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| AVENTURA on the Rio Chagres |
It was a self-imposed exile. My initial diagnosis was “world weariness,”
but after a few days of solitude on the Rio Chagres, it became clear to me that
my true ailment was “human weariness.”
How could my species be so foolish, so destructive, so self-absorbed, and
so unaware of the consequences of its actions?
It saddened me and it astonished me.
So I had come here to escape from humanity in order to contemplate it
more clearly.
Twice a day I would row as far up
the river as the strength of the contrary current would permit me. Then I would lazily drift back down to
AVENTURA in my inflatable dinghy. As I floated
downstream, I savored a tapestry of exquisite beauty – the threads included shimmering
water and bird song and fish play and monkey trees in the jungle. By the fifth day, clarity was emerging as the
river breezes and the exotic night sounds healed me. The paradoxical magic of Solitude blessed me once
again. For days on end there was not a single
human in view, but this absence intensified my focus on the human project - until
it seemed as sharp as the vision of the osprey that circled overhead.
Here is what I saw. Civilization seems to be hurtling down two disastrous
paths that are contrary to each other and yet connected to each other. The first course is a societal ruination that
is so catastrophic that I refer to it as apocalyptic collapse - or to create a
term – APOCOLLAPSE. The second course is
a steady but accelerating reshaping of the western democracies into tyrannical police-surveillance
states. I call this FULL SPECTRUM
NEO-FEUDALISM.
*******
APOCOLLAPSE
There are three meta-systems that individually or in
combination could de-stabilize the planet so profoundly that the world that we
take for granted could vanish with paralyzing swiftness. I call them the Big Bad “E”s and they stand
for Energy, Economics and Ecology.
ENERGY Our modern techno-industrial society is so
dependent on enormous inputs of fossil fuel products that as Peak Oil
intensifies prices will skyrocket and supply chains will break-down. And so huge swaths of daily living that we
take for granted will be compromised or eliminated. The fragility of supermarkets that only stock
three days worth of food will be revealed when the trucks can’t deliver the
groceries because diesel fuel is unavailable or unaffordable. The industrial farming system which uses oil
and natural gas in tractors, combines, fertilizer, insecticides, and pesticides
will wobble to a halt. The electrical
grid will go down as the fuel dribbles away, thus leaving millions of people
either sweltering or shivering in the dark.
As for the recent rash (a most appropriate noun) of
feel good energy stories - they are a callous and malicious charade
underwritten by the energy giants to keep the illusion going … until it just
stops going. A good comparison is the
believability of the tobacco industry which deceived and lied and distorted
until even their most expensive public relations campaigns could no longer disguise
the truth.
ECONOMICS I would characterize our modern economic
system as a perverse mating of absurdity and evil. At least the villainous Robber Barons of the
19th century actually “made things.”
They may have been ruthless and greedy, but they produced steel and
railroads and light bulbs. But our
current financial titans have only one real talent. They are masters of deceit – of smoke and
mirrors and collusion and corruption.
Try heating your home with credit default swaps or try filling your
car’s gas tank with collateralized debt obligations.
These financial demigods acquire their obscene fortunes
not by producing anything of worth to society, but by a dark web of
manipulation. They own the politicians
of both parties. The government agencies
that should police them are packed with “regulators” that used to work for the
very banks that they are supposed to monitor.
They are the owners of and the beneficiaries of the Federal Reserve. This omnipotent agency, which many mistakenly
assume works for The People via the government, is actually a creation of the
biggest and most powerful banks. I think
of the Fed as the pool boy for the Too Big to Jail banks.
This financial criminality has led to a global
economic panorama that is appalling and suicidal. Most of the banks of the first world are
insolvent. Their true assets vs.
obligations portfolios have been hidden by money pumping from the central banks
and the IMF which, ironically also has no real money. The fiat currency system, which is the
foundation for all of this insanity, is now being called into question more and
more frequently. This scrutiny is well
deserved since there has not been a single fiat currency in the history of the
world that survived. The supremacy of
the U.S. dollar as the global reserve currency and as the petro-dollar is also
being challenged. China and Russia would
love to terminate this advantage, which has given the U.S. a “get out of
debtor’s jail” free pass for decades.
In summary, the
economic big picture is horrendous. The
gap between the rich and the poor has become so gigantic that the disgruntled underclass
is starting to become angry. The enormous
debts of many nations are now so ludicrous that these countries have to borrow
money just to pay the interest on previously borrowed money. And there is an enormous pool of financial
dark matter circling the planet like an invisible Death Star. This is the multi-trillion dollar derivatives
swindle. One day, in the form of an
enormous black dragon swan, it will darken the sky above the executive
“team-building” picnic of a major corporation and divest them of their “all is
well” delusions.
ECOLOGY There
are two diametrically opposed trends on the environmental landscape. On the one hand the vast majority of climate
scientists are continually adjusting their previous predictions because their
“worst case scenarios” were not worst case enough. Not only are they altering the severity of
the various calamities, but also the speed at which they are occurring.
The methane vents in Siberia are expanding faster than
predicted. There are severe droughts in
most of the world’s primary bread baskets.
The Arctic ice shelf might completely disappear in the next few
summers. The wettest forest in the world
– the Amazon - is regularly catching fire.
I could list a dozen other examples, but the trend is that things are
deteriorating more significantly and at a faster pace than expected.
On the opposite hand, the “climate
change denial” camp is growing. The
fact that the obscenely rich oligarchs have funded thousands of lobbyists in
Washington to sway the opinions of Congress is the main factor in this increase. And the fact that these politicians are
handed bullet points based on “scientific” studies that these same
industrialists bankrolled, is repulsive.
What sort of sick sentient being would bequeath his grandchildren a
smoldering planet just so that he can move further up the Forbes Richest People
list?
