Cant remember where I found this or why I hadnt posted it before but now after another Christmas I feel it is even more relavent.

We are now three to five generations removed from the rural backbone that strengthened America. The world at large has undergone a similar transformation as the promise of easier work has created a migration to big cities. These mega-cities could be seen as an experiment gone awry, as general well-being has declined, with suicide rates increasing across the world. Crowded conditions and economic strife have led to rampant crime, pollution, corporate malfeasance, and a dog-eat-dog type of competition that can be described as a temporary insanity.

The economic crisis we are living through has been the final straw for many people, as promises of a better, easier, and more creative life seem to have been sold to us by carnival-style tricksters who are laughing all the way to (their) bank.

Here are the top reasons for becoming self-sufficient; these are based on fundamental, systemic concerns for why undertaking this life change will not be a fly-by-night fad, but rather a long-lasting means for personal independence.

10 Reasons to Become Self-Sufficient

1. Freedom from market manipulation – The traditional market-driven investment vehicles are more and more obviously controlled by traders and banking institutions. The debacle of the private Federal Reserve Bank is just the icing on the cake to a previous decade full of Ponzi-type schemes. Now, the institutionalized looting of retirement money is being planned.

2. Hedging against inflation – Have you noticed the price of goods lately? Even Wal-Mart is silently raising its prices. People might have a choice whether or not to buy stocks or gold, but people have to eat – the current increases in basic goods portend hyperinflation, and will not ease anytime soon. Food shortages could make the problem exponentially worse.

3. Increasing health and wellness – It has now been revealed that some "organic" items have been falsely labeled. In addition, a host of "GMO-free" brands have been exposed as deceptive. GMO food lacks the nutritional value of what can be grown in the average backyard. GMO mega-corporation, Monsanto, has a sordid history and has continuously trampled on our trust. It is time that we do the work ourselves.

4. Building community strength – We constantly hear people say, "I don't even see my neighbors, let alone know anything about them." Of course not: 80-hour workweeks and grabbing meals-to-go doesn't exactly promote community interaction. With such little time to interact with our immediate community, it is no wonder why many people report feeling disconnected. In these trying times, it is a local community that can offer the best support.

5. Working for yourself – Working hours are increasing, pay is often decreasing, and corporate executives are taking bigger bonuses than ever. This is leading to a prevailing disgust, as people are being forced to admit that they are living lives of near-indentured servitude. Even for those not working in corporations, working for someone else is rarely as satisfying as creating and working for something where every minute you spend is yours alone.

6. Having more free time – We have been taught to believe that life on a farm is arduous sun-up to sun-down drudgery where you collapse at the end of the day. This is not so much the case anymore. Sure, the setup of any farm or self-sufficient endeavor is often time-consuming and laborious, but new technologies and new skills of manufacturing food via permaculture and aquaponics are offering low-cost start up and minimal maintenance, as these techniques serve to create symbiotic systems that are remarkably self-governing.

7. Generating food and energy security – The planet is running out of food and traditional energy. Climate volatility, market forces, GM foods, and rising costs of harvesting and transporting food are all conspiring to create food shortages even in the First World. This trend will not reverse. And our oil-soaked way of life is being threatened by mounting evidence that the oil lifeline could be disconnecting rather soon. We should be looking to the air, sun, geothermal, and wave power to wean us from the energy grid.

8. Acquiring an appreciation for life – As one gets closer to life-giving forces, there is a natural appreciation for how things come into being. When you have created your garden, toiled there, selected the best for harvest, and have prepared that food for your family and community, the significance of what you have taken part in can be trans formative.

9. Restoring balance – Nearly everything in our society is at a peak, or is drastically out of balance. The systems and governments to which we have looked for balance restoration are missing in action. We must take it upon ourselves to restore our own financial and environmental balance sheet. The best way to do that is to reduce our over-consumption.

10 Ways to Get to Self-Sufficiency

The global economic collapse has become an eye-opening experience for many people. The ongoing crisis continues to create more joblessness at a time when the cost of essential items like food and energy continue to rise.

Inflation is only expected to continue due to excessive printing of money to compensate for the bursting economic bubbles, which were arguably created by printing too much money with artificially low interest rates in the first place.

