Robert Paterson's Weblog

The end of ideology - the awakening

 

Nature is speaking through us - ideology has prevented us from being in touch with out nature and with nature. 

As Paul shows us - the reaction to ideology is emerging itself naturally. OWS is another part of this deep feeling. 

True Health - Part 4 - The Push Back to Paleo and what it means

First they ignore you - then they laugh at you - then they fight you - then you win.

Today I am going to explore how we are about to experience all of this as we see the power of the Corporate World - more powerful than the Empire in India - go down. We see it now in media but we will see the final battle in the arena of health and food.

It is going to be in this area where the public will awake and discover how they and their children have been betrayed. I will show you today how betrayal is the key flash point of revolution that spreads the meme beyond the initiating cadre to the mass. 

All Imperialists from Rome to Britain and the Institutional/Corporate World have had the best of intentions. For after all Rome did actually do a lot good things. But the price of Empire is loss of freedom. And in the end this is what we all want. Espcially if Empire can no longer offer good roads, peace and justice etc.

The road to Freedom often starts with a funny man in a dhoti. How the Titans of the Empire laughed at Gandhi then. 

This process of ignoring - laughing - fighting and losing is what happens to the establishment in any paradigm shift. Who in 1935 could imagine the British Empire leaving India?

Who can imagine the Corporate Titans of our own time losing control of us?

Today time speeds by - what took decades now takes years. The Mad idea of working with nature and using her models, is very new. Maybe only 20 years old. In terms of a coherent way of eating and its relation to food maybe a decade. Blogging about this began in 2005!

In less than 6 years, millions are involved. The time of "Ignoring" has past.

The old system's immune system has been alerted. And the laughing and the attacks have begun.

"Paleo" is being talked about by the mainstream media as a joke - the Caveman Diet. Just another fad. Ignoring the point that this is not a diet but part of a larger context of health - that of aligning how we live to our evolutionary past.

Expect more "Jokes".

The "Attack" is all about Food Safety.

We are seeing concerted attacks on people who raise animals in a truly safe way - small egg flocks - people growing veggies in their front yard. They tell the mainstream that this food is not safe. Ignoring that the factory systems food is at the centre of our long term chronic health crisis.

Expect more attacks designed to raise the fear of the public and fear among the pioneers.

They will "burn" them as heretics. In modern terms they will humiliate us and take away our livliehood. And do it all in the context of keeping the rest of us safe from heresy. 

The establishment are powerful not just because they have a few Titans at the top but because there are so many functionaries below them. People who make their living and have their power as a result of being in the system. 

But the smart revolutionary does not attack this group. They depend utterly on the Titan. When he goes they go too. The News of the World staff get fired and cannot be rehired. The Mubarak inner circle and support melt away when their man falls.

But they cannot be ignored - they will be the ones who attack the new. Not the Titan himself.

You cannot win by attacking this system directly. They will crush you.

You win by allowing them to commit an outrage on you! It's very Zen!

The Titans destroy themselves by going too far in their attacks. At some point they outrage the sleeping people. 

In India, the innocents were killed at Armritsar. 

Look at what is going on in England now. The entire political class in the UK now has to step back from Murdoch. His henchmen/women have gone too far.

The people did not mind the Hugh Grants of the world or the Royals being hacked. But they cannot tolerate the families of war dead, of murdered children being the targets. And now that Gordon Brown has been seen as being defiled by the Titan, all can see that the only way ahead now to to sweep Murdoch away.

The people move when THEY feel the injustice and the betrayal.

So now to us. What will be the moment?

I see two tracks tnat interact. The power of social media and the increase in awareness that we are all being betrayed by the system.

The power of social media means that the secrets of the Titans can no longer be hidden. The big betrayals are amplified by social media. The power of social media means that dictators can no longer oppress their people without the world looking on. The more they assault their own people - such as in Libya and Syria - the more inevitable it is that they lose.

So what about us in the west. The scale of the deception and so betrayal builds every day.

