Is it the future yet?

[Minstrel Boy]

Posted to my blog, here. Links are live at the site.

Is it the future yet?



Something tells me, maybe, yes?

It must be hard to tell for those who had expected to live the Jetsons' life. Where are my domestic robots? Where is my flying car? But I don't think we'll be getting flying cars. Not us.

After a lull of, say, 30 years or so, things are suddenly coming at us too fast to process. Though processing, at this stage, should be nearly superfluous. We should recognize what is coming if we recall, say, 30 years ago, having heard such words as, "If present trends continue, in 30 years...."

If you care for a glimpse of your Future, Imperfect, read three Schiavo-free stories from the past few days:

Worries swelling over oil shortage

In the space of a couple of hours last week, crude oil prices hit a record $56 a barrel, President Bush fretted publicly over world oil shortages and the Senate voted to open an Alaskan wildlife refuge to drilling.

...

When oil production stops rising to meet growing demand, it "will result in dramatically higher oil prices, which will cause protracted economic hardship in the United States and the world," a team of Energy Department consultants warned in a report last month.

"The challenge of oil peaking deserves immediate, serious attention if risks are to be fully understood and mitigation begun on a timely basis."

OPEC says it's lost control of oil prices

OPEC ministers meeting in Iran Wednesday will be grappling with a problem they haven’t confronted in the cartel’s 45-year history. In the past, OPEC tried to cool overheated prices by pumping more when supplies got too tight. But most OPEC producers say they’re already pumping as fast as they can. And despite the high cost of a barrel of crude, world demand shows no signs of slowing.

...

"OPEC has done all it can do.” Qatar Oil Minister Abdullah al-Attiyah said. "This is out of the control of OPEC."

Oil could gush to $100

That's the view from analysts who may have considered that prospect a long shot just a few months ago. And to be sure, some still think that's a stretch from the current $55 level, short of a major disruption like a terrorist attack.

But momentum is gaining for a view that sees rising crude prices as more than a temporary spike due to speculation or terrorism fears. If that's true, New Yorkers can expect to be socked for items from gasoline and heating oil to rent and groceries.

"$100 oil is totally realistic within a year or two," said Stephen Leeb, who tracks oil for his own investment firm.... "I don't think $100 is even a big deal," Leeb said. His long-term projection? Try $250 a barrel in six to nine years.

But wait: the price of a barrel of oil dipped below $55 dolars this week, so it can't be that bad. No; actually, it's worse. Because the price dropped on the strength of US crude inventories, not on account of global production, which is destined to only fall. And anything that keeps energy consumers from confronting their inevitable powerdown is a very bad thing indeed.

Canada increased its proven oil reseves by some 3,600 percent in 2003 by, for the first time, including the synthetic crude from Alberta's tar sands. Suddenly, Canada had 180 billion barrels of oil, the second largest on paper, after Saudi Arabia's own over-stated reserve. A good thing? No, and again, worsening a bad situation. Because the meaning of "cheap oil" is not principally found in the cost at the pump, but in the energy efficiency of the oil's extraction: the Energy Return on Invested Energy (EROIE). Cheap oil, at its cheapest, which we're well past, meant up to 100 times the energy returned on investment. In The Party's Over, Richard Heinberg quotes geologist Walter Youngquist on the tar sands, saying "it takes the equivalent of two out of each three barrels of oil recovered to pay for all the energy and other costs." Tar sands extraction, by any measure, is extremely costly, not least because extracting the oil requires massive amounts of fresh water. Within a few decades, we may find such a use for fresh water to be madly extravagant.

Peak Oil is real, and it's here, and it's bad. Mike Ruppert may say that's the end of the story. And he may be right. But I wonder if, just maybe, that's where it starts to get interesting. And I don't mean in a good way.

So, is that it, then?

If it is, then we ought to get to get acquainted with Easter Island.

"Love the Moai, dude, but where's the trees?"


Read The Lorax lately? That's the short history of Easter Island. To transport and erect their Moai - the huge figures carved from volcanic rock - the Polynesian Oncelers deforested their tiny, remote home of its palm trees, which held together the fragile soil and provided shelter for 25 species of nesting seabirds. They'd arrived on the island around 900 AD, and just 600 years later agriculture was failing, poultry was off the menu, cannibalism was introduced, and there was no wood left to build boats with which to escape. By 1872, the population had fallen to just 111, from approximately 20,000.

In this February interview, Linda Moulton Howe asks Dr Jared Desmond, author of Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, whether we face a global Easter Island event. He thinks the odds for catastrophe are auspicious:

DESMOND: In the past, societies that had not many people and with rather simple technology still managed to destroy their environments. For example, Easter Island with maybe 20,000 people with just stone and wooden tools ­ they did manage to deforest the island and so doing, they destroyed their society. It took them 850 years to do it. Today, though, (on the Earth), we don't have 20,000 people. We have 6.5 billion and we have bulldozers and nuclear power, so we're far more people and far more potent and destructive technology. We can destroy our environment much faster than the Easter Islanders. In fact, there are many parts of the world that have gotten de-forested within half a dozen years, or within a few decades. That's what makes our present situation serious.

