Joe Bageant offers what I consider to be a truly spiritual perspective on what's going on

which, as i sit in an rv park on the monterey peninsula on sunday morning, enjoying one of the most beautiful places on earth, seems to be a particularly appropriate thing to share...

from "there ain't no escape from collapse"...

I have come to think the price of admission anywhere in the world, (except in America and Europe, where enough dough will get your ass kissed in any circles) is service to others. We have been indoctrinated by an earth devouring capitalist system to believe otherwise. Believe that giving only depletes. And that mankind and civilization came about through kings and warriors and "great men." But the essential glue of man the social animal has always been on cooperation and sharing. That an endless stream of elite thieves have always managed to steal the fruits of that cooperation does not matter. And the best that is in man still rests on the same fundamentals -- cooperation for the greater good of all.

So I would suggest that in planning for the future, you first spend many days pondering the question: How can I best go about giving up the world as I have known it -- which, after all, is the root of our pain and of our catastrophe -- and serve others every day and in as many ways large and small as possible. In other words, sacrifice. In truth, the sacrifice will not be sacrifice, but liberation, because Americans are buried under so much material shit and petty notions as to entitlement, that shedding such things is a blessing. A gift.

From that vantage point you can "watch the collapse" while you help put up a pole barn in Oregon or make love in a Patagonian mountain shack after a hard day of well digging, or smoke a joint in utter relaxation after rescuing orphans from the streets of Guadalajara. And chances are that the collapse of the empire will not much cross your mind.

There is no escape, but there is freedom. And if our fellow Americans long ago forgot that, well, one can still get there alone.

But it's not for the faint of heart.

it's taken me a very long time to come to my present frame of mind but, now that i'm here, i realize that the journey has been well worth it and i wouldn't trade one tiny, painful piece of it, not for anything... i'm both pleased and comforted to see a fellow human being who is traveling what i consider to be a very similar spiritual road... good on joe bageant...

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