Home ReadUM&Weep back to home HOME
 ReadUM&Weep | Caley | THE COSMIC BULLET | 3newpages | 3Nu2timeout |
A confusing cacophony of shrill impressionistic mockery & hyperbolical name droppings claiming The End IS Neigh! Or some such poppycock.
|
next page below
Ya Don't Say
Do Ya Think?
Israeli Professor - 'We Could Destroy All European Capitals' By Nadim Ladki 2-6-3
1.zRead it and weep http://www.dieoff.org/page79.htm Home
|
"... in the first place, I put forth a general inclination of all mankind a perpetual and restless desire
of power after power, that ceaseth only in death."—Thomas Hobbes, LEVIATHAN
"His mind slid away into the labyrinthine world of doublethink. To know and not to know, to be
conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously
two opinions which canceled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them,
to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy
was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget, whatever it was
necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed,
and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process
itself—that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once
again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand
the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink." —George Orwell, 1984
|
THE FATAL FREEDOM
by Jay Hanson (Revised 8/29/97)
Exploit: To employ to the greatest possible advantage.
There is now scientific consensus that humanity is "unsustainable," and may have less than 35 years
before the "functional integrity" of its life-support
system is destroyed.
[1] Despite this staggering evidence of its colossal stupidity, humanity remains firmly committed to a paradoxical struggle against itself.
Moreover, caught by an insatiable drive for power [2]—like a school of sharks caught in a feeding frenzy—humanity resorts to self-deception and is conspicuously unable to rationally question
its own premises. In this essay, I endeavor to point out the fatal flaw inherent in capitalism
[3]: the fatal freedom to exploit the commons.
GENETIC ROOTS OF EXPLOITATION
A few million years ago, our ancestor Homo Habilis developed a hierarchical social life based on
hunting and gathering. Habilis males and females shared meat and produce, dividing jobs by gender:
child care and gathering to females, fighting and hunting to males. Habilis originated the hunter-
gatherer lifestyle that was to last for millions of years until the invention of settled agriculture.
Hunter-gatherers exploited an area until it was exhausted and then moved on to a new one.
For millions of years, exploitation contributed to survival of the species and evolution selected for
the best exploiters.
The transition to settled agriculture began around 12,000 years ago and was primarily subsistence
in nature. Farmers generally grew only enough food to feed themselves and their families.
Approximately 7000 years ago, the inventions of the plow and irrigation allowed food supplies to
increase by dramatically increasing the power of farmers to exploit nature. Instead of just exhausting
an area and moving on like the hunter-gatherers did, now farmers could totally devastate an area.
And then move.
"Some 4,400 years ago, the city-states of ancient Sumer in modern-day Iraq faced an unsettling
dilemma. Farmland was gradually accumulating salt, the byproduct of evaporating irrigation water.
Almost imperceptibly, the salt began to poison the rich soil, and over time harvests tapered off.
"Until 2400 BC, Sumerians had managed the problem of dwindling yields by cultivating new land,
thereby ensuring the consistent food surpluses needed to support their armies and bureaucracies.
But now they had reached the limits of agricultural expansion. And over the next three centuries,
accumulating salts drove crop yields down more than 40 percent. The crippled production,
combined with an ever-growing population, led to shrinking food reserves, which in turn reduced
the ranks of soldiers and civil servants. By 1800 BC, Sumerian agriculture had effectively
collapsed, and this once glorious civilization faded into obscurity." [4]
We knew that irrigation "inevitably leads to the salinization of soils and waters" [5] that long ago?!
But we have been doing it ever since?! Have we been deceiving ourselves for over 4000 years?
GENETIC ROOTS OF SELF-DECEPTION
In the late 50s, the social scientist Erving Goffman made a stir with a book called THE
PRESENTATION OF SELF IN EVERYDAY LIFE, that stressed how much time we all spend on
stage, playing to one audience or another. Goffman marveled that sometimes a person is "sincerely
convinced that the impression of reality which he stages is the real reality."
What modern evolution theory brings to Goffman's observation is an explanation of the practical
function of self-deception: we deceive ourselves in order to deceive others better. In his foreword to
Richard Dawkins' THE SELFISH GENE, Robert Trivers noted Dawkins' emphasis on the role of
deception in animal life and added, in a much-cited passage, that if indeed "deceit is fundamental to
animal communication, then there must be strong selection to spot deception and this ought, in
turn, to select for a degree of self-deception, rendering some facts and motives unconscious so as
not to betray—by the subtle signs of self-knowledge—the deception being practiced." Thus, "the
conventional view that natural selection favors nervous systems which produce ever more accurate
For about 40,000 years, self-deception also contributed to survival and social evolution selected for
the best self-deceivers! [7] Indeed, self-deception and exploitation certainly seem to be what we do
best.
THE TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS
|
A "commons" is any resource used as though it belongs to all. In other words, when anyone can use
a shared resource simply because one wants or needs to use it, then one is using a commons. For
example, all land is part of our commons because it is a component of our life support and social
systems. A commons is destroyed by uncontrolled use—neither intent of the user, nor ownership
are important. An example of uncontrolled use is when one can use land (part of our commons)
any way one wants.
|
The inevitable outcome of self-deception and exploitation is brilliantly illustrated in Garrett Hardin's
classic, THE TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS (1968). The "commons" refers to the common
resources that are owned by everyone. The "tragedy" occurs as the result of everyone having the
fatal freedom to exploit the commons.
Hardin's essay goes something like this: Visualize a pasture as a system that is open to everyone.
The carrying capacity of this pasture is 10 animals. Ten herdsmen are each grazing an animal to
fatten up for market. In other words, all the grass that the pasture can produce is now being
consumed by the 10 animals.
Harry (one of the herdsmen) will add one more animal to the pasture if he can make a profit. He
subtracts the original cost of the new animal from the expected sales price of the fattened animal
and then considers the cost of the food. Adding one more animal will mean less food for each of the
present animals, but since Harry only has only 1/10 of the herd, he has to pay only 1/10 of the cost.
Harry decides to exploit the commons and the other herdsmen, so he adds an animal and takes a
profit. Shrinking profit margins force the other herdsmen either to go out of business or continue the
exploitation by adding more animals. This process of mutual exploitation continues until overgrazing
and erosion destroy the pasture system, and all the herdsmen are driven out of business.
Although Hardin describes exploitation in an unregulated public pasture, the pasture also serves as
a metaphor for our entire society. Our communities are the commons. Our schools are the
commons. Our roads, our air, our water; we ourselves are the commons!
There is no "technological" solution to this fatal flaw in capitalism. A "political" solution is theoretically
possible: prohibit freedom in the commons. But with capitalism serving as our political
system (one-dollar-one-vote), there is no political solution either! [8]
Most importantly, Hardin illustrates the critical flaw of freedom in the commons: all participants must
agree to conserve the commons, but any one can force the destruction of the commons. Thus, as
long as we are free to exploit the commons, we are locked into a paradoxical struggle against
ourselves—a terrible struggle that must end in universal ruin.
HOBBES' PERMANENT WAR OF ALL AGAINST ALL
Three-hundred years before Hardin, the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes anticipated the
inevitable outcome of freedom in the commons in LEVIATHAN (1651):
"And because the condition of man . . . is a condition of war of every one against every one, in
which case every one is governed by his own reason, and there is nothing he can make use of
that may not be a help unto him in preserving his life against his enemies; it followeth that in such
a condition every man has a right to every thing, even to one another's body. And therefore, as
long as this natural right of every man to every thing endureth, there can be no security to any
man . . . "
"To this war of every man against every man, this also is consequent; that nothing can be unjust.
The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have there no place. Where there is no
common power, there is no law; where no law, no injustice. Force and fraud are in war the two
cardinal virtues."
Every social phenomenon, according to Hobbes, is based upon a drive for power that emerges
when individuals compare themselves to other individuals. The result is that the objects one seeks
to obtain are not pursued for their own sake, but because someone else also seeks to obtain them.
"Scarcity" is the relationship between unlimited desire and limited means. For Hobbes, scarcity is
a permanent condition of humanity caused by the continuous, innate drive for power.
Society becomes a lifeboat in which all the passengers are fighting each other. In order to escape
universal ruin, men will create a great Leviathan, a semi-absolute state that controls its subjects and
prevents permanent scarcity from developing into a war of "all-against-all."
LOCKE'S TEMPORARY WAR OF ALL AGAINST NATURE
From Plato to our present society, we can trace the faith in human reason through the ideas of
Aristotle, Bacon, Descartes, Hobbes, and especially the English philosopher John Locke. In his
SECOND TREATISE OF GOVERNMENT (1690), Locke argued that there is a natural law
governing humans and that it can be known by human reason: "The state of nature has a law of
nature to govern it . . . that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his
life, health, liberty, or possessions."
Locke did not accept Hobbes' idea that scarcity results from an innate drive for power. Locke said
it was the invention of money that caused scarcity. Prior to money, it was solely the usefulness of
things that counted, and every man should have only as much property as he needed. [9] Money
caused scarcity by enabling a man "to enlarge his possessions" more than he needed. [10]
Although Locke saw money as the source of the problem, he also saw that "improving" the earth
could help to alleviate scarcity. [11] Moreover, improving the earth didn't harm anyone because
there was still plenty of land left: "Nor was this appropriation of any parcel of land, by improving
it, any prejudice to any other man, since there was still enough, and as good left; and more than
the yet unprovided could use."
So rather than attack the source of the problem as Hobbes did, Locke chose instead to treat the
symptoms by attacking nature. No doubt the great moralist would have followed Hobbes for social
reform if all the land had been taken. Thus, Locke's temporary—till the land is gone—answer to the
scarcity caused by money was to exploit the earth, and Hobbes' permanent war of "all-against-all"
was reflected in Locke's temporary war of "all-against-nature."
Locke's ideas legitimized colonialism as a quest to alleviate scarcity. For example, America was
an empty continent that could be exploited to help alleviate the effects of scarcity in Europe.
Cecil Rhodes, a well-known imperialist of the last century, even wrote about the necessity
of an ongoingexploitation of the universe: "I would annex the planets if I could." More recently, former president Reagan in a speech after the failure of the Challenger, told the American people that we have to conquer space in order to overcome war, scarcity, and misery on earth.
His argument for more exploitation is exactly the same as that given by Locke in the seventeenth century. Both Hobbes and Locke knew that scarcity originates in human relations and that people trying to escape scarcity would inadvertently spread and propagate it to the ends of the earth.
Even into outer space.
From the beginning, rationality has never held a prominent place in our society. In the final analysis,
the call for endless economic growth is rooted in a hidden, insatiable drive for power; rational
debate rarely manages to bring this fact out into the open, let alone confront it. Modern society
remains a crumbling monument to self-deception and exploitation.
DEAD END
"Every man . . . is left perfectly free to pursue his own interests in his own way, and to bring both
his industry and capital into competition with those of any other man, or order of men."—Adam
Smith (1776)
"We human beings are being led into a dead end—all too literally. We are living by an ideology
of death and accordingly we are destroying our own humanity and killing the planet. Even the
one great success of the program that has governed us, the attainment of material affluence, is
now giving way to poverty. The United States is just now gaining a foretaste of the suffering that
global economic policies, so enthusiastically embraced, have inflicted on hundreds of millions of
others. If we continue on our present paths, future generations, if there are to be any, are
condemned to misery." —Daly and Cobb (1989)
It is now obvious to anyone brave enough to look, that our continuing self-deception and exploitation
no longer contribute to the survival of the species. If we are to survive, we must now recognize the
necessity of giving up the fatal freedom to exploit the commons. Locke's temporary war of all-
against-nature must now come to an end.
When a society is free to rob banks, it is less free, not more so. When individuals mutually agreed
(passed laws) not to rob banks—gave up the freedom to rob banks—they became more free, not
less so. Only by giving up our fatal freedom can we free ourselves from the inexorable, deadly logic
of the commons. Only then can we become free to establish a new organizing principle for
humanity.
