The End Of Civilization
March 20, 2006I came across this article today (it’s a couple of days old) and it really shocked me. I know I’ve been saying things along this line myself, and certainly it is what Signs of the Times talks about repeatedly, but here it is, in sort of a mainstream setting, coming right out and saying that the End of Civilization is at hand.
But there is more to this than meets the eye. It begins to sound a bit like apologetics for Neocons. The “Peak Oil” business, for example, seems to me to be an excuse already prepared for when the masses finally go after those criminals that have taken over this country. They’ll say “but we did it all for YOU!” (the American people, that is). And who will blame them if it was all done to get resources for America, to save the “American Way of Life,” and all that apple pie?
But is it really that simple? See what you think; here’s the whole article from Countercurrents:
I had a mild epiphany the other day: it’s not President Bush who’s living in a fantasy world, it’s most of his critics who are. I’m no apologist for Bush – I neither like nor dislike him. He’s no more significant to me than a fly buzzing around outside my window. So permit me to explain my reasoning.
People look at Bush’s invasion of Iraq and see a miserable failure. But a failure to do what? Democratize Iraq? Eliminate Iraq’s WMD arsenal? Reduce global terrorism? If those were, in fact, the reasons for invading Iraq, then the invasion would have to be classified as a failure. But what if the real reason was to secure Iraq’s oil supplies, perhaps not for immediate use, and perhaps not even for use by the United States? Then the invasion of Iraq would have to be judged a success, a “mission accomplished,” so to speak.
Or take Bush’s seemingly irresponsible handling of the domestic economy. How can any sane person fail to understand that cutting revenue while increasing spending will produce deficits, and that those deficits cannot increase in perpetuity? Sooner or later that accumulated debt has got to have consequences. Bush appears to be acting as if there were no tomorrow. But what if there really were no tomorrow, financially speaking? In that case, the reckless economic policies of today would not only be irrelevant, but might actually be shrewd. I mean, if one knows that he is not going to have to pay back his debts tomorrow, then why not borrow money like crazy today? In fact, if civilization is coming to an end, then why not use all that borrowed money to stock up on guns and vital resources, such as oil?
Now, I’m just one person. And I’ve been closely studying economic, environmental, and energy issues for only a few years. And I’m no expert. Yet I’ve come to the conclusion – and I don’t want to be a “Chicken Little” here – that civilization as we have known it for the last century is doomed. Our wasteful manner of living – heck, the sheer size of our human population – is unsustainable. Everywhere you look you can see signs of strain on the Earth, from spreading pollution of the air, water, and land, to disappearance of life in the seas, to depletion of natural resources. Something’s got to give. Things simply cannot continue as they have.
If I can see this, I would guess the United States Government, what with its thousands of full time experts, probably can too. Now, if you are the government (and I don’t mean Tom “I am the federal government” DeLay), and your experts tell you that civilization as we know it is doomed, what do you do? Well, for starters, you do not tell your population of sheeple. That would precipitate panic and result in premature doom, which would consume the government along with everything else. Above all, government seeks to survive, so you would maintain the facade of normalcy for the benefit of your population while you use what time you have left to prepare, as quietly as possible, for the inescapable future.
What will matter in this future? Commodities, principally energy, food, and water. Everything else is secondary. Money is far down the list in importance.
So how would you, the government, prepare for a future world in which commodities are king? By securing today as many of those commodities as possible. Hence, the U.S. government’s binge of military base building throughout the commodity-rich regions of the world. What would you not worry about? Money. The only concern you might have for money is to prevent its premature demise. Hence, the smoke and mirrors used to paint a pretty but false portrait of the economy. Some will argue that the government needs more than just energy, food, and water to survive. True, but by controlling the bulk of the world’s key commodities, everything else can be procured, including human labor and loyalty.
In preparing for the future demise of civilization you would also seek to increase the government’s power as much and as rapidly as possible. Why? To maintain control over those increasingly precious resources, and equally important, to control people – especially your own people – by force, if necessary. Viewed in this light, the government’s aggressive pursuit of power during the last five years makes perfect sense. Ironically, President Bush got it right when he reportedly referred to the now totally eviscerated United States Constitution as a “god damned piece of paper.” That’s really all it is anymore.
So what fantasy world are Bush’s critics living in? The fantasy world in which civilization can continue as it has in the past. That we can continue to improve the standard of living of everyone in the world if we just return to a more sharing and egalitarian way of life, like that which we enjoyed between World War II and the mid 1970s. This is a fantasy. The Earth has finite limits. We are finally starting to grasp that fact with respect to oil. But oil depletion is merely the first in a series of coming crises ensuing from the finite confines of our planet. The fundamental problem – and I’m not a Malthusian – is that there are simply too many people for the Earth to sustain. This is why fish are disappearing from the oceans, why the supply of oil is unable to keep up with demand, why the globe is being deforested, why animal and plant species are going extinct, why water wars are in the offing. Perhaps if people were wiser and more willing to share, and implicitly, less greedy, we could sustain the more than six billion people on Earth, but, alas, such idealism does not describe human beings.
