Monday, December 27, 2010

Bushbama

Obama Year Two: Continued Betrayal and Failure (Part I) - by Stephen Lendman

Last December, a two-part article discussed Obama's year one betrayal and failure, accessed through the following links:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2009/12/obama-year-one-betrayal-and-failure.html

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2009/12/obama-year-one-betrayal-and-failure_23.html

In year two, the pattern continued, revealing domestic and foreign policies that:

-- outdid George Bush by exceeding his harshness, lawlessness, belligerency, and public trust betrayal;

-- maintained a 30 year agenda of shifting public wealth to the rich, as well as supporting capital, not public welfare, including targeting middle class households for destruction;

-- looted the nation's wealth, wrecked the economy, and consigned growing millions to impoverishment without jobs, homes, savings, social services, or futures;

-- let hunger, homelessness, poverty, and those uninsured grow to unacceptable levels;

-- backed Wall Street's financial coup d'etat by greater Fed empowerment, as well as institutionalizing speculation, "too-big-to fail," super-wealth, and big money power;

-- plans new global monetary measures to control the world's money;

-- continued America's permanent war agenda by expanding imperial adventurism, increasing covert and overt aggression on new fronts with out-of-control military spending, exceeding the rest of the world combined at a time America has no enemies;

-- became the latest war criminal Nobel Peace Prize recipient;

-- executed his first successful coup d'etat in Honduras against its democratically elected president, then backed the fascist regime replacing him;

-- failed attempting regime change in Iran;

-- continued providing military, economic and political aid to the world's most ruthless, corrupt despots;

-- maintained a longstanding policy of supplying Israel with annual billions, more on request, other add-ons and extras, interest-free loans, the latest weapons, munitions and technology, unrestricted US market access, free entry of its immigrants, and unbridled support for its illegal belligerence, occupation, and crimes of war and against humanity;

-- presides over a bogus democracy under a homeland police state apparatus, sacrificing due process, judicial fairness, and other civil liberty protections in the name of national security;

-- continued torture as official policy, extraordinary rendition to prison hellholes, and for the first time, targeted US citizens for assassination;

-- invoked the state secrets privilege to prevent lawsuits by victims of rendition, torture, abuse, and those opposing warrantless wiretapping;

-- targets whisleblowers, dissenters, Muslims, environmental and animal rights activists, anyone challenging state power, and civil rights lawyers who defend them too vigorously called terrorists or threats to national security;

-- endorsed preventive detention without charge for those at Guantanamo considered dangerous, but no evidence allows prosecuting them;

-- expanded Bush administration spying and secrecy;

-- refused to prosecute its officials, suppressing proof of their culpability;

-- planned cybersecurity tyranny, threatening a free and open Internet, consumer privacy, and civil liberties; more on how below;

-- waged war on organized labor through fewer jobs, less pay, reduced benefits, and gutted work rules, including health and safety on-the-job protections;

-- tried controlling the media more aggressively than Nixon;

-- denied budget-strapped states financial help, forcing them to slash welfare programs, education, health care for the poor, and other vital services when they're most needed;

-- continued to commodify public education, end government responsibility for it, and make it another business profit center;

-- promoted dangerous vaccines for a non-existent threat;

-- promoted health care legislation that rations care; enriches insurers, drug giants and large hospital chains; places profits above human need; and keeps a dysfunctional system in place; Peter Singer's July 15, 2009 New York Times article endorsed administration policy, headlined: "Why We Must Ration Health Care," saying it's essential to apportion a "scarce resource" to those who can afford it; others will get only what they can pay for;

-- on the pretext of improving food safety, enacted agribusiness-friendly House legislation, harming consumers, small farms and food producers without improving America's industrial food system; on November 30, the Senate passed its own version; more on that below;

-- wants so far not passed legislation to let corporate polluters reap huge windfall profits by raising energy cost, while creating a speculative bonanza through a new carbon trading derivatives scheme;

-- cracks down harder on undocumented immigrants than George Bush, deporting a record number in FY 2010; others are held in over 300 detention facilities in nearly every state in the country, treated like criminals or terrorists; and

-- promoted a national ID card for all citizens and legal residents to be able to monitor them everywhere at all times.

Year two: Obama's destructive agenda continued.

Militarizing and Exploiting Haiti

An earlier article explained that Haiti is no stranger to adversity. Except for a brief time after its successful 1791 - 1803 revolution turning slaves into citizens and during Jean-Bertrand Aristide's tenure, it's experienced over 500 years of severe oppression, slavery, despotism, colonization, occupation, reparations, embargoes, sanctions, deep poverty, starvation, unrepayable debt, and natural calamities from destructive hurricanes to powerful earthquakes, most recently on January 12. It devastated greater Port-au-Prince, killing up to 300,000, leaving around 1.5 million Haitians homeless with little aid and no help to rebuild.

Some countries reacted quickly, mostly a few Latin American ones, including Cuba and Venezuela. Washington did nothing, deploying marines and paratroupers instead, militarizing the country, obstructing, not providing aid, promising $1.1 billion, delivering none, planning only exploitation of Haiti's resources and cheap labor.

Haiti was opened for business, occupied to be plundered, its people on their own, sink or swim under circumstances assuring mass suffering, starvation, disease and for many, death. Only corporate interests mattered at a time of dire need.

Eleven months later, Haiti is still plagued by rubble everywhere, extreme deprivation, promised aid undelivered, none from Washington, 1.5 million without shelter in streets and other open spaces, and now raging cholera, and the aftermath of a sham election, institutionalizing coup d'etat rule.

Washington's imperial hand orchestrated it, denying Haitians any chance for real change. It represents another betrayal by a president showing contempt for essential needs, human rights, and basic freedoms, at home and abroad, even under the most dire conditions.

America's Permanent War Agenda

America glorifies wars in the name of peace, historian Gore Vidal titling his 2002 book, "Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace," saying:

"Our rulers for more than a century have made sure that we are never to be told the truth about anything that our government has done to other people, not to mention our own."

It's persisted mainly since Franklin Roosevelt goaded Japan to attack us. It then continued in Korea, Vietnam, numerous proxy wars, the Cold War until the Soviet Union's 1991 dissolution, and now Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and new wars to be launched at opportunistic times against unnamed enemies.

Obama is America's latest warrior president, talking peace, waging war, packaged as liberating ones for democracy, freedom, and justice against bogus threats, when, in fact it's an imperial agenda for wealth, power, and unchallengeable global dominance.

He lied calling Afghanistan a "war of necessity, not choice," doubled the force contingent since taking office, yet stays mired in an unwinnable quagmire. He also destabilized Pakistan, plans control over the Caspian Sea's oil and gas riches, as well as energy routes to secured ports for export.

He approved US military bases encircling Russia, China and Iran, obstructing their solidarity and cohesion. He promised change and delivered betrayal, nearing year three of his tenure. Like his predecessor, he aroused global anger, his agenda endangering everyone, including Americans, heading the country for tyranny and ruin.

Enacting Obamacare

An earlier article called March 21 a day of infamy when House and Democrat leaders bullied, bribed, cajoled, muscled, and jerry-rigged Obamacare to pass, despite most Americans opposing it with good reason. Ralph Nader called it a "pay-or-die system that is the disgrace of the Western world," costing double what other Western countries spend and delivering less, rationing care to enrich corporate providers while making a dysfunctional system worse.

