http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/chris-martenson/bad-spot
In a Bad Spot
The Future Becomes Clearer, But More Precarious
After traveling some, speaking with lots of people, reading, and digesting, I cannot escape the conclusion that things remain hopelessly off track. Whatever form of 'recovery' is being sought here simply will not arrive.
The core of my views is shaped by the idea that the very thing being sought, more economic growth (and exponential growth, at that), is exactly the root of the problem. I suppose I would take a similarly dim view of an alcoholic trying to drink their way back to health as I do the increasingly interventionist central bank and associated political policies the world over.
Go on then, drink more, but I think we all know what the result will be.
The most pressing concept at the center of it all is the idea of net energy, or the energy returned on energy invested. As I explained in the Crash Course, the price of energy is not really the most pressing that we need to keep track of. Instead, what we care about is the net, or surplus, energy that is returned from our energy exploration and production efforts for society to do with as it wishes.
Figure 1: This hypothetical chart reveals the energy returned (green area) on energy invested (red part) and postulates what trying to live in a world of 3:1 energy returns would look like visually. Where petroleum finds of just a few decades ago where offering 95% or greater returns on energy invested, a future of 3:1 oil offers just a 66% return.
The above chart reveals the world towards which we are rapidly moving with new petroleum finds being deeper, tighter, smaller, and generally more difficult to get to and extract, thereby offering lower net energy returns than in the past.
If there's less 'green area' in which to organize ourselves, then we will simply have to do fewer things. However, the idea that we are going to get increasing amounts of exponentially-growing economy in conjunction with falling net energy is simply nuts. It is insane, or at least developmentally immature.
Predictions for a World of Declining Net Energy
The world around me makes a lot more sense when I think about it in terms of net energy and where we are in that story. Everywhere I go, I simply see oil, oil, and more oil, expressed in jets in the air, cars and trucks on the road, abundant and varied food types at every time of the year, and stores crammed with consumer goods from hither and yon. We truly live in the age of abundance.
Yet that abundance is heavily subsidized by petroleum as well as other fossil fuels.
Where the prior 150 years were defined by ever-increasing amounts of both gross and net energy, a remarkable experience unlikely to ever again be replicated, the next 150 will be defined by its exact opposite.
The predictions for living in such a world are impossible to make in terms of timing and magnitude, but the trends and direction can be pinned down.
The big picture items are these:
•Living standards are going to fall. Ever-rising gross and net amounts of energy provide the essential building blocks for rising living standards, both directly through the goods and services brought to our doorsteps, such as food and warmth and mobility, and indirectly by allowing lots and lots of people to deploy their talents to things other than securing the basics. In fact, this process has already begun; it will follow the 'outside in' model where the weaker elements of society and the weaker nation states will absorb the first effects of 'less than there used to be.'
•Inflation will come. Because of the tendency of humans to try and print their way out of trouble, and because the system is now so saturated with debt that 'allowing' it to crumble to meet the realities of a world of less would risk a catastrophic systemic collapse of institutions and ruling parties, there's not much doubt that sooner or later all this will end in a very scary round of inflation. Some currencies will not survive at all, and the areas served by them will experience hyperinflation first and complete monetary destruction second.
•Stocks and bonds will fail to generate real returns. Real returns, meaning positive growth in the value of stocks and bonds after inflation is subtracted, are an impossibility in a world where the economy is not growing in real terms. You have to have real growth in the economy if you want real growth in stocks and bonds (in aggregate, that is). Stripping away all of the gobbledy-gook, real GDP growth is simply not possible without real increases in real things – and those depend, in very large measure, on how much net energy there is to go around. With declining net energy, there will fewer things to sell and do.
•Retirements will be postponed, if they happen at all. It is only the very recent generations that have been afforded the reality of this thing called 'retirement,' which is the idea that you can live off of one's prior savings and investments for a decade or three, consuming and not producing the whole time. Not so coincidentally (to me, at any rate), retirement and the exploitation of fossil fuels came along at roughly the same time. That is, with enough 'green area,' we humans can do anything at all that we want with all that surplus energy. We can go to the moon, we can take long holidays to distant places, we can host Olympics, we can retire or do any of a billion other things. For many, especially those at the margins of society, retirement will simply not be an option. Retirement as a concept, and these individuals specifically, will be casualties of circumstances.
•We're just going to do fewer things and produce less stuff. What exactly will go away as the green area gets pinched downwards is impossible to predict, as much will depend on decisions that have not yet been made. Perhaps we'll do something completely surprising with our remaining energy, channel the spirits of Easter Island, and build some huge yet frivolous monuments to ourselves. Perhaps we'll squander the last bits of good energy on bad wars that end up destroying infrastructure that could only be built when there was enough surplus to go around. Or maybe we'll get it right and choose a future that we can strive for and use our remaining resources wisely to achieve those dreams. While the exact features are impossible to predict, we can say that the map of our territory will shrink. We won't be able to do everything, or even very many things as compared to before.
•More resources will be dedicated to and consumed by the energy sector. One easy observation to make is that if net energy is declining, then we are going to be spending more of our energy wealth on the process of obtaining more energy. This is one great field to be in, whether in the production side or the efficiency side. If it takes more and more energy to get energy, what does that mean? It means more drilling, pipelines, processing facilities, and all of the thousands of job types and millions of parts and components that are needed to get the energy out of the ground and to market. As prices inevitably rise, the desire (if not the necessity) of using energy more efficiently will skyrocket. Everything in the entire "built" environment, from commercial and residential buildings, to factories, to how we move ourselves around, and the water we drink will be targets for improvements and enhancements. If you are thinking of a career to move into, the energy sector is a great place to start.
Eyes Wide Shut
I think we're in a bad spot. I mean the globe here, but the developed economies in particular. I am losing hope that we will navigate towards anything other than a hard landing at some point because even with copious amounts of data accumulating suggesting that the old ways are not working, I cannot detect even the slightest hint of original thinking or new thoughts coming out of the marbled halls of power.
Business-as-usual and more-of-the-same seem to be the only operative ideas right now. And that's not really unexpected; systems always try to preserve themselves long after it should be obvious that a new tack is in order. So there's nothing really surprising here about where things seem to be headed.
But what is a bit startling to me is the number of individuals that have not yet caught onto the idea that things have permanently and irrevocably changed.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Monday, October 22, 2012
SC113-6
http://kulturcritic.wordpress.com/posts/domestication-of-the-savage-mind-or-cant-buy-me-love/
Domestication of the Savage Mind or Can’t Buy Me Love
…billions of American assistance dollars poured into programs in Afghanistan designed to help win “hearts and minds,” and bring stability to the troubled nation.
But, who unleashed the recent storm of chaos into this ‘troubled nation’ anyway? We did, of course! We also know that US expansionist plans, a.k.a. globalization, were crafted, honed, and rationalized by brainwashed policy wonks – graduates of the most prestigious Western institutions of indoctrination. Their mission is to build and establish stable social platforms receptive to our cultural, economic, and political agenda – our relentless hegemonic advance. This is no more clearly manifest than in the case of the USA international development process known as counterinsurgency.
The “hearts and minds” strategy [in Afghanistan], known as counterinsurgency, or COIN, called for a delicate balance of military pressures and civil incentives: military action against the enemy, combined with generous programs designed to win over the gratitude and trust of the people.
That has a nice ring to it – military action against the enemy. Tell that to the tens of thousands of dead Afghan civilians (directly or indirectly) from the war we waged in their country and the stench of death we left in every mountain ravine and on every village path. This is a clear picture of the Janus-face of America’s totalitarian policy, in both its straight-up belligerent phase, and its subtler, inverted format – bribery and other incentives, a.k.a. “development assistance.” It is nearly the same game we used across the face of the globe: from war-torn Europe to the fall of the Iron Curtain, across Northern Africa to the Middle East, establishing military outposts and economic pawns all along the watchtower. It is no different than our military occupation and reconstruction of Japan after the war, transforming it into a democracy – a genuine mini-me of Roosevelt’s New Deal....
....Of course, counterinsurgency was engraved in our mission statement, long before it had a proper name. The earliest pilgrims to the New World, and explorers as far back as Chris Columbus, exercised this same methodology with the Native Americans: kill them with kindness and then, if they don’t comply, kill them with the sword. Subsequently, our government plied the tribes with trinkets, whiskey and promises; and when the going got rough, or some tribal groups refused to submit, the government sent in the troops, killing not only young braves defending their homeland, but elders, women, and children as well. (see H Zinn)
But, let us read from the 2006 copy of the Counterinsurgency manual issued by the United States Department of the Army.
…leaders at all levels [of a counterinsurgency operation must] adjust their approach constantly. They must ensure that their Soldiers and Marines are ready to be greeted with either a handshake or a hand grenade while taking on missions only infrequently practiced until recently at our combat training centers. Soldiers and Marines are expected to be nation builders as well as warriors.
What the army along with the policy wonks fail to understand is that some folks, particularly the tribal peoples of Afghanistan, just aren’t buying what we are selling; they don’t want our propaganda, our stabilization plans, or our occupying forces. We, the conquistadors – the warriors and nation builders – have finally met some real contemporary nomads and pastoralists who just will not fall for our tricks or our trinkets. How dare those savages! The indigenous populations of North America were not so fortunate, even as they resisted. But, I am sure the cavalry is not yet through with the tribes of Afghanistan. And we shall see how our armed forces will handle our own tribes again here in the homeland who are even now preparing a blockade of the Keystone XL tar sand pipeline. (I recommend that everyone go to Truthdig and read Chris Hedges latest posting from October 14th.)
