Don's blog

Harvest time

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:21:54 -0800

Henry Ford, for all his faults, once stated that he needed to pay his workers enough that they would be able to buy the cars they manufactured. I guess globalists thought such laws don’t apply when you ship the jobs to a foreign land.

Now I hear people say that a cheaper dollar will make American products more competitive to foreign buyers. Who exactly is going to buy these “cheaper” American goods? Some Chinese guy earning $2 a day? Now out of a job because there’s an ongoing depression in the United States?

Rather than bring the rest of the world’s workers up to some sort of decent living standard, global financial players and manufactuers raced toward the lowest common denominator: workers earning slave wages, receiving no benefits, toiling in unsafe conditions, exploited to produce a bunch of cheap disposable products then sold in our big box stores.

Then one day a new reality hit us right between the eyes; not everyone can have a job sitting on his ass, doing nothing. Our own economy imploded.

So now we’re going to devalue the dollar and start producing something to sell once again. That’s the plan.

Who are your going to sell to? Americans don’t have jobs. Meaning they can’t buy things. And those poor bastards that have been making our goods overseas have no money, (aside from a few that became fabulously wealthy, selling out their own and they can't eat much).

Better yet, what’s going to happen when the next leg of this collapse cuts off the supply of that cheap made shit, for which there are no replacement parts, or destruction of the dollar raises the price of that cheap made shit to the level of unaffordability? We already tore down and hauled off all our goddamned factories, people.

I recently read that the United States now has the greatest disparity between rich and poor of any country on earth. I have no way of verifying such a statement, but I find the fact that’s even plausible shocking and reprehensible.

Time to reap what we’ve sown.

Denninger on China and free trade

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:49:36 -0800

Read and weep.

A tale of two turkeys

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:10:12 -0800

Consider two turkeys. One is a wild turkey, part of a flock that lives in our pecan bottom along the banks of the Guadalupe River. She finds food, shelter, water, protection from predators and all the other things she needs to survive in her environment.

The second turkey lives across the road, not more than a mile from the first, in a house full of domestic turkeys being fattened for market. This turkey has a roof over her head, climate controlled air, is never too hot, never too cold. Food and water is automatically dispensed at all hours of the day and night for her consumption. The walls keep predators at bay.

One day a storm comes along and knocks down the house that the second turkey lives in. She and the rest are now out in the world, freed from their confines and a certain date with death in a slaughter house.

But the second turkey will die along with all or nearly all the rest of her kind in a place where everything she needs is there for the taking.

The average American citizen is a whole lot like that second turkey. They've grown up in a sheltered environment and haven't a clue how to make it in the real world.

And the storm is coming. Exactly when, I don't know. But it will come.

If you're one of those caged birds, now might be a good time to make friends with one of your wild cousins and begin to learn a thing or two about the planet where you live: where your food comes from, how to recognize predators, shelter, clothe and defend yourself. You need to lose some weight, strengthen your body, and break your addictions or you're not going to survive.

New blog

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 05:57:43 -0800

I've created a new blog site. A first for me.

Not much there at the moment, but there will be as time goes by, good Lord willing.

Ryan Bingham plays Whitewater

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 09:18:00 -0800

A few weeks ago, I watched Ryan Bingham play Whitewater Ampitheater near New Braunfels. General admission tickets were $10, preferred seating tickets $20. I opted for preferred seating.

When we arrived, the crowd was much smaller than I anticipated. A bouncer checked our wristbands and let us into a small roped-off pen of sorts near the stage. We took our seats and watched as Johnny Burke performed an opening set. I remember the days when Johnny hustled empty beer bottles at Gruene Hall. Somewhere along the line, he grew into a handsome young man.

Then Sean McConnell took the stage. The crowd began to swell. By the time Sean finished his set, a growing mass of people strained at the ropes that kept them at bay. I surveyed the group of people in the preferred seating area. Nearly all of us were ageing boomers. Only half the seats were taken; there may have been fifty of us within the ropes; the rest of the chairs remained empty. The rows were well-spaced, providing ample room for us to stretch our legs. Most of the people behind the ropes were young, Ryan’s age or younger, and I’d guess there were a thousand or more of these. They stood, packed tightly together, vying for a place where they could see their favorite son.