HOWE: Why do you think that global warming and all of the potential consequences does not rise globally above politics and become a world priority to solve because it will affect everyone?

DESMOND: It's a problem of what is called "creeping normalcy." It's not something that exploded like the Pinatubo Volcano in the Philippines, nor like September 11, 2001. Instead, the temperatures get a little warmer and then a little colder and then warmer and then colder. It's been gradually creeping along and there hasn't been a moment in which someone said, "My God, it's 10 degrees warmer this year. We've got to start doing something."

That's the reason why it has taken 30 years for essentially every knowledgeable climatologists to agree that global warming is a serious problem and that people are the cause of it. It's also why it's taken 30 years to get all, except the last two governments, to agree about its importance.

The "cheap oil" of the Easter Islanders was their wood. It made possible transportation and industry, and its disappearance had unexpected and dire consequences across the culture, and drove it to extinction. If that's all we have - if no powers have made provisions for what's to come next - then the lights are going out on global civilization.

Quite possible. And given what we have before our eyes much of the time, most probable. But I wonder about what's behind some eyes, and also about what we're permitted to see some of the time. And it's not wishful thinking.

"A science-fiction world"

In a July 2001 interview, Bob Dylan said "We are living in a science-fiction world where Disney and Disney's science-fiction have won. This is the real world. Science-fiction has become the real world, whether we realize it or not."

And, just maybe, that world is becoming Zardoz.



Remember? Zardoz is the name of the flying stone god of the 23rd Century "Exterminators," who believe themselves to be the rulers of the world. One of their number - Sean Connery, in a red leather thong - catches a ride in the big head, and discovers Zardoz is just a techno-magickal device of social control for the world's true masters, a somewhat Luciferian sect of elites called the "Eternals." ("Zardoz," of course, proves to be a corruption of "The Wizard of Oz" which, coincidentally, is frequently named by mind control survivors as a triggering device in Monarch programming.)

MSNBC made a case for the Zardoz scenario, with this report from last September:

"Flying Triangle" sightings on the rise

They have become legendary in UFO circles. Huge, silent-running "Flying Triangles" have been seen by ground observers creeping through the sky low and slow near cities, and quietly cruising over highways.

The National Institute for Discovery Science, or NIDS, has cataloged the Triangle sightings, sifting through and combining databases to take a hard look at the mystery craft. Based in Las Vegas, NIDS is a privately funded science institute with a strong research focusing on aerial phenomena. The results of their study have just been released, and lead to some unnerving, puzzling conclusions.

The study points out: "The United States is currently experiencing a wave of Flying Triangle sightings that may have intensified in the 1990s, especially towards the latter part of the 1990s. The wave continues. The Flying Triangles are being openly deployed over and near population centers, including in the vicinity of major interstate highways."

...

The NIDS study emphasizes that the flying of these vehicles may be more in harmony with an attempt to display or to be noticed. There appears to be little or no attempt to hide. That finding has led to a modification of an earlier NIDS hypothesis that the Triangles are covertly deployed Defense Department aircraft.

I know: "black triangles" could describe many conventional, or near conventional, aircraft developed by US defense contractors. But these triangles are different: huge; silent; capable of sudden changes in speed and direction; able to hover and accelerate at seemingly impossible velocities.

And as the NIDS study finds, rather than a shielded black ops project, the pattern of sightings is more suggestive of "an attempt to display or be noticed." Then there are the vivid, flashing lights which, after reading this witness, makes me wonder whether they are intended, at some point, to have a psychotropic effect:

...size of object based in part on the hugeness of the strobing "cop car gumball" banks of lights.... It looked like it was on a dreamy pleasure cruise…very quiet… just a low humming... and strobing bizarre red/clear/blue huge banks of lights. This thing was so psychedelic flashy, I couldn’t believe I was standing there alone watching it. I knew it was for real when I saw my dog looked up at it.

Another funny thing about these black triangles: even though they've been seen by tens of thousands, intercepted by air force fighters, tracked on radar, photographed and videotaped, it's intellectually suspect to mention them. So they are excised from the realm of things that might matter, and consigned to Fortean novelty. "Black triangles" have become the "black helicopters" shorthand for the au courant debunker of the "paranoid style." Never mind that both are real.

From a Las Vegas television news report on "Top Secret Black Triangles":

The airspace over Belgium was repeatedly violated by huge unidentified black triangles. Ten thousand witnesses saw them. Several were photographed. The Belgian Air Force dispatched F-16s to intercept and destroy the unknown intruders, but the triangles performed maneuvers that seem virtually impossible.

Dr. Colm Kelleher said, "They launched on several occasions top of the line military aircraft against these things and they were left in the dust. One minute they're overhead, and the next they're over the horizon."