One could argue, as I am sure the poli-wonks do constantly, that such counterinsurgency activities are beneficial to struggling nations, an exercise in extraordinary civilized behavior and conscience; that these efforts are intended to help people, demonstrating the good will of the aggressor. As the military handbook says:
COIN forces aim to mobilize the good will of the people against the insurgents. Therefore, the populace must feel protected, not threatened, by COIN forces’ actions and operations… Effective commanders know the people, topography, economy, history, and culture of their area of operations (AO). They know every village, road, field, population group, tribal leader, and ancient grievance within it.
The avowed concern is to give those ‘peoples’ – the unwashed, the less than civilized barbarians – a helping hand so they can partake of the many benefits of our advanced culture, our advanced technologies, and most especially our evident material progress. Yet, the arrogance and ethnocentric condescension lodged within this view is itself unconscionable, as is the self-righteousness of the assumption that we have the solutions to their challenges. The bottom-line is we want to exchange their lifestyle for ours; homogenize the globe, so they all look, believe, and behave like US. Globalization 101 — covert colonization! And no matter how many sushi restaurants pop-up around the globe, we all know that globalization really means Americanization, the unbridled spread of capitalism and its unrelenting temperament – consuming all resources in its wake.
In other words, the real motivation of the American imperial will may not be very difficult to ascertain. It seems to be our intention – under the cloak of ‘national security interest’ – to gain some concrete or meaningful control over foreign territories and their populations, economically and culturally, absorbing their diverse resources into empire for exploitation by its corporate benefactors. Although we have recognized that colonization no longer requires actual physical take-over, still we leave occupying forces in place, and we utilize very effectively the softer tools at our disposal to control the colonized – economically, culturally, and politically with puppet regimes.
To this day, Okinawa remains a major offensive U.S. military base over the bitter objections of its inhabitants who, right now, are less than enthusiastic about dispatch of accident-prone V-22 Osprey helicopters to the Futenma military base, located at the heart of a heavily populated urban center.*
Yet, the Afghans seem to be telling us quite clearly that they want no part of it, that they do not want to be colonial subjects of this consumer-driven, commercialized, capitalist state. They do not care for our curriculum or its spectacle....
....It has been noted by different poli-wonks and theorists of this ilk that “development assistance programs have limited impact in societies where tribal structures and dynamics remain strong,”* for example, in Yemen, Somalia, and Afghanistan. Yet, all of these analyses are intended not as a deterrence to counterinsurgency efforts, but rather, as thought experiments enabling empire and its allies to overcome more primal tribal barriers to stabilization – colonization, commercialization, consumerism, and compliance with our wishes or demands, explicitly or otherwise. Why do we feel compelled to destroy tribal and other “third-world” cultures? Because the “Other” threatens our own sense of rightness, while blocking access to resources required in maintaining empire.
This is not unlike the game of chicken we have witnessed before and we still see with the economic development programs of the IMF and World Bank throughout the “under-developed” world; it is all a matter of subjugating the recipient country, and making their indigenous populations prisoners or slaves to the demands of our political and economic will: the acquisition of new markets, retention of cheap labor, and ready access to limited or shrinking natural resources. When will it ever end?
As Chomsky concludes:
In 1962, war was avoided by Khrushchev’s willingness to accept Kennedy’s hegemonic demands. But we can hardly count on such sanity forever.
Domestication of the Savage Mind or Can’t Buy Me Love
…billions of American assistance dollars poured into programs in Afghanistan designed to help win “hearts and minds,” and bring stability to the troubled nation.
But, who unleashed the recent storm of chaos into this ‘troubled nation’ anyway? We did, of course! We also know that US expansionist plans, a.k.a. globalization, were crafted, honed, and rationalized by brainwashed policy wonks – graduates of the most prestigious Western institutions of indoctrination. Their mission is to build and establish stable social platforms receptive to our cultural, economic, and political agenda – our relentless hegemonic advance. This is no more clearly manifest than in the case of the USA international development process known as counterinsurgency.
The “hearts and minds” strategy [in Afghanistan], known as counterinsurgency, or COIN, called for a delicate balance of military pressures and civil incentives: military action against the enemy, combined with generous programs designed to win over the gratitude and trust of the people.
That has a nice ring to it – military action against the enemy. Tell that to the tens of thousands of dead Afghan civilians (directly or indirectly) from the war we waged in their country and the stench of death we left in every mountain ravine and on every village path. This is a clear picture of the Janus-face of America’s totalitarian policy, in both its straight-up belligerent phase, and its subtler, inverted format – bribery and other incentives, a.k.a. “development assistance.” It is nearly the same game we used across the face of the globe: from war-torn Europe to the fall of the Iron Curtain, across Northern Africa to the Middle East, establishing military outposts and economic pawns all along the watchtower. It is no different than our military occupation and reconstruction of Japan after the war, transforming it into a democracy – a genuine mini-me of Roosevelt’s New Deal....
....Of course, counterinsurgency was engraved in our mission statement, long before it had a proper name. The earliest pilgrims to the New World, and explorers as far back as Chris Columbus, exercised this same methodology with the Native Americans: kill them with kindness and then, if they don’t comply, kill them with the sword. Subsequently, our government plied the tribes with trinkets, whiskey and promises; and when the going got rough, or some tribal groups refused to submit, the government sent in the troops, killing not only young braves defending their homeland, but elders, women, and children as well. (see H Zinn)
But, let us read from the 2006 copy of the Counterinsurgency manual issued by the United States Department of the Army.
…leaders at all levels [of a counterinsurgency operation must] adjust their approach constantly. They must ensure that their Soldiers and Marines are ready to be greeted with either a handshake or a hand grenade while taking on missions only infrequently practiced until recently at our combat training centers. Soldiers and Marines are expected to be nation builders as well as warriors.
What the army along with the policy wonks fail to understand is that some folks, particularly the tribal peoples of Afghanistan, just aren’t buying what we are selling; they don’t want our propaganda, our stabilization plans, or our occupying forces. We, the conquistadors – the warriors and nation builders – have finally met some real contemporary nomads and pastoralists who just will not fall for our tricks or our trinkets. How dare those savages! The indigenous populations of North America were not so fortunate, even as they resisted. But, I am sure the cavalry is not yet through with the tribes of Afghanistan. And we shall see how our armed forces will handle our own tribes again here in the homeland who are even now preparing a blockade of the Keystone XL tar sand pipeline. (I recommend that everyone go to Truthdig and read Chris Hedges latest posting from October 14th.)
One could argue, as I am sure the poli-wonks do constantly, that such counterinsurgency activities are beneficial to struggling nations, an exercise in extraordinary civilized behavior and conscience; that these efforts are intended to help people, demonstrating the good will of the aggressor. As the military handbook says:
COIN forces aim to mobilize the good will of the people against the insurgents. Therefore, the populace must feel protected, not threatened, by COIN forces’ actions and operations… Effective commanders know the people, topography, economy, history, and culture of their area of operations (AO). They know every village, road, field, population group, tribal leader, and ancient grievance within it.
The avowed concern is to give those ‘peoples’ – the unwashed, the less than civilized barbarians – a helping hand so they can partake of the many benefits of our advanced culture, our advanced technologies, and most especially our evident material progress. Yet, the arrogance and ethnocentric condescension lodged within this view is itself unconscionable, as is the self-righteousness of the assumption that we have the solutions to their challenges. The bottom-line is we want to exchange their lifestyle for ours; homogenize the globe, so they all look, believe, and behave like US. Globalization 101 — covert colonization! And no matter how many sushi restaurants pop-up around the globe, we all know that globalization really means Americanization, the unbridled spread of capitalism and its unrelenting temperament – consuming all resources in its wake.
In other words, the real motivation of the American imperial will may not be very difficult to ascertain. It seems to be our intention – under the cloak of ‘national security interest’ – to gain some concrete or meaningful control over foreign territories and their populations, economically and culturally, absorbing their diverse resources into empire for exploitation by its corporate benefactors. Although we have recognized that colonization no longer requires actual physical take-over, still we leave occupying forces in place, and we utilize very effectively the softer tools at our disposal to control the colonized – economically, culturally, and politically with puppet regimes.
To this day, Okinawa remains a major offensive U.S. military base over the bitter objections of its inhabitants who, right now, are less than enthusiastic about dispatch of accident-prone V-22 Osprey helicopters to the Futenma military base, located at the heart of a heavily populated urban center.*
Yet, the Afghans seem to be telling us quite clearly that they want no part of it, that they do not want to be colonial subjects of this consumer-driven, commercialized, capitalist state. They do not care for our curriculum or its spectacle....
....It has been noted by different poli-wonks and theorists of this ilk that “development assistance programs have limited impact in societies where tribal structures and dynamics remain strong,”* for example, in Yemen, Somalia, and Afghanistan. Yet, all of these analyses are intended not as a deterrence to counterinsurgency efforts, but rather, as thought experiments enabling empire and its allies to overcome more primal tribal barriers to stabilization – colonization, commercialization, consumerism, and compliance with our wishes or demands, explicitly or otherwise. Why do we feel compelled to destroy tribal and other “third-world” cultures? Because the “Other” threatens our own sense of rightness, while blocking access to resources required in maintaining empire.
