Anyone can trade for what they want but only fools trade for what they need Store fed store owned Transport people not food If the only fix is a big fix then there is no fix Too big to fail, too big to fix, too big to care So few then so many our ways, so many now so few our ways From jungle to zoo Peter Hoag Power is the art of distracting attention

Kia Ora and welcum 2 mi site! If u r iritated by poor or fonetic spelin ven u shrd leve now. Vis site is stil unda construction Here you will find a misalaneous collection of essays and bumber stickers. I can be contacted at email: don@kiwibog.com Tribalhood Community for our times Don Fraser                      pir8don@gmail.com November 2009 Perhaps an answer to Daniel Quinn’s challenge “not new programs under the old vision but a new vision without programs” All over there are inspiring people doing inspiring things. For the bulk of us though, our daily existence sucks all our energy. We know we are too many, we know our environment is buckling under the strain. Whether we separate our rubbish and buy or vote green we are aware that ours is a largely token effort, unable to influence even the increasing complexities of our own lives. Let alone save the planet. Perhaps like me some of your earliest memories relate to products from stores. I've known no other way of feeding myself, although gardens, hunting and fishing have made their contributions. If stores no longer had food or I money, mine would be a very bleak future, if any. I expect that those living from their immediate local environments would regard as insane anyone who might rely on strangers for their basic needs. My ancestors must have none-the-less become conditioned to the idea. It obviously worked so well for them that they had no hesitation in passing it on to me without even drawing it to my attention. From my ancestors’ villages and towns grew cities, institutions and governments. These seemed the appropriate response to our ever increasing numbers made possible by agricultural surpluses. Indeed it was agriculture that made settlement possible in the first place. The needs of our elderly, our sick and our infirmed all have become the province of systems. Similarly education of our children moved from the family to schools. Mentoring of our youth from community to institutions. We surrendered up our connections with each other and our localities to these systemic responses to our ever increasing numbers. With our connections went our attention. Specialisation bred complexity as more of our lives became the province of systems. To most of us now systems seem the appropriate tool with which to address any need or conflict. But it wasn't always so. Now we see these systems beginning to fail. They are so complex that only a few within each system have any true comprehension of their real activities. Greed has been nurtured by the acquiescence of many to the comprehension of the few. The remainder are forced to engage with processes to which product is subsumed. Many rail against the failure of institutions to address the current instability itself created by these very institutions or others just like them. Mostly they want the system fixed or another put in its place. Others seek to isolate themselves in family or small groups to achieve physical independence and security. Yet others propose to adapt in place and seek to rebuild or strengthen local community in recognition of the security offered. From numerous sources we can learn of the collapse of other modern societies. Dmitry Orlov paints a vivid picture of the collapse of the former Soviet Union and writes on the collapse of our own western society. I found a movie from Finland that portrayed collapse in a mill town there. What struck me was the absence of local cooperation among the people experiencing collapse. The selfish culture engendered by ever increasing individual and family wealth has nothing to offer when the tables turn. Collapse becomes an intensely personal or family experience inadequately addressed by soulless institutions. We know humans work best in tribes. It has been our history for hundreds of thousands of years. Troupes of monkeys, pods of whales, schools of fish and tribes of humans. But there is nowhere for us all to go back to now. We can't go and live in the bush because there is little of it left and too many of us. In our thousands we are simply governed and governable.  Is there no other way? The solution I propose is community with specific characteristics: Built within cities and suburbs. Marked out within physical boundaries containing no more than two hundred people with nobody excluded. Anyone can identify sensible boundaries containing sufficiently few people. It might be floors of an apartment building or streets of a suburb.  We might get together first for a barbeque, a shared meal or a street party. We might also get together in response to crisis. No group of disparate people is likely to agree on anything let alone on everything but the important thing is that we start by talking, for whatever reason. It doesn't need more than a few households to get underway. Hopefully others will join if we are doing something worth doing. What follows is entirely up to us of course but it could mean a few cooperate in growing food,  child minding, in making ourselves more secure or just meeting regularly for the sake of it. Whatever circumstances seem to dictate. Wherever possible I think it is important to move quickly from talking to doing. We have become very skilled at posturing but in work contributors quickly become visible and earn real respect, whatever their opinions or beliefs may be. Verbal consensus and group meetings are not necessary to most activities and might quickly be seen as hindrances unless they are rationed to rare appropriate circumstances.  At the moment we sometimes group with others by preference, often in the name of a common interest, sport, concern for the planet or recreation. In employment we may group together for economic necessity or by virtue of our skills. In our neighbourhood it is place of residence that we have in common. It would be naive of me to suppose that tribalhoods might break out all over although many rural communities live this vision already. We have spent a long time acquiring the means not to have to live together. In many places we may not be able to do so again to any extent. But it remains something we can start to do now while waiting on the powers that be to 'solve' the collapse of our environment and society. Money forced cooperation Don Fraser November 2009 We are so used to money that we take it to be 'real' but the only thing real about it is some of the work people are prepared to do in its name. Whenever something already made is bought or sold nothing changes except perhaps the location of the thing and maybe certificates of ownership. This not only applies to things manufactured but to natural substances such as oil or minerals. Oil is pumped from the ground by machines made from the work of people. It is then moved to another place by people working. Everything of which these machines are made always existed and always will. What is real is only some work done by people. Money is an elaborate and complex system of control implemented by some people for the control of other people. A loaf of bread is made. The wheat seeds are planted and harvested by people working. People working turn the harvested wheat into flour and the flour into bread. The same for all ingredients. As Leonard Cohen sings "the fields they are under lock and key but the rain and sun still get through". When money is moved from one computer to another or from one account to another nothing is the real world is changing. The money only represents the belief by the account holder that a person who shares his belief will do work. Money in an account does not differ from money in a purse or back pocket. This relates strongly to deflation and inflation. If money printed just sits in people’s pockets or in computers then nothing real happens but if people work for money then that work is real in that it creates real things like a loaf of bread. How much money is printed makes no change to anything because only peoples work is real. So huge amounts of money can be printed by governments and nothing need change accept some peoples beliefs about money which are just beliefs not real. If however people work at something real then reality changes. Deflation occurs when money is printed or increases in quantity but no more real work is done by people. Inflation occurs when more real work is done by people. This understanding reflects on a variety of types of work where nothing real is done. Sales people, lawyers, bankers and beurocrats and many many others do nothing real. The money paid to them has no influence in reality until other people do real work to feed them or build real homes to house them.  More people 'working' for government is not more real work being done. So it hardly matters in reality.

This site was last updated 11/13/09