Black triangle over Belgium, 1989


Here is a good resource for the remarkable 1989-1990 triangle "flap" over Belgium, and here is an account of how it started:

The Belgian flap began in November of 1989. The events of November 29 would be documented by no less than thirty different groups of witnesses, and three separate groups of police officers. All of the reports related a large object flying at low altitude. The craft was of a flat, triangular shape, with lights underneath. This giant craft made not a sound as it slowly, fearlessly, moved across the landscape of Belgium. There was free sharing of information as the Belgian populace tracked this craft as it moved from the town of Liege to the border of the Netherlands and Germany. Two F-16s were ordered to intercept and identify this phenomena, and one of the jet's radars locked the object in. It appeared as a small diamond on the pilot's screen. The pilot reported that only a few seconds after locking on the target, the object began to pick up speed, quickly moving out of radar range. An hour-long chase ensued, during which time the F-16s picked up the strange craft's signal two additional times, only to see it fade from view. The triangular craft seemed to be playing a cat and mouse game, and finally was lost in the night lights of Brussels. The pilots of the fighters reported that the UFO had made maneuvers at speeds beyond the capability of their technology, and once the radar showed the craft almost instantly drop from 10,000 to 500 feet in 5 seconds.

Analysis of Belgian radar data from a March 30, 1990 sighting can be found on this page, and below is a graph of the triangle's performance. Altitude in thousands of feet is measured on the left, Heading (degrees) and speed (knots) on the right, and elapsed seconds on the bottom. The red line is altitude, the green heading, and the blue speed.



Here's an account from 1996 of six British troopers encountering a black triangle while on night moves. ("It really did my head in") For what it's worth, under hypnosis, a soldier recalled American forces acting in concert with it. ("Tell me what you can see now, Mark." "A Yank...") And reportedly, according to a "top BBC executive," British media has been silenced with a "D-Notice" on the subject of Black Triangles:

The executive, who cannot be named, is the former producer of a very popular BBC science programme. He told one of our team that the black triangle "craft", first witnessed by hundreds in the Hudson Valley region of the United States <(mid-1980's), then by thousands in Belgium (1989-90) and more in Britain>, has been "heavily D-Noticed" by the Government. For this reason the BBC will not be reporting on the enigmatic craft, no matter how many witness reports they receive.

According to the former science programme producer, the reason the Government has seen fit to slap a restrictive notice on reporting of the Triangle is because - so far as the Government has secretly informed the BBC - the craft is part of a new secret military project, and as such must be protected under the secrecy laws.

If this is the case, however, it surely begs the question: If the so called Black Triangle is a secrety military aircraft, then what is it doing hovering over residential areas and frightening people half to death? Something somewhere simply does not add up.

Another apparent "triangle" is the famous "Phoenix Lights" (which, despite the name, was viewed on a nearly 500 km course from Arizona to Nevada March 13, 1997). The lights were not discreet UFOs in formation, but arrays of lights about the edges of a single, black, wedge-shaped craft. Witnesses could discern the shape of a massive black craft as it occluded the stars overhead.

The "Phoenix Lights"


Four points regarding the Phoenix Lights from a press release of the National UFO Reporting Center, prepared by Peter B. Davenport:

1. Perhaps thousands, or tens of thousands, of witnesses on the ground witnessed at least one object pass and/or hover overhead which they described as being huge, gigantic, or unimaginably large. Many of the witnesses reported that they had the impression that a Boeing 747 could land on the back of the object they had just witnessed pass overhead their location.

...

4. The object passed through the airspace of Sky Harbor Airport, where it was witnessed by air traffic controllers in the airport tower, and where it also was reported via radio by at least one commercial flight crew. They reported via radio that the object was passing directly overhead their aircraft, which was on the ground preparing to depart Sky Harbor. The object reportedly did not appear on radar, and it did not communicate via either radio or transponder.

5. From the Phoenix area, the object reportedly proceeded generally south toward South Mountain, continuing southeast toward Tucson, AZ, along Interstate 10. One family, driving northwest toward Phoenix on Interstate 10 near Casa Grande, AZ, reported that the object remained above them for an estimated 1- 2 minutes while they were driving at approximately 80 miles per hour. The object was so large above them that the family's two children in the back seat of their station wagon simultaneously could see the opposite "wing tips" of the object out both the left and right passenger windows.

6. The National UFO Reporting Center received a telephone call approximately seven hours after the incident from a person who identified himself as an airman stationed at Luke Air Force Base, located 20 miles to the west of Phoenix. The individual reported that the U. S. Air Force had launched two F-15c fighter aircraft from Luke AFB, and that one of the aircraft had "intercepted" a gigantic object over the intersection of Indian School Road and 7th Avenue. It was also reported by this individual that the onboard radar of the intercepting fighter had suddenly gone to a condition of "white noise," and that the lights on the anomalous object simultaneously had suddenly dimmed in unison and disappeared from the pilot's sight.

Eye in the sky?

So what'll it be: Easter Island, or Zardoz? Either way, a Dark Age, though the former comes without the sham sky-god of techno-magickal social controllers. So maybe we should hope for Easter Island. Maybe we should reconsign the black triangles to the realm of Fortean novelty, where they can exist, sort of, but not matter. Maybe that would be a less dark prospect, and we can try to squirrel away some wood while we can, to maybe carry us to another island someday.

To a practitioner of ritual magic, the triangle "is the area in which the spirit appears and is compelled to obedience," writes Lon Milo DuQuette in The Illustrated Goetia of Aleister Crowley. "The almost infinite metaphysical virtues of a triangle make it a perfect device to confine and control that which has never been confined and controlled by you."