The 2008 price shocks in oil followed by the financial collapse have led many people to begin taking measures to become more self-sufficient. And recently the ominous signs of food shortages, the weakening dollar, and the rising price of oil all point to a similar atmosphere as 2008. Some have taken steps to conserve electricity, reduce spending and consumption, while others are planting kitchen gardens and installing solar panels on their homes. Even living off the grid is becoming a mainstream concept for those seeking independence.

Indeed, becoming more self-sufficient is proving to make common sense whether one anticipates more hardship to come or not. Sure, many of us would love to live completely off the grid without giving up everyday comforts, but this is not practical for most of us. However, there are many steps that can be taken to move towards self-sufficiency which can be relatively painless and quite rewarding.

The following are 10 suggestions that can lead to independent living:
Reduce your debt: Especially get your credit card debt under control, since it is entirely corrupt. Call your credit card companies and ask for a work out plan similar to what they received from the taxpayer bailout. If they don't cooperate to your satisfaction, there are some reasons not to pay at all.

Reduce your consumption: Evaluate your current budget and determine absolute necessity. Push your comfort level to find areas where you can scale back, and then identify comforts that you’re willing to sacrifice.

Reduce energy use: Change light bulbs, have entertainment systems plugged into a splitter that can be shut off completely to reduce phantom charges, etc. Carefully plan shopping trips and other transportation needs.

Store energy: Always have back-up propane storage and a large wood pile for a rainy day. Investing in a generator of some kind (even a solar generator) will be money well spent.

Invest in food storage: With a falling dollar and rising food prices, why not create a food savings account? Get some good books, dehydrators and vacuum sealers for storage methods. Best storable food items are grains (rice, beans, flour), canned goods, seeds, and some prepackaged items.

Produce your own food: Replace your lawn with a garden, fruit trees, and keep chickens. Go on hunting and gathering adventures for nuts, fish, and wild game. Store extra garden seeds!

Learn new skills: Surf the Internet, read books, and take courses in practical skills like gardening, cooking with whole foods, composting, carpentry, alternative energy, natural health and wellness etc.

Start a side business: Turn your passion or hobby into a small side business to make some supplemental income. Who knows, it may become your path to full financial independence.

Install alternative energy: Start with small installations like a solar hot water system, a solar freezer, a solar attic fan, or a wood stove etc. If you have limited funds, tip-toe your way to independence.

Suggest solutions for your community: Start or join a local cooperative for food, products, and services. Engage your local community in discussions to take steps for self-sufficiency. Share your story and build support.
These steps will save money as we move closer to the ultimate prize of independence. Each action we take to live more simply frees us from the control systems put in place to make our lives more complicated, more toxic, and less independent.
by Michael Edwards and Jeffrey Green
http://www.activistpost.com/2010/08/ten-reasons-to-become-self-sufficient.html

photo from www.channel4.com
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49 people like this.
Naomi 'Ma Larkin' Lever Great :)
Monday at 21:21 ·
Gayleen Marie Chapman WOW Great ideas!
Monday at 21:40 ·
Amy Giddings this is the best article I've read all day! I am definitely sharing... Thanks!! :)
Monday at 21:43 · 1 person ·
Barb Schuetz This is great- I'd like to add a bit regarding food storage and new skills; Learn to properly prepare garins, nuts and legumes to get the most fromm them(and to avoid them taking from you which is especially important in poor times) and learn to FERMENT! One of the oldest methods of food preservation that also increases the nutritional/medicinal value of the food, that is if you don't kill it by cooking/canning.
Monday at 21:44 · 4 people ·
Patricia Wood Emery Liked and shared! Friends and family laughed at us and thought we were crazy when we "moved to the country" three years ago when hubby retired from the Navy. Now some of those same folks contact us and as for advice!!! HA!

