Leaving A Trace

On the voluminous list of erroneous philosophies there are, perhaps, few more able contributors than modern governments. The U.S., particularly, has produced some spectacular philosophical failures. Take, for instance, the inherently racist Affirmative Action program, intended to, ironically, curb racism in employment, all the while mandating racial quotas in the employee base. The idea of embarking on a massive highway and infrastructure construction campaign, in the middle of a burgeoning energy crisis, is an equally fine example. When it comes to personal experience, though, I've always thought that the Leave No Trace concept is a poster child for misguided approaches.

This personal experience started during my employment with the Bureau of Land Management. Although examples of foolish government policies are manifold within this organization (a fact not confined merely to the BLM), Leave No Trace has always seemed notably ludicrous to me. In short, the practice promotes doing exactly what its name suggests: leaving no trace of human visitation in wild areas. No refuse, no sign of habitation, no scatological matter, and even, when possible, no footprints. On the surface this policy seems sound and desirable (a trait it shares with most government practices). After all, if each visitor to Yellowstone left one piece of garbage next to Old Faithful, it would take about one day for the site to be a trash heap rather than a natural wonder. Don't mind, of course, the over 250 miles of paved road in the park, the eight hotels alongside them, or any of the other vestments of human civilization in the park. But I digress (and am bested on that topic, anyway, by Edward Abbey and his "Polemic: Industrial Tourism and the National Parks", found in Desert Solitaire). Indeed, it seems to make good sense to keep human waste out of national parks, especially if we hope to have any further generations enjoy them.

Unfortunately, though, Leave No Trace does not restrict itself to the suggestion that all parks should be liberally sprinkled with garbage cans. Its reach endeavors to be far more encompassing, going so far as to suggest that mankind should refrain from the time honored, hunter/gatherer tradition of shitting in the woods. This is no joke; under Leave No Trace policy (to which every park ranger is expected to adhere), all campers who are compelled to defecate in the woods must either 1) bury their crap in a hole, or 2) collect, bag, and pack out said matter to be disposed of in a more civilized manner. This has given rise to an industry dedicated to container manufacturing since, as we all surely know, you'll want a damn sturdy bag to put your shit in if you are going to lug it around with you for the rest of the day.

Thank goodness it is both more secure and has larger capacity.

Again, on the surface, this policy seems well placed. I don't really want to navigate a trail laden with human turd piles if I don't have to. The heart of the philosophy that engenders such a practice, though, is worth examination. What can be made of a policy that suggests that hikers walk on rock, when possible, to avoid leaving footprints or causing erosion? To my mind the suggestion is that mankind is merely a visitor to nature and not a participant in its cycles. This idea is not limited to ecological think-tanks. Many other groups, civilian and federal, espouse the notion that wild areas should be utterly devoid of human activity. The problem with this is not, at least at this juncture, the practice that stems from the Leave No Trace idea. Doubtless, the ever burgeoning global population risks causing the elimination of wild places entirely; to preserve what remains is important if we ever hope to have more natural jungles and fewer concrete ones. Nonetheless, the practice of following Leave No Trace policies often leads to altering the way in which the practitioners view themselves in relation to the natural environment. This view, as already stated, is that human beings belong on a platform that exists ON the planetary ecosystems rather than IN them.

Nothing, of course, could be more fallacious. Not only do humans exist very much IN this world's drama, they are oftentimes one of the more influential actors on its stage. From our humble beginnings as a species, onward, this has been true. Many anthropologists attribute the extinction of most of the planet's megafauna to the voracious appetite of early, tribal man. As an agriculturalist, too, man's influence has been immense. In his history New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, Charles Mann suggests that the ecological state of America's generally treeless prairie lands was largely wrought by human hand.

Indian fire had its greatest impact in the middle of the continent, which Native Americans transformed into a prodigious game farm. Native Americans burned the Great Plains and Midwest prairies so much and so often that they increased their extent; in all probability, a substantial portion of the giant grassland celebrated by cowboys was established and maintained by the people who arrived there first. 'When Lewis and Clark headed west from [St. Louis],' wrote ethologist Dale Lott, 'they were exploring not a wilderness but a vast pasture managed by and for Native Americans.'