Should we survive what we'll need to survive, we may be alive to see either the end of our Moai culture, or the beginning of something worse. But unless we start shouting now, and do more than shout, I doubt we'll have much say in the matter.

Be seeing you?

[Devlzown]

1. Awesome post, as usual.

You capture our anxieties about the future very well.

[seemslikeadream]

3. Would you like one Devlzown?

http://www.myhealthcare21.com/0,NAC254/Anxiety-Relief.jpg

[Devlzown]

6. I'll take two.

With a shot of Wild Turkey.

[seemslikeadream]

11. Sure, let's all have one!

[TruthIsAll]

2. Minstrel Boy, creator of the most fascinating posts on DU, by far...

...

[BeFree]

4. Scary shit, Dude!

I'm sticking with a theory I heard many years ago....

In a way, we humans could be considered as if we were merely "Cows in the pasture", IOW, we are a herd, a food supply, stock.

The farmer will be by soon for harvest time nears.

The farmer will come, blazing in clouds of glory, with his all in one; refrigerated slaughterhouse, processing, and packaging plant, interplanetary orbiting device, to a landing amongst the frightened herd.

============================

Or, we could all become fertilizer and give ourselves back to the topsoil from which we come. Whatever. Today be another day, and there be a life to live: it's time to enjoy the warmth of the new spring sun, the taste of good water, the sweat from a day of work. We ain't dead yet!

[DarleenMB]

9. Sorry, but that was

a short science fiction story from many years back.

(pause while I adjust my tinfoil hat)

ahem

I'm currently into book 3 of Zecharia Sitchin's The Earth Chronicles series and frankly, the black triangles story doesn't surprise me. The 12th planet in this solar system, according to Sitchin's works, had a technically advanced civiliaztion well over 1/2 million years ago. Since Nibiru/Marduk's orbit is about 3800 years and since it's about due to start showing up soon, maybe our forebears are checking things out to see what we've done since they were here last.

ok

tinfoil hat off.

lurk mode on

really I'm NOT a looney, honest. I just have, um, eclectic reading habits. :tinfoilhat:

[bear425]

5. Can one of those flying triangles come to take me away

HA HA

No, really. I think I'm ready.

[Octafish]

7. 1984

...Multiplied by 10 orders of magnitude. In Orwell, the Party couldn't monitor the proles. Thanks to digital technology, un-Admirable Poindexter can.




Who in the worlds he works for, no one really knows.

[Octafish]

15. 911, Mass Attention, Random Number Generator

Appears that the mind and the world are somehow related...

Exploring Relationships Between Random Physical Events and Mass Human Attention: Asking for Whom the Bell Tolls

Dean Radin, Institute of Noetic Sciences, 101 San Antonio Road, Petaluma, CA 94952

Exploratory study of the outputs of continuously operating truly random number generators (RNG) located around the world indicated that the largest daily change in variance in the year 2001 occurred on an unprecedented day in United States history, September 11, 2001. Calculation of correlations between all possible pairs of RNG outputs on a per-day basis showed that the largest daily average correlation also took place on September 11. Comparison of daily RNG correlations for 250 days that made headline news in 2001 according to a commercial news service vs. similar measures for 115 noneventful days showed a larger average RNG correlation on days with major news events (p 0.011). More generally, the correlation between an objective metric of daily news vs. the daily average RNG correlation was significantly positive (p 0.001). Potential environmental artifacts were examined and found to be implausible explanations for these results. One interpretation of these findings is that mind-matter interaction effects previously observed only in focused laboratory studies may be detectable outside the laboratory, potentially at a global scale.

SOURCE w/LINK to PDF of article:

http://www.scientificexploration.org/jse/abstracts/v16n4a1.php

IdET: tippo

[Minstrel Boy]

17. Thanks Octafish. Would that be the "Harvard Eggs"?

I can't get the .pdf to open for some reason. I know the "Eggs", which are said, somehow far beyond me, to monitor the global subconscious, peaked the morning of Sept 11 at the very moment of the first attack.

Kind of reminds me, like many things do, of a Paranoid Larry lyric:

They must like somethin' 'bout the number eleven
Kinda like November Twenty-Second
And Flight Eleven and Seventy-Seven
Hit a pentangle
And a giant eleven

[Octafish]

23. Try this route...

http://www.scientificexploration.org/jse/v16n4.php

You'll find a lot of interest there, Brother J.

If it still doesn't work, PM me and I'll send you the file.

[bobthedrummer]

8. Philip K. Dick was/is my favorite futurist.

[Frederik]

10. Independence Day

in real life? That is going to be interesting... We live in interesting times for sure. If it's true that BBC has been silenced on the matter of flying triangles, that's Sovietesque.

The B52s (workhorse strategic bombers from the 50s and 60s) are getting very old and worn-out and the B2s (the big black stealth-bombers) are too expensive and restricted in their abilities to replace them, or so I understand. A new strategic bomber will be needed for the PNAC adventures of the not so distant future. Maybe this is the next generation strategic bomber, with improved stealth and radar-jamming capabilities and some crazy, silent propulsion system. Furthermore, it is well known that the US military are looking into high-energy laser weapons mounted in aircraft. The Shock & Awe (R) effect of laser weapons fired from silent, gigantic black triangles can only be imagined.

