I'm thoroughly confused and I

[Subdivisions]

don't know what to think or believe anymore about just about anything except what happens in my own little world.

What is really, truly going on in this world?

[AngryOldDem]

1. I was wondering that last night while I watching a story about the global food crisis.

What IS happening here? I literally could not believe what I was hearing and seeing.

And even my own little world is in turmoil right now, so I'm pretty much screwed coming and going.

[Subdivisions]

3. It's food and gas prices, or the control thereof, that inspired this thread. n/t

[Dhalgren]

5. What's wrong in your "own little world", AOD?

Is everything okay?

:pals:

[Subdivisions]

7. AOD?

Everything is fine in my world. I'm just struggling to understand how it's come to this. I feel like I'm being manipulated from every conceivable direction and I don't like it. You get so many sides of every story or issue or candidate or reasons and excuses for skyrocketing food and fuel costs that it's extremely difficult to know where the truth lies. Ironic pun there.

[Dhalgren]

I was addressing "AngryOld Dem" (AOD).

[AngryOldDem]

19. I know what you mean....

I really don't like the thought of being out of control, or controlled by things unseen.

[AngryOldDem]

20. Yeah....things just have to sort themselves out.

A lot of stuff has happened here of late and I just need a second to stop and catch my breath....also have some decisions to make about things as well.

Thanks for asking, though...means a lot. :pals:

[mikelgb]

I think you are further along than most

in that you are humble enough to admit you have no fucking idea what is really going on anymore

[tsdraegeth]

2. Explore yourself

the rest, you can only marginally effect.

[Subdivisions]

4. It's the exploring I'm doing that has led to this feeling

that I truly cannot decide what is conspiracy and what is truth and fact. Is there a food crisis or a manufactured shortage? Same for oil. Same for the circus that is our political, media, government, financial, and social systems.

It's almost makes me want to go back to slumbering through my own personal business and becoming, again, blissfully unaware while suspecting jackboots in the streets at some future point in time. I don't know.

[uppityperson]

9. It depends on where and what you mean. Food...

Here in the USA, there is enough food to eat. Other countries there is not. Food costs are raising rapidly, everywhere. Some people in USA bought a bunch of food so won't have to buy more for a while at increased cost, some of these were restaurants stocking up. A couple stores ran out of 1 product (rice) and media picked it up and hyped the story. Even though those stores said they would have deliveries tomorrow, still the story took off.

Media used the word "ration" rather than "limit" because it is sexier and will sell more airtime/ad time. Stores often limit the amount of what you can buy, thinking of specials. For instance my local store had chicken on sale and limited the number so more people could have some (thus pulling more people into their store to buy more of everything).

Some places in the world there is food shortages, people starving. In the USA some people are stocking up, some are hoarding, some not, but there is food enough.

People in USA are going to have to learn to eat differently as food costs are going up. Do you really need fresh imported produce out of season? If you want to and can afford it, go ahead. Do you really need meat at every meal (yes, there are those who do this)?

As to the rest of it, it is hard to tell what is media hysteria, what is gvt propaganda, what is real. What will get people scared enough to vote for more of the same because, after all, the devil you know is less frightening than the uncertain other.

[texastoast]

6. Unless, of course, you network

MoveOn does a good job of networking and they affect a whole lotta stuff.

Our Lives Our Land and Texas Turf is affecting the hell out of Rick Perry's world fighting against the TransTexas Corridor and I-69. Our fight affects the whole country. And have we ever thrown a kink in his plans.

Marginal. Hmmpf. We all gotta get a little self-esteem and kick the bad guys' asses.

But then, it does take work.

[The_Commonist]

8. There are too many people on the planet.

The systems that we have in place simply cannot support nearly 7 billion human beings, and we are collectively going insane. It's one of nature's ways of reducing the human population to meet the carrying capacity and the systems we have to feed ourselves, and maintain the "lifestyle" we have grown accustomed to. It's certainly not the first time this has happened, and if we survive as a species, it certainly won't be the last.

We're in the midst of a killoff. Is that better than a dieoff? Are they the same thing? I don't know. I do know that this, the contraction part of the cycle, happens every few generations, and if viewed as a function of nature, makes sense in a strange way. As our populations grow and our systems get more complicated, the speed and intensity of the killoffs we cyclically experience get more intense.

The collective insanity we are experiencing is one of the ways that we deal with what we are doing to ourselves. It's not simply greed, it's a survival mechanism. We have a conscience and a collective memory, and we do things that contradict what our conscience tells us. A dose of collective crazy helps us deal with the horror. That doesn't make it any less horrible, I know, but does explain some of it. To me, anyway.

