Transition Culture

You do not need to apologize. Kathy was re-interpreting the word survivalist in the broadest way possible in order to beat you over the head with it. I find this form of arguing to be rather petty and disingenuous. I think the real issue might be guns.

It was, of course, absurd for her to assume that the Survivalists you were discussing were somehow the only people on the planet who have survival skills or are prepared for events. In fact, it is quite closed-minded on her behalf, though she was apparently trying to pass it off as being open-minded.

Maybe she does really believe that everyone with a backpack and/or a gun is a survivalist – and they are who you were commenting on – but, yet, still, this is again, absurd. I can think of many more relevant issues to deliberate.

You were right in your assumptions that those Survivalists, typical in post war American tradition and history, have generally been reactionary, ideologues, paramilitary, racist, identity, reclusive, exclusive, and/or antisocial – and that these people are more likely to be a distraction or hindrance to building cooperative healthy self reliant communities.

I understood you, as did many others, and it is rather astonishing to me that someone would not get it. I think it must be an example how our American militaristic and gun fanaticism could make it difficult to cooperate. There are many here who are more afraid of words than they are guns.

We have, after all, actually have had militia groups who put lots of effort into figuring out how they might overthrow the government – with certain belief they were upholding the Constitution. They were so prevalent at one time that they effectively infiltrated New Age and some Progressive channels. I call it the David Icke connection – so the UK has some roots in our militia survivalist crowd!

Icke had the perfect mix of conspiracy and freedom threats to allure the paranoid. Icke had dug up old Nazi propaganda, and integrated it into his New Age conspiracy writings. I think he even hooked up with David Duke once.

Most of these paramilitary maneuvers seemed to only be prevalent under Democratic Presidents. IMO, it was all Cold War fallout – and reactionary backlash as broader democratic rights grew.

But all this crap is certainly not going to prepare us for peak oil and creating self reliant communities.

Forgive my poor English, but I feel that it is important to add third element. Rob says that “Transition is a loose set of principles and tools” and I would say that it’s also a “process”: principle, tools and a process to put them together operating in our reality, every reality.

All this works just because humans are humans, no matter what culture they belong to. Here in Italy we are quite different from UK people, but what is really effective in Transition is that each community can create his own answer. This is the key, this is the main difference from other movement and organizations. This is why it could really work nearly everywhere.

I see in this piece something I have been hearing from other sources regarding transition cities: the “this thing can’t possibly work” presumption. Here it shows up in “it’s a UK model so it won’t work in the US.”
In the arguments I’ve received about big cities, it runs “it’s a model made for small towns so you can’t possibly use it in a city.” Either way, I’m now seeing it for what it is: justification for not beginning.

These are the nay-sayers, what Alan AtKisson called the Reactionaries. They want to quit before they begin. AtKisson pointed out that they might even have a vested interest in the status quo (perhaps the convoluted psychiatry of having a need to preserve BLUES about peak oil so that their blog still has meaning. Can’t possibly let hope in there!).

[Side note to Transition Network: this is #8 in the list of “Buts” … “But this thing can’t possibly work”]

Rob uses the word “framework.” Cristiano appropriately reminds us it is a “process.” The Transition Handbook again and again coaches us to adapt the materials, it’s an organic process, unleash local creativity, see what comes of it. It goes back to the Permaculture roots of the Transition model: Observe and interact. Use feedback loops.

“Design from patterns to details” pretty much captures it. In Kinsale and Totnes, they created a pattern. They’re sharing about it because it works – it’s building hope, it’s building momentum, it’s building positive action in the right direction. But within that pattern, it’s up to us to fill in the local details, whether these be U.S. details or Japanese ones, small town details or big city ones.

“Resilience” is key to the transition process. Resilience is the ability to flex and change. And here we must grow a resilience outlook about the very concept of what a model is. We’ve grown accustomed to plug-and-play, big box store type solutions. We’ve grown accustomed to same-same-same monocropping. But those won’t work in a peak oil/climate change future.

The Transition concept isn’t monocropping UK ideas (and odd UK humor) into communities around the world. It offers an organic, resilient idea that has enormous potential to flex and vary with the on-the-ground circumstances of the local neighborhood; in short, precisely what we need to grow hope and possible solutions. Just in case it might work.

Joanne Poyourow
Los Angeles

Rob, you say that ”Transition is about rebuilding community”…”learn to create more networks and useful relationships within them”, which, as Joanne rightly says, reflects the permaculture process which is at the heart of the transition model. I intuitively feel that this is central to a sucessful transtion and we need to be exploring ‘the pattern that connects’. Its no coincidence that we talk of the ‘fabric’ of the Universe, and the warp and weft of living systems.
Having said all that, part of me is left wondering how the monocropping of ‘odd (?) UK humour’ might further the aims of the global transition movement… Could the compulsory reading of old Goon show scripts to farm animals increase productivity? Maybe all global village meetings would be required to have a life sized cardbaord cut out of Basil Fawlty at the centre – who knows?