It is perhaps interesting that Iran is reportedly having unusually many UFO sightings right now?

On his blog, Minstrel Boy also mentions that Italian investigators have been barred from investigating Sgrena's car. Go figure. We don't want the Italians to see that the shots came from the side and not from the front, do we.

[Minstrel Boy]

12. Independence Day, but the aliens is "us."

Or rather, "them." At least that's the provisional sense I make of the "black triangles."

So it may be better if The Powers that Be have truly not prepared for a post-carbon world, than if they have, covertly. Because if they have, it may be a Zardoz world after all.

[SheepyMcSheepster]

13. great post

the things we should know but don't.
i wish i knew what was going on.

[Minstrel Boy]

14. "i wish i knew what was going on."

I know what you mean. Though on the other hand, I'm kind of glad I don't.

Crowley's astral guru, "Lam," which he said was "drawn from life" in 1918. Look familiar?

[SheepyMcSheepster]

16. hehe, yeah

he looks a little familiar. :silly:
i used to be quite into reading about UFO stuff when i was younger, i have since become more obsessed with our political climate.

i have been meaning to learn more about crowely do you have any good book recommendations on the man and his practices?

the little i know of crowely came from reading Robert Anton Wilson.

[Minstrel Boy]

19. It's not about Crowley directly, but an interesting place to start,

especially with relation to the implications of "Lam," may be Sex and Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons by John Carter. Robert Anton Wilson wrote the intro. It's just been released in a new edition by Feral House.

It contains a good overview of Crowley's magickal practice, and how it inspired Parsons (co-founder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory) and L Ron Hubbard (then with Naval Intelligence) to try to "open a gateway" themselves through black magick. (And it's probably purely coincidental, of course, that modern UFO history dates from the time and place of their ritual. Kenneth Grant, who was one of Crowley's students and became a leading proponent of the "Cult of Lam," wrote that "Parsons opened a door and something flew in.")

[SheepyMcSheepster]

20. alrighty!

thanks for the information, i will try to check it out soon

[Karenina]

22. Calgon, take me away!!!

And once I'm properly bathed, perfumed, clothed, have my affairs in Ordnung...

BEAM ME UP, SCOTTIE!

[redqueen]

18. Fascinating as always.

Thanks...

[MrPrax]

21. KIcked...and Voted!

And, just maybe, that world is becoming Zardoz.

with a little A Canticle for Leibowitz tossed in for 'system noise'

[robertpaulsen]

24. Maybe GlobalCorp is Zardoz.

If it is truly our own military technology that has accomplished this, I'm wondering if they're using cold fusion or some other form of free energy that Tesla dreamed up. If so, Zardoz is the future.

[megatherium]

25. A plausible story concerning the flying triangles/wings

is that they're rigid lighter-than-air craft. This provides a parsimonious explanation for their ability to hover or drift with virtually no sound, as well as their size (a dirigible must be large). Rumor has it that these things are reconnaissance craft. They have conventional engines but these are internal to the craft and carefully muffled; so they are silent unless you are very close to them, in which case all you hear is a low hum. They are said to have an ingenious form of night-time camouflage: they have tiny lights on their under surface which move against their forward motion. So a person underneath them sees stars twinkling on and off but no forward motion. (I read all of this years ago in Aviation Week and Space Technology.)

But this story isn't consistent with the reports of the crafts' extreme maneuverability. A skeptic might suggest that it is difficult for observers to accurately estimate motion, size and distance; if an observer thinks the craft is further away than it really is, this would appear to magnify its speed and size.

[Minstrel Boy]

26. I think some sightings could be lighter-than-air ships, but as you say,

it doesn't account for the extreme maneuverability. As for skeptics discounting observers' testimony, they would also need to discount the evidence from radar and the ease with which the craft outpaced interceptors (as in the very well documented encounters over Belgium).

[megatherium]

27. my own guess is that there is more than one flavor of UFO.

Some are conventional if unusual aircraft, such as the rumored lighter-than-air triangular craft (or the rumored hypersonic vehicles called Super-Valkyrie or Aurora, etc). Skeptics also point out that radar can play funny tricks, and they say that the fact that radar cases are less common now is a function of the great improvement in radar/computer technology.

But yes, there are still those cases that are resistant to neat explanations. I can't say I believe in genuine UFOs; I don't know if they exist, but it sure as hell wouldn't surprise me if they did. There are persistent rumors that the government is aware that UFOs exist. I'm more skeptical that the military has UFO technology (weird propulsion systems based on new principles of physics, etc). One hears fanciful stories that sound like fiction written by people who don't know physics. But I see no evidence that we have control over UFO technology. (There is evidence for genuine UFOs, but they aren't ours.)

