The Daiichi nuclear meltdown and the need for deep change

What do you do when the powers-that-be are steering society in the wrong direction? What do you do when the CEO of the company you work for is making horrible stupid decisions that you see will bankrupt the company? What do you do if the leader of your religion are acting contrary to the teachings of your religion? What do you do if you feel your job, career, and lifestyle is incompatible with your vision of the way life should be lived?

Those are the same question, just placed at different levels.

A couple years ago I worked for a large multinational software company on a software product used by millions of software developers around the world. Management began making horrible decisions I thought undermined the software and seemed to doom the company. Indeed that company ended up croaking, and was bought up by another company, who made even worse decisions. I was in a leadership position and had a choice. I could have hunkered down (the recession of 2009 was coming) doing whatever the bosspeople told me to do. Or, I could take a stand for what I believe in. I took that stand, speaking up to my manager (and others) about the wrong decisions. I was eventually assigned to work on the project I thought shouldn't have existed, and had a horrible few months trying to do my job while disagreeing completely with the goal I was forced to work toward. After six months of this pain I was laid off when the company was beginning its death spiral and laying off a boat load of people in a desperation move.

Today we have a confluence of several events going on which look just as wrong to me, and I hope to many other people. These events collectively call us to question what is our response when the leaders are making insane decisions.

What do we the people do?

I suppose the first question is - what's going so wrong? Well, financial meltdown, peak oil, global warming, tea party idiots and theocracy idiots threatening democracy, nuclear meltdown, corporate interests running roughshod over the people, faux media/news outlets used to lie to and manipulate we the people, and more.

Some of those things are relatively minor only in contrast to the others which clearly threaten the survival of humanity.

What do we the people do? What do I do individually?

Do we say the problems are too large? As individuals we can easily say "I'm just ____, who am I to do anything about this"? But if that's what we all do then nobody will stand up. The wave of revolutions sweeping the Middle East right now are due to one fruit seller in rural Tunisia who took a stand. His stand was self-immolation, not exactly the recommended method of getting attention to problems, still it demonstrates the power individuals sometimes have. Perhaps the better example is the peaceful non-violent protests in Egypt and Wisconsin where large numbers of people banded together.

Do we deny the problems? Do we stay numbed out by the latest false celebrity scandal, or the latest sports upset, or the latest twist in hair styles, or the latest new shade of black? Those are some methods used by the powers-that-be to keep we the people from noticing what's really going on, by filling our lives with nonsense fake tea-pot-sized scandals.

What do we do? You, the one who is reading this, what do you do? You, the one who is writing this, what do you do? You, the one who doesn't know this blog post exists, what do you do? You, the one forced to read this by a friend who thought it was funny, what do you do?

Many people think the world is going in a wrong direction. Unfortunately there's a fair bit of disagreement over just what the problems are, what constitutes a wrong direction, and what would be the best direction to take. As the French say, Vive la Differance. Except that the stakes are high and it behooves we the people to make the best decision possible given the deeply fractured splits.

Unfortunately some of those splits were manufactured by corporate interests who now have free(er) reign due to that idiotic Citizens United decision last year.

In any case our world situation calls for action and change. Change we can really believe in and makes a real difference. Change that's wholly unlike the retread appeasements Obama is now giving to the corporate interests after inspiring us with the Audacity of Hope and Change we were supposed to Believe in.

Given the widely split set of ideas out there all I can suggest is to get engaged. To stand for what YOU believe in. To question what the bosspeople tell you, to question what the goal really is, and to question whether you believe in the goal the bosspeople want you to believe in.

See also:

Change starts "here"; Change starts with "you"; Change starts with "me"

Stand up for Real Change

This world doesn't have to become an uninhabitable nuclear radiation poisoned wasteland

Higher Purpose: Japans earthquake and nuclear crisis asks us what we really want

Congressman Bartlett and Peak Oil Revisited

URL: 

Congressman Bartlett and Peak Oil Revisited

Description: 

[May 8th, 2008, U.S. House of Representatives] Congressman Roscoe Bartlett and Peak Oil, back together for the x[th] time. The House is empty, and while other congressmen are away kissing babies, Roscoe rocks the floor. This time he finally addresses the money problem in the form of MONEY LAUNDERING; it's a start.

