Doom and Gloom and… Boom!
This is the first Sunday I’ve missed a 6 o’clock street speech since I started giving them last October, on the corner of 9th & Massachusetts Streets, in Lawrence, Kansas. This was a streak of something like 12 straight weeks. I’m missing it on account of a bad back, which has had me confined to home since Monday. It happens periodically, every few years, where I’m down for the count for a week or two.
I look at it like a necessary inhalation/exhalation, the body forcing a period of rest, that thereby allows for later, greater activity; this is a necessary balance, of sorts.
Wishful thinking, one would suppose, but nonetheless useful, when you are bed-ridden and in extreme pain.
In any case, let this post, in the virtual world, stand in for my share of real-world efforts.
If you are reading this on this website, then you are quite aware of the crises afflicting our society and our environment, and my plan to address them. If not, please see here: https://www.tuftesvariations.com/philosophy/three-economic-propositions-to-save-the-world
I will soon release a video in which I explain in further detail the salient points behind the plan. I encourage anyone and everyone to read and study this, again. As the scientists have explicitly stated, we need to immediately, radically, and fundamentally alter the manner in which our society operates, within a 5 year time frame, to avoid total disaster. I think that “5 years” is a liberal estimate, however, for it would appear that, considering the exponential nature of the crisis, and the disasters we have witnessed so far; something, somethings, need to shift dramatically this year, to avoid hell on Earth.
Thus, my intention for 2020 is exactly that: to bring this plan to the collective consciousness this year. What else could possibly get us out of this mess? Not much, in fact. If you study our myriad problems in their entirety, you will find this plan the logical conclusion to all of the issues plaguing us. I like to think that I have created a couple artistic masterpieces in my life, but this plan is not that. It is a miracle. And I am very likely not the only one to conjure it out of this mad carnival we call “America”.
The simplicity of it is the beauty of it, and a requisite, as governmental mechanisms in place, at present, can systematically carry out the propositions. The more complex a plan gets, the more difficult it is to enact. This is a fact, and it gets worse with increasing size of the acting body. Thus, the only plan that could possibly flip the script for the whole of industrialized society, MUST be simple, understandable, and systemizable. These propositions are exactly that.
As a land surveyor, I have spent much of the last 15 years working with land ownership records, deeds, with public departments and staff, all across Northeast Kansas. I often research documents pertaining to “eminent domain” (when private property is “bought” by the government for public use), as a significant number of surveys are based off of descriptions of “condemned” land. Notable examples may be found among land records and court documents for the Perry Reservoir in Jefferson County, Soldier Creek in Topeka, and the levee on the North side of the Kansas River in Lawrence. Most people affected did not take issue with the plans, and saw it as a temporary inconvenience. Those that did take issue mostly argued for a higher value on the exchange, and sometimes they got it. That is to say, the action that would be required for Steps 1 & 3 have been done off and on since the creation of our country. And, despite the frequent perception some especially vocal people have of the federal government as some sort of bumbling, incoherent mess (a fantasy notion that allows “it” and those in power to simply screw over more people, and the world, without real opposition), the mechanisms of government are quite capable of enacting such sweeping measures. That is to say, the “tools” of government, in addition to quasi-private institutions like the World Bank and Federal Reserve, are perfectly capable of doing this. We simply need the will to do so. And that “will” is ramping up every day.
For the currency switch in Step 2, we don’t need to look much further than establishment of the “Euro” for precedent, as this was recently achieved, and has been a resounding success in currency creation. Ask yourself this: for what is all of our economic and financial prowess worth, if we are not to utilize it? For what have we crafted elaborate theories to describe our economic interactions, if we are not to act upon them in a creative manner?
What’s going to happen is this: we are going to act upon them. We are going to change this world for the better. We are going to avert the worst of these crises, use our better judgement, and achieve our collective goals: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Yes, the situation is dire, but the power of a paradigm shift is quite astonishing. All of the pre-requisites are there: a literate populace, mass communication, property records, functioning infrastructure, etc. In addition, we invite divine assistance, when we, as a people, engage in acts of collective, reasoned compassion. Quite literally, this works like personal karma, but multiplied by seven billion. So we will have that going for us. If we want it.
Autonomy, sovereignty, doled out indiscriminate. A fitting end to the American Empire: a final capitalistic gift to the world, to break its own chains of iron and gold. Wherefore then to settle down, retire to the homeland, and watch the sun set on a liberated planet.
“It is always darkest before the dawn,” the saying goes. As well, after all the doom, and after all the gloom, comes “the boom”. Fortunately, we get to decide what character that “boom” shall have. Let’s make the right choice.
– G