This is not unlike the game of chicken we have witnessed before and we still see with the economic development programs of the IMF and World Bank throughout the “under-developed” world; it is all a matter of subjugating the recipient country, and making their indigenous populations prisoners or slaves to the demands of our political and economic will: the acquisition of new markets, retention of cheap labor, and ready access to limited or shrinking natural resources. When will it ever end?
As Chomsky concludes:
In 1962, war was avoided by Khrushchev’s willingness to accept Kennedy’s hegemonic demands. But we can hardly count on such sanity forever.
Monday, October 8, 2012
SC113-5
http://kulturcritic.wordpress.com/posts/knee-deep-and-sinking-fast-welcome-as-an-outhouse-breeze/
Knee Deep and Sinking Fast: Welcome as an Outhouse Breeze
Well, we are in some thick fog now, folks. Knee deep in some real shit. Uglier than a mud fence! The corporate-sponsored presidential lie-fest has begun! So, the framers of this propaganda-extravaganza tell us that it is all about the economy. You hear that, Jethro Bodine? It’s all about our economy. Yep, granny, I heard it. Well, we all know that the fortunetellers are only giving us what they already think the average down-and-out-Jethro is naive enough to swallow. These egg-sucking dogs are pissing on our legs and telling us its just raining out. Then one of the paid pitchwomen tells us, that it was “just the president having a conversation with the American people.” Well, slap my head and call me silly. That was a conversation? It looked more to me like he was inside the outhouse when lightening struck.
Wednesday night’s propaganda fest was just more maneuvering for capital, folks, for money. Ask Billy Boy Clinton or Governor (whose your daddy) Cuomo! They hosted some pretty “gala” galas that night. The truly sad fact is that most of the people in the USA and around the world sit there and buy this bullshit. They believe there is a real difference between the two clowns up on the stage. They do not want to know the clowns are merely puppets. They believe in the institution of democracy, the myths of choice, freedom and progress. They think the dream is achievable, and the world will survive it. They do not want to be told that the entire charade is brought to you by Koch (Brothers) Industries, et. al.
Now, the pundits – the paid geek-heads up on the “tele” – try to convince us that this formality of a spectacle is meaningful; and they dutifully parse those meanings for our ravenous consumption. (I even know another American living here in Siberia who climbed on the Internet this morning just to watch the charade.) Meanwhile these pinhead pundits tell us what we need to believe in; how we ought to think. Why there is even a new “Wonkbook” online – Everything You Need to Know About the First Debate. Gosh, I better check that out! But, their analyses are as useless as a milk bucket under a bull! According to these brilliant analysts, it is clear after this first skirmish that the incumbent had his head fully shoved up his ass, while the challenger should have found a similar hiding place for his own hands. Perhaps Romney needed to speak with the Denver Broncos football coach while he was in town, just to learn something about the effective use of hand signals. In any event, did this really do anything more than just give people another excuse to watch the “tele” with beer and pretzels at hand, waste more taxpayer money, and raise contributions for this civilized war game?
The bottom-line: does anyone really believe either of these two horse traders? Does anyone really care? Well, I guess a number of folks do. But, do we have any evidence that they will do what they say? Does what they say really matter? Are they really saying anything meaningful at all? Here is the real question of the night: Is Mitt going to overturn Obama’s policies on casino capitalism and American-style fascism? Is Obama going to reverse direction on himself? Of course not. The unleashing of American greed, along with the illegal collection of data and the detention of ordinary Americans will continue as it has, unabated, while the brown-shirts at the Combined Intelligence and Fusion Center for NORAD in Colorado Springs just keep spending our tax revenues on their domestic spying programs, their new cars, and assorted electronic toys. Why, they have even come up with a killer-app so that they can use your own smartphone to spy on you. But, if all of this is really about stopping terrorists, then they are barking up the wrong tree.
Yet, they all ignore the most obvious solution to American homeland security: GET THE FUCK OUT OF MENA. Leave the rest of the world alone, and focus on cleaning up your own shit-stall. If you want to save this shit-storm, then we need serious economic contraction, not expansion. And, if you want to save the planet, you need to dismantle the whole fucking mess and reconstitute the human community on a more primitive (not primal… don’t get your knickers in a twist) model. But, of course, that is an impossible political solution; our corporate-fascist owners will not allow their investments in military hardware, software, or other solutions – and the exploitable resources to which they provide access – to vanish. They need to keep us restless citizens frightened and on a short leash, while they brutalize the rest of the world for whatever they can plunder and steal in the race for what’s left.
Just ask the native American Indians how that worked out for them. Not real well. Maybe those ‘unruly Islamic hordes’ are simply looking at the history of our colonization of the “New World,” and thinking… there, but for the grace of Allah, go us. And I am afraid that Chris Hedges was correct this week with the headline on his signature column: What Is Happening to Muslims Will Happen to the Rest of Us. Get ready foks, the shit-storm is just heating up; the vodka and pickles are chilling in the root-cellar, and the hot dogs and beer are already on the picnic tables. So just step right up and vote for your choice of “Thing One” or “Thing Two.” Why, thank you Dr. Seuss; I think I will // pass… the pickles and vodka, please!!
Knee Deep and Sinking Fast: Welcome as an Outhouse Breeze
Well, we are in some thick fog now, folks. Knee deep in some real shit. Uglier than a mud fence! The corporate-sponsored presidential lie-fest has begun! So, the framers of this propaganda-extravaganza tell us that it is all about the economy. You hear that, Jethro Bodine? It’s all about our economy. Yep, granny, I heard it. Well, we all know that the fortunetellers are only giving us what they already think the average down-and-out-Jethro is naive enough to swallow. These egg-sucking dogs are pissing on our legs and telling us its just raining out. Then one of the paid pitchwomen tells us, that it was “just the president having a conversation with the American people.” Well, slap my head and call me silly. That was a conversation? It looked more to me like he was inside the outhouse when lightening struck.
Wednesday night’s propaganda fest was just more maneuvering for capital, folks, for money. Ask Billy Boy Clinton or Governor (whose your daddy) Cuomo! They hosted some pretty “gala” galas that night. The truly sad fact is that most of the people in the USA and around the world sit there and buy this bullshit. They believe there is a real difference between the two clowns up on the stage. They do not want to know the clowns are merely puppets. They believe in the institution of democracy, the myths of choice, freedom and progress. They think the dream is achievable, and the world will survive it. They do not want to be told that the entire charade is brought to you by Koch (Brothers) Industries, et. al.
Now, the pundits – the paid geek-heads up on the “tele” – try to convince us that this formality of a spectacle is meaningful; and they dutifully parse those meanings for our ravenous consumption. (I even know another American living here in Siberia who climbed on the Internet this morning just to watch the charade.) Meanwhile these pinhead pundits tell us what we need to believe in; how we ought to think. Why there is even a new “Wonkbook” online – Everything You Need to Know About the First Debate. Gosh, I better check that out! But, their analyses are as useless as a milk bucket under a bull! According to these brilliant analysts, it is clear after this first skirmish that the incumbent had his head fully shoved up his ass, while the challenger should have found a similar hiding place for his own hands. Perhaps Romney needed to speak with the Denver Broncos football coach while he was in town, just to learn something about the effective use of hand signals. In any event, did this really do anything more than just give people another excuse to watch the “tele” with beer and pretzels at hand, waste more taxpayer money, and raise contributions for this civilized war game?
The bottom-line: does anyone really believe either of these two horse traders? Does anyone really care? Well, I guess a number of folks do. But, do we have any evidence that they will do what they say? Does what they say really matter? Are they really saying anything meaningful at all? Here is the real question of the night: Is Mitt going to overturn Obama’s policies on casino capitalism and American-style fascism? Is Obama going to reverse direction on himself? Of course not. The unleashing of American greed, along with the illegal collection of data and the detention of ordinary Americans will continue as it has, unabated, while the brown-shirts at the Combined Intelligence and Fusion Center for NORAD in Colorado Springs just keep spending our tax revenues on their domestic spying programs, their new cars, and assorted electronic toys. Why, they have even come up with a killer-app so that they can use your own smartphone to spy on you. But, if all of this is really about stopping terrorists, then they are barking up the wrong tree.
Yet, they all ignore the most obvious solution to American homeland security: GET THE FUCK OUT OF MENA. Leave the rest of the world alone, and focus on cleaning up your own shit-stall. If you want to save this shit-storm, then we need serious economic contraction, not expansion. And, if you want to save the planet, you need to dismantle the whole fucking mess and reconstitute the human community on a more primitive (not primal… don’t get your knickers in a twist) model. But, of course, that is an impossible political solution; our corporate-fascist owners will not allow their investments in military hardware, software, or other solutions – and the exploitable resources to which they provide access – to vanish. They need to keep us restless citizens frightened and on a short leash, while they brutalize the rest of the world for whatever they can plunder and steal in the race for what’s left.