Thanks to Ron Paul, some are beginning to understand that gas prices going up is not just about "demand and supply", Government (backed by the G.O.P. -and- the Democratic Party) is responsible for monetarizing the exponentially increasing debt (debasing the currency) which forcefully leads to higher prices. Nice tie.

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Congressman Bartlett and Peak Oil Revisited [Part 1]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gtkq5D...
Congressman Bartlett and Peak Oil Revisited [Part 2]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2M-_5...
Congressman Bartlett and Peak Oil Revisited [Part 3]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6hzZ1...
Congressman Bartlett and Peak Oil Revisited [Part 4]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbReYd...
Congressman Bartlett and Peak Oil Revisited [Part 5]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mbm7Fd...

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(Transcript)

Mr. Speaker, several days ago I came into the office early and I found at my door the usual package of newspapers and I opened them up and was placing them out on the table, and I noticed the headlines. And this is every paper that was at my door that morning. There were four newspapers and there were three inside-the-Beltway newspapers intended primarily for those interested in the Congress. I want to go through the headlines in every one of those papers.

Here is the Baltimore Sun, and they had two headlines above the fold both related to energy, ``Demand Eats Supply,'' and ``Energy Bill Aids Payouts on Rise.''

Then I went to the Washington Times and there was a headline, ``Bush Lays Gas Blame on Congress.''

And then I went to the Wall Street Journal and the Wall Street Journal headline was ``Grain Companies' Profits Soar as Global Food Crisis Mounts.''

Then I turned to the U.S. News part of the Wall Street Journal and what do you know, above the fold there were two more headlines, ``Bush Prods Lawmakers on Economy and Energy Prices,'' and ``GOP Senators Urge Halt to Oil Reserve.''

Then I noted the three papers that are kind of inside the Beltway papers: Roll Call, ``Alexander Eyes Energy Agenda''; The Hill, ``Politics At the Pump''; and Politico had ``Gas Prices Fuel Effort to Jam the GOP.''

So every one of these seven papers that were on my doorstep that morning had headlines talking about energy. Now I noted just a few days before that there was a New York Times op-ed piece by Thomas Friedman. This is what he says about energy.

Here is what is scary. Our problem is so much worse than you think. We have no energy strategy. If you are going to use tax policy to shape energy strategy, then you want to raise taxes on the things that you want
to discourage --gasoline consumption and gas-guzzling cars-- and you want to lower taxes on the things you want to encourage new renewable energy technologies. We are doing just the opposite, he says.

The gas holiday proposal is a perfect example of what energy expert Peter Schwartz of Global Business Network describes as the true American energy policy today, and I quote, ``Maximize demand, minimize supply, and buy the rest from the people who hate us most.''

THIS IS NOT AN ENERGY POLICY. THIS IS MONEY LAUNDERING, he says. We borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it goes through our gas tanks. No, no, no, we will just get the money by taxing Big Oil. Even if you could do that, what a terrible way to spend precious tax dollars, he says.

For almost a year now, Congress has been bickering over whether and how to renew the investment tax credit to stimulate investment in solar energy and the production of tax credit to encourage investment in wind energy. And a little later I will go over this bill that has already passed the Senate, and we have introduced it in the House now.

http://www.c-spanarchives.org/congress/?q=node/77531&id=8565724

extvideo: 

City of Bloomington, Indiana, adopts Peak Oil Resolution

City of Bloomington, Indiana, adopts Peak Oil Resolution: On July 19, the Bloomington, Indiana City Council passed a resolution acknowledging That the global peak of petroleum production is “an unprecedented challenge” for society, and recognizes that the city must prepare for its inevitability. Bloomington is the 7th largest city in Indiana, home to Indiana University, and has a population of 70,000 residents plus a 40,000 student population. The resolution supports a global depletion protocol, such as the one drafted by Colin Campbell and Richard Heinberg. ... read more at the link above

Building pressure for a world war to secure oil supplies?

What are we fighting in Iraq for? What are we fighting in Afghanistan for? Why are we threatening Iran?

Think it's about ephemeral things such as establishing democracy and freedom? Think again. There are dozens of freedom-hating countries around the world that we don't threaten with our military. Some of those freedom hating countries had their leaders installed by the U.S. We aren't threatening those countries, only the ones in the Middle East.

