November 2011, Newsletter, Kiwi Scrum

Kiwi Scrum has 2621 members. That's an increase of 32 for the month. Welcome to the new members, and thanks to those who have invited people they know, to join this group.


Occupy Christchurch - Tentsville

This month's newsletter was inspired by Occupy Christchurch, where I have had the opportunity to meet with some of the young people who are the future of New Zealand. Our task, yours and mine, is to be good mentors to these young adults, and to our grandchildren in turn. We have to be the valuable ancestors; but are we? I'm sure we are not. Forty-Nine years ago Rachel Carson, in Silent Spring, produced evidence that we were destroying nature and ourselves with pesticides and other chemicals. With 50 years of increased knowledge and confirmation, we now know that Rachel Carson didn't know the half of it. The young people in the park will inherit from us are world partially destroyed and a system that we created and sustained that will by design continue that process until some event we can't control forcefully stops us. We KNOW what we are doing. The endgame will be catastrophic. The young people in the park know it.

In a few days New Zealand will elect a new government. That government will be no wiser than the previous government. They will try to build a bigger economy in the old way that worked 60 years ago. They will fail in that endeavour and will make excuses for that, just as the present New Zealand government is doing. Most of us allow ourselves to be deluded by false promises. We keep the system running. We know not, what else to do. Neither the National Party nor the Labour Party is willing to address the real issue. We have build a society that creates monetary profits by destroying our real wealth. Our economy is a Ponzi scheme. We know, if we choose to be informed that what we are doing cannot be sustained. NONE of our political parties dare to talk about that. The end game is death and destruction not wealth and prosperity. Hence our dilemma.

About twenty years ago I abandoned party politics and began trying to understand the problem which I had already struggled with for fifteen years. Much of what I've learned, we all need to learn, but I'm wasting my time if I try to take you directly into my present understanding. You have to develop your own consciousness, and your own understanding, and you must do that, in you own way.

Necessary Transitions


Gus Speth

James Gustave Speth, after 40 years of seeking change in the American political system, having the ear of successive Presidents, but having no real success, proposes Eight Necessary Transitions. They are very much like the things the people in the park are asking for. Sound governance first, with quality information widely disseminated, the best use of green technologies, and a new cultural awareness that all mankind shares a common fate. We must reduce our population or nature will do that for us, we have to reduce consumption, to use less energy and less materials, and at the same time we have to make living a successful sustainable life a reality in every country. We have to develop an economic system that fixes prices in an environmentally sustainable way; that provides both income and employment, and eliminates poverty. These are tall orders.

Speth doesn't look to the government of the USA, to do this work, (Although that would also be desirable.) he looks for citizen action around the world, for the effort of volunteers, because until we get good governance, governments are not our ally in this necessary work. In New Zealand with MMP, we've got a tiny grip on "good governance". We need to strengthen it. We need two strong votes, (One strong vote and one weak vote at the moment.) and we need the democratic processes within political parties to be more open. If we are to have a sustainable future, democracy is important. New Zealand might be the first country to develop a democracy with a 21st Century appreciation of what the term means.

The Useful Common:

In the USA, the Occupy Wall Street movement is dealing with issues far more serious than we have. I hope you already understand how corrupted both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party have become, and why it's impossible for a viable third party to get any traction. The useful common is full of that background, for those who are interested. I like this speech by Bill Moyers, (21 minutes). After the introductions, from 6 minutes on he makes a plain statement.

De-schooling yourself

Our New Knowledge: New knowledge doesn't suddenly appear out of nowhere. We pick up new knowledge in pieces. Because of our indoctrination we throw away a lot of information we should know. We reject it because it conflicts with our existing "knowledge". Your own deschooling takes a lot of time, and only you can do it. Keep a journal to record your progress.

Deschooling John Veitch: I've left evidence of my progress in my own deschooling in many places on the web. I started with Innovation and Journal Writing, re-examined economics, and ended up with Elephant Mapping in 2004. I tell you this because most of you are somewhere along on this journey. Perhaps in this old work of mine I'll strike a chord with where you are at right now, and something useful might come of that.

