France is revolting.  In fact, Belgium got a little ticked as well.  Greece, too.  It seems the deplorables are rising up in Europe these days.  And, that is not even counting England and Brexit.    Or Fox News watchers.  In several ways, they are all right-on (sadly, mostly alt-right).  But it’s all a bit too late…..

The Yellow-vests demonstrated initially to protest France’s carbon tax levied on gasoline (petrol).  On the face of it: non progressive.  Billed as a way to ‘the GREEN’ future, the government did what all governments do….tax the poor to ‘ostensibly’ improve their lives.  The rabble didn’t buy it.  They took to the streets in that time honoured way to loot shops, flip cars and throw crap at police.

Brilliant strategy.  Primal, I guess.  Funny how breaking windows and setting fire to things is our preferred mode of expressing anger publicly…..?

But, as it turns out, the rebellion has some REAL demands as well as just screaming in pain.  NOT having a united front nor having a recognized leadership, they still managed to shout out real, visceral-level, basically smart demands.  “No carbon tax!  BUT DO take up GREEN initiatives!  We want to live!  We want a healthy planet!  We want equality!”

C’mon….give ’em credit!  Those demands (3) are way more intelligent than ‘Lock ‘er up‘ or, ‘Build the wall!’  Or my personal favourite, ‘Kill the lawyers!’

Seems they are NOT against the cost of fuel so much as a list of things that are making life too damn hard.  And they are long overdue in that.  We all are.

To give the elite their due (which should take the form of a guillotine) they just  ’employed’ a tax and a tax usually works.  Right?

Well, yes and no.  A tax on a ‘discretionary’ item like tobacco works.  Raise the price, fewer people smoke.  Same for booze.  Cheap wine and beer increases alcoholism and abuse.  It is that simple.  The correlation with price is irrefutable.  But air, water, food and, in this day and age, fuel, are essential ingredients for living.  For the modern worker, fuel is as necessary an expense as bread.   The government really should never tax the essentials.

“We want a clean planet but we also want cheap gas!”

Irreconcilable?  Not in the least.  Easy-peasy.  Cheap fuel really means cheap transportation.  That could be public transit but public transit only works in mega-hives.  It doesn’t really work in real w-o-r-k or real travel.

Switching over from fossil fuels to electricity…would that do it?  Yep.  That would take the sting out of it…except…it comes with a shock!  Who is going to give me an electric boat?  An electric truck?  A long plug-in? I am pretty fully invested in the old system.  It took all of my energy and money to buy into this one – the one that now doesn’t work!   I will buy into the new-system tools if I can work and gain the money (and live forever) but how can I work if I can’t drive my truck right now?

We’ve waited too long to get on this ‘electrification’ merry-go-round.

“So, if we hurry up and we all buy a Nissan Leaf or Tesla, will it be OK then?” 

Sadly not.  Why?  Because the deplorables are demanding more than just ‘cheap fuel’.  They want equality, too.  Plus they want air to breathe, water to drink and the planet to get healthy.  They are fed up being peons, serfs, slaves and pissants.  They are fed up saluting corrupt authority while working for peanuts.  They are fed up being part of the problem but only because they followed their leaders.

The poor are revolting.

“Dave?  Is this the start of it? The Revolution?”

I doubt it.  We’ve rebelled before.  GreenPeace.  Occupy.  Me, too.  Trump and Brexit were the start of our most recent ‘anger, annoyance and dumb-rebellion’.  And maybe the yellow-vests are a smidge more sophisticated and specific with their message than simply ‘lock ‘er up’ (hard not to be smarter than Trumpians) but anger and frustration doesn’t seem to get the job done for anyone and we are rapidly running out of time.  I really do not think the system is the mechanism by which the system gets changed.

That is why I left.

Honestly?  I am a bona fide deplorable.  Born and bred.  And I have worked for change.  I have felt the feelings of rebellion.  I have walked a few miles in anger.  But, but, but………..over time, I channeled my innate deplorableness into more personal, smaller, local battles.  I won’t bore you with my history of that but suffice to say, it was small and ineffective on any kind of scale.  NOT Bill Gates.  NOT Elon Musk.  Not even a shadow of Ralph Nader.

IMAGE: little Dutch boy with his fingers in the dike.

So, the point?  I do not see change coming through even a better supported Obama-clone or facsimile.  Certainly not by way of Putin or Xi.  I do not see change coming by way of any of the movements on the horizon or even any looming (possible exception: Ebola).  Not even by way of the Yellow-vest or the Umbrella movement (Hong Kong courage writ large).  I see the ‘way of things’ too firmly ‘in place’ for real change and, worse, I see that the system has learned to bend and absorb the energies it comes into opposition with.  There is no answer in us.

But the planet may get involved……

…..I think we shall soon see…..maybe a lot sooner than I thought.