This article outlines the growing danger of a world war fought to secure oil supplies: A battle for oil could set the world aflame International powers will do everything to protect their access to dwindling resources. We are mad not to have an alternative strategy (Will Hutton, Sunday April 30, 2006, The Observer)

The key piece is twofold. First is the incontrovertible fact that the U.S. and China both have very little domestic oil supplies. What has allowed our modern societies to flourish isn't technology, it's that the technology has cheap energy to drive it. We could have the same dazzling array of technology, but if the energy to drive the technology wasn't available the technology would be useless. And, this is a situation we all may be facing in a few years.

The U.S. imports over 60% of its oil needs. In the 1970's there were two oil embargo crisis, at a time when the U.S. imported only 35% of its oil needs, and which drove the U.S. into a recession. What would happen today if the supply of oil to the U.S. were to dry up?

At the same time China is experiencing rapid economic growth, which is in turn causing rapid growth in its energy demands.

The article discusses China's role in both the Sudan/Darfur fiasco, and the showdown against Iran. In both cases China has made oil deals with the countries in question, and at the same time are expected to veto any UN Security Council actions against those countries. Further, Iran and China have an oil deal, part of which is shipping oil from Iran to China via a pipeline through Central Asia. Such a pipeline is a strategic move that would keep the U.S. from enforcing anything against that oil, because our Navy is useless in reaching Central Asia.

The coming world oil disruptions

I was in my young teens in the early 1970's when the oil embargo was used against the U.S. In the second oil embargo I was in college. Those two events really affected me and is what's driving me today to study energy supplies.

Stanford EMF: 80% Probability of Major Oil Disruption in Next Ten Years covers a study done by Hillard Huntington, Executive Director Energy Modeling Forum (EMF), Stanford University, which discusses the probabilities of another oil disruption.

Thinking about it now, this shouldn't be surprising. For example we are threatening Iran right now which could easily turn into a major oil disruption. And generally speaking, OPEC did it before (staging oil disruptions) so why wouldn't they do it again?

The thing that's really alarming is what the effect would be.

In the 1970's the recessions we had then were likely triggered by the oil embargo's. Those oil embargo's caused the price of oil to rise pretty high. Remember Carter's Windfall Profits Tax? President Enron nor Vice President Halliburton nor Secretary of State Chevron are likely to push for such a tax, but we have the same conditions today that occurred in the 1970's that prompted that tax.

In the 1970's the U.S. imported 35% of its' oil needs. Today we import 70% of our oil needs. If there were another oil disruption today, the effect on the U.S. would be far more dramatic than the effect in the 1970's.

Not Optional - a nice rant about the oil situation

Not Optional by Jim Kunstler with Clusterfuck Nation is right on the money, so far as I can see. Enjoy -- warning, it gets a little ranty.

The topic he's writing on is collective blindness on several angles. For example, how can the people really believe we can just pull out of this misbegotten war in Iraq. Regardless of how illegal that war is, we started a total mess there and pulling out now would only make matters worse.

The other blindness is about oil. The war is for oil, despite the protestations of the Administration. The Bush Administration has taken lying to the public to a fine art, and for that I must applaud them.

It's about oil because Iraq has a huge chunk of it, and the U.S. has very little. In order to keep our standard of living, which is one of the meme's the Bush Administration keeps mouthing, we must grab the oil wherever it is.

The problem is this is a fools quest. There's not that much oil left in the world anyway, and there are plenty of alternatives. The better route is to invest in alternative energy research in a big way. Not these piddly little bits here and there the Administration has been throwing out to keep the environmentalists happy. There's a real problem here, and with the direction the Bush Administration is leading the country the only result is a kind of world described in the Mad Max movies.

Theocracy in America, an "Unholy Alliance"?

Kevin Phillips is one of the political operatives who helped bring the Republicans into power in the 1960's and 1970's. He's billed as a Republican Strategist, and eventually worked in the Reagan White House. With that as background we have a very interesting book from him, warning of the danger of the neo-Theocracy we find ourselves with today in the United States.

Here's some resources:

American Theocracy : The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21stCentury

Interview with Democracy Now, March 21, 2006

The Unholy Alliance Kevin Phillips believes the U.S. is threatened by a combination of petroleum, preachers and debt

This gives a sense of where the book is going:

AMY GOODMAN: Kevin Phillips, you talk about radical religion, about debt, and about oil, about this being an oil war. You also talk about peak oil. That's not talked about very much in the mainstream. Explain.