• The War in Iraq was based on a lie
• We have also lost in Afghanistan trying to support the unsupportable
• The press is being shown to be mainly in the pockets of its owners - it has done its best to hide the truth
• Wall Street owns the recovery and the people are bereft - there is no growth in employment
• The young in Europe and the old are shut out
• The Euro zone and America's credit are on the knife edge but we were told that we have to pay back the bankers

Meanwhile the old contract is being destroyed

• The pensions that boughtv our obediance when we worked for them are going
• The schools and roads that we paid for are in ruins
• The justice system is being gamed
• Even our water system is for sale
• We don't own our homes annymore
• Our children did all we asked and there are no jobs
• We are told that we are not safe and our liberties are removed

You can add to this list - the reasons for consent are melting.

All of this is coming out of the New Media and the stories get bigger and get more traction every day - the Titans are shown not to care about us. They are shown to be cynical manipluators.

And now we come to the big lie - that our health and old age will be looked after by a Ponzi scheme of the transfer payments. 

This demographic and fiscal crisis will be the battle ground where the revolt will take place.

Rising oil and food prices and the debt crisis will all come together and the people will have nothing to lose by taking the risk of leaving the system. 

The entire basis of the western deal with its people will unravel and the people will be betrayed just when they are the most vulnerable.

So what to do? What do you and I do? Not easy question to answer but just as there are patterns of history that show us how true paradigm revolts take place, there are patterns that can help us see our best choices and what will happen in a pattern sense as the revolt gets under way.

Check back in a couple of days.

 

Bees - Sign of the times

 Mono culture is not the future

This planet wants to be a grassland - Lierre Keith - What would this look like?

 

The best 27 minutes you can spend - will change your life.

I keep thinking of what a closed loop grass system on PEI would be like. I think it would look like this:

I doubt that the early users of the plow could predict what their new approach to food production would bring. They were simply addressing a problem. How could they get more output of grain along the fertile banks of the Nile?

They were also building on all sorts of other connected innovation that had taken place before. Grass had been bred to have a higher yield. Oxen had been domesticated. Pot making had enabled more storage. The plow was a capstone element that brought all of this togeher and made it into a system.

It is likely that most of the parts of the new system exist today. They just need to be brought together. Maybe a crisis will do that? The crisis may be driven by an oil crisis.

With expensive oil, we will not longer have the inputs that drive our system such as fertiliser and pesticides. We will not have the equipment such as tractors. We will not be able to use concentration and corn fed confinement as the basis of meat production. We will have much reduced refrigeration. We will not have the fuel to transport food and goods so cheaply. 

It may also be a health crisis. For we can no longer tolerate the costs of the illnesses that stem from our making grain and corn in particular the key component in all our food and in what our animals eat. 

These are the problems that we will have to solve soon. So what can we see that is going this way.

Meat - New Old/Models - We have bred animals that are designed to be confined, live in barns and eat corn. We have "Poodleized" them and made them weak. But there have always been grazers that can tolerate being outside for most of the year. 

 
The Buffalo herd was 60 million in 1800. We slaughtered them to kill off the plains Indians and the clear the land for cattle. In 1900 there were less than 1,000 left. But in the last 20 years there has been a renaissance. In 2005 the North American Herd was about 500,000 and in Canada 2000 ranchers have a herd of about 250,000. It is even larger today and the issue that confronts the folks in the buffalo world is how to expand the herd.

Why the success and what does this teach is as an element? It is that there are animals that "Fit" our environment. Buffalo are the natural herbivore in North America. They can cope with the worst weather. They build up the grassland. They certainly don't need a barn.

There are two reasons why the herd is booming and that more people are getting involved. Most importantly, there is demand for the meat. Meat from a true grass grazer is on the top of the health lists now for those that can afford it. On the rancher side, the costs of keeping buffalo are much less that for cattle. 

They are not easy to keep. They are to cows as wolves are to dogs. They are a wild animal. So they cannot be confined. They need large areas and really strong fencing. 

BUT they offer us a clue I think to the future of meat. Today we set up an entirely artificial environment for the animals that we depend on. What if instead we selected animals like the Highland cattle seen below that fit and thrived where we live instead?