The kid answered the knock at the front door of his suburban home in BC.  Four large, tall men in good suits asked if his parents were home and, when he hesitated, they brushed past, walked in and each took a section of the house.  Over the weak protestations of the terrified teen, they found his room, and searched it, stripped it of all electronics and ripped his cable out of the wall.  All the hardware was carted off to an unmarked police cruiser with a fifth man in an RCMP uniform at the wheel.

The interrogation was brief.  Harsh, cruel, threatening, frightening.  Very intimidating.  They told him that they were with Homeland Security and showed some ‘stinkin’ badges and, of course, threatened him with charges, trials, incarceration and, no doubt, implied bodily harm.  He caved.

Seems he had been on a hacking forum.  Worse, he had actually hacked something.  He took nothing, sold nothing, disrupted nothing but, yes, he was in there – somewhere – skulking around.  He was a young techie seeing what this hacking thing was all about.

According to the Chicago-dispatched crew of thugs in his kitchen, he had mixed on the wrong forum.  Known bad guys were on that forum and now he was officially associated with them.  Homeland Security would soon get him fired from his part-time job, alert the Mounties, alert CSIS, tell his school and, of course, tell his mom.  He was in deep doo-doo.

They scared the hell out of him.

That was twenty years ago.  Since then, the USA has struck a deal with the Canadian Coast Guard.  Something called the Marine Border Protection Act or something benign-sounding is now (and has been) official policy for some time.  It basically gives the US ‘authorities’ (not just the Coastguard) the right to travel as far as fifty miles into Canadian waters in pursuit of ‘evildoers’ or, of course, those suspected of anything even slightly evil, naughty or contrary to US interests.  Yeah, that means boaters in the Gulf can be boarded by US authorities.

They don’t stop where the water meets the land.

Calgary Airport is somewhat recently renovated.  It now sports a large section that is clearly USA dominated, as does the Vancouver Airport.  Like a big-box anchor in a mall, this section looms large in the airport building.  In it are a lot of US Marines and other US authority figures.  When you travel to the US, they ‘pre-screen’ you there.  They body x-rayed me.  The US would prefer to do their border checks on OUR side of the border.  ‘Course, they do ’em again when you land somewhere in the US but, hey!  They can do what they want….right?  “That’s right, sir.  As of that line, you are now in US territory.  We can arrest you and you have no rights as a Canadian in Canada whatsoever.  Canada does not exist to you. You are ours!”

So, Princess Huawei’s arrest is no biggy.  Trudeau claims he knew in advance.  I doubt it, personally.  The US has enough freedom to do what they want and they did it.  They usually grab some hapless RCMP and get him or her to tag along for appearances but they arrest who they want to arrest in the ‘interests of Homeland Security’ and they have been doing it for years.  Maybe they offered a gesture of a ‘heads up’ to Trudeau but, by the time he heard, it was already done.  Guaranteed.  It would only make sense.  “Grab her, Bubba.  If we get permission, great.  If we don’t, we have her anyway.”

Dear fellow Canadians.  Your country has no clout.   We have no power.  We are the pawns.  We are the playthings of the USA.  NOW: we are Trump’s toys.  Do not forget that.  OUR ‘authorities’ give speeding tickets, prosecute petty crimes, sell out the environment and take the flack for the Chicago suits and the New York suits they represent.  We control nothing.  Not even our own Coastguard.  Not even our own airports.  Not even our own oil, water or ‘rights and freedoms’.

And, as the new USMECA grows out of the old NAFTA, we have lost the right to negotiate any other free trade deal with any other country unless the US says it is OK.  Arresting Huawei was just a US suit showing their control over Canada as well as cranking up the trade war with China to a new level but sacrificing Trudeau as a pawn at the same time.

As if we didn’t already know.

The following article might help.  It was written in 2013.  That was 6 years ago.  Things have progressed….https://www.rt.com/usa/limits-canada-authority-fbi-395/

“Climate change could collapse civilization.”

Attenborough then implores the ‘leaders of the world’ to address this threat.

As if…..

At the same time, Premier Rachel Notley is embarking on an oil extortion scheme to wring out more tax and revenue money from Canadians for Alberta and to prompt Trudeau to ‘do something’ on making the pipelines happen.  Trudeau, of course, poses for the cameras, hugs poor school children and talks of love.  Trump, of course, lies about everything, hugs the Saudis for making more oil available and states that the US is producing more oil too, so all is good.

Big Oil, big greed and BIG STUPID seems to be doing OK.

But thinking people are left scratching their heads.  “Oil is bad for life on the planet but the economy is obviously more sacred than life.  Right?  The economy is considered healthy when oil is expensive and poor people can’t afford it (see French riots).  How is that right?  How can we consider any economy healthy if it will eventually kill us all?”