Do you enjoy having your domesticated dog around the house? Well, you have man's "footprint" to thank for that, unless, of course, you'd prefer a wolf or dingo to snap at you when you get home in the evening. How about that tasty, Cavendish banana? Do you think that it just "happened" like that and is not the result of generation after generation of selective breeding choices? (Then again, maybe that wasn't the best selective breeding choice to make...) These are a small selection of the seemingly infinite examples of man's meddling in the natural world, and if that toll was fully tallied I imagine there would be few who would declare it all a big mistake. After all, you DO like being here, don't you, and would any of us be here if our species and our planet hadn't evolved the way it did, human traces and all?

The point is that humans, like every other organism on the planet, DO leave traces. Evolution wouldn't occur if they - we - didn't. Moles dig tunnels, ants build anthills, geese leave putrid crap all over nice lawns, and people, well, for better or worse, people build civilization. Now I am not suggesting that Howard Roark and Ayn Rand had it right when they envisioned a world utterly dominated and crafted by man's self-righteous and ordained hand (I wish she was alive today to defend her obnoxious hypothesis that free markets would create a utopian, steel and stem paradise), but I am advocating the idea that maybe, just maybe, its ok to shit in the woods.

I think it is worth remembering that, much as our systematic and delineating brains would like it to be, the planet Earth is not merely the sum of its ecological parts. It is, rather, something greater. The Earth is a Gaia-sphere, a giant and massively complex single entity within which we are but one busy and active constituent part. Like the moles, ants, and geese, our activities help shape the current state of that entity, and thank goodness! How boring would existence be if, from our supposed glass cage, we could learn all about our universe and its inner workings but be prevented from participating in any portion of it? And yet, that is the philosophical ideal that Leave No Trace aspires to.

Back here in the less philosophical, real world, I do realize that I am making a mountain out of an, *ahem*, molehill. It would be nice, though, if a transformative philosophical change could spread through humanity and it could be realized that the plastic bottle shouldn't just be kept out of the wild areas; it should be kept out of everywhere. Once it is made, after all, its here, and whether it finds its way to a landfill, a recycling center, or the back country of Yellowstone, it still is stuck here on Earth and isn't going anywhere. If Gaia had a face I doubt it would be smiling more broadly at the "conscientious" individual who drops the Cliff bar wrapper in the garbage can instead of on the hiking trail. I think that smile would probably be reserved for the one who never purchases a plastic-wrapped snack bar in the first place.

Despite all of the government training I was subjected to I never was able to integrate Leave No Trace ideals into my understanding of ecological and evolutionary processes. As I worked on trails and rivers in Montana, I knew perfectly well that the 100% biodegradable apple core I was tossing over my shoulder was non-native to the area. I knew that I, like countless organisms before me, was possibly contributing to what BLM officials considered the dangerous practice of ecosystem cross-pollination. But I also recalled that the common New England earthworm was introduced to that area by English colonists who brought potted fruit trees with them, and that despite radically changing New England's ecosystems, all somehow, magically, seemed to be well on that habitat's evolutionary front. The Gaia-sphere evolves over time, and as a part of that system it is natural and proper that we, too, should play a role in that evolution. That thought should make us all feel a little bit better about leaving a trace of last night's dinner behind us, in the woods.

The most important scientific revolutions all include, as their only common feature, the dethronement of human arrogance from one pedestal after another of previous convictions about our centrality in the cosmos.

-Stephen Jay Gould

Follow The Leader

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. (Anonymous)

• What is happening right now in the United States?
• What has happened to the gap between wealthy and poor over the past 50 years?
• How have the population percentage shares of those two groups changed?
• What has happened to fiscal regulation in the U.S. over the past 20 years?
• What is happening with taxpayer money right now? Where is it going? Who is getting it?

The quote mentioned is often paired with the following:

Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage. (Henning W. Prentis, Jr.)