Henceforth, junk insurance policies will leave millions underinsured. Costs will remain out-of-control. Insurers can still deny care by delaying, contesting, preventing or over-charging people from accessing it. Everyone must have coverage or be penalized if opt out, a provision many states are contesting. A Virginia federal judge just ruled it unconstitutional, a battle the Supreme Court will decide. Company-provided policies will be taxed as ordinary income, harming working households most of all.

Physicians for a National Health Program denounced it, saying the new law "will enrich and further entrench (private insurers, forcing) millions of Americans to buy" defective coverage leaving most worse off than before at a cost of hundreds of billions of tax dollars given predators to game the system for profit, the public losing out. Moreover, 23 million Americans will remain uninsured, "translate(d) into an estimated 23,000 unnecessary deaths annually and an incalculable toll of suffering."

Obama's centerpiece domestic policy scammed the public with a package of expensive mandates, new taxes, and sweetheart deals, creating a fragmented, dysfunctional, unsustainable system, denying Americans what they urgently need - universal coverage, an expanded, improved Medicare for all, everyone in, no one out, what neither party or Obama delivered.

Capitulating on Financial Reform

Omitting real structural reforms, Democrats, Republicans, and Obama agreed on a patchwork of half-measures. Instead of restraining financial fraud, too-big-to-fail empowerment, an out-of-control Fed, and casino capitalism's ability to game the system with public money, it institutionalized business as usual. The Financial Times (FT) quoted a Wall Street banker saying "We are all breathing a sigh of relief here....we can live with this." Indeed so since Wall Street lawyers wrote it. The FT added: investors believe the "overhaul in financial rules would not have a significant impact on the industry's structure and profitability."

Indeed not by:

-- empowering a financial aristocracy;

-- letting Wall Street run the country;

-- institutionalizing fraud, speculation and bailouts;

-- leaving executive pay, bonuses and perks untouched;

-- letting credit agency scams continue;

-- permitting giant banks, insurers and other financial firms to get bigger; and

-- establishing a toothless Consumer Financial Protection Bureau along with other anti-reform provisions.

Bottom line: the worst of bad practices will continue, besides teams of lawyers devising ways around whatever regulations emerge. According to University of San Diego Law Professor Frank Partnoy, "Wall Street has always been very skilled at getting around rules, and this law will be no different," especially with its loopholes, half-measures, and overall weakness. Bankers got the best deal big money can buy. The public again was scammed.

Part II will conclude Obama Year Two: Continued Betrayal and Failure.

--MORE--"

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

Maybe it will bury these liars and their pile of s*** forever:

New York Times claims global warming creates the record cold weather!

THE NEW YORK TIMES DOES NOT SEEM TO HAVE LEARNED ANYTHING ABOUT PUBLISHING JUNK SCIENCE SINCE THEY REPORTED ON THE MARTIANS BUILDING CANALS 100 YEARS AGO!
 

Here is the letter I just sent to the New York Times, which they probably will not print, but you should post anywhere you see more of this warm = cold nonsense.

I hope the New York Times is smart enough to understand that this claim that global warming makes cold weather is not science, but science fiction; a plot device lifted from the science fiction movie “The Day After Tomorrow”, and interestingly enough the same film Al Gore stole computer-generated ice cracking from for his so-called “documentary”.

The global warming cult and its financial arm, the “Carbonazis”, have invested a huge amount of time and money and political capital selling the need for a carbon tax to the world, to fund the new global environmental authority as a step towards global government. But three harsh winters in a row have sounded the death knell for the warmista predictions, and this “hot climate makes cold weather” nonsense is a Hail Mary pass to save the agenda in the face of harsh winter reality setting in, by claiming that the cold weather is what the theory of global warming predicted.

Yet we know this is nonsense. Back in 2000 the Hadley CRU (the institution at the heart of the Climategate email and software scandal) stated “Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past”.

In 2008, scientists were claiming there would be no ice at the North Pole.

Also in 2008, the warmistas were claiming that winter as a whole no longer existed!

And only last October, the UK Met Office declared that global warming would result in a very mild winter this year.

Interesting fact: the Chairman of the Met Office board, Robert Napier, is or has been:

* Chairman of the Green Fiscal Trust*
* Chairman of the trustees of the World Centre of Monitoring of Conservation
* a director of the Carbon Disclosure Project
* a director of the Carbon Group
* Chief executive of the World Wildlife Fund UK
 

He is also a member of the Green Alliance.

Entire careers and funding have been built on the theory that the Earth is getting warmer, and people like JUDAH COHEN, whose blurb indicates is part of the global warming establishment, are writing now that heat causes freezing in an effort not to lose their jobs and funding despite having totally blown predicting what was going to happen.

There is more at stake here than just academic tenure and scientific funding. Around the world, local governments struggling with the harsh economy have heard the constant proclamations of warmer winters and have slashed their budgets for winter preparations, secure in the knowledge they would not need as much road grit, ploughs, or fuel oil as previous winters.

The result is that the disaster of these last three winters has been magnified by lack of adequate preparation. Already Britain has sold out of standard snow tires and is running out of road grit. Budgets for winter contingencies are already exhausted across Europe, and most tragic of all, the millions of people made homeless by the Wall Street excesses of the last ten years are freezing to death as heating fuel for shelters and warming centers runs out. Dozens have died just in Santa Barbara California.

The blood of all those dying in winter accidents on unprepared roads, or freezing to death, is on the hands of those academics, media pundits, and scientists, who all signed onto the global warming agenda because it was fashionable and trendy and the source of vast amounts of research grants, together with the investors who planned to do to the entire world with carbon what Enron had done to California with electricity; force people to buy a carbon credit, a mythical commodity literally created out of thin air that was planned to fuel the next great Wall Street bubble.

The New York Times does itself and its readers a grave disservice when it runs op-ed pieces by environmentalists with clear conflicts of interest, especially when said op-ed ignored a decade of predictions of warmer winters to claim that record cold is what their pet science-fiction theory actually predicted, and that one can make ice by heating a pan of water on the stove.

Shame on the New York Times for not exercising due diligence in vetting these global warming propaganda pieces. One would almost think the Times has reverted to those pre-Titanic days when you reported that intelligent life was building the canals on Mars!
 


Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength
War is Peace
Warming is Cooling
(Apologies to George Orwell)


Michael Rivero 

Also see: CLIMATEGATE: A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY 

Related:  

"A little bit of history about the NY Times.

Back in 1912, the New York Times was just another New York paper, fighting for circulation with sensational stories about the how the canals on Mars had actually been photographed and revealed in the August 27th issue the construction of 2 new canals by the Martians in 1911.

As part of their attempts to lure more readers, the New York Times had invested in a Marconi wireless set, a radio receiver whose antenna was atop the building that housed the New York Times, but whose operators were featured in a street level room with large windows, not unlike a department store showcase window. Passers-by could gaze through the window at the Marconi operators playing with this latest high-tech gizmo.

But on the night of April 14th, the wireless operators at the New York Times picked up second and third hand reports of a ship in trouble out at sea. Details were sketchy, but the night editor of the Times knew that a story about a ship sinking was going to sell more newspapers than a ship that was saved, so in the absence of any real information the New York Times rolled a special late-night edition. The editor had guessed right, and the next morning the New York Times was the only newspaper on the street reporting that RMS Titanic had sunk the night before. That one story transformed the New York Times overnight from just another tabloid into New York's top newspaper; a position they have held ever since." -- Wake the Flock Up

I'm so glad I no longer read or visit the New York Times website.  What a PoS paper.  