The one thing that has enabled the human population to grow to the immense dimensions we see today is oil, the resource facing the greatest challenge from depletion. As the oil supply diminishes, in the absence of herculean efforts to use oil more efficiently and fairly, large numbers of human beings will die off. Before then, soaring prices for oil will probably destroy the economies of the countries most dependent on the stuff, if not the entire intricately linked world economy. This is what I mean by the end of civilization. Of course life will go on. But it won’t be anything like what we’ve been accustomed to. Life will be more like that of the Middle Ages, in which a few wealthy lords controlled all the resources and possessed all the power, and the rest of the people – the lucky ones, anyway – were veritable slaves under these lords. In many ways that state of affairs exists today, but it’s unseen by all but the most observant individuals. The future I’m talking about, though, is considerably more spartan than what the worker bees enjoy today.
I believe that what we’re witnessing today is the inception of a titanic and protracted competition for survival: between countries, between civilizations, between governments and their people. Moreover, I believe the Bush administration is the first to recognize this competitive future, which explains its fundamentally different – seemingly feckless – behavior compared to past administrations. Bush’s favored courtiers, which include corporations, are profiting today and will become the new nobility in the coming New Middle Ages.
Truth and Distractions
The governments of the world, and the U.S. Government in particular, don’t want their people to know the truth. Governments usually end up seeing themselves as entities distinct from their people, and usually end up competing against them. That is true of almost every government on Earth today, and is especially true of the U.S. Government. Keeping the truth from people helps a government achieve its goals, for if the people knew the truth they might demand that the government start actually serving them.
One way to keep the truth from people, aside from today’s favored approach of simply suppressing it, is to feed them a steady diet of compelling distractions.
Elections are one such distraction. Elections arouse peoples’ passions and keep them entertained for weeks or months. Elections even give people the illusion of participation, when, in fact, elections mean absolutely nothing in a country like the United States, which is run by money. Of course, elections are run by, and legitimized by governments.
Sex is another good distraction, both sex scandals and sex-related social issues. Look at how much mileage the media got out of the Catholic Church sex abuse scandals. By comparison, sexual abuses by the government’s own schoolteachers outnumber those by the church, but we hear nary a word about them because they reflect negatively on the government, and the media cooperates in keeping this quiet. Sex between consenting adults, which ought to be nobody’s business except the participants’, also consumes our attention. Look at how much attention people pay to homosexuality. Why is that anybody else’s business? It’s not, obviously, but it’s a great distraction from important things, such as the government’s reverse-Robin Hood economic policies. The same with abortion. Abortion is a personal matter for the people involved. It’s none of society’s business. But government stokes the flames of debate about abortion and it consumes peoples’ attention. Sexually transmitted diseases – diseases in general – are also good distractions and have the added benefit of instilling fear in the population.
Crime is a perennial distraction. Even when the crime rate is falling, the government seems to hype the crime statistics, making it seem as if you’re putting your life at risk by merely setting foot outside your front door. Of course, “crime” breeds prisons, and prisons empower the government. Given the benefits of crime to the government, it comes as no surprise that the government creates crime by criminalizing harmless behavior such as using drugs or hiring a prostitute.
Religion is also a distraction. Domestically, the fashionable debate today revolves around the separation of church and state. There really ought not be any debate. The United States Constitution is unequivocal: the United States Government shall not recognize any particular religion. End of story. It does not say how states may address religion, but it does say that all powers not prohibited to the states belong to the states. In my opinion, then, if a state wants to recognize a religion, it may do so.
The “clash of civilizations” is perhaps the newest distraction, and a completely contrived one at that. The Muslim-Christian antipathy that exists today is both a religious and a cultural distraction. Decades ago, when we were affluent, we were taught to celebrate cultural diversity on our planet. Today that same diversity is touted as the explanation for the “clash of civilizations.” Granted, different cultures are, well, different. But that doesn’t mean that conflict must ensue, and for decades there was no conflict. Clearly, the flames of cultural conflict are being stoked. By whom? The governments of the world and the media. For example, just look at how European media companies and European governments colluded recently to provoke Muslims with those silly cartoons. Cultural conflict not only distracts the masses, but it provides governments with a credible justification to increase their power, for instance, to regulate headgear worn in schools and restrict immigration. Of course, “terrorism” is ancillary to this clash of civilizations and serves to intensify anxiety in the population. How many acts of terrorism are actually perpetrated by governments? It’s impossible to say, but it’s definitely more than zero, a lot more. So why does a government perpetrate an act of terrorism? To create a distraction, to increase its power, or both.