 
I am NOT saying we have to all be buffalo ranchers - though out west this could be vast. I am saying that our new paradigm might be to favor animals that fit well with local conditions and so need very few inputs and capital to ensure that they thrive. 

If we can breed a Holstein to have more milk than could be imagined, we could breed more adapted animals like this Highland Cow that can tolerate cold very well.

 
In the UK the Blackface Sheep is the Gold Standard meat sheep who can tolerate extreme cold and poor pasture. Their wool is also highly esteemed making it a multipurpose sheep.

 
The Berkshire pig does well outdoors even in Atlantic Canada. 

There are breeds of all our basic domestic animals that can be rescued from history and offer us a low input low cost alternative to the "poodle" breeds we have now. 

You do not have to wait years for Organic certification to beging this way of raising animals. You can start next year. There is also a large and fast growing market for this kind of meat now. Maybe not here on PEI yet but there is an export market that will enable us to get up to scale for when we all have to eat locally like this anyway. 

If you start small with other your risk is low. 

Grass - the opposite of the plow - The plow is all about getting rid of the existing natural system and replacing it with an artificial one. At Polyface Farm, the system is all about keeping and building on grass. Each animal has part of a rotation that uses different parts of the grass and that fits into a larger system.

 
Pigs have their job at the edge of the system.

 
Chickens come in after the larger animals. All add more back so over time the grass improves and so can carry more load. The opposite of our current system As the years go by the ROI on the farm goes up. the opposite of our current system. 

As well as producing meat and eggs that rely on very few extra inputs, this system produces the very healthiest of product. Why? Because the animal fits its environment. Chickens and pigs were designed to live like this and to eat like this. If we go down this road we work WITH nature. 

This can all be done locally. 

Imagine if we made grass our focus? We have such ingenuity. Polyface Farm is to the future what the crudest early plow is to our modern system.

So what then about crops - what about veggies, fruits and nuts? How might we tie into a grass system a system for this?

I think that the answer is in Permaculture. 

 
This is what Permaculture looks like. Looks chaotic but it is not. Again the principle is "Fit". We plant to mimic nature and to enhance nature. Most are perennials. As the system ages, it gets more productive. For the parts all reinforce each other as the animals do on a grass farm. Too many slugs = not enough ducks!

This is the DNA of the structure.

 
Ponds and woods are key to the design. 

The Salatins at Polyface have discovered the importance of linking their woodland to the grass land. Both feed the other. 

Both get stronger over time. Both end up needing almost no inputs. Both have an ever increasing ROI and offer the farmer more and more margin and so independence.

This is what working with nature looks like. It's early days now. But I think that these two related ideas have great potential. Could they not work for you? If they did what would happen to you?

Raj on the Value of Nothing - Brilliance in 3 Minutes

 HT Charles Frith

This is the pathway to our future - we go this way or we go nowhere - and you only have to invest 3 minutes to hear the ultimate in coherence - a masterpiece of compression and story telling - I am aghast at how thoughtful he is.

The Price of Allowing People to Stay on at UPEI after 65

Mandatory retirement by age 65 has been an integral part of the University of Prince Edward Island’s terms of employment since 1995. Since that time, mandatory retirement has benefitted the overall University community by facilitating workforce renewal, and providing an effective tool for human resources and financial planning.

Following official complaints by three UPEI employees, the PEI Human Rights Commission conducted seven days of hearings in October 2009. The Commission released a ruling in February 2010 that our mandatory retirement policy is discriminatory. As anticipated, the Commission has now issued an Order to the University on the issues of remedies, damages, and costs. This Order was received by UPEI on June 4, 2010. See details on the Order here.

UPEI intends to fully comply with the Order. The three employees will be reinstated immediately and will be compensated for lost income, as outlined in the Order.

The total cost to the University to implement the Order will be in excess of
$1 million. For comparison purposes, this is double the increase to our government operating grant for Main Campus in 2010-11. In addition, the University will incur an estimated $325,000 a year in ongoing salary and benefit costs associated with reinstatement. These costs are substantial, and will need to be accommodated in this year’s budget.