If any credence can be given to this statement, where might the current population of the U.S. fall in this sequence today? Questions to answer a question:

• How is your living arrangement secured? Could you create shelter on your own if you had to?
• How is your food procured? Could you acquire food on your own, if you had to?
• Where do your "tools" and other devices come from? Could you make or mend them on your own?
• Are you largely dependent on systems you cannot control for your basic means of survival?

Many Americans, myself included, should consider the degree to which they are dependent on the government and the social framework for the basics of survival. For many Americans, the dependence is absolute, meaning that if that framework were taken away, they would be unable to keep themselves alive. They would die from an inability to care for themselves, unable to produce their own food, shelter, or health care. They would die from a lack of independence. The frightful part of this is not that we might find our safety net taken away, but rather that the THREAT of its loss will be used against us. This is why "bondage" follows "dependence" in what has been called the "fatal sequence." There is no need to take away the system that provides society's basic necessities. Merely threaten to, and fear, driven by lack of knowledge of how to care for itself, will drive society into the arms of whomever is holding the reins. As the anonymous quote suggests, this is a recipe for dictatorship.

Is America NOT in a phase of population dependency? Is money NOT, at this very moment, being shuffled from the taxpayer (our treasury) to the highest tier of the wealthy class at breakneck speed? Are the wealthiest NOT those with the most influence in the government?

During the Great Depression, with a massive loss of employment, the basic necessities provided by the socio-economic framework began to dry up. Thankfully, this was off-set, in large part, by the fact that the American people were still fairly independent. They had not forgotten how to grow food, nor how to preserve it for hard winters. They had not forgotten how to mend clothes (rather than simply buying new ones). They still had quality tools and machines, made by craftsmen, to last, not quick-to-break devices, made by assembly lines, made to be replaced (at maximum profit to the producer). In short, the people still had a modicum of independence, and it was enough to see them through the failure phase of the modern, cyclical, monetary system without widespread social unrest (and the sort of military rule that inevitably is a response to it).

What would happen, today, if the Great Depression revisited us? Let me ask this another way: what would the mid-western housewife, with four young children, do when the Multi-Mart stopped stocking the shelves with boxes of candy-cereals, or when the refrigerators stopped being filled with microwavable, TV dinners? Would she go out and start foraging? Would she miraculously produce a garden in her backyard that could feed her husband, her ravenous kids, and herself? Or would she do whatever her government asked her to so long as it handed her another meal?

Is this not the equation that leads to abject tyranny? Do we fail to see the forest for the trees? How are we missing the historical parallels?

Some, such as the self-penned "Old Horseman", have suggested dire ends for we of the new-gilded age. Conspiracy theory? Sure, but what phase of world history leads to the belief that the powerful have not conspired against those without power? There are myriad examples of MOMENTARY altruism, such as the formation of groups like the Red Cross, but the tale of humanity is not told by a single chapter. Rather, the entirety of the novel must be examined. Within it, there is a narrative line that leads in a direction, and though it may zig and zag, occasionally, as the hearts and minds of men sway, it appears, inexorably, to push toward one end: with an increase in population and modernization comes an increase in systems of control and a decrease in individual autonomy. Human lives are short, though. This, coupled with our need to learn mostly from experience rather than analogy, causes us not to feel the extent to which the autonomy of the human-animal has been revoked by consolidation and transformation of our own social framework. We feel no more imprisoned than the chimpanzee that is born in a zoo. Knowing only the cage, he, and we, are largely unaware of the world outside the bars. I have been to the zoo, though, and seen the ape stare across the moat of his enclosure. Likewise have I read from and spoken to some few who have imagined a cage with bars fewer, with moats more distant. The first step to living in such places is to see the cage and understand that it is growing smaller. We must see not only the cage, but also those who profit from keeping us all in it, for even in the smallest cages, certain apes must hold sway over their brethren. One thing is for certain: given our increasing population, our diminishing open land, and the profitability of the cage to its highest ranking denizens (measured in degree of social power), the cage will continue to shrink, a progression made possible by a slow and unending decrease in individual freedoms and autonomy for the general population. As with the board games I played as a boy ("Monopoly" immediately comes to mind, though "Risk" is perhaps most appropriate here), the strong grow stronger and the weak weaker until the game itself is no longer worth playing to its finish, its conclusion already obvious and inevitable.