One thing all of these distractions have in common is collusion – intentional or incidental – between the government and the media. The government seems to be involved in all of these distractions to varying degrees, ranging from merely exaggerating the importance of some distractions to actively orchestrating others. And none of these distractions could successfully distract the public without the zealous participation of, and amplification by, the media. One might argue that the media is naturally drawn to report sensational news, as a moth is drawn to light, and most of these distractions qualify as sensational. But I don’t think it’s purely coincidental that the media relishes these stories when there is so much overlap between the agendas of the government and the corporations that comprise the “media.”
Both entities seek to dominate, exploit, and control the “little people.” And the little people, being xenophobic, uneducated, and fearful, are easily manipulated in a formulaic manner to help undermine their own welfare. Simply look at their support for Bush, a leader who has systematically attacked their standard of living, not to mention their liberties. All Bush had to do was push a few buttons labeled “religion,” “sex,” and “culture” to get them to react like Pavlovian dogs. And all this button pushing was, of course, happily assisted by the media.
Resource Competition
We humans like to think of ourselves as so much more sophisticated than “lower” animals. In affluent times and places we can afford to worry about silly things like what movies will win Oscar awards, whether our body looks good at the gym, or where we will take our next family vacation.
But our existence still depends on this fundamental equation: survival = food + water + shelter.
In leaner times, like those we’re heading into, the above equation becomes sharply apparent.
Food production today is highly dependent on oil. Oil powers our farm implements, oil and natural gas are ingredients in commercial pesticides and fertilizers, and oil transports food to market. Today food travels as far as 10,000 miles from where it’s produced to where it’s consumed, which would be impossible without oil. Oil vastly increases agricultural productivity. So it’s because of our largess of oil that the human population has been able to grow as large as it has. One might say that humans eat oil. We can, of course, produce food without oil – barring such evil manifestations as crops that are genetically engineered to require the use of petroleum-based pesticides – but without oil food production will be much lower.
Water is a resource we take for granted. We act as though there is no limit to the supplies of water, and that there are no repercussions to our profligate consumption of it. We’re building cities in places without adequate water supplies – Phoenix and Las Vegas come to mind – and we’re using up vast reservoirs of non-replenishable “fossil” water, such as the Ogallala Aquifer in the American Midwest. Just as we’re failing to plan for economic “rainy days,” we’re failing to regulate our water usage to prepare for a literal lack of rainy days. We seem to think that the replenishable water supply patterns will remain unchanged, an especially optimistic expectation if the Earth’s climate is truly in the midst of major change. But the water situation is even worse in some other places than in America. Water delivery is partly dependent on energy, just as food production is. It takes energy to pump water from the ground, to transport it to where it’s consumed, and even to treat it. Of course, food production is vitally dependent on water.
I hardly need mention the importance of oil except to say that for the first time in history, the demand curve is passing the supply curve. Moreover, the supply curve will soon be heading downward and we’ll find ourselves perpetually chasing this ever dwindling supply downhill. When demand merely exceeds supply the price of oil will increase. But when demand exceeds supply and the supply starts to diminish, then prices will really go up, enough to destroy economies or render impractical the transportation of food and water to some places. But the gap between supply and demand means more than just higher prices. It also means shortages. Those who can afford to buy oil will usually have their needs satisfied, albeit at higher cost. But those who cannot pay the price will do without. Occasionally, even those who can afford to buy oil will be forced to do without because from time to time there simply won’t be any oil to buy on the global market, at any price. Imagine going to your local gas station and seeing a sign out front reading “Sorry, no gas.” Imagine going to your local grocery store and seeing empty shelves because the trucks that deliver goods to the store had no diesel fuel. Imagine having to bundle up in two layers of sweaters inside your house because you have to make half your normal allotment of home heating oil last the entire winter. These hypothetical scenarios will become reality and will occur with increasing frequency as time goes on.
What’s going to happen when people have to vigorously compete for food, water, and energy in order to survive? I think it’s going to get vicious. My opinion of humanity holds that in the face of such adversity, it will be every man for himself. Countries will compete against countries. States will compete against states. Cities will compete against cities. Governments will even compete against their citizens. Civilization, in the sense of the word “civility,” will be no more. Perhaps genetically engineered terminator seeds, depleted uranium, and exotic diseases are secretly intended to reduce the human population to alleviate resource competition.
Clearly, the U.S. invasion of Iraq is one of the opening salvos in the coming resource wars. And the U.S.’s belligerence toward Iran is undoubtedly due to Iran’s possession of vast oil and natural gas resources. Bear in mind that a country need not seek control of vital resources with the intention of consuming them. The country that controls resources can use those resources either as a lever to compel other countries to behave a certain way, or to buy other resources or finished goods, such as weapons and integrated circuit chips.
