read ‘The Free’..free download Occupy the Planet..

lookoutfire — love and rage: life after the collapse of capitalism

Greetings to all, especially you FoFees (friend of the Free) hope you’re enjoying the book

Set in the Collapse of Capitalism our heroes escape their School and Family and fall in with the squatters, anarchists and gays, who are busy getting ready for the final confrontation and the Dawn of a co-op Money Free world.. It’s a thriller as well..

Just to say it is selling well..Not a surprise as it’s FREE (lol). It also makes a very economical present.

It now has 1322 Friends of The Free on FARCEbook (FoFoFs), and I havent a clue who’s who. http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001284179241

Plus its Blog has had 36.218 page views in 7 months. Seems like a lot.

Of course most people just passed by the blog looking at other stories. https://thefreeonline.wordpress.com/

Here’s a few more of the hundreds of reviews the book has had on the ‘Authonomy’ website http://www.authonomy.com/books/4458/the-free/

Abuse of power being consistent in our culture, where fear colludes with the bully, it is cheering to see victims organising and supporting each other . This will appeal to a great many young people.
You give us moments of delight:… rolling her big eyes back to us girls … such scandal would zoom round and round the area – like a bee in a jar … Then her daffodil moment of glory: dancing and swirling, waving the flowers at the grey building … the golden snow. I’ve never heard of ‘testerical laughter’, but it kind of hits the mood of the moment.I really like your book and back it with pleasure. Pia (Course of Mirrors)

JJBrazman

Wow; I can’t stop reading! I’ve just finished chapter 8, and I’m only stopping because it’s 1AM! It seems to remind me a little of ‘A Clockwork Orange’, combined with ‘A Child Called It’. I cannot wait to read on. I’m still not entirely sure about a lot of things (such as the political situation) but everything I’ve read so far has been wonderful. If I get the chance, I will buy this book.

Karen Eisenbrey I read three chapters and the glossary. I like your ideas for remaking society, especially the mix of practical, earnest things with more whimsical ideas of fashion etc. I especially like how in the first chapters, it’s not obvious that the story takes place in (I would guess) the near future in a shifting, alternative society. But there are little clues all over the place that things are falling apart and changing, present but not taking over the story. We start with Linda, a real, relatable character. You’ve nailed the voice here. She’s articulate and smart, but not at all formal; young, angry, scared, beaten down but ready to stand up. Good luck with The Free!…Karen Eisenbrey

Aaron Pattis wrote After three chapters, nothing will stop me from reading the rest of this book! Who couldn’t pull for a kid like this and wonder where she’s going to end up? There are some terms that I have difficulty with sometimes, like “lekky” and such, but soon enough figure it out. But I wouldn’t change that voice for this story because it adds to the richness realism in the characters. Great job and backed with pleasure..Aaron,”80 Grit”

Lmfrenchwrote Wow, what can I say? I love how you capture Linda’s voice. It wasn’t too long ago that I was a fifteen year old girl and…well…wow. I read some of this the other day and wasn’t too

revolution — Occupy The Planet. Abolish Debt. For a Co-Op world.

impressed, but I re-read it and trudged on to see what happened beyond the first page and I must say, I am very glad I did. I found myself giggling a bit and read on with a smile. It is a fun story. I am not normally a fan of 1st person POV but you seem to be able to still bring your characters to life. Very nice.

j.galindo wrote

Funny and wonderful. Loved it. J.

CamilleS wrote

What a uniquely funny read. Really cracked me up! Camille…Curse of the Golden Fly/The Hobble Knobble Gobble Tree

Emma Philips

Great opening. Fast-paced and spirited way of writing. I like the talk about men drooling over Janice (lol); very typical. It’s real! and the “like a pack of randy dogs snifting after her”…This is what happens most of the time, in real life. Good job Mike. This work is so rich and moving, good humored. I can’t stop reading it.GOOD LUCK!! Emma Philips…The Dark Intruder

Binky Myers

Well Mikey…a huge HUGE contemporary tale. Brutal and brave..comical and painful. Your style is enviably quirky. The language stripped yet so incredibly weighted. Congratulations, I wish you every success with THE FREE. . Dawn:ARK

deltawriter wrote

What a crazy romp this is! I like it!

Collapse of Capitalism: ‘System ready to blow’

World stock markets plunge/ Fears of recession intensify…/. Global recession warning rattles stock…/ European bank funding / Unemployment rises sharply / The System is Ready to Blow / Markets in Meltdown /

The world financial system is now one huge mess, The stupid debt system and dog eat dog mentality

have brought the whole thing rolling to a cliff edge. It appears the Central banks have run out of

ideas to slow things down.

