Goodbye American Dreamland
by Jan Lundberg
In my long career of concern over oil pollution -- from my days of serving the oil industry, to fighting it, to predicting the imminent end of abundant supply -- I have never been as exhilarated as now to think that a change is in the wind. I have previously testified before Congress as an oil marketing expert, and I later enjoyed audiences of millions on many occasions even when my message was radically beyond mainstream news-media priorities. Now, we are witnessing an awakening of the role of oil as a dwindling substance responsible for technological miracles, energy gluttony and strategic/military pursuits. Everyone's differences will have to be put aside as we are starting to enter a new age.
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I told him our various labels (Republican, Democrat, liberal, conservative) are outmoded and can be dispensed with because we'll all have to come together. He asked me what should people be told about dealing with the oil crash. Besides minimizing petroleum dependence in general, I suggested getting plastic out of their diets. I informed him of the toxic oil spill known as plastics that has yet to hit people's consciousness. In hearing something such as this, it seems to me that Congressman Bartlett has opened the door of perception on a number of issues and viewpoints, by looking critically and honestly at oil.
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The trucks will no longer pull into Wal-Mart. Or Safeway or other food stores. The freighters bringing packaged techno-toys and whatnot from China will have no fuel. There will be fuel in many places, but hoarding and uncertainty will trigger outages, violence and chaos. For only a short time will the police and military be able to maintain order, if at all. The damage that several days' oil shortage and outage will do will soon wreak permanent damage that starts with companies and consumers not paying their bills and not going to work.
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However, there will be replacement societies, starting with bands, tribes and rural communities that will start cooperating amongst themselves as never before. The Age of Bioregional Countries, based on cooperation and mutual aid will begin. A main job-category will be restoration of the land so as to provide a semblance of the diversity of food that Earth provided prior to petroleum farming. Social structures will no longer lend themselves to overcrowded workforces dependent on the dollar to buy goods and services from huge, distant and unaccountable corporations. Argentina may be a guide to post collapse society, with its egalitarian and worker/citizen controlled systems.
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