I will say one thing for the fart-misting fascistas: The rage they provided as I am shoveling snow warms and fuels me.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

The More the Merrier

'Tis the Season:

Mid-Holiday Ramblings

**

What a year.  But wait - not so fast:  Yogi Berra said "the game  ain't over 'till it's over."

We are all trying to determine how to plan and prepare for the future - after all - we all know we are responsible for ourselves.  So we absorb information - evaluate it - take decisions - and hope for the best.  Hardly a novel experience.

 Yogi Berra  also said that "it's tough to make predictions - especially about the future."  Actually I think it's easy to make predictions about the future - the hard part is getting them right.  But amidst our economic no-man's-land - our task is further complicated by a lying, self-serving corporate-bought-and-paid-for media - part of an attempt at "total propaganda" - belied by chinks in the armor available only because the internet has not yet been "adjusted" to the likes of Cass Sunstein and Joseph Lieberman - champions of the war on freedom of speech - the FIRST AMENDMENT.  Yes - somehow we still have slivers of light penetrating the corpora-wet-blanket media that so desperately and traitorously tries to smother the fires of liberty.

Ironically the "future" we are living in right now, in other words the outcome of our recent past was completely predictable if one is a student of history.  But who's "history?"  Yes - history is a spiderweb ready to ensnare - so how to traverse the mine-field of propaganda, manipulation, corporate-media, nanny-state elitists, religious extremists - all of those skewing our perceived reality presented to us by those working only to the advantage of their pet cause?  How to winnow the truth from the lies?

1.  911 Truth - anyone - and I mean anyone - that pretends that the attacks of 911 happened the way we were told - must be ignored as a source of reliable information.  I say this for several reasons.  First - they are incapable of thinking for themselves.  WTC7 was never hit by an airplane - was not really on fire that bad - etc... - the videos are available showing the building dropping like a rock.  The videos are available of  Lucky Larry Silverstein admitting that they "pulled" the building - after talking to the fire dept. commander.   The entire story is crap from A to Z - supported by elements of our government with many fingers of evidence pointing to another certain middle eastern government in the possession of nukes.  I don't know where to begin if you are unfamiliar with the topics I'm bringing up here - obviously you are a Rush, Laura, Neil, Sean, Glenn, Hartmann, Rhodes, Olbermann, Schultz, Miller, Press - fan.  They are all ignoring the issue of 911 - which is evidence that they work in lockstep - pretending with their circus - that they don't like each other - while they talk about God, Guns and Gays - and other topics that for the most part Americans really are not divided on.  These people are all shills supporting an agenda of global government - pretending to be on one side or the other of issues that wouldn't even have "sides" without their constant hammering on the air - to ensure that issues that are unimportant clutter the airwaves while every penny and square inch of property you own is stolen from you by international bankers.  911 Truth serves as a great acid test for Wikileaks - Julian Assange is an anti-911-truth person. This means he is not to be trusted - period.

2.  The Federal Reserve-  This secretive organization of thieves must be dissolved forever.  Ron Paul recently took over oversight of this group?  Yeah - that's what I thought I read.  Ron Paul will reveal this outfit of usurous internationalists for what they are.  That's exactly why volunteers must offer themselves up to serve as a security detail for Ron Paul.  Go ahead and laugh.  I'm not kidding.  Nobody has survived trying to get rid of these vermin banksters - except for Andrew Jackson - and that's 'cause the powder in the pistols that would have killed him musta' got damp in the Washington D.C. humidity.  We have got to have a public debate on how to set up a monetary system that serves our economy - that can expand when necessary and contract when necessary - with the checks and balances in place - enforced by law - that ensure that the crookery is taken out of our financial system.  We will NEVER have a functioning nation unless we fix this problem NOW.  The leaders that have stepped up to address it publicly must be guarded from assassination or they will be killed.

3.  Food Supply - our food supply is being corrupted - again - under the evil guidance of monsters like Monsanto - while the FDA and USDA watch football games or something - maybe they are drunk - or maybe just fluoridated.  Regardless - the food supply of this nation - the containers - the water - the food - the agricultural structure - is a complete disaster - and a major security risk to the nation.  Without food we are DEAD.  Without good food we are DEAD.

4.  Water - same as the food supply.  Poisoned - the information is out there.  The criminals responsible for poisons presently existing go unpunished.  Without clean pure water we are DEAD.

5.  Education - this is a complete success.  Yes - I really mean that.  Because as a so-called "conspiracy theorist" (superior critical thinker) I am convinced that the public education system in our ailing nation has been deliberately hijacked by people who's intention is not to produce coruscating masterpieces from diamonds-in-the-rough - but to stamp out conformist debt-slaves - ignorant of the very foundations of the tri-partite government responsible for the little freedom they've been able to experience in their young limited lives.  Our education system is a complete success - our youth know nothing.  That's not to say they won't be part of solving the problem - because they are far from stupid.  In fact - the "educators" will be the first victims of their own success as these former "kids" mature and see that they were lied to.  Many will want answers.  Many will want revenge.

Despite being indoctrinated and cowed by modern Gestapo-cops- where the lesson to be learned in every case is "obey" - Always "obey" and don't resist - they will do the opposite.  They are young - and they are truly the most free among us - because they have nothing to lose.  They are to be most feared by the scum that have put us in the position we are in.  Maybe after the veterans.  We'll see.  Hard to draw a line here since many of the younger generation were double-screwed - via "education" and via military "service" to Halliburton.

6.  TSA, DHS etc... - these Gestapo-agencies have been created for one reason - to cow YOU.  The machines at the airports, to the benefit of the likes of Chertoff etc..., scream corruption, recklessness regarding public health, disregard for basic human dignity - and defy everything that is American.  They are a disgrace.  They are - to put it plainly - NAZIs.  I am not throwing that term around loosely.  Search for former posts on this blog that will make the case.  Incrementally like the drip of an anesthetic - the population is lulled into a hypnotic state one step at a time - until - it is normal behaviour to have some perverted swine at the airport grabbing your genitals - and the genitals of your children - and viewing the naked body of your children - WHILE YOU WATCH!  And you stand there - like a good victim - and do nothing.

7.  Federal spending - this topic is THE issue on all the phony radio programs broadcast on AM here in C-ville and other cities.  Everybody cries about the deficit - the spending  - but there is a glaring lacuna that serves as a common denominator - a truth-telling flare:  Dems and Repubs omit the cost of the wars that are sucking the life out of this country.  Suddenly Americans are "lazy."  Suddenly Americans don't want to work.  My ancestors worked their asses off in coal mines - and we work our asses off every day - as does everyone I know - regardless of nationality - and everybody is losing.  Everybody is working for peanuts - except for the government welfare-queen workers.  They live an insular existence in Fairfax, Alexandria, Arlington, DC, parts of Maryland - as they leech their money from us - in return for the "service" of spying on us - the taxpayers footing the bill for their "services" keeping us "safe" from ourselves.  This insane circle-jerk is dangerous.  But no wonder.  Think about it - all of these order-takers have security clearances - the union-card of the modern world.  A security clearance is a job guarantee in the military-security apparatus.  A security clearance is one of the only things of value in this world that is awarded to a person for having done - NOTHING!  Yes - if you've never done anything - you have the best chances for the meal ticket known as the security clearance.  And to maintain it - just make sure you continue to do NOTHING.  And make sure you are a perfectionist when it comes to living your life like a pathetic follower - a sheeple - the exact opposite of the true American - the rebel.  But hey - the paychecks are good right?