In the glare of a light

I see a strange kind of sight;

O cages joined to from a star

Each person can't go very far;

All tied to their things

They are netted by their strings,

Free to flutter in memories of their wasted wings.

In the cage

Get me out of the cage!

Outside the cage I see my brother John,

He turns his head so slowly round.

I cry out "Help!" before he can be gone,

And he looks at me without a sound.

Each day we grow closer to the moment at which the game is ostensibly done, a moment that will be marked by a populous so incapable of analytical thought, so indebted to power-run media outlets for information, that concepts of revolt or revolution will be beyond appropriation. How close are we? Look around you. Americans don't even remember how to feed themselves anymore. Instead, they trust the government to provide them with nutrition and dietary guidelines by which to figure out what selection and quantity of food to put in their mouths. We are bereft of the most basic knowledge required for our survival, yet, having been born in the cage, Americans, young and old, do not even see it. Having known naught but bars, they accept them as normalcy. As the moat constricts, what sort of world awaits we cage dwellers?

The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.  (Friedrich Hegel)

An Introduction To The End Of The World (As You Know It)

Winter term at my educational facility is hell (think of an assembly line with people on it, ala The Wall, and then you might start to understand where I work). Who am I kidding? The whole year is hell. Who has time for a blog? Personal opinions? Forget it! Besides, such things are not conducive to the efficiency and productivity of a conditioning engine, which is, in truth, what educational institutions (at least at the pre-college level) are.

The anarchist dream.

But more on my anti-educational views another time. It is enough for now to note that it isn't that I haven't had thoughts in the past five months, but merely that my overlords have provided no time for their expression. This is a bad equation that I move swiftly to remedy, but in the meantime, I'm pressed to fall on older material, and in this case that material is really just informational. The following post is actually an email that I have "at the ready" to send to students that ask for it. During the course of teaching an English class, our discussions inevitably become derailed from matters of foreshadowing or juxtaposition as I try desperately to show students how the plights of the characters they read about are, in fact, their plights too. Connection and relation to literature is all important, and what makes a book a "good" book (in my opinion, at least) is the level of reflection it offers to the reader on themselves and their own surroundings. What do you learn about YOURSELF? Do you, like anarchist-prototype Huckleberry Finn, retreat to the bucolic safety of the raft when the structured decrees of the towns lining the river bank grow too oppressive? Or is it that simply that you wish you had a raft to retreat to? Are you, rather, like Bartleby, stuck in an "office" from which you cannot escape? These sorts of personal revelations are central to the importance of literature, and an approach to literature in this way inevitably brings current events and the social state of affairs into class discussions. Which brings me to the point of this post: the world is falling apart, and when current news has recently been finding its way into our discussions, it has generally been both provoking and controversial. My personal point of view is well known to those who speak often with me, and in summation, it generally is that industrial civilization, as humanity has known it for the past 200 years or so (since the beginning of widespread use of fossil fuels for energy), is at its termination point. Yes, class discussions sometimes cover what is probably more often relegated to Bible-study groups: the civilized world is about to go kaput. As you might imagine, a discussion of this sort has a powerful effect on some students, whose reactions vary from disbelief to downright fear. Because I never have a chance to fully engage the subject with them (which is too voluminous and deeply entrenched in mystery and misinformation to do with any brevity), I wrote the following piece to email them so they might do some educational work for themselves. Now, keep in mind that it is written to a high school student, so if I seem (more) condescending (than usual) .. hah .. it is only because of the "teacher voice" that often takes the stage in teacher/student interaction. Obviously, I'm also covering my tail. To reuse an analogy that I recently offered a colleague, the mostly depersonalized point of view I express is to ward off those parents that hear about the email and might fear that I'm teaching a bit too much evolution and forgetting their cherished doctrine of creationism. Of course, with me, the editorial opinion is never very far away, try as I might to mask it. Restraint is not one of my primary attributes.