Just ask the native American Indians how that worked out for them. Not real well. Maybe those ‘unruly Islamic hordes’ are simply looking at the history of our colonization of the “New World,” and thinking… there, but for the grace of Allah, go us. And I am afraid that Chris Hedges was correct this week with the headline on his signature column: What Is Happening to Muslims Will Happen to the Rest of Us. Get ready foks, the shit-storm is just heating up; the vodka and pickles are chilling in the root-cellar, and the hot dogs and beer are already on the picnic tables. So just step right up and vote for your choice of “Thing One” or “Thing Two.” Why, thank you Dr. Seuss; I think I will // pass… the pickles and vodka, please!!
SC113-4
http://peakoil.com/publicpolicy/a-primer-on-the-real-global-geopolitical-battle/
A Primer On the REAL Global Geopolitical Battle
The Iraq war was really about oil, according to Alan Greenspan, John McCain, George W. Bush, Sarah Palin, a high-level National Security Council officer and others.
Dick Cheney made Iraqi’s oil fields a national security priority before 9/11.
The Sunday Herald reported:
Five months before September 11, the US advocated using force against Iraq … to secure control of its oil.
The Afghanistan war was planned before 9/11 (see this and this). According to French intelligence officers, the U.S. wanted to run an oil pipeline through Afghanistan to transport Central Asian oil more easily and cheaply. And so the U.S. told the Taliban shortly before 9/11 that they would either get “a carpet of gold or a carpet of bombs”, the former if they greenlighted the pipeline, the second if they didn’t. See this, this and this.
Congressman Ed Markey said:
Well, we’re in Libya because of oil.
Senator Graham agreed.
And the U.S. and UK overthrew the democratically-elected leader of Iran because he announced that he would nationalize the oil industry in that country.
It’s a War for GAS
But it’s about gas as much as oil …
As key war architect John Bolton said last year:
The critical oil and natural gas producing region that we fought so many wars to try and protect our economy from the adverse impact of losing that supply or having it available only at very high prices.
For example, the pipeline which the U.S. wanted to run through Afghanistan prior to 9/11 was to transport gas as much as oil.
John C.K. Daly notes:
The proposed $7.6 billion, 1,040 mile-long TAPI [Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India ... admittedly a mouthful, but you'll be hearing a lot about it in the coming months] natural gas pipeline has a long regional history, having first been proposed even before the Taliban captured Kabul, as in 1995 Turkmenistan and Pakistan initialed a memorandum of understanding.
TAPI, with a carrying capacity of 33 billion cubic meters of Turkmen natural gas a year, was projected to run from Turkmenistan’s Dauletabad gas field across Afghanistan and Pakistan and terminate at the northwestern Indian town of Fazilka.
TAPI would have required the assent of the Taliban, and two years after the MoU was signed the Central Asia Gas Pipeline Ltd. consortium, led by U.S. company Unocal, flew a Taliban delegation to Unocal headquarters in Houston, where the Taliban signed off on the project.
The Taliban visit to the U.S. has been confirmed by the mainstream media. Indeed, here is a picture of the Taliban delegation visiting Unocal’s Houston headquarters in 2007:
U.S. companies such as Unocal (lead on the proposed pipeline) and Enron (and see this), with full U.S. government support, continued to woo the Taliban right up until 2001 in an attempt to sweet-talk them into green-lighting the pipeline.
For example, two French authors with extensive experience in intelligence analysis (one of them a former French secret service agent) – claim:
Until August [2001], the US government saw the Taliban regime “as a source of stability in Central Asia that would enable the construction of an oil pipeline across Central Asia” from the rich oilfields in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, through Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the Indian Ocean. Until now, says the book, “the oil and gas reserves of Central Asia have been controlled by Russia. The Bush government wanted to change all that.”
Pepe Escobar notes:
Under newly elected president George W Bush… Unocal snuck back into the game and, as early as January 2001, was cozying up to the Taliban yet again, this time supported by a star-studded governmental cast of characters, including undersecretary of state Richard Armitage, himself a former Unocal lobbyist.
Negotiations eventually broke down because of those pesky transit fees the Taliban demanded. Beware the Empire’s fury. At a Group of Eight summit meeting in Genoa in July 2001, Western diplomats indicated that the Bush administration had decided to take the Taliban down before year’s end. (Pakistani diplomats in Islamabad would later confirm this to me.) The attacks of September 11, 2001 just slightly accelerated the schedule.
Soon after the start of the Afghan war, Karzai became president (while Le Monde reported that Karzai was a Unocal consultant, it is possible that it was a mix-up with the Unocal consultant and neocon who got Karzai elected, Zalmay Khalilzad). In any event, a mere year later, a U.S.-friendly Afghani regime signed onto TAPI.
India just formally signed on to Tapi. This ended the long-proposed competitor: an Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline.
Competing Pipe Dreams
Virtually all of the current global geopolitical tension is based upon whose vision of the “New Silk Road” will control.
But before we can understand the competing visions, we have to actually see the maps:
With maps in hand, we can now discuss the great geopolitical battle raging between the U.S. and its allies, on the one hand, and Russia, China and Iran, on the other hand.
Iran and Pakistan are still discussing a pipeline without India, and Russia backs the proposal as well.
Indeed, the “Great Game” being played right now by the world powers largely boils down to the United States and Russia fighting for control over Eurasian oil and gas resources:
Russia and the USA have been in a state of competition in this region, ever since the former Soviet Union split up, and Russia is adamant on keeping the Americans out of its Central Asian backyard. Russia aims to increase European gas dominance on its resources whereas the US wants the European Union (EU) to diversify its energy supply, primarily away from Russian dominance. There are already around three major Russian pipelines that are supplying energy to Europe and Russia has planned two new pipelines.
The rising power China is also getting into this Great Game:
The third “big player” in this New Great Game is China, soon to be the world’s biggest energy consumer, which is already importing gas from Turkmenistan via Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to its Xinjiang province — known as the Central Asia-China Pipeline — which may tilt the balance towards Asia. Pepe Escobar calls it the opening of the 21st century Silk Road in 2009 when this pipeline became operational. China’s need for energy is projected to increase by 150 per cent which explains why it has signed probably the largest number of deals not just with the Central Asian republics but also with the heavily sanctioned Iran and even Afghanistan. China has planned around five west-east gas pipelines, within China, of which one is operational (domestically from Xinjiang to Shanghai) and others are under construction and will be connected to Central Asian gas reserves.
China is also pushing for an alternative to TAPI: an Turkmenistan-Afghan-China pipeline.
Iran is also a player in its own right:
Another important country is Iran. Iran sits on the second largest gas reserves in the world and has over 93 billion barrels of proven oil reserves with a total of 4.17 million barrels per day in 2009. To the dislike of the United States, Iran is a very active player. The Turkmenistan-Iran gas pipeline, constructed in 1997, was the first new pipeline going out from Central Asia. Furthermore, Iran signed a $120 billion gas exploration deal, often termed the “deal of the century” with China. This gas deal signed in 2004 entails the annual export of approximately 10 million tons of Iranian liquefied natural gas (LNG) to China for 25 years. It also gives China’s state oil company the right to participate in such projects as exploration and drilling for petrochemical and gas industries in Iran. Iran also plans to sell its gas to Europe through its Persian Gas pipeline which can become a rival to the US Nabucco pipeline. More importantly, it is also the key party in the proposed Iran-Pakistan (IP) pipeline, also formerly known as the “peace pipeline.” Under this pipeline plan, first proposed in 1995, Iran will sell gas from its mega South Pars fields to Pakistan and India.
China’s support for Iran is largely explained by oil and gas:
Referring to China, Escobar states “most important of all, ‘isolated’ Iran happens to be a supreme matter of national security for China, which has already rejected the latest Washington sanctions without a blink” and that “China may be the true winner from Washington’s new sanctions, because it is likely to get its oil and gas at a lower price, as the Iranians grow ever more dependent on the China market.”
China has also shown interest in the construction of IP on the Pakistani side and further expanding it to China. This means that starting at Gwadar, Beijing plans to build another pipeline, crossing Balochistan and then following the Karakoram Highway northwards all the way to Xinjiang, China’s Far West. China is also most likely to get the construction contract for this pipeline. As stated above, Chinese firms are part of the consortium awarded the contract for the financial consultancy for the project. Closer participation in the Asian energy projects would also help China increase its influence in the region for its objective of creating the “string of pearls” across the region — which has often scared India as an encirclement strategy by the Chinese government.
Why Syria?
You might ask why there is so much focus on Syria right now.
Well, Syria is an integral part of the proposed 1,200km Arab Gas Pipeline:
So yes, regime change was planned against Syria (as well as Iraq, Libya, Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan and Iran) 20 years ago.
And yes, attacking Syria weakens its close allies Iran and Russia … and indirectly China.
But Syria’s central role in the Arab gas pipeline is also a key to why it is now being targeted.
Just as the Taliban was scheduled for removal after they demanded too much in return for the Unocal pipeline, Syria’s Assad is being targeted because he is not a reliable “player”.
Specifically, Turkey, Israel and their ally the U.S. want an assured flow of gas through Syria, and don’t want a Syrian regime which is not unquestionably loyal to those 3 countries to stand in the way of the pipeline … or which demands too big a cut of the profits.
A deal has also been inked to run a natural gas pipeline from Iran’s giant South Pars field through Iraq and Syria (with a possible extension to Lebanon).
And a deal to run petroleum from Iraq’s Kirkuk oil field to the Syrian port of Banias has also been approved:
Turkey and Israel would be cut out of these competing pipelines.
