Adbusters

If you're not familiar with Adbusters, I suggest you check out this publication. Calling it social commentary is an understatement. Canadian-based, it was founded by advertising people who became critics of the system they once extolled.

A typical Adbusters spread is a still photo from the security camera video of the Columbine gunmen with the tag line INSANITY on one page, and on the facing page, an Army recruiting poster with the tag line SANITY. Adbusters are the folks who sponsor Turn Off Your TV Week and Buy Nothing Day, the day after Thanksgiving, which is notoriously the pinnacle of American consumption.

Adbusters has taken on the collusion between the pharmaceutical industry and the "researchers" who are paid by the pharmaceutical industry to test the drugs. They've tackled psychotropic drugs and the American duty to be happy, or at least act that you are. They've looked at military recruiting and always at consumerism.

Adbusters is as critical of Obama as they were of Bush--and well they should be. Really, what's the difference except that Obama delivers evil in a more intelligent, nicer-sounding package. The current issue has an article on the U.S.'s weaponized drones in the air over more than a dozen countries. In Pakistan alone, American drones have killed 14 supposed terrorists and another 700-1,000 civilians. A cartoon in the latest issue shows Obama at a podium, taking a question from a reporter, who asks, "Mr. President, your administration acknowledges it has carried out extrajudicial assassinations, an illegal practice. Would you therefore consider yourself to be a legitimate target of assassination?"

 Lately, Adbusters has been spending a lot of time musing about the end of the world as we know it. The total collapse of the economy and resulting food and medicine shortages, civil unrest, that sort of thing.

I have been thinking a lot about the same recently. I've known this was coming for decades, but I've never known what I in particular am supposed to do about it. When I consider moving some place where I could have a vegetable garden, I take stock of my physical condition and reconsider. Walking around the block sometimes gives me chest pain. Preparing soil for planting, hoeing, weeding, watering, and harvesting are much more strenuous tasks.

I've also considered moving to Berkshire County, Massachusetts, where the small communities there have an alternate currency, Berkshares. Currently, you can trade your U.S. dollars for Berkshares, which are accepted by local merchants and banks. Some employers even pay in Berkshares. That way, when the dollar collapses, those communities can continue functioning. Other communities throughout the country have currencies, but none are as sophisticated as Berkshares. Many other towns, including Long Beach, have time exchanges in which one hour of your work is equal to one hour's of anyone else's work. These are basically service barters. I'm all for those, and as a massage therapist, I've traded for hair services, massages, and facials for years, but they are services only, not the things you need for life like shelter and food. The only thing about Massachusetts is that I don't know anyone there, and what is most important during difficult times is knowing your neighbors and having people you can count on. To be a newcomer when the shit hits the fan won't be the best thing.

With my son moving to Pennsylvania in August, I certainly am free to move. But where?