Our leaders dither while our planet withers.  Our own ‘sense of order’ demands acceptance of these leaders who, by the way, have never lead a damn thing in their lives.  Leaders are followers.  They follow the system, obey the system, owe the system, believe in the system and benefit personally from the system and they do NOT question the system.  And we follow followers.  Why do we follow followers?

For evil to be done, good people only need to follow their leaders.

So, where does that put Arnold Schwarzenegger?  There’s a committed-to-the-system guy.  GOP.  Politician.  Actor.  Macho-goofy kinda guy who drove a huge black Hummer as his governor’s (California, no less) vehicle.  They called him the ‘Governator’.  Arnie loves machinery, manliness and muscle.  Arnie loves money, cigars, women and showmanship.

Arnie could be a leader…?

Anomaly?  Thy name is Arnie.

Seems Arnie also loves life and the planet.  Arnie is a convert.  I would not have been surprised if he drove a Prius.  But he actually drives an all electric Mercedes Benz.  Arnie is on our side.   And Arnie spoke at the Climate conference.  “Our leaders are way behind the times.  But Americans are not.  We are changing.  We are doing.  We may not be officially a part of the Paris Climate Accord because of stupid leadership but we are there anyway.”

And that, dear readers, is the point.  It is never going to change because of our so-called fake-leaders.  It is only going to change because we lead.  Arnie may be doing that.  And I do see that all around me.  Environmental awareness is going mainstream.  People are getting the message.  We have to suffer mega hurricanes, vast forest fires, poisonous water and crazy weather first but it is finally sinking in.

Attenborough says it may be too little, too late.

He may be right.

Ya gotta love ’em.  They are kinda funny.  OK, OK, they are also ofttimes mean and cruel, largely dysfunctional and do pose a real threat to innocent people sometimes.  That part is not good and it is sadly true, to be sure.  But, well, they are also kinda funny.  I know.  I should know, anyway.  I have a few of them as friends and one is a relative.

One of the kindest, most generous, welcoming people I met during my ‘learning to OTG’ phase (a lesson still ongoing) was a ‘RA-RSBGI’.  Pretty sure, anyway.  ‘Course the reading material, pack of dogs, gun racks and all that kinda crap gave it away the minute we entered his home but that was background material and the foreground was nothing but warm hospitality.

And, truth be told, no time was spent hating anyone.  There may have been a one-liner about the deep state or government control but maybe not.  I am a smidge inclined that way myself so it could have been another encounter somewhere else I am confusing with then.  They do tend to sound all the same.  Regardless, my guy was a nice guy.  And, ironically, he had married a women of colour and a foreign minority so the accouterments of alt-right, supremacy looked colour blind at the very least back then.  I liked the guy.  Still do.

He’s not alone.  Of course.  We got a nice local guy up here.  Pleasant,  Polite.  Helpful.  Cut from the same cloth.  Deep state believer.  Conspiracy sorta nut.  “The Queen, you see, is in cahoots with Putin and Trump.  It’s a hangover from the time of the Romanovs. They own all the gold now, ya know?” 

Sometimes they go on about the Eurabians (a conspiracy of Arabs and Europeans trying to take over the world) or the Bilderbergs (a conspiracy of Europeans and North Americans trying to take over the world).  Or Skull and Bones (a secret club of the Ivy League colleges that are trying to take…well you get the idea).

It seems a lot of groups that meet secretly do so to try and take over the world.

Ya gotta wonder why?

Anyway, the part I find so amusing is that all my crazy conspiracy friends are poor as dirt, haven’t much in the way of friends or social circles, usually live alone except for dogs and/or the odd reptile and, generally speaking, might be considered rather dysfunctional in several key ways like  personal hygiene, general health, dealing with others and especially with authorities and, of course, women.  They don’t eat regular-like either.

“So, Bill……how is it that you have no food in your house, your truck won’t run, ya got the meanest pack of Pit Bulls ever and yet you think you are smart enough to figure out major conspiracy plans conducted by secret societies all around the world?  Shouldn’t you, at the very least, get paying your hydro bill figured out or get your truck running?”

“Well, Dave, you have a good point.  It’s basically the lack of funds that currently limits my lifestyle as you describe it but, you see, that’s because the powers that be are watching me.  They know that I am on to them.  They are keeping me down.”  

“Are you saying that groups intent on taking over the world are starting by taking over you!?”

“Well, not me specifically but people like me.  Those of us who have seen the enemy must be stopped.  We’ve seen them.  So, they are stopping us.  They are watching us.  Harassing us.  And persecuting us.  They need us to keep quiet.  This is all part of their plan.  And they are getting good at it. It used to be just the poor, single male that was targeted.  That’s why the jails are full.  But now it is poor families.  They do that with the drugs.  They are currently attacking the middle class and that is drugs, taxes and all sorts of things. They own all the porn, ya know?”