We've known for 4000 years that freedom in the commons brings ruin to all. . . . What are we
waiting for?
|
[1] In 1992, the two most prestigious scientific institutions in the world, the National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society, issued POPULATION GROWTH, RESOURCE CONSUMPTION, AND A SUSTAINABLE WORLD which ended with: "The future of our planet is in the balance. Sustainable development can be achieved, but only if irreversible degradation of the environment can be halted in time. The next 30 years may be crucial." Archived http://dieoff.com/page7.htm
Also in 1992, a WARNING TO HUMANITY was issued by the Union of Concerned Scientists that began: "Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources. If not checked, many of our current practices put at serious risk the future that we wish for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know. Fundamental changes are urgent if we are to avoid the collision our present course will bring about." This warning was signed by over 1,500 members of national, regional, and international science academies. Sixty-nine nations from all parts of Earth are represented, including each of the twelve most populous nations and the nineteen largest economic powers. It was also signed by 99 Nobel Prize winners. Archived http://dieoff.com/page8.htm
And finally, in 1993, THE GROWING WORLD POPULATION, a joint statement by 58 of the world's scientific academies said: "In our judgement, humanity's ability to deal successfully with its social, economic, and environmental problems will require the achievement of zero population growth within the lifetime of our children." Archived http://dieoff.com/page75.htm
[2] The drive for power is the process by which we seek predictability as a means of avoiding or reducing anxiety. The more we feel in control, the more we can relax. The more power we have been granted or won or achieved, the more we generally assume we will be able to maintain control. [3] Here when I use the term "capitalism", I refer to American capitalism. From an ecological point of view, capitalism may be seen as an organized process to ingest natural, living systems (including people) in one end, and excrete unnatural, dead garbage and waste (including wasted people) out the other. From a thermodynamic view, capitalism may be seen as the conversion of low-entropy matter/energy into high-entropy matter/energy. From an economic view, capitalism may be seen as the high-speed depletion of natural capital. From a political view, capitalism may be seen as the world's dominant political system—one-dollar-one-vote. [4] p. 5, SHRINKING FIELDS: Cropland Loss in a World of Eight Billion, Gary Gardner; Worldwatch Institute, Paper #131, July 1996. Worldwatch Institute,
1776 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20036,
Phone: 202-452-1999; FAX: 202-296-7365, wwpub@igc.apc.org, http://www.worldwatch.org/
INNATE EXPLOITATION
"Some years ago, I read of a species of tiny woodland wasp that lives on mushrooms. It seems that
when a wandering female wasp chances upon the right kind of mushroom in the forest, she deposits
her eggs within it. Almost immediately, the eggs hatch and the tiny grubs begin literally to eat
themselves out of house and home. The little maggots grow rapidly, but soon something very odd
happens. The eggs in the larvaes' own ovaries hatch while still inside their immature mothers. This
second generation of parthenogenic grubs quickly consumes its parents from within, then breaks
out of the empty shells to continue feeding on the mushroom. This seemingly gruesome process
may repeat itself for another generation. It doesn't take long before the entire mushroom is over-
filled by squirming maggots and fouled by their bodily wastes. The exploding population of juvenile
wasps consumes virtually its entire habitat which is the signal for the largest and most mature of the
larvae to pupate. The few individuals that manage to emerge as mature adults then abandon their mouldering birthplace, flying off to begin the whole process over again.
"We wrote this book in the belief that the bizarre life-cycle of the mushroom wasps may offer a
lesson to humankind. The tiny wasps' weird reproductive strategy has apparently evolved under
extreme competitive pressure. Good mushrooms—like good planets—are hard to find. Natural
selection therefore favored those individual wasps and reproductive traits that were most
successful in appropriating the available supply of essential resources (the mushroom) before
the competition had arrived or became established." OUR ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT,
Wackernagel and Rees; New Society Pub.,
1996; ISBN 0-86571-312-X Phone: 800-253-3605
[6] pp. 263-264, THE MORAL ANIMAL, Robert Wright; Pantheon, 1994; ISBN 0-679-40773-1.
[7] leedean@ix.netcom.com says: "If you subscribe to the idea that religious or spiritual beliefs contain self-deceptive aspects, then
the first archeological evidence of self-deception occurs in Western Europe approximately 30,000
to 40,000 years ago. A profound change in behavior took place at this time. In fact, this segment
of human development has been referred to as 'the creative explosion' or 'cultural takeoff.' In
addition to evidence of ritualized religious behavior, art, music, jewelry for personal adornment,
trappings of status, and even the concept of inherited status, suddenly appears in the archeological
record.
"We have physically evolved very little in the past one hundred thousand years—and certainly not
in the past 30,000. So I would have to say that self-deception had little or nothing to do with our
physical evolution. Self-deception, no doubt, played a substantial role in our cultural evolution.
"Humans are the only animals known to self-deceive. There is no evidence to suggest that any
other species besides our own possesses this capability. At a conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences in 1991, Washington University anthropologist
Robert Sussman said, 'Self-deception is what separates us qualitatively from all other animals
and even early hominids.'
"Hierachies certainly exist within animal groups. But, a hierachial system does not need
deception or self-deception to exist. Science generally recognizes two types of thinking.
Concrete thinking—thought that occurs within the realm of the senses—is the form of thinking
found in most animals. Concrete thinking is a linear progression like beads on a string or rungs
on a ladder.
"Abstract reasoning is the second form of thinking and is found in only a few species: humans,
chimps, gorillas, dolphins, etc. Since an intentional lie is an abstraction, only animals with brains
complex enough for abstract reasoning can intentionally deceive. A chimpanzee is a notorious liar.
But it takes the even more complex brain of a human to self-deceive. Self-deception is a relative
newcomer on the behavioral scene. It didn't help make us human. Self-deception didn't exist until
human brains reached their current level of complexity. In short, self-deception had no part in
making us—we made self-deception."
[9] ". . . what portion a man carved to himself, was easily seen; and it was useless, as well as dishonest, to carve himself too much, or take more than he needed."
[10] ". . . there is land enough in the world to suffice double the inhabitants, had not the invention of money, and the tacit agreement of men to put a value on it, introduced (by consent) larger
possessions, and a right to them . . ." Locke continues, "Thus in the beginning all the world was
America, and more so than that is now; for no such thing as money was any where known. Find
out something that hath the use and value of money amongst his neighbours, you shall see the
same man will begin presently to enlarge his possessions."
[11] "God and his reason commanded [man] to subdue the earth, i.e. improve it for the benefit of life . . ." Locke said that the earth needs improving because nature herself is nearly worthless:
"I think it will be but a very modest computation to say, that of the products of the earth useful to
the life of man nine tenths are the effects of labour: nay, if we will rightly estimate things as they
come to our use, and cast up the several expences about them, what in them is purely owing to nature, and what to labour, we shall find, that in most of them ninety-nine hundredths are wholly to
be put on the account of labour." Hobbes Locke and Smith are available several places on the
web.
See, for example: http://dorit.ihi.ku.dk/~peterr/histphil.html
THE TRAGEDY OF THE COMMON REVISITED
by Beryl Crowe (1969)
reprinted in MANAGING THE COMMONS
by Garrett Hardin and John Baden
W.H. Freeman, 1977; ISBN 0-7167-0476-5
"There has developed in the contemporary natural sciences a recognition that there is a subset
of problems, such as population, atomic war, and environmental corruption, for which there are
no technical solutions.
"There is also an increasing recognition among contemporary social scientists that there is a
subset of problems, such as population, atomic war, environmental corruption, and the recovery
of a livable urban environment, for which there are no current political solutions. The thesis of this
article is that the common area shared by these two subsets contains most of the critical problems
that threaten the very existence of contemporary man." [p. 53]
ASSUMPTIONS NECESSARY TO AVOID THE TRAGEDY
"In passing the technically insoluble problems over to the political and social realm for solution,
Hardin made three critical assumptions:(1) that there exists, or can be developed, a 'criterion
of judgment and system of weighting . . .' that will 'render the incommensurables . . .
commensurable . . . ' in real life;(2) that, possessing this criterion of judgment, 'coercion can
be mutually agreed upon,' and tha the application of coercion to effect a solution to problems
will be effective in modern society; and (3) that the administrative system, supported by the
criterion of judgment and access to coercion, can and will protect the commons from further desecration." [p. 55]
ERODING MYTH OF THE COMMON VALUE SYSTEM
"In America there existed, until very recently, a set of conditions which perhaps made the
solution to Hardin's subset possible; we lived with the myth that we were 'one people,
indivisible. . . .' This myth postulated that we were the great 'melting pot' of the world
wherein the diverse cultural ores of Europe were poured into the crucible of the frontier
experience to produce a new alloy -- an American civilization. This new civilization was
presumably united by a common value system that was democratic, equalitarian, and
existing under universally enforceable rules contained in the Constitution and the Bill of
Rights.
"In the United States today, however, there is emerging a new set of behavior patterns which
suggest that the myth is either dead or dying. Instead of believing and behaving in accordance
with the myth, large sectors of the population are developing life-styles and value hierarchies
that give contemporary Americans an appearance more closely analogous to the particularistic,
primitive forms of 'tribal' organizations in geographic proximity than to that shining new alloy,
the American civilization." [p. 56]
"Looking at a more recent analysis of the sickness of the core city, Wallace F. Smith has argued
that the productive model of the city is no longer viable for the purposes of economic analysis.
Instead, he develops a model of the city as a site for leisure consumption, and then seems to
suggest that the nature of this model is such is such that the city cannot regain its health because
the leisure demands are value-based and, hence do not admit to compromise and
accommodation; consequently there is no way of deciding among these value- oriented
demands that are being made on the core city.
"In looking for the cause of the erosion of the myth of a common value system, it seems to me
that so long as our perceptions and knowledge of other groups were formed largely through the
written media of communication, the American myth that we were a giant melting pot of
equalitarians could be sustained. In such a perceptual field it is tenable, if not obvious, that men
are motivated by interests. Interests can always be compromised and accommodated without undermining our very being by sacrificing values. Under the impact of electronic media, however,
this psychological distance has broken down and now we discover that these people with whom
we could formerly compromise on interests are not, after all, really motivated by interests but by
values. Their behavior in our very living room betrays a set of values, moreover, that are
incompatible with our own, and consequently the compromises that we make are not those of
contract but of culture. While the former are acceptable, any form of compromise on the latter is
not a form of rational behavior but is rather a clear case of either apostasy or heresy. Thus we
have arrived not at an age of accommodation but one of confrontation. In such an age
'incommensurables' remain 'incommensurable' in real life." [p. 59]
EROSION OF THE MYTH OF THE MONOPOLY OF COERCIVE FORCE
"In the past, those who no longer subscribed to the values of the dominant culture were held in
check by the myth that the state possessed a monopoly on coercive force. This myth has
undergone continual erosion since the end of World War II owing to the success of the strategy
of guerrilla warfare, as first revealed to the French in Indochina, and later conclusively demonstrated
in Algeria.
Suffering as we do from what Senator Fulbright has called 'the arrogance of power,' we have
been extremely slow to learn the lesson in Vietnam, although we now realize that war is political
and cannot be won by military means. It is apparent that the myth of the monopoly of coercive
force as it was first qualified in the civil rights conflict in the South, then in our urban ghettos, next
on the streets of Chicago, and now on our college campuses has lost its hold over the minds of
Americans.
The technology of guerrilla warfare has made it evident that, while the state can win battles, it
cannot win wars of values. Coercive force which is centered in the modern state cannot be
sustained in the face of the active resistance of some 10 percent of the population unless the
state is willing to embark on a deliberate policy of genocide directed against the value dissident
groups. The factor that sustained the myth of coercive force in the past was the acceptance of a
common value system. Whether the latter exists is questionable in the modern nation-state."
