things.....I'm not a believer at all in the 2012 type end of the world scenario thing's. That is the cowards way out---a failure to accept what we have done to ourselves through our own stupidity and acceptance of the stupidity of our supposed leadership...

Our society is going to end because you/we fucked it up---not because of some planetary alignment or natural disaster. The end is going to be slow not fast and your rapture is going to put you living under a highway overpass not heaven---you better get used to the idea....

Congress and the President are coming back from their expensive, corporate or taxpayer funded vacations to face the Federal Budget (which is on a continuing resolution till 09-02-11) an economy running at only 1% growth this past year and the need to reduce the deficit before the new law they passed automatically does it for them in November...I personally hope they screw the pooch and fail on deficit reduction since it is the only way the defense department faces a cut---an automatic 500 billion cut at that...i just want them to keep doing what they are doing---nothing---it's the only way we get any amount of reduction in defense spending....a curse on all their houses.

I totally agree with Robert Reich that this coming Labor Day should be one of protest--not barbeque's---(see the article linked below)

http://www.salon.com/news/great_recession/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/08/25/labor_day_protests

Our yellow Armenian watermelons have come in and they are excellent---these are, of course, an eat em' while you got em' product---but we can trade a few with the folks across the street for something we haven't planted---two baskets of yellow pears are on the kitchen counter ready for canning, and we have planted trays of lettuce along with pots of tomatoes and peppers in the greenhouse for the fall. I'm still shelling pecans in spare moments---- we are about ready to see how our one test row of peanuts did, and we are still considering getting two hens in the spring.....

I added another case of commercial, not military, MRE's to the emergency food stockpile and tomorrow I am doing the pre-fall check to insure we are mouse proof in the long term storage food area...all this on a 90'x120' urban lot---3 blocks off downtown in our mid-sized city.....even tho pride is an ugly thing, i am sitting here so pleased with what JoJo and I have built for ourselves out of almost nothing.

I've found that Anarchism as a political belief structure and homesteading click together as if you were reassembling a well oiled, familiar weapon...there are no disconnects between one's belief system and life. The homesteading concept of sharing--trading---cooperative giving of what you have of in excess to others for what you do not have enlightens the day to day world and proves there is another way, a better way.

I've come to grips with postponing retirement---and mentally accepting of it...but we will not live in fear of the future....more on this in other posts.

Anarchism is the only philosophy which brings to man the consciousness of himself; which maintains that God, the State, and society are non-existent, that their promises are null and void, since they can be fulfilled only through man's subordination.

Emma Goldman, "What is Anarchy?"

I hate to advise this but throughout my life I knew, always knew there would be nothing there for me at the end....

JoJo would tell me what a pessimist I was. But honestly, I did know this...I am not saying this in a prideful way or as an attempt to appear as a big ole brain. I just knew it---the same as we all know inside when they speak to us claiming the truth, it is just more lies.

So we came to the conclusion that i will have to work forever---I am actually accepting of this and it is comforting to finally cast off the lies and propaganda. To rid myself of hope. There is always freedom in truth.

I am currently reading two books. The first, continuing my study of Anarchism is "The Art of Not being Governed" by James C. Scott.

The second "Ready Player One" by Ernest Cline is a Post Cyber-Punk novel. At the moment I have only scratched the surface of both books but within the first 30 pages of both I feel as if I made good choices---I will review/advise on both when completed. Reading Anarchist Philosophy and Cyberpunk Dystopia appears to be the only way to stay sane faced with our current society.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-enclaves-reap-rewards-of-contracting-boom-as-federal-dollars-fuel-wealth/2011/06/27/gIQAWQC5HJ_story.html

A term used with frequency to describe our present economic depression is the lost decade. Economists are projecting a 10 year disturbance in the American economic force. This of course presupposes that we, as a nation, will survive. I cannot agree that we are in an economic depression that is a natural event. Our current economic disturbance is due to the fact that we are as a nation involved in economic class warfare---The rape and murder of the American middle class by the elites of wall street, banking and politics....This is no honest economic down turn...corporations are not failing---- they have posted record profits throughout these past 4 years. Corporations are depositing so much money Banks are charging them to hold it.....they are eliminating workers because they wish to increase profits to their fellow elites holding stock---not because they are in fear of collapse.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44208331/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/

The goal of these elites is an America of only two classes---the rich and the desperate poor. Forcing us into a 3rd world status where their 1% of the population and their families rule it all..... Those with power and wealth want the rest of us crushed in mind, body, and spirit. They have transferred the entire national wealth into their pockets, our wealth...our security under the guise of an economic depression used to enslave us forever.

Wall street banks are full -----fed by Massive secret Government loan programs-- these same bankers foreclose on regular homeowners....Corporations pay no tax and we cut school lunch programs----Demands are made for cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid---but no budget cuts to the defense department or viable reductions in the two foreign wars our poor, young and uneducated fight for them...How can these actions be explained other than as a class war? You tell me....please.....there is no way to make this right again...it is too late, the largest theft in the history of mankind has succeeded and as a population our masses are too stupid, brainwashed and lazy to understand what is happening....but these same elites cannot eat money---grow your own food, sell none but give away to others like us---start your own schools----create and personally manufacture something useful, trade the result with others for products you need. Set up co-ops for everything from health care to food production--- Do not invest in their companies and corporations---use your money to invest in physical products that will be of real use after the upcoming fall. This physical investment they cannot take away from you---The worst thing you can do to an asshole is to ignore them---and this is what we must do to our government, our banking system and the elites---ignore the processes that make them money--develop our own systems---and throw the rock at their Mercedes as they drive by. Refuse them, their system, stave them------

the newest sticker on my Prius

The Anarchists are simply unterrified Jeffersonian Democrats. They believe that 'the best government is that which governs least,' and that which governs least is no government at all.

Benjamin Tucker

Reading--Chickens in your Backyard, The Beginner's guide to Anarchy and The Survivor Personality---enduring the heat and the drought here on a daily basis...storing MRE's...dehydrating vegetables from the garden...fighting off, as best I can the brain death numbness of work....and like everyone else, watching our government and economic system twirl into the death spiral...

I have been fighting a general sense of malaise off for 14 days now---there seems to be no purpose in anything that I do, as well as a lack of enjoyment....this seems to run concurrent with the people I deal with on a daily basis as well...there seems to be an undercurrent of something i cannot describe both within and.....out there...

The British government is amazed and dumbfounded they say, that when the concentration of wealth is in a few grasping hands, people will take any opportunity to obtain what is denied to them. Their response, of course, is that more control is necessary.

The American religious right wing conservatives are at war with the Taliban because they are so much alike, not because they are so different.

We are forced into stock based retirement plans for our old age by the elite class---then forced to watch as they steal it...........

The field of American Republican candidates for President are debating to show which one of them hates the poor, the sick and unemployed the most..........and therefore deserves the nomination of their party......

It is only on the Internet that you can watch a semi-normal human blogger, go from simply confused, to outraged, to revolutionary----- somewhat like tracking the downfall of a society in microcosm.....

The successful revolutionary is a statesman, the unsuccessful one a criminal.
Erich Fromm