I replied to Kathy’s series on USA.ning and my comments ran pretty much parellel to yours Rob. First I said its important to distinquish each transition community in US and elsewhere from those in the UK or elsewahere and most importantly from your particular personal opinions and beliefs, which I enjoy but realize are not part of the process itself.
As the head of the 11th Transitions Initiative in the US and one of 20 Transition Trainers here, one of the things I like most about Transitions is that although there are steps that have worked in the UK that Rob has used and shared, the process in every community is able to evolve in its own appropriate way because there is no “way.”
“Let it go” is one of the basic principles. You can’t let it go and control or shape it in a predetermined way at the same time.
That’s the beauty of it!
I find each community I discussed Transitions with here in the US is different and yet they are using the process to move in the best directions for their circumstances and needs. We began our process here in Pine Mountain in 2005 and though what we’ve done so far is particular to our situation, the process has been almost identical to the TI process.
This past summer I visited Eureka Springs, AK, where they too have a group very much like ours. Although they had no knowledge of TI when I was there, just as we didn’t until the past year, their process too, though unique, is nearly identical to ours and to TI’s, though different in the various project details.
What this says is to me that the Handbook and the training articulate a useful process that is intuitively going on all over because it works. The process is an invaluable tool for focusing and is providing us with a wealth interesting ideas we hadn’t yet thought of for our community, some applicable, others not at for the moment at least.
The real strength of the transitions movement is that it has become a network of communities that now have a common nomenclature and contextual frame of reference for discussing and sharing ideas, experiences, projects, and activities about what’s working or will work over-riding shared goals.
This all easily falls within the process you have articulated so well without limiting and stunting the possiblities that can flow from it.
After all, we’re all facing the same global issues, just in our own particular contexts.
Thank you, Rob, for sharing your thoughts on Sharon’s series.

Yes. Bravo! Joanne for the AtKisson quote, we are likely to be dealing with lots of closet reactionaries and habitual procrastinators. But ours are not the only self defeatists, even among your own UK Transition celebrities I have witnessed sabotaging behaviors that violate the very good principles you propose.

So, human psychology – the need to control, manipulate, usurp power, to repeat history is formidable. Throwing off the shackles of codependence, narcisism, privilege and hierarchy will not be simple. When Gandhi said we must become the change we invision, he did not believe it was going to happen overnight. Human psychology is extremely resistant to change. The need for instant gratification or trained gratification is a powerful distraction too.

Thank you Paula for reminding us that we need humour in order to deal with the double-speak and the cognitive dissonance.

There are certain consistent principles that underlie the success of all healthy self reliant communities. Hell, we have not even been able yet to create too many democratic family models, or have a serious men’s movement, so building strong democratic participatory communities is not going to materialize overnight. Trust is fundamental, and hard to come by. Domestic violence, rape, and slavery worldwide is epidemic.

The hoopla about ‘Earth Day’, like the pious rhetoric of fast-talking solar contractors and patent-hungry ‘ecological’ inventors, conceal the all-important fact that solar energy, wind power, organic agriculture, holistic health, and ‘voluntary simplicity’ will alter very little in our grotesque imbalance with nature if they leave the patriarchal family, the multinational corporation, the bureaucratic and centralized political structure, and the property system untouched. == Murray Bookchin

Forget this petty quibbling and focus on what you have to prepare for.

Independent studies indicate that global crude oil production will now decline from 74 million barrels per day to 60 million barrels per day by 2015. During the same time, demand will increase. Oil supplies will be even tighter for the U.S. As oil producing nations consume more and more oil domestically they will export less and less. Because demand is high in China, India, the Middle East, and other oil producing nations, once global oil production begins to decline, demand will always be higher than supply. And since the U.S. represents one fourth of global oil demand, whatever oil we conserve will be consumed elsewhere. Thus, conservation in the U.S. will not slow oil depletion rates significantly.

Alternatives will not even begin to fill the gap. There is no plan nor capital for a so-called electric economy. And most alternatives yield electric power, but we need liquid fuels for tractors/combines, 18 wheel trucks, trains, ships, and mining equipment. The independent scientists of the Energy Watch Group conclude in a 2007 report titled: “Peak Oil Could Trigger Meltdown of Society:”

“By 2020, and even more by 2030, global oil supply will be dramatically lower. This will create a supply gap which can hardly be closed by growing contributions from other fossil, nuclear or alternative energy sources in this time frame.”

With increasing costs for gasoline and diesel, along with declining taxes and declining gasoline tax revenues, states and local governments will eventually have to cut staff and curtail highway maintenance. Eventually, gasoline stations will close, and state and local highway workers won’t be able to get to work. We are facing the collapse of the highways that depend on diesel and gasoline powered trucks for bridge maintenance, culvert cleaning to avoid road washouts, snow plowing, and roadbed and surface repair. When the highways fail, so will the power grid, as highways carry the parts, large transformers, steel for pylons, and high tension cables from great distances. With the highways out, there will be no food coming from far away, and without the power grid virtually nothing modern works, including home heating, pumping of gasoline and diesel, airports, communications, and automated building systems.

Documented here:
http://www.peakoilassociates.com/POAnalysis.html
http://survivingpeakoil.blogspot.com/

Off-topic, but upbeat:
For folks who are on Twitter, and want to follow news of the Transition movement that way,
you can search for #transitiontowns at
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23transitiontowns

You actually don’t need to join Twitter to see the results.

Hello Rob and all:
Thank you for responding to Kathy’s posts.

The attached note is what I wrote in response to her post about survivalists on the Transition US Ning site.

When I ran across such comments in the wonderful Transition materials I simply took them with a grain of salt.

I appreciate Kathy bringing up these things since everyone’s input is needed and it is always so interesting to observe the dialogue and sometimes polarized debate that can emerge from such explorations into the deep.

I agree that such exchanges frequently turn a bit sour when folks don’t clarify definitions, terminology and start taking things personally.

We place a high priority on suspending assumptions and clarifying such things as soon as possible around here.