Pepe Escobar sums up what is driving current global geopolitics and war:
What you’re really talking about is what’s happening on the immense energy battlefield that extends from Iran to the Pacific Ocean. It’s there that the liquid war for the control of Eurasia takes place.
Yep, it all comes down to black gold and “blue gold” (natural gas), hydrocarbon wealth beyond compare, and so it’s time to trek back to that ever-flowing wonderland – Pipelineistan.
Notes: It’s not just the Neocons who have planned this strategy. Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser helped to map out the battle plan for Eurasian petroleum resources over a decade ago, and Obama is clearly continuing the same agenda.
Some would say that the wars are also about forcing the world into dollars and private central banking, but that’s a separate story.
And some allege that even portions of the Greek melodrama are explained by gas and oil.
George Washington’s blog
One Comment on "A Primer On the REAL Global Geopolitical Battle"
BillT on Tue, 9th Oct 2012 2:03 am
Gas & oil? Well, yes, partly. But in reality, it is about the dollar and the desire of the rest of the world to dump it in favor of other currencies. The only oil countries actually invaded by the Empire are the ones that have tried to set up oil sales in other than dollars. Saddam, Gaddafi, and now Iran.
The Empire cannot continue to exist without huge amounts of oil energy. And it needs NATO countries to supply troops and money to continue to pillage oil countries. The Us is in a slow stage of collapse as an Empire and maybe as a country. It teeters on the brink of financial ruin and is an ever increasing Police State.
The days of the West are numbered. The 10% that have had the use of 60+% of the world’s resources are slowly sliding toward 3rd world status and the pain is tearing it apart. It is interesting times to be alive and have access to the world through the internet. Enjoy the ride. There is little you can do to change the destination.
A Primer On the REAL Global Geopolitical Battle
The Iraq war was really about oil, according to Alan Greenspan, John McCain, George W. Bush, Sarah Palin, a high-level National Security Council officer and others.
Dick Cheney made Iraqi’s oil fields a national security priority before 9/11.
The Sunday Herald reported:
Five months before September 11, the US advocated using force against Iraq … to secure control of its oil.
The Afghanistan war was planned before 9/11 (see this and this). According to French intelligence officers, the U.S. wanted to run an oil pipeline through Afghanistan to transport Central Asian oil more easily and cheaply. And so the U.S. told the Taliban shortly before 9/11 that they would either get “a carpet of gold or a carpet of bombs”, the former if they greenlighted the pipeline, the second if they didn’t. See this, this and this.
Congressman Ed Markey said:
Well, we’re in Libya because of oil.
Senator Graham agreed.
And the U.S. and UK overthrew the democratically-elected leader of Iran because he announced that he would nationalize the oil industry in that country.
It’s a War for GAS
But it’s about gas as much as oil …
As key war architect John Bolton said last year:
The critical oil and natural gas producing region that we fought so many wars to try and protect our economy from the adverse impact of losing that supply or having it available only at very high prices.
For example, the pipeline which the U.S. wanted to run through Afghanistan prior to 9/11 was to transport gas as much as oil.
John C.K. Daly notes:
The proposed $7.6 billion, 1,040 mile-long TAPI [Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India ... admittedly a mouthful, but you'll be hearing a lot about it in the coming months] natural gas pipeline has a long regional history, having first been proposed even before the Taliban captured Kabul, as in 1995 Turkmenistan and Pakistan initialed a memorandum of understanding.
TAPI, with a carrying capacity of 33 billion cubic meters of Turkmen natural gas a year, was projected to run from Turkmenistan’s Dauletabad gas field across Afghanistan and Pakistan and terminate at the northwestern Indian town of Fazilka.
TAPI would have required the assent of the Taliban, and two years after the MoU was signed the Central Asia Gas Pipeline Ltd. consortium, led by U.S. company Unocal, flew a Taliban delegation to Unocal headquarters in Houston, where the Taliban signed off on the project.
The Taliban visit to the U.S. has been confirmed by the mainstream media. Indeed, here is a picture of the Taliban delegation visiting Unocal’s Houston headquarters in 2007:
U.S. companies such as Unocal (lead on the proposed pipeline) and Enron (and see this), with full U.S. government support, continued to woo the Taliban right up until 2001 in an attempt to sweet-talk them into green-lighting the pipeline.
For example, two French authors with extensive experience in intelligence analysis (one of them a former French secret service agent) – claim:
Until August [2001], the US government saw the Taliban regime “as a source of stability in Central Asia that would enable the construction of an oil pipeline across Central Asia” from the rich oilfields in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, through Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the Indian Ocean. Until now, says the book, “the oil and gas reserves of Central Asia have been controlled by Russia. The Bush government wanted to change all that.”
Pepe Escobar notes:
Under newly elected president George W Bush… Unocal snuck back into the game and, as early as January 2001, was cozying up to the Taliban yet again, this time supported by a star-studded governmental cast of characters, including undersecretary of state Richard Armitage, himself a former Unocal lobbyist.
Negotiations eventually broke down because of those pesky transit fees the Taliban demanded. Beware the Empire’s fury. At a Group of Eight summit meeting in Genoa in July 2001, Western diplomats indicated that the Bush administration had decided to take the Taliban down before year’s end. (Pakistani diplomats in Islamabad would later confirm this to me.) The attacks of September 11, 2001 just slightly accelerated the schedule.
Soon after the start of the Afghan war, Karzai became president (while Le Monde reported that Karzai was a Unocal consultant, it is possible that it was a mix-up with the Unocal consultant and neocon who got Karzai elected, Zalmay Khalilzad). In any event, a mere year later, a U.S.-friendly Afghani regime signed onto TAPI.
India just formally signed on to Tapi. This ended the long-proposed competitor: an Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline.
Competing Pipe Dreams
Virtually all of the current global geopolitical tension is based upon whose vision of the “New Silk Road” will control.
But before we can understand the competing visions, we have to actually see the maps:
With maps in hand, we can now discuss the great geopolitical battle raging between the U.S. and its allies, on the one hand, and Russia, China and Iran, on the other hand.
Iran and Pakistan are still discussing a pipeline without India, and Russia backs the proposal as well.
Indeed, the “Great Game” being played right now by the world powers largely boils down to the United States and Russia fighting for control over Eurasian oil and gas resources:
Russia and the USA have been in a state of competition in this region, ever since the former Soviet Union split up, and Russia is adamant on keeping the Americans out of its Central Asian backyard. Russia aims to increase European gas dominance on its resources whereas the US wants the European Union (EU) to diversify its energy supply, primarily away from Russian dominance. There are already around three major Russian pipelines that are supplying energy to Europe and Russia has planned two new pipelines.
The rising power China is also getting into this Great Game:
The third “big player” in this New Great Game is China, soon to be the world’s biggest energy consumer, which is already importing gas from Turkmenistan via Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to its Xinjiang province — known as the Central Asia-China Pipeline — which may tilt the balance towards Asia. Pepe Escobar calls it the opening of the 21st century Silk Road in 2009 when this pipeline became operational. China’s need for energy is projected to increase by 150 per cent which explains why it has signed probably the largest number of deals not just with the Central Asian republics but also with the heavily sanctioned Iran and even Afghanistan. China has planned around five west-east gas pipelines, within China, of which one is operational (domestically from Xinjiang to Shanghai) and others are under construction and will be connected to Central Asian gas reserves.
China is also pushing for an alternative to TAPI: an Turkmenistan-Afghan-China pipeline.
Iran is also a player in its own right:
Another important country is Iran. Iran sits on the second largest gas reserves in the world and has over 93 billion barrels of proven oil reserves with a total of 4.17 million barrels per day in 2009. To the dislike of the United States, Iran is a very active player. The Turkmenistan-Iran gas pipeline, constructed in 1997, was the first new pipeline going out from Central Asia. Furthermore, Iran signed a $120 billion gas exploration deal, often termed the “deal of the century” with China. This gas deal signed in 2004 entails the annual export of approximately 10 million tons of Iranian liquefied natural gas (LNG) to China for 25 years. It also gives China’s state oil company the right to participate in such projects as exploration and drilling for petrochemical and gas industries in Iran. Iran also plans to sell its gas to Europe through its Persian Gas pipeline which can become a rival to the US Nabucco pipeline. More importantly, it is also the key party in the proposed Iran-Pakistan (IP) pipeline, also formerly known as the “peace pipeline.” Under this pipeline plan, first proposed in 1995, Iran will sell gas from its mega South Pars fields to Pakistan and India.
China’s support for Iran is largely explained by oil and gas:
Referring to China, Escobar states “most important of all, ‘isolated’ Iran happens to be a supreme matter of national security for China, which has already rejected the latest Washington sanctions without a blink” and that “China may be the true winner from Washington’s new sanctions, because it is likely to get its oil and gas at a lower price, as the Iranians grow ever more dependent on the China market.”
China has also shown interest in the construction of IP on the Pakistani side and further expanding it to China. This means that starting at Gwadar, Beijing plans to build another pipeline, crossing Balochistan and then following the Karakoram Highway northwards all the way to Xinjiang, China’s Far West. China is also most likely to get the construction contract for this pipeline. As stated above, Chinese firms are part of the consortium awarded the contract for the financial consultancy for the project. Closer participation in the Asian energy projects would also help China increase its influence in the region for its objective of creating the “string of pearls” across the region — which has often scared India as an encirclement strategy by the Chinese government.