[SpaceBuddy008]

28. JW help expose agenda of authoritarian/malthusian/eugenics 'pretext'prozac

use your talents to stop this domestic info/war campaign

some info for yr. consideration:

It's Time To Ignore
Michael Ruppert

Comment By Paul Fassa
Internet Trailer Park Trash
1-23-5

http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/01/1716764.php
*****
19 October 2004 #2: Ruppert vs. Hopsicker, Thorn

http://www.questionsquestions.net/blog/041019b.html
*****
Mike Ruppert and Charles Galton Darwin

Brian Salter, questionsquestions.net
31 January 2005

On August 31, 2004, Mike Ruppert gave a speech to the San Francisco Commonwealth Club to announce the publication of his book, Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil. To support his claims that "peak oil" was the underlying factor behind 9/11 and US imperial aggression, he quoted a statement made by Charles Galton Darwin (grandson of Charles Darwin):

"the fifth revolution will come when we have spent the stores of coal and oil that have been accumulating in the earth during hundreds of millions of years. . . . It is to be hoped that before then other sources of energy will have been developed . . . But without considering the detail it is obvious that there will be a very great difference in ways of life. . . . Whether a convenient substitute for the present fuels is found or not, there can be no doubt that there will have to be a great change in ways of life. This change may justly be called a revolution, but it differs from all the preceding ones in that there is no likelihood of its leading to increases of population, but even perhaps to the reverse."

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/PDF/Commonwealth.pdf

Ruppert described C. G. Darwin as "distinguished". In what way, exactly, is he "distinguished"?

http://www.questionsquestions.net/docs04/ruppert_darwin.html
*****
corporate dominance | human & civil rights | sustainability

Hey Folks, it's a Coercive Hoax. stOp. (S)HriLL (O)iL (S)hiLLs.
author: CultureJamCleveland

Deceit UNveiled: -'Peak' is PreText ' PiLL' Forcing the
'UNavoidable' ? die-off Plan/Scam

~One theory is backed by a massive body of research representing
fifty years of intense scientific inquiry. The other theory is an
unproven relic of the eighteenth century.

~So which theory have we in the West, in our infinite wisdom,
chosen to embrace? Why, the fundamentally absurd 'Fossil Fuel'
theory, of course -- the same theory that the 'Peak Oil' doomsday
warnings are based on.

~The notion that oil is a 'fossil fuel' was first proposed by
Russian scholar Mikhailo Lomonosov in 1757.

~Two and a half centuries later, Lomonosov's theory remains as it
was in 1757 -- an unproved, and almost entirely speculative,
hypothesis. Returning once again to the Wall Street Journal, we
find that, "Although the world has been drilling for oil for
generations, little is known about the nature of the resource or
the underground activities that led to its creation." A paragraph
in the Encyclopedia Britannica concerning the origins of oil ends
thusly: "In spite of the great amount of scientific research ...
there remain many unresolved questions regarding its origins."

~Does that not seem a little odd? We are talking here, after all,
about a resource that, by all accounts, plays a crucial role in a
vast array of human endeavors (by one published account, petroleum
is a raw ingredient in some 70,000 manufactured products, including
medicines, synthetic fabrics, fertilizers, paints and varnishes,
acrylics, plastics, and cosmetics). By many accounts, the very
survival of the human race is entirely dependent on the
availability of petroleum. And yet we know almost nothing about
this most life-sustaining of the earth's resources. And even
though, by some shrill accounts, the well is about to run dry,....

www.gasbuddy.com
Put the Kibbosh On It
CorPirate ProfiTEARing Hostages

NewDay OldDreams
....no
one seems to be overly concerned with understanding the nature and
origins of so-called 'fossil fuels.' We are, rather, content with
continuing to embrace an unproved 18th century theory that, if
subjected to any sort of logical analysis, seems ludicrous....



~ great quantities of oil are found in deeper wells that are found
below the level of any fossils. How could then oil have come from
fossils, or decomposed former living matter, if it exists in rock
formations far below layers of fossils - the evidence of formerly
living organisms? It must not come from living matter at all!

~ There has not been enough true "formerly living matter" through
all of creation to account for the volume of petroleum that has
been consumed to date.


~It was made to be thought a "Fossil" fuel by the Nineteenth
oil producers to create the concept that it was of limited supply
and therefore extremely valuable. This fits with the "Depletion"
allowance philosophical scam.

~The people that the 'Peak Oil' pitchmen are fronting for are
deadly serious about selling 'Peak Oil' to the masses -- and not
just in theoretical terms, as a cynical ploy to raise prices and
increase profits. No, it has become clear that the real goal is to
actually cut off most of the world's oil supplies under the ruse
that the oil simply no longer exists. The desired result is massive
social unrest, widespread famine, and endless war. The majority of
the world's people will not survive. Those that do will find
themselves living under the overtly authoritarian form of rule that
will quickly be deemed necessary to restore order.

~The truth is that such a future awaits us only if the claims of
the 'Peakers' are true, or, more importantly, if we allow ourselves
to be convinced that the claims are true when they most certainly
are not. It is vitally important, therefore, that the people of the
world be given the opportunity to thoroughly review all sides of
this issue. After all, if the Peakers are right, then all of our
lives are very much on the line.

~But the Peakers also claim that these military ventures have been
motivated by America's desire to seize what will soon be the last
drops of the world's precious reserves of oil -- and that is
entirely untrue.