Bouncers, also young men, held their ground as their own complained. I’m sure they weren’t liking their job much at that particular hour.

I guess a few members of the throng managed to get word to Ryan. Before Ryan took the stage, one of the bouncers informed us that when Sean finished playing, they were going to remove the empty seats and consolidate the rest near the left hand side of the stage. We were told this was done at Ryan’s request.

We got up and the chairs were moved. The crowd moved in and packed the space around the stage. As Ryan began to perform the masses also occuppied the ground in front of our seats. So those of us in preferred seating were forced to stand if we wanted to see the show. Then the dam burst and people began filling spaces between the chairs. The bouncers gave up. Some stood on the chairs to get a better view. By this time, preferred seating began to resemble the mosh pit. Not quite, but almost.

A woman about my age collared a bouncer. Her words, spoken in heated tone: I paid for preferred seating. I want my money back. Shortly thereafter, employees of the venue arrived with buckets of beer and offerred everyone that had paid for preferred seating a free beer. We were told Ryan bought the round.

I was doing my best to keep Leah from going off, which becomes impossible at a certain point. I may be bigger and stronger, but she can be a whole lot meaner; I may beat your ass and break a few bones; Leah will kill you and mutilate the corpse when she's done.

Then a pretty but petite and drunk young woman crawled into the chair directly in front of me. By the grace of God, she didn’t stay there but a moment. She hasn’t a clue how close she came to seeing what's beyond the great divide. To Leah’s credit, she exercised what for her I’d call extraordinary restraint. Since I don’t drink, I gave Leah my free beer, and offerred a prayer of thanks.

I understand why the woman complained, but I don’t feel the least bit sorry for her. She suffers a sense of entitlement and had preferred seating because she had money to buy it. And the young people behind the ropes didn’t. She has a bank account and savings. Perhaps a job. They have neither. I know without asking how she earned her money. I was there too.

But I also understand why Ryan did what he did. He understands first of all who his audience is—primarily people his own age or younger. And he understands what it’s like not to have a job, not to have money, not to have a seat at the feast. To a degree, Ryan knows how those of my generation and that of his own “earn” the money we have. (Ryan is 28, making him a late Gen-Xer.)

I talked to Leah about the incident after the show. She remained pissed off and told me she planned to send a complaint to Whitewater management. I tried to explain Ryan’s point of view.

But I didn’t steal what I have or screw anyone out of their money, Leah said.

Perhaps not. Leah worked at a job and played by the rules all of her life. But the stealing was done on her behalf, and for the rest of us, even those that didn't actively or willingly participate. And the scam is up, or at least it will be once the rest of the world comes to their senses. For 25 years now, three generations of Americans have made a living off of the efforts of generations past and future and the sweat of foreigners.

Somewhere in this is a lesson.

Perhaps, if nothing else, this incident serves as a model of what’s to come.

We handed (and continued to hand) the bill for our excesses to others, first to our ancestors, then to foreign laborers and now to our decendants. The time will come when our children send the bill back to us, unpaid, with the words fuck you scrawled across the page in blood and shit.

And I will understand why.

You done good, Ryan.

As for Whitewater, consider the possibility that the mosh pit is not preferred seating the next time you schedule Bingham.

Dustin Welch and Sean McConnell

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:52:44 -0800

I debated whether I should go see Dustin Welch and Sean McConnell play tonight at Sam's Burger Joint in San Antonio.

Dustin, I've written about; Sean, I recently discovered at Ryan Bingham's last foray through these parts. The dude is impressive. I count Dustin and Sean among the best young guns in the business; getting both for one ticket near irresistible.

But the show does fall on Sabbath eve and I don't like being out at that hour. Never can tell what might happen to a fellow. So KNBT announces two free tickets to the fifth caller this morning to the fifth caller. I decide. If I win, I'm going.

I won.

Hope this doesn't prove like winning Anton Chigurh's coin toss.

Anyone in the area want to join us, feel free. You'll not find a better show elsewhere.