[p.p. 59-60]
EROSION OF THE MYTH OF ADMINISTRATORS OF THE COMMONS
"Indeed, the process has been so widely commented upon that one writer postulated a common
life all holders of interest in the commons. This phase is followed by the symbolic reassurance of
the offended as the agency goes into operation, developing a period of political quiescence among
the great majority of those who hold a general but unorganized interest in the commons. Once this
political quiescence has developed, the highly organized and specifically interested groups who
processes to convert the agency to the protection and furthering of their interests. In the last phase
even staffing of the regulating agency is accomplished by drawing the agency administrators from
the ranks of the regulated." [p.p. 60-61]
|
2.zThis may be the classic example of "subject object disorientation" with indeterminate topical vectors, mixing metaphoric parameters
within temporal verses corporal time chucked in for good measure.
Subject: Thoughts
(1)
Peace,
European music used to be improvised. The masters like Bach and a few after him
were very good at it; within their own tradition. They believed (the result of Christian
psychological residuals) that the universe operated like a mathematical clockwork.
These laws were believed to be observable but unalterable. It got worse due to the
collaboration of two elements that ruined European /Western civilization's potential:
supra-national / nomadic Judeo-Zionism and the oligarichal Christian Empire.
The damage to European music is an after effect of their stranglehold on Western
finance and economy. It is a symptom of the deliberate diversion of the progress of
Western civilization from it's natural path.
The fact of it being a Judao-Christian phenomenon is due to the danger of organized
religion's subjectification of the Divine.
Judaism lost its connection with the Spirit; and Jesus attempted to rectify this.
His efforts met with only specified success.
Centuries later, the death of Azkenazian Jewery drove the final nail in the coffin
of Judaism:
and the dominance of Pauline Trinitarianism did the same for Christianity.
During the Middle Ages, Medieval Christian mysticism practiced a sort of
"Christian Magic" where God could be influenced by talismanic practices.
[Most all religion is predicated on "magic" or something for nothing ED]
The Church, however, inflicted a hierarchal order upon the mystical system; which was
incompatible with logic and rationality. This trend toward logic, a retrogression into
Greco-Roman civilization, paved the way for the Reformation.
Martian Luther, apart from his famous defiling of Church authority, also did two
other things. One, he abolished the sacraments, putting an end to the magical world;
and two, he introduced the concept of an arbitrary Will of God.
This "freed" God form accountability for incomprehensible events ("the Lord works
in mysterious ways"). In this; the rational and magical were both abolished. This paved
the way for the further division between the Divine and the rational.
In 1637, Descartes wrote in the Discourse of Method of the existence of an immortal
soul, the phenomenal world, and God. This was the opposite of idealism in that he
denied the idea of God within man. Both God and man exist, but they were separate
and both were separate from nature.
The French Revolution signaled the beginning of the Enlightenment. Some belive
the Enlightenment (whose very name strongly suggests a connection with Adam
Weischaupt and his group, the Order of Bavarian Illuminated Seers: i.e. the Illuminati)
was not a philosophy at all, but a modernist political ideology. Reason was used as
a weapon to destroy absolute monarchy.
The proponent’s of the Enlightenment struck at the roots of not only the Church, but
at the very Faith that the Church was founded upon. It instilled in humanity the idea
that there was nothing sacred, and no social order. The substituted Original Sin with
man's natural goodness, guilt with hope. But in doing so, the removed from humanity
any connection with Transcendence: i.e. an inner experience of the Divine.
Thus, while human beings require the obedience to something greater than themselves,
the absence of God needed to be substituted with a political and economical state.
Good and evil were, and are to this day, defined solely by social utility.
Rationality experienced an apotheosis from a method of processing sensory and
intellectual artifacts to a state of deiefication.
The triumph of capitalism, industrialism, and technology carried within it the seeds
of its own destruction: post-modernism Freud launched an attack upon the ideology
of modernism; and convinced the West that the rational ego floated like an island in
a sea of irrationality.
Rationality and consciousness were components of the human mind; and without the
template of technology and economy, no human activities could be based upon rational
decision.
When capitalism and democracy could not be reconciled by modernity, the State did
so through authoritarianism and totalitarianism. This was the final death-knell for
theocracy (there are no theocracies in the world today. Not a single one); and
political philosophies assumed absolute power. Totalitarianism utilized technology
as a means not for the enlightenment and upliftment of humanity, but for the security
of its own power - as no hierarchal society can be sustained by human equality.
Poverty and ignorance must, in this case, be systematically sustained in the
preservation of the pyramidal structure of totalitarian hierarchy.
The 20th century saw a crisis of modernity when it transformed from limited
modernity to full modernity.
Industrial society was replaced by a market society. Today, modernity no longer
needs rationality: it is based on the gratification of artificialy manufactured needs
and desires.
Ours is an age of cultural pluralism combined with moral relativism.
We reject symbols because they refer to a supra-human existence.
We reject depth or the distance between sign and meaning.
SIGNS have no significance beyond themselves; and are therefore meaningless.
It is entirely materialist.
This leads to a phenomenon which can best be described as anti-humansim.
Modernity is abolishing itself; and replaced by the Nietzschean concept of nilism.
Since this is antithetical to true human nature, there will always be within it a self-
destruct mechanism.
Human beings need to reach beyond themsleves toward a state of transience.
This is impossible in a world defined by the finite: i.e. materialism.
The overwhelming majority of humanity is looking for the right thing in the wrong
place.
You will notice that each historical artifact I mentioned has been paralleled in the
development of music.
Throughout, there were the innovators (Bach, Paganini, Duke, Coltrane, Hendrix,
Attar, Monk, Shankar, etc.) who attempted a return to the transient and "magical"
with no conflict with the rational. Individually, they achieved a balance between the two
supposedly conflicting ideas (I say supposedly because the conflict is not necessary,
nor is it inevitable).
Without exception, their accomplishments were at first rejected, then embraced,
then imperceptible drawn into the pall of static intellectualism marked by a tendency
to pull apart the essence of the music like a little boy ripping daddy's watch apart to
see how it works. This, always being guided by the inexorable ebb and flow of
market and economic powers.
Ma'a Salaam, Dawoud
L.
[I have deposited one comment within the text above at random as it were (the comment) is general to the
total concept of "High thought" verses "Clear Thought" thinking is not doing (You can say that again!)
I was once told "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." I prefer "follow (trace the path of) the money" or
Behind every grand crime there is or was a willing banker." or The world will not be "free" until the last priest
is strangled to death with the guts of the last lawyer.."
Possibly a rewrite or edit is warranted I would appreciate this text if it were more formal replete with foot notes
and quotes it is unhappily of topic not suited for most of the shambled texts hereon as it stops short of total
hysteria I have however posted it an other example of "personal code" which obscures the indirectly offered
apparent potential interest or assumptions that of cultural fungibles and perhaps contains some inklings of
useful representations of the ever popular vain glorious teen age angst gone to far within that classic esthetic
'''first thought Best thought. Be Well ED]
|
"Versa visa "
Think like an insect.
or I think like n' insect.
Or you think like you think like an insect.
All pheromones and exoskeleton with the sustained
Huummmmmmm humming about which no Human can know .
Really! I meant that in the nicest way .
You think you think Clean free of emotion but the visceral nature
of nature of the natural world mostly precludes all thought but
Have I enough food ? Yes do I mate to live ? must be day light I see!
I See I Cannot SEE I Flew ,down Up Abuzzing ,and a flaring of feathery flues on the wing glistening in the harshest realest sunlight . Blackness !
Crushing within brittle black beak of time in the me time and again known
as fact on off yes no binary world we deem the dream unknown seed as
hole tree is mammoth meal feeding twenty kind pupa of sticky blood red pollen sweat glistening as nightfall's is all encompassing as days go by
red fades from memory to be replaced by wasp Yellow jacket stinger
puss on back of neck or in corner of hapless wretching stung dogs eye.
Strike Sting snatch and grab as petty theft of ejaculated toxic spume murderous "Bug Bite" beetle Shell.
Bee sting is so punctilious and heroic to divest all, as churning gut half
mad [preemptive] strike without thought without fear without access to
any vestige of option.
No Insect ever apply Options! As Insect must needs bee.
Hey! I said you think like an insect no choices.
Feed or be feed!
Fed Thirst! More more more, addicted to Green translucent or Violet
sap or trapped in a gush of it as an amber grave or birthed in murky
dung heaps called home as child of 80% of Sapiens flesh thinking as
a Fly sings in the Over breeze mixed with string hint of C02, Ammonia
of mold burns tonguing sweet nectar ecstatic in raptures even an
alchemical maggot not yet an insect dance esthetic bugaloos in the
road kill's carcass.
So you think You Think like an Insect?
What Kind?
You Say I think like an Insect ?
What kind ? I favor The Fire Ant.
Fastidious sleek universally feared, small compact very much what
humans lack. Loyal to the concept of all , the all , the all or nothing hole gangs lost to flames of burning gasoline Force Northwards migration
and hard luck stories galore and more so called over breeding!
"migration and fasting which spreads the me of insect called fire ant red
ant little Devils, bastards only the unisexual demi, semi, hemi Queans if
they can fly they must fly they are few, I we the many crushed under foot.
Arise as a sole example (re) incarnated optimism, the hunt n' peck
search and meander guided by stinky gut words and spittle visible no
apparent its more apparent than visible but one can see a smell an association a picture a LANGUAGE a word a directive an option a
choice an imprecise queue an artifact juxtaposed to two or more
remembered impressions , faded , missive dated ,imprecise, petal
lightly! Enter post danger somewhere ahead.
Remarks a path markers or old new a scraffiti mark an indicia its life and
or death, where is the Food !!!
Danger foot fall!
Danger No SEE Um!
"Anything you like dies Too soon. Life is short and then YOU Die! And
Bla Bla Bla! Buzzzz Buzz! Buz! there was no room for memory so going forward is
only life stooping is death."
"No ones life can be told as totally true. all are a float on a river of poison
lies and silly errors forgive or die that is the law."
Splat! " All ways have and all ways will..."
Between every line as if it were an enchanted Greek or Cretan chorus.
ED
|
3.zSubject: Forwards: UP! 180// [emergency edition] FINALLY UNCOVERED: THE BIGGEST
POLITICAL TRUTH// JAN 9 2004 From: Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2004 13:54:48 -0500
To: mudboy1944
BEYOND THE RHETORIC I THOUGHT YOU MIGHT BE
INTERESTED IN THE PEAK OIL DISCUSSION BELOW
K
------ Forwarded Message
From:f Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2004 18:32:34 +0000
To: Subject: UP! 180// [emergency edition]
FINALLY UNCOVERED: THE BIGGEST POLITICAL TRUTH// JAN 9 2004
TURN ON COMPUTER // TUNE IN TO FREED SPIRIT OF INTERNET // TAKE OVER!
IN THE VERY SAME WEEK THAT
THE UPS DIRECT MAIL CIRCULATION
PASSES THE 12,000 MARK
COMES THE BIGGEST POLITICAL TRUTH
WE HAVE EVER UNCOVERED.
WHEW!!
* * * * * ** * * * ASTRAL ENERGY ANALYSIS FOR WEEK OF JAN 7-13 * * * * * * * * *
NEW YEAR, NEW BEGINNINGS
Start projects now. Mars and Mercury are in top form to initiate new endeavors.
Many planets begin new cycles this week, some with consequences up to four years.
Food, labor, security, and energy are major issues. For details, see Maya’s Daily
Success Guide at
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
UP! Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.
HAVE U VISITED OUR DEBATING BOARD'S REINCARNATION YET?
IT'S TAKING OFF!