Anyways, I too find a lot of humor in all of this and I’m still chuckling. It’s a wonderful social experiment and adventure and if we choose not to listen, bridge gaps and laugh at ourselves as humans I think it would be a much more difficult journey!

Thanks for everything…Tally Ho!

BTW, I appreciate the document “Who We Are and What we Do”, thanks!

kj

Kathy Jacobson
The Broadwell Hill Learning Center and Resiliency Initiative (muller while building the team)
southeast Ohio USA

Posted by me, kj, in the January Transition US Ning discussion on the topic of survivalists:

“Hello!

Thank you Kathy for getting this topic on the table! I’m so glad I popped in to check it out! Great conversation…thanks everyone!

The very notion of a “survivalist” … Appalachian folks with shot-guns in the hills with hidden moonshine stills.

Hahahaha…well, here ya got yeeself a good ole’ Appalachian hill betty transitioner with a shot gun on her hip as she stands high on the hill with flags blowing.

However, this ole hill betty is dedicated to sustainability as well as emergency planning, preparedness, resiliency, mitigation, response, communications (HAM) and networking for greater interdependency.

If folks are talking survivalist/non-survivalist, perpetuating a continued “us vs them” mentality based upon assumptions and pre-programmed perceptions…it just means to me that we’ve got a ways to go in our efforts to grow up, mature, evolve and trigger the paradigm shift.

It might not sound very enlightened or compassionate…but I’ve got to admit that I sometimes find myself thinking, “come on folks, let’s get real here”. However, I know that what might seem real to me might be an illusion.

Anyway, I just tend to take such comments in the Transition materials or other sources with a grain of salt while continuing to walk the talk, share what I can while hoping to help serve as a catalyst in this great adventure. Each one of us have a role to play whether we regard ourselves as a survivalist, non-survivalist, or whatever. We best start getting over our labels and boxes and simply start listening to everyone.

I don’t know about you but it’s us rural folks with what I call the “skills from the hills” who are some of our most treasured resources, especially the elders who remember the need to work together within systems of interdependency to survive in these hills. It’s also the mothers and grandmothers who often draw the line and speak up if it looks like the community, children, elders and vulnerable populations, as well as future generations, are threatened.

Do they all fit into the box of “survivalist”?

Anyways, thanks for the post. Maybe I should re-post the photo of me with shotgun titled…Appalachian Home Land Security! Come on over to the Broadwell Hill Campfire and share in a sip or two of moonshine…Just Kidding!

BTW, I’ve served as an English midwife for many Amish home births. It’s best we don’t make assumptions, jump to conclusions and box this population either.

Best wishes …I’m still chuckling.

It’s time for me to go string the wicks and get started making the 100% local beeswax Transition/preparedness candles for the year.

kj

It should be brought to everyone’s attention that the official Wikipedia site has been setup and needs constant updating. I have attempted to update as much as I could. Others need to contribute.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transition_Towns

For those who are following this discussion, my response to Rob’s piece about, and the comments listed here, can be found on Transition USA at:

http://transitionus.ning.com/forum/topics/i-just-dropped-in-to-see-what-2?id=2320371%3ATopic%3A13900&page=2#comments

Clifford, I could not agree with you more, yet this thread has gotten more attention. It is only nibbling around the edges, and I am trying to get to the point – and have a laugh or two along the way.

I am one of those, due to experience, is very cynical about humans ability to solve much of anything. Yet, I am the first to pull up my sleeves and scare up hope from minuscule crumbs.

If Kathy was really talking about survivalists in the broadest sense, or those people with Old World skills, she would be talking about the Amish, but she really isn’t, she is really talking about gun toting quasi-paramilitary and reactionary religious types. The American Survivalist is a paranoid gun fanatic who is waiting for or created an enemy already.

I learned to knit, sew, work in leather, hunt, fish, camp, backpack, scavenge, improvise, repair, remake, reuse, can, paint, tend an orchard, etc. from my mom and dad. My parents were children of the Depression, and their parents walked off the frontier. I taught myself some carpentry and built a few computers. What do I need to learn from a Survivalist that I could not learn from the Amish or the Mennonites?

I have had a chance to get around the transition boards a little more than the average person since I am orchestrating several transition websites. There is one issue that comes up especially with Americans. Given our heritage, and our love of guns, given that we have over 100 million registered hand guns alone, just what are all those people going to do with their guns when Peak Oil hits? Will they become nomadic tribes on horseback raiding farmers at harvest time? Given our high rates of accidental shootings, is that going to go on the rise?

A comical side note to all this thread – and Kathy’s talk about the UK-US heritage connection. The majority of Americans can trace the lineage to German origins, not British.

Now, back to Britain’s David Icke, former UK Green Party leader, then proliferator of New Age Fascist Neo-Nazi ideas (bravo Madame Blavatsky). UK had the brains to reject him apparently, and he only found an audience in the United States among those more Libertarian New Agers who were forming ties with paramilitary survivalist types preparing to overthrow the government. Hence, the rise of a pro military breed of paganism. They even mingled with the HOLOCAUST NEVER HAPPENED crowd.

One wacky such-blended popular magazine for a while called NEW PERSPECTIVES which also combined every conspiracy theory ever entertained. The ignorance level was deafening. The proclivity to create cults, and connect crazy dots, is quite American.

CORRECTION:
do with their guns when Peak Oil hits?
SHOULD BE, decline/depletion. we are at peak oil.
Who is SHARON’S SERIES, anyway?