The End of Money
The 1970s was the apotheosis of the “American Dream.” Wedged between the preceding decade of civil unrest and the subsequent decade of recessions, rapidly rising homelessness, and mass layoffs, the 1970s was a comparatively idyllic decade. It certainly had its problems – stagflation, for instance – but even while living during that time I felt it was a special decade. Life was good; people were happy, friendly, and mellow; TV shows and movies were cheerful; civil liberties were at their peak; government power was at its lowest ebb; the country was affluent and at its peak of industrial prowess. It’s not a coincidence that the tallest buildings in America were built during the 1970s. Those buildings were icons of American industry and power. Although the Vietnam War raged during the first half of the 1970s, it was in the process of winding down and came to an end by the middle of that decade. The cessation of the Vietnam War was as much a reflection of the peoples’ desire to “live and let live” as it was a military defeat. Military conscription also ended in that decade, and even the cold war cooled off because of détente.
Unfortunately, what we didn’t realize at the time was that we would never again have it so good. The 1970s represented a “tipping point,” to use the popular vernacular, for the American Dream. That was when globalization really started to take off and when the serious decline of American industry began, the steel and auto industries being among the first casualties. Interestingly, the 1970s was also the decade of peak oil production in the United States, after which point we became increasingly reliant on imported oil, which greased our downward slide. What I didn’t realize until writing this was how crucial a role President Nixon played in creating this tipping point. Nixon opened the door to trade with China, a major player in today’s globalized economy. Nixon disassociated the U.S. dollar from gold, facilitating the destruction of wealth through unrelenting devaluation of the dollar. Nixon launched the war on drugs, a precursor to today’s war on terror (or is it the war of terror, I can’t tell?). Both the drug war and war on/of terror consume wealth in order to serve the imperial ambitions of the U.S. Government, but contribute nothing to the country’s production of wealth.
The 1980s was a decade in which previously accumulated wealth was systematically extracted, mainly through the mechanism of “Merger Mania.” The 1980s was a decade of marked industrial and economic decline, which was masked to a large extent by releasing into the economy some of the wealth squeezed out of these mergers, as well as by the massive accumulation of debt. The transformations of the 1980s also introduced a new component: the injection of foreign wealth into the country. Many of the assets sold in the 1980s were purchased by foreigners, especially the Japanese, a trend which accelerated toward the latter half of the decade, highlighting America’s economic decline. The 1980s also marked the inception of the mythical “service economy” theory to justify the profitable exporting of American jobs. The economy is like a pyramid. Forming the foundation of this pyramid is the one true source of wealth: natural resources – the free wealth given to us by the Earth and the Sun. Mining for minerals and energy, agriculture, fishing, and forestry are the source of all other wealth. Above this foundation are industries that utilize its products. These second level industries consist primarily of manufacturers that take raw materials and produce something of greater value. Above the manufacturers are companies that serve them, including law firms, advertising agencies, shipping companies, airlines, hotels, restaurants, and even entertainment. As wealth moves up this pyramid a little wealth, constituting salaries and savings, is retained by each level in the pyramid. The myth of the service economy, the darling theory of the 1980s, is that a country could retain the top of the pyramid and outsource the base of it. During the last three decades we have transfered much of the base of this economic pyramid to countries such as China and India and indeed, initially, the money kept flowing to the top of the pyramid which remained in the United States. But after a while, a new top of the pyramid began to form in those countries where we had shipped the base of the pyramid. Witness today not only the exodus of high tech jobs to China and India, but that in those countries pure service companies, such as advertising agencies, are also starting to flourish.
The 1990s was a period of greatly accelerating globalization and economic decline for the United States, aided and abetted by such treaties as NAFTA, GATT, and the WTO. Again, this massive decline was masked by the illusion of wealth that persisted during the huge stock market bubble of the latter half of the 1990s. Like merger mania before it, the stock market bubble attracted a lot of foreign wealth. A bit more previously accumulated wealth was extracted from rising human productivity here in the United States during the 1990s.
Finally, the 2000s so far represent an era massively dependent on inflows of foreign wealth. With our previously accumulated wealth now exhausted and little means left for fundamental wealth production, about the only thing keeping the U.S. economy afloat these days is consumer spending and deficit spending by the government, both of which are financed by growing mountains of debt, which is owed to foreigners. The United States has largely been reduced to a nation of people that sell each other hamburgers, with foreigners paying the checks. Asset sales to foreigners continue as well, the failed Chinese bid for Unocal and the not-so-failed Dubai bid to run some of our seaports being prominent recent examples.
During the last thirty years in America two persistent trends are clear: the steady depletion of existing wealth and decline in the means to produce new wealth; and the steady rise of an imperial U.S. Government.
Today, the economic imbalances in the United States economy are so vast that I cannot see how they can be corrected gracefully. Even more astonishing to me is that people keep buying financial instruments like U.S. Treasury bills. Do these investors really believe they’re ever going to get their money back? The national debt is so large that paying it down is nearly impossible, especially since there is no political will to either increase taxes or reduce spending. Obviously, the U.S. Government knows it cannot pay down the national debt, which is why it covertly relies on dollar devaluation to reduce the value of the national debt.