KEVIN PHILLIPS: The peak oil idea is that just as the United States oil production peaked in 1971, that we have a limited amount of oil globally, and that it’s something that can't be re-created. It’s running out. And the expectation of some is that the oil production of the non-OPEC countries will peak at some point during the 2010s, and that then the production of OPEC itself will peak in the 2020s or 2030s. Now, some people think that Saudi production has already peaked.

Now, if you believe this, and it’s possible, then we face an enormous convergence, again under specific oil-related circumstances, of a global struggle for natural resources as the price of oil climbs, as we turn the armed services into a global oil protection service, which has been happening, and as we see the administration refuse to grapple with the need to really curb oil consumption in the United States, which is mostly through transportation and especially motor vehicles.

And I just have a sense, as many others on the conservative side do, this administration has no strategy to deal with these converging problems, be they foreign policy, military, oil, debt. They are like the three little monkeys on the old jade thing – the one sees no evil, one speaks no evil, and one hears no evil. Do they know anything? You know, that's an open question.

But, it just goes on and on. Such as an assertion that: "that the Bush electorate is probably 50 to 55% people who believe in Armageddon and probably more or less the same numbers who believe that the Antichrist is already on earth. And when you have this backdrop and you have a president who got his start in national politics as his father’s liaison with the religious right back in 1987 and ‘88, you just have an enormous exposure to this whole psychological context and an awareness on the part of people in the White House that this huge constituency interprets the Middle East in this very unusual way."

Asia Times Online :: India to join Turkmenistan gas pipeline

Hopefully you saw Fahrenheit 9/11, the movie by Michael Moore that was prominent in 2004. His main topic throughout the movie was to explore cronyism and how that created the war in Iraq. The main example is the laundry list of business ties between the Administration, the Saudi royalty and even to the bin Laden family. That most of the Administration has ties to the Oil Industry (both GW and GHW Bush owned oil companies, VP Cheney was the CEO of Halliburton, Chevron named an oil tanker for Condoleeza Rice, etc) figured heavily in this movie.

In one segment Moore talked about the oil in Central Asia and the U.S. plan for bringing that oil to market. The Central Asia oil has been a matter of power play for several years, and it's land-locked position that isn't easily accessible makes it difficult to "extract" and sell on the market. Taking it in one direction, you'd be going through Russia. Another direction and you're going across Siberia and then the port is in the arctic and probably locked in by ice. And to the south are steep mountains, some of the highest in the world. Also to the south is Iran, a sworn enemy of the U.S.

The chosen U.S. route was through Afghanistan. The U.S. has pushed for this route since the 1990's. The problem was, neither Afghanistan nor Pakistan were terribly friendly to the U.S. The Taliban was in control, and Pakistan was very friendly with the Taliban. It didn't make any difference that during the 1980's the U.S. worked closely with Pakistan and the people who became the Taliban. In the 1980's the menace was Russia's invasion of Afghanistan, and the U.S. effort to drive Russia out, which meant a secret operation supplying the mujahadeen (as they were known then) with arms and training. By the 1990's that was long in the past, and U.S. policy had shifted away. Even so the Taliban government visited the U.S., as Michael Moore documented, working to negotiate both the opium poppy eradication as well as the pipeline deal.

BTW, since the toppling of the Taliban government, opium poppy production has sprung back to pre-Taliban levels.

In any case there was an existing plan to run an oil pipeline through Afghanistan. And you can imagine the big question in U.S. and oil industry planning -- how the heck do we get access to Afghanistan? Essentially that country had become enemy territory.

Conveniently the September 11, 2001 attack provided the needed excuse. The culprits were in Afghanistan, which gave us all the excuse in the world to invade that country, topple its government, etc.

And, now, conveniently the path was clear. Afghanistan was no longer essentially enemy territory. Further, in the process of making war on Afghanistan the U.S. established bases and cooperation with several Central Asian countries. These countries had been carved out of the former Soviet Union after its collapse in the early 1990's.

