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Date: Fri, 11 May 2001 21:05:08 -0500
From: Bill Grazier <•••@••.•••>
Organization: VISION2001+
X-Accept-Language: en
To: •••@••.•••
Subject: Re: Welcome to the Abyss : The Threat of Globalism
I would like to suggest that the author of this article is
missing the point that time and events are over shadowing
globalism, capitalism, liberalism. The apocalypse we are
now facing is global warming, energy crisis and
overpopulation. This planet will "hit the brick wall" if we
don't succeed in deciding what kind of a different world we
should strive for. The end of cheap oil is the end of
growth. We don't have enough oil left to construct the new
energy structure and it will no longer be cheap. If that
don't slow down the elite capitalist growth synergism, then
the effects of global warming and overpopulation will. This
will be a cataclysmic paradigm that will encompass every
aspect of living on this finite planet. We are now engaged
in the initial stages of this historic transition and very
few have recognized it's coming. And they are powerless to
stop it. William D. Grazier
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Dear William,
I'm in complete agreement on your main point:
> This planet will "hit the brick wall" if we don't succeed
in deciding what kind of a different world we should strive
for.
Let me restate it this way: It is with ~great urgency~ that
we must figure out what we want and how we can strive for
it. To me, that translates into: the ~movement~, with great
urgency, must begin thinking seriously about goals and
strategy. I think we are 'on the same side' in this.
But when you say ~will~ "hit the brick wall", and when you
say ~very few~ "have recognized it's coming", then I suspect
you may be overlooking some things. Let's first talk about
these 'very few'. The Internet is full of traffic and websites
devoted to these issues; there are are popular books about
them; thousands of activist groups are acting on that
awareness, and even the average Joe in the streets has some
level of awareness, if only from countless documentaries
about vanishing species. There seem to be lots of
these few.
Consider the elite regime, with its thousands of think
tanks, research centers, and economic study groups. Do you
honestly think that none of these research and planning
agencies are looking at apocalyptic scenarios? In fact, I
read about a whole new Federal agency that has been recently
established. Its job is to map out all remaining global
resources, using satellite reconnaissance and other means,
and to come up with some kind of 'best use' policies. This
doesn't mean that the regime is just starting with such
thinking, only that they've now consolidated it into a
dedicated agency. In fact, we can see evidence 'on the
ground' that strategic steps are already being taken to
~manage~ the coming apocalypse.
Consider the global program of water privatization that is
now underway, compelled by IMF loan conditions. The program
is a very draconian one: if you can't afford the market
price, you don't drink. You can't even legally build a well
in your own backyard or take buckets from a river, because
even that water is owned by the corporate license holder.
You don't need to be an economist to figure out where this
is going to lead. As we reach our resource limits, food
shortages will arise, and food will get more expensive.
We'll have increased use of third-world land for food
export to the West, a trade which can afford the
market-price of water - and which will in fact drive that
price up. There'll be no water left over for domestic use,
and we'll have mass famines. On TV, we'll be told that yet
another 'drought' is causing yet another famine in far-off
Africa, South America, etc.
In fact the drought-famines we've seen for years in Ethiopia
and elsewhere are not because there was no water in those
countries. They were all the time exporting crops which
require irrigation. It's like the so-called potato famine
in Ireland in the 1800s. Ireland was exporting tons of food
daily all during the famine. In Africa now and Ireland
then, the best land and water is owned by outsiders and
devoted to export production, while the poor must depend on
the volatile productivity of marginal land and crops. It's
that system that causes famine. And it's that system that
is being consolidated everywhere in the third world through
water privatization.
Similarly, as oil prices have risen, more and more of the
third world is being priced out of the market, and being
pushed back to pre-internal-combustion ways of doing things.
This is what a capitalist calls 'best use' of resources -
best use = best price.
The whole point of NAFTA, FTAA, GATS, and all the rest is to
force the world into a privatized, market-forces regime.
Under such a regime, as we can see already happening, the
the world's remaining resources will be channeled to the
West. In other words, we will have massive population
die-offs, as ecological doomsayers predict. But, courtesy
of the IMF and globalization, the third world is scheduled
to do the dying off for the rest of us. In this way, we can
see the apocalypse being ~managed~. Perhaps you are right
that no one can stop it, but that does not mean it cannot
be managed.
Apocalypse, phase 1: Kill off the African population and
turn Africa into a food plantation to feed a still-growing
West. You do realize, I hope, that every one of those
genocidal civil wars we've seen in Africa has had covert
involvement by the CIA and other Western intelligence
agencies? The West sells arms to all sides, and the IMF sets
up the conditions which lead to collapse and instability in
the first place. Even without all that, AIDS is likely to
kill of the whole population, with something like 25%
already infected, and no effective preventive measures in
operation.
The West, through action and inaction, is currently
administering an African Holocaust, as systematic and
cold-blooded as any previous holocaust, though carried out
by more indirect and disguised means. The apocalypse is
already happening, but most of us are denying it. Most of
us still talk about it as 'coming sometime', catching us
unawares, and causing the whole system to collapse at once.
We are ~already~ hitting the "brick wall", and that's not
how the cookie is crumbling.
---
If anyone wants to make predictions about where global
warming will lead, or over population, and all those other
apocalyptic scenarios - they must take into account the role
of elite management. Evidently, as exemplified by Bush's
energy policies, the current scheme is to keep the growth
bubble going some more in the West, while the third world is
being squeezed into oblivion.
They know the story on oil supplies - the oil industry has
long been intimately associated with the highest levels of
government. For now, they choose to keep building highways
and using up the oil as fast as possible, while gradually
shifting up the price. At some point, their little
spreadsheet will tell them that it's time to switch
strategies, so as to maximize overall profits on all known
reserves. Then suddenly governments will 'discover' that
oil is running out, and we'll see all sorts of development
of light-rail schemes or whatever, all carried out by major
corporations at a healthy profit. Then the price of petrol
will skyrocket and huge profits will be milked out of the
final reserves, under a new high-efficiency,
appropriate-technology regime.
I'm not trying to play crystal ball here, these are only
rough scenarios, not serious prognostication. The point is
that there will be various kinds of drastic action that can
be taken, at various points, that can channel the
consequences of the apocalypse. 'Marginal populations' can
be sacrificed, as were those in Australian and North America
in earlier days. Impact on the West can be buffered, and
then when the West begins to be affected, there are ways
that can be managed as well.
If we doubt that the elite regime has the heart and the
means to take these kinds of drastic measures, as they
become 'necessary', then we are denying the evidence that is
already before our eyes.
No matter how these scenarios unfold, and they may include
major wars and economic collapses - there is no reason to
believe that the regime is going to lose control. They know
the numbers; they know the moves; they're building lasers in
space so they can dominate the whole world electronically
from a single command center and a network of satellites.
The only troops needed are to guard the upload towers and
to occupy defeated territories.
We cannot count on the collapse of capitalism, either as a
prelude to the end of humanity, nor as an opportunity to
build a new world. Even if free-market capitalism must be
abandoned at some point, we'd get some kind of state-economy
fascism before we'd get societal collapse in the West.
It's a case of the slow-boiling frog. At each stage, we in
the West won't perceive that there's an apocalypse going on.
It'll always be off somewhere in the future. In fact, it
has started, and the fact that most people don't think of it
that way is evidence that the slow-boiling strategy is
working according to plan.
Let's get on with the revolution.
rkm,
http://cyberjournal.org
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