The socialist state provided free-of-charge health care, day care, schools, cultural institutions etc (the basic requirements to feel human) + shops and restaurants locally in every farming village*.
Still the young left for the city
*in a Bulgarian village the houses, with small private gardens, are clustered together, while the main part of the arable land is outside

Posted by: glupi | May 16 2022 17:16 utc | 103

c1ue wrote: “Did you know that there are less than 1200 semiconductor manufacturing plants in the entire world operating right now?”
So what?? There are even fewer steel mills and even fewer oil refineries than steel mills. The huge capital investments required exclude mom and pop operations.
Then c1ue stupidly said: ” This focus on “unsustainable farming” is all well and good, but is frankly myopic and poorly grounded in understanding just how modern society works.”
That is a non-sequitar to everything in your post prior to that final statement. You have said absolutely nothing that even vaguely explains how modern ag practices can be sustained given that they are destroying the soil and the climate upon which they rely. And there is nothing particularly new about ag practices that are unsustainable. Man has been doing that for thousands of years.
As one example of unsustainable practices – there is a good argument to be made that if covid had arrived 50 years ago it would have been a nothing-burger nobody would have even noticed. But modern ag practices have so weakened the world population that covid turned out to be a monumental pandemic killing millions.
https://mybiohack.com/blog/glyphosate-zonulin-vitamin-manganese-gluten-serine-glycine

Posted by: jinn | May 16 2022 17:22 utc | 105

Posted by: Henry Moon Pie | May 16 2022 16:39 utc | 98

We have a problem here in the city with vacant lots, especially after the ’08 crash and all the foreclosures followed by abandonment. People could grow food in the lots, but we have a big problem with lead and other contaminants. I’ve been trying to get some local community gardeners together with some of the soil scientists working for local universities and the arboretum so they can develop ways to use plants and fungi to clean these soils cheaply. It makes no sense to strip all the topsoil off them and replace it because the lots are small and scattered. We need a cheap, natural way to do it, and plants like comfrey can cleanse it to the point of safety.

If you strip that topsoil where would it go? I’m guessing it would be trucked out of the city and out into the country (where aquifers likely reside) 🙁 BUT, keep in mind that sometimes excavating down a bit is beneficial in that it creates a bowl in which to retain water: lots of people go for mounding, which tends to shed off water.
My understanding is that heavy metals and other toxins are only of concern with root crops, that non-root crops do not uptake and impart such to their “fruit.” Sometimes it’s a matter of just giving in and working with what you have: fighting nature never seems to be a winning strategy!
Long-term, however, there is STILL the issue of reintroducing nutrients to the soils. If you remove something then you have a deficit; the ONLY question is the rate of depletion. Modern Ag utilizes a LOT of fertilizers (and pesticides etc.), less modern ALSO has to reintroduce fertilizers and too many people treat this as just a one-step process or one that “things magically happen because ‘organic!’).
Water is as big an issue as there is. Food, shelter and water… It can take a fair amount of energy to move water if water isn’t readily available: I’d once heard a statistic that in California 10% of all energy consumption was for moving/pumping water.
I’d like to take this opportunity to state that the only thing that is ever “wasted” is energy (and time). ALL materials, unless blasted off into space (lost to the earth), essentially go back in to the earth (if scattered about they take more energy and time to retrieve, but they’re still there). All my food “waste” goes either to my animals or to my compost (which, slowly, gets sent out to the gardens).