\)))))((/
-__,,,,_{ô¿ô}_,,,,__ fraser
somebody called me a “truth digger” and I think I’ve, FINALLY, dug down to the
BIGGEST POLITICAL TRUTH! it DWARVES all other issues while explaining
most of them!
for the new year, I’d been planning on giving all the bad news scenarios a rest and
concentrating on the positive things that are happening and can happen.
But instead I’ve come face to face with the BIGGEST & MOST CERTAIN DOOMSDAY
SCENARIO SECRET there is. our ‘leader elite’ have known about it for at least a
decade. they have made their own personal preparations, of this you can be
certain.
A FRIENDLY WARNING TO BELOVED UP! READERS…
AT FIRST READ, THIS CAN SEEM TOO MUCH TO TAKE IN. OR FACE UP TO.
(BUT THE FACTS ARE PRETTY UNDENIABLE, AND I’VE CHECKED THEM WIDELY)
AFTER A WHILE, YOUR BRAIN STARTS TO MAKE ALL THE CONNECTIONS.
THEN YOUR SOUL GETS DEEPLY TROUBLED, THERE’S NO OTHER WAY TO PUT IT.
NOW IT’S EASY TO LOSE ALL FAITH, IT’S A VERY DANGEROUS MOMENT.
and finally (which the article below only touches upon) you may find (as I did)
that, deep deep deep down in your soul, some Being recognizes
that THIS is what it’s been sensing all along.
this is PROBABLY the Smallest Disaster that can save us as a species!!
far better than nuclear or biological Armageddon.
and far better than an endless religious war.
but, clearly, nothing LESS could change our present Fall From Grace at this point.
so take a deeeep breath, and consider….
what kind of life can there be
AFTER THE
OIL CRASH?!
CIVILIZATION AS WE KNOW IT IS COMING TO AN END SOON
“The situation is desperate. It’s the world's biggest serious question."
Matthew Simmons, George W. Bush's Energy Adviser
IF YOU’RE LIKE 99% OF THE POPULATION, YOU’VE NEVER HEARD THE TERM
"PEAK OIL". I HADN’T HEARD IT UNTIL A FEW MONTHS AGO. SINCE THEN,
HOWEVER, MY WORLD VIEW AND BASIC ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT MY OWN
INDIVIDUAL FUTURE HAVE BEEN TURNED UPSIDE DOWN. WHETHER YOU’RE
25 OR 75, A LAWYER OR AN AUTO MECHANIC, WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO READ
WILL SHAKE THE FOUNDATIONS OF YOUR LIFE. EVERYTHING HAS COME FROM
THE EXTREMELY THOROUGH ARTICLES AND INTERVIEWS LINKED TO ON THE
SITE BELOW.
What is "Peak Oil"?
All oil production follows a bell curve, whether in an individual field or on the planet as a
whole. On the up-slope of the curve production costs are significantly lower than on the
downslope when extra effort (expense) is required to extract oil from reservoirs that are
emptying out.
For the past 150 years, we have been moving up the upslope of the global oil production
curve. "Peak Oil" is the industry term for the top of the curve. The peak will last for a year
or so, at which time we will go down the very steep downslope. The further we go down the
slope, the more it costs to produce oil, and its cousin, natural gas.
When will Peak Oil occur?
The most wildly optimistic estimates indicate 2020 will be the year in which worldwide oil
production peaks. Generally, these estimates come from the government.
A more realistic estimate is between 2004-10. Unfortunately, we won't know that we hit
the peak until 3-4 years after we actually hit it. Even on the upslope of the curve, oil
production varies a bit from year to year. It’s possible that the year 2000 was the year of
peak oil production, as production has dipped every year since.
The energy industry has quietly acknowledged the seriousness of the situation. For
instance in an article entitled “A Revolutionary Transformation,” the president of Exxon
Mobil Exploration Company, Jon Thompson stated: "By 2015, we will need to find, develop
and produce a volume of new oil and gas that is equal to eight out of every 10 barrels
being produced today".
That sounds pretty bad, but, even if gas prices get high, we could probably still make ends
meet, right? Why should we be concerned?
Because almost every current human endeavour, from transportation, to manufacturing, to
electricity to plastics, and especially food production is inextricably intertwined with oil and
natural gas supplies.
Commercial food production is oil powered. All pesticides are petroleum based, and all
commercial fertilisers are ammonia based. Ammonia is produced from natural gas.
Oil based agriculture has been fantastic for food production. Oil allowed for farming
implements such as tractors and food storage and transport systems such as refrigerators
and trucks. As oil production went up, so did food production. As food production went up,
so did the birth rate. As the birth rate went up, the demand for food went up, which
increased the demand for oil.
Unfortunately, we are at a point where the demand for food/oil has been rising
exponentially, and is expected to continue to do so. Oil (food) production, however, is
about to drop dramatically.
When Peak Oil occurs, food production will plummet because of the cost of fertiliser will
soar. The cost of storing (electricity) and transporting (gasoline) what little food that is
produced will also soar. Unless you grow all your own food on your own local, self
sustained farm, you will have to deal with the food shortage.
Oil is also required for nearly every consumer item, water supply pumping, sewage
disposal, garbage disposal, street/park maintenance, hospitals & health systems, police,
fire services, and national defence.
Thus, the aftermath of Peak Oil will extend far beyond how much you will pay for gas.
Simply stated, you can expect: war, starvation, economic recession, possibly even the
extinction of homo sapiens.
This is known as the post-oil "die-off". The term "die-off" captures perfectly the nightmare
that’s at our doorstep. For a humorous portrayal of the die-off, read chapter 3 of Michael
Moore's most recent book, "Dude, Where's My Country?"
"Die-Off"!
It’s exactly what it says on the tin. It’s estimated that the world's population will contract
to 500 million during the Oil Crash. (current world population: 6 billion)
What are my chances of surviving the "Die-Off"?
If you ignore the warnings, and don't prepare, you have absolutely no chance of surviving.
If you pay attention, and start preparing, you have very little chance of surviving.
We all may as well accept were going to die during the crash. However, if enough of us
prepare, then at least a few should make it and humanity will rise once again.
What About Alternatives, Solar, Wind, Hydrogen etc?
Too late, unfortunately. It would take us a minimum of 50 years to develop a food delivery
infrastructure based on alternative energies. Peak Oil is going to occur within five. Even if
we stopped all wars, and committed ourselves entirely to energy alternatives such as solar,
wind, hydrogen etc, the best we can hope for is to soften the fall.
Oil accounts for 40% of our current global energy supply. There are no alternatives to oil
that can supply this much energy, let alone the amount of energy we require to feed a
worldwide population that is increasing exponentially.
Let's briefly examine the commonly proposed oil alternatives:
Natural Gas
Natural Gas currently supplies 20% of global energy supply. Gas itself will start running
out from 2020 on. Demand for natural gas in North America is already outstripping supply,
especially as power utilities take the remaining gas to generate electricity. Gas is not
suited for existing jet aircraft, ships, vehicles, and equipment for agriculture and other
products. Conversion consumes large amounts of energy as well as money. Natural gas also
does not provide the huge array of chemical by-products that we depend on oil for.
Hydro-Electric
Hydro-Electric power currently accounts for 2.3% of global energy supply, compared with
the 40% provided. It’s unsuitable for aircraft and the present 800 million existing vehicles.
Solar
Solar power accounts for .006% of global energy supply. Energy varies constantly with
weather or day/night. Not storable or portable energy like oil or natural gas so unsuited for
present vehicles and industry. Batteries bulky, expensive, wear out in 5-10 years.
Photovoltaic solar equipment (US$4/watt) is about 15% efficient, giving about 100 watts of
the 1 kW per square metre exposed to bright sunshine (enough for one light bulb). A
typical solar water panel array can deliver 50-85% of a home’s hot water though. Using
some of our precious remaining crude oil as fuel for manufacturing solar equipment may be
wise
Wind
Wind power accounts for .07% of global energy supply. As with solar, energy varies greatly
with weather, and is not portable or storable like oil and gas.
Hydrogen
Hydrogen accounts for 0.01% of global energy. Hydrogen is currently manufactured from
methane gas. It takes more energy to create it than the hydrogen actually provides. It’s
therefore an energy “carrier” not a source. Liquid hydrogen occupies four to eleven times
the bulk of equivalent gasoline or diesel. Existing vehicles and aircraft and existing
distribution systems are not suited to it. Solar hydrogen might be an option in some of the
hot countries.
Nuclear
Nuclear is currently being abandoned globally). Its ability to soften the oil crash is very
problematic due to accidents and terrorism. Many more reactors would be needed. Tons of
radioactive materials to transport at risk to public. Nuclear waste disposal is still the
major, unresolved problem, especially breeder reactors producing plutonium a nuclear
weapon/ terrorist raw material, half-life contamination is 24,000 years. All abandoned
reactors are radioactive for decades or millennia. Nuclear is not directly suitable for aircraft
and vehicles. Adapting nuclear to make hydrogen or other fuels would be a huge, and
energy-expensive project. Nuclear fusion is still not available, after 40 years’ research and
billions of dollars invested.
Is It Possible That We’ve Already Hit Peak Oil and Are
Now In the First Stages of the Oil Crash?
Yes. As stated above, we won't know we’ve hit the Peak until a few years after we hit it.
Global oil production has dipped every year since 2000, so it is quite possible the Peak has
passed.
Ample evidence exists that we’re in the first stages of the Oil Crash. In 2003, the cost of
food rose 16%-25%. Health care costs rose 15%. Education costs rose 20%. These are
often excluded from measures of inflation because they’re considered "volatile".
As of 12/03 the "adjusted" unemployment, which has been squeezed out of as much
meaning as conceivably possible, still hovers in the 6% range. However, if you factor in
the quality of employment, then the real numbers are closer to 12%-15%.
The rolling blackouts experienced in California, the massive East Coast blackout of August,
and the various other massive blackouts that occurred throughout the world are further
indicators that we’re in the first stages of the Oil Crash.
If the year 2000 was the year of Peak Oil, it means we have very little time to prepare
before things completely disintegrate.
Why Haven't I Heard About This On the News?
Here are 3 reasons:
1. 75% of the media (all newspapers, television and radio stations) are owned by 5
companies. Each of these companies is heavily invested in the energy industry. If they
were to publicly announce the truth about Peak Oil, investment in the stock market would
dry up, the economy would plunge, chaos would ensue, and the whole deck of cards would
come crashing down before our leaders and corporate elite have a chance to secure their
own well-being.
2. The ramifications of Peak Oil are so serious that it’s hard for anybody, including
journalists and politicians, to accept it.
3. The average American may not be emotionally prepared to deal with Peak Oil. It’s a
literal death sentence to much of our population as well as a figurative death sentence to
the energy intensive American Way Of Life. When faced with such news, most people
choose to "kill the messenger."
How Are the Energy Companies Dealing With This?
They’re not. They can’t.
They’re merging and downsizing and outsourcing and not investing in new refineries
because they know full well that production is set to decline and that the exploration
opportunities are getting less and less.
The companies have to sing to the stock market, and merger hides the collapse of the
weaker brethren. The staff is purged on merger and the combined budget ends up much
less than the sum of the previous components. Besides, a lot of the executives and
bankers make a lot of money from the merger. Since their making money off the situation,
they are not going to go public with the truth.
Is It Connected With the Iraq & Afghanistan Wars?
George Bush, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice and Donald Rumsfeld are all former executives for
large oil companies. They have known about Peak Oil for decades.
In the context of Peak Oil, the wars in the Middle East are not wars of greed. Rather, they
are wars for survival.
You can expect the U.S. to invade Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia within the
next 2-5 years. As you watch the news, you can already notice the hints are being
dropped. "Iran has WMD" or "Syria isn't cooperating in the war on terror" or "Saudi Arabia
is funding terrorism". "The war on terror will last for decades." The stage is being set so
that the American public will accept these future invasions.