If Capitalism blows it’s NOT the end.. it’s just a new ball game.

‘The West’ is immensely rich in property and assets, yet suddenly will be bankrupt.

This is nonsense.. all we need to do is band together in Local Assemblies, pool our resources , skills

and possibilities, and work out an infinitely better future, without destroying the planet. In some places this is already happening.

The Collapse of Capitalism means the rich will lose their ill gotten gains.. For the rest it will be ‘survival as usual’…

permaculture:Eat Fresh Food all Year

Enjoy Fresh Food in Winter

Be more self-reliant by using natural cold storage.

Picture yourself on a frosty Christmas Day(okay in the Nth Hemisphere) serving your own tomatoes or carrots so sweet they’re like candy. And there you are in January, pulling crisp, fresh, raw heads of Chinese cabbage from a box in your cool cellar. Now it’s February, and in one hand, you’re hefting one of those big, rough-looking but fine-grained ‘Long Season’ beets for dinner and, in the other hand, several apples for the lunch box.

Fast-forward to March, and you’re returning to the warm kitchen with a fistful of carrots. Even in April? Of course. That’s you proudly adding your own garden-grown potatoes and garlic to the dinner menu.

In May, you might even find yourself, as we have, eating homegrown sweet potatoes. If you don’t grow a garden, you can buy carefully grown local vegetables in the fall, when they are at peak condition and prices are low, and store them for winter………..

Natural cold storage dovetails beautifully with the best use of your garden space. Many storage crops can be grown as succession crops after early peas, lettuce, radishes, spinach and snap beans.

This fall crop is the second half of the growing season, the half we miss out on if we don’t replant. When you have a cold place waiting for them, these fall-harvested vegetables can carry you well into a new-year bonus of productivity from the same patch of garden soil.

International Land Grab..Save the Commons

A massive international land grab is now underway as investors and national governments buy up millions of acres of farmlands in Africa, Asia and Latin America. It amounts to an unprecedented and novel set of enclosures of worldwide land, much of it customary land that rural communities use and manage collectively.

Hundreds of millions of rural poor people rely upon the land for their families’ food, water and material — but they don’t have formal property rights in the land. Those rights typically belong to the government, which is authorizing the sale of “unowned” lands or “wastelands” to investors, who will then use the land for market-based farming or biofuels production.

The implications for global hunger and poverty are enormous. Instead of commoners having local authority to grow and harvest their own food, they are being thrown off the land so that large multinational corporations and investors can feed their own countries or make a speculative killing on the world land market. A commons is converted into a market, with all the attendant pathologies.

The 2008 financial crisis and the recent round of rising food prices on world markets have spurred much of the interest in buying up arable lands in poor countries. Food-insecure countries figure they should take care of their own future even if it means depriving commoners in poor nations thousands of miles away. So Saudi Arabia is spending $1 billion for 700,000 hectares of land in Africa for rice cultivation. South Korea is buying up 700,000 hectares of African land as well. India is assembling investment pools to buy up farmlands.

These are some of the disturbing facts to be found in Liz Alden Wily’s remarkable report, “The Tragedy of Public Lands: The Fate of the Commons Under Global Commercial Pressure,” released by the International Land Coalition in January 2011.

A copy of Liz Alden Wily’s report can be downloaded here as a pdf file. Farm Land Grab is also closely monitoring this odious, little-known enclosure of the commons. Finally, see a report by GRAIN, a small international NGO concerned about farmers’ control over biodiversity and local knowledge: “Seized: The 2008 Land Grab for Food and Security.”

Read More HERE

Permaculture in Zimbabwe

Harvesting Water for Food Security By Busani Bafana

Caroline Ndlovu is one of over 100 smallholder farmers practising the water harvesting technique of using earth dams.GWANDA, Zimbabwe, Jun 28, 2011 (IPS) –

Earth mounds running across her field hold back the water that Caroline Ndlovu uses to grow maize, pumpkins, beans and watermelons long after the short rainy season in this arid part of Zimbabwe. Ndlovu, a mother of three who trains other farmers, is one of over 100 smallholder farmers practising the water harvesting technique of using earth dams. The water collected in the field allows farmers to increase their crop yields, which ordinarily are poor in this region.

The secret to water harvesting is hard work and a passion for farming, Ndlovu revealed. “I work hard and put to practise the skills I have learnt on pegging and digging the contours in the most suitable location to ensure that they hold the water after the rains,” said Ndlovu.

Farmers have faced the challenge of not having the tools to dig the contours as well as not having the labour involved in making the contours. So communities in Sizhulube village work together to dig the contours. While older or disabled members look after the children and help prepare food.