8.  Obama - this topic is a waste of time.  It is time for the fake puppet show known as American politics to install a Republican in the White House.  Palin has been presented to the Wal-Mart public - but she's so f'n stupid - even the dummies know something has gone horribly wrong.  Also - didn't she quit her post as governor?  Regardless - the acceleration of events requires that the presidential crown be tossed over the net at a faster rate - because the elected liars are just flat out lying and doing whatever they want - so blatantly - that the biggest suckers can't ignore their intuition - that they were lied to during the campaign.  Obama doesn't care about any of that.  Obama is running for prez of the world - the UN - so the US presidency - just like the footstep he walked over briefly known as his Senatorial spot - is nothing  but a temporary walk up the world corporate ladder.  The "progressive" talkers have already - with perfect synchronization - ended their support for him - and all wised up at the same time.  This will throw the election to the fake "right" - the public will vote in a fruitless election - and America will march toward war with Iran, a North American Union, a super-national currency, and more debt-enslavement - that is - as long as Americans allow it.

Conclusions:  Face the facts - your leaders - except for a few are bought and paid for professional liars.  Many have allegiances to causes that require that America as we know it be dissolved.  A financial crisis bad enough to stampede the masses into a corner where they will agree to "anything" that will fix the problem - is just part of the plan.  Unchecked immigration is allowed because the end effect is the diluting of American culture - so the merging of Canada, US, and Mexico will actually make sense when the move is made.  The Federal Reserve will ruthlessly attempt to eliminate anyone and anything that attempts to dilute their stranglehold on America.  Unless each and every American stands up and does something, anything, no matter how big or how small - this country will succumb to the international criminals that got us into this debt, these wars, and cause all hatred directed toward our nation.

A return to enforcement of our own laws must happen.  A return to respect for human life is essential.  Crooks must pay.  I think it was Ghandi who said something like:  "What you do may seem insignificant - but do it anyway."

We all have our talents.  We all have our limitations.  We all have to eat, pay some bills and basically keep a roof over our heads.  But as citizens, if we really want to live in a free republic, have to perform our DUTY as citizens - and that means holding our government accountable.

Holding them accountable means FORCING them to do their job.  That means that Eric Holder must be FORCED to address the issue of torture or get lost.  That means 911 Truth has to be addressed.  That means that anybody carrying out extrajudicial murder of American citizens - or any human being must be put on a list - either as the murderer - the one giving the orders - or the judge pretending that somehow this is all legal - they all need to go on a public list - so when we sort all this out - they will pay for the bloodstains they've put on our flag.

We will wash the bloodstains out of Old Glory - YOU - my friend, my fellow citizen - MUST find your place and do whatever - no matter how small - action to make the American republic, once again - that beacon shining the light of liberty to the foundering ships-under-oppression - and bring them all to shore - to a shore of peace, prosperity and human dignity.
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--MORE--"

Sunday, November 28, 2010

2012 Prognosis

"Prognosis 2012: Towards a New World Social Order

Global Research, February 27, 2010

Historical background – the establishment of capitalist supremacy

When the Industrial Revolution began in Britain, in the late 1700s, there was lots of money to be made by investing in factories and mills, by opening up new markets, and by gaining control of sources of raw materials. The folks who had the most money to invest, however, were not so much in Britain but more in Holland. Holland was the leading Western power in the 1600s, and its bankers were the leading capitalists. In pursuit of profit, Dutch capital flowed to the British stock market, and thus the Dutch funded the rise of Britain, who subsequently eclipsed Holland both economically and geopolitically. 

In this way British industrialism came to be dominated by wealthy investors, and capitalism became the dominant economic system. This led to a major social transformation. Britain had been essentially an aristocratic society, dominated by landholding families. As capitalism became dominant economically, capitalists became dominant politically. Tax structures and import-export policies were gradually changed to favor investors over landowners. 

It was no longer economically viable to simply maintain an estate in the countryside: one needed to develop it, turn it to more productive use. Victorian dramas are filled with stories of aristocratic families who fall on hard times, and are forced to sell off their properties. For dramatic purposes, this decline is typically attributed to a failure in some character, a weak eldest son perhaps. But in fact the decline of aristocracy was part of a larger social transformation brought on by the rise of capitalism.

The business of the capitalist is the management of capital, and this management is generally handled through the mediation of banks and brokerage houses. It should not be surprising that investment bankers came to occupy the top of the hierarchy of capitalist wealth and power. And in fact, there are a handful of banking families, including the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers, who have come to dominate economic and political affairs in the Western world.

Unlike aristocrats, capitalists are not tied to a place, or to the maintenance of a place. Capital is disloyal and mobile – it flows to where the most growth can be found, as it flowed from Holland to Britain, then from Britain to the USA, and most recently from everywhere to China. Just as a copper mine might be exploited and then abandoned, so under capitalism a whole nation can be exploited and then abandoned, as we see in the rusting industrial areas of America and Britain. 

This detachment from place leads to a different kind of geopolitics under capitalism, as compared to aristocracy. A king goes to war when he sees an advantage to his nation in doing so. Historians can 'explain' the wars of pre-capitalist days, in terms of the aggrandizement of monarchs and nations. 

A capitalist stirs up a war in order to make profits, and in fact our elite banking families have financed both sides of most military conflicts since at least World War 1. Hence historians have a hard time 'explaining' World War 1 in terms of national motivations and objectives. 

In pre-capitalist days warfare was like chess, each side trying to win. Under capitalism warfare is more like a casino, where the players battle it out as long as they can get credit for more chips, and the real winner always turns out to be the house – the bankers who finance the war and decide who will be the last man standing. Not only are wars the most profitable of all capitalist ventures, but by choosing the winners, and managing the reconstruction, the elite banking families are able, over time, to tune the geopolitical configuration to suit their own interests. 

Nations and populations are but pawns in their games. Millions die in wars, infrastructures are destroyed, and while the world mourns, the bankers are counting their winnings and making plans for their postwar reconstruction investments. 

From their position of power, as the financiers of governments, the banking elite have over time perfected their methods of control. Staying always behind the scenes, they pull the strings controlling the media, the political parties, the intelligence agencies, the stock markets, and the offices of government. And perhaps their greatest lever of power is their control over currencies. By means of their central-bank scam, they engineer boom and bust cycles, and they print money from nothing and then loan it at interest to governments. The power of the banking elites is both absolute and subtle...

      "Some of the biggest men in the United
States are afraid of something. They
know there is a power somewhere, so
organised, so subtle, so watchful, so
interlocked, so complete, so pervasive
that they had better not speak above
their breath when they speak in
condemnation of it."
      -- President Woodrow Wilson

The end of growth – capitalists vs. capitalism

It was always inevitable, on a finite planet, that there would be a limit to economic growth. Industrialization has enabled us to rush headlong toward that limit over the past two centuries. Production has become ever more efficient, markets have become ever more global, and finally we have reached the point where the paradigm of perpetual growth can no longer be maintained. 