And when (recently industrialised) China decides it needs the
remaining oil as much as the U.S.?
_______________________
World War III
What about other "westernised" countries like France? Don't
they need oil also?
America will likely be invading or attacking France at some point as well. Several
high level officials in the Bush Administration are pushing for a plan to force nations to
"choose between Paris and Washington."
War with Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia,
China, and France? Won't that require a reinstitution of
the draft?
George Bush recently approved a massive increase for the Selective Service's 2005 budget.
The Selective Service is currently undergoing a massive overhaul and has been told it
needs to be ready to report to the president in June, 2005. This means you can expect a
reinstitution of the military draft some time thereafter.
Essentially, every young man currently between the ages of 12 - 22 has been earmarked as
a solider for future oil wars.
I think I'm going to be sick. . .
If we get rid of Bush, will that solve the problem?
Peak Oil’s happening with or without Bush. In fact, you may have the Bush administration
to thank for the couple of extra years of cheap oil he’s robbing from the Middle East. This
gives us in the U.S. some extra time to prepare for the post-peak Oil Crash.
The President, his administration, and most of our legislators have been reduced to
ceremonial figureheads for the energy and defence industries. These industries control
both parties.
None of the presidential candidates except Dennis Kucinich have publicly mentioned Peak
Oil even once.
In other words, regardless of who gets elected, we’re on our own.
And, uh, the Patriot Act I, and Patriot Act II?
When food production plummets, the only way to control the population will be through the
institution of a fascist style police state. The passage of the Patriot Acts are the
foundation of that state.
What’s the government doing about all this?
It may come as no surprise to you that our leaders are doing more to exasperate the
problem then they are to solve it. They’ve decided to make a last ditch grab for whatever
recoverable oil is available. With control over the world's dwindling supplies of recoverable
oil, they’ll have the ability to choose who lives and who dies.
If you aren't making over $200,000/year, our leaders don't care whether you live or die. As
an example, 70% of our troops from the first Gulf War are now disabled with Gulf War
Syndrome. The Reserve and National Guard troops that are now in Iraq have not been
issued side arms or bullet proof vests. Our lives mean nothing to our leaders.
Furthermore, 40 of America’s 50 Senators are millionaires, with enough money to feed their
families even if the price of food doubles, triples or quadruples. So even though they know
about Peak Oil, its not like they’re going to be doing most of the suffering.
Remember, these are the same people who give us a colour coded chart, a roll of duct
tape, and a war of dubious origins as solutions to terrorism.
As stated above, we’re on our own.
Isn't This Just Another Y2K Disaster Scenario?
I wish Peak Oil was "Y2K Reloaded."
Y2K was an "if", not a "when".
Unlike Y2K, we know that Peak Oil is going to happen. The only question is at what point
between 2004-2010 will it happen.
Furthermore, oil is more fundamental to our existence than anything else, even computers.
Had the Y2K predictions come true, our civilisation would have been knocked back to 1965.
With time, we would have recovered.
But when the Oil Crash comes, our civilisation will be knocked back to 1765. We won’t
recover there’s no oil left to discover that could help us recover.
Y2K was "announced" in the mid 1990's - a full 5+ years before the problem was due. Peak
Oil will occur within 1 - 6 years, and we‘ve made no preparations.
The preparations necessary to deal with the Oil Crash will require a complete overhaul of
every aspect of our civilisation. This is much more complex than fixing a computer bug.
Over the course of history, the world's biggest disasters have never been "announced"
ahead of time. The Great Depression, Pearl Harbour, 9-11, all could have been prevented if
we’d been paying attention. Given the fact that the Oil Crash will be worse than all of
these combined, it should come as no surprise that our leaders have opted not to warn us.
Unlike past "end of the world" scenarios, such as nuclear war, biological terrorism, and of
course Y2K, Peak Oil is not a question of "if". Peak Oil is a scientific fact. The only
question is when.
Read through the articles on this site. Listen to what well respected energy industry folks
like Matthew Simmons, King Hubbert and Colin Campbell have to say. Listen to what the
energy industry is (quietly) talking about. Look at what they’re doing. Look at what
Sweden is doing to prepare for Peak Oil. Look at all this in the context of U.S. foreign and
domestic policy. Then decide for yourself if Peak Oil is simply "Y2K Reloaded", "SARS: The
Return", "Cuban Missile Crisis II: Judgement Day" or if it’s something we need to deal with
head on.
I'm an optimist. Peak Oil sounds too pessimistic for me
to accept as reality.
I felt this way too for while. Then I realised the difference between an optimist and a fool.
An optimist looks at bleak facts and decides to make the best of the situation they can. A
fool looks at bleak facts and decides to ignore them because they’re too upsetting..
If you’re an optimist, you’ll deal with the reality of Peak Oil in a realistic way that
optimises humanity's chance of surviving and building a prosperous post-oil civilisation. If
you’re not willing to deal with Peak Oil in this way, you’re a fool who’ll be dead within 20
years.
I'm having trouble believing that a country as powerful
as the United States is going to collapse.
That's what people in Baghdad circa 1979 would have said about Iraq. It’s also what
people in Moscow circa 1960 would have said about the Soviet Union.
We won't be the first superpower to collapse. Rome, Sparta, Nazi Germany, the Soviet
Union - all superpowers long erased from the map.
Keep in mind that throughout the history of humanity, living in a collapsed society is not
uncommon at all. Even in contemporary times, billions of people are living in collapsed
societies such as the former Soviet Union, Iraq, large portions of India, West Africa,
Somalia, Liberia, the West Bank, Gaza Strip. etc. . .
Oil is the lifeblood of our civilisation. Without oil, our fate is the same as the hospital
patient who loses all of their blood.
Those of us lucky enough to live in the industrialised world are like the cool kids who got
invited to the big party. Unfortunately, the party's over.
How can we best deal with Peak Oil as a society?
Peak Oil is going to happen. People are going to die. We cannot stop it. But we may be
able to minimise the amount of suffering while maximising the chances of building a
successful post-oil civilisation if we immediately come together as a species and do the
following:
1. Stop all wars and other nonessential economic activity. Dedicate all our time and
resources to developing energy alternatives.
2. Stop having kids. We can’t feed our current population. When the Oil Crash comes,
things will go from bad to worse to nightmarish. More children means an increased demand
for food we can’ produce.
3. No more pets. The food’s required to feed people.
4 No more beef eating - cattle raising is extremely energy intensive.
5. Drastically cut our energy consumption. This means eating produce grown locally,
investing in hybrid cars or substituting bicycles, limiting our purchase of consumer goods to
the absolutely necessary, and no air travel unless absolutely necessary.
I'm scared. How should I prepare as an individual?
Well, first of all, it’s absolutely imperative you don’t succumb to a fear based consciousness.
This may be difficult as Peak Oil is going to necessitate absolutely massive changes in our
way of life. However, if we allow ourselves to be overtaken by fear, we will only exasperate
the situation and duplicate the system that has brought us into this situation.
As for steps to take as an individual, when I first asked that question, the answer I got
was: "Step 1: Imagine the absolute worst apocalyptic nightmare you can think of. Step 2:
Think of how you would prepare for that situation. Step 3: Get to work."
Personally, I recommend the first step to be educating yourself about Peak Oil and its
ramifications. Then notify as many of your friends and family as possible. Seek out like
minded people and come up with some type of a plan.
Unfortunately, I know very little at this point regarding how to survive without the
amenities of modern civilisation. As I learn more, I will post what I learn on this website
under ‘Prepare.’
Should I be getting a gun?
Personally, I won't be getting a gun. My philosophy is why bother extending my stay in
hotel earth for a bit longer if I have to contribute more violence to an already violent place?
However, if I was a woman, I'd definitely be getting a gun.
If Peak Oil is too much for you to worry about, feel free to ignore the facts and stick your
head in the sand. But remember, when you stick your head in the sand, you leave your ass
exposed for the world to kick.
Is there anything positive about Peak Oil?
Its hard to say that there’s a "bright side" to Peak Oil, but here goes:
Most of us in consumer based countries like the U.S. are actually very nice people. In our
hearts, we really do believe in ideals such as equality, brotherhood, and justice. We would
never abuse, mistreat, or kill somebody just to get something of theirs. However, to
support our oil based lifestyle, our government goes out and does these things for us.
If the average American knew the amount of suffering that went into producing every piece
of plastic in their home, every gallon of oil in their gas tank, and every piece of food on
their dinner table, they’d likely be sick to their stomach and be willing to do whatever it
takes to change things.
Peak Oil will force us to change things. Peak Oil does mean the end of the world as we
know it. It also means we have a chance to create a new world in which humanity lives in
harmony with itself and the earth. Such a lifestyle is no longer simply "the right thing to
do". It’s now a necessity if we wish to survive as a species.
Evolution and biology?
In every species, the "over adapted" members tend to die off and be replaced by simpler
versions. In the case of humanity, hyper-industrialised western societies will become
extinct, while simpler, more peaceful ones will continue, and a very few will scarcely falter.
Peak Oil may be nature's way of turning man’s traditional conception of "survival of the
fittest" on its head. Traditionally, we’ve defined evolutionary-social fitness by looking at
things like cunning, military strength, ability to dominate etc. But the societies that
survive the Oil Crash will be those that define fitness by looking at more benevolent traits,
not the least of which is the ability to control what your leaders do with your taxes.
I was born in America, grew up here, and have no desire to go anywhere else. While I love
it here, I also recognise that America has done some pretty atrocious things. Regardless
of your political outlook, the unfortunate truth is we used forced labour to build our nation
on stolen land. (So did other consumer based, oil driven nations, and they’ll be crashing
too).
More recently, the U.S. dropped so much depleted uranium on Iraq during the 1991 Gulf
War that birth defects in Iraqi babies increased by 500% in the next 12 years. The
radiation was so bad that 67% of American Gulf War veterans ended up having babies with
serious birth defects as well. In 2003, we dropped so much depleted uranium on Baghdad
that radiation levels rose to 2,000 times the normal. Depleted Uranium has a half life of
4.5 billion years. Essentially, we have eliminated the Iraqi population (and many our of own
troops) from the Future Healthy Human Gene Pool.
It's almost like Peak Oil is nature's way of saying, "If you’re so heartless, spineless
or brainless as to not prevent your leaders from committing horrible
atrocities in the pursuit of resources, then you are not fit to survive."
Matthew David Savinar
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/
UP! Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
VVV
NET ENERGY
It takes energy to make energy. We use energy to find and pump oil but, luckily for
industrial society, oil has huge net energy and we can usually obtain more than 200 times
the amount of energy required for its’ extraction. Oil has the highest net energy return of
any fuel; gas, coal, wind and solar all have dramatically less. Hydrogen has negative net
energy meaning it takes more energy to produce it than it contains, this highlights the first
problem of a hydrogen society.
http://evworld.com/view.cfm?section=article&storyid=550
<http://evworld.com/view.cfm?section=article&storyid=550>
UP! Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality.
VVV
THIS HAS CHANGED ME FROM OPTIMIST/ACTIVIST INTO HOLLOW SHELL
Fraser, this is all exactly right. It is the most pressing issue of our time, and between the realisation of this
and climate change it has eclipsed all other issues for me. I no longer do any activism on the more
trivial issues because I simply haven't the heart - in the face of the oil crash and climate change
there is no point in most of the social change efforts 'our' people are engaged in.
There is no sensible reason for a government to trash its popularity with wars for 'empire building' when
empires are unpopular with the voters. Everyone knows it wasn't about WMDs, but nobody's asked the
obvious follow-on - what WAS it about then?
It was about oil, because the way the western people feel about the war is nothing compared to how they'll
feel about a government that denies them oil. SOMEONE has to go without. Obviously we'd prefer it to be
China and India rather than us, so we're getting the Iraqi oil for ourselves.