Sabbath eve, November 6, 2009

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:05:27 -0800

Sean Paul Kelly asked a number of Agonist readers to predict what the world would look like in 30 years. I am hesitant to comply. For me, to predict events in the future is to prophesy. To prophesy incorrectly makes one a false prophet. So I am very cautious with even the simplest statements regarding the future.

I rarely say I will do anything tomorrow without adding, good Lord willing, as a qualifier.

To be honest, I have had mental images, glimpses if you will, of events I think may be part of this country’s future and they are quite scary. I don’t know if these images are divinely inspired or just creations of my own mind.

Thoughts I’ve had are disjointed and full of gaps, like looking through a key hole that remains blocked most of the time.

I interact routinely with people that claim insight into our future or who see things the rest of us don’t, hear voices the rest of us can’t. Many of these people are deemed crazy by the majority, as I am sure were prophets and seers of old. I am influenced by what they say, think and do.

I read prophetic writings almost complusively and have only recently read a book that altered the way I understand history and therefore our future: The fourth turning, by Strauss and Howe.

Before I start, a disclaimer: I am not predicting the future or offering much in the way of anything original here. Instead, I am interpreting what others have prophesied after trying to reconcile their predictions to the world in which I live. This is a narrow glimpse: it’d take a library full of books to consider all possibilities that have coursed through my head since the late 1970’s when I began studying this subject in earnest (and believe it or not, this has been an ongoing concern of mine since that time). I will provide very little in the way of detail, because to put it simply, I don’t know what’s going to happen.

Stauss and Howe will tell you that history repeats itself, or comes near doing so in patterns resembling seasons of a year. Each season lasts roughly twenty years (some more, some less) and four seasons complete a saeculum.

The firt season, always following a period of crisis, is called the high, and corresponds with the spring of a year. Those born into this time are referred to as Prophets. In this particular saeculum, that’d be boomers, of which I am part (born 1943 – 1960. I’m doing this from memory as I gave the book to my dad after reading it and no longer have a copy.)

The second season is called the awakening; those born into this period are referred to as Nomads. Current nomads are Gen – Xers (born 1961 – 1981). This season corresponds with summer.

The third period is the unraveling. People born in the fall season are referred to as part of the Hero generation. This because they will become young adults during the fourth and last season – the crisis or winter season. Children born during the crisis are referred to as Artists. Today’s heroes are called Millenials. We’ve yet to come up with a name for the next crops of artists, the majority of which probably have not been born. For what it’s worth, my dad is part of the previous generation of artists, referred to as the Silent generation (born 1923 – 1942).

It took a book or several of them for Strauss and Howe to describe the patterns that define our history so I won’t rewrite what they suggest. Read the book. Suffice it to say that I am convinced. Seasonal patterns presented are similar to those an individual human goes through: birth, young adulthood, maturation, decline, and of course ultimately death (and rebirth, if you will). If you live a full life expectancy you will likely die in a time similar to that in which you are born.

Each crisis period since the founding of this country and for centuries before dating back to the Roman Empire and even before ended in a major war. The last three crisis periods here in the United States culminated respectively with the Revoltionary war, the Civil War, and World War II. In each case, the hero generation bore the brunt of fighting those wars. Notice that each of these occurred 80 years apart and came near the end of a twenty year economic, spiritual and moral collapse. Also note that each successive war was larger and more destructive in nature than the last. (Also notice that the stock market collapsed in 1929 and were are now living in 2009, eighties years later.) We just recently entered a period of crisis.

Here’s where I depart from Strauss and Howe’s predictions. I see these repetitive cycles like a harmonic vibration of sorts. Each wave of movement back and forth progressively gets larger and more powerful. Have you ever seen video of wind whipping a suspension bridge back and forth, up and down? If you have, you know at some point the structure fails and flies to pieces.

And that is what happens to empires as well. They survive a number of cycles but at some point a crisis period becomes so severe that they are broken to pieces, relegated to history. So not only are there saeculums, but also larger groups of saeculums, or epochs *probably not the word Strauss and Howe would use* that define history and denote the end and the beginning of a new era.