There is still SO...See more
Monday at 22:08 · 2 people ·
Illinois Patco So please Barb, tell us more about fermenting!
Yesterday at 02:09 ·
Barb Schuetz ‎:) I suggest everyone own a copy of Wild Fermentation. I know there are plenty of books out there about this but I LOVED (and still love) this book because it qualms fears and makes even complex ferments so simple. There's also a FB group ...See more
Yesterday at 03:23 · 1 person ·
Patti Coffey I just got a copy of Wild Fermentation-bought it from th Dervaes family. I see so many recipes I want to try!
21 hours ago ·
Melanie Myers Licensed Acupuncturist fermentation has a whole lot of health benefits, just when doing it yourself, make sure you are extra careful at following the instructions to a tee, for safety reasons. same with making kombucha tea. great stuff, and hope it is in the book so you can try it. not the store bought kind. it tastes different, and each batch tastes different. you guys make me want to get back into it!:)
about an hour ago ·
Melanie Myers Licensed Acupuncturist bought a generator this year and am building a little winter/all season house for it and putting it on cement slabs I am making. also doing this for my son's house. bought my house last year and am finally in a position to begin turning my ...See more
about an hour ago ·

I think this is where I am aiming.

Deepak Chopra - Hub Culture Interview at GGCS3

Send and receive contact has been made at last!

I had emailed Leeds Asylum seekers suport network ages ago and my email got passed around people at the network they then emailed me back to discuss or find out exactly what I wanted to do.

Hello Mas,

thank you for getting back to me. I wondered if I could just come in and have a chat with someone initially just get an understanding of what you do there. I am interested in helping to overcome some of the negative press that we are starting to foster around asylum seekers at the moment it this country. I'm not sure exactly what I would like to do at the moment, I would like to gain a better understanding of what you do and why and also who you help and where those people come from. I have been doing a little bit of everything, photography, film, posters, books and animation. I was hoping to come down and have a chat a look around if thats possible and then take it from there?

Hope to speak with you again soon.

Tahra.

Hello Tahra

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you.
I have made some enquiries and think that it would be good for you to attend one of the Press Gang meetings organised by Richie McAndrew, Manager at LASSN.
These meetings are normally held once a month and the next one is on Thursday 25th November at 6.30pm at the One Community Centre, 1 Cromwell Street, Leeds, LS9 7SG.

If this date and time is not good for you, please let me know.

Many thanks.

Mas

Since then I have also been sent an invitation to a conference that I didn't manage to attend but I went to the meeting with the organisers afterwards. I wasn't sure what the meeting would be about but I really wanted to go to the conference and was gutted I didn't get myself together enough to go, so made sure I got to this one. This is the mail sent out after the conference..

Greetings from Schumacher North!

And thank you for your participation in the 2010 Leeds Schumacher Conference. We hope you agree it was a worthwhile and enjoyable day, with something approaching 100 conversations on creating a society Beyond Consumerism; we will be most interested to hear your detailed feedback on what was good and what we could have done better; see below.

We want to keep up the momentum and begin to translate the ideas into action - here are three places to start, please get involved in whatever way appeals to you:

1. Schumacher North Website - this will be receiving a major overhaul over the next few weeks, and we intend to include the fullest possible facilities to take forward the conference conversations online. We will create discussion forums based on all of the World Cafe questions, workshops, and Open Space conversations. We will include a section for conference feedback and suggestions for next year's conference and for other events. And there will also be a gallery of photographs to help recreate the atmosphere of the day.

Please visit the website after this Wednesday when we will have put up the post-Conference information and participate in the forums (you will need to register on the site in order to do this if you have not already done so, and to wait up to 1 day till your registration is confirmed.)

2. Annual Gathering - This is your opportunity to input into plans for Schumacher North's development, contribute ideas, connect with other conference attendees and SN members and friends and have a good time as well! The gathering will take place at Swarthmore Education Centre, 27 Woodhouse Square, Leeds LS3 1AD, from 6-9 p.m. on Wednesday November 17. Food and drink will be provided, if you would like to bring a contribution to share that would be much appreciated.

3. Membership, involvement, support - We do need your support to keep Schumacher North going, expand our activities and take forward the vision of a sustainable, fair and fulfilling way of life that we believe to be the future.

As a member of Schumacher North you will receive regular updates on our activities and discount prices at selected events - we hope also to offer reciprocal membership with Schumacher UK and an annual free copy of the latest Schumacher Briefing. We will also put you in touch with a local Schumacher North group where this exists, or offer support and help to start one if you wish. A membership form is attached - if you would like to join please fill it in and return it by post or email to the address below.

