This all may be sadly true. But as Bob Marley aptly said, "When one door is closed, the other is open."

In other words, as the macrosystem of global industrial society--the money game--goes into a self-reinforcing tailspin here in America, other options remain available under the radar of mass media at the local level.

The most viable "other door" in my view consists of three injunctions to which all of us can commit ourselves, starting immediately: GROW GARDENS, GROW COMMUNITY, GROW AWARENESS. And through these, cultivate the health, competence, and resilience of ourselves and others as we seek--not to restore the inherently unsustainable status quo of industrial consumerism--but rather to co-create a whole new, ecocentric civilization from the ground up--a permanent culture that is symbiotic with, rather than parasitic upon, its biological support system, based on the three ethics of Permaculture: Earth Care, People Care, and Fair Share (i.e. reinvesting the surplus in Earth Care and People Care). This is the only viable alternative to the cancer of a zero-sum money-based economy built on extractive industrial consumerism. And it applies not only to "America" (which is, after all, just a mental formation born of agro-industrial consumerism) but to our entire living planet. America is dying--long live Gaia!