Posted by: Seer | May 16 2022 17:44 utc | 107

The old ways are best…. The loess hills of China were denuded several thousand years ago by deforestation and over grazing. Modern scientific farming and conservation, backed by wealth from manufacturing is allowing China to undo past mistakes and bring vegetation and farming back to the barren eroding hills. Plenty of videos on youtube – well worth watching.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | May 16 2022 18:00 utc | 109

Posted by: Seer | May 16 2022 17:44 utc | 107
Very true about removing the topsoil. It only spreads the problem around. The idea of phyto-remediation is to use the roots to concentrate metals in the leaves, which are then removed (carefully) and incinerated or ??? That’s part of the question. How do we collect and dispose of the leaves?
And true about the threat of lead. I have some lead in my topsoil. Everywhere at all close to an interstate has it. But it’s below the declared EPA threat level, for what that’s worth, and it doesn’t make its way to fruit. The main issue is direct contamination with dirt you don’t get washed off a radish or low-hanging lettuce leaf.
The lead levels on some of these lots, however, if much worse. It’s not only food that must be considered. Do we want community gardens where it’s dangerous for kids to play in the dirt? The people here have suffered with lead and its damage for generations now.
I don’t remember when the ban on lead in gasoline began, but I do remember the grousing about the fuel tank intakes. I’m sure there were people back then arguing that “the models” were bunk and there was no incontrovertible evidence that lead caused problems.
“Let ‘er rip” is the constant refrain of the billionaire who demands never-interrupted return on his capital no matter what others have to endure to for him to get it. It’s a pattern that seems to keep returning even as the severity of the threats escalate.

Posted by: Henry Moon Pie | May 16 2022 18:18 utc | 111

Posted by: Peter AU1 | May 16 2022 18:00 utc | 109
Yes, those videos are wonderful. I was just revisiting Lavrov’s latest speech, transcript at Saker, and also Pepe’s about warfare. The point being made here at your comment is that it does take input largescale, a government ready and willing to hire or promote expert input – direction. Aristos – the best practices!
And it doesn’t matter what the overall structure is, byzantine or communist or whatever Russia now is – it takes intellect at the highest level; and, once that is in place, concern for the people’s welfare and attention paid to their ideas, diverse as they may be. We can all recognize good government; it’s what we want, and the earth needs it as well.

Posted by: juliania | May 16 2022 18:33 utc | 113

Well, as James has said above, the problem with our system is its lack of sustainability. Were it sustainable, an argument might be made by some that it might be “worth it,” to echo Madelaine Albright, to put up with the corporate autocracy in exchange for a comfortable standard of living, but it isn’t sustainable, not even remotely, and it is coming apart before our eyes, albeit gradually. While older people might not have to worry about it so much, I think the younger people, such a many of my students, are pessimistic and sometimes depressed, and I worry about what will happen to my own children.
@ c1ue | May 16 2022 16:11 utc | 95 says: “I think people also have a very poor or distorted understanding of just how much wealth/surplus is needed for modern living.” I believe this is very well stated. It goes back to my lifelong debate with my mother over the need to simplify and go back to the land; to every reform proposal, she would reply, “I don’t want to live without electricity!” Precisely. To overthrow the existing system, one can scarcely imagine how different things will become. As one tugs at the loose strings in the very complicated tapestry of modernity, the whole thing starts to unravel.
All that said, I love this discussion, and I want to thank, in addition to c1ue, Henry Moon Pie, james, Seer, malenkov, Bemildred, and especially juliania for all of your great contributions. I don’t think we are all actually that far apart in our visions about things, but we may differ about the prospects. I would agree if incremental change is all we can do, it is better than doing nothing.

Posted by: Cabe | May 16 2022 19:38 utc | 115

Posted by: Henry Moon Pie | May 16 2022 18:38 utc | 114

But I’d agree that science can still contribute much, but it’s a question of goals. These days, scientists serve the same masters as everybody else, and the only goal is profit: 24/7 and from the biggest city to the most deserted landscape. It’s no joke that Mammon is our god, a jealous god who prohibits us from considering any alternative.
A man who trained draft horses in Kentucky rather than teach writing at an Ivy, who wouldn’t use a computer, could see the value of science. It just had to be turned toward understanding the Earth better, not to make humans’ live more exciting or more convenient or more comfortable, but for the sake of the Earth itself.