Let me give it, in straight-forward fashion, for purposes of full disclosure. I believe that the end of industrialized society is nearly upon us. These stirrings of global economic depression are merely phase one of what is going to be a largely horrific collapse of globalism and what we perceive as technological modernity. All is tied to energy depletion, namely OIL, and I do not agree with the notion that any combination of alternative fuels will stop what some are predicting: a breakdown of global commerce and modern agricultural yields, which will lead to a) unemployment; b) civil unrest; c) starvation; d) a generalized die-off of the human race. I'm not talking extinction, but rather, merely the loss of somewhere in the neighborhood of 2-3 billion human beings. I understand that this number appears to be astronomical, but its subtraction from our current population leaves us in a much more feasibly sustainable position (as a species), and, of course, it will take a good 10-15 years, from right now, for it all to pan out. The spectre of global nuclear war also looms, unfortunately, and is one of the possible paths by which we may travel as energy depletion is followed by massive civil unrest across the "first world" regions of the globe. In either case, be it by war or decline of agricultural yields (or both), the world we have known for the past, exceedingly brief, 200 years, is about to disappear. Imagine a world with a lot less people and a severely reduced level of energy availability, all in 15 years, and then you have what I imagine is our near future.

"Raising the Roof," Amish style, circa 1900 (2020?).

So, finally, the purpose of this post. When I express these opinions to my friends and family, they often brush me off in disbelief, and I imagine a few mutterings of "lunatic" even cross their lips once I am gone. I would like, though, to be able to point to something collected and inclusive where I can say "here, look at all this, and when you are done, if you can still tell me I'm full of it, then fine." The following information is, of course, only a primer. If you devour all of this and want more, feel free to ask.





I think it is vitally important that this sort of information get out into the public realm because the possible severity of the ramifications is too sharp to be ignored, even if some miracle does actually pass in which a massively over-populated globe is allowed to continue in its present condition, far beyond the environmental carrying capacity of Gaia. Without further ado (I am good at further ado'ing, am I not?), here is your beginner's lesson in understanding the soon-to-occur end of industrialized civilization:





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Alright, to begin with, I hope you understand that I am providing a POINT OF VIEW on matters in the wide world. Yes, it is true, I believe that much (though not all) of what you will find on these sites is, in terms of information, truthful. Likewise do I think there are many mainstream, “accepted” news sources on television/radio/internet that are, in fact, disseminating false information in an effort (willfully or not) to keep people ignorant of what is actually happening. I am, unabashedly, a conspiracy theorist. My (admittedly brief) study of 4000 years of human history has led me to believe that humans excel at conspiring against one another and that, in truth, it is the honest man (or organization) that is the rarity.





That said, remember, this is INFORMATION. You have to decide for yourself whether it is true or false, “right” or “wrong” (whatever those two terms actually mean). There is no harm – no harm EVER – in filling your mind with more information. More information helps you to make decisions by giving you data that you did not have before. Whether you choose to think the data is good and integrate it into your thinking or, instead, decide that the data is bunk and throw it out entirely, is up to you. Beware the man that tells you that you should NOT be reading or listening to a certain point of view. Such men fear the tenuous nature of their own position and do not want alternative views potentially endangering it. Such men are tyrants, in their own way, within their own sphere of influence, however large or small. The following is INFORMATION.





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Current Event Sites





http://mikeruppert.blogspot.com/ If there were any site that I would visit regularly, it would be this one. In fact, I do visit it daily. I have kept up with Ruppert’s long history of predictions and valuations of our system and I find them to be eerily on target. Of course, understanding him will take some time. If talking about the “map” gets confusing, I would advise reading this post: http://mikeruppert.blogspot.com/2008/10/understanding-friday-oct.html. Read down to the point of the “Disclaimer” and make sure that, if you really want to know what he is talking about, that you heed it’s advice. Nobody ever said finding out this sort of information would be easy.





http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/BreakingNews.html Indispensable. Another site that I check daily. Loads of current events links are posted here daily (excepting the weekends – guess the webmaster lounges then!).





http://www.ricefarmer.blogspot.com/ Tidbits of good information, links, and interesting commentary often land here.