When faced with a crisis like the one we’re approaching, some people will think “grow more food” and others will think “buy a gun”…and maybe there are some who will think “grow more food and buy a gun”. I suppose they’re all ‘survivalists’ in their way.

The term does, however, have a good deal of baggage and maybe that’s what the problem is? Rob has, by his own admission, never been to the US, so I’m guessing that his impression of what ‘survivalist’ means there is formed by the media…and there’s not much mileage in a story of peaceful, self-reliant folks – so they go for the automatic-weapon toting, camo-clad clans who anticipate some kind of civil conflict. The true picture is probably a lot less dramatic.

Having read Kathy’s piece, and Rob’s answer, I don’t find them to be in any kind of conflict with each other. Families build communities and vice versa. We need both.

So…maybe it’s all a bit of a misunderstanding?

I have three simple perspectives I try to remember:

– the big picture
– the long term
– the common good

Looks to me like Kathy’s ‘survivalists’ and Transition folks have few differences in real terms: perhaps it’s the perspective that differs.

I’m sure some more aggressive ‘survivalists’ don’t think long-term, big-picture and for the common good, but my guess is that just as many do.

I do not think that there is too much of a misunderstanding. I think that there is a lot of denial and willful ignorance. Let me dissect the BAGGAGE some more, and see if the term American Survivalist is a little more in keeping with my first impression, as well as Rob’s. You will, I hope, by the end of this, see why American Survivalist got its bad name, and it is not just pop media.

The practice of survivalism, does NOT make a person an American Survivalist, just like a libertarian might not be an American Libertarian in the mold of Ayn Rand. The sort of paranoid narcissism and addiction to identity Americans suffer is quite unique.

Cult gun ownership in the US has been very high, and until recently those guns have been aimed at unarmed environmentalists. Russ Baker wrote a famous article about 17 years ago in the Village Voice about this I included in my handbook. After the Cold War, US needed a new enemy. The private property gun fanatic proponents were aiming their guns at environmentalists often – even forest rangers. This was sort of a continuation of the hard hats beating up the Vietnam anti war protesters as well – the cowboys killing the Indians – or the Railroads killing the farmers and the Buffalo. It reached its peak during the Clinton administration alongside the demonization of the word LIBERAL. Then, Americans elected Bush.

At the furthest fringes of the property rights extremists are religious cults and Libertarian ideologues, leftovers from the edges of the Cold War. They HATE the United Nations and National Parks – believing both to be Communist organizations. Environmentalists became the new Commies. At that same time Pat Robertson was preaching that all vegetarians were going to hell. Lessor numbers within the same paradigm had created worlds for themselves in paranoid isolationism. Hence, an entire community officially outlawed environmentalism, while other communities made it mandatory to carry guns. Forest rangers reported an increase of armed harassment. Every time the paranoia was notched up, Survivalist maneuvers rose. They wanted to be prepared to prevent UN troops from taking over the US, or to take back the National Parks, or overthrow the government if necessary.

Fundamentalists join with those who hate the new Deal and the War on Poverty because they want to return to a time when the Churches controlled and dispensed welfare exclusively – and could totally control the lives of women and children. The Athiestic inclinations of Communism had long polarized Fundamentalists, but it was equally controlled by a harsh reactionary patriarchy. Martin Luther King would roll over in his grave if he knew what happened to his Southern Baptists.

Then, if that as not bad enough, New Agers started slurping up neo Nazi mystic and religious propaganda and promoting use of arms. It was spooky times and there was no reason to believe that after 8 years of Bush any of this high pitch ignorance might have changed much.

Hopefully we are moving into a era that the reactionary inclination is turning more in a progressive revolutionary direction. After all, Pat Robertson has now joined progressive concerns regarding hunger and global warming and Falwell is dead. A new generation is being given the bill by the previous generation, and the conclusion is that greed and stupidity is not good.

Sandi Brockway’s above rhetoric against “Survivalists” is mild compared to what she has posted elsewhere. Sandi, I published a rebuttal to you that you have not responded to. Here is the link:
http://transitionus.ning.com/forum/topics/i-just-dropped-in-to-see-what-2?id=2320371%3ATopic%3A13900&page=2#comments

Blaming Survivalism for the extremists you talk about is like blaming the hippies for Charles Manson.

Cough, cough, cough.

I have been extemely clear from the beginning that SURVIVILISM and American Survivalist, with a T at the end, are completely different. VERY CLEAR. You will not see ONE place anywhere where i EVER said anything derogatory about survivalism. In fact, I have even discussed forms of survivalism, or what might be considered survivalism, that I have experienced. I even lived on the street once, but i certainly would not call myself an American Survivalist. Perhaps i would call myself a survivor. LOL.

Even wikipedia says the AMERICAN SURVIVALIST who has become a reknown cult figure, has very little to do with survivalism worldwide in general.

Where have you been while we have been discussing the use and meaning of TERMS?

Dan revealed in his post on Transition USA that he is an ardent Rawles follower. He made confusing comments regarding Christianity, Rawles, and that Transition USA only has 700 members compared to Rawles following.

The USA board has only existed a few months and is one board out of 100s, is a open social board, and is a movement that started out of UK a couple of years ago. Why the comparison?

Rawles gives investment advice and appeals to Apocalyptic oriented Christians and tells us to make money and carry guns – while secretly living in seclusion. If my inclinations were not clear, I am Christian. Jesus never told me to carry a gun, or not to give to those less fortunate than me.

I guess, though, this Rawles can tell me how to invest my money and benefit from others’ misfortune – as well as give me detailed survivalist, hoarding, and preparedness information.