It’s only a matter of time before the majority of investors in dollar-denominated financial instruments open their eyes and stop buying those assets. When that happens the dollar is doomed. The government’s only recourse when it cannot borrow money will be to print dollars, which will only accelerate the dollar’s demise, possibly even inducing hyperinflation along the way.
If oil prices skyrocket because of the global supply and demand relationship and harm the U.S. economy, that could accelerate the dollar’s demise as well. I personally don’t see how the dollar can avoid substantial devaluation, either slowly or rapidly. I hope the decline is gradual.
All of the world’s government-issued currencies are in similar straits. None are firmly backed by finite, physical resources, such as gold. Consequently, all currencies have the potential to suffer from devaluation, even more so since the economies of the world’s countries are so intricately linked together. If one currency abruptly collapses, especially an important one like the dollar, they could all come crashing down.
Additionally, faith in the world’s currencies depends in part on globalization. The willingness of an investor in Japan to buy American dollars depends in part on the investor’s expectation of a continuing economic relationship between Japan and America. But in an era where global trade is increasingly challenged by oil shortages, faith in other countries’ currencies will diminish too. Countries will increasingly prefer to conduct international trade using universal mediums like gold instead of currency.
If currencies such as the dollar become worthless, even local trade may be conducted using gold or other precious metals. Such trade may, in fact, have to be conducted in black markets, since financially distressed governments will probably seek to confiscate all gold and precious metals from their citizens.
The bottom line is that government-issued currency will be a thing of the past. So how will the government continue to exist?
Acquisition of Resources
Without money or credit, government can only continue to exist through force. The United States government is particularly well endowed in this regard and has demonstrated its willingness to use force to acquire resources, and not as a last resort either.
Iraq’s oil is the first such resource to be acquired by military force. Iran’s oil and natural gas may well be the next. In the long run, the energy-rich regions of central Asia will also attract the hungry gaze of the U.S. Empire. Of course, other powerful, populous, and hungry countries, such as China and India, will also have designs on these energy-rich regions, which will probably result in significant wars. Oil from the Middle East will probably become so valuable that countries will have to provide a military escort for every tanker carrying oil across the ocean.
Domestically, energy will be controlled by the government. It will satisfy its needs first, corporations will have their needs satisfied second, and the populace will be forced to ration whatever is left.
Food is also critical to the government, comprised, as it is, of people. So it’s logical to assume that the government will at some point take control of food production. As with energy, the government will satisfy its own food requirements first, and the populace will be left to ration whatever is left.
If water becomes a scarce or unreliable resource, then we can assume that the government will take control of that as well.
In a future where money has no value, the only way a government can retain people is by providing them with food, water, and shelter. In fact, in a future world where resource competition is the order of the day, people will probably covet a government job – as a bureaucrat, a laborer, or a soldier – simply because it will mean three square meals a day and a roof over their head.
Of course, government needs more than just food, water, and shelter. Government needs weapons, vehicles, computers, communications gear, and myriad other manufactured items. Some of these things are manufactured wholly in other countries, or depend in part on components from other countries. Without money the government cannot buy these things. But it can trade precious resources, such as oil, water, and food, for them. Some critical factories, such as domestic weapons plants, may be taken over wholesale by the government for security reasons.
Slave Labor
Government cannot operate on resources and material alone. It also needs labor. Some of that labor can be “purchased” in exchange for resources. But in order for the government to operate “profitably” it will have to employ slave labor, that is, labor it doesn’t have to pay so richly for.
We already have such a precedent. Many of the two million people already incarcerated in this country are veritable slave laborers. They “earn” anywhere from twenty-five cents to one dollar per hour, often working for major American corporations. But in some cases these poor prisoners are then charged room and board for being in prison, thus wiping out their minuscule income. In effect, since they are being forced to work without making any net income, they are slaves. It does not challenge the imagination to envision future slave laborers working in factories manufacturing everything from machine guns to computers, or working on farms to produce food, returning each night to sleep in their prison cells.
The United States military is currently exploring ways to utilize civilian prisoners to satisfy the military’s labor needs. It’s only a matter of time before they come up with a justification for doing so.
Once the framework for utilizing slave laborers – all nice and legal, of course – is established, it’s quite easy to increase the pool of potential laborers, if necessary. The government merely has to criminalize more behaviors. Caught driving your car on the “wrong” day? Three months in prison loading ammunition cartridges. Caught possessing gold coins? Six months in prison assembling computers. Caught saying “subversive” things over the telephone to your aunt? Five years on a prison farm – for the both of you – tending crops. Of course, prison sentences will likely be accompanied by asset forfeiture, that is, if you have anything the government wants. There is already a precedent today for asset forfeiture too, even for minor offenses such as hiring a prostitute or having a marijuana cigarette in your car. Heck, simply walking through an airport today with “too much” cash on your person might result in it being confiscated.