A nagging question is whether the September 11, 2001 attack was merely a coincidence, or whether some behind the scenes conspiracy created it? There's enough connections there to make one ponder. The Bush family had ties with the bin Laden family, to the point that one of the bin Laden cousins bailed George W Bush out of at least one of his failed businesses. And there was the pre-existing plan for a pipeline through Afghanistan, and coincidentally the major players in creating that plan are now major players in both the Afghanistan government and the U.S. relationship with Afghanistan.

But there isn't enough proven data to truly connect the attack to any behind the scenes conspiracy. So we'll just leave that question dangling out there.

What's of interest now is this article: India to join Turkmenistan gas pipeline

It discusses two different pipeline projects to bring Natural Gas to "market". One is the US-backed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan (TAP) while the other is the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI).

This appears to be part of the larger geopolitics power struggle. The different sources of these two pipelines is interesting. Iran being an U.S. enemy at this moment makes this statement interesting:

Moreover, unlike IPI, the project does not run the risk of being blacklisted for participation by US and European financiers and companies. The US has been encouraging Pakistan to abandon the IPI project and consider TAP for meeting its gas needs.

Blacklisted?? This isn't explained, but clearly the official relationship with Iran is problematic for many countries. But Pakistan probably has a lot of cooperation with Iran, given they share a long border and probably have common cultural elements. But to the U.S. and the "west" Iran is a pariah, being controlled by fundamentalists who are opposed to the western powers.

Re: The price of gasoline could get ugly in 2006

The "Hybrid Cars Blog" suggests that in 2006, the price of gasoline could get ugly. That is, the high gas prices seen in the U.S. last year could be as bad, or worse. See: The price of gasoline could get ugly in 2006

The story seems to be that the cause for last years oil price surge can be found in the gap between China having increasing oil use and weather related outages in oil delivery. This year China's surging oil demand is still there, plus we have several possible outages in oil delivery such as "rebels" in Nigeria attacking oil platforms, and the situation in Iran from which there could be several ways oil delivery could be blocked.

While that story is very true, it is also an example of short term thinking.

In the long term picture the price for oil can only go up. In the short term there will be fluctuations, but long term is a different story. Why? It's because the demand continues to go up in an unabated curve, and the Peak Oil scenario is looming out there.

The Peak Oil scenario is a model developed by oil company scientists that describes production capacity over time. The model shows that the world oil production capability will peak. Already discoveries of new oil fields has dried up with discoveries not at all meeting the growth in demand for oil.

UPDATE in December 2006 ... the price for oil and gasoline did get very high up until September. Then it curiously dropped just before the election, and then has curiously risen a little since the election. Makes one wonder if some kind of price manipulation was being tried by the oil industry to prop up the Republicans? If so, it didn't work.

Public meeting on Iraq, Iraq policy, Rep. Murtha, and the possibilities to impeach the President

I just watched a 2 1/2 hour long meeeting recorded from C-SPAN, which I learned about from here: American Foreign Policy, Part Deux. It was an opportunity for Representative Murtha to explain and discuss a proposal he's made to withdraw from Iraq. The Republicans and Neocons have been jumping all over him, calling him a coward, unpatriotic, etc (note: he served in two wars, in the Marines, and has a ream of medals to show for his service). The action towards Rep. Murtha is just following the prior pattern when anybody dares to say the slightest thing against the Administration, that out of the woodwork comes various kinds of attacks and most especially to question the patriotism of the person who made the criticism.

Are so insecure that they can't stand a little scrutiny and criticism ...??

Anyway, here is what Karen Kwiatkowski has to say about the C-SPAN show:

A lot of Americans are waking up to this Part One, as the recent standing room only town meeting co-hosted by Virginia Democrat Jim Moran and Pennsylvania Republican Jack Murtha. Watch the video. It is shock television at its best, courtesy C-span. Murtha and Moran say they want troops out soonest, and both insist we are not building permanent military bases in Iraq. Like I say, it's shock TV - see for yourself!

(The video is linked above -- you will need the Real Video player to view it)

They held a "town hall" meeting that was jam-packed, where they turned away more people than could actually attend the event, etc. It was a very spirited event from what I can tell via the recording.

Rep. Murtha's suggestion is that we should withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq NOW. That we should let the Iraq government take over. That we should keep U.S. troops in the vicinity (e.g. Kuwait), I suppose so that troops are easily redeployed if the situation were to flare up.