Last but not least, I have lived in a very small rural community for 30 years and I always have stockpiled enough food to last 6 months, does this make me a survivalist? LOL

I answered his post on the US board the best I could with some more history, but this time I used the voices of survivalists. Apparently there has been this huge effort over the last few years to redefine the term and clean it up.

I doubt very much he will get it. It is really all about God and Guns again. Cognitive dissonance of this magnitude is a hard nut to crack. Put a gun in its hand, what do you have?

The issue is not my identifying or defending survivalists. The issue is your relentless attack on them. You made many specific depictions of survivalists. I refuted them with evidence. My point is that the notion of “Survivalism ” encompases both the people you abhor, and a majority of decent people with whom we can make community. Who both identify as survivalists, and share you disgust for racist hate groups.
You make constant disparaging remarks about “God” people. I find your assault on religious faith offensive. I don’t know what Transition Initiative you joined, but the one I joined is much more tolerant and inclusive.

I would appreciate it if other TI people would weigh in here. Not to silence you, Sandi. This debate is very important. I believe it is not a debate about survivalists. It is a debate about tolerance and inclusiveness. Perhaps I will learn that I joined the wrong transition Initiative?

Oh, BTW the reason for the comparison is simple. It is just as you said, Sandi. The USA board has only existed for a few months. TI in the US is just getting underway. The simple fact you keep ignoring is that all the people who you are focusing on are the motley fringe groups who are not the majority of people who identify as “survivalists”. It is you who is confused about terms. A survivalist, as Kathy told you is preoccupied with acquiring skills, putting up food and tool storage, and ( the most controversial arena) is prepared to DEFEND HIS HOME STEAD AND HIS COMMUNITY IF NECESSARY.

As the Rawles quotes demonstrate the typical American Survivalist( interestingly you avoided any discussion of them) is not a racist, believes in community building,and is charitable. The quotes from the number one Survivalist website contradict ever hateful stereotype that you have been promulgating. It is you who is confused. But that point is irrelevant. Why? Because it is not important how we define who is and who is not an acceptable form of survivalist. What matters is that people in our respective communities who themselves identify with the survivalist movement will read Hopkins “Why the Survivalists Have it Wrong”, or the ludicrous depiction of them in the TI handbook, or, most regrettably, your hateful diatribes on-line. And they will not work with us.

“If people have been trying to redefine the bad reputation the name Survivalist has, that is not my problem or fault.”
Yes Sandi, it is your/our problem when most of the people who identify with the contemporary American survivalist do not conveniently conform to all the stereo-types in your books. They are not trying to redefine the bad reputation, THEY HAVE ALREADY REDEFINED IT. You will not find the survivalist we will encounter in your history books. We will find them in your neighborhood.

Can anyone point me in the direction of references to social conflict in Transition literature? I can’t recall any. By ‘social conflict’ I suppose I could mean on a local level, such as looting and ‘defending the homestead’ or on a larger scale e.g. landless people attempt to squat farmland and are opposed by riot police or democratic Transition government elected in the U.K., it attempts to enact community control of land but King William calls out the armed forces to prevent this.
In any case as Transition Initiatives are not membership organisations or members of other organisations it would surely be possible for each one to have a different policy on this?

Thanks for all these thoughts on cultural differences between the US, the UK (and Australia). The research cited by Kathy McMahon (Ben Manning, 2006) is interesting and suggestive. It derives from ‘grid-group cultural theory’ which posits four competing worldviews (or ‘cultural biases’): Individualism, Fatalism, Hierarchy and Egalitarianism. This approach to social science is considered critically at <a href=”http://fourcultures.wordpress.com”Fourcultures. Although intuitively we can argue, as does Manning, that a nation state has a dominant cultural bias, the empirical research on this matter is inconclusive (e.g. Jaquin, Oros & Verweij, 1993; Rohrnamm, 1994; Mamadouh in Thompson, Grendstad and Selle 1999; Carriere & Scruggs 2001; Grendstad 2003). Furthermore, there is significant research to show that within the borders of the US the cultural biases are hotly contested over a broad range of issues such as gun control, abortion, climate change and nanotechnology, and that therefore to see the US as being monoculturally Individualist would be only part of the story.

For what it’s worth, I think the Transition movement, starting from an Egalitarian home base but moving well beyond it, is already doing this well.

Doing this well? The TI handbook frostily labels Survivalists as people who retreat into selfish paranoid seclusion. The only thing done well is their wholesale alienation from TI.

Dave I could not find it either. Apparently our boundless collective imaginations will inoculate us from social collapse, and protect us from looters,rapists and thieves.

Thanks FourCultures! How nice to have a real intelligent cogent post for a change. I think I can use some of this on one of my groups sites.

I am very cross disciplinary and very inclusive, to a point. Beyond that breaking point the cognitive dissonance is too screaming insane to endure, someone has to stand up and put a stop to it. If you read my profile, you will understand that I am Egalitarian, not Liberatarian/Individualist. I have anti hierarchical beliefs, that I make clear on my profile.

The proliferation of guns in the US is nothing to take lightly. Michael Moore did NOT win major awards for his film BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE because it was a non-issue.

We are far more polarized in the US because we have been trapped in this two party system and in the Cold War + Cultural War hate addiction. The survival of the parties has been dependent on perpetuating the system. Unfortunately it has greatly inhibited open dialog. For decades I have prayed for it to end.