I don’t know if America, or the world at large survives the current crisis period in a form that would be recognizable to someone born antyime during the last century. Of course, each generation of prophets along the way asked the same questions and considered the same possibilities. Can we, will we survive this turbulent time?

Just because we survived three previous periods of crisis, doesn’t mean we survive the next.

Never before have > 6 billion people inhabited the earth. Not even close. So you can’t say that just because humans have never before affected the climate, we aren’t doing so now. In less than 100 years we have consumed half the known supply of extractable oil from the earth, oil that probably took millions of years to form. We’ve cut down trees, paved over swamps, ripped open land and allowed topsoil to erode. Balls of tar and plastic float in our oceans; coral reefs die, ice caps melt, species disappear.

Never before have we been so dependant on machinery, most of which is powered directly or indirectly by fossil fuels. Never before has such a large percentage of our population been so far removed from the land that feeds them. Never before has a single farmer fed some many others.

Naseem Taleb says the larger and more complex a system, the more redundancies that are built into that system, the less likely the system is to fail. But… When it does fail, (and it will), the greater the consequences of that failure.

Pride comes before destruction. The more you tell me how we can or won’t fail, the more I am convinced we must. We (not just the US, but modern man as a whole) built something approximating the tower of babel. It must be destroyed in order to save the planet.

There are some, the most evil among us, Malthusians also, but of a much more radical strain than I, that see the same things I see and decide they will engineer the collapse to the favor of their own based on race, religion, region, class, gender etc. They say, if it’s them or us, it’s going to be them and then they proceed to make it happen. Bush, Cheney, Gore and even your boy Obama are counted among them. Worse than these lie ahead.

It’s not that there aren’t non-violent fixes out there, it’s that they won’t be employed.

It will not be geologic constraints of peak oil that seals our fate, nor will climate change get us, although either of these in time presents grave threats. It will be the anticipation of these events and the reactions of those in power that bring about the worst disasters this world has seen.

Plans for the destruction of others will backfire. We will fall victim to devices of our own construction. We are entering a time of great upheaval: wars, famine, disease and natural disasters unparalleled in the history of this planet are soon to come if I don't miss my guess.

I’d say more, but it’d take a book. More than a book. And I don't have the time or space to do that here.

But take heart. The old must pass away so the new can rise. If something isn’t done to destroy civilization as we now practice it, the planet will be destroyed. And I don’t think that’s going to happen.

You see, in the end, I am an optimist.

My guess: Thirty years from now, the United States of America will have collapsed. The world’s population will number less than 2 billion. I don’t expect to be one of them. But you never know.

And the planet will begin to heal itself.

Collapse (the movie)

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:39:13 -0800

Opens today.

NY Times review.

Ryan Bingham played on the Letterman show last night

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:20:26 -0800

In case you missed it, video after the jump.

Michael Hudson

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:51:02 -0800

Educate yourself.

Ruppert on 9-11 " truthers"

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:24:35 -0800

Mike Ruppert is distancing himself (or trying anyway) from the 9-11 "truth movement", despite the fact that he wrote a book (Crossing the Rubicon) that laid out a scenario of means, motive and opportunity that points in the direction of a false flag event.

I understand his position. And I am glad to see him do this. We've more important matters at hand. Here. Now.

While we're at it, I'm distancing myself from the legalize drugs so we can all get high and save the economy movement.

Audit the fed bill gutted

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 05:10:39 -0800

Damn these guys are good. At fucking us over, that is. Remember when the public rose up and rejected the TARP bail-out? Congressmen were flooded with calls, did their duty and voted against the bill. Then the propoganda machine went to work. A few meaningless concessions were made, the bill was repackaged and passed.

Not only are you going to eat shit, you're going to like eating shit. Got it?

Now it appears Ron Paul's audit the fed bill is doomed to similar fate. Congress can't ignore public outcry for tranparency so they're busy removing teeth from the bill. They'll pass some meaningless drivel that allows the powers that be to continue fucking us over and claim victory on behalf of the American public.

Ain't democracy wonderful?