Why Syria?
You might ask why there is so much focus on Syria right now.
Well, Syria is an integral part of the proposed 1,200km Arab Gas Pipeline:
So yes, regime change was planned against Syria (as well as Iraq, Libya, Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan and Iran) 20 years ago.
And yes, attacking Syria weakens its close allies Iran and Russia … and indirectly China.
But Syria’s central role in the Arab gas pipeline is also a key to why it is now being targeted.
Just as the Taliban was scheduled for removal after they demanded too much in return for the Unocal pipeline, Syria’s Assad is being targeted because he is not a reliable “player”.
Specifically, Turkey, Israel and their ally the U.S. want an assured flow of gas through Syria, and don’t want a Syrian regime which is not unquestionably loyal to those 3 countries to stand in the way of the pipeline … or which demands too big a cut of the profits.
A deal has also been inked to run a natural gas pipeline from Iran’s giant South Pars field through Iraq and Syria (with a possible extension to Lebanon).
And a deal to run petroleum from Iraq’s Kirkuk oil field to the Syrian port of Banias has also been approved:
Turkey and Israel would be cut out of these competing pipelines.
Pepe Escobar sums up what is driving current global geopolitics and war:
What you’re really talking about is what’s happening on the immense energy battlefield that extends from Iran to the Pacific Ocean. It’s there that the liquid war for the control of Eurasia takes place.
Yep, it all comes down to black gold and “blue gold” (natural gas), hydrocarbon wealth beyond compare, and so it’s time to trek back to that ever-flowing wonderland – Pipelineistan.
Notes: It’s not just the Neocons who have planned this strategy. Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser helped to map out the battle plan for Eurasian petroleum resources over a decade ago, and Obama is clearly continuing the same agenda.
Some would say that the wars are also about forcing the world into dollars and private central banking, but that’s a separate story.
And some allege that even portions of the Greek melodrama are explained by gas and oil.
George Washington’s blog
One Comment on "A Primer On the REAL Global Geopolitical Battle"
BillT on Tue, 9th Oct 2012 2:03 am
Gas & oil? Well, yes, partly. But in reality, it is about the dollar and the desire of the rest of the world to dump it in favor of other currencies. The only oil countries actually invaded by the Empire are the ones that have tried to set up oil sales in other than dollars. Saddam, Gaddafi, and now Iran.
The Empire cannot continue to exist without huge amounts of oil energy. And it needs NATO countries to supply troops and money to continue to pillage oil countries. The Us is in a slow stage of collapse as an Empire and maybe as a country. It teeters on the brink of financial ruin and is an ever increasing Police State.
The days of the West are numbered. The 10% that have had the use of 60+% of the world’s resources are slowly sliding toward 3rd world status and the pain is tearing it apart. It is interesting times to be alive and have access to the world through the internet. Enjoy the ride. There is little you can do to change the destination.
SC113-3
http://kunstler.com/blog/2012/10/empty-pagentry.html
Empty Pageantry
The press wet its small-clothes over Mitt Romney's ebullience in last Thursday's so-called debate, as these joint interview contests are styled these days. What a jaunty fellow Mitt came off as, compared to poor Mr. Obama, cloaked in presidential gloom, the wearisome woes of high office and all that - or perhaps just some indigestible tidbit served out of Air Force One's galley, an infected cocktail weenie, a shrimp with attitude, or an empanada with the E coli blues, who knows....
To be sure, Mr. Romney's ebullience had a crafted tang to it, like one of those pumpkin-flavored beers made for the season, especially since all that verve was employed in the service of ebullient lying, statistical confabulation, and self-contradiction. At times his sheer manic zest veered in the direction of what used to be called hebephrenia in the old clinical sense of someone euphorically out-of-touch with reality.
Alienation from reality being at the very core of the current zeitgeist, the American public can only admire somebody who displays such a buoyant disregard for what is actually happening in the universe. To me, Mr. Romney just gave off the odor of someone who will do anything to get elected while Mr. Obama evinced the dejection of someone doubting it was worth it.
Of course, the issues this time around are framed with the presumption that all the current rackets of political economy can be kept running - everything from Fannie Mae to Medicare to suburbia to the systematic looting of the future by the Federal Reserve's shell-game operations with every loser bond instrument lately fobbed off on hopelessly rigged markets - which is exactly the opposite of what reality has in store for us. In fact, the salient feature of these times is the remorseless running down of all these rackets to their entropic end points.
The sad part is that everyone from the leadership down to the lowly clientele of food stamps and gamed disability payments is locked into the vast array of rackets that constitute our national life, and the truth of their failure thresholds is too terrifying to entertain. What to many appears to be a "conspiracy of elites" is just our way of life. Evidence of this is the increasingly eerie way that the financial crimes of recent years somehow vanish into the ethers of history without any official notice from either the media or the police powers of society. In a very serious time, we are just not a serious people. Anything goes and nothing matters.
The central reality broadly ignored is the unavoidable contraction of industrial economies all over the world. The action is especially brutal in the USA, which actually gave up on the nuts-and-bolts of industrial production beginning in the 1970s, but managed to cream off other nation's exertions by reserve currency hocus-pocus, pervasive executive control fraud, and a reckless spewage of glitzy "consumer" service infrastructure over the landscape, which gave the appearance of vitality in the absence of value creation - the exact specialty, by the way, of predatory private equity squads like Mitt Romney's Bain Capital. All of this was enabled by the last gasps of cheap oil, and without it our whole way of life craps out, including the creaming off of leftovers. And this illness of advanced economies is now spreading all over the world.
You would think that the question of what we will do about all this might be at issue in the current election - how we might deliberately face the tasks of reorganizing farming, commerce, transportation, banking, schooling, and all the other practical matters of existence. There is an awful lot to talk about, and much to be done, but nobody is interested. Instead, we've mounted a foolish campaign to keep all the old rackets running, and there is no fundamental difference between Mr. Romney and Mr. Obama on that. The empty pageantry of these debates dresses this dangerous madness in the raiment of clowning.
All of this has consequences, of course, but in a society that has ditched all sense of consequence nobody can pay attention to that either. The poet W.H. Auden called his time "a low, dishonest decade." Bad as the 1930s were, the stakes are even higher now, and our clownish inattention conceals darker falsities that could make that terrible era seem quaint.
Empty Pageantry
The press wet its small-clothes over Mitt Romney's ebullience in last Thursday's so-called debate, as these joint interview contests are styled these days. What a jaunty fellow Mitt came off as, compared to poor Mr. Obama, cloaked in presidential gloom, the wearisome woes of high office and all that - or perhaps just some indigestible tidbit served out of Air Force One's galley, an infected cocktail weenie, a shrimp with attitude, or an empanada with the E coli blues, who knows....
To be sure, Mr. Romney's ebullience had a crafted tang to it, like one of those pumpkin-flavored beers made for the season, especially since all that verve was employed in the service of ebullient lying, statistical confabulation, and self-contradiction. At times his sheer manic zest veered in the direction of what used to be called hebephrenia in the old clinical sense of someone euphorically out-of-touch with reality.
Alienation from reality being at the very core of the current zeitgeist, the American public can only admire somebody who displays such a buoyant disregard for what is actually happening in the universe. To me, Mr. Romney just gave off the odor of someone who will do anything to get elected while Mr. Obama evinced the dejection of someone doubting it was worth it.
Of course, the issues this time around are framed with the presumption that all the current rackets of political economy can be kept running - everything from Fannie Mae to Medicare to suburbia to the systematic looting of the future by the Federal Reserve's shell-game operations with every loser bond instrument lately fobbed off on hopelessly rigged markets - which is exactly the opposite of what reality has in store for us. In fact, the salient feature of these times is the remorseless running down of all these rackets to their entropic end points.
The sad part is that everyone from the leadership down to the lowly clientele of food stamps and gamed disability payments is locked into the vast array of rackets that constitute our national life, and the truth of their failure thresholds is too terrifying to entertain. What to many appears to be a "conspiracy of elites" is just our way of life. Evidence of this is the increasingly eerie way that the financial crimes of recent years somehow vanish into the ethers of history without any official notice from either the media or the police powers of society. In a very serious time, we are just not a serious people. Anything goes and nothing matters.
The central reality broadly ignored is the unavoidable contraction of industrial economies all over the world. The action is especially brutal in the USA, which actually gave up on the nuts-and-bolts of industrial production beginning in the 1970s, but managed to cream off other nation's exertions by reserve currency hocus-pocus, pervasive executive control fraud, and a reckless spewage of glitzy "consumer" service infrastructure over the landscape, which gave the appearance of vitality in the absence of value creation - the exact specialty, by the way, of predatory private equity squads like Mitt Romney's Bain Capital. All of this was enabled by the last gasps of cheap oil, and without it our whole way of life craps out, including the creaming off of leftovers. And this illness of advanced economies is now spreading all over the world.
You would think that the question of what we will do about all this might be at issue in the current election - how we might deliberately face the tasks of reorganizing farming, commerce, transportation, banking, schooling, and all the other practical matters of existence. There is an awful lot to talk about, and much to be done, but nobody is interested. Instead, we've mounted a foolish campaign to keep all the old rackets running, and there is no fundamental difference between Mr. Romney and Mr. Obama on that. The empty pageantry of these debates dresses this dangerous madness in the raiment of clowning.
