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  • From: Harvey Ussery <huboxwood@earthlink.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Maybe (was Re: commune way of living)
  • Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 15:59:10 +0000

Take another look around you. Getting away from the "community" is the
wisest thing a family could do. Those people we now call our friends and
neighbors could very easily turn on us and become our worst ennemies. What
would happen if you were the only one in a community that had food and
water? You and your family would probably be killed and your food and water
carried off by your friends and neighbors.

I wouldn't want to be forced to kill to keep what I had but that is exactly
what it would come down to if people knew you still had food. (Art in
Arkansas)

A dramatic look at the future, to be sure, to which I reply: Maybe. Certainly the population is vastly greater than in the Depression, and a vastly greater percentage doesn't have a clue about how to make food come into being. Certainly in a society armed to the teeth such as ours the sort of dog-eat-dog, murdering-neighbors scenario Art sketches are a distinct possibility.

But it may be that the collapse will manifest not so much as "deep drama," but simply that almost all of us will find that we are very, very poor. And maybe a desperate need to survive will quickly spark a return to traditional food-producing skills.

In any case, I have already accepted: If the collapse comes down to a shoot-out, I lose. No problem. Okay. I have no intention of even competing in that arena. But if it doesn't, then the person who will emerge as *most valuable* to the community is the person who, in contrast to almost everybody else in the society, has already climbed the learning curves involved in growing most of his own food. And who, in addition to being in a better position to see to his own family's needs, will have an opportunity to be of service to his neighbors who are starting from scratch.

~Harvey

PS Admittedly, Art, I didn't address the main point you emphasized: the plight in the cities (and suburbs). All I can say is--that's gonna be a mess.

--
Harvey in northern Va
www.themodernhomestead.us




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