~But the Peakers also claim that this global "die off" will be a
regrettable, but quite natural, and entirely unavoidable,
consequence of the world's oil taps running dry. And that is the
really big lie.

~One of Ruppert's "unimpeachable sources," Colin Campbell,
describes an apocalyptic future, just around the corner, that will
be characterized by "war, starvation, economic recession, possibly
even the extinction of homo sapiens."

~The message there seems pretty clear: once the people understand
what is at stake, they will support whatever is deemed necessary to
secure the world's oil supplies. And what is it that Ruppert is
accomplishing with his persistent 'Peak Oil' postings? He is
helping his readers to understand what is allegedly at stake.

~It seems to me that, in the final analysis, what the 'Peak Oil'
crowd is selling looks very much like what the Bush administration
is selling: control of popular opinion through fear. The
methodology and the goals (justifying endless war and openly
fascistic domestic policies) appear to be the same. The only
difference that I can see is that Team Bush sells the agenda
through fear of phantom terrorists, while Team 'Peak Oil' sells it
through fear of a phantom apocalypse just over the horizon.

~I think the deception speaks directly to the issue of whether
'Peak Oil' is real. Why all the deception about the true origins of
oil, and about who is behind the concept , and about
the viability of alternative energy sources? There has to be a
reason why the idea is being sold with so much deception.
*****
PROGRAMMING FAILING DUE TO IGNOMINIOUS SATURATION, in a free-thinking Nation:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
shiLLs ToiL in scam for RoyaLs
'Peak OiL'
Mind SoiLed
Atmosphere BoiLs
KundaLini CoiLs
FOIL Peak OiL by Being Peace LoyaL
'all cards on the tabLe'
According to HoyLe.
*****

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/03/313421.shtml


put the kibosh On It

comments from your site:

Morgan said...
I love this blog - great work, Jeff.

Shep -- your 'church lady' comment. Too true! The MSM carefully choreographs its reportage to either draw/or deflect our attention from what is really important. Let's not allow them to succeed.

As for the thread, I agree there is an inherent problem with anniversary protests. What is that about? Protesting is a way of life - it has to be. I only wish I had the time, courage, and youth to be able do it again, as I did in the 60s and 70s.

As for whether protesting made a difference then, I know it did. At least, Nixon said it did, and I have no reason to doubt it.

I recall reading (I think it was John Dean who reported it) about how deeply unsettled Nixon was by the unrelenting war protests staged outside of the White House.

If the public stage, during Watergate, was as empty and well-controlled as it is now, it is unlikely that Nixon would have resigned over the affair. He would have been as immune to public critism as the sitting president.

My point is that noisy, public, and unrelenting protests do make a difference - if Nixon's reaction is a valid barometer. Since we have nothing close to unrelenting protests going on now, it's hard to speculate about the outcome.

For fun, however, let's imagine the 60s anti-war scenario now:

Hoards of protestors conduct daily marches at the WH. They won't go away. More and more keep showing up from all walks of life.

Imagine, further, a national press that is sympathetic to the cause and has reporters who do nothing but talk about the anti-war movement, and its latest agitators/martyrs.

Imagine, further still, an unregulated (by today's standards) television medium that broadcasts nightly war protests juxtaposed with graphic images of US soldiers being maimed and killed, at dinner time, no less.

Further, and finally, imagine a host of socially powerful cultural icons deploring the war in a very public way, some making careers of it.

Moreover, the most outspoken cultural icon just happen to be a member of the most famous rock band in history, and he has a lot of cultural capital to spend! He not only comes out against the war, and gets away with publically criticizing the president, he successfully fights extradition.

Hard to imagine? That is because everything has changed since 9/11. I know, I'm preaching to the choir.

Remember - it is all about who controls the conversation. And right now, it is them, with tacit consent from a country so shocked and awed by 9/11 that they will go along with anything. It's the Reichstag Fire all over again. For that matter, the PAT Act is the German Enabling Act.

The current, fascist political climate has effectively silenced the anti-war movement. Make no mistake, this happened because of hard lessons learned from the 60s and 70s anti-war movements; they will not be repeated.

Lesson #1 -- Control the press.

Lesson #2 -- Control the courts.

Lesson #3 -- Control the images.

With #3, I give due consideration to Susan Sontag's lifelong question about whether images of suffering and war tend to inure or incite people to violence. I would argue that the answer depends on the prevailing cultural winds. And winds change direction, people.


Jeff, keep up the good work. To those who comment: I love reading your thoughts; please keep them coming! We need to validate each other's respective POVs whenever possible. And we need to keep talking. Silence is death.

Morgan

5:23 PM
******

sfmike said...

As much as I like this blog, there are also times when it can make me feel fairly helpless and hopeless, so it was a real treat to read Morgan's remarks.