I think the world needs a reset. I wish it could be painless, but it won't be. What we can do is be prepared. I thought in February 2009, that depression was likely, and I wrote 12 essays about that. They remain useful reading, and there are printable versions of all pages.

I still think that an economic depression is likely. When? When someone makes a blunder and the whole Ponzi scheme is exposed. When "confidence" collapses.

Write a Blog: I've put a lot of effort into documenting my own efforts to complete my education, and to build my understanding. This is ongoing work. Writing your own material as you go is very beneficial, both to you and to others who read what you are working on. It's not about being "right", it's about taking a journey of discovery, where you keep getting closer to a good understanding. The problem is too big to fully grasp, which is why I've used the Elephant Mapping idea in the past.

There's no shortage of analysis or ideas to correct the problems. However, the determination by the powers that be to keep to old system and their privileges running for as long as possible is considerable. As a reporter on NZ's TV1 said about the Occupation in New Zealand, "If the protesters are going to occupy the parks until we solve the problem of social inequality, they will be there for a long time."

Engage with other people and Groups: Some of the people in the Occupy Movement are followers of the Zeitgeist Philosophy. "Zeitgeist" is from German and translates to "the spirit of the times" or "the spirit of the age." The three Zeitgeist movies might be described as the effort of Peter Joseph to identify the key problems of our time, and to propose some sort of solution. I think he identifies the problems quite well but the solutions he proposes are; technological, scientific and automated. I believe our problems are in ourselves, and cannot be resolved by mere technology. You and I need to change. We can't avoid that by having more computers to run the world.

We live in a society where the answer to all our troubles is supposed to be "more growth". That is environmental and social nonsense, and in the long run it's economic nonsense too. The problem is that we've set up a system that expects and demands growth to sustain itself. Winding back into a way of living that is sustainable requires different means of financing projects, and different ways of thinking about value. We need to embrace the idea that growth will end, rather than fighting it. Perpetual growth is the behaviour of a cancer cell - the result if that growth is unchecked, is death. We are witnessing the beginning of the collapse of the ecosystem that sustains all life on earth. Where are the politicians willing to speak the truth about this? Nowhere to be seen. The film The GrowthBusters, being released this week has much to say about our very broken system. Preview below.

A System Wide Reset

Since the current system cannot be sustained; at some time a system reset will occur. I think the facts point to that happening sometime soon. When it happens people will complain that "nobody saw this coming". The change will be rapid and severe. We are the participants in history, yet we can't stop history from happening. Forces bigger than us are driving the changes we see. Never-the-less the things we choose to do will have an effect, at least on us and those around us. Better to fight for a noble cause, than to merely be a victim of your time. Understanding how and why this will happen will allow you and those you are close too, to make effective choices.

Here are four drivers; any one of them could precipitate a tipping point, with catastrophic effects.

Climate Change, causing famine in multiple regions. Global civil unrest to follow.
Peak Oil, causing high oil prices and preventing economic "development" for many years.
Global Economic Destabilization, a recession that goes on and on, from financial crisis to financial crisis.
The Price of Gold, and the collapsing value of the US dollar, causes the US dollar a loss of reserve currency status.

While all the current talk is about the debt crisis in Europe, the elephant in the room is the much worse debt crisis in the USA. Only the USA, can continually increase the flow of dollars into the market, without apparent penalty. In effect the USA, is imposing a tax on the world for using the US dollar as the reserve currency. At some stage China, Brazil, India and Russia are likely to seek to use some alternative currency that's more stable. Once the US dollar loses it's reserve status the USA is suddenly in severe monetary trouble. Some people suggest that would immediately lead to a world war. It will certainly cause a depression in the USA, that will inevitably spread worldwide.

Volunteers: If we do have a depression, or a war, the work of community agents, the volunteers will make the difference for us here in New Zealand. The economy uses money to make transactions easier and make transactions between people who have no direct connection to each other possible. Volunteers can make economic transactions with people they know, in a local area, even when the money system breaks down. At the district level it's also possible to build local currency systems. People without formal employment can still be highly productive. If the economy we're trying to build breaks because of external forces, provided we're not too heavily indebted, and provided we're not invaded by foreign forces, we in New Zealand should be able to get by, I expect.

There is a printable version of the Newsletter here. (3 pages)

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