“And you think Trump is the counter to all that evil?”

“Yes and no.  He is not part of their conspiracies.  He is an outsider.  He is one of us.  But he is rich so he can stay protected.  Stroke of genius getting to be president.  Presidents get great security, ya know.  So, yeah.  The battle has been joined.  Trump versus the deep state.  That’s a big first step.  Then Trump vs the Bildebergs.  Or Eurabia.  But, by then, it will all be out in the the open and the people will join in. You’ll see.” 

“But you also said ‘no’.  Trump is NOT the whole of the answer?”

“Well, c’mon, Dave.  Face it.  The guy is a little nuts, don’t you think?”

Inalienable rights.  Plus getting a bit of happy.  What’s not to like?  I’m all right with all of that noble stuff talk.  Most of the time.  I mean, ‘alla time’, of course, but I am rarely pursuing happiness much these days.  Not with any focus, that’s for sure.  I’m happy, I guess.  A better word is content.  Maybe satisfied  I am contentedly satisfied.  Yeah, that’s it.  And then there is the occasional bit of happy popping up now and then.  Well, actually, everyday has some nice, happy moments.  I live with Sal, after all.  Maybe really happy pop-ups every few months or so.  Hard to say.  I suppose one could judge by the amount of smiling I do but that observation would suggest suicidal to the observer rather than contentedness.  I don’t smile much.  I’m an old guy.  We frown.

I do laugh, tho.  Weirdly, I have found a mildly startling shortcut for laughing.  I just kinda explode with a loud ‘hah!’ and that seems to do it for me.  Others sometimes look a bit stunned.  Little kids might even tear up.  But I haven’t giggled in years.  Decades maybe.  I can’t honestly remember even chuckling for some time now.

Sal says I am getting grumpy.

If I judge my grumpiness by my lack of smiling and laughing, she is right.  If I judge my grumpiness by how I respond to the average cashier or mental customer-in-a-line-up ahead of me or the average driver in Victoria or Richmond, she is very, very right.  I am grumpy.  Mind you, grumpy is still better than rock-stupid in my books.  But, if you judge me by my feelings toward virtually every authority figure and especially those in airports (special breed of stupid, those) then I am a very happy person most every other time and they just press all the wrong buttons.

I can still ‘pretend’ to be civilized dealing with the two-digit-IQ-ditz at Save-On but I cannot even pretend in an airport.  I am so ‘ticked at airport personnel for just about anything, I usually have a security detail behind me by the time I get to the departure lounge.

“Some lounge..hah!”

(I am ‘this close’ to yelling Allahu Ahkbar at them some day!)

Anyway….this is all my way of saying that despite what you might hear or even observe for yourself, I am fine.  Thank you very much.  I am getting bit less social.  I’ll admit that.  I am a bit more grumpy overall.  I admit that, too.  And I might even be a bit crazy in airports (but I am trying to eliminate them from my life).  Still, the trend is clear; Dave is grouchy-looking.  And maybe even actually a bit grouchy-ish.

So, what?

It makes me happy.

OTG CONCEPT

Imagine you can lease a spot on the ocean.  Off the grid.  You get a small tent-deck, water, sewer, some design limits and you can build whatever you want but it has to be small (under 800sft), it has to be built well and…….the ‘cabin’ you build is not yours (in the traditional sense) to sell.  The ‘site’ that you lease is also small.  Limited to the deck and building footprint give or take.

The cabin you build (or buy a yurt/shipping container/tent variation) is yours to take away should you want to buy land elsewhere and relocate to it but, it will initially be situated on leased land and the site belongs to the community and you have 20 years plus a day to be there – if you want.  If someone actually lives there for twenty years the site will likely require a do-over by then anyway.

Concept: some seniors might choose to live there the whole of the twenty years.

I envision most people will lease the site, bring in a shipping container-type abode and make some kind of arbor or tent addition or something to live in and half-outdoors while they build somewhere else.  They’ll use it for say, six months or so over five years and then take the container to their new site as a guest cabin to their now-built permanent home.  Or they may just leave it.  Or maybe it will be sold to the community.  The community will then re-lease the site and maybe even bring in a new shipping container.  Details to be worked out.

Conceptually…..

Lease rates will be low – to encourage the young to come and build and to encourage the old to ‘downsize’ and live amongst others in their latter years.  There will be a $5000 – 10,000 down move-in fee (to build the infrastructure).  Ballpark lease rate: $150/mo…maybe $2000 a year.  NO taxes.  No water bill.  Maybe a small maintenance fee or work-in-kind to keep it all going.  Sewers can be a problem… but it is all to be done NON profit.  Full, transparent accounting.

Maybe the tenant will get a portion of move-in fee back when they leave…

Why lease?  Because it is not our land.  We will lease it first and then sublease it to tenants.

