Transition Town/ Freedom Town/ Economic stimulus community

While there is a lot of discussion going on here, very little of it deals with the practical aspects of what to do "in case of emergency" such as temporary freeze on supply of oil/gas, natural disasters, temporary government shut-down following some catastrophe or another. . .I'm not trying to be on the doom and gloom side, that's not what I'm getting at. I'm getting at the idea that in our culture we have become soft and are unable to actually supply a way of life for ourselves that is detached from the very mainstream culture which is creating the problems we rail against. In our efforts to be free, we have done very little in way of it.

So I'm leaving here some introductory comments on what has been called the Transition Movement, starting with a letter I sent to my local Freedom Coalition:

Real quick, I thought I'd let you guys know about this amazing thing called the Transition Town. Inspired by the threat of Peak Oil, the people that take part in this endeavor have decided to take it upon themselves to create a self-sufficient, independent, co-creative community with a heavy emphasis on sustainable home gardening, localized government and even currencies, and also a strong, but still very open and freedom minded, community that encourages all citizens to take part and bring their best to the table, so to speak.

I know many are still focused on such things as ending the Fed and exposing the IRS, which are all things that need to get done, though with the way things are happening economically it is increasing the chances that systemic collapse will occur and many will be left on their ass. All of our bitching and moaning will mean nothing when the shit really hits the fan and we need to supply food for ourselves, or any number of other things we take for granted but that are solely reliant upon the notion that our society will continue on as is for the long-forseeable future.

I think we're all a bit smarter than to believe that.

So do check this link out, there is actually a training event happening March 7-8 in Stelle, IL which is this amazing, self-sufficient town that you also should look at!!! I would love to go and know that isn't in the cards, but if anyone reading this decides to go I would love to speak with you beforehand.

It's seems clear that our federal government is faltering, and possibly even falling over under the weight of it's own hubris. To be sure, things wont look pretty when our dollar finally drops and the world economy hit the ground. The more prescient among us will have already begun to develop new mini-governments, ensuring that in the event of chaos they have a much safer community of folks who can weather the storm. My focus lately has been on working towards this type of idea, because true freedom is not and will not ever again be protected by our federal government. WE are the government, right? So what the heck are we waiting for!?!?

Although, maybe nothing catastrophic will actually happen in our near future, and business will continue on as usual. Then we'd still have a damn good foothold in our part of the map where freedom can thrive and proliferate. What is freedom if not self-sufficiency and self-government? Let's bring things down to the local level.

http://www.realitysandwich.com/transition_tomorrow

You all will notice that the two major ideas inspiring this movement are Peak Oil(the notion that oil consumption will far out-weigh oil production in the very near future) and the climate crisis. While both have their merits as far as predictions go, Peak Oil I think being a more immediate concern personally although we are dirtying the place up, but I would say a group like this would add a third reason and that would be Government Tyranny. So I don't adhere to everything this movement is about, or any movement really, it's all about whatever works to get us what we want: our freedom.

This group also mentions using Open Space for community discussions, and I agree to such a practice and would add that it is one of many other "consensus processes" that have been devised to get diverse groups to find common goals/interests/dreams/talents/issues/ideas, etc.