Of course this has been good for the arms dealers. Crime and hatred is good for business = and the polarizing is like pouring gasoline on a fire. The arms industry is the leading economy in the world and america is in the center of it. I will not buy one gun from those greed mongers. This is in perfect keeping with my Christian values.

An article I posted at the US site is from the American Survivalist journalist who actually coined the term Survivalist to describe armed rural and wilderness folks, Kurt Saxon, not an Australian. He admitted that gun and related magazines preyed on civil unrest and racism of 60s and 70s to sell more guns and encourage people to leave the cities, fully armed.

It is not my problem that current Survivalists are trying to revise history. It has a bad name because it does have a history, and it is a label that was actually coined by a Survivalist wanting to distance himself from hippie back-to-the-landers who he called COWARDS. Cowards because they did not carry guns. Hippie back to the landers got termed RETREATERS. Double meaning, get it? There was a natural inclination apparently to define the groups separately. The Survivalist was too proud and patriotic to be called a Retreater – a name attributed too BTL hippies early on by Mother Earth News.

Now I am told, by the Guns and God people, that the old testament tells them to buy guns. Not just hunting guns, either. Of course, do I forget that Pat Roberston once publicly said all vegetarians were going to hell (again, the old testament as proof)? I cannot for the life of me call these people anything but fake Christians most of the time – especially if I compare them to the true historical American Passivist Christians, Quakers, Amish, Mennonites, etc. Who once inspired Gandhi. Violence begets more violence.

We have had a very serious reactionary regressive period where Americans, mostly reactionaries, armed themselves excessively while vile hatred about liberals flooded our airways – and still does. There is only one reason to arm so heavily against a generally unarmed liberal group. It is with the ultimate intention to collectively force by gunpoint and fear their reactionary ideology.

The fact the Survivalists have such a bad reputation in UK, USA and Australia, and god knows where else, is no coincidence. The fact that they want to disown and revise that history now is suspect, especially when my revelations are met with so much anger and cognitive dissonance.

I will admit, that my authoritarian father was an ardent gun collector and hunter. I was always so thankful he never combined God with it. How much more twisted that would have been?

Those who believe in God need not apply at TI

Sandi, It’s becoming crystal clear that you have personal family anger issues towards your Survivalist father. You should try to get some help for that instead of projecting that anger onto other people.

ome might point out that Jesus said “I come not to bring peace, but a sword.”
Granted there are some fools who take that literally. I am not one of them. I believe, Sandi, that there is evil in the world. I believe the sword of discernment is our only weapon. I am not suggesting that Rawles is my guru, or should be yours. I have to keep repeating my points because you refuse to look at them squarely.
1) the survivalists you abhor are a minority. whatever historical roots they have to the modern notion of survivalism are about as relevant to modern self-identified survivalists as the progressive slave -freeing Republican party of the mid-1800’s is to George Bush. Thinking people recognize that sometimes the word doesn’t change but the social force of it does. I am asking you to think.
2) It is unwise to label people around constellations of beliefs you imagine that they hold.
3) I recognize that the Survivalists that I defend hold beliefs that are not easily reconciled to TI, and are the source of real differences. I am suggesting that we work with self identified survivalists as we find them, find common ground where we can, and clearly disagree where we must.
4) You should know better than to attack people who believe in God. Religion is a personal matter. Attacking the religious is unwise and repels more than it attracts.
5) The real issue is whether TI USA is willing to move towards removing the word “survivalist” in its condemnation of anti-social isolationists in the handbook. The behavior can be scolded without labeling it as “survivalist”.

Finally since you decided to wax Biblical by speculating if Mr. Rawles is the Anti-Christ, I am puzzled why you, as a self -identified Christian have only referred to belief in God in such a disparaging way. I make no such claim.
I am not a Christian. I do not own guns.
I am deeply invested in TI becoming a thoughtful and inclusive movement, which is why I have invested so much time engaging with you. I have tried to be respectful and thoughtful. But I must say if the dictum “by their fruits you will know them” was applied to our conversation, and you were its sole representative,I would have nothing to do with such a hateful, judgmental, and provincial movement.

20 years is far different than 150 years passing in the history of social movements, trends and fads.

why promote rawles here as if he was some sort of hero that you emulate, then say you were making it all up? you lose credibility.

if you cannot carry on a consistent argument and be truthful, what is the point? i am very clear and consistent about my arguments and even my biases.

Provincial means rural, vs cosmopolitan, city sophisticate. Sometimes cosmopolitans will use the word provincial condescendingly. then we ahve the red and the blue states. Limbaugh used to give lessons to the provincials on why they should hate the cosmopolitans. he also had lessons on why we should worship only wealthy men.

Good luck rewriting history and forging a new reputation for the term Survivalist. May I make a PR suggestion? Perhaps for clarity’s sake, you might call them the NEW SURVIVALISTS or CONTEMPORARY SURVIVALISTS or PEAK OIL SURVIVALISTS or GLOBAL WARMING SURVIVALISTS or POST PETROLEUM SURVIVALISTS. because there is an element of the population that forgets history easily does not mean it is that easy to alter what has become associated with a word.

I agree we should find common ground where we can, but I will not lie about history or the genuine concern about the accummulation of guns and weapons. the people causing such a stink here and on the USA board were all quite well aware of the genre of survivalist that Rob was talking about.

I knew that if I revealed the information regarding my father, that you would use it in such a disingenuous condescending manner. Here is more fuel for you to mangle.