Indeed, that point was actually reached by about 1970. Since then capital has not so much sought growth through increased production, but rather by extracting greater returns from relatively flat production levels.  Hence globalization, which moved production to low-waged areas, providing greater profit margins. Hence privatization, which transfers revenue streams to investors that formerly went to national treasuries. Hence derivative and currency markets, which create the electronic illusion of economic growth, without actually producing anything in the real world.

If one studies the collapse of civilizations, one learns that failure-to-adapt is fatal. Continuing on the path of pursuing growth would be such a failure to adapt. And if one reads the financial pages these days, one finds that it is full of doomsayers. We read that the Eurozone is doomed, and Greece is just the first casualty. We read that stimulus packages are not working, unemployment is increasing, the dollar is in deep trouble, growth continues to stagnate, business real estate will be the next bubble to burst, etc. It is easy to get the impression that capitalism is failing to adapt, and that our societies are in danger of collapsing into chaos.

Such an impression would be partly right and partly wrong. In order to understand the real situation we need to make a clear distinction between the capitalist elite and capitalism itself. Capitalism is an economic system driven by growth; the capitalist elite are the folks who have managed to gain control of the Western world while capitalism has operated over the past two centuries. The capitalist system is past its sell-by date, the banking elite are well aware of that fact – and they are adapting.

Capitalism is a vehicle that helped bring the bankers to absolute power, but they have no more loyalty to that system than they have to place, or to anything or anyone else. As mentioned earlier, they think on a global scale, with nations and populations as pawns. They define what money is and they issue it, just like the banker in a game of Monopoly. They can also make up a new game with a new kind of money. They have long outgrown any need to rely on any particular economic system in order to maintain their power. Capitalism was handy in an era of rapid growth. For an era of non-growth, a different game is being prepared.

Thus, capitalism has not been allowed to die a natural death. First it was put on a life-support system, as mentioned above, with globalization, privatization, derivative markets, etc. Then it was injected with a euthanasia death-drug, in the form of toxic derivatives. And when the planned collapse occurred, rather than industrial capitalism being bailed out, the elite bankers were bailed out. It's not that the banks were too big to fail, rather the bankers were too politically powerful to fail. They made governments an offer they couldn't refuse. 

The outcome of the trillion-dollar bailouts was easily predictable, although you wouldn't know that from reading the financial pages. National budgets were already stretched, and they certainly did not have reserves available to service the bailouts. Thus the bailouts amounted to nothing more than the taking on of immense new debts by governments. In order to fulfill the bailout commitments, the money would need to be borrowed from the same financial institutions that were being bailed out. 

With the bailouts, Western governments delivered their nations in hock to the bankers. The governments are now in perpetual debt bondage to the bankers. Rather than the banks going into receivership, governments are now in receivership. Obama's cabinet and advisors are nearly all from Wall Street; they are in the White House so they can keep close watch over their new acquisition, the once sovereign USA. Perhaps they will soon be presiding over its liquidation.

The bankers are now in control of national budgets. They say what can be funded and what can't. When it comes to financing their wars and weapons production, no limits are set. When it comes to public services, then we are told deficits must be held in check. The situation was expressed very well by Brian Cowan, Ireland's government chief. In the very same week that Ireland pledged 200 billion Euro to bailout the banks, he was being asked why he was cutting a few million Euro off of critical service budgets. He replied, "I'm sorry, but the funds just aren't there". Of course they're not there! The treasury was given away. The cupboard is bare.

As we might expect, the highest priority for budgets is servicing the debt to the banks. Just as most of the third world is in debt slavery to the IMF, so the whole West is now in debt slavery to its own central banks. Greece is the harbinger of what is to happen everywhere.

The carbon economy – controlling consumption

In a non-growth economy, the mechanisms of production will become relatively static. Instead of corporations competing to innovate, we'll have production bureaucracies. They'll be semi-state, semi-private bureaucracies, concerned about budgets and quotas rather than growth, somewhat along the lines of the Soviet model. Such an environment is not driven by a need for growth capital, and it does not enable a profitable game of Monopoly. 

We can already see steps being taken to shift the corporate model towards the bureaucratic model, through increased government intervention in economic affairs. With the Wall Street bailouts, the forced restructuring of General Motors, the call for centralized micromanagement of banking and industry, and the mandating of health insurance coverage, the government is saying that the market is to superseded by government directives. Not that we should bemoan the demise of exploitive capitalism, but before celebrating we need to understand what it is being replaced with.

In an era of capitalism and growth, the focus of the game has been on the production side of the economy. The game was aimed at controlling the means of growth: access to capital.  The growth-engine of capitalism created the demand for capital; the bankers controlled the supply. Taxes were mostly based on income, again related to the production side of the economy.

In an era of non-growth, the focus of the game will be on the consumption side of the economy. The game will be aimed at controlling the necessities of life: access to food and energy. Population creates the demand for the necessities of life; the bankers intend to control the supply. Taxes will be mostly based on consumption, particularly of energy. That's what the global warming scare is all about, with its carbon taxes and carbon credits.

Already in Britain there is talk of carbon quotas, like gasoline rationing in wartime. It's not just that you'll pay taxes on energy, but the amount of energy you can consume will be determined by government directive. Carbon credits will be issued to you, which you can use for driving, for heating, or on rare occasions for air travel. Also in Britain, the highways are being wired so that they can track how many miles you drive, tax you accordingly, and penalize you if you travel over your limit. We can expect these kinds of things to spread throughout the West, as it's the same international bankers who are in charge everywhere.

In terms of propaganda, this control over consumption is being sold as a solution to global warming and peak oil. The propaganda campaign has been very successful, and the whole environmental movement has been captured by it. In Copenhagen, demonstrators confronted the police, carrying signs in support of carbon taxes and carbon credits. But in fact the carbon regime has nothing to do with climate or with sustainability. It is all about micromanaging every aspect of our lives, as well as every aspect of the economy.

If the folks who are running things actually cared about sustainability, they'd be investing in efficient mass transit, and they'd be shifting agriculture from petroleum-intensive, water-intensive methods to sustainable methods. Instead they are mandating biofuels and selling us electric cars, which are no more sustainable or carbon-efficient than standard cars. Indeed, the real purpose behind biofuels is genocide. With food prices linked to energy prices, and agriculture land being converted from food production to fuel production, the result can only be a massive increase in third-world starvation. Depopulation has long been a stated goal in elite circles, and the Rockefeller dynasty has frequently been involved in eugenics projects of various kinds.

'The War on Terrorism' – preparing the way for the transition

The so-called War on Terrorism has two parts. The first part is a pretext for arbitrary abuse of citizen's rights, whenever Homeland Security claims the action is necessary for security reasons. The second part is a pretext for US military aggression anywhere in the world, whenever the White House claims that Al Qaeda is active there. 

I emphasized the word 'claims' above, because the terrorism pretext is being used to justify arbitrary powers, both domestically and globally. No hard evidence need be presented to Congress, the UN, or anyone else, before some nation is invaded, someone is kidnapped and tortured as a 'terrorist suspect', or some new invasive security measure is implemented. When powers are arbitrary, then we are no longer living under the rule of law, neither domestically nor internationally. We are living under the rule of men, as you would expect in a dictatorship, or in an old-fashioned kingdom or empire. 

