Good morning TPB’ers!
A couple of months ago, in my daily skimmimg of headlines around the web, I came across an article titled “Economic Outlook From 1975” by Ryan Brooks on Chris Duane’s site . The first sentence mentioned Mother Earth News magazine and the second sentence read “So far, it looks like they called it…”.
The article may not have caught my attention at all except my father has been a MEN subscriber since the 1970’s. I was intrigued by the lead in to what was actually a video rather than an article, but I made a mental note to ask my dad if he had the issue in question. Turns out he has almost every issue and he was happy to look up the article that had been mentioned and then he blew me away by mailing me his actual magazines to read. This is no small thing since I think he treasures those magazines more than his own kids sometimes.
Turns out the article is actually an interview with Mother Earth News founder, John Shuttleworth. The interview was spread over two issues and is a very interesting read. Turns out Mr. Shuttleworth was a pretty hardcore Doomer way back then and very little of what we read and discuss here on TBP or dozens of other sites really churns up anything new. It’s amazing really. He recognized all of the crap we rail against now. Much like our very own, beloved Jim Quinn, he set out to do something meaningful about it. He created Mother Earth News to teach people how to live a better, self-sufficient life that would automatically make the planet a better place to live and improve your life at the same time.
After reading the interview, I did a little digging to learn more about Mr. Shuttleworth mainly because I wanted to find out if he gave later interviews covering the same topics. I don’t know if he gave later interviews but did learn that he passed away in 2009.
I loved reading it and I sincerely hope you all take the time to read it as well. Please don’t be intimidated by the apparent length of the interview. The way they published it on the web puts three or four paragraphs on each page with a total of 40 pages. Trust me, I’ve been around here long enough to know that the majority of you will like it. Pretend it’s the latest Jim Quinn masterpiece! Besides, I’d love to hear what you all think of Mr. Shuttleworth’s answers.
Part one is linked here and the link to part two is at the end of part one or you can click here.