Frankly, given that it is to late to change our society from its reliance on oil before the crash, I'm driven to
some uncomfortable conclusions.
* Basically, we should drill all the available oil ASAP. Alaska should be drilled NOW. Why? Because, if it's
done now, then some environmental concerns will carry weight, but in 10 or 20 years time Bush's
successor will be saying 'there's people freezing to death in their homes in NY and Chicago! I
don't give a damn about marmots and trees!'. And the voters will support them! The environmental
lobby is at the peak of its influence. In ten years time nobody will care.
* The huge population boom is based on oil wealth and oil food production. Modern farming is simply a
way to make oil into food. When the crash comes we need as few people as possible
competing for the resources. As the human population increases by 2 million a week, if we're going to
have the crash we need it sooner rather than later.
While the crash will surely hit us, the full double whammy of it and climate change will hit later in this
century. And it will be worse for westerners. As when the Maya died out, it was the urban folks that
suffered; the farmers survived. Westerners are the equivalent of the mayan urban population; we all
depend on that which is about to disappear.
And there's nothing we can do. It's like being on a bus going to the edge of a cliff at 70mph - we see the
edge, but there's not enough time to stop before we go over. All we can do is brace ourselves.
This knowledge has changed me from active optimist/optimistic activist into a hollow shell.
{a young brit activist who wishes his name to be witheld]
SEE:
'Bottom of The Barrel' by George Monbiot
http://www.monbiot.com/dsp_article.cfm?article_id=625
>> well, us old beat/hippy/zippies don’t find it SO disheartening, for decades now, almost
ALL our adult lives, we’ve been predicting it, waiting for it, (maybe sometimes even
LONGING for it:), lowering our consumption level, practising cooperative lifestyles among
the rave masses, and laffing slightly at 'smart' middleclass activists who thought it was
just about prettifying the system while getting a good income off it :) so DON'T DESPAIR!
it looks WORST from the centre of the west!
but I gotta STRONG feeling this is gonna be a GIGANTIC debate in the next few UP!s so
we’ll come back to this for sure.
NOW, PLEEEASE. READ MY INTRO AGAIN
UP! When you lose, don't lose the lesson.
“When you give food to the poor, they call you a saint. When you ask why the poor have no
food, they call you a communist.” Archbishop Helder Camara, Brazilian liberation theologist.
UP! Follow the three R's: Respect for self, and for others, and responsibility for all your
actions.
(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)
the UP! //:-) 180 jan 9, 2004
la- la- la- lap-toppling da system!
(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)
it's the fractals within the interconnections, that's where it's happening!
contents
p.11 Who izzit the whole world’s indebted to? - Every nation is in debt to whom?!
p.12 WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO PEACE ON EARTH? Willie Nelson’s new song
p.14 !!IRAQGAIT!! 0NE + !!IRAQGAIT!! TWO
p.15 !!IRAQGAIT!! THREE
p.16 CHUTZPAH //FEEDBACK
p.17 “Counter-Productive And Fostering Hatred Of Israel”…
p.18 ARE SCOTS TAKING OVER THE WORLD?! R U ANTI-SCOTIC?!
p.20 REASONS TO BE THANKFUL PART 2003
p.21 Pre-emptive Manhunting!!
- The CIA'S new assassination program
UP!
EARTHLIKE PLANETS PROBABLY COMMON IN THE UNIVERSE
ONE TENTH OF STARS MAY SUPPORT LIFE
According to a new analysis by Australian researchers, fully a tenth of the stars in our
galaxy might provide the right conditions to support complex life.
Meanwhile, in 44 computer simulations of planet formation near a sun, astronomers found
that each simulation produced one to four Earth like planets, including 11 "habitable"
planets about the same distance from their stars as Earth is from our sun.
And most of these stars are on average one billion years older than the Sun, allowing much
more time, in theory, for any life to have evolved beyond the Bush Dinosaur stage.
[NewScientist.com news service]
UP! Spend some time alone every day.
Meanwhile, Back on Earth,
Who izzit the whole world’s indebted to?
Every country in the world suffers from a massive, constantly increasing national
debt , but to whom do they owe it?!
Britain has a national debt fast approaching £400 billion.
Canada's debt has reached $560 billion.
Germany's now exceeds 500 billion deutschmarks.
ARE THESE POOR COUNTRIES?
No more than Japan with a debt equivalent to two trillion dollars or
America with a national debt now in excess of five trillion dollars.
Since the poorer nations are crippled by their indebtedness to international lending
institutions and foreign banks, the overall picture is of a world suffering acute and ever
worsening insolvency.
But this is really quite illogical and absurd... The question almost asks itself...
If all the nations of the world are in debt, who are they in debt to? Rationally, where
there is a debtor, there should be someone else who is a creditor.
If every nation is in debt, who, precisely, owes whom?
In addition to the logical absurdity of all nations being simultaneously insolvent, such
escalating national debts are a complete contradiction of the real and obvious wealth of
these nations.
This is further underlined by the fact that the nations which run the largest national debts
are those with the most advanced economies. What can we say to the developing nations
struggling under the burden of their debt, nations who have copied our economic
institutions and aspire to a life free from poverty?
'Work hard, and one day your debt will be as small as America's - a mere five trillion
dollars!'
Michael Rowbotham
http://www.cfoss.com/grip.html
UP! Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\
The UP! (UP!mag or UP!grademag) is a global edutainment round-up, ‘broadcast’ weekly to
=[12,002]= Alternative// Activist// Zippy// Trance// New Age folks who have been
recommended to the Parallel YOUniversity//Megatripolis Dance Dept as "showing signs of
life". Since many recipients choose to forward it or parts of it to their own lists, we
conservatively estimate 30,000+ direct recipients. Further, because of its 'mix' of
'specialist' & 'general' content, it's increasingly being posted on a variety of sites
worldwide, making an estimated total weekly ‘readership’ of =[275,000+]=
(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\
WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO PEACE ON EARTH?
Willie Nelson wrote a new song on ‘Christmas’. He performed it in public for the
first time on Jan. 3, 2004 when he led a fundraising concert for Dennis Kucinich's
presidential campaign.
BUT (AS HE SAYS) DON’T EXPECT TO HEAR IT SOON!
There's so many things going on in the world
Babies dying Mothers crying
How much oil is one human life worth
And what ever happened to peace on earth?
We believe everything that they tell us
They're gonna' kill us
So we gotta' kill them first
But I remember a commandment
Thou shall not kill
How much is that soldier's life worth
And whatever happened to peace on earth?
(Bridge)
And the bewildered herd is still believing
Everything we've been told from our birth
Hell they won't lie to me Not on my own damn TV
But how much is a liar's word worth
And whatever happened to peace on earth?
So I guess it's just
Do unto others before they do it to you
Let's just kill em' all and let God sort em' out
Is this what God wants us to do?
(Bridge)
And the bewildered herd is still believing
Everything we've been told from our birth
Hell they won't lie to me Not on my own damn TV
But how much is a liar's word worth
And whatever happened to peace on earth?
Now you probably won't hear this on your radio
Probably not on your local TV
But if there's a time, and if you're ever so inclined
You can always hear it from me
How much is one picker's word worth
And whatever happened to peace on earth?
But don't confuse caring for weakness
You can't put that label on me
The truth is my weapon of mass protection
And I believe truth sets you free
(Bridge)
And the bewildered herd is still believing
Everything we've been told from our birth
Hell they won't lie to me Not on my own damn TV
But how much is a liar's word worth
And whatever happened to peace on earth?
UP! When you realise you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)
TEXT JOCKEY // TJ PHRASER (Fraser Clark) & THE MEDIA EVOLUTION
MIXING THE TRACTS LIVE ON THE KEYBOARD @ A MEDIA-MEME RATE OF 160 IPP *
* Ideas Per Paragraph
(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)
SAME OLD BULLSHIT
THE CHANGE IS THAT MORE PEOPLE
ARE SEEING THROUGH IT!!
Lyndon B. Johnson, 1966 “If we don't stop the Reds in South Vietnam,
George W. Bush, 2003: “Our military is confronting terrorists in Iraq
tomorrow they will be in Hawaii,
and Afghanistan and in other places so our people will not have to
and next week they will be in San Francisco.“
confront terrorist violence in New York or St. Louis or Los Angeles. “
UP! When the water is muddy, the best action is to do nothing.
HOW MI6 SOLD THE IRAQATTACK the uk government yesterday
confirmed that MI6 organised a campaign to plant stories in the media about Saddam
Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. It was called (get this!) Operation Mass
Appeal.
SCOTT RITTER PROVED RIGHT!
"I was approached by MI6 to provide that data, I met with the Mass Appeal operatives
both in New York and London on several occasions. This data was provided, and it did find
its way into the international media.”
UP! Once a year, go somewhere new. [if you’re american, this means OUTSIDE america!]
German Intelligence: CIA Planted Fake Terror Alert
According to information provided to TV 2 Nettavisen by German
intelligence, they are convinced that the CIA information is wrong,
and they seemingly fear that American authorities planted the
information.
>> surprised? then u haven't been paying attention.
UP!
!!IRAQGAIT!! 0NE
“THE WORST THING TO BE ACCUSED OF HERE IS NOT
COOPERATING WITH THE INVESTIGATION”
by John F. Dickerson AND Viveca Novak / Time Magazine
FBI investigators looking into the criminal leak of a CIA agent’s identity have asked Bush
Administration officials, including Karl Rove, Bush’s Alisteir Campbell, to release reporters
from any confidentiality agreements regarding conversations about the agent.
If signed, the requests would give investigators new ammunition for questioning reporters
who have so far not disclosed the names of administration officials who divulged that
Valerie Plame, wife of former ambassador Joe Wilson, worked for the CIA.
While irregular, the move is not unprecedented. Various officials were told from the start
that such a request might be made. The FBI has already extensively re-interviewed some
White House officials using emails and phone logs from their search to press for the
identity of the leaker. “They are taking this very seriously,” says one close to the case.
Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters' Committee for Freedom of the Press,
says asking possible suspects to sign such a document is unusual, though not unheard of:
"From the prosecutors' point of view, it is likely a precursor to subpoenaing journalists to
testify before a grand jury, and then asking a judge to hold them in contempt if they refuse
to do so".
It's plain that White House officials are under some pressure to sign the documents.
"They can't refuse. The worst thing to be accused of here is not cooperating with the
investigation" said one individual who's familiar with the case.
But reporters are not likely to feel the same pressure. Journalists rarely divulge
confidential sources even when threatened with contempt citations so the releases may
make little difference. Still, in a post-9/11 world, a case involving the disclosure of a
covert agent's identity could be taken very seriously by a judge, who would have the power
to jail a member of the press for refusing to cooperate with a grand jury.
UP! Silence is sometimes the best answer.
VVV
!!IRAQGAIT!! TWO
EXPECT MAJOR REVELATIONS
Does Condi fear appearing at the 9/11 Commission?
by Timothy J. Burger / Time Magazine
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is apparently not keen on going under oath for
the Kean 9/11 commission.
Poised to convene its first hard-hitting hearings this month, the federal commission
investigating the 9/11 attacks continues to be at odds with the White House over access to
key information and witnesses. Two government sources told TIME that National Security
Adviser Condoleezza Rice is arguing over ground rules for her appearance, in part because
she does not want to testify under oath or, according to one source, in public.
While national security advisers, as presidential staff, generally don’t have to appear
before Congress, the commission argues that its jurisdiction is broader - and it's been
requiring fact witnesses in its massive investigation to testify under oath.
The exception: it may not seek to swear in President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Bill
Clinton or Al Gore in the increasingly likely event they will be asked to speak to the
commission. "I think that it is in their interest to meet with us," says GOP commission
member John Lehman, but they should be invited, not subpoenaed, and be allowed to
appear behind closed doors.