Manuel's vision

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 14:04:07 -0700

Earlier this week, Ed Vulliamy of the Guardian came up for air after a number of months of immersion in the Mexican border scene. Julian Cardona, a mutual friend, suggested that he visit me. I suppose Ed figured I might provide additional insight into the murky world of Mexican gangs, violence and drugs, but he knows more details about the current wave of madness than I would. And, this is a subject of which I am tired of addressing. Drugs, violence and the rest of that crap are symptoms of the disease, rather than the cause, although at some point all of these contribute to each other in a seemingly endless feedback loop. The drug trade doesn't exist in a vaccuum.

Instead, Ed found me doing what I now do: farming, ranching, writing, contemplating on and preparing for the collapse of the country where I reside.

Before you relegate me to the doomsday shit pile and hit the X in the upper right corner of your computer, allow me a brief explanation. Collapse can but doesn’t necessarily mean total destruction. When the USSR collapsed, homes weren’t leveled; there was no instantaneous annihilation of people. It was the government and the economy that collapsed; the people were left to continue muddling along through a new and different world.

I handed Ed a copy of Ruminations from the garden and he devoured the book in short order. Then I took him out into our fields and found Abraham and Manuel gathering and burning fallen pecan limbs in anticipation of what I hope will be a meager native pecan harvest. Both Abraham and Manuel appear in the book. I figured meeting them makes the book real to Ed.

Abraham and Manuel, for those that haven’t read my book, see and hear things the rest of us can’t. I accept this at face value. Neither has anything to gain by sharing what they see and hear; both in fact open themselves up instead to possible derision and or villification by doing so. I consider the possibility that they commune with or are aware of spirits or beings which I can’t or don’t see, and I also consider the possibility that their minds generate these visions. A psychatrist would say they exhibit symptoms of schizophrenia.

Ed speaks some Spanish and something approximating the English I speak. Both Manuel and Abraham speak Spanish and some English. So Ed and the men conversed back and forth and I added clarifications in the language of one or the other when I detected that one hadn’t fully understood the other.

When I told Manuel that Ed was a writer, Manuel suggested that Ed should write down what he had to say, which, of course, I have been doing for some time now. Then Manuel began to share a vision he recently received.

Manuel said a time would come and soon, when highways are lined with people, wandering aimlessly. Their clothes will be worn and tattered. Those that try to help them will be unable to do so. They’ll be hungry, yet refuse food. Like Zombies, damaged somehow.

I have a brother, Bill, that told me he had seen a similar vision a few years back. He called them the wanderers.

Before you discount what Manuel told Ed or my brother Bill told me, consider this. In or about 2004, Manuel told me he had seen a vision. Birds in a huge cyclone shaped funnel, reaching up into the sky with the light of the sun shining through.

In 2006, while I was writing Ruminations from the Garden, for some yet unexplained reason, an abundant number of hawks and eagles gathered in the pastures near our farm and stayed for week or so. They numbered in the thousands. One day, as I was driving back from Gonzales, the whole lot formed a tornado-like swirling cloud of birds that reached as high into the air as the eye can see and the sun shined down through them.

And that is a fact.

America's soul is lost. The saga of Lolo

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:51:17 -0700

I came across an article via Matt Savinar's Peak Oil breaking news page called America's soul is lost. For those that say capitalism is dead. Things are going to get one hell of a lot uglier before the final throes. And I shudder to think about what waits on the other side. Here's a little anecdote closer to home, from my diary.

The Saga of Lolo

October 26, 2009. Once again I have failed to stay current on this diary of sorts. Today’s a Monday. It’s raining again. We got about 3,000 bales of good horse quality hay cut, baled and stacked in the barn between waves of rain. But I have fifty acres of hay grazer on the ground here at Belmont and today is the second rain we’ve had since we got it cut. I also have coastal grass cut down at Gonzales and grass on the ground at Seguin and all of it is soaking wet.