Part 1: Preparing the way for a new social order

In a very real sense, the terrorism pretext is being used to undo everything that The Enlightenment and the republication revolutions achieved two centuries ago. The very heart of the Bill of Rights – due process – has been abandoned. The gulag, the concentration camp, and the secret arrest in the night – these we have always associated with fascist and communist dictatorships – and now they are not only functioning under US jurisdiction, but being justified publicly by the President himself.

Is there really a terrorist threat to the homeland, and would these measures be a sensible response to such a threat? People sre strongly divided in their answers to these questions. Quite a bit of hard forensic evidence has come to light, including links to intelligence agencies, and my own view is that most of the dramatic 'terrorist' events in the US, UK, and Europe have been covert false-flag operations. 

From an historical perspective this would not be at all surprising. Such operations have been standard practice – modus operandi – in many nations, though we usually don't get proof until years later. For example, every war the US has been involved in has had its own phony Gulf of Tonkin Incident, or its Weapons of Mass Destruction scam, in one form or another. It's a formula that works. Instant mobilization of public opinion, prompt passage without debate of enabling resolutions and legislation. Why would the War on Terrorism be any different? 

As regards motive: while Muslims have only suffered as a result of these dramatic events, our elite bankers have been able to create a police-state infrastructure that can be used to deal with any foreseeable popular resistance or civic chaos that might emerge as they prepare the way for their post-capitalist future. 

With the collapse, the bailouts, and the total failure to pursue any kind of effective recovery strategy, the signals are very clear: the system will be allowed to collapse totally, thus clearing the ground for a pre-architected 'solution'. Ground Zero can be seen as a metaphor, with the capitalist economy as the Twin Towers. And the toxic derivatives illustrate the fact that the collapse is actually a controlled demolition. 

It seems to me inevitable, given the many signals, that martial law will be part of the transition process, allegedly to deal with the problems of economic collapse. Perhaps a collapse in the food-supply chain, due to a collapse in the energy-supply chain. The US emergency responses in New Orleans and again in Haiti give us more signals, actual test trials, of what kind of 'emergency response' we can expect. 

First and foremost comes the security of the occupation forces. Those suffering in the emergency are treated more like insurgents than victims in need of help. In the case of Haiti, the US response can only be described as an intentional genocide project. When people are pinned under rubble in an earthquake, the first 48 hours, and 72 hours, are absolutely critical points, as regards survival rates. When the US military systematically blocked incoming aid for those critical hours, turning back doctors and emergency teams, they sealed the fate of many thousands who could have been saved.

One can imagine many nightmare scenarios, given these various signals, these ominous signs. World Wars 1 and 2 were nightmares that really happened, with millions dying, and these same banking dynasties orchestrated those scenarios and then covered their tracks. We must also keep in mind the  Shock Doctrine, where catastrophe is seen as opportunity – when 'things can be done that otherwise could not be accomplished'. We are still being impacted by the shock waves that were sent out on 9/11, and again when the financial system collapsed. And the the really big shock, the general collapse of society, is yet to come. The ultimate version of the Shock Doctrine: 'If the collapse is total, we can accomplish any damned thing we want to accomplish'.

I won't venture a guess about how this transition process will play out, but I do expect that it will be a nightmare of one description or another. Already the growing homeless population is suffering a nightmare, by any civilized standards. One day you're living in a home whose value is going up, commuting to a good job, and the next thing you know your family is out on the streets. That's a nightmare. The transition time will be a difficult time, but it will be a transition, it will be temporary, like a war. And like a war, it will enable social and economic reconstruction in the aftermath.

Consider how Japan and Germany were socially and politically transformed by the postwar reconstruction process. Those were exercises in social engineering, as were the preceding transformations under Mussolini and Hitler. Although the outcomes were quite different, in each case a total collapse / defeat was the preamble to reconstruction. A total collapse of the capitalist economy is simply the application of a proven formula. The second part of the formula will be some new social order, or perhaps some old social order, or some mixture. Something appropriate to a non-growth, command economy.

That's part 1 of the War on Terrorism: it has enabled the creation of the police-state infrastructures required to to deal with the collapse of society, and to provide security for the reconstruction process. 

Part 2: Preparing the way for global domination

Part 2 of the War on Terrorism is about the geopolitical dimensions of a non-growth-based global economy. Earlier I suggested that geopolitics was different under capitalism, than it was under sovereign monarchs. The whole dynamic was different, and outcomes were weighed on a different scale. Similarly, many things will change in a shift from chaotic, growth-oriented capitalism, to a centralized, micromanaged, economic regime. 

Consider, for example, the significance of control over oil reserves. In a growth economy, profits were the prize, and controlling the markets and the distribution channels amounted to holding a winning hand in the game. The local dictators could manage things as they pleased, and take their cut of oil revenues, as long as they honored their contracts with the oil majors, who were happy to sell to the highest bidders. 

In a non-growth economy, where the focus is on direct control over the supply and distributions of resources, it becomes necessary to secure, in the military sense, the sources of petroleum, and the routes for its distribution. It is no longer sufficient to merely profit from unbridled operations. Securing of the sources, and directly allocating the distribution, is the foundation for micromanaging the non-growth economy. This applies to other critical resources as well, such as uranium, and the rare minerals needed by the 'defense' and electronics industries. 

In fact we are in the midst of a resource-grab war, with China and Russia making long-term energy deals with Iran and Venezuela, China buying up agricultural land in Africa, Washington making long-term deals for Brazilian biofuels, and there are many other examples. In many ways imperialism is reverting to colonial days, when direct administration was the model, rather than the capitalist model: profiting from corporate investments under dictators who suppress their populations. 

There is a natural reversion to the dynamics of the 'good old days of empire' when the Great Powers of Europe focused their economic activity within their individual spheres of influence. Everyone knows that global resource limits are being reached, partly from population pressures, and partly from resource-exploitation practices. For this reason alone, we have the peaceful part of the resource-grab war. 

In Iraq, Afghanistan, and now in Pakistan and Yemen, the US, with NATO support, is playing a very non-peaceful hand in the resource-grab game. It's the hand of a bully, 'I have the biggest gun, so I'll take what I want'. These aggressive actions are very provocative to Russia and China, and threatening to their vital economic interests. An attack on Iran would be more than a provocation, it would be a direct slap in the face, a challenge: 'Fight now or resign yourself to being subdued piecemeal'.

In addition to all this petroleum grabbing, the US has been surrounding Russia and China with military bases, and has recently accelerated the installations of anti-missile systems on their borders, over the strong objections of Russia and China. The US is being intentionally provocative, and it is threatening vital interests of these potential adversaries. 

Alliances are being formed in response, on a bilateral basis, and in the form of the SCO. China and Russia are very close in their military cooperation, and technology sharing. Their strategic planning is based on the expectation of a US attack, and their strategic response is based on the principle of asymmetric warfare. For example, a million dollar missile capable of taking out a multi-billion dollar aircraft carrier. Or perhaps a handful of missiles capable of disabling the Pentagon's command-and-control satellite systems. 

Meanwhile the US is spending astronomical sums developing a first-strike capability, with space-based weapons systems, control-of-theater capability, forward-based 'tactical' nukes, etc. The new anti-missile systems are an important part of a first-strike strategy, reducing the ability of Russia or China to retaliate. These systems are more than just provocative. They are the modern equivalent of marching your armies up to your adversary's border.