There are Three things that make stuff “happen:”
1) Energy;
2) Physical resources;
3) A plan.
“Science” is essentially the “plan.” It is the recipe. But a recipe does not create something that does not already exist, it is used only as the instruction on how to transform the existing (or apply leverage to something).
Energy and physical resources are finite: well, energy _could_ be “infinite” IF we were in sync with the true “free energy” which is that from the sun, but otherwise it’s something that over-harvested to the point of being finite. Unless there is a target goal of “scale” there is absolutely no way one can state that a goal can be met- you’re shooting and a moving, unknown target and calling the action of shooting “progress” (or some other such nearly meaningless term/word).
The earth will exist without us, it once did. If you aim/campaign to “save the earth” then you’ll fall into the trap of the “environmentalism,” who Peter Kropotkin, the person who coined the term “environmentalism,” said was essentially a means of protecting resources for future exploitation. It’s “exploitation” that’s the real issue. A great embodiment of what an approach should be would that from the Iroquois Indians’ Seventh Generation Principle. The Chinese present a future plan that kind of tries to think like this: but the “growth” projections are seemingly unhinged from the realities of the finite world (and endless growth). Capitalism’s “next quarter concerns” are so counter and odious to the very thoughts of providing for the future that the stench should raise the dead!

Posted by: Seer | May 16 2022 19:47 utc | 117

Posted by: Seer | May 16 2022 15:52 utc | 91
you’re moving stored nutrients off-farm. Soil depletion. Where are the replacement nutrients coming from?
________________________________________________________________
What farmers are exporting from their farms is almost entirely hydrocarbons laced with a little bit of nitrogen. That all comes from the sky.
There is absolutely no good reason to be damaging the soil in the process of participating in the ways plants and soil biology create the food needed for survival.
https://regenerationinternational.org/why-regenerative-agriculture/

Posted by: jinn | May 16 2022 21:35 utc | 119

@ c1ue | May 16 2022 16:11 utc | 95 says: “I think people also have a very poor or distorted understanding of just how much wealth/surplus is needed for modern living.” I believe this is very well stated.
____________________________________________________________
Ha ha ha yeah even the blind pig finds an acorn once in a while.
But what c1ue’s precise statement means reality is that “I think people also have a very poor or distorted understanding of just how much wealth/surplus is wasted for modern living.”
Indeed c1ue is spot-on correct the whole modern system has its foundation on making enormous amounts of wealth/surplus “needed”.
If people realized it wasn’t really needed and was in fact destructive instead, well that would be the end of c1ue and his ilk…

Posted by: jinnv | May 16 2022 22:37 utc | 121

My effort to find further details of Payton S. Gendron’s Azov fanboyhood led to this interesting venue, direct from the gatekeepers, it seems, detailing an insidious conspiracy by dark actors on the Internet to spread this terrible rumor about Gendron being Azov (“aspirationally and operationally” I’ve said). There’s a terrific section where they list all the malefactors, with interesting descriptions, under the heading Who is claiming that the Buffalo shooter is associated with Azov Battalion?

• Juan Sinmeido
• The Donbass Insider
• Ukraine Maps
• Intel Slava Z
• The New Atlas News
• Garabato.info
• Defiant America
• Russia Today

https://www.isdglobal.org/digital_dispatches/the-ongoing-effort-to-link-the-buffalo-shooter-to-azov-battalion/
My apologies to MoA. I did what I could to qualify us regarding Gendron-Azov “disinfo”, but we haven’t rated notice on ISD’s list. At least not yet. Back to work…

