[Genevieve]

This is a great thread!

I believe we are encouraged to think in "survivor mode" because we are taught to believe that we have no control over our own lives.

Society "teaches" us nowadays to be helpless and reliant on the system to provide us with even our most basic needs - food, water and the infrastructure within which we live. It lulls us into a sense of security that all will be provided for much like a newborn baby totally trusts its mother to always provide everything it needs.

Where i live - whole cities could be held to ransom all for the lack of ONE water pipeline!!! Not to mention the lack of fresh food should ONE highway become obsolete (or there was no fuel to power the trucks to transport lettuces from one side of the country to the other!!) I'm sure our ancestors would find this situation ludicrous.

The first step in getting out of "survivor mode" is to take back control of your own life. One of the simplest ways you can do this is to take back control of your own food and water. Learn how to FEED yourself. It is not hard to learn once you start - and you dont need vast acreage of land. The rain will fall the sun will shine and things will grow. Collect your own water - it falls as much on your rooftop as it does over the city dams. The average quarter acre block CAN support the average family if planned right.

Of course ideally the next step is networking with others who are doing the same as you and a barter system works wonderfully.

Anyway - its a liberating feeling to know that you CAN survive without the PTB - after all people were doing that for eons before we were all herded into neat little holding pens called cities!

The simple act of gardening IS a form of political dissent.

To quote Bill Mollison ( the father of Permaculture) .."I teach self-reliance, the world's most subversive practice. I teach people how to grow their own food, which is shockingly subversive. Yes its seditious - but its peaceful sedition"