If there is a nuclear exchange between the major powers, historians will cite all of these things I've mentioned as 'obvious signs' that war was coming. Parallels would be drawn to the pre-World War 1 scenario, when Germany was eclipsing Britain economically, as China is eclipsing the US now. In both cases a 'desperate attempt to maintain hegemony' would be seen as the cause of the war. 

There may or may not be a World War 3, but all of these preparations make it clear that our banking elite intend to preside over a global system, by hook or by crook. If they wanted a peaceful arrangement, a splitting of the third-world pie, so to speak, it could be easily arranged at any time, along with substantial nuclear disarmament. China and Russia would like to see a stable, multi-polar world; it is only our elite bankers who are obsessed with world domination.

It is possible that nuclear war is a 'desired outcome', accomplishing depopulation, and making the collapse even more total. Or perhaps China and Russia will be given an offer they can't refuse: 'Surrender your economic sovereignty to our global system, or face the consequences'. 

One way or another, the elite bankers, the masters of the universe, intend to preside over a micromanaged global system. The collapse project is now well underway, and the 'surround your enemy' project seems to be more or less completed. From a strategic perspective, there will be some trigger point, some stage in the economic collapse scenario, when geopolitical confrontation is judged to be most advantageous. It's a multi-dimensional chess board, and with the stakes so high, you can rest assured that the timing of the various moves will be carefully coordinated. And from the overall shape of the board, we seem to be nearing the endgame.

Prognosis 2012 – a Neo Dark Age

2012 might not be the exact year, but it's difficult to see the endgame lasting much beyond that, and the masters of the universe love symbolism, as with 911 (both in Chile and in Manhattan), KLA 007, and others. 2012 is loaded with symbolism, eg. the Mayan Calendar, and the Internet is buzzing with various 2012-related prophecies, survival strategies, anticipated alien interventions, alignments with galactic radiation fields, etc. And then there is the Hollywood film, 2012, which explicitly portrays the demise of most of humanity, and the pre-planned salvation of a select few. One never knows with Hollywood productions, what is escapist fantasy, and what is aimed at preparing the public mind symbolically for what is to come. 

Whatever the exact date, all the threads will come together, geopolitically and domestically, and the world will change. It will be a new era, just as capitalism was a new era after aristocracy, and the Dark Ages followed the era of the Roman Empire. Each era has its own structure, its own economics, its own social forms, and its own mythology. These things must relate to one another coherently, and their nature follows from the fundamental power relationships and economic circumstances of the system.

In our post-2012 world, we have for the first time one centralized global government, and one ruling elite clique, a kind of extended royal family, the lords of finance. As we can see with the IMF, WHO, and the WTO, and the other pieces of the embryonic world government, the institutions of governance will make no pretensions about popular representation or democratic responsiveness. Rule will be by means of autocratic global bureaucracies, who take their marching orders from the royal family. This model has already been operating for some time, within its various spheres of influence, as with the restructuring programs forced on the third world, as a condition for getting financing. 

Whenever there is a change of era, the previous era is always demonized in mythology. In the Garden of Eden story the serpent is demonized – a revered symbol in paganism, the predecessor to Christianity. When republics came along, the demonization of monarchs  was an important part of the process. In the post-2012 world, democracy and national sovereignty will be demonized. This will be very important, in getting people to accept totalitarian rule, and the mythology will contain much that is true...

In those terrible dark days, before the blessed unification of humanity, anarchy reigned in the world. One nation would attack another, no better than predators in the wild. Nations had no coherent policies; voters would swing from one party to another, keeping governments always in transition and confusion. How did they ever think that masses of semi-educated people could govern themselves, and run a complex society? Democracy was an ill-conceived experiment that led only to corruption and chaotic governance. How lucky we are to be in this well-ordered world, where humanity has finally grown up, and those with the best expertise make the decisions.

The economics of non-growth are radically different than capitalist economics. The unit of exchange is likely to be a carbon credit, entitling you to consume the equivalent of one kilogram of fuel. Everything will have a carbon value, allegedly based on how much energy it took to produce it and transport it to market. 'Green consciousness' will be a primary ethic, conditioned early into children. Getting by with less is a virtue; using energy is anti-social; austerity is a responsible and necessary condition.

As with every currency, the bankers will want to manage the scarcity of carbon credits, and that's where global warming alarmism becomes important. Regardless of the availability of resources, carbon credits can be kept arbitrarily scarce simply by setting carbon budgets, based on directives from the IPCC, another of our emerging units of global bureaucratic governance. Such IPCC directives will be the equivalent of the Federal Reserve announcing a change in interest rates. Those budgets set the scale of economic activity.

Presumably nations will continue to exist, as official units of governance. However security and policing will be largely centralized and privatized. Like the Roman Legions, the security apparatus will be loyal to the center of empire, not to the place where someone happens to be stationed. We have seen this trend already in the US, as mercenaries have become big business, and police forces are increasingly federalized, militarized, and alienated from the general public.

Just as airports have now been federalized, all transport systems will be under the jurisdiction of the security apparatus. Terrorism will continue as an ongoing bogey-man, justifying whatever security procedures are deemed desirable for social-control purposes. The whole security apparatus will have a monolithic quality to it, a similarity of character regardless of the specific security tasks or location. Everyone dressed in the same Evil Empire black outfits, with big florescent letters on the back of their flack jackets. In essence, the security apparatus will be an occupying army, the emperor's garrison in the provinces.

On a daily basis, you will need to go through checkpoints of various kinds, with varying levels of security requirements. This is where biometrics becomes important. If people can be implanted with chips, then much of the security can be automated, and everyone can be tracked at at all times, and their past activity retrieved. The chip links into your credit balance, so you've got all your currency always with you, along with your medical records and lots else that you don't know about. 

There is very little left as regards national sovereignty. Nothing much in the way of foreign policy will have any meaning. With security marching to its own law and its distant drummer, the main role of so-called 'government' will be to allocate and administer the carbon-credit budget that it receives from the IPCC. The IPCC decides how much wealth a nation will receive in a given year, and the government then decides how to distribute that wealth in the form of public services and entitlements. Wealth being measured by the entitlement to expend energy.

In a fundamental sense, this is how things already are, following the collapse and the bailouts. Because governments are so deeply in debt, the bankers are able to dictate the terms of national budgets, as a condition of keeping credit lines open. The carbon economy, with its centrally determined budgets, provides a much simpler and more direct way of micromanaging economic activity and resource distribution throughout the globe.

In order to clear the way for the carbon-credit economy, it will be necessary for Western currencies to collapse, to become worthless, as nations become increasingly insolvent, and the global financial system continues to be systematically dismantled. The carbon currency will be introduced as an enlightened, progressive 'solution' to the crisis, a currency linked to something real, and to sustainability. The old monetary system will be demonized, and again the mythology will contain much that is true...

The pursuit of money is the root of all evil, and the capitalist system was inherently evil. It encouraged greed, and consumption, and it cared nothing about wasting resources. People thought the more money they had, the better off they were. How much wiser we are now, to live within our means, and to understand that a credit is a token of stewardship.

Culturally, the post-capitalist era will be a bit like the medieval era, with aristocrats and lords on top, and the rest peasants and serfs. A definite upper class and lower class. Just as only the old upper class had horses and carriages, only the new upper class will be entitled to access substantial carbon credits. Wealth will be measured by entitlements, more than by acquisitions or earnings. Those outside the bureaucratic hierarchies are the serfs, with subsistence entitlements. Within the bureaucracies, entitlements are related to rank in the hierarchy. Those who operate in the central global institutions are lords of empire, with unlimited access to credits.