All of this has consequences, of course, but in a society that has ditched all sense of consequence nobody can pay attention to that either. The poet W.H. Auden called his time "a low, dishonest decade." Bad as the 1930s were, the stakes are even higher now, and our clownish inattention conceals darker falsities that could make that terrible era seem quaint.
Friday, October 5, 2012
SC113-2
http://survivalacres.com/blog/embracing-disaster/
Embracing Disaster
Found over on Fire Earth. The United States is in pretty serious drought conditions. An additional 216 counties have been declared disaster areas. Total is now well over 2000 counties. Virtually ALL of the major food production growing regions are in drought.
But — no reason to worry. The (s)Election seems to be occupying everyone’s attention these days. Romney / Ryan are adamantly against doing anything about climate except drill for more oil. I’m still mystified how that’s going to help however.
Obama on the other hand can’t be trusted to do anything either, so there you have it. A nation in peril, and none at the helm capable of effective response.
Here is what is means:
a) Inaction – has brought us to the brink of total disaster, famine, starvation, war, heat and drought, intolerable mad weather – leading to economic collapse and a potential end to 90% of life on earth.
3) The problems that are taking us to disaster
a) Our emissions of green house gasses to the atmosphere from burning hydrocarbon fuels (oil gas and coal) have to be stopped (we have to get to zero emissions)
b) The worlds current economic structure is driven by the hydrocarbon industry which makes huge profits and is therefore very resistant to change
c) We are allowing Arctic Sea ice to melt which means that more and more heat is being absorbed by the dark open ocean and warming the arctic air, this is accelerating climate change by reducing the temperature gradient between equatorial regions and the Poles leading to a slowing of the Jet Stream and more extreme weather.
d) Much of the security behind corporate and national debt is based on not yet extracted hydrocarbons, oil, gas and coal reserves. If these are extracted it is a 100% certainty that we will kick off runaway climate change. It is very hard to see how civilisation and 90% of life on earth could survive this.
e) Although Earth’s climate is naturally in a state of constant change, the scale and the speed of the change that man has caused to the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels goes massively beyond any of the changes that have occurred in the past 12,000 years. In fact we appear to be changing things faster than happened 57 million years ago when the last great extinction event occurred.
f) The inertia in the system means that whatever we do, further warming and sea level rise is already committed to; therefore adaptation is going to be required.
Please read the linked article, slowly. I’ve only included a small section, you should read the article yourself.
I disagree with several points, as they will actually do next to nothing to help solve the problems. They are:
“Voluntary C02 reductions”
“Bioengineering new crops”
“Nuclear Energy”
No mention of population
No mention of Jevons Paradox (any efficiencies gained will lead to even more consumption)
Emphasis on profits
No mention of corporate control, ie., “ownership” of planetary resources / nations / consumption
Assumptions abound — political “will”, desire, awareness, etc. Expecting the U.S. political system to FINALLY come to their senses (just look around) is absurd, it will NEVER happen.
On the other hand, good to see someone trying to address the issues. I’m not trying to rain on anyone’s parade, identifying some things that could be done is great. My basic “problem” as it were, is the base notion that “humans will change their ways”, voluntarily or by “law”.
When has that ever really worked?
We’re simply not willing to “go backwards” as it is often described. We perceive anything “less” as “bad” and any restrictions as also “bad”. It’s as if we are hard wired to go “forward” always — which means what you think it means — endlessly consume more, not less.
This is a REALLY HUGE ISSUE facing the human race — specifically the advanced “modern” populations living the highly energy intensive / consumptive lifestyles. The rest of the world is as we all know — “trying to catch up to us”. So where is ANY OF THIS BEING ADDRESSED?
That’s how huge the issue is. It means that our so-called “forward progress” and every single proposal I have ever read continues to make the base assumption that we MUST go forward and maintain our lifestyle / standard of living and even energy / food / water / resource consumptions at present or even higher levels then now.
THIS IS NOT POSSIBLE.
7 BILLION CANNOT DO THIS. The Earth cannot support it. Which means that there will always be HUGE variations on how some humans live — and how the REST OF HUMANITY will be permitted to live.
This is EXACTLY the situation we have today. Nations are being repressed and held back by the stronger, more powerful nations, who exploit their labor, resources, minerals, energy and economic conditions — so that THEY can have the “better life”. This WILL NOT CHANGE (it’s what humans DO).
So these pie-in-the-sky hopium proposals are “nice” — but unrealistic as hell. What WILL happen is what IS happening (ie., we are actually doing what we really want — what we want is evident already, proven by what we are now DOING).
Therefore, we are not going to see the desirable changes necessary. If we wanted this — then we would have it — but the truth is harsh — we do NOT want this. A few of us do — but not enough to matter and never in a position to make it happen.
Therefore again, we are not going to achieve any of this. Small baby steps perhaps in the right direction, but nothing even close to the utopia these proposals embrace. Meanwhile, planetary destruction will continue to accelerate far beyond any “improvements” we’re making, because THAT IS WHAT WE ARE NOW DOING.
This is REALITY. This is what is happening RIGHT NOW. This isn’t conjecture — or prophecy — or anything but the harsh painful TRUTH.
And this is what really, really pisses me off. Nobody seems to be capable of addressing the truth of what we are doing to ourselves or how miserable we are at trying to change ourselves or identifying the root causes of the problems we’re facing or how utterly ridiculous it is to say that we are going to voluntarily all change ourselves or go on supporting 7+ billion people in a declining world. If you are paying attention, you will notice that this “support” is declining for all of us — very, very rapidly. It’s ridiculous as hell to assume that this is going to get “better” — virtually ALL of the “low-hanging fruit” has been long-since plucked of the Earth’s tree of plenty, and we are now living on the dregs we’re scraping from the bottom.
Our forward momentum is also politely ignored. Recall that I’ve mentioned inertia a few thousand times on this blog, and how we are only just now experiencing the effects of atmospheric emissions from the 1960′s and 1970′s now? Have you consider the “human inertia” issue also? The runaway freight train of past (and failed) policies, but still in effect, how we make and utilize economic measurements, the endless (and quite stupid) emphasis on “profits”, how population growth and expansion is never once addressed, and how the inexorable “forward progress” of billions of humans is always assumed and embraced?
You should, if this hasn’t occurred to you before, because this is a insurmountable problem. It’s unsolvable by any of the means (“fixes”) I’ve seen. Not a single one of these proposals address any of this effectively. Always the emphasis is on profits, maintenance and improvements of present lifestyles, improved “efficiencies” and even more population. It just doesn’t add up and never will. Profits will always triumph over conservation for example. Placing a monetary “interest” upon critical resources for life puts economics ahead of intrinsic and necessary things of VALUE to life itself.
What is the value of a clean atmosphere? Or clean water? Or unpolluted soil? Or healthy food? Or a radiation free existence? Or a healthy forest? We wrap all this up around profits today, pricing everything accordingly and even consider this despicable practice “normal” for our society. It’s not normal — it’s absurd. It’s bizarre thinking and will always benefit those that CONTROL these resources for PROFIT. YOU don’t control these resources (and never will). The emphasis then is for their “owners” to MAKE MONEY ON THEM somehow, which then means they will ALWAYS be subject to abuse (and how much “money” can be made). They will NEVER be valued for what they really are.
It is this type of thinking that has actually destroyed the Earth, bit by bit over the centuries until we arrive at where we are today. We did just fine when we did not need money, and when we did not claim we “owned” the Earth and it’s resources. We still don’t own it — but we think we do and this is the root problem.
The Earth owns us all, and everything in it. But you have to abandon the brainwashing and conditioning of what you think “ownership” is to understand this. You and I and everyone else here on this planet are GUESTS — to live here and exist but for a very short time and then we are GONE — leaving behind whatever messes and disasters we have created. Or we can be courteous guests and leave no disasters or messes behind, cleaning up after ourselves, taking only what we need and not virtually everything that we want.
This is what at the heart of all these proposals to “fix” the Earth and the many, many problems humans have created. We’ve made a real mess of things and now we’re still trying to apply FAILED human polices and belief systems (such as “profits”) to the problem. They’re all still saying — “Let’s take everything we want and do a better job of it this time”. It’s all BULLSHIT and it didn’t work before, and it will not work now.
There is a better way to live — and we even know how to do it. So far however, industrial civilization and every single of us that live within it hasn’t grasped it yet. But there is really no excuse for this ignorance. We are deliberately turning a blind eye to it on purpose, because we are infused with the “belief” that we can somehow still have it all. It’s clear, some of us can, but not 7+ billion. Not even 5 billion. Or even 3 billion. But I’m not talking about population control / reduction, I’m emphasizing that the concepts and practice of ownership and control will always exploit everyone else and ultimately benefit the few, no matter how many — or how few exist on the planet. We will continue to prey upon each other — and everything else — because that is in point of fact what “we do”.
As long as we think we “own” it — we will never solve our basic problems. As “guests” we are but tenets, and our true task is to leave the place in as good as a condition as we found it, or as the case is today, try to make it better by cleaning it up — but not by embracing even more toxic nuclear waste or endless consumption or over-population, this will only lead to disaster — the place where we are right now.
