Letters to LIFE
reprinted with permission

Response to article Who's afraid of GLI
from Austrailia
by Sharon Lee Robertson - Jan 10 - 2005

I am very, very slow getting to my email links- blame the heat if you will. Summer temps high here and- well, my brain goes into meltdown!

Still - your article! Everyone in favour of LIFE - BUT they 'can't see it happening'. Happening for everyone but themselves of course! "Everyone" obviously doesn't include THEM! They should visit the site lifeaftertheoilcrash.com - events down the track will impact on EVERYONE'S 'normal' lifepattern in a mostly negative way. If oil goes, so does the economy, and that means tax revenue - as well as wages for bureaucrats!

I am trying to put together some sort of 'article' with a working title "It's the PEOPLE stupid!" - a rejoiner of Clinton's famous remark. If the economy is cactus (on seized by plutocratic militias - a sort of back-to-the-future remake of the old French Aristocracy - the people, ah, well - unlike machines, they can't just be 'turned off'. They need food,water, shelter - and they need a coherent track to run on. A per capitia issue of a 'basic income' distributed no-strings plus a general social policy (share values within the population) that those having skilled 'jobs' should continue to front up for 'work' - even if there are no wages forthcoming. Finally - that Banks (holders of debt) will have to go to the end of the 'creditor's' waiting line so as to ENSURE that essential businesses and public utilities as well as the homes of people can be kept intact.

The purpose behind the strategy is quite simply 'to buy time'. To 'buy time' is to ensure the 'life-time' of all 'the people' - the flesh and blood which is the source of the useful adaptations the will have to be developed 'down the track' For those who can't 'see it happening' - well they can become supporters of a "1%" network. Imagine 1 person out of a hundred local residents (contiguous domicles) delegated the task of meeting, finding out the names of those people, and from the 'meeting' - doing whatever seems best. This person should not be deemed "employed" - so as to bypass the bureaucratic redtapes (and 'authorities'). Their living expenses will be met at a 'basic income' level by 'donations' (until the time at which a National 'basic income' may be authorised).

If your Welfare Groupies are employed (at good wages?) there is nothing, absolutely nothing to stop them from mentoring the formation of such a '1%' group IN THEIR LOCAL RESIDENTIAL AREA - as well as making some sort of cash contribution to same - as 'a gift'. They can not only 'see it happening', but can be a PART of it's happening! EVERYONE CAN COUNT. You are welcome to send on the message of this email to those you have met at the conference - remind them that if they are parents of young children, 20 years down the track it may be the 'people skills' acquired in a '1%' value environment that will ensure
their children's lives and wellbeing in a VERY CHANGED WORLD!

Life goes beyond 'welfare policies'. And as to 'workfare' - there is HEAPS of work to be done! HEAPS! Only a lot of it doesn't exactly increase the 'profit levels' of those who 'invest capital'. And, if the money supply falters - so do the 'profit levels' and...so do the 'jobs' that qualify as formal, paid "employment'. No brownie points for 'freebies' - but that has to change. The human species didn't survive long enough to get to the moon
through 'not working' - quite the opposite. Only most of it was 'freebie' labour - that is, voluntary. Empty tummies and winter's cold may have provided 'incentive' - and I don't believe that that particular form of 'incentive' will be lacking. It's in our genes. Latent genus, latent humanity. The '1%' is more a way of beginning 'to prepare', to create a template for constructive social response to quite probable future changes (collapse of existing templates!). Anyway - it was just the anger at the attitude of "OH! I"M NOT ONE OF *THEM*!" that set me off.
Cheers - Sharon

Email Sharon Lee Robertson or write to her PO Box 36, Koolunga SA 5464, Australia.

See Sharon's first letter about her idea for a book: FailSafe Humanity, more on the 1% movement in letter #2. or Letter #3