But there is no sequestering of wealth, or building of economic empires, outside the structures of the designated bureaucracies. Entitlements are about access to resources and facilities, to be used or not used, but not to be saved and used as capital. The flow of entitlements comes downward, micromanaged from the top. It's a dole economy, at all levels, for people and governments alike – the global regimentation of consumption. As regards regimentation, the post-capitalist culture will also be a bit like the Soviet system. Here's your entitlement card, here's your job assignment, and here's where you'll be living. 

With the pervasive security apparatus, and the micromanagement of economic activity, the scenario is clearly about fine-grained social control, according to centralized guidelines and directives. Presumably media will be carefully programmed, with escapist trivia, and a sophisticated version of 1984-style groupthink propaganda pseudo-news, which is pretty much what we already have today. The non-commercial Internet, if there is one, will be limited to monitored, officially-designated chat sites, and other kinds of sanitized forums. 

With such a focus on social micromanagement, I do not expect the family unit to survive in the new era, and I expect child-abuse alarmism will be the lever used to destabilize the family. The stage has been set with all the revelations about church and institutional child sexual abuse. Such revelations could have been uncovered any time in the past century, but they came out at a certain time, just as all these other transitional things have been happening. People are now aware that widespread child abuse happens, and they have been conditioned to support strong measures to prevent it.

Whenever I turn on the TV, I see at least one public-service ad, with shocking images, about children who are physically or sexually abused, or criminally neglected, in their homes, and there's a hotline phone number that children can call. It is easy to see how the category of abuse can be expanded, to include parents who don't follow vaccination schedules, whose purchase records don't indicate healthy diets, who have dubious psychological profiles, etc. The state of poverty could be deemed abusive neglect. 

With the right media presentation, abuse alarmism would be easy to stir up. Ultimately, a 'child rights' movement becomes an anti-family movement. The state must directly protect the child from birth. The family is demonized...

How scary were the old days, when unlicensed, untrained couples had total control over vulnerable children, behind closed doors, with whatever neuroses, addictions, or perversions the parents happened to possess. How did this vestige of patriarchal slavery, this safe-house den of abuse, continue so long to exist, and not be recognized for what it was? How much better off we are now, with children being raised scientifically, by trained staff, where they are taught healthy values. 

Ever since public education was introduced, the state and the family have competed to control childhood conditioning. In religious families, the church has made its own contribution to conditioning. In the micromanaged post-capitalist future, with its Shock Doctrine birth scenario, it would make good sense to take that opportunity to implement the 'final solution' of social control, which is for the state to monopolize child raising. This would eliminate from society the parent-child bond, and hence family-related bonds in general. No longer is there a concept of relatives. There's just worker bees, security bees, and queen bees, who dole out the honey. 

Postscript

This has been an extensive and somewhat detailed prognosis, regarding the architecture of the post-capitalist regime, and the transition process required to bring it about. The term 'new world order' is too weak a term to characterize the radical nature of the social transformation anticipated in the prognosis. A more apt characterization would be a 'quantum leap in the domestication of the human species'. Micromanaged lives and microprogrammed beliefs and thoughts. A once wild primate species transformed into something resembling more a bee or ant culture. Needless to say, regular use of psychotropic drugs would be mandated, so that people could cope emotionally with such a sterile, inhuman environment.

For such a profound transformation to be possible, it is easy to see that a very great shock is required, on the scale of collapse and social chaos, and possibly on the scale of a nuclear exchange. There needs to be an implicit mandate to 'do whatever is necessary to get society running again'. The shock needs to leave people in a condition of total helplessness comparable to the survivors in the bombed-out rubble of Germany and Japan after World War 2. Nothing less will do.

The accuracy of the prognosis, as prediction, is of course impossible to know in advance. However each part of the prognosis has been based on precedents that have been set, modus operandi that has been observed, trends that have been initiated, sentiments that have been expressed, signals that have been given, and actions that have been taken whose consequences can be confidently predicted. 

In addition, in looking at all of these indicators together, one sees a certain mindset, an absolutist determination to implement the 'ideal solution', without compromise, using extreme means, and with unbridled audacity. World wars have been rehearsals for this historic moment. The police state infrastructure is in place and has been tested. The economy is in the process of collapse. The enemy is surrounded with missiles. Arbitrary powers have been assumed. If not now, the ultimate prize, then when will there be a better opportunity?

Our elite planners are backed up by competent think tanks, and they know that the new society must have coherence of various kinds. They've had quite a bit of experience with social engineering, nurturing the rise of fascism, and then engineering the postwar regimes. They understand the importance of mythology. 

For example there is the mythology of the holocaust, where the story is all about extermination per se, and the story is not told of the primary mission of the concentration camps, which was to provide slave labor for war production. And some of the companies using the slave labor were American owned, and were supplying the German war machine. Thus does mythology, though containing truth, succeed in hiding the tracks and the crimes of elite perps, leaving others to carry the whole burden of historical demonization.

So I think there is a sound basis for anticipating the kinds of mythology that would be designed for leaving behind and rejecting the old ways, and seeing the new as a salvation. There is a long historical precedent of era changes linked with mythology changes, often expressed in religious terms. There will be a familiar ring to the new mythology, a remixing and re-prioritizing of familiar values and assumptions, so as to resonate with the dynamics of the new regime.

The nature of the carbon economy has been somewhat clearly signaled. Carbon budgets, and carbon credits, are clearly destined to become primary components of the economy. As we've seen with the elite and grassroots supported global warming movement, the arbitrary scarcity of carbon credits can be easily regulated on the pretext of environmentalism. And peak oil alarmism is always available as a backup. As elite spokespeople have often expressed, when the time comes, the masses will demand the new world order.

The focus on control over consumption, resources, and distribution is implicit in the emphasis on energy limits, is latent in the geopolitical situation, as regards depletion of global resources, and is indicated by the need for a new unifying paradigm, as the growth paradigm is no longer viable. 

The nature of the security apparatus has been clearly signaled by the responses to demonstrations ever since 1998 in Seattle, by the increased use of hardened-killer mercenaries at home and abroad, by excessive and abusive police behavior, by airport security procedures, by Guantanamo and renditions, by the creation of a domestic branch of the army, dedicated to responding to civil emergencies, and by the way Katrina and Haiti have been handled. 

It would be a major mistake to think of those last two as bungled operations. They were exercises in collapse management of a certain kind, to be applied to certain populations, where the training and equipment appropriate for combat in Afghanistan is seen as being appropriate for administering aid to civilian disaster victims. These selected disaster victims will be seen primarily as threats to civil order, or perhaps undesirables to be incarcerated or eliminated. They will be demonized as rioters and looters. Assistance will comes later, if at all. And it can all be broadcast on TV, and somehow be seen as the way things have to be. These two exercises were not bungled at all. They were alarmingly successful, most notably in the case of the realtime PR mythology.

The limited role of national governments, being primarily allocators of mandated budgets, has been clearly signaled by long-standing IMF policies in the third world, and by the way the bankers have been dictating to governments, in the wake of the over-extended bailout commitments. The carbon entitlement budgeting paradigm accomplishes the same micromanagement in a much more direct way, and is the natural outcome of the push toward hard carbon limits.

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