#breakingtogether — Public Fediverse posts

We're about 10 weeks into a six-month webinar course on How to Organize Your Bioregion. If you're curious what we've been learning, see this blog summary of the last month:

https://regeneratecascadia.org/learning-journey-update-collapse-awareness-bioregional-imagination/

#bioregional #Cascadia #regeneration #thefutureisnow #collapse #breakingtogether

When we accept that modern societies are beginning to collapse, it can us lead to a critical view of the dominant systems and ideologies that produced this mess, distracted us from it, and channelled responses into decades of ineffective measures. That understanding means we begin to be liberated from the confines of respect for society-as-it-is. Therefore, the Imperial Modernity within us—and which we perpetuate—can begin to be seen and escaped. I have noticed in myself and others that the breakdown in old worldviews, identities and even stories of meaning triggers a renewed desire and capacity for more vital engagement with the present, including creativity and play. Part of the opportunity of collapse is the dropping of old stories of self, society and world to see what emerges.

Contrary to popular misunderstandings, well over 95% of all money in modern economies is issued initially as a debt by private banks, when they make loans or buy bonds. The money in your bank account corresponds to nothing physical, and simply represents the current numeric value of a promise from your bank to you, which can be transferred to other banks that participate in the same systems. The way the money is issued as debt, and then accumulates under the control of a minority of participants in any economy, creates a ‘monetary growth imperative’ in the economy. In other words, unless the banks increasingly issue new loans for new economic activity, then the money supply shrinks over time, as existing loans are repaid. Therefore, rather than achieve any stable size, any economy must keep growing.

People seeking to change society have tried politics, whether local, national or international. They’ve tried improving the knowledge base on the problems. They’ve tried raising awareness in society. They’ve tried harnessing the power of technology, business and finance. They’ve tried living differently. But none of it has worked at scale. As the systems of modern society were so impervious to these tactics over decades, if they were not collapsing now then there would be no chance of any real change.

...despair is not a luxury, it is more a laxative for purging our bullshit. There is a place beyond despair where we can begin again but, trying to avoid despair, people often don’t allow themselves to reach it.

Jem Bendell, Breaking Together