Why small?  Because we want people to either stay small or buy-and-build elsewhere.  Ya can’t have chickens and dogs and goats and cows all a-wandering all over a relatively small area (7 acres).  Plus gardens, dogs, cats, kids and stuff…..not for long, anyway.  Otherwise it would get too crowded and ghetto like.

How many sites?  Start with ten.  Max maybe twenty. Let the community decide.  Ten makes sense to me.  Our area could absorb ten new families easily.  Probably twenty.  But no one out here wants it to become the new Saltspring.  We don’t want it to change, really, but very young people and very old people leaving is ALSO change so having a limited infusion of folks is really just stabilizing the community.

Will you bring in the container and hook it up to get me started?  Yeah.  Separate contract.

“But, if having that modest little summer camp-thing is enough for me, I can just live there?  Maybe just in the summer?”  Yep.  Twenty years.  Maybe renewal.  Maybe not.

In effect, the concept roughly described above is similar to a mobile home park but with an incentive to have the tenants stay small or move out to other OTG land.  Just NOT a mobile home or trailer……

AND IT MUST BE CHEAP.  The community is NOT trying to ‘make a buck’ so much as make a community.  We’ll pay people for labour and construction on any ‘community work’ or tenants can hire locals to work on a private basis but there is no OVERALL, for-profit company, there are no Benz-drivers, no sales offices…no organized greed corporation.  The idea is to support and foster the modest growth of our larger community.

As readers of this OTG blog and obviously, at least DREAMERS of the OTG lifestyle, would this kind of interim step, this ‘get your feet wet approach’ appeal to you?  Please do NOT quote me on any of this.  It is not mine to do.  It is currently a blank-slate piece of land and people out here are invited to propose other ideas.  I am sure they will.  So this is just one concept of likely many.

But I do have an advantage.  I can ask you guys what YOU think of the idea…

……for a long time now, I have been expecting a revolution of sorts.  I mean, talk, talk, talki-ing bout my generation, ya know?  It was half-wish and half-expectation.  Inevitable, ya know?

I came by it honestly.  My generation of baby-boomers was forged in the rhetoric of revolution.  Even our music.  We were hippies, Green Peace, we were the sexual revolution, the Feminist revolution, the digital revolution and we just kinda grew to dis the old establishment, cheer on the whatever-next revolution and hope for change.

Hell, we even called ourselves ‘progressives’ as if we knew best what it was all eventually supposed to look like.  But except for some peaceful changes, some minor movements, some enlightenment, we never actually overthrew the oppressors.  We talked the talk and walked a bit of the walk but, overall, we were ‘assimilated’.  We got comfortable. We sold out.  Took about twenty years….

In fact, when the hippy generation finally sold out completely they morphed into the ME generation and greed and consumerism surged ahead like a pent-up force of nature.  We got us a Mercedes Benz.  RRSPs.  Real estate.  Tax avoidance.  We got plastic surgery, fake teeth, fake boobs and a big screen TV.  We stopped protesting war once the draft was dropped and the poor and the drones were doing the killing.  We stopped suspecting corporations with the acceptance of Costco and Walmart and they being associated with Globalism.  It sounded egalitarian and it WAS cheaper.  And, for a few decades, we stopped worrying about the environment – mostly.  Our generation’s momentum for change-for-the-better waned.  Our desire to make more money increased.  We drank the Kool Aid.  

Were we capricious?  Fickle?  Spoiled brats?  And, if so, was that because of the ‘new attention span’ of the TV news cycle and soundbites that robbed us of serious thinking or was it the spectacle of celebrity and entertainment 24-7-365 for 30 years?  Was it the incredibly pervasive and persuasive propaganda that got to us?  Is that why we folded our ideals, morals and hopes for a better world?  Or was it more systemic?  Was it our poor education, our media or simply the effort of having to make ends meet?

Who knows?  But we do know we never actually revolted.  Some dropped out.  Some burnt out.  And many drugged out. But most of us worked within the system to buy a house and a car and take a vacation.  We bought in.  We did not even push our previously bone-deep politics, instead also buying into the bifurcated nonsense of red vs blue as if one held the answers and the other was just plain nuts.  It was just so much easier.  And we were busy.

But, I’ve been thinking…….maybe two things are also true but not so well known or understood.  First: the brilliant, Machiavellian genius of modern Capitalism.  Whatever is ‘revolting’ or ‘anti establishment’ becomes the new ‘opportunity’ for some marketer, some icon, some industry.  Capitalism has learned to absorb any significant manifestation of resistance and embrace it to turn a profit.  Capitalism is the great ‘sponge’ of ideas and makers of consumer trends.  See tattoos, see Rap music, see drug-use.  See gambling.  See Tyranny.  See celebrity.  Capitalism markets all that!!!  All those stupid, shallow expressions of ‘difference’ started as a revolutionary counter-culture act and each has gone mainstream to become a NEW mainstream industry.