Conclusion
Although this essay has mainly been a description of the United States and its future, much of it is applicable to the world as a whole. Some other countries may well face worse times ahead because they lack the natural resources and/or military might that the United States possesses.
The goal of this essay is not to propose solutions to the many problems facing us, although there are solutions, but to explain the seemingly irrational behavior we see around the world. Viewing the world today in light of the foregoing essay, Bush’s actions are understandable, even though I don’t endorse them: the competitive pursuit of resources, the rolling back of civil liberties, the carefree handling of the economy.
Well, doesn’t that make you feel all warm and fuzzy to know that George Bush is just doing what he is doing for YOU?
But what if that is not the case?
Here’s another view by Joe Quinn in his article: Ruppert and Hopsicker Co-Opting the 9-11 Truth Movement Or Exposing the Big Con – Lies and Disinformation At The End Of Civilisation As We Know It:
[…] If we look at the situation dispassionately (not an easy thing to do given the subject matter - “you’re all gonna die” - tends to make people a little emotional don’t ya know), what seems to be true about Mike’s message is that it is so shocking that it tends to have the effect of suspending the critical thinking capabilities of people who hear it. In a way it is like one of those doomsday cults where blind faith is asked for and given because: “we’re all gonna be toast pretty soon anyway, so what have you got to lose?”
It is also, coincidentally, a very good way to focus attention away from 9-11.
Of course, I am not saying that Mike is running a cult of any description, I am just saying that, whether Mike is aware of it or not, his message tends to promote emotional rather than critical thought, and thinking with our emotions tends to exacerbate an already problematic situation.
I think I can say without much fear of dispute, that, whether he planned it or not (or whether someone else planned it with him in mind), Mike has become somewhat of a saviour for his followers.
By his own admission, the following are Mike’s core beliefs about what needs to be done:
Instead of advocating war I oppose it. Anyone who has attended any of my more than 35 lectures in eight countries (more than 15,000 live audience members) will know, of a certainty, that my position on solutions is absolutely clear. I advocate an immediate cessation of all military conquest and imperialism by the US government and industrialized powers; an end to the war on terror.
I advocate an immediate convening of political, economic, spiritual and scientific leaders from all nations to address the issue of Peak Oil (and Gas) and its immediate implications for economic collapse, massive famine and climate destruction (partially as a result of reversion to coal plants which accelerate global warming). This would, scientifically speaking, include immediate steps to arrive at a crash program – agreed to by all nations and in accordance with the highest spiritual and ethical principles – to stop global population growth and to arrive at the best possible and most ethical program of population reduction as a painful choice made by all of humanity.
I hope that the sharp and sudden increase in heart rate and blood pressure that the words “population reduction” must surely have caused in readers was not too much to handle, and that we can continue and rationally consider the practicality of just what is being suggested by Mike.
The first question that can be reasonably asked is: “What planet has Mike been living on for the past 50 years?”
Please tell me when exactly the wonderful, life-respecting, spiritual beings took over the planet? Was it while I was at the toilet?
Seriously though, can ANYONE imagine Cheney or Putin or Blair or Zhu Rongji, or any other world leader for that matter, who by definition of their position of power have been completely corrupted by that power, suddenly exhibiting “the highest spiritual and ethical principles”? Just about every world leader, including the supposedly “spiritual” ones, have been presiding over mass depopulation for centuries, and they didn’t need any stinkin’ ethics or morals to do it; glee and relish was all it took! […]
According to Mike, when big government and big oil exploration and drilling companies proclaim to the world that “we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel here folks”, it is not that these patently corrupt men are attempting to manipulate world opinion, but rather that, faced with the dire consequences that peak oil portends for humanity, they are simply concerned for our well-being and future. Ruppert fails however to address the question of whether or not it is reasonable to believe that such men would suddenly undergo a complete reversal of the ethics that had motivated them up until that point in their lives.
As we all know, oil does not naturally flow out of the ground pre-refined into the various forms that are required to keep the post-industrial world turning and well-fed. There is a long and costly process involved in getting the oil to the gas station, and it would not happen if it were not financed by the large multinational oil companies that naturally have very close ties to the governments that require the oil in order for them to have a country and a population to rule over.
If there is an alleged shortage of oil, it is just as plausible that such claims are the result of some new government/corporate strategy rather than the actual drying up of resources.
Consider also the fact that, if we are to believe that the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were solely to steal the oil resources of those countries, then things have not panned out as the Neocons hoped. Most reports have been telling us that the expected reserves in Iraq are just not there. Which begs the question: are we really to believe that all the big brains in the US “think-tanks” did not foresee this?
