Last night, on my way home from work, I was listening to our resident rightwing radio personality Thayrone X, which I occasionally do when I find myself becoming too optimistic about humanity’s chances, when a commercial came on about the importance of heirloom, non-genetically modified seeds. For a second, I thought that perhaps I’d stumbled onto a small sliver of common ground between my reality-based, progressive world, and that inhabited by the Tea Partiers, but, as the radio spot kept unwinding, I realized that probably wasn’t the case. Here, if you want to see what I’m talking about, is a television ad by the same company, Solutions from Science:

So, it’s not so much about providing good, fresh food for your family, and keeping heirloom varieties of plants in use, as it is about positioning yourself to do better than your neighbors when the “emerging totalitarianism” comes into full bloom. Here, on that subject, is a clip from the company’s website:

…You don’t have to be an Old Testament prophet to see what’s going on all around us. A desperate lower class demanding handouts. A rapidly diminishing middle class crippled by police state bureaucracy. An aloof, ruling elite that has introduced us to an emerging totalitarianism which seeks control over every aspect of our lives.

…So here’s the deal: I’m trying to get the word out before the food crisis becomes too apparent to the general public and there is a run on these seed banks. I’ve decided to sell the Survival Seed Bank™ at a discounted price to our customers who use this website to order.

As FED induced inflation sends shock waves through agricultural commodity prices, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least to see this same Survival Seed Bank selling for $1000.00 or more in just a few short years. Please understand, once the average guy on the street realizes food prices are headed for the moon, it may in fact be too late. Too late in the game to not only buy seeds wholesale, but it may be too late to even get seeds! Period. You see, the worldwide inventory of premium-grade vegetable seed isn’t large enough to supply a panicked population, supplies will simply run out.

But right now, for Solutions From Science customers, as long as you buy online from this site, I will send you the entire one-acre Crisis Garden for just-

$149.00
(For as long as we can keep them in stock!)

That’s less than half of what everyone less would have to pay if they bought “germination-tested” heirloom seeds like this at full retail. So I’m making this “extra” discounted offer because our current customers deserve “first dibs” on something this important….

So, I guess, now that they’ve got all the terrified suckers invested in overpriced gold, convinced that American paper currency won’t be any damned good once the end times are upon us, they’ve decided to switch the game around a bit and milk them for a little bit more… “Sure, you’ve got gold, but you can’t eat gold, can you? What you need are seeds. Seeds are the currency of the future!”

So, basically they’ve taken something that could have been incredibly positive – a movement to relocalize food production and take it out of the hands of mono-cropping factory farms – and they’ve twisted it. They’ve taken Victory Gardens, and made them Crisis Gardens. And, yes, that’s the terminology that they use.

One thing they never touch on, though, is how you’re supposed to guard your acre of heirloom vegetables once all your neighbors turn into to starving Socialist zombies. Maybe the next wave of ads will be for bulk gun power and NoDoz pills, which, as we all know, will be the real currency of the new, post-Democracy world.

update: OK, I take it all back. Now that I’ve studied the situation a bit more carefully, I can totally appreciate the truly fantastic offer these folks are making. In fact, I’m thinking about joining their distributor network.