Revolution has gone entrepreneurial.

I could go on and on about that but you get the point.  But can you see all that described above as applied to the MAGA idiots?

NOW there is a group of counter-culturists.  Post truth, alt-facts, lies, hate, ugly, fascist and stunningly ignorant.  Worst fashion sense ever!  A real rabble, a real bunch of deplorables…..THOSE dickheads are revolting (in every sense of the word).  MAGA-dom (Magadumb?) is, however, a revolution of sorts.  Hell, they have even killed a few people.  Their hatred is, however, mostly focused on the swamp of elitism, privilege and wealth.  Or jealousy.  THAT is traditional.  They do NOT want to accept any part of the ‘biased’ establishment and their movement is populist – also very traditional.

Could it be that the revolution we all half-expected is actually NOW taking place and it is not a movement for good, progressive causes but rather for bad, ignorant, selfish survival reasons?  For the sake of anger, hatred and bigotry?  Is this the revolution we expected?  The revolution of cornered rats?

Bear in mind that these deplorables are so-called because they are unemployed, ill-educated, poor, addicted and are transferring their anger against the institutions, establishments and those who ‘don’t look like them’.  Could there be a better definition of a revolutionary force?

I confess that I thought the revolution would look like ‘good works’ and ‘saving the planet’ and ‘helping others’ and all that.  But there is NOTHING in the definition of revolution that says it will turn out the way expected.  It could very well turn out differently.

Jus’ sayin’…..

….I think….

When Sal and I ventured out to the boonies back around the turn of the century, I thought we were going to be on the vanguard of an urban exodus from Vancouver.  I am amongst the first cohort of baby-boomers and we left early (our early 50’s) but I was pretty sure that the cost of living, the increasing urban ‘restrictions’ and the desire to retire would prompt a rush for the Gulf Islands at the very least and probably to other places much more hell and gone like ours.

I was wrong.  Until recently the demographics have remained stable.  Young people leaving; old, old people leaving and the merely senior-old ‘snowbirding’ for longer times kept the local population pretty much the same.  Birthing and dying is also a limiting factor at our age – more than half the population is OVER 65.  The birth/death ratio is out of whack.  But we were ‘holding’.

Didn’t matter how you ‘cut it’ the place was NOT growing.  It was stable but not growing and, to be blunt, all the while that same stable was getting older.  Mind you, all that is anecdotal and concluded primarily from inferential scanning.  One just kinda ‘knew’ what was happening…kinda….

To be fair, it was not JUST gut feel and scanning.  Advertised real estate prices gave an indication.  It is NOT an accurate indication because so much property out here changes hands but NOT through realtors and the MLS.  A lot of change is simply not published, not noticeable.  If there is any indication from real estate ads and such it is that fewer people were coming because the tax assessments were dropping and the listing prices were steady if not occasionally dropping as well.  For the last five years it has been a buyer’s market.  Speaking, of course, of a market that is barely visible….

But now…..?  I think there is something in the air…..

I am seeing more young people coming out here.  A few more properties have changed hands.  Prices have been rising.  Listings are down…fewer choices….The towns and villages on the Island are growing.  Builders are building.

AND more to the point of this blog, I personally, have been asked more often to ‘keep and ‘eye out’ for a piece of property.  In fact, I think it is fair to say that I will be right in predicting that at least two properties will soon sell on our island and several more will sell on the one next door to us.  And this is winter!

Is it a land rush?  No.  Is it a boom?  No.  All it is – so far – is an ‘uptick’.  The migration of youth seems slowed.  The interest from retirees seems increased and, lo and behold, that is enough to pique the interest of the middle aged because they can imagine relocating and finding work.

“Dave, do you watch real estate trends?”

Yes and no.  I watch trends of all kinds.  I am fascinated by group behaviours and the economics they create and, of course, real estate is usually one of the easiest markets to keep tabs on.  So, yes.

But do I keep a running tally of the value of any one piece of dirt vs another in one town or village or OTG situation?  No.  The money part is scanned only in big chunks (hmmm….everything used to be listed in the 500K range and now everything seems in the 700K range….?).  Of course, the last scan might have included bigger or better properties so there is NO real analysis…

…….just something in the air….

When living OTG first piqued my interest twenty years ago, I did what everybody does, I read and did research.  Of course, reading is somewhat two-dimensional and it is the hands-on experience and personalizing that fleshes out one’s knowledge.  Books just weren’t enough to give me the perspective, the sense, or the feel for it.  Not for me, anyway.  But the Mother Earth News forums were a good compromise back then.  A great interim first step.