Of course I am not for a moment suggesting that depopulation does not form a part of the plans of ‘the powers that be’. There is too much evidence that governments have, for many years, been working on developing ever better ways to kill ever more people. My problem with Ruppert is that by promoting his “peak oil” debate, he ever so subtly diverts attention away from those who are really responsible for our current predicament and lays the blame for the impending demise of civilisation as we know it at the door of mother nature and the unfortunate fact that she has run out of oil. […]
The truth is that the real reasons for the events of 9-11 are much more insidious than any of the theories that have to date been proffered. As part of the process of investigation, most 9-11 investigators have, at least once, suggested that if everyone were just to look to “who benefits”, the solution to the whole enigma would quickly present itself. The important thing to remember about the “who benefits” approach however, is that, having identified the party that benefits the most from an event, that lead must be doggedly pursued, regardless of the lack of evidence of that party’s involvement in the event. Indeed, in such a case, a lack of evidence can constitute the most important piece of evidence if we consider that those with the most to gain often have the most to lose if their involvement were to be revealed. And in this case, the wherewithal needed to pull off such a major attack and deception is so vast, that those responsible would certainly have the means and know-how to plant evidence to blame it on others while eliminating the evidence that points back to the truly guilty parties.
As the twin towers crumbled to the ground, the average Western citizen’s perception of Arabs, already suffering from long years of subtle propaganda by the Western press, took an equally disastrous nose-dive. In one fell swoop, millions of people in that big nebulous area of the world known to many Americans as “the Middle East” became “dangerous terrorists” and the soon-to-be recipients of the whipped-up fury and indignation of the American people, conveyed on their behalf by the “world’s most awesome military machine”. 9-11 then, certainly secured the enthusiastic consent of the American people for an invasion of whichever country the US government decided to frame for the attacks.
However, it is our contention that Ruppert’s argument that the 9-11 attacks were carried out to facilitate an oil grab by the US government in the face of “peak oil” also makes little sense.
As a result of the first gulf war and under the oil for food program, any Iraqi oil resources that were required for American consumption had already been secured by US interests, so there was therefore little to be gained by the US government embroiling its military in what was always going to be a costly and unwinnable guerrilla war. One has only to look at the pre-eminent global position of the US over the past 50 years to see that its policies were already working quite nicely. So why risk military and economic catastrophe by invading Iraq? Indeed, there was little to be gained from the most recent US invasion of the Middle East if it is understood only in terms of securing oil for consumption. The invasion, in fact, uses up VAST quantities of oil, to what end?
Imagine that, for whatever reason, you were planning a radical reshaping of the Middle East, and you had concluded that, to get the job done, war and the destruction of an entire race of people therein was necessary. Imagine also that you are well aware that you cannot just unilaterally set off a major conflagration, principally because public opinion and certain other nations would not stand for it. Realising that you need some way to mould public opinion towards accepting war and at the same time render impotent those nations that pose a threat to your plans, what might be the best way to do it?
By far the most effective tool for shaping public opinion is fear. And by far the best way to control other nations is economically, or rather, through the control of their oil supply. Hence, 9-11 and the “war on terror”.
Unless the US actually physically controls Middle Eastern oil reserves, however, they have no way of controlling to whom those reserves are sold. The only way to do so is to fabricate a reason for invading each oil-rich country in turn and either permanently occupy them or install a proxy government that will do your bidding. This, it would seem, is the process we see unfolding currently with the “war on terror” and the invasion of Iraq. Iran is probably next. Venezuela may follow. Of course, the public must be given a plausible reason as to why the wells have “run dry”, which is the reason for the dissemination of the peak oil myth.
However, maintaining the military necessary for such a task demands tremendous economic and human resources. The costs are driving the United States further and further into debt. At the same time, Bush is giving tax breaks to his wealthy support base, narrowing the income base within the US to pay for his military follies. This makes the US more and more dependent upon foreign governments to shore up the US debt, to the cost of nearly $2 billion a day. The day that the rest of the world decides to take a hit on the value of their dollar reserves in order to bring the US predator to its knees, is the day the war machine will begin to collapse, bringing down with it the fabled “American Way of Life”.
But what can be the motivation behind such an insane plot? What can drive a group of people, against all reason and logic, to risk the economic destruction of their own country and therefore their power base?
Such a question cannot be answered without looking at the one country for which successive US governments have bent over backwards to accommodate; which takes us back to Israel. […]
Now I understand that all of the above paints a complex and somewhat confusing picture, and you may be struck with the feeling that there is still something missing, some factor that is needed to explain that recklessness with which the main global players are toying with the planet and the lives of every individual on it. One might even say that they are acting like men who have nothing to lose. We have already made a case to suggest that peak oil is a distraction and certainly not the main issue.
So what IS the main issue?