So, in conclusion, the APOCOLLAPSE
seems inevitable. There is no reason to
believe that some sort of Tesla energy miracle will suddenly appear out of
nowhere. The economic insanity that
threatens our way of life is utterly monumental due to the interwoven nature of
global finance and commerce in the 21st century. And we are approaching so many ecological
tipping points that it will become impossible for 7 billion people to continue
to survive at our current standard of living.
*******
FULL
SPECTRUM NEO-FEUDALSIM
Any honest analysis of 21st century
American democracy must conclude that it is a sham. Certainly there is still the façade, but it
is as phony as a Hollywood movie set.
The trappings of a republic are still there, but the actual “power of
the people” has vaporized. It has been
supplanted by the power of the RICH PEOPLE.
If the wealthy campaign contributors want a war in Iraq, it does not
matter that 80% of the population is against it.
No matter which political party is
in power, the results are still basically the same. And that’s because mega-wealthy individuals
and enormous corporations donate to both campaigns, so that regardless of the
outcome, the victor must grant them access and influence. Even the two party system itself, is
symptomatic of the corruption at the core of our pseudo-republic. Any third party candidate who poses a genuine
threat to the status quo is attacked and marginalized. Instead of citizen legislators, it has become
a world of millionaire career politicians.
And the phrases “term limits” and “genuine campaign finance reform” are
not permitted in polite company.
It is bad enough that the U.S.
political scene has become an exclusionary zone where only the prominent have
access, but what is worse is the direction that this Plutocracy is headed. It feels like the country of my youth has
disappeared and been replaced by an imposter. Here are some examples:
·
The Middle Class,
which should be the bulwark of democracy, is being knowingly destroyed.
·
Instead of being
outraged by the use of torture, my government now commits it.
·
The power of the
press has been neutered. They have
forsaken their role as societal watch-dogs, and have instead become political
lapdogs.
·
Instead of
supporting “self-determination” the U.S. is despised around the world for its
imperial policies in support of its gigantic corporations.
·
The
Posse-Comitatus Act, which forbids the use of the military in domestic police
duty, is being overtly and covertly undermined.
·
The NDAA act
gives the President the power to indefinitely detain (imprison) almost anyone
that is perceived as a threat to the State.
·
The nation is
being rapidly turned into an Orwellian nightmare whereby the government can spy
on all of your communications.
·
Instead of being
honored and encouraged, whistleblowers are being vilified and imprisoned.
·
Local police
forces all across the country are being militarized as though the powers that
rule are preparing for revolution. Cops have
morphed from crime stoppers into enforcers.
All of these bullet points are symptomatic of a
government that seeks more and more control of its citizens. The inescapable trend is towards a society in
which a tiny group is extremely rich and powerful and the vast majority is an
underclass of modern serfs that run the machines that spew out the
profits. It has all of the markings of a
science fiction nightmare that is turning into reality.
*******
Now that I have outlined these two powerful forces -
APOCOLLAPSE and FULL SPECTRUM NEO-FEUDALISM - allow me to discuss the dynamic
between the two. The big issue is
whether the tyrants, who seek massive domination of humanity through their
thugs and surveillance, will succeed with their control freak fantasies before
civilization either suddenly implodes or gradually falls over. If the Big Bad “E”s do initiate a societal
meltdown, then large governments will suddenly be neutered. The seemingly almighty rulers will swiftly be
transformed from harem masters into eunuchs, as everything becomes smaller and
more local.
If on the other hand the demagogues
do manage to impose their Orwellian nightmare on large parts of the world, I
believe that the APOCOLLAPSE will still occur.
And that is because even a Soylent Green world needs energy and a
livable biosphere and an economic system that is not laughably dysfunctional. Therefore, to me, the major question is
whether the world will unravel before the Malignant Overlords have managed to
fully erect their wet dream control grid.
It would certainly be preferable if a few generations of serfs did not
have to live under police state oppression as the lights flicker out and the
erupting methane vents make breathing a hellish ordeal.
*******
As for how an individual or a family can respond to
these tragic scenarios, these are my beliefs.
I know that I can’t stop any of the Big Bad “E”s from continuing down
the seemingly irreversible paths that lead to APOCOLLAPSE. Nor do I think that any citizen or group of
people can derail the hideous locomotive of FULL SPECTRUM NEO-FEUDALISM. I suspect that both non-confrontational
methods and revolution in the streets are both doomed to failure.
But I do believe that a wise person
and his loved ones can prepare themselves so that they have at least a chance
of escaping and surviving. And for those
who succeed, they will face a difficult but wondrous challenge. Their mission will be to sculpt a new human
living arrangement that combines the best elements of civilization with the
best aspects of pre-civilized tribal cultures.
For over ten thousand generations we
human animals GOT IT RIGHT! We lived in
a manner that was sustainable, communal, joyous, egalitarian and
compassionate. And we showed awe and
reverence for the non-human world that cocooned us. We have lost our way only in the last few
thousand years when Agriculture ended tribal society and ushered in Civilization. Unfortunately, the shining benefits of this
new societal structure blinded us to the devastating side effects. We did not realize that hierarchy and
division of labor would lead to rulers and priests and armies and wars and rich
and poor and destruction and despair.
*******
Personally, I no longer choose to “rage against the
machine.” It seems like a hopeless task
and a misuse of my time, energy and intellect.
Instead, I believe that there is greater wisdom in attempting to conceptualize
what might arise “on the other side of Collapse.” That strikes me as a worthwhile and incredibly
vital pursuit. My essay on that topic is
already pretty well sketched out. I am
tentatively calling it “On the Far Side of Oblivion.”
But its completion will require more time on the river
– in sacred harmony with the whispering water - and the creatures that it
nurtures.
