Review: Age of Limits 2014

I got back to the boat late last night, after an intense three days of presentations and discussions. This was my third year presenting at this conference, and I am at this point quite heavily invested in this annual event and have started to take on roles I didn't even know existed when I first showed up there three years ago not knowing what to expect.

Death by Political Correctness

Rafahu

Later this week I am traveling to Artemas, Pennsylvania, to attend the third annual Age of Limits Conference at the Four Quarters Interfaith Sanctuary. I am scheduled to present on the same subject as last year: Communities that Abide, the subject a collection of articles I just published with the help of four illustrious co-authors. Although the subject is the same, I hope that the substance of this year's discussion will be different. I hope to move beyond principles, which I explained last year, and which I have since spelled out in the book, and on to practice. I hope that this year we will be able to focus the discussion on the physical, organizational, cultural and psychological problems that must be solved in order for resilient, self-sustaining communities to form.

Interview on Signs of the Times Radio

New Current Events Internet Radio with SOTT Talk Radio on BlogTalkRadio

A wide-ranging discussion with some particularly well-informed and thoughtful commentators.

Resilience in the face of genocide

[Wednesday morning update: only 45 copies left! Clarification: I am NOT shipping paper books outside the US. I tried it last time and didn't like it. The longer e-book version, to be published in June, will be available globally.]

The book is at the printer's and approved the final proofs this morning. Also as if this moment there are exactly 72 copies yet to be claimed, so please place your order if you haven't done so already.

This week we showcase an article by Jason Heppenstall, a travel writer. He wrote about his experiences in a small riverside village in the world's poorest and most heavily bombed country on earth, showing us how its people survived and recovered, with their traditional culture intact.

Moneybag logic

In case you missed it, the US is not a democracy. A Princeton University study by Gilens and Page performed a regression analysis on over a thousand public policy decisions, and determined that the effect of public opinion on public policy is nil. That's right, nil. It doesn't matter how you vote, it doesn't affect the outcome in any measurable way. By extension, that also goes for protesting, organizing, dousing yourself with gasoline and setting yourself on fire on the steps of the US Senate, or whatever else you may get up to. It won't influence those in power worth a damn.

Resilient Health Care

When I asked people to contribute content to the book on Communities that Abide, which is now nearing publication (with two chapters already at the proofreading stage), I didn't know quite to expect. The results went far beyond my expectations. This week I will highlight the chapter by James Truong, MD, who practices emergency and family medicine in rural Canada. His chapter, “Appropriate Health Care for a World In Flux: A Strategy,” is a must-read for anyone thinking about founding or joining a resilient community. It is an in-depth guide to health care in a world where the Health Care System that currently exists in the developed nations of the world is inaccessible, unaffordable, or nonexistent. His subtitle reads: “Monday: feed the family. Tuesday: don't get sick.” But what if you do? Dr. Truong explains the options.

Statecraft or Witchcraft?

What has the US State Department been doing in Ukraine? It has been busy, and has succeeded in pushing the hapless nation, left destitute by 22 years of freedom and democracy oligarchy, to the brink of civil war. (Keep in mind, Russia came close to collapsing altogether after just nine years of freedom and democracy oligarchy.

Instead of offering you a rational and reasoned (and boring) geopolitical analysis, allow me to temporarily leave the modern world behind and retreat into the mindset of the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth rock. Why don't we have us a good old-fasioned witch-hunt! After all, the people who have been pushing Ukraine in the direction of civil war while risking a nuclear confrontation with Russia are clearly doing the Devil's work, and so that makes them witches, correct? To find out who these witches are, we have to become expert witch-sniffers. (It's easy; you'll see.) Then we can make effigies of them and burn them at the stake. (No actual witches will be harmed in the process, of course.)