With such high-profile testimony in the offing, it’s no wonder the commission chairman,
Republican Tom Kean, was telling reporters last week to expect major revelations.
He also suggested the 9/11 attacks might have been prevented if mid-level government
officials at various government agencies had done their jobs. As for senior officials like
Rice or her predecessor, and their bosses, the commission was still studying whether they
share the blame. Rice could face tough questioning. One Republican commissioner says a
comment by Rice last year - that no one “could have predicted that they would try to use
a… hijacked airplane as a missile” - was "an unfortunate comment . . . that was, of course,
a wrong-footed statement on its face," given that there were years of intelligence about Al
Qaeda's interest in airplane attacks.
UP!
VVV
!!IRAQGAIT!! THREE
KELLY BATTLE GLOVES OFF
Britain's Ministry of Defence has ordered lawyers to fight dirty against the widow of Dr
David Kelly in any battle for compensation for her husband's death.
The extraordinary tactics to be used should she seek damages from the Government involve
teams of top lawyers arguing the scientist was unstable for two years before he took his
life.
The decision to blacken Dr Kelly's reputation will shock his family as they prepare for the
Hutton Inquiry's findings into the circumstances that led to his suicide last summer.
UP! In the best relationship your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
BEWARE CHILDREN, WELSHMEN & OLD CHINESE LADIES!!!!!
STRESSED, BOOZE-FUELLED COCK-UPS AT OUR AIRPORTS?
The Wall Street Journal reports that the cancellation of the Air France flights on Christmas
Eve was the result of US officials wrongly identifying passengers as possible terrorist
suspects.
French officials said one passenger whose name matched that on an "alert" list
turned out to be a child; another turned out to be a Welsh insurance agent; and a third
was an elderly Chinese woman.
In an embarrassing development for the US authorities, Charles Brady, the head of
the transport security administration at Dulles airport, was arrested for drink driving on
New Year's Eve, shortly after passengers on BA 223 had been released from questioning.
He was meant to have stayed at his post at Dulles until 2am. Police said he was stopped
at 1am.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=477644
>> a brief glimpse behind the screens into what’s gotta be a brutal, panicked, paranoid
mess. and it looks to me at least that you can practically bring the west to a halt with a
few well placed bomm alerts or by penning a few emails on the net to be picked up by
the EES (evil empire in the sky)
oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive!
UP! A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)
IF YOU CANNOT VIEW THIS PROPERLY, TELL US AND WE’LL
PUT YOU ON A SPECIAL UNFORMATTED LIST.
TO REPLY TO FRASER OR THE UP! SIMPLY HIT REPLY.
TO SUBSCRIBE, WRITE “I wanna get UP!” TO people@parallel-youniversity.com
TO UNSUBSCRIBE, EMAIL REMOVES@parallel-youniversity.com
(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)
TOP TEN SCIENCE STORIES OF 2003
New Scientist.com’s most popular stories during 2003 include:
the first speed of gravity measurement
packet tracking for ultrafast Internet
the world's first brain prosthesis
James Watson's statement that stupidity is a genetic disease
that should be cured.
NewScientist.com Jan. 1, 2004
>> I gotta dollar here towards the presidential fund.
UP!
hey fraser!
thank you for including the list of big money corporations that continue to unnecessarily
test on animals (i culled it mostly from a PETA shopping guide).
boycotting the products of companies that torture animals might sound challenging to
some, but cruelty-free product sites like www.veganstore.com
<http://www.veganstore.com/> can give consumers some very reasonable + affordable
pointers on what to buy, even for items like razors and contact lens solutions. buying
cruelty-free is much easier than you'd think!
wouldn't it be amazing if someday westernized humans were able to respect the spirits and
rights of animals? let's push for it with even more resolve in 2004! as always, you are righteous.
love,
amanda nowinsky / new york
UP!
Hello Fraser,
Best Wishes and Thank-you. I can’t imagine what I would be like without The
Encyclopedia Psychedelica and all its descendant phenomena.
Mark / Brighton.
UP!
CHUTZPAH / FEEDBACK
felicitations and thanks....
never cease to amaze... loved it all and barely read it yet, with curdling eyes.
nice to see the discourse getting rabid... the PC game is obscene; if we have a problem,
lets not talk about it, or use coded language... talk about collective psychological
repression...
the daft notion that ANY group has some special claim to victim status (cos victimization is
the popular hierarchy of rightness) should just draw laughter, but instead gets parroted. no
fuckers get it easy in this life. remember guy met, and when pulled radiator off wall and
wrecked gaff generally then stormed out, compatriot says 'well, he's got issues'
instant rejoinder from across the table 'we ALL got issues'
once you make a living selling victim t-shirts, you ain't no victim.
turns into a flag of convenience. i mean, i could say i'm irish, i bin repressed by the
vestiges of colonialism in my country, and use as a pretext.
or that my anglo grandpappy was wacked by bloodthirsty nationalist revolutionaries...but
i'll quit singing hoarsely to a well tuned choir, pluribus in unum...
not sure if it all riled enough, but further in the hermeneutics of semitic whatnot...
darwin joke, not saying buy and eat dawkins shit, but if look at jews as breeding
population, rabbi is guy who can read, count, do his kabbalah. and rabbis are a good catch
socially.
compare catholicism, where if can read and write, get priest role. priest meant be celibate.
obviously this not work, but less breeding probably.
so in one tribal genepool you are selecting for aptitudes, cleverness, g, call it what you
like, whereas in crazy primate tribe B you are culling the fucking herd of any intelligence.
sheeple. sheep. cull. stupid.
xtians? shepherds and sheep? evident connections?
hey, i know its a crap reduction, and cheap, but boy does it rile peeps up, especially
because so many people buy darwin/dawkins stuff, but then get brainlock following thru...
cos makes SimpleSense... easy in but not so easy out, like the lobster in the lobster pot...
but hey, i been wondering how they so clued in for years, and it the best i could come up
with.
keep stirring and poking... it’s no fun unless there’s wincing; does no good neither...
felicitations and thanks....
tstewart / dublin
>> I PROMISED TO REPORT HOW MANY VIRUSES I GOT AFTER THE 'JEWISH'
DEBATE LAST WEEK. AM GLAD AND PROUD TO REPORT THAT NOT A SINGLE VIRUS
HAS BEEN RECEIVED!! WELL DONE, JEWISH PEEPS!! :D
UP! Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE AND FOSTERING HATRED OF ISRAEL…
Lt-Col Eitan Ronel, a veteran of 1973's Yom Kippur War, the invasion of Lebanon, and the
first Palestinian Intifada, has resigned in protest at his army's "immoral conduct" in the
occupied territories.
His resignation came even as five teenage conscripts were yesterday sentenced to a year in
prison each for refusing to serve in the Israeli army "as long as it acts as an army of
occupation". Scores of reservists have refused to report for duty for similar reasons, and
many of them have been sentenced to prison terms, but Lt-Col Ronel, 51, is believed to be
the first Israeli officer to resign his commission in protest.
In his letter to the chief of staff, wrote that, for him, the final straw had been when Israeli
soldiers opened fire last week on unarmed protestors demonstrating against the
"separation fence" Israel is building in the West Bank. Among the injured was an Israeli
civilian, Gil Naamati, whose case provoked a storm of controversy in Israel.
In a searing open letter to the army's chief of staff, Lt-Col Ronel wrote:
"A country in which the army disperses demonstrations of its citizens with live gunfire is
not a democratic country. An army that educates its soldiers that such a crime is
conceivable has lost all its borders.
>> chutzpah?
"I saw this deterioration, stage after stage: the blind eye that was turned to the abuse of
detainees in violation of the army's orders; the blind eye turned to soldiers' gunfire on
unarmed Palestinian civilians; the blind eye to the settlers' unlawful behaviour towards
Palestinian civilians; the oppression of the population; the roadblocks; the curfew; the
closure; the blind eye the army turned towards humiliation and abuse; the searches and
arrests; the use of live fire against children and unarmed people."
"Stage by stage, the value of human life has diminished. Step after step, the values on
which we were raised - the purity of arms, the value of human life, the dignity of human
beings as being created in the image of God - have become a scornful travesty. And now
we have reached the next stage: soldiers shoot at Israeli civilians in a demonstration, in
keeping with the regulations for opening fire... This is an educational, ethical and moral
failure.
"This is your failure, the failure of the army commanders. If I had any faith in you, I would
say to you - clean out the stables, take responsibility, resign. My faith in you is gone.
You have failed. You and your predecessors have corrupted my army, our army. I do
not want to be a part of such an army. You gave me the ranks, to you I return them."
Lt-Col Ronel's decision will resonate deeply in a country where military service is at the
heart of society, and achieving senior military rank is considered a great mark of
distinction. It comes after a group of reservists pilots, including a highly decorated war
hero, refused to fly any further missions to assassinate Palestinian militants over the
occupied territories, because of the civilian casualties involved - which provoked a furore.
Though directed at the chief of staff, Gen Moshe Ya'alon, Lt-Col Ronel's criticisms will also
be seen as criticisms of Ariel Sharon, under whose premiership most of the abuses he
refers to have taken place. Gen Ya'alon himself recently spoke out against the
government's military tactics in the occupied territories, saying they were
counter-productive and fostered Palestinian hatred of Israel.
UP! If you live an honourable life, you can enjoy it a second time when you age and think
back.
ARE SCOTS TAKING OVER THE WORLD?! R U ANTI-SCOTIC?!
>>i could tell you about scotsmen, but (and does this seem strange to you?) nobody
spends much time talking about them.
Maybe that's because the UK was taken over by a small group of people, disproportionately
Scottish, in 1997. When I see an elected House of Lords and the Home Counties get their
own parliament, then I'll know they were democrats all along!
Daniel
>> anti-scotic!
Not really - some of my best friends were Scottish :)
>>no longer? too scary, huh?
It's just an observation that this particular group of people happened to be Scottish, and
like many successful groups were a tight-knit bunch of outsiders. Thatcherites in the
Labour Party of the 80's weren't exactly mainstream, but they took over the party and the
country nonetheless. It bears out Margaret Mead's famous saying about small groups of
committed people being the only thing that has ever changed the world.
I wouldn't care if they were Welsh or Cornish - it's what they say and do that matters to
me. The fact that they put media manipulation at the core of their strategy to achieve
power, with people like Alistair Campbell in charge, says a lot about their contempt for the
electorate.
So it's no surprise that they stitched up regional democracy by only allowing devolution in
areas with a history of Labour support, replaced the peers in the House of Lords with their
own yes-men and women, and invaded Iraq even though the support in the country was
clearly not there.
>> JOIN THE GREAT ANTI-SC OTIC DEBATE B4 THE SCOTS & JEWS (mandelson!) TAKE
OVER THE WORLD, you mean?
UP!
Dear Ed,
So, 1 in 50 Scots are registered heroin users (Mark Deeley, UP!). Does the UK import in the
order of 10 tons a year of heroin, or is it far more than this? The street price is around £50
a gram. That seems rather more than a smugglers-cove type operation.
The book 'Trance-Formation Of America, The True Story Of A CIA Mind Control Slave' by
Cathy O'Brien and Mark Phillips (which everyone should read) describes how the stuff is
flown into North American CIA bases from South America. Thence it’s distributed via the
country music business, the latter having been 'penetrated' by the CIA.
>> rings true
Her story is in accord with what Mike Ruppert (www.copvcia <http://www.copvcia/> ) found.
Could something similar be happening here, with US bases? Let's face it, MI6 and CIA are
now closely interlinked.
Nick K / london
UP! Great love and great achievements involve great risk.
a a a a a a a a a a a a advertisement t t t t t t t t t t t t t t
HEMP PLASTIC CD TRAYS
Yes, a world-first material being used for the
first time in hemp plastic.Save the planet.
Save your conscience. Save your CDs!
Want to earn some money?
