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By Carolyn Baker (about the author) Page 3 of 3 page(s)
Borrowing from Timothy Leary, Byron offers a twenty-first century maxim, asking us to tune in to ourselves, turn on or against corporate deceptivists, and drop out and create a new reality. In this section he speaks of "quiet defections" from the dying milieu, but I have to wonder if in the throes of the most chaotic stages of collapse, "quiet defections" or "quiet secessions" will be tolerated. I suppose this depends on how much petroleum and other resources the regime will have at its disposal to track dissenters and round them up. My guess is that the sooner one begins the defection process, the better for him/herself and the sooner the Collapse/Renewal that is trying to unfold can do so. It is important to add, I believe, that even now, we are seeing signs of the complete collapse of state and local governments as the global economic meltdown that is well underway is already imperiling the financial resources necessary to maintain and develop local infrastructures and essential services. Thus, as Byron emphasizes, it will be essential to be "prepared to spring into action at the local level as that happens." (189) In his "Letter From The Future", mentioned above, Byron offered a sketch of what a post-Collapse government might look like-a subsidarity, as he names it, which would function at the level closest to the people affected, meaning that countless subsidarities might evolve. For these, Byron offers five indispensable principles for just and humane government founded on two underlying principles: "A transcendent belief in cooperative interdependence and an all-encompassing structure that spreads this belief: the Renewal."(195) The so-called transcendent belief simply means taking responsibility to leave the world livable for one's children, reusing and renewing everything, and living our lives according to the principle of doing unto others as we would have them do unto us. (196) This then, is the "path through Infinity's Rainbow", and it's a path with which I feel delightfully familiar. It's also a path about which I am quite certain Mike Byron will elaborate in future volumes of what he calls the Infinity's Rainbow series. As the unraveling continues, those of us who have been tracking it for months and years will benefit from reading The Path Through Infinity's Rainbow, and we will undoubtedly await Byron's forthcoming insights as we journey up and down, in and out of our personal and collective rainbows of Collapse and Renewal. Mike Byron, Ph.D., is a professor of political science in the San Diego area and has published and presented many papers on politics and computer simulation. He was the Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress in California's 49th Congressional District in 2004. Visit his website.
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