We also need volunteers to help with administration, planning and publicity, etc. - if you are interested please let us know what area you are interested in helping with wand what skills, etc., you can offer. We will be posting a 'wish list' on the website shortly.

Finally, but very importantly, if you are in a position to support us financially at whatever level, this is hugely important. Please think about making a donation to support our work, we promise to use your money to maximum effect!

Best wishes,

David Midgley

I couldn't stay for the entire meeting but chatted with a few people and they were all very lovely. I was on my own and quite nervous and uncomfortable because I didn't know anyone, but they came over and talked to me and made me feel welcome.
There was a retired lady who was a child therapist for 25 years, lovely lady. She said her job was to "normalize children in an insane world" I think those were her words... she didn't really enjoy her work and I could see in her eyes as she was thinking and telling me about it that they were not fond memories. They brought and shared food before the meeting and then went on to discus the conference which I hadn't attended!! So I just sat and listened. I took notes on names of speakers that people had enjoyed. They then wanted peoples ideas of what didn't work so well and what would be good for the next event. They discussed themes for the next event and finally decided to keep the same theme "beyond Consumerism." I listed to what everyone had said and then we had a break but from what other people had said I had a few ideas myself and put them to the Matt during the break. Also I offered help with publicity and documenting the event which they all said was a shame they hadn't done. They seemed really enthusiastic and took my details and then I ran off for my bus! I did tell them I am just learning but willing to help out in any way I can. They also mentioned a story that had been told at the conference which everyone had loved, one of the women mentioned that it would be nice to have it animated.. so although I have only done 13 seconds of animation I said I would love to have a go!! eek!! Well anyway we will see... S'all good :)

RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms

How to destroy the world - Rubbish

Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

Interesting. Excellent points made.

WHERE GOOD IDEAS COME FROM by Steven Johnson

Article from the New Statesman.

The party game is over. Stand and fight
John Pilger
Published 04 November 2010


The lesson of the French anti-government protests is that “normal” politics exists only to promote corporate interests. Britain must prepare for a rebirth of the only thing that works — direct action.

"Rise like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number!
Shake your chains to earth, like dew
Which in sleep had fall'n on you:
Ye are many - they are few."

These days, the stirring lines of Percy Shelley's "Mask of Anarchy" may seem unattainable. I don't think so. Shelley was both a Romantic and political truth-teller. His words resonate now because only one political course is left to those who are disenfranchised and whose ruin is announced on a government spreadsheet.

Born of the "never again" spirit of 1945, social democracy has surrendered to an extreme political cult of money worship. This reached its apogee when £1trn of public money was handed unconditionally to corrupt banks by a Labour government whose leader, Gordon Brown, had previously described "financiers" as the nation's "great example" and his personal "inspiration".

This is not to say parliamentary politics is meaningless. It has one meaning now: the replacement of democracy with a business plan for every human activity, every dream, every decency, every hope, every child born.

No rationale
The old myths of British rectitude, imperial in origin, provided false comfort while the Blair gang built the foundation of the present "coalition". This is led by a former PR man for an asset stripper and by a bagman who will inherit his knighthood and the tax-shielded fortune of his father, the 17th Baronet of Ballintaylor. David Cameron and George Osborne are essentially fossilised spivs who, in colonial times, would have been sent by their daddies to claim foreign terrain and plunder.

Today, they are claiming 21st-century Britain and imposing their vicious, antique ideology, albeit served as economic snake oil. Their designs have nothing to do with a "deficit crisis". A deficit of 10 per cent is not remotely a crisis. When Britain was officially bankrupt at the end of the Second World War, the government built its greatest public institutions, such as the National Health Service and the arts edifices of London's South Bank.

There is no economic rationale for the assault described cravenly by the BBC as a "public spending review". The debt is exclusively the responsibility of those who incurred it, the super-rich and the gamblers. However, that's beside the point. What is happening in Britain is the seizure of an opportunity to destroy the tenuous humanity of the modern state. It is a coup, a "shock doctrine" as applied to Pinochet's Chile and Yeltsin's Russia.

In Britain, there is no need for tanks in the streets. In its managerial indifference to the freedoms it is said to hold dear, bourgeois Britain has allowed parliament to create a surveillance state with 3,000 new criminal offences and laws: more than for the whole of the previous century. Powers of arrest and detention have never been greater. The police have the impunity to kill; and asylum-seekers can be "restrained" to death on commercial flights.