Four horses stand in a trap with no shelter, rumps to the cool north wind. Fifty degrees isn’t cold to a horse, but fifty degrees with wet and wind is cold to just about any warm blooded mammal. I need to build a walk-in shelter. I have stalls I could put them in but the forecast calls for clear weather by morning, so they’ll just have to tough it out. As it stands the cows have access to the one small shelter available and this is where I milk Smiley. There’s no good way to allow access to the horse and the cows at the same time and I’m not inclined to sit out in cold wet weather while milking a cow. I don’t think most people want to drink milk mixed with brown water dripped from a cow's hide. I know I don’t.

continue reading after the jump

I got a call from Lolo. He’s looking for work again. Tyson’s contract chicken ccontractor got in trouble with the IRS and was arrested. He went to jail owing Lolo and the rest of the chicken catchers he employed $1,500 apiece. But the man was a private contractor and Tyson wasn’t the only company that he provided services to.

So Tyson informed Lolo and the men they would not pay their back wages—those are the responsibility of the man in jail; he got paid; they didn’t. The men also picked up chickens for a Tyson rival, Holmes Food, so to be fair to Tyson, not all the money owed benefitted their cause. That’s not much in the way of consolation for those that got fucked out of their wages. Tyson did however rehire the men to continue catching chickens until another contractor could be found. That arrangement lasted a little over a month.

Last week, Tyson found another contractor; Lolo and the rest were once again laid off. I asked Lolo why he didn’t seek employment with the new contractor. He tells me that the previous contractor paid the men $215 per thousand birds. The new guy will pay $180 per thousand chickens.

$215 per thousand was a step down from what Tyson originally paid, before the first contractor showed up. I guess this globalization thing is working as planned. Soon all workers will be earning third world wages with no benefits.

Oddly enough, had not Lolo continued to work during this period of upheaval, he’d qualify for unemployment insurance. Now, he doesn’t. So he joins the ranks of 7,000 Americans that lose unemployment benefits each and every day and are no longer counted as being unemployed by the oft quoted official unemployment statistic.

Green shoots, you say?

Geting old is not for sissies

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:27:22 -0700

I have free weights, a squat rack and a bench press in a stall of a horse barn near my house. As recently as five years ago, I competed in powerlifting competitions. But I haven’t lifted weights with any regularity in the five years since and haven't lifted a barbell at all in over two years. We have a mirror in the house, now that we got moved in, and I made the mistake of looking at a reflection of my naked ass the other day. Not a pretty site, I’ll assure you.

And then a couple of hands had a throw down the other day and I got to thinking the day might come, once again, when I’m faced with a physical confrontation. I’m of the school of thought that being physically prepared for conflict is in and of itself a deterrent to getting in fights. I don’t want to be in a fight; sometimes fights find me.

I also read a comment about how repetitive manual labor can break a man down. When you work, you do things the easiest way possible, often with limited range of movement. Some sort of full range exercise actually helps keep a body strong and healthy and can help prevent injury, if nothing else during slack times.

If all of that isn’t enough, my brother Kyle has been training with weights and I’m sure he can now kick my ass. He looks much better than he did the last time I saw him some six months ago. He suggested I go to the gym with him. Not a fucking prayer. Not yet, anyway.

So today I loaded some weight on the bar. I’m writing about it and making the record public to shame myself into continuing with at least a couple times a week program. Here’s the numbers: I did three sets of five reps of full range squats with 205 pounds after a warm up. Three sets of five reps on the bench press, also with 205 pounds after a warm up. And three sets of pull ups for 5 reps. The first set of each exercise felt heavy as hell. My head felt like it was going to explode on the squats. By the third set, I felt a little better as I remembered how to concentrate my strength. I may not be able to walk tomorrow.

These numbers might sound OK for a 52 year old man and it would be worse in my case if my job didn’t require a certain amount of physical exertion. Less than five years ago, I routinely worked out with 405 pounds for sets of five squats and could do 455 for five reps at maximal effort, did 315 pounds for sets of five on the bench press and could easily do multiple sets of ten pull ups at a body weight of 230 pounds. I dead lifted 584 pounds and placed second in the state of Texas in a statewide powerlifting competition for my age and weight class (220 pound class after cutting weight). I won a state-wide drug free event.

Today I weigh 210 pounds, not all solid. I don’t have the secure foundation I once had. I know that in the end, I will lose this battle and get weak, but I hope to fight the condition as long as possible.

Vanity? Probably. But Moses climbed a mountain when he was 80, or so the story goes.