I made peace with my father many decades ago. he helped me through many tragedies my life. Two rapes, assault and battery, illegal imprisonment, two arson fires, a robbery, attempted murder, are the worst of it.

Even with all his NRA bravado, he never once gave me a gun, he knew deep down it was more of a risk than help. Though once I asked him and tho i was trained, he told me to lock the door behind me and leave the house and go into hiding.

Only his immediate family knew he was a racist. We do not know where he picked it up. He hated a lot of people, and would go into an almost ecstatic state whenever Republicans invaded a country. He even had a streak of misogyny. He could never be wrong, sometimes it was laughable.

I came to feel sorry for my dad, he had become addicted to hatred to overcome chronic depression, a depression he was too macho to admit or seek help for. his guns were just a symptom of a deeper insanity – armor to avoid the pain of consciousness.

It was embarrassing, and because he was an important man, something we wished would never be known even though all of us at one time or togetehr encouraged him to get help.

Over the last year my father, my mother, my best friend, and two cats died. After my dad died, my sister became totally deranged and entered into a sick relationship with my sociopathic brother. I have thrown myself into this current work as an effort to overcome grief.

Your inability to accurately interpret what is going on here suggests to me there is a lot of projection going on, and that is why your lack of consistency or sincerity. I am very clear about my moral and ethical positions, and did not come by them easily, or trip on them yesterday.

Even you admitted Rawles was not an inclusive man. I agree we need to stop talking in labels, and discuss qualities instead. That applied to quantities too. More is not better.

Provincial: a person of local or restricted interests or outlook. That is the first (a) definition in Webster’s. But by now I am familiar with how you pick and choose data to suit you. As Daniel Patrick Moynihan once quipped “you are entitled to your own personal opinion, but you are not entitled to your own personal facts.”
20 years? from 1979 to 1999 the size of the Black American middle class doubled. From 1929 to 1949 the American labor Movement changed the face of American Industry. In the USA, a generation is more than enough time for vast social change.
And shame on you for calling me a liar. There is nothing I lied about. If you can’t wrap your head around the fact that I can hold such firm opinions about supporting people of faith and gun owners without out being one… well then you are a provincial.

Now that I have that out of my system, let me say that my comment about your father was not the cheap shot you think it was. It’s obvious that the “survivalist” issue taps into very deep emotions for you. And, as I suspected, you are the survivor of life with a survivalist. I suspect by the way you write that you suffer from PTSD as I once did. I got help for it through EMDR therapy. I also was prickly and saw bad intent where this was none. I also emotionally over-reacted. It was very difficult for me to keep those emotional habits in check. I could not have done it without therapy.

Furthermore, I commend you for throwing yourself into TI. I see you are involved in a range of projects. Work will keep you busy, but I found that it was not a substitute for therapy. Eventually my symptoms got so bad that I could not hide in work. My emotions were out of control. You have been though a lot. More than most people could handle.I hope you are getting grief therapy and /or PTSD therapy.

your efforts to discredit me are getting very tiresome. I do have better things to do than to give you this attention, no offense.

I got months of counselling through my church after they evaluated me as being sane with no serious personality disorders. I had a year counselling after the rapes. I always get counselling on general principle whenever a trauma occurs. I even spent years studying trauma. I minored in psychology, am close to a BA in psychology, and received a certificate in Adlerian family counselling and life style assessment. I probably know more about trauma than most therapists.

i just listened to yet another self help tape that seemed to suggest I was doing the right thing rather than shut myself off and in, as i have a tendency to do being a shy reclusive person

I thought you said: I am not a Christian. I do not own guns.

after telling me you were a gun owner and a christian. i guess i misinterpreted your original posts. it was a little misleading and manipulative.

i do not recall talking about god in a disparaging way, and i thought i was clear the anti christ comment was a joke.

PROVINCIAL, derived from province, being from the provinces, IOW, rural, not from the city

2: one living in or coming from a province
3 a: a person of local or restricted interests or outlook b: a person lacking urban polish or refinement

racist militias area still active today, many turned to border patrol and are anti immigration extremists.

where ever i see hypocrisy and disengenuousness i will comment. why? because all seekers deserve the truth or at least an honest attempt at it.

it seems they did not post the articles i entered here. i posted them on the US board. If there is any questions about the current status of survivialist racists militia today, it should clear it up.

Please show me where I ever said I was a Christian and a gun owner. This is a polite gauntlet throw to you. I NEVER SAID IT AND I NEVER LIED.
You have the transcripts,PROVE ME A LIAR. You are confusing my desire to not see them demonized with personal identification.

Boy are you reaching (3A) was the definition I was employing. The origin of a word does not restrict its meaning. I am haoppy to concede that you are correct about the origin of the word, I will even surrender to you the notion that perhaps the word was ill-chosen. Now , that you won on that point, PLEASE SHOW ALL OUR READERS WHERE I SAID I WAS A CHRISTIAN AND A GUN OWNER. You won’t be able to. And you will be confronted with your reactive emotionality on this issue, when you should be THINKING.

I am glad that you got the therapy you needed. But again you regard my sympathy as an attempt to discredit. That is unfortunate, but it is your choice. I agree that further discussion is pointless. It would be wise for you to drop it here. You will never find any sentence I have written that says I am a Christian and a gun owner, or even implies it. Defense of an unfair attack is not a declaration of affiliation.
I hope you are happy feeling entitled to your own personal facts, and slandering those who dispute them. It may feel good, but it’s a poor way to build a movement.