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Background/Informational Sites





The following are links that, while not loaded with current events, are hugely important as resources for understanding the deeper issues that underlie what is happening globally with the environment, the population, the economy, and more. Some of this information will seem foreign or even ridiculous. As with all things, I suggest you approach these sites with an open, and yet critical, mind. Use your own logic to determine whether or not things seem possible, probable, or even plausible. Do not rely on the judgment of others to dominate your view. Make your own decisions. A failure to do more than parrot the views of others is what I think got us all into this mess in the first place.





http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/ A very good introduction, albeit marginally complex, to what will happen if oil runs out. Also, it includes an explanation of HOW oil will run out. Required reading. Oil (energy) depletion is the lynch pin on which all other human forces on the globe turn, so when you understand this, you can understand many other things that might, otherwise, seem arbitrary.





http://dieoff.org/page125.htm Information about the possibility of a “post-industrial stone age.” This is the idea that if (when?) society collapses, it will never again achieve the level of complexity and technology that it currently has attained. Instead, it will be re-reduced to the stone age. I have some issues with this philosophy, though I think a fair amount of it is on target.





http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100303_eating_oil.html This is a very strong essay – difficult to refute – that explains how a loss of oil will directly become a loss of food, leading to depopulation of the globe.





http://dieoff.org/ A complex and probably confusing site, but full of information and saturated with links to more and more. The “theme” of the site is human depopulation of the globe: when it might happen, how it might happen, how severe it might be, etc.





http://www.poodwaddle.com/clocks3.htm This site is small on information and big on impact. Watch those numbers tick past…





http://anthropik.com/thirty/ The best site I’ve ever seen for outlining the ideas that are central to primitivism, which is the notion that mankind is best (healthiest and happiest) without modern civilization. The proposal is that living as hunter/gatherers is our biological destiny and that any other brand of survival is an attack on our well-being. There are no solutions on how to achieve this here. This is purely informational, that is, to convince of the validity of the cause. Another VERY in-depth site, though this one is quite well organized too. It could take you a very long time to go through it all, and you ought to do it in order.





http://ranprieur.com/essays/saveearth.html This site, on the other hand, offers some solutions. They may not be the ones you want to hear, but there are no real solutions (at least not, that I have seen) in which society, in its current form, is able to continue. The party’s been free for far too long…





http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/ If you feel like just watching something, this is the place to go. There are two, 2-hour documentaries here (make sure that you watch them in order) that you can stream, at low quality, directly through the web page. Alternatively, you could actually buy the DVD through them or bitTorrent .avi versions of the films. If you would like local copies to watch, I have both as .avi files; just bring by a big flash drive sometime. All in all, I would say these movies are essential viewing for people who are willing to consider alternative points of view about the history of America, and even the human race. They are dripping with conspiracy theory. I agree with the majority of the views they present. (Also, if these sorts of documentaries pique your interest, I have many others – though none quite as good as the first Zeitgeist – that I can load onto a flash drive, DVD-ROM, etc.)





http://www.fromthewilderness.com/ This is Mike Ruppert’s old site (prior to starting the blog). The information here is excessive, almost. Start on the left side with “How To Use This Website” and go from there. This one could occupy you for years.





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Lastly, and most importantly, if all of this depresses you and leaves you despondent, come and talk to me. Although it may surprise you, I do not find the majority of this information, which I take mostly as the truth, to be depressing. As with all things, there is good in what may, or will, pass. I promise that I can explain an angle on this that is essentially good, optimistic, and a favorable way of looking at what you will face as young adults, the future generation of the planet.










[A]ccording to the schools, I prove nothing. So be it; — I design but to suggest, and to convince through the suggestion.





-Edgar Allan Poe