Recon

Sunday, April 25, 2010

From My Myspace Blog - How to Save the World and Keep Your Freedom

A lot of people like to make a lot of noise about "Going Green." And I agree with them in some very important ways. This pestilential mudball is the only one we've got, and we need to steward it wisely. But frankly, all these starry eyed punks and jackass guilt ridden suburban moms are going about it the wrong way, and I'm gonna tell you why.

When I was in elementary school, being infected with the cultural AIDS that is political correctness, we were given a simple mantra of "REDUCE, REUSE and RECYCLE." ("Four legs good, two legs bad!") We were told that doing this would lessen our environmental impact, and broadly, I agree with the sentiment. But the emphasis is being applied all wrong across the board.

To be fair, these cute idealist punk grrrls and yuppie suburban housewives are getting up off their asses and doing something. But the problem is they apply those big three principles in the wrong fucking order. They click on their ipods to some bullshit folk music, hum along with it while they put on $100 'fair traded' house slippers, take a green bucket full of plastic water bottles down to the curb, and head back inside before a mosquito bites them or they get a sunburn or some shit, trying to remember if they purchased enough carbon credits to offput their emissions.

Look you assholes, you can't buy your way out of a fucked planet, and you shouldn't be able to buy your way out of your guilt. Paying more for environmentally friendly products and sorting through your garbage isn't going to cut it, not even if your sanctimonious coffee shop rants and poorly worded blog entries change everyone's mind at once. You need to REDUCE and REUSE more than you RECYCLE. And that doesn't mean buying the green soap or making a donation to Al Gore's senate fund. It means serious lifestyle changes-you need to consume less, and make what you have count more. Recycling makes you feel good, but even the most generous formulas say that it consumes nearly as much resources as it saves. If done right, green living (and survivalism, for that matter) should save you money in the long run. In this clusterfuck economy, it only makes good sense.

And don't get me started on passing bullshit laws based on pseudoscience that force people into doing things that have no practical effect. Controlling your neighbors isn't the answer; persuading them is. Otherwise making them buy the right dish soap is just a drop in the bucket.

But pointing out the problem is easy. What's the answer?

Self sufficiency, of course.

I'm finding the intersection of survivalism and enviornmentalism to be particularly fascinating. 'Sustainable living' is the new buzzword in the (real) green movement; it is an attempt to get people to provide for themselves with what they have. Surprisingly-or perhaps not-survivalism as it is practiced by the retreat types is geared towards the same effect-making what you have keep you going. Sorry to bust your stereotypes, but survivalism isn't a bunch of pasty ass white men crawling around in the brush with fatigues anymore. If you are serious about surviving the end of the world, you need to be able to provide everything you want locally. It's not about making sure that you die of old age; it's about making sure your kids and grandkids do the same.

Around the country, small communes ('gulches') are popping up everywhere, growing their own food, reloading their own ammo, smoking homegrown weed and fishing at sunset. They don't ask anybody for shit, they don't impose their views on anybody, they sure as hell don't go around inhaling their own smug farts and telling everybody that can't afford a hybrid that they are the problem. They just do their own thing, building a sustainable culture and community impervious to such evils as pollution, totallitarianism, taxation and corporate culture. The challenges are manifest, but so far it seems to be working for them.

Getting a mass of sheep to get off the corporate tit and say 'I'm going to grow my own food, make my own clothes, and lessen my environmental impact by consuming only the resources I need' is damn near impossible. Frankly it's going to take a massive, Captain Trips population reduction to really make it work for everybody. But anyone who is serious about helping the environment-and you should be, until we master planet colonization at least-needs to think about a radical lifestyle change.

Anything else is just jerking off.

2 comments:

  1. Just found your blog today, I must say you're already one of my new favorites. Quite frankly most of the other pro-gun/anti authoritarian/survivalist/etc. blogs are just too goddamn stuffy and it gets old when they don't post about anything else.

    Keep up the good work.

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