The UPEI Senior Management Group will be meeting early this week to consider the measures that will be necessary to address this financial challenge. Restrictions on hiring and on discretionary expenditures are anticipated.

An ongoing issue raised by the University throughout the mandatory retirement debate has been the need for a more robust system of performance review for all faculty and staff. In light of the Order, it is imperative that this issue be addressed.

As the full implications of this new reality become clearer, we will keep the campus community informed through this website. This will include periodic updates on the judicial review that was requested by the University following the PEI Human Rights Commission’s February ruling.

via upei.ca

As I read this, I can see the subtext too - can't you? The natural flow of employment has been dammed. There is a now a logjam at the top.

Who gains and who loses? What does this mean?

A few professors will gain.

But what about the students? There are some older people, like the great late Peter Drucker, who spent their entire and long lives at the cutting edge. Are any of these profs the leaders in their field? Are the students breaking down the doors to be in their class? Are the profs over 65 at UPEI exceptional? What will it be like for the students to have these profs taking up the limited teaching space at UPEI?

What does this mean for the teaching staff at UPEI? It means that UPEI cannot bring in much new blood. At a time when all is up in the air, it means that UPEU's faculty will get fossilized. It was fossilized until the late 1990's when UPEI had a mass buyout of older profs. UPEI's rise took place since that moment. So this means that just as we need to rethink our world, there will be no room for UPEI to bring in new thinking.

What about the regular staff of UPEI? With no exit at 65, what happens to staffing and hiring? It means that all full time staff at UPEI have an unlimited job subject only to a performance review. So if you are the admin at UPEI what does this mean? It means that you fill as few permanent positions as possible.

That means that the generation who has eaten the dregs of the boomers their whole lives continue in limbo. It means that the boomers have shut them off.

So, on balance most lose. Not a bit but a lot. And for what?

I think that there is a moral issue here.

There has been a contract both legal and moral for a long time. No one could say that they woke up one morning and were surprised by having to retire at 65. All could have arranged their lives with years to prepare. Some have said that they wished to continue their research. What has UPEI got to do with that? My own research has never depended on a university. It's not as if anyone of them was using the accelerator at Cern!

These people have used the system.

I say "use" because it is the moral issue that concerns me the most. When they took action, they knew what this would mean to the life of the university. To the future of the students - to the future of the next generation of staff. But they chose their own personal interests over all these others.

Finally "The Commission" Why this narrow range of thinking? We have age limits on countless things. Driving, voting, sex and drinking. Each age limit may be contentious - should it be one year or the other - but the principle behind them is socially sound. At what age are we competent?

How can a body like this overlook the broader interests and the impact of what they decide?

I am 60 in a few weeks. I am not the same person I was when I was 50. Nor should I be. People my age and older have a lot to offer younger people. But not in a transactional and busy way. It's the difference between parenting and being a grand father.

What can we best offer at over 60? Is it not our role and duty as oldies to influence our little world to be a better place for our kids? Is it not our role to be generative? To work to ensure that those younger than us can have a better or a good life?

Ageism! Get a life. When you are old you are different. Time to invent your self as an elder. Time to grow up and see the consequences of your actions.

Posted via web from Rob's posterous

Does Kagan have the Balls for the Job?

If I was President, I would be looking for a Judge that had fortitude. For she would have to make stands. There is no sign of this at all in Kagan's record. In fact the very opposite.

Here is the NYT Leader;

The White House undoubtedly hopes the ellipses in Ms. Kagan’s record will help her avoid a rocky confirmation hearing. That expedient approach, unfortunately, reflects the widespread sentiment that the right holds the upper hand in judicial debates, forcing the left to duck and cower. But in one of Ms. Kagan’s few forcefully stated positions, she wrote in 1995 that she detests “polite and restrained” confirmation hearings, calling them a “vapid and hollow charade” and urging senators to fully explore a court nominee’s substantive views. We hope the Senate follows her advice and gets Ms. Kagan to open up a little.