Boy, it must pretty much suck right now being over in Ireland, the financial bell weather state for America ( you saw it there first, soon to come here ). First the British turn you into a feudal estate, starve you out to farm the problem over to America where you think its an improvement in life to scrub JP Morgan’s ( The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance
) floors and then the US centered global banking system run by his decedents use you up and toss you in the weeds. No, kids, it isn’t just little brown foreigners that get shafted by the banks. This isn’t a replay of the eighties where the taxpayers bailed out the savings and loans to transfer a pot of gold to the Fed. This is the Fed eating its seed corn to survive a little while longer. The Irish might have to cut back on the cabbage and potatoes to afford to pay more to the bailout bankers ( the choice given to the Third World countries previously looted was “this is an offer you can’t refuse” ) but once they are tapped out it will be our turn. You think the middle class has it bad now, just wait until the Irish, Icelanders and Portuguese have all succumbed to the parasite. Then you will really feel the pain. So far Americans have just borrowed more. Soon, you will see serious tax increases with serious service cutbacks. Like this is a hard one to forecast.*
A really good book to read on desert warfare is Hart’s “Lawrence Of Arabia”( Lawrence Of Arabia (Da Capo Paperback)
). Boiled down it essentially tells you that static defense is worthless against mobile warfare in the desert, using the Bedouin ( Bedouin: Nomads of the Desert
) as an example. The camel was used as a ship on a sea of sand. Of course there are other factors such as knowing the lay of the land and born and bred to hardship, but you could simplify and say that a farming military tried to fight a herding tribe. Agricultural warfare is different than herding wars. One must defeat an invasion with no military significant positions and the other must defend fixed food producing areas. The reason that nomads don’t defeat fixed targets is that the farmers have extra manpower. They have a concentrated food production system and can mass an impressive defense. Nomads ( Nomads and the Outside World
) have a decentralized food production system. Neither one can effectively defeat the other easily despite each having weaknesses. But while the nomad can raid and harass with little cost ( outside lost trading opportunities ), the farmer must pay a much higher cost trying to invade the nomads territory. *
The desert is not a great place to try to live. You can only turn the desert into inhabitable farm land at great energy cost and usually only for a short time. There are plenty of tricks to farming there, but only on an individual rather than civilized scale ( past examples mined the environment and left behind a barren landscape ). Generally, it is best to use the desert for herding and trade those products to a nearby agricultural settlement for the products of a city. But if you do wish to make the desert your home, you need to live within your environment rather than try to turn it into something it can’t sustain. Every jerkbag fool that plants a lawn in the desert and depletes the water table to keep it alive, who then looks shocked and dismayed when the tomato crop is lost to frost in late spring, who thinks importing artificial fertilizer worked with a Chinese tractor running off Saudi Arabian gasoline makes them independent and self-sufficient, I spit on their delusions. The desert isn’t supposed to be a farm. Just because California uses petroleum to transport water from the Sierra Nevadan ( The Sierra Nevadan Wildlife Region (DK Pocket)
) mountains to water a recent desert doesn’t mean you can live off the desert by farming. That is just living off of oil. *
The desert has the advantage of being a huge moat protecting you against the farmers. It isn’t meant to BE a farm. You read all about sustainable permaculture, picturing the chickens and fish tanks and perennial tree crops ( The Well-Designed Mixed Garden: Building Beds and Borders with Trees, Shrubs, Perennials, Annuals, and Bulbs
) and what not, automatically buying into the well watered fertile soil area idea. But the desert can be just as sustainable, in its own way. If you learn to live off the surplus rather than trying to mine the resources you will do just fine there. And there are so few people there. No one wants to live in the desert ( see above mentioned transplanted lawns ), few appreciate it for its own beauty. Oh, I miss my trees. Oh, move the hump back to California you slimy Yuppie Scum bastard. But real estate is so cheap here. Well, it was before your dumbass moved here. God, how I despise most people. And there are far fewer here. And come the collapse when transportation is no longer easy or affordable, I can bask in the glow of never being bothered by masses of idiots again. If they are seen wandering into your area you can kill them and post their skull as a no-trespassing sign.*
I lived in the southern California desert growing up. I first moved to Nevada in the late 80’s. When I moved back it was partially because I’m used to the desert and partially to find a home with less obtrusive government. As a bonus it will be a great hideout for the collapse. The desert is an oasis. If you can handle the inhospitable weather you gain solitude, a defensible position and a staging area to conquer the infidels ( in our case, the farmers ). It isn’t for everyone, but it sure has its advantages. You just have to lean to live in the environment rather than try to change it. And become mobile to fight the advantages of invaders.
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My e-mail is jimd303@netzero.com
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Anyone can submit a guest article. No minimum word length, no writing skill necessary ( just get the idea across ). You retain copyright ( this must be your original writing ) and I’ll just use the once. I’ve yet to turn down an article, just don’t use the N Bomb or libel another that can sue me. Send by e-mail ( please, label as “guest article” so I can find it easily later ). Payment will be your removal from my enemies list.
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4 comments:
"God, how I despise most people. And there are far fewer here".
LOL!
Desert folks, and Steppes folks, every now and then would combine and collect people from a very large area and concentrate on the farmers. This was true both on the Asian Steppes (not a desert, but certainly not farming area), and in the Arabic desert areas.
Go to page 16 of this pdf: It is the intro to Peter Turchin's Secular Cycle. It is a very good book, but the intro is actually the heart of the book.
http://cliodynamics.info/PDF/SEC_first_last.pdf
It gives a very interesting discussion of the population cycles within Arabia.
I lived for a bit in the N. Arizona desert fairly recently, and I agree, it's a bunch of people using resources trucked or piped etc in, and with almost NO awareness of what was around them:
Hoards of grasshoppers. Pest or, you gather 'em, dry and pasteurize them using solar, and use as a chicken feed for the year.
Coyote gourd. Pest, (got the name because when ripe it smells like a coyote pissed on it) or grow for its nutritious seeds. It was investigated as a food source in WWII.
Red-dye amaranth. My hands always looked like I'd been in a red-marker right after pulling this "weed". Grasping one of its fuzzy, slightly prickly seed stalks resulted in a handful of tiny black seeds. I had to come back to California to learn what it was, a staple food of the Indians. Just disturb the soil, and it will grow in profusion.
Acorns, pine nuts, small game, birds, large game (pecceries come to you, pronghorns can be lured in since they're curious, deer are all over at night) bugs and and grubs and you name it. The place is actually extremely productive. But you'd have to do things its way, not as you'd gather and farm in the Midwest.
Getting back to pants, I expect "knickerbockers" to come back into style. They're the way to go for cycling, and you can wear thick or thin socks as you like, as long as they're tall. Look into 'em.
I can't believe I spelled it "hoards" when "hordes" is the proper term. But then, I've long noticed the Internet imposes a 30-point IQ penalty on anyone who says anything on it. I can take the penalty and still come out looking fairly smart, as you can also, Lord Bison. The average Schmoe, well, they come out looking like they have an IQ of 70 or 80.
This is not to pick on your grammar or anyone else's other than my own. I did, in the past. But seeing a friend write one of your Guest Articles, and seeing that article spread to another Peak Oil site (that's strangely just been shut down by its owner) with the spreader all but taking credit - and given credit - for the excellent writing, makes me see the utility of bad spelling, poor grammar, and dull-normal writing on the 'net. Passable to poor writing doesn't get stolen.
Don't worry about typos. Everyone who writes in on the bison blog loses about 30 I Q points anyway.
You see you meanies. Bison agrees about fixed positions. Move around or die. The desert way.
PS. I use coyote piss for after shave.
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