I’m sure your conversation is fascinating to you but it is somewhat overwhelming – could you continue elsewhere so that I can view responses to other threads on the front page please? I expect you both have your own personal blogs where this could continue.

I wish you all would spend this much effort focusing on Peak Oil impacts, see here: http://survivingpeakoil.blogspot.com/
http://www.peakoilassociates.com/POAnalysis.html

Well Dan ays he didn’t see any mention of ‘social conflict’ in Transition literature – “Thanks Dan”.
How about anybody else? How do people in the Transition Movement see the overthrow of vested interests happening, for instance?

Well Cliff,some of us just want to promote our own personal blogs, but,unlike you, I don’t have one.
My discussion was about inclusion. Kind of important if the SHTF, but not if your pushing a blog and Mexican real estate. I’m done with Sandi. No more posts from me. I tried to generate a debate and it seems pretty obvious that nobody in TI cares. This is my last comment bye!

Hi Dan,

The collapse will come quickly after the last power blackout, and that is what people must prepare for. Once they understand that, they can focus on what is important in the context of a quick collapse. After the collapse, people have to survive on everything local, which means no manufactured farms stuff.

We are facing the collapse of the highways that depend on diesel trucks for maintenance of bridges, cleaning culverts to avoid road washouts, snow plowing, roadbed and surface repair. When the highways fail, so will the power grid, as highways carry the parts, transformers, steel for pylons, and high tension cables, all from far away. With the highways out, there will be no food coming in from “outside,” and without the power grid virtually nothing works, including home heating, pumping of gasoline and diesel, airports, communications, and automated systems.

After the last power black out, the people living in rural areas will find that surviving will become increasing difficult without all of the goods from the “outside” (food, canning jars, fencing, roofing, hay, straw, seed, animal feed, plastic tarps, fertilizer, clothes, fabric, medicine, hardware, saws, wood stoves, etc.). The survivors will be the very few who live in areas with good rain and soil and who prepared intelligently for a life without oil.

That is what my blog is about.

I live in a sustainable place in Mexico and welcome Peak Oil people and make that information available to those who are creative enough to find it. I don’t sell land nor make any commission for anyone who buys land here.

Hi…
I’m a member of TrasitionSydney and recently completed Narish and Sophie’s train-the-trainer transition course at Bowral, NSW.

I read with interest the comments regarding survivalists in the article above. Just today, the Sydney Morning Herald, our major metropolitan newspaper, published an article on peak oil, climate change and the survalivalist response. They also mention permaculture and the transition movement.

Interestingly, on the day of publication, TransitionSydney received this response:

“I came across your excellent site in the article
in the Herald today (Saturday, 28 Feb 09),
http://www.smh.com.au/national/for-survivalists-the-end-is-always-nigh-20090227-8k9d.html?page=-1
which I am also mentioned in. Your site is great, you will most likely see me at one or more of the events that you have listed on it…

“My website, http://www.survival.org.au contains information on permaculture,peak oil, how to start growing vegies, etc with an Australian focus. I’m studying a PDC (Permaculture Design Course)at the moment and intending to add more permaculture and transition preparation related stuff (and less of the wilderness survival material, which was the original focus of the site when I started it about 2 years ago”.

Perhaps this email suggests areas of common interest between survivalists and transition types, something that we can build on. For permaculture, it suggests the design system has appeal to many that once would have been considered as being outside the practice.

What I think it does indicate is that there is a growing consensus on the scale of the challenge that climate change and peak oil presents. What we are seeing is a different reactions to this.

In Australia, the arrival of peak oil is likely to be cushioned by our considerable supplies of natural gas (if we don’t export it all), which can be used both as a process and transport fuel. It remains, however, a limited resource.

Climate change? Well, as Australians fighting the bushfires in Victoria know, and as drought-affected people living west of the Great Divide know, and as people learned during the controls on the use of water in a dry Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane learned, climate change may already be with us.

Rather than compete, perhaps transitioners and survivalists could cooperate in areas where they agree that they have commonality.

…Russ Grayson

Thank you, Russ, that has been my point all along. unfortunately , it has become painfully apparent by the most recent, and extremely well publicized discussion between Rob Hopkins and richard Heinberg, that rob has no intention of dropping survivalists as ‘the enemy”. i can see why. In the United Stares, where TT has its greatest chance to flourish, survivalism is by far the dominant paradigm. Rob has had an ongoing dialogue with Dr.Kathy McMahon from peakoilblues.com about his bias against “survivalists” for 3 years.
He has not qualified his critique one iota. He needs survivalists to be a menacing and hostile competitve paradigm. I am no longer active in TT because Rob Hopkins, and TT’ers in general, are perfectly content to demonize American Survivalists. I am speaking out against TT in my area whwever possible because of this relentless and almost vicious bias.

Thank you, Russ, that has been my point all along. unfortunately , it has become painfully apparent by the most recent, and extremely well publicized discussion between Rob Hopkins and Richard Heinberg, that Rob has no intention of dropping “Survivalists” as ‘the enemy”. I can see why. In the United Stares, where TT has its greatest chance to flourish, Survivalism is by far the dominant paradigm. Rob has had an ongoing dialogue with Dr.Kathy McMahon from peakoilblues.com about his bias against “Survivalists” for 3 years.
He has not qualified his critique one iota. He needs survivalists to be a menacing and hostile competitve paradigm. I am no longer active in TT because Rob Hopkins,andfrankly,TT’ers in general, are perfectly conteand nt to demonize American Survivalists. I am speaking out against TT in my area whwever possible because of this relentless and almost vicious bias.