Embracing the Specter of Systemic Collapse by Tristan A. Shaw

Image by Andrew Huff via Flickr

by Tristan A. Shaw
Writer, Dandelion Salad
British Columbia, Canada
December 15, 2014

Let us evaluate our collective despondency as activists (the categorical minority of those who care) attempting to sustain the existence of human life. We think our role is defined by the perpetual struggle against imperial empire and capitalism – that the elite class must be vanquished through repeated protests and social organization. But limited is our mental landscapes, for there does exist an unrecognized alternative out of which our efforts will culminate great impact and change. Its essence can be discovered within your latent potential as a spiritual being, an inscribed message from our ancient past.

Introduction to Intelligibility by Tristan A. Shaw

by Tristan A. Shaw
Writer, Dandelion Salad
British Columbia, Canada
February 24, 2014

Image by jabenaki via Flickr

We have all wondered adrift, consumed by our own moral complicity and jaded by the broader darkness of fear. Make no mistake: we are all among the Parmenidean “Deaf, Dumb, Blind, and Stupid – unreasoning cattle.”

To simply exist amongst this dark wave of history, predicted by ancient mystic cultures and sages past, is to be swept up, sometimes without recognition, in a frequency of hatred and corruption.

The End of an Age by Tristan A. Shaw

Image by khteWisconsin via Flickr

by Tristan A. Shaw
Writer, Dandelion Salad
British Columbia, Canada
November 19, 2013

The death-throes of planetary collapse are now painfully clear. Global headlines reveal nature’s unleashed cataclysmic energy, with moving images of crowds hording around emergency relief (grain that is reducing in global yield), and, on the other hand, of lifeless androids announcing China’s plan to eliminate the one child policy over threats to its industrial superorgy.

The Seeds of Hope by Tristan A. Shaw

by Tristan A. Shaw
Writer, Dandelion Salad
British Columbia, Canada
August 11, 2013

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

At no point in Canadian history have we faced such a precarious social and political stability. The profligate consumption that sustains a capitalist order will not last much longer; no matter how much faith we place in markets to rectify other means of renewable energy, transportation, housing, and production.

The popular perception of climate change as a problem projected into the future, a problem (we are told) faced only by our grandchildren, is rapidly being exposed as dangerous folly. Recent studies reveal Arctic sea ice – the so-called canary of climate change – has already collapsed to one fifth of its 1980 level and will likely exist for only one or perhaps two more summers.

Corporate Canada: The New United States by Tristan A. Shaw

by Tristan A. Shaw
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
British Columbia, Canada
December 26, 2012

Image by kk+ via Flickr

It seems necessary to remind fellow Canadians that our country was not always a malfeasant, blood-thirsty, islamophobic, imperialist-driven state whose actions are now protested across the third-world. The old Canada, the Canada too old for my generation to remember, was a mainstream country.

But that perception (Canada as a moderate mediator in international affairs) has long been replaced by one indistinguishable from the United States. The new Canada is a country that helps stage coups in Latin America, a country that stands as one of the leading impediments to a comprehensive climate agreement.