Help us get these to all your music buddies!!
Orders from 500+, preferably 10,000+.
Commissions for big sales/ introductions.
Visit
or
or call 07050 600 418 or fax
07050 600 419 (UK numbers).
a a a a a a a a a a a a advertisement t t t t t
REASONS TO BE THANKFUL PART 2003
On the surface, it’s been an absolutely lousy year for the sane people on this planet. And
for the weak and the poor. But that’s the surface, where movements and trends and
changes FINALLY appear. So what’s been happening BELOW the surface whose positive
results are bound to show up eventually? Here are 10 Good Things About A Bad Year by
Medea Benjamin.
1.
We organized the most massive, global protests against war the world has ever seen.
On February 15. 2003 alone, over 12 million people came out on the streets in over
700 cities in 60 countries and on every continent. So impressive was this outpouring
of anti-war sentiment that the New York Times, not known for hyperbole, claimed there
were now two superpowers: the US and global public opinion.
“For many attending, this was the first time they found themselves on the street voicing
their discontent with their state's foreign policy. People who normally wouldn't dream
of attending a public gathering found themselves on the front line for Peace. Some
individuals commented on the extremely high level of awareness that was felt that day
and the universal bond apparent during the February 15th demonstration- an unforgettable
experience. This has since gained momentum through the numerous gatherings that
followed this year and has seen this movement flow into the mainstream.” Brian Viz.
2.
Over the last few months, mainstream Americans have been buying progressive books
by the millions. Authors such as Michael Moore, Al Franken, Molly Ivins, Paul Krugman
and David Corn have seen their books soar to the New York Times bestsellers list.
With humour and biting exposes of the Bush administration, these authors helped our
movement gain legions of new converts. No more preaching to the choir this year!
3.
When the World Trade Organization met in Cancun to promote global rules giving even
greater power to corporations, they were met by well coordinated opposition from
countries in the global south, hundreds of NGOs and thousands of activists. When our
movement's sophisticated inside-outside strategy forced the talks to collapse, there
was "gloom in the suites and dancing in the streets." And as a counter to these
corporate-dominated global institutions, the fair trade movement had a stellar year.
4.
Bolivia, the poorest country in South America, proved that people power is alive
and well. Sparked by the Bolivian president's plan to privatise and export the nation's
natural gas, an astounding grassroots movement of peasants, miners, workers, and
indigenous people poured into the streets to demand his resignation. After 5 weeks
of intense protests and a government crackdown that left 70 dead, Sanchez de Lozada
was forced to resign. Now that's Regime Change!
5.
The silver lining in the budget crisis affecting all the American states is that state
governments are cutting prison budgets by releasing non-violent drug offenders.
The year’s been marked by a steady move toward treatment vs. incarceration, and
a greater understanding that drug abuse should be handled in the doctors' office vs.
the prison cell.
6.
Remember how celebrities kept their mouths
shut on social/political issues?
“I’m just a musician, man!”? Well, this year saw
a "coming out" of all types of
celebrities on all manner of progressive issues.
Jay-Z and Mariah Carey railed against the racist
Rockefeller drug laws, Bono and Beyonce Knowles
called for the world to fight AIDS, and a host of
celebs such as Sean Penn, Susan Saradon
and Laurence Fishbourne courageously took a
stand against the invasion of Iraq.
7.
Progressives now have a powerful new tool for organising: the Internet. E-activism
through venues such as MoveOn, Working Assets and Meetup.com have allowed
ordinary people to challenge big money and powerful institutions. We raised millions
of dollars to run ads, we've confronted corporate-dominated institutions, and e-activism
has allowed an anti-war candidate, Howard Dean, to become a frontrunner in the 2004
elections.
8.
200 cities, towns, counties and states in the U.S. (source of nearly all the bad news
this year) have passed resolutions against the Patriot Act. In fact, the outcry has been
so profound that plans for a successor act, dubbed Patriot Act II, that would further
broaden federal investigatory powers, have been scuttled.
9.
The corporate scandals that topped the headlines in 2002 continued in 2003, with
indefatigable New York State Attorney-General Eliot Spitzer exposing the trading
abuses in the mutual funds industry.
The Enron, World Com and accounting scandals produced some positive legislation
against corporate crime and forced institutional investors like pension funds to become
more active. And anti-corporate crusaders joined with peace activists to expose the
obscene war profiteering of Halliburton and Bechtel, with more exposes due in 2004!
10.
Despite the conservative takeover of the courts, this year produced several honorable
landmark rulings. The Supreme Court upheld affirmative action, giving a sweeping victory
to the University of Michigan and colleges all over the country. It struck down sodomy laws
criminalizing gay sex, affirming the constitutional right to privacy. The Massachusetts
Supreme Court ruled that gays should be able to marry. The Appeals Court ruled that the
US military could not detain American citizen Jose Padilla as an "enemy combatant", and
in an even more significant decision, found that all 600 detainees at Guantanamo Bay should
be granted access to lawyers.
UP! Open your arms (or legs) to change, but don't let go of your values
Pre-emptive Manhunting
THE CIA'S NEW ASSASSINATION PROGRAM
The major media outlets have ignored the CIA's on-going strategy of mass assassinations
as one of the main weapons in Bush's burgeoning global war of terror. But Seymour Hersh,
in The New Yorker, has now revealed the existence of what he wrongfully referred to as "a
new Special Forces operation" intended to assassinate the people comprising "the broad
middle of the Ba'athist underground."
It’s a half-truth, at best. This is a CIA assassination program, not a Special Forces
program; and Hersh, though correct that the targets are “members of the outlawed Ba'ath
Party”, tactfully skirts the fact that this assassination program is illegal because it targets
civilians not soldiers!!
Americans have denied these Iraqi civilians due process in their own country! Based
on the word of a single anonymous informant, Ba'ath Party members who’ve never harmed
a single American can be
- detained indefinitely
- tortured until they rat out some colleagues
- forced to become a double agent or pretend to
- assassinated along with their family, friends and neighbours.
And not just Ba'ath Party members, but anyone who gets their name on the CIA's
blacklist of political and ideological enemies.
Pre-emptive Man hunting: The New Phoenix Program The CIA has concocted various
euphemisms for its long-standing policy of assassinating civilians whose ideas and
political beliefs it hates. "Targeted kill" is a good one.
“Neutralize” and "Executive action" have been around too. I've been waiting for the
new euphemism for the media to assuage the public with, and disinformation specialist
Seymour Hersh has now supplied it: "Pre-emptive Man hunting."
Pre-emptive Man hunting = Assassination, and, according to Hersh (quoting his
usual anonymous sources), the rationale for resorting to this immoral and illegal measure
is that "The only way we can win is to go unconventional. We're going to have to play their
game. Guerrilla versus guerrilla. Terrorism versus terrorism. We've got to SCARE the Iraqis
into submission."
This is a textbook description of "Selective Terrorism" as the ultimate form of
psychological warfare, and Hersh is correct in describing Pre-emptive Manhunting
as the rebirth of the CIA's Phoenix Program in the Vietnam War.
The CIA’s Phoenix program in Vietnam
A typical Phoenix Program operation occurred in February 1968, when former Senator Bob
Kerrey (now added to the 9/11 Investigation team) led a 7-member Navy SEAL team into
Thanh Phong village and murdered more than a dozen women and children - a war crime for
which he received a Bronze Star.
That's right - Kerrey lied and reported he and his boys had killed “21 Viet Cong guerrillas”.
Sound familiar? Expect a lot more in Iraq, Afghanistan, and any other place Bush sends
the CIA to terrorize the population into submission.
Kerrey & Company were supposedly after the local Communist Party chief. Like the
Ba'ath Party, the Communist Party was outlawed, thus providing the CIA’s pretext to kill its
members. A Vietnamese informant provided the intelligence for Kerrey’s mission; in Iraq,
the CIA's Phoenix assassination teams will rely on paid, anonymous Iraqi informants to
identify which Ba'ath members will be murdered along with their family, friends, and
neighbours. And anyone else the CIA wants killed.
That's right - terrorising the people into submission is the point of Pre-emptive
Manhunting, just like the CIA's Phoenix Program. As in Kerrey's operation, that means
killing anyone in any way related to the target. Hundreds of My Lai massacres occurred in
South Vietnam in the name of Phoenix, and, starting in Afghanistan and Iraq, the CIA
will perpetrate a hundred times that many massacres around the world, in the
name of George Bush, Ariel Sharon, and the Judaeo-Christian God.
Israel?
Hersh mentions that Israel is guiding the CIA's Phoenix Program in Iraq. As the world
knows, the Israelis are the world's masters of assassination and terrorising an entire
people into submission. So the blanket of censorship that prevents the American media
from criticizing Israel for its war crimes has now been cast over Bush and the CIA, and all
the people they use to conquer foreign nations and assassinate people who never did any
American any harm - until the Americans invaded their country.
Compare America's conquest of Iraq with Israel's of Palestine, and you begin to
understand. In each case the strategy is massive war crimes on the one hand, and targeted
kills of inspirational leaders on the other. This devastating one-two punch is easier through
the complicity of the corporate media.
In this respect both Hersh and The New Yorker serve as essential instruments of the
Big Lie that makes Pre-emptive Man hunting popular and thus possible. Far from His story
in The New Yorker being a mistake, it was a part of the psychological warfare campaign
being waged by the Bush regime to subdue the resistance of the American public to this
awful war.
Douglas Valentine
www.DouglasValentine.com http://www.douglasvalentine.com/
UP! Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U UP P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P
· YOUR PLANET NEEDS //YOU! This HipList grows purely by recommendation.
SO RECOMMEND SOMEONE 2DAY!!!!!!!!!!
· TO DEBATE ANYTHING in the UP!, visit the GroupMind Debating Board on
WWW.PARALLEL-YOUNIVERSITY.COM <http://www.parallel-youniversity.com/>
· YES, YES, SEND US EDUTAINING NEWS’N VIEWS no need to ask! :-)
· FOR MORE FRASER ON RAVE CULTURE & THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT
TO UNSUBSCRIBE, EMAIL REMOVES@parallel-youniversity.com
U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U UP P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P
u cant understand the world without inner standing yourself u cant inner stand yourself without
understanding the world
FAIR USE NOTICE: This message usually contains copyrighted material the use of which
has not specifically been authorised by the copyright owner. We are making such material
available in an effort to advance the understanding of environmental, political, human rights,
economic, democratic, scientific, religious, spiritual, and social justice issues in the firm
belief that this constitutes a "fair use" of any such copyrighted material as provided for in
section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this
material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving
the included information for nonprofit educational and research purposes, and in the hope that
more people will awaken and begin to think for themselves, as is so sorely
needed in these times.
Parallel YOUniversity, Box 833, London NW6, UK
IMPORTANT: This email is intended for the use of the individual addressee(s) named
above and may contain information that is confidential privileged or unsuitable for overly
sensitive persons with low self-esteem, no sense of humour or absurd religious beliefs.
If you are not the intended recipient, any dissemination, distribution or copying of this
email is not authorised (either explicitly or implicitly) and constitutes an irritating social
faux pas. Unless the word absquatulation has been used in its correct context somewhere
other than in this warning, it does not have any legal or grammatical use and may be
ignored. No animals were harmed in the transmission of this email, although the spaniel
next door is living on borrowed time,let me tell you. Those of you with an overwhelming
fear of the unknown will be gratified to learn that there is no hidden message revealed
by reading this warning backwards, so just ignore that Alert Notice from Microsoft.
However, by pouring a complete circle of salt around yourself and your computer you
can ensure that no harm befalls you and your pets. If you have received this email in
error, please add nutmeg and flour, lightly sift & mix with 200g margarine and 180g
sugar, beat well and place it in a warm oven for 40 minutes.
Let it stand for 2 hours before icing
------ End of Forwarded Message X