Posted by: Aleph_Null | May 17 2022 0:59 utc | 123

Well, this is a lovely conversation that I missed. Thanks for the offerings from Henry Moon Pie and juliania, with a dash of james and others. One can remember that modern food is shit, just as modern society is functionally insane – nothing worth perpetuating in any of this.
What can the soil produce? I don’t read him now, but it was Bill McKibben a few years ago who demonstrated to me how modern agribusiness-style farming is only more profitable per acre, but is by no means more productive per acre. Small farms have soil productivity beat by a multitude of bushels compared with modern agribusiness farming. Links to that truth shouldn’t be hard to find.
How can people live? We have a global surplus of labor of at least 20% of humanity accruing as we speak, according to Kees van der Pijl and the WEF schemers that he reveals in his latest book, States of Emergency.
The unneeded workers of the modern age will have to live somewhere, and find a way to eat somehow. Fans of the modern way of surviving would have that surplus simply die out of the population, but perhaps we don’t agree with them, and perhaps there is another way.
~~
c1ue suggests that reducing the cost of housing and healthcare would be necessary in order to allow organic farming to feed people. He’s right, I believe, to suggest that housing and healthcare are poisonously priced.
But he’s wrong that organic food costs more than cheap shit food, because he’s not counting all the benefits and externalities – organic food provides more nutrients per unit of currency, and this also defrays healthcare costs of course, and offers future sustainability (therefore less anxiety), and general population health – all positive factors that engage in synergies that supply even more serendipity.
Modern shit food from agribusiness is only cheap because it doesn’t count the true costs externalized onto the environment, future sustainability and general population health. And personally, I’m not convinced that it is even cheap. Nutrient for nutrient, and health for health, I can’t see that shit food is any kind of competition to simple good food that doesn’t promote craving, addiction, malnourishment or ill health.
~~
We know also, from Henry Moon Pie’s book suggestion, that good soil doesn’t depend on artificial INPUTS. No-till farming has been around for many decades now, and it works. Food forests exist. A small piece of land can house several people and provide enough to feed them all and provide a surplus for other needs.
So – that surplus labor force for whom there is no longer work (because unsustainable exploitation of resources has removed the need for their labor), could actually return to the land, and find shelter and food. And perhaps even take the land back from Bill Gates, if it should come to that.
We know these things. I’m not trying to convince anyone who doesn’t know these things, merely reminding those who do. There needn’t be a problem here. The planet continues to offer its bounty of solutions.
~~
The world is poisoned from a system of exploitation that follows the imperialist model of stealing resource from the indigenous land and then blaming the indigenous for being “underdeveloped” and insisting on injecting expensive and addictive poisons as remedy.
But it could all have been left alone, and the poisonous modern world need never have arisen.
Let’s have a modern world. But if it’s poisonous, then it has subverted and appropriated the word “modern” and substituted a lie. A poisonous world cannot possibly be modern, since it cannot possibly have a future. We can remember that we can have a future.

Posted by: Grieved | May 17 2022 3:34 utc | 125

@james #94
I don’t even own a car – do you?
I cook almost all my food at home, do you?
But most importantly: why do I need to do a damn thing, when the supposed leaders of culture and government pollute enormously via gigantic consumption?
If you want to try and force some kind of peer pressure, direct it to where it matters.

Posted by: c1ue | May 17 2022 11:46 utc | 127

@james #98
I frankly don’t give a shit what psychohistorian personally believes, nor what any number of other people believe if that belief is idiotic and unrealistic.
This latest lame attempt at peer pressure only reinforces my notion that delusion and hopium underlie most of the “green” agenda.
My view is that developing equal or better alternatives is the best way towards change. Solar PV and wind are not equal or better without cheap storage. Nuclear is carbon free but the majority of the “green” movement is against it.
You and your ilk just don’t get it: change is absolutely possible but it is going to require enormous and painful downward changes to society.
And the vast majority of people aren’t going to accept that, much less vote for it.
Ad hominem attacks and peer pressure aren’t going to change my mind or change reality.