The MEN forums gave the topics and the people came together to share and explain the nuts and bolts of things, the stories that happened to them, the learning and experience of it all.  It was NOT the same as doing for me, of course, but it was a hugely MORE REAL way to learn than just by the often stilted printed words in how-to and instructional books.

Which, by the way, is the reason I write in such a personal-to-me way.  It was that style that I learned from.  It is ‘forum’ style and it reaches me.

The best part was that, after awhile, you got to know ‘the regular’ contributors.  In that ‘virtual’ forum, you made friends, bonded, made judgments and generally acted as much like a community as a computer and the internet will allow.  In fact, the MEN forums were the most human and personal places I ever found of that medium.  I still have friends from that time.

One just wrote.  It’s been ten years.

“Hey, David, don’t know if you’re still around but thought I would holler at ya.
Not much going on here, still kicking barely.  Had mitral valve surgery 
last week, and I’m doing about as good as I can. I’m trying to make it 
another year, not so sure I will though. Had a fib hit me about a month 
or so ago and my defibrillator kicked me 2 times and brought me back.
How are things going for you?” 

SK is/was a poor, Georgia ‘cracker’, ex-military vet with health problems, a lot of country wisdom and skills and even more knowledge on domestic animals.  He is single, kids grown and they were in the military, too.  Guns.  Engines. Flags on the porch.  Lonely.  Lots of dogs.  He was hardscrabble and food stamps.  Dirt poor and unemployable.  But generous to a fault and very helpful.  I liked him then.  I like him now.

He wasn’t the only one, of course.  There was P-45 immortalized as one of the characters in our last book.  The OOMs, of course.  A whole book in themselves.  Many more.  And nor was the MEN forum the only place to find friends.  Other OTG related bloggers ‘connect’.  So do readers.  I would venture a guess that I might have at least a dozen REAL friends as a result of the blogs and forums, books and other internet connections (DeWayne, Derek, John, Aldo, plus, plus, plus).  And I am sure I have 100 or so ‘internet friends’ that are very real at a certain level but that will never actually be encountered in person.

Deer Garden writes an OTG blog (see blog favourites).  Her husband had health issues too.  She shared that story.  Without being cardio-savvy, I am guessing but both SK and DG’s husband, E, had/have the same kind of bad hearts.  SK now lives in Kansas but E lives in BC.  E is going gang-busters.  All I ever read about E is how he is a-building and getting in fire-wood and doing projects and being busy all the live-long day.  E is a dynamo probably by nature but being the recipient of a new heart some years back made everything better. See E go!

The point: see socialized medicine work.

SK again: “Still in Kansas, I’m slower that’s for sure. 🙂  The ole heart is done 
for I fear, the valve was the last thing they could do. Got turned down 
for transplant due to no money to pay for the drugs afterwards.  That’s 
typical.
Waiting to see if I get any energy back to make decisions on whether to 
keep my 4 cows n 2 goats n 10 chickens.
Its cold here, freezing my butt off. Haven’t had heat.  No money to buy 
wood to heat with due to medicine costs.  Gotta love social security.
Hope your little island is warm and snug.   Haven’t heard from 
P45 in a long time.  Most of the rest of the folks we know are 
still around on the forum.”

I am sure there are a lot of differences between E and SK.  Especially now at 70.  One’s ‘Merican, the other a Canuck.  They are basically the same age, tho.  Same interests.  They are both skilled and love OTG.  They both had bad hearts.  The only tangible difference I know is what I read on the blogs and the forums.  SKs heart has limited his whole life, restricted his relationships, stopped his creativity and will likely soon kill him.  E was offered another path and it turned out better.

We, in Canada, have some real issues to deal with and even our socialized medicine can be drastically improved.  But E didn’t have to go to war.  Neither did I.  SK did.  And so did his sons.  E had his faulty heart replaced.  E has a rich life.  SK doesn’t.  And SK has had to carry his burden alone for 30 plus years.   American Capitalism has not been generous to SK.

Our peaceful, somewhat more socialized government is the difference.

The following is a bit of a rant.  Spare yourself.  It’s a bit nuts.  I am getting weird.  I wrote it because I believe it.  Because it is true.  And, because I just went to help a non-profit deal with a landlord and came face to face with good humans doing good things but still putting money foremost in their considerations.  They have to, they think.  They are in the ‘money-making’ business and, as the one said, ‘gotta make a buck, eh?’.  I wanted to reply, “No.  You don’t gotta.  It’s a choice.  You can give as well as get, ya know?”

But I didn’t say that.  Waste of breath.  Foreign concept to the point of a foreign language.

But it made me think…..