In August 17, 1999, the Knight Ridder Washington Bureau published an article by Robert S. Boyd entitled: Comets may have caused Earth’s great empires to fall which included the following: (emphases, ours)
Recent scientific discoveries are shedding new light on why great empires such as Egypt, Babylon and Rome fell apart, giving way to the periodic “dark ages’’ that punctuate human history. At least five times during the last 6,000 years, major environmental calamities undermined civilizations around the world.
Some researchers say these disasters appear to be linked to collisions with comets or fragments of comets such as the one that broke apart and smashed spectacularly into Jupiter five years ago.
The impacts, yielding many megatons of explosive energy, produced vast clouds of smoke and dust that circled the globe for years, dimming the sun, driving down temperatures and sowing hunger, disease and death.
The last such global crisis occurred between AD 530 and 540– at the beginning of the Dark Ages in Europe — when Earth was pummeled by a swarm of cosmic debris.
In a forthcoming book, Catastrophe, the Day the Sun Went Out, British historian David Keys describes a 2-year-long winter that began in AD 535. Trees from California to Ireland to Siberia stopped growing. Crops failed. Plague and famine decimated Italy, China and the Middle East.
Keys quotes the writings of a 6th-century Syrian bishop, John of Ephesus:
“The sun became dark. … Each day it shone for about four hours and still this light was only a feeble shadow.”
A contemporary Italian historian, Flavius Cassiodorus, wrote:
“We marvel to see no shadows of our bodies at noon. We have summer without heat.”
And a contemporary Chinese chronicler reported, “Yellow dust rained like snow.”
Dendrochronologist, Mike Baillie, established that:
Analysis of tree rings shows that at in 540 AD in different parts of the world the climate changed. Temperatures dropped enough to hinder the growth of trees as widely dispersed as northern Europe, Siberia, western North America, and southern South America.
A search of historical records and mythical stories pointed to a disastrous visitation from the sky during the same period, it is claimed. There was one reference to a “comet in Gaul so vast that the whole sky seemed on fire” in 540-41.
According to legend, King Arthur died around this time, and Celtic myths associated with Arthur hinted at bright sky Gods and bolts of fire. In the 530s, an unusual meteor shower was recorded by both Mediterranean and Chinese observers. Meteors are caused by the fine dust from comets burning up in the atmosphere. Furthermore, a team of astronomers from Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland published research in 1990 which said the Earth would have been at risk from cometary bombardment between the years 400 and 600 AD.
[…] Famine followed the crop failures, and hard on its heels bubonic plague that swept across Europe in the mid-6th century. […]
Now these are not the voices of the evangelical, “the end of the world is nigh”, types, but rather sober university professors who have spent many years in scientific research in their chosen fields. The conclusions they have come to are shocking for sure, but it behooves all of us to put aside our sacred cows for a moment and look at the facts. Over the past few years the incidence of meteorite sightings and impacts around the world has gone through the proverbial roof, as have several of the meteorites, although in opposite directions. We have been charting these events for the past 2 years, and we can safely say that something is definitely ‘up’.
Given the controlled nature of not only the media, but also the academic world, if there was a threat to our planet from some sort of cyclical cometary shower as suggested by Ballie and Boyd, the chances of such information coming to general public awareness, against the wishes of the ruling elite, are very slim. The likelihood is that our leaders would do everything within their power to conceal such information, forcing those members of the public with a drive to know the truth to collect and decipher the bits and pieces of ‘loose’ data themselves. This is exactly what we have been doing for many years now.
The fact is that the idea that the earth experiences cyclical catastrophes, and that a select few of the “elite” are in possession of this information, explains rather well the current warmongering by the US and the political maneuvering by other major powers.
Think about it. If the people who are really in control of the US government know that, in the very near future, the demographics and power balance on the planet are going to be radically and unpredictably restructured by meteorite impacts, they would surely seek to prepare for such an event. Having held power for so long, their preparations would most likely center around a strategy to ensure that, when the dust settles and they emerge from their bunkers, they are able to retake control of the planet. Practically, this would involve a process of conquering as much of the planet and its resources as possible, and we note that this is essentially what successive US governments have been doing for the past 50 years.
If there is one thing above all others that has lead to the precipice upon which we currently sit as a species, it is knowledge, or the lack of it, and the fact that certain small groups of so-called ‘elite’ have always sought to maintain a monopoly on it at the expense of the masses of humanity. Clearly, therefore, it is knowledge that is and always has been the most prized ‘commodity’ on this planet. Unfortunately, the catch 22 to beat them all is the fact that almost no one realises this.
Why?
Because the knowledge that knowledge is key has been deliberately and rigorously denied them by the propaganda of religion where “faith” and “blind belief” in the leader is the key to salvation. The salient point is that it is, and always has been, only in the darkness of ignorance of the true state of their reality that ordinary people can be merrily led down the path that leads, over and over again, to their own destruction.