Posted by: c1ue | May 17 2022 11:54 utc | 129

The most amusing thing in the entire discussion is that it is 100% clear that juliana, Henry Moon Pie, and james don’t actually practice what they preach.
They don’t live on a small farm and produce everything they consume a la West Virginia high Appalachian families.
Shopping at a farmer’s market with dollars or whatever, having driven there in a car or ridden on a bike <-- neither of which you can manufacture yourself, using gasoline you didn't drill for or refine, on tires using rubber imported halfway across the world, wearing clothes almost certainly made in China from cotton grown in China or India, surfing MoA on a computer built largely in China from materials sourced from all over the world: To me, this seems like a whole lot of hypocrisy. To then lecture me on what I should be doing to "save the world"...! Let me give you a taste of what reality really is. In China in the inter World War period, there were literally hundreds of millions of dirt poor people a la West Virginia high Appalachians up until the 1970s. These people literally scraped by: they grew barely enough food to feed and clothe themselves. They used wooden instruments for the most part because metal was too expensive. If the harvest was bad, they largely starved. If they got a major illness, they died. They were not educated. They had no prospects for advancement whatsoever. This exists in many parts of India and Africa still. The above description is what "organic farming" has traditionally meant for the majority of humanity during the majority of its existence. Has this changed? Well, that's why I asked the questions. And the answers I get so far are: "not much". So you want to go back to nature. Who chooses which of the 70%+ of humanity that has to die? Or will it be a case of the strongest surviving by killing off everyone else? Are you prepared for the New World you so dearly desire? Do you have the weapons, training, organization and willingness to do what is needed to survive this world? I've read and thought an enormous amount on this subject; in my view, the "New World" isn't a nice one at all. The excess thrown off by industrial society enables the existence of the starry eyed naturalist - which is the liberal counterpart to a libertarian and the latest equivalent of Rousseau's Noble Savage. Without this excess, the division of "not excess" occurs by force - whether literal fascist or feudal really doesn't matter if you're little people. As such, my questions on the relative capabilities under "organic" vs. existing practices aren't an issue of status quo or adoptability alone, they are also an issue on how society looks in the future.

Posted by: c1ue | May 17 2022 12:37 utc | 131

Posted by: c1ue | May 15 2022 14:22 utc | 7
The SPR was created to ensure a reliable source of energy is available in the event of conflict.
You cannot go to war without gas, lots and lots of gas. Without fuel all the fancy weapons are warehouse paperweights and hanger queens.
Draining the SPR is the same as depleting the inventory of Stingers and Javelins while at the same time poking the bear.
I cannot tell if it is something in the US drinking water supplies, the quality of US education or the over-promotion of the Hunter Biden’s. Something is rotten and its not in Denmark.

Posted by: Sushi | May 17 2022 12:45 utc | 133

Oh, enjoy your superior day!
Posted by: Seer | May 16 2022 16:42 utc | 100
And lulu and others …
RE: China and the collateral geopolitical effects of shutdowns:
Thank you for your comments, after considering them, I want to point out that competent Chinese leadership MUST consider such “side-effects” of its policies before carrying them out, one need not infer any nefarious intentions, even the good guys will have to think about such things as how they will affect other countries. At least I certainly would in their position, you really have to consider everything, not just the things you want to do. “You can never do just one thing.”
The fact that it will put the squeeze on their antagonists may not bother them much, but they have to think about it anyway.

Posted by: Bemildred | May 17 2022 12:53 utc | 135

Posted by: Patroklos | May 15 2022 22:21 utc | 50
When a man lies he murders some part of the world.
Thank you for this.

Posted by: Sushi | May 17 2022 13:02 utc | 137

It is time to pay attention but not freak out yet.
Monkeypox has arrived in the UK. Two new cases of Monkeypox
that have no relationship to the first case have been found.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/two-more-cases-monkeypox-infection-101504243.html
Last September I posted a link to scientific research being done for a possible treatment to Monkeypox.