I guess I'm corresponding here to stimulate solutions, GoodEarthGlow strategies and our use of imagination and the kundalini to repel planning of forced upon dark futures.and while most of your links say you like great sites, obviosly a few on your site are pushing an agenda, without airing all sides, trying alternatives, chicken little.... nothing can be done..its a environmental given reason..and so on

AND THEY HAVE NEVER TRIED SIMPLE..... SHARING! -resource scarcity used throughout history as control mechanism

ie; 8. Malthusian "overpopulation" and claims of resource scarcity as a whitewash for the British free trade system. 19th century criticism from Abraham Lincoln's economic advisor Henry Carey, against the precursor to modern neoliberalism: http://www.questionsquestions.net/docs04/ruppert_darwin.html

see the articles at www.metahistory.org on the kundalini and especially this chakra shakin' one on the rememberance and the ancient 'muse'



To discover the strands of a different story we must first and foremost place an ultimate trust in ourselves, because those precious strands are spun through our hearts like threads on a loom. Living into the story ahead, a tale to guide the species, depends on finding the language to tell it.


Sharing the Gaia Mythos


Metahistory Quest exposes and examines the beliefs encoded in many narratives, variations of the six kinds of scripts, but it is concerned above all with stories that describe human potential and how it can be fulfilled. The aim of metacritique is to evaluate these stories by decoding the beliefs they carry, thus to determine if those beliefs are productive and beneficial to humanity, or if they are otherwise. The Quest does not confine itself to the critique of such narratives, however. It also goes beyond them and proposes "a new cosmic story". All who share this adventure participate in a myth in the making. This introduction sets out the basics of mythopoesis, the act of conscious mythmaking.

http://www.metahistory.org/Gaia_Sharing.php
*****

well that says it, help us in the quest for New MythMaking

KUNDALINI

As you evolve you discover that your own energy is linked to a life force. David Suzuki says, "We are our environment" in that whatever we put out into it we eventually take back into our bodies. It is as though there is energy on our planet that expresses itself as life here, changing and spiralling. It will go on whether humans survive their own follies or not.

In one sense our growth depends on how we utilise our own energy. Nothing happens without energy. If you want to evolve you need more than energy you need POWER. Power is focused energy, not a profligate energy that is scattered and wasted, but an energy that is accumulated, cultivated, refined and directed towards a goal.

As you grow you begin to prioritise your desires so instead of fluttering in all directions you try to fly specifically.

As you do this you discover that instead of you toiling with great effort up a slope the path is often graced by the goal lifting you up for a few paces. You get drawn up.

What I am saying is is this. We live in a sea of energy. For a while it seems like we grow by imbibing that energy; what is without is taken within. But sometimes it seems more as if that energy is filling us. As I have repeatedly told my students, "When you enter the Mystery, the Mystery enters you." Then what seemed without is now living within.

This is what Kundalini achieves.

We have bodies that are ‘wired’ for Bliss. We have an energy grid (meridians and channels, nadis) already in place. However the grid has blocks and the energy that flows along it is not at maximum. Our task is to clean up the energy lines. You can call it scouring the system. Purification. Our task is to open up to the energy in the Universe. This is done by what we eat, drink and breathe. Not just that, but how we do them too; with what attitude, with what feeling. How we sit, how we stand, and how we move.

Just recognising that you are an internal energy system is a big step in the right direction. It means you need to feel within. What is within is going to spill out. As I like to quote, "What you think, you will say; what you say, you will do and what you do, you will become." You lay out your future in this way and when it arrives at your door you can't blame anyone for the wailing and weeping!

When you start feeling you are an internal energy system you can start cooperating with it. You practise Right intent.

1) Harmonise your body posture

2) Harmonise your breathing

3) Harmonise your mind.

This is the essence of Tai Chi and what I teach.

It is fundamental tenet of mine that there is a Force in life that wants us to evolve. It isn't trying to make the path unnecessarily hard, to arbitrarily throw obstacles in our way. As you start to feel a harmony within you start to harmonise with this Force. There is an energy that knows better than your small self what you need. At times this energy takes over and gives you a jolt in the right direction. This is Kundalini. Kundalini is that Power which makes the crooked straight, which goes before you to prepare a place, which sweeps through your system. When it is active go along for the ride!

It has been my experience that many of the bliss experiences are purification of the system. As Kundalini cleanses you can feel pleasure, even sensual. Your breathing follows a pattern of its own. Your body can move. You can make sounds. It is like that energy that dog has when it shakes itself dry. A spontaneous cleansing. (The sort of thing our planet is beginning to do, as we seem incapable to doing it ourselves. The earth will shake and we will wonder “why is this happening?”)

In Tantric terms Kundalini is the Shakti power. It is the Goddess and she wants to unite with Her Lord Shiva in your head. She desires Him. She can become impatient to join with Him. All her movements are to get there; to rise up your spine in a gush of Ecstacy, Light and Power and shimmer in your head.

Energy loops back on Itself. She, Shakti, who is creation returns to the Silent One. There is completion in that Joy.

Kundalini will completely seduce you. She is a jealous lover though. You have to give her your All. You know when you are with someone but they know you are elsewhere. You even look over their shoulders. This will get you nowhere. You know how rejected you feel when this happens to you. There are no half measures with Kundalini. Oh yes you can do it that way. Just as I can have students who regard what I teach as a hobby, something to do once a week, when they are not busy with something else.

Each step is still a step in the right direction. No effort is wasted. Nevertheless to find the All you must give your all. When you do that, the All comes to you.

David

http://www.esotericarts.org/