Economic Collapse. Fascism and the Close of an Epoch

I'm inclined to leave comments all over the Blogsphere rather than attend to this blog. Sometimes they morph into something I ought to have posted here. This is based on one such. It was prompted by this post on 'Lenins Tomb' and a response to my first comment which alluded to looming 'National Socialism' in the context of the strikes over 'foreign' workers at various refineries around the country together with our burgeoning Surveillance/Security State:

Whether or not there were/are fascist elements among the strikers is not my point. It is that there is a natural (almost visceral) tendency to seek a convenient scapegoat when one's livelihood is seriously threatened. The Establishment understand that tendency only too well and are past masters at using and manipulating it. You only have to scan the MSM to see the extent to which that is going on here. The name of the game is to divert attention from the really deserving targets.

For all their weasel words, TPTB can clearly see that our present economic system and the Globalised Capitalist Ponzi scheme built on it, really is finished. We have bumped hard up against the limits to the growth of most of its sustaining resource production rates over the past decade or so and IMHO that marks not just the end of an era, but of an epoch. There is the appearance of frantic efforts to repair the unrepairable and get things 'back on track' - back to business as usual etc etc., but those controlling the real concentrated wealth and levers of power know in their very bones that the game is up - exponential growth (the sine-qua-non of the system) on a finite planet is quite simply oxymoronic. IMO it was the cascading effects of that dawning realisation that precipitated the ongoing collapse in the first place - a developing mad scramble by the powerful to protect their wealth, power and privilege with all the 'beggar-my-neighbour' behaviour that that implies.

On an international level, the risks of war are multiplying. Domestically, I can see serious civil unrest dead ahead and I fear the response of TPTB WILL INDEED be fascist. Scapegoats (preferably of dark complexion and prone to growing unkempt beards and wearing strange clothing - or at the very least speaking with foreign accents) will be conveniently and ruthlessly exploited. The maintenance of 'law and order' will be THE No 1 priority. Everything else will be subordinate, especially quaint notions about freedom of speech, assembly etc, and those who propagate scurrilous notions such as posted in this (and many other) blog(s) will, at best have their cards marked.

Unless you are inclined to 'man the barricades' of revolution so-to-speak, survival is likely to be best assured by keeping your head down and attending to localised community matters - involving yourself in the provision of essential goods and services with food and personal/home security dominating the list - that sort of thing. Having first hand experience of collapse in the old Soviet Union, Dimitri Orlov is superb on this sort of thing. His web site is worth bookmarking and his book 'Re-inventing Collapse' a sobering and very funny introduction to the world that awaits us.