I'm not so sure that's a good idea. Much as I am angry over the war in the first place, at how unnecessary it is, how it is a distraction from the real problem, how the administration lied to the world and the American people in order to launch the war, that withdrawing would leave a power vacuum that would simply result in a civil war as the different factions compete with each other to grab all the power. At least, that's what I am afraid of. Which just leaves me highly conflicted because we have no ethical, legal, or moral right to be in Iraq doing what we are doing.

Rep. Murtha also talked at length on the corruption (e.g. "no-bid" contracts which simply means the U.S. is being ripped off by defense contractors) and the horribly underfunded Veterans Administration (paid for by the tax cuts).

Many times the questions were "When are we going to Impeach the President". It was enlightening to hear both Rep. Murtha and Morin basically agree with the sentiment. It's basically been proved that the President and all the Presidents People lied us into this war, that it was premeditated back to 1992 (at least), that it has been horribly mismanaged, that the insurgency that is killing so many U.S. and Iraq people is directly attributable to the mismanagement, that the administration is criminally culpable in this, and that it is a reprehensible situation. Both of the Representatives basically agreed with this, but they kept saying how Impeachment was basically impossible.

They pointed to an investigatory hearing held by Rep. Conyers meant to explore the same issue. He just barely got approval to hold that hearing, in the first place, and the space he was given to hold it was in the basement. Relegated to the basement. See, the practical fact is that the Administrations party controls the Congress, and so long as the leadership is as it is, there is practically zero chance of Impeachment.

What Rep. Morin kept returning to is that we, the people, the ones for whom this most perfect union of a government exists, it is we who need to organize. The solution is in the ballot box, and it is in organizing the democracy for which we stand to stand up and take back the reins of government.

Guardian Unlimited | Shock, awe and Hobbes have backfired on America's neocons

What is the reason for the Iraq war? Was it an altruistic exercise in helping a poor oppressed people join the community of enlightened Democacry countries? Naw, because if it were then why doesn't the U.S. launch similar wars on other oppressive countries? There's a bigger picture going on and it's more than a coincidence that the plan by the Project for a New American Century to reshape the world begins in the heart of the Middle East, where the oil is. And, at the same time, there is a game afoot to bring oil from Central Asia to market, with the chosen U.S. path being a pipeline built through Afghanistan. And why did we go to war in Afghanistan? If it was about Osama, then why have we let Osama and the other leaders get away?

That's what is implied from this article: Shock, awe and Hobbes have backfired on America's neocons Iraq has shown the hubris of a geostrategy that welds the philosophy of the Leviathan to military and technological power (Richard Drayton, Wednesday December 28, 2005, The Guardian)

He starts out with an observation about technology.

Ex-hippies talked of a wired age of Aquarius. The fall of the Berlin wall and the rise of the internet, we were told, had ushered in Adam Smith's dream of overflowing abundance, expanding liberty and perpetual peace. Fukuyama speculated that history was over, leaving us just to hoard and spend. Technology meant a new paradigm of constant growth without inflation or recession.

I remember that was the dream floating about during the .COM bubble in the late 90's. But, this kind of thinking is in denial of a real problem. The driving force of the expansion of technology is not technology, it is oil and natural gas. The energy used to drive the technological marvels are these fossil fuels whose use is destroying our environment and which are becoming scarcer by the day.

The public has been misled to believe the technology will keep flowing forever. But that promise is based (today) on fossil fuels.

The problem with that picture is it appears the oil is running out. There is a model put together decades ago which describes the availability of oil. The model shows an unnavoidable fact, that at some point in the future the production capacity of oil will "peak" and after that oil will inexorably decline. There are many indications we are at or near the peak, today.

The rest of the article goes into describing megalomaniacs who have the capabilities to act out their megalomania. The writings of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) show them to be megalomaniacs. The PNAC is a think-tank whose founding members are today holding positions of high power in Washington DC (that is, Cheney, Rumsfield, Wolfowitz, Bremer, Jeb Bush, etc). In the mid-90's the PNAC published a series of position papers describing the need of America to assert global dominance, ensuring a Pax Americana. The justification was that "we" are the worlds sole remaining superpower, and that we had to use our strength to take the moral high ground and that it was our duty to reshape the world in our image.