What is going on in the world? We are acting like monkeys with big guns. It's really that simple. If the four fifths of humanity that somehow doesn't think we are monkeys would wake up and realize that we are bound by the rules of nature, maybe we could understand ourselves enough to create systems that would not require a killoff every few generation.

My 2 cents worth...

[Breeze54]

10. What is it you're confused about specifically?

:shrug:

How food prices got so high or why they're going up?

The cost of transporting them by truck due to the cost of fuel.

[Subdivisions]

14. Just about everything. For instance, I heard

Deborah Jeane Palfrey say live with my own ears, and then yesterday in an interview I had not heard that took place in March 2008, that she would never committ suicide under any circumstance and that she would fight. Now that she has indeed turned up dead, the issue is so confused that it's difficult for anyone to know what the truth is. Have they releassed the content of the suicide notes? What Moldea said conflicting with what Flynt says. How do you decide what to believe?

Also, I realize high fuel prices cause inflation. But why exactly are fuel prices so high? Is it a genuine supply shortage or is it a manufactured scarcity in order to run up prices? Again, information coming from every direction.

What about Al Gore's fight against Global Warming despite his alleged history as a minerals profiteer and beneficiary of Occidental Petroleum's rape of the earth?

What is the truth?

[Breeze54]

16. Well, she was facing 50 years in prison and she was 51yrs. old...

so, she seems to have changed her mind and I may have too, if I was looking at life
in prison. They aren't going to release the suicide note, for a awhile, if ever.

OPEC cut production of oil, China uses more now and is demanding more.
More demand, price goes up. It's simple supply and demand and profits.

I believe Al Gore is genuinely concerned about the earth and Global Warming.
He won the Pulitzer prize. I have no idea about the rest of that. Go research
and get the answers yourself. Are you saying 'you heard' he owned stock?

I think you seem to be having a trust issue. Maybe you need to read some books
about those topics from trusted sources.

[Subdivisions]

17. It's the research that has led to my confusion because

for every thing researcg there are conclusions coming from every conceivable direction. For instance, I beleive the world's population is draining our natural resources but others say there's plenty of stuff to keep us going and Global Warming and Peak Oil are hoaxes designed to create artificial scarcity. Or Gore profiting from the industrial causes of the climate change he seems to be fighting, climate change that itself is controversial and declared as conspiracy. Or, out of all the choices that we could have had, why did we end up with a black man, a white woman (who happens to be the wife of a former president) and a guy that would keep us in Iraq another 100 as well as "Bomb, bomb, bomb...bomb, bomb, Iran..." in perhaps the most important election ever in our history? Why do we have a Democratic-controlled Congress who were hired to end the Iraq war still voting to enable it's continuance? There are so many questions, so little answers, and we're living in a world of confusion.

Again, what is the real truth about all these things and the rest?

[Breeze54]

18. First off, a true majority in the Senate would be 60 Democrats.

We only have 51. That is NOT a true majority. Hopefully that will change this November.

Here's a great comparative website about oil and much more.... http://www.oilempire.us/peakoil.html

He shows the "Official Stories, Incompetence Theories, Best Evidence and Disinformation".

It's a huge website, so take your time reading it and bookmark it for later. Hope that helps!

[patrice]

11. "Either This or That" is flawed thinking in most circumstances, and

especially when talking about human individuals.

We are in the habit of oversimplifying EVERYTHING so we can say things such as: Conservative, Liberal, Good, Bad, Right, Left, Democrat, Republican, Masculine, Feminine, Capitalist, Socialist, Free, Oppressed, etc. etc. etc.

If you become aware of HOW language is used as though it were the reality itself rather than only a TOOL that ONLY imperfectly POINTS at actual Reality, you might begin to try to become aware of the phenomenal world more directly, rather than mistaking so many other people's (agenda laden) words for experiencial truths themselves.

Listen to what people are saying, become aware of their meanings by asking them and by studying the words they use. Don't take ANY of your own meanings for granted; ask yourself what your own meanings are.

And then go out into the streets, out into your world and experience it for what it is, not just what you think it is, but as much of the whole thing as you can find. Compare "meanings" and phenomenology and when you're ready, look for your true community.

Good Luck on your Journey!

Hare Krsna!

[seabeyond]

12. repercussion of a decade of poor choices all around..... n/t

[global1]

13. I Just Made A Similar Comment In Another Post......

this country is getting scarier and scarier to live in.

I'm thinking that this is somehow an immigration strategy - make this country look bad so people don't want to come here. It saves us the money of building a fence.

[Greyhound]

15. Looking at the whole picture over a longer time span will show you

what is really going on. It will also show you that it has been going on for a very long time.