Occupy

The Occupy movement seems to have bubbled up like built up swamp gas and erupted in chaotic and ill timed blasts here and there to great shock, but little lasting effect. I have yet to be truly impressed by the Occupy movement. I sympathize with them, but they are too laden with drugs and ulterior motives from too many groups trying to use and manipulate them for me to side with them. 

That said, I do think that the Occupy movement is driven by a genuine populist revolutionary discontent. I do feel that this is a sign of the times so to speak. The people, especially the young people, are looking at the status quo and saying "No. This does not work. I will not support this thing any longer." And I think that this is a necessary thing. I do not think that this is a good thing or a bad thing, but necessary is not always good or bad.

When I read that we must send money and food aid to West Africa, because the rainy season does not allow for a long enough growing season to produce enough food to feed the population, I am struck by our stupidity. If the landbase cannot support the population, then any food relief will simply make the crisis worse next time. And this is the way. Grow until the system cracks from the strain, and then expand to new territory to use that new resource base to feed further growth.

This has worked for centuries and has allowed our elites to live very well. But we have run out of places to expand into. We are running out of resources to tap. The toxins produced by our lifestyle are piling up.

We can only live in defiance of biological law for so long until the court of Mother Nature renders judgement upon us. The mildly stupid Superhero 'the Tick' once noted that "Gravity is a harsh mistress."

Well, so is biology. The laws that govern population growth are the same for llamas and otters and ticks and liver flukes and humans, to paraphrase Daniel Quinn. We are not special, we are the same decaying matter as everything else, to paraphrase Chuck Palaniuck.

People like the Occupy movement are becoming, more or less, aware of the problems inherent in our system. It does work. It can't work. And whether we like it or not, sooner or later it is going to fail. Like West Africa, famine is inevitable. Because even if we stave disaster off this year, we are not living within biological limits, and eventually we must pay the Piper.