If you help and get paid for doing so, aren’t you somewhat diluted in your kindness and caring account?  Are you helping someone or selling your service?  I mean, is a prostitute in the kindness and caring business?  And, if a prostitute is a moral sell out, what then is your doctor?  Your lawyer?  Your therapist?  What then of the institutions that control those professions and do so to maximize income for their members?  Are those institutions there for the benefit of society and community or to keep their members wealthy and from being strung up?

Quick gut check for an answer: how do you view the BCMA?  The Law profession?  POLITICIANS!  Courts?  Police?  Gotta lot o’ love, do ya? 

Short answer: Yeah, they care but they have been taught NOT to.  They have been counselled to ‘limit their caring’ or else they will burn out (which is partly true).  They have been advised to ‘makes sure to first get paid’, ‘fill in the form – get their name and identification number.’  The ‘client’ and their needs or problems is NOT where the attention is focused first.  Not ever!

Caring and humanity have left the building.

For the record: if you are hit by a car on the street outside the emergency room of a hospital, no one in the Emergency Department will attend.  Rules require an ambulance to bring the victim in.  For the record: if your 16 year old is strung out on heroin, you cannot legally snatch him/her and put them in treatment.  (Even if you accidentally hit a deer with your car and it is wounded, in pain and lying at the side of the road, you are not legally allowed to ‘put it out of it’s misery’).  Doing good?  First, get a permit.

None of those rule-following situations are there for the benefit of the victim or even the Good Samaritan trying to help.  They are there for the professionals that might be involved later down the process.  And those would be those ‘HELPING’ professionals.

Worst-named oxymoronic profession: Conservationist.  THEY kill animals!

A doctor friend of mine told me that when being interviewed by the BC Medical Association, the entire conversation was around how to ‘max out’ billing fees, get tax advice and set up RRSPs.  Nothing on the Hippocratic oath.  Nothing on patient care, nothing on making the system work better, nothing on ‘how to do a good job’.  It was all financial advice.

Another way to make the same point: If I do something nice for you and help you, you say thanks and we build a relationship and all is well.  If you pay me for the assistance, you are saying, “Here.  Take the money.  We are now even.  Goodbye.  Don’t call me, I’ll call you.  We are done here.”  If I take the money, I am saying, “Fine.  I agree.”    In effect, the monetary transaction served to separate us.  No relationship.  So, if money has that effect and the helping professions are all well-paid, are they really helping?  If so, who? Or, better put: ‘who first?’

I dunno.  I guess it is helping.  Kinda.  In a corrupted way.  But NOT with care, kindness, humanity or compassion.  More like ‘management’ than care.  It is business because of the monetary transaction.  And money separates us.  Is the ‘professional perspective’ only a money-getting one?  Helping by separation?  Is that even possible?

“Dave, what ARE you going on about?  Money is a necessary means of exchange and common to our way of life.  You are attributing traits and characteristics to it that are in your imagination.”

I guess.  Clearly it is a means of exchange.  Clearly people have to eat – even lawyers.  And clearly our means of distribution and service in large numbers requires that medium-of-exchange otherwise things would not get done.  I agree with all that.  It is just that in the helping professions care and humanity (and the original motivation) is ALSO severely eroded by the money exchange.  And money has that same affect everywhere.

Looking at an exaggeration as an illustration:  Trump wants people to pay ‘their fair share’.  Wants NATO to pay more.  Wants NOT to pay into the UN. The effect of holding off the dogs of war has no value to him.  Trump only knows how to measure life in money.  He has no decency, no manners, no morals, no honour.  He lies and he cheats.  And he is rich.  I dunno….those two aspects of the elite life seem to have a natural attraction…they seem drawn to one another.  Sociopaths and money go hand in hand.

They say a rich man can never get into heaven.  But it is a ticket into politics.  

Put yet another way, do you trust the super wealthy or powerful to be good people?  Well, do you?

Here’s what I really think…I think money was a necessary evil and I think it still is.  But it is evil.  At all sorts of levels, money is bad.  It IS convenient, I will give you that but it is MORE convenient for corporations and governments than it is for Bubba and Joe.  And governments and corporations are sociopathic by design.  The more we ‘value’ by money and ‘think’ with money, the more money plays a role in our life and makes our decisions for us.  And the more absorbed we are into the nightmare that we are currently seeing unfold with climate change and Trumpism and family erosion, drug use, street violence, terrorism, and on and on.

Money may be necessary but it is NOT benign.

Would giving up money and just ‘doing favours’ for one another work better?  Strangely, the answer is: that kind of behaviour does seem to work better way out here but, honestly, ‘doing favours’ cannot work without relationship and it is hard to have that in an urban setting.  Even harder when dealing with 7 billion people.  So, no.  Money is here to stay.  But the point of this rant is to say, “Do not love money.  Love people first.  Dogs second.  The planet is tied for first and second.  Money should be the last thing on a very long list. 

These days, it’s first.  And that madness is showing up a lot.

Jus’ sayin’…..