Newsletter, Fall 2011

Update

Hi all,

As you know, I've been residing in Thailand since the middle of June, but I’m sensing a call to get to where the action is, and right now that seems to be North America. So, I’ll be returning to the U.S. on October 28.

First on my agenda is to collect my mail and gather some warm clothing from my storage unit in Tucson, then I’ll head for Michigan to participate in the International Conference on Sustainability, Transition and Culture Change, near Traverse City, Thursday, Nov. 10 - Monday, Nov. 14, 2011 at the Shanty Creek Resorts, Bellaire, Michigan.
http://sustainabilityconference.org/index.htm.

That conference could be the initiating event for an ongoing process of design, strategy planning, and implementation of alternative systems, especially systems of exchange and finance. I’m encouraging all who are able to attend and to pass the word to your networks. Notable participates will be Australian economist Steve Keen and Nicole Foss of Automatic Earth.

Over the coming weeks or months I’ll be available and open to invitations to speak, confer, and collaborate. You can view/hear many of my presentations and interviews by going to my website, Beyond Money: http://beyondmoney.net. Some of my most notable recent presentations are on my Vimeo site: http://vimeo.com/tomazg/videos

I've been watching with great interest the OWS movement and am encouraged to see that so many people are no longer willing to tolerate the status quo. I've posted a few items about it recently on http://beyondmoney.net. This may be the surge that begins the kind of real change that people have been looking for.

Demonstrations and other expressions of discontent can help to inspire people and encourage them to act, but that energy must be applied in ways that can effect real change. I'm generally optimistic about the prospects for a successful metamorphic change in civilization, but it will require us to learn radical ways of sharing, cooperation, and organization.

If we are to make the necessary shift of power away from Wall Street and Washington, we will need to reduce our dependence upon their systems and structures (like political money and banks) and organize new structures that empower people. Let’s work together to provide the direction this movement needs.

Just Released

Pertinent to that is the release a new book from EVOLVER EDITIONS/North Atlantic Books. Edited by Daniel Pinchbeck and Ken Jordan, and titled, What Comes After Money: Essays from Reality Sandwich on Transforming Currency & Commerce, this anthology includes “thoughtful, provocative essays from economist Bernard Leitaer, media theorist Douglas Rushkoff, Sacred Economics author Charles Eisenstein, musician Paul D. Miller (a.k.a. DJ Spooky), theoretical physicist Amit Goswami, Larry Harvey (founder of Burning Man), alternative historian Peter Lamborn Wilson,” and yours truly, Thomas Greco. My essay is titled, Local Control of Credit: The Foundation of Economic Democracy (p. 191).

In his introduction to the book, Daniel talks about the emergence of a conscious culture to challenge Wall Street's consumerist paradigm. You can read it here: http://www.realitysandwich.com/impossible_alternative. More information about the book can be found at Amazon.com, which is offering the book at a discounted price.

Thailand Floods

Many people have been asking about the flooding in Thailand that has been widely reported in the news. Monsoon rains are normal for this part of the world, but this has been one of the rainiest years on record. A large amount of farmland has been inundated and some crops destroyed, but the biggest problems are in the urban and industrial areas that are built along the major rivers. As is the case everywhere, land is quite valuable in such areas and attempts are made to fill in marshland and restrict waterways to narrow channels. Nature has no regard for such activities. One of the worst effects of flooding is the increase in illnesses from water-borne microbes as floodwater is contaminated with sewage, which can also cause food supplies to be contaminated.

Fortunately, Chiang Mai, where I spend most of my time, experienced only a small amount of flooding along the Ping River for a few days a couple weeks ago, but fresh food markets in that area had water standing a foot or two deep, which might have caused some bacterial transfer to food supplies here. There are reports of increased numbers of people visiting emergency clinics and I myself was sick for a while with what seemed like a bad head cold and respiratory congestion. I don’t know if that was flood related but whatever the case I’m better now.

The main problems seem now to be in the south around Bangkok and Ayutthaya where severe flooding continues and has affected a great many people, plus manufacturing facilities, so you may feel some effect as well. Here’s an excerpt from some news reports about that:

Disk manufacturing sites in Thailand -- notably including the largest Western Digital plant -- were shut down due to floods around Bangkok last week and are expected to remain shut for at least several more days. The end to flooding is not in sight, and Western Digital now says it could take five to eight months to bring its plants back online. Thailand is a major manufacturer of hard drives, and the shutdowns have reduced the industry's output by 25 percent.

And..

Inner Bangkok has so far escaped major flooding as the authorities divert water to areas outside the main capital in a bid to prevent the Chao Phraya River bursting its banks and flooding the political and economic heartland.

But efforts to keep the city of 12 million people dry have been complicated by a seasonal high tide.

Read more here: http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/506532-thai-pm-says-floods-in-parts-of-bangkok-inevitable/

The airports seem to be OK for now—if the dikes hold. I fly out of Bangkok next week.

Cheers,

-- 
Thomas H. Greco, Jr.
thg@mindspring.com
Mobile phone (Thailand): +66 84 373 5645
Mobile phone (USA): 520-820-0575
Beyond Money: http://beyondmoney.net 
Tom's News and Views: http://tomazgreco.wordpress.com 
Archive Website: http://www.Reinventingmoney.com
Photo gallery: http://picasaweb.google.com/tomazhg
Skype/Twitter name: tomazgreco
My latest book, "The End of Money and the Future of Civilization" 
can be ordered from Chelsea Green Publishing, Amazon.com, or your local bookshop.