According to this article these people learned certain strategies from the classics of literature:

or the American imperial strategists invested deeply in the belief that through spreading terror they could take power. Neoconservatives such as Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and the recently indicted Lewis "Scooter" Libby, learned from Leo Strauss that a strong and wise minority of humans had to rule over the weak majority through deception and fear, rather than persuasion or compromise. They read Le Bon and Freud on the relationship of crowds to authority. But most of all they loved Hobbes's Leviathan. While Hobbes saw authority as free men's chosen solution to the imperfections of anarchy, his 21st century heirs seek to create the fear that led to submission. And technology would make it possible and beautiful.

The technology that is supposed to free us all, is also these peoples weapon used to dominate us all.

The vision they've had, and which Rumsfield has been busily implementing in the Defense Department, is that high technology weaponry can be used to create battlefields with few soldiers. Hence we have unmanned aircraft doing both surveillance and firing weapons, we have a rise in robotic tanks, we have a global satellite system delivering GPS positioning coordinates and others spying on everybody's activities. The next time you're in the back yard making love with your sweetie, think about the Pentagon watching you.

But their vision missed something which Iraq and Afghanistan have demonstrated. Satellites in the sky can't stop the acts of individuals. In Afghanistan the leaders made their escape so they could make new plots in the future. In Iraq the U.S. forces have been hobbled by the improvised explosive device (IED) in ways that satellites cannot see or prevent.

"Global Warning", interview w/ James Howard

I have in front of me an interview with James Howard, a longtime critic of urban sprawl and the innefficiencies associated with it. With his latest book, The Long Emergency, he has joined the chorus singing the dangers of the Peak Oil story.

This is a more rational version of the "we're going to run out of oil" scenario. A bunch of scientists, beginning with Oil Company Geologist Hubbert, have put together a most enlightening and alarming story. What they've done is make a picture of the oil available, and the production levels. Charted over time the picture is very alarming.

A historical perspective on the Age of Oil. (ASPO newsletter #35)

The ASPO web site (http://www.asponews.org/) has more detailed pictures available, but the important message is conveyed in this one very well. There will be a peak in oil production capacity, and it will happen sooner rather than later. This isn't a cliff that once the world hits the peak, there's no more oil. Instead it's more of a mountain like in the above picture. Once we hit the peak, oil supply begins to decline but its still available.

The demand for oil is inexorably growing. Not only is there the organic growth in demand from the industrialized countries, but there are several countries currently experiencing hyper growth as they industrialize. Most especially India and China, and between the two of them they have 2/3rds of the worlds population.

Consider some basic economics. What happens when there is continued demand for a product, but the supply for that product cannot expand to meet the demand?

Doesn't the law of supply/demand dictate that the price for must product rise?

Consider the effects on the U.S. and world economy of a rising price for oil?

The availability of abundant energy is interwoven with every part of our societies existance. We couldn't live in suburbia, far from our jobs, without cheap energy. We couldn't afford well lit or well heated homes, without cheap energy. We couldn't afford to let our computers run 24x7, without cheap energy. Cheap energy supplies us with everything from plastics (that we tend to use once, and throw away) to airplanes, and everything in-between.

But the energy was "cheap" because we thought the supply of oil was limitless. Well, my friends, that was a pack of lies told to us by the leaders.

James Howard Kunstler: We poured our national wealth into the construction of a living arrangement that has no future -- and the future is now here. The infrastructure of suburbia can be described as the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world. It was deficient and problematic as a human habitat even apart from the question of its sustainability. The way we live in America represents a tragic set of collective and individual choices we made at a particular point in history, the mid-to-late 20th century, when circumstances seemed to suggest there were no limits to our quest for comfort, convenience and leisure. These things turned out to be a poor basis for a value system and for an economy.

...The Germans and Brits are paying $5.50 a gallon and their societies are not collapsing. If they can handle $6 gas, why can't we?

The Europeans have very different ways of life and standards of living. They have cars but are not car-dependent, certainly not to the degree we are. They did not destroy their towns and cities. We did. They did not destroy their public transit. We did. They did not destroy local agriculture or the value-added activities associated with it. We did. If Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia got bumped off by a Wahabi maniac tomorrow and the West was put under a new oil embargo, the Europeans would still be able to get around. We would not.