The ‘net’  has been down for a couple of days.  Happens all the time, it seems.  But it went off yesterday and is still off.  I am writing this from a hotel lobby a few miles from home. 

Had another earthquake yesterday morning.  About 5. on the R scale.  But the following is what I was writing when the neighbourhood cable went on the blink………

When I was a young man racing motorcyles, I read about bikes voraciously, subscribed to magazines and had several ‘shop manuals’ to pore over.  When I had to learn about running a clinic, I read books on management and accounting, hospital practices and drug addiction.  And when we moved to live on a boat, I read everything from Chichester to Wally Ross, from How-to-tie knots to navigation.

I have a tendency to ‘get into’ things and it often manifests in my devouring library books.  The really interesting thing is that sometimes the interest comes first and the reading follows up as I ‘try to make sense’ of what I got myself into.  And, sometimes, I just stumble on a subject while looking for something to read and the next thing I know, I am developing real estate based on having read Commercial Real Estate Development for Dummies.  Sometimes the chicken, sometimes the egg.

Which brings me to the current reading list.  I have been consuming books on the economy and financial matters for decades but lately I seem to be gravitating to two different schools of thought.  One, of course, is that everything including the climate and the source of your food, safety, finances and water is all going to Hell-in-a-handbasket.  The message is, essentially, ‘survivalist’  and how to achieve the kiss-your-butt-goodbye pose in yoga while sporting an M-16.

These doom-and-gloomers do not intend to go quietly.  There is a huge contingent of ‘off-the-gridders-cum-survivalists’  who also believe that we will have to kill or be killed because of our semi-automatic totin’ neighbours who will want our stuff and that investment in MREs, body-armour, dried foods, water filters and heavy and light arms is the only way to go.

These Mad Max’s give us rural sweethearts a bad name.

Then there are the real sweetie-pies.  These are ones who see the coming turmoil (everyone sees coming turmoil) as simply the ‘transition’ phase from the dog-eat-dog consciousness of the capitalist past and as best exemplified by the GWB’s and other imperialistic efforts that have prevailed throughout history.  They think we are going to shift to being good.  The new ‘sweethearts/utopians/Millerites and such think we are transcending our basic, primal selves and going all ‘community/love/new age’ as we step into a universally higher consciousness of eco-community and, well, more love.

‘Course, none of this is new.  It always comes down to the good guys versus the bad guys.  I’m ‘pulling for‘ the love side, myself.  And, to that end, I recommend Paul Hawken (Blessed Unrest) and even David Korten (Great Turning).  (Poor ol’ Dave is a bit of a nut.  Uses words like ‘spriritual’ and all that all the time.  Gets a bit evangelistic but, basically, the basic concepts  seem lucid and logical enough.  I think he wants to have his own cult.  But, if you can get past that, his book is interesting.  Sort of Jared Diamond and Naomi Klien meet Jim Jones and David Koresh.)

Personally, I have no idea how it will all shake out.  Clearly the bulk of the population think that it will be business as usual and they’ll just get older and collect their pensions.  I have my doubts about that.  Considerable ones.

But, if it does not go to Hell-in-a-handbasket and it does not go all love/green/eco/community and if staying-the-same is not bloody likely, then what alternatives are there?

If you want to use Antigua and Guatemala as a gauge, you’d get a weird picture: there are the heavies of government, the narco-mafia and a culture of local violence, corruption and decay that has a pretty strong history, not to mention momentum and quasi-acceptance.  It seems culturally built-in.  On the other hand, there are more goody-two-shoes NGOs, charities, churches and volunteers than you can shake a stick at.   Helping Mayans is a huge industry here.  HUGE!  Love is in the air!

However………you get ‘fleeced and cheated’ on one side of the street and sold ‘ethical, fair-trade, sustainable coffee’ on the other.  And, as for the ‘status quo’?  Well that changes every day but, in some odd way, everything remains the same.

Anitigua manifests the corruption and exploitation of the old imperialist (read: USA) regimes while, at the same time, running a parallel, ‘we come in peace’ alter-culture centred around, ironically, gringos and US-based NGOs and missionaries.

In a mental snapshot, it is like the picture of the Kent State shootings – hippies on one side, soldiers on the other.  And, in this twisted example, the indigenous peoples are selling refreshments from the sidelines while texting on their smartphones.

Maybe Antigua is not the right model to study……..too confusing.