This is why I title this post “Embracing Disaster” — because we are still doing this, embracing disaster by continuing to apply failed concepts to how we can “guarantee our future” existence on the planet. This approach is FAILURE and guarantees our extinction.
Virtually all paths but one lead to this. There is a better way, but it’s not being considered anymore.
Embracing Disaster
Found over on Fire Earth. The United States is in pretty serious drought conditions. An additional 216 counties have been declared disaster areas. Total is now well over 2000 counties. Virtually ALL of the major food production growing regions are in drought.
But — no reason to worry. The (s)Election seems to be occupying everyone’s attention these days. Romney / Ryan are adamantly against doing anything about climate except drill for more oil. I’m still mystified how that’s going to help however.
Obama on the other hand can’t be trusted to do anything either, so there you have it. A nation in peril, and none at the helm capable of effective response.
Here is what is means:
a) Inaction – has brought us to the brink of total disaster, famine, starvation, war, heat and drought, intolerable mad weather – leading to economic collapse and a potential end to 90% of life on earth.
3) The problems that are taking us to disaster
a) Our emissions of green house gasses to the atmosphere from burning hydrocarbon fuels (oil gas and coal) have to be stopped (we have to get to zero emissions)
b) The worlds current economic structure is driven by the hydrocarbon industry which makes huge profits and is therefore very resistant to change
c) We are allowing Arctic Sea ice to melt which means that more and more heat is being absorbed by the dark open ocean and warming the arctic air, this is accelerating climate change by reducing the temperature gradient between equatorial regions and the Poles leading to a slowing of the Jet Stream and more extreme weather.
d) Much of the security behind corporate and national debt is based on not yet extracted hydrocarbons, oil, gas and coal reserves. If these are extracted it is a 100% certainty that we will kick off runaway climate change. It is very hard to see how civilisation and 90% of life on earth could survive this.
e) Although Earth’s climate is naturally in a state of constant change, the scale and the speed of the change that man has caused to the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels goes massively beyond any of the changes that have occurred in the past 12,000 years. In fact we appear to be changing things faster than happened 57 million years ago when the last great extinction event occurred.
f) The inertia in the system means that whatever we do, further warming and sea level rise is already committed to; therefore adaptation is going to be required.
Please read the linked article, slowly. I’ve only included a small section, you should read the article yourself.
I disagree with several points, as they will actually do next to nothing to help solve the problems. They are:
“Voluntary C02 reductions”
“Bioengineering new crops”
“Nuclear Energy”
No mention of population
No mention of Jevons Paradox (any efficiencies gained will lead to even more consumption)
Emphasis on profits
No mention of corporate control, ie., “ownership” of planetary resources / nations / consumption
Assumptions abound — political “will”, desire, awareness, etc. Expecting the U.S. political system to FINALLY come to their senses (just look around) is absurd, it will NEVER happen.
On the other hand, good to see someone trying to address the issues. I’m not trying to rain on anyone’s parade, identifying some things that could be done is great. My basic “problem” as it were, is the base notion that “humans will change their ways”, voluntarily or by “law”.
When has that ever really worked?
We’re simply not willing to “go backwards” as it is often described. We perceive anything “less” as “bad” and any restrictions as also “bad”. It’s as if we are hard wired to go “forward” always — which means what you think it means — endlessly consume more, not less.
This is a REALLY HUGE ISSUE facing the human race — specifically the advanced “modern” populations living the highly energy intensive / consumptive lifestyles. The rest of the world is as we all know — “trying to catch up to us”. So where is ANY OF THIS BEING ADDRESSED?
That’s how huge the issue is. It means that our so-called “forward progress” and every single proposal I have ever read continues to make the base assumption that we MUST go forward and maintain our lifestyle / standard of living and even energy / food / water / resource consumptions at present or even higher levels then now.
THIS IS NOT POSSIBLE.
7 BILLION CANNOT DO THIS. The Earth cannot support it. Which means that there will always be HUGE variations on how some humans live — and how the REST OF HUMANITY will be permitted to live.
This is EXACTLY the situation we have today. Nations are being repressed and held back by the stronger, more powerful nations, who exploit their labor, resources, minerals, energy and economic conditions — so that THEY can have the “better life”. This WILL NOT CHANGE (it’s what humans DO).
So these pie-in-the-sky hopium proposals are “nice” — but unrealistic as hell. What WILL happen is what IS happening (ie., we are actually doing what we really want — what we want is evident already, proven by what we are now DOING).
Therefore, we are not going to see the desirable changes necessary. If we wanted this — then we would have it — but the truth is harsh — we do NOT want this. A few of us do — but not enough to matter and never in a position to make it happen.
Therefore again, we are not going to achieve any of this. Small baby steps perhaps in the right direction, but nothing even close to the utopia these proposals embrace. Meanwhile, planetary destruction will continue to accelerate far beyond any “improvements” we’re making, because THAT IS WHAT WE ARE NOW DOING.
This is REALITY. This is what is happening RIGHT NOW. This isn’t conjecture — or prophecy — or anything but the harsh painful TRUTH.
And this is what really, really pisses me off. Nobody seems to be capable of addressing the truth of what we are doing to ourselves or how miserable we are at trying to change ourselves or identifying the root causes of the problems we’re facing or how utterly ridiculous it is to say that we are going to voluntarily all change ourselves or go on supporting 7+ billion people in a declining world. If you are paying attention, you will notice that this “support” is declining for all of us — very, very rapidly. It’s ridiculous as hell to assume that this is going to get “better” — virtually ALL of the “low-hanging fruit” has been long-since plucked of the Earth’s tree of plenty, and we are now living on the dregs we’re scraping from the bottom.
Our forward momentum is also politely ignored. Recall that I’ve mentioned inertia a few thousand times on this blog, and how we are only just now experiencing the effects of atmospheric emissions from the 1960′s and 1970′s now? Have you consider the “human inertia” issue also? The runaway freight train of past (and failed) policies, but still in effect, how we make and utilize economic measurements, the endless (and quite stupid) emphasis on “profits”, how population growth and expansion is never once addressed, and how the inexorable “forward progress” of billions of humans is always assumed and embraced?
You should, if this hasn’t occurred to you before, because this is a insurmountable problem. It’s unsolvable by any of the means (“fixes”) I’ve seen. Not a single one of these proposals address any of this effectively. Always the emphasis is on profits, maintenance and improvements of present lifestyles, improved “efficiencies” and even more population. It just doesn’t add up and never will. Profits will always triumph over conservation for example. Placing a monetary “interest” upon critical resources for life puts economics ahead of intrinsic and necessary things of VALUE to life itself.
What is the value of a clean atmosphere? Or clean water? Or unpolluted soil? Or healthy food? Or a radiation free existence? Or a healthy forest? We wrap all this up around profits today, pricing everything accordingly and even consider this despicable practice “normal” for our society. It’s not normal — it’s absurd. It’s bizarre thinking and will always benefit those that CONTROL these resources for PROFIT. YOU don’t control these resources (and never will). The emphasis then is for their “owners” to MAKE MONEY ON THEM somehow, which then means they will ALWAYS be subject to abuse (and how much “money” can be made). They will NEVER be valued for what they really are.
It is this type of thinking that has actually destroyed the Earth, bit by bit over the centuries until we arrive at where we are today. We did just fine when we did not need money, and when we did not claim we “owned” the Earth and it’s resources. We still don’t own it — but we think we do and this is the root problem.
The Earth owns us all, and everything in it. But you have to abandon the brainwashing and conditioning of what you think “ownership” is to understand this. You and I and everyone else here on this planet are GUESTS — to live here and exist but for a very short time and then we are GONE — leaving behind whatever messes and disasters we have created. Or we can be courteous guests and leave no disasters or messes behind, cleaning up after ourselves, taking only what we need and not virtually everything that we want.
This is what at the heart of all these proposals to “fix” the Earth and the many, many problems humans have created. We’ve made a real mess of things and now we’re still trying to apply FAILED human polices and belief systems (such as “profits”) to the problem. They’re all still saying — “Let’s take everything we want and do a better job of it this time”. It’s all BULLSHIT and it didn’t work before, and it will not work now.
There is a better way to live — and we even know how to do it. So far however, industrial civilization and every single of us that live within it hasn’t grasped it yet. But there is really no excuse for this ignorance. We are deliberately turning a blind eye to it on purpose, because we are infused with the “belief” that we can somehow still have it all. It’s clear, some of us can, but not 7+ billion. Not even 5 billion. Or even 3 billion. But I’m not talking about population control / reduction, I’m emphasizing that the concepts and practice of ownership and control will always exploit everyone else and ultimately benefit the few, no matter how many — or how few exist on the planet. We will continue to prey upon each other — and everything else — because that is in point of fact what “we do”.
As long as we think we “own” it — we will never solve our basic problems. As “guests” we are but tenets, and our true task is to leave the place in as good as a condition as we found it, or as the case is today, try to make it better by cleaning it up — but not by embracing even more toxic nuclear waste or endless consumption or over-population, this will only lead to disaster — the place where we are right now.
This is why I title this post “Embracing Disaster” — because we are still doing this, embracing disaster by continuing to apply failed concepts to how we can “guarantee our future” existence on the planet. This approach is FAILURE and guarantees our extinction.
Virtually all paths but one lead to this. There is a better way, but it’s not being considered anymore.
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