If some future version of Fausti
gets it into his head to continue with gain-of-function research
*and* is arrogant enough to apply that research to something
truly devilish like Smallpox
then you will want to learn about what has been forgotten.
The Native Americans discovered the cure for smallpox
but very late, after their numbers had been decimated.
The Micmac or Mi’kmaq are credited with discovering
Purple Pitcher Plant (PPP) (777) as a cure.
In 2012 researchers were able to discern the mechanism.
PPP “…the first effective inhibitor of poxvirus replication at the level of early viral transcription”.
Blocks a protein needed for mRNA transcription.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0032610
Native Americans, herbalists and the 2012 researchers used the whole fresh plant
(critical! to use fresh plants, it was learned the hard way that dried plants lose
their value!).
The process used by the researchers is similar to that of early herbalists
except for the amount of time stored before first use (48 days vs 7-8 days).
For the preparation of S.[Sarracenia] purpurea extract, fresh whole plants grown in a greenhouse in the Southeastern United States were shipped overnight express and received at the manufacturing facility (Sedona, AZ). The plants were manually cleaned on the same day, with special attention to cleaning the base portion of the plant’s pitcher structure so that it was free from contamination with forest detritus. Cleaned whole plant was ground gently in a Hamilton Beach Stainless steel blender in the presence of a blend of 190-proof grain ethanol/distilled water/vegetable glycerin (63%/32%/5%). The plant/liquid mixture was transferred to an amber colored glass container, sealed tightly, and incubated at room temperature for 48 days. The liquid was pressed from the solid plant material, filtered through unbleached paper filters, pooled, and bottled in amber colored glass bottles.
So, if in some future time the world is faced with a more devastating man-made calamity,
that is, a pandemic from gain-of-function pox then you will be glad you had read MoA.
Posted by: librul | Sep 6 2021 20:24 utc | 31

Posted by: librul | May 17 2022 13:15 utc | 139

A number of Western and Indian media have released reports that Xi Jinping has been removed from power, as reported by Chinese social networks. The President of the People’s Republic of China was allegedly removed from power due to the inability to cope with the pandemic, and Premier Li Keqiang took his place. Simultaneously with the provocative statements of the Western tabloids, the Daily Mail reports that the Chinese leader had a brain aneurysm were found, which indicates a concerted information campaign against the top leadership of the PRC.

Posted by: alaff | May 17 2022 14:18 utc | 141

Thanks, Grieved @ 126, and to deviate somewhat from these discussions,(but on the subject you raise of ‘poisons’) I think this belongs here on the non-Ukraine thread, and I haven’t seen it mentioned elsewhere. Saker has up a ‘Russia Sitrep’ post dealing with the Duma’s consideration of removing Russia from the WHO and WTO and other organizations. There were a few comments wondering why the WHO, China being a contributing member; on the whole an interesting discussion. One comment was by Michael Hudson who answered the questioners thusly – I won’t give his full comment, but I found it interesting he felt obliged to make it:
“I suspect that the withdrawal from the WHO is a result of what the Russians discovered in America’s biowarfare laboratories in Ukraine. WHO complicity requires Russia to withdraw in order to emphasize its accusations about how WHO has been captured by U.S. neocons. How could Russia condemn the WTO if it still remained part of this?…”
I note from the sitrep that the Duma has the matter up for consideration, so not a done deal as yet.

Posted by: juliania | May 18 2022 4:16 utc | 143

Caitlin Johnstone sees a sinophobic media blitzkrieg from something called Center for a New American Security (CNAS):

This is getting so, so crazy. That the mass media are now openly teaming up with war machine think tanks to begin seeding the normalization of a hot war with China into the minds of the public indicates that the propaganda campaign to manufacture consent for the U.S.-centralized empire’s final Hail Mary grab at unipolar domination is escalating even further. The mass-scale psychological manipulation is getting more and more overt and more and more shameless.

https://consortiumnews.com/2022/05/18/caitlin-johnstone-tv-war-games-over-taiwan/

Posted by: Aleph_Null | May 18 2022 20:47 utc | 145