Athol Fugard is right. With Harold Pinter gone, no acclaimed writer or artist dare depart from their well-remunerated vanity. With so much in need of saying, they have nothing to say. Liberalism, the vainest ideology, has hauled up its ladder. The chief opportunist, Nick Clegg, gave no electoral hint of his odious faction's compliance with the dismantling of much of British postwar society. The theft of £83bn in jobs and services matches almost exactly the amount of tax legally avoided by piratical corporations. Without fanfare, the super-rich have been assured they can dodge up to £40bn in tax payments in the secrecy of Swiss banks. The day this was sewn up, Osborne attacked those who "cheat" the welfare system. He omitted the real amount lost, a minuscule £0.5bn, and that £10.5bn in benefit payments was not claimed at all. Labour is his silent partner.

The propaganda arm in the press and broadcasting dutifully presents this as unfortunate but necessary. Mark how the firefighters' action is "covered". On Channel 4 News, following an item that portrayed modest, courageous people as basically reckless, Jon Snow demanded that the leaders of the London Fire Authority and the Fire Brigades Union go straight from the studio and "mediate" now, this minute. "I'll get the taxis!" he declared. Forget the thousands of jobs that are to be eliminated from the fire service and the public danger beyond Bonfire Night; knock their jolly heads together. "Good stuff!" said the presenter.

To the barricades
Ken Loach's 1983 documentary series Questions of Leadership opens with a sequence of earnest young trade unionists on platforms, exhorting the masses. They are then shown older, florid, self-satisfied and finally adorned in the ermine of the House of Lords. Once, at a Durham Miners' Gala, I asked Tony Woodley, now joint general secretary of Unite, "Isn't the problem the clockwork collaboration of the union leadership?" He almost agreed, implying that the rise of bloods like himself would change that. The British Airways cabin crew strike, over which Woodley presides, is said to have made gains. Has it? And why haven't the unions risen against totalitarian laws that place free trade unionism in a vice?

The BA workers, the firefighters, the council workers, the post office workers, the NHS workers, the London Underground staff, the teachers, the lecturers, the students can more than match the French if they are resolute and imaginative, forging, with the wider social justice movement, potentially the greatest popular resistance ever. Look at the web; listen to the public's support at fire stations. There is no other way now. Direct action. Civil disobedience. Unerring. Read Shelley and do it.

Legal Warning - Documentary Trailer

I like the sound of this.

THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE MOTORISED

Also saw a sticker on someones bike that said this... thought it was cool :)

Thoughts on Bikes after Manchester Critical Mass...

I want to get welding and make my own bike out of old ones! LOVE these! Going to get myself in the workshops in college. After the weekend we all decided to do Leeds Critical Mass too and I was thinking we could make it more circus like, celebratory, carnival like with some mutant bikes like a show!!!!!
Also should it be on a Saturday through the day so that families can see it too? Or maybe as part of light night next year instead of a monthly thing? ...duno... just thinking...

Anyway I digress!! Back to com tech!!

Schumacher North Event.

Beyond Consumerism _ talk with Satish Kumar

Left Bank Centre, Cardigan Road, Leeds
Saturday 23 October 2010
10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

What would our society look like if its primary goal became authentic physical and mental well-being for everyone, instead of the pursuit of material wealth and technological progress? What creative and practical steps can we take now, communally and individually, to bring this possibility nearer to reality?

I missed this but really wanted to go. Ive been reading their work for 15 years now. I must go to these things even if I don't feel up to it on the day. This was a once a year event that would have been really valuable.

Now More Than Ever: A Message from Kumi Naidoo

Tears. Good video.

KUMI NAIDOO VISITS THE TAR SANDS

Eg. number 1. I never heard of this before.
How can this be?

"Let every individual and institution now think and act as a responsible trustee of earth, seeking choices in ecology, economics and ethics that will provide a sustainable future, eliminate pollution and violence, awaken the wonder of life and foster peaceful progress in the human adventure."
-John McConnell, founder of International Earth Day.

Shell prosecution update

just using stills

Waitrose supermarket occupied by Israel boycott