In the doleful spirit of this blog, which has evolved on its own as a Chronology of Civilization’s Demise, I offer Treehugger’s take on eight other, non-oil things we are running out of. Peak Everything.
Something I’ve always suspected is confirmed in Britain’s The Daily Mail: that the Age of the White Man is over. This is something I’ve both feared and hoped for since a boy. Even in my public school-victim ignorance, I have felt since I was 10 years old, that the White Man has built his own coffin. Ye Shall reap what you sow.
The truth is that we are masters of the world no more.
The global power shift from the West to the East is no longer just a matter of debate confined to learned journals and newspaper columns - it is a reality that is beginning to have a huge impact on our daily lives.
What would those Victorian masters of old have made of the fact that Chinese security men were on the streets of London this week, ordering our own police about and fighting running battles with British protesters while bewildered athletes carried the Olympic torch on its relay through the capital?
It was a brazen display of how confident China has become of its new place in the world, just as the British Government’s failure to take a firm stand on Chinese abuses of human rights shows how craven we have become.
[…]
Just as the 19th century was the British century, and the 20th century was the American century, the 21st century is the Asian century.
But the handover of global power from the UK to the U.S. was trivial compared to what is happening now.
The U.S. was Britain’s offspring, based on the same values and the same language.
It, too, was an Anglo-Saxon country, and passing the baton across the Atlantic ensured the continuation of the Anglo-Saxon world order, based on democracy, free trade and a belief in human rights, upheld through international institutions that both powers supported.
But the world order we have grown used to - and comfortable with - over the last century is coming to an end.
Napoleon III compared China to a sleeping giant and warned: “When China awakes, she will shake the world.”
After a long hibernation, China, and her 1.3 billion people - twice the population of the U.S. and EU combined - is awaking almost overnight.
[…]
China is spending 35 times as much on crude oil as it did eight years ago, and 23 times as much on copper.
As it builds gleaming skyscrapers on its fields, China alone consumes half the world’s cement and a third of its steel.
What is happening is so extraordinary that economists have had to invent a new word for it - this is not an economic cycle, but a supercycle, a shift in the world economy of historic proportions.
To my untrained eye, this explains much about America’s blatant oil grab in Iraq/Iran. (Have no fear, we’ll be in Iran if McCain wins.) Throughout history, wars have been about resources. Today the resource of interest is Oil. That won’t last, soon we’ll have wars over food, over fresh water. All within the ascending century.
And we may have already lost those future conflicts.
Europeans have, for half a millennium, been unchallenged as the global colonisers, but last month the respected Economist magazine dubbed the Chinese “The New Colonists”.
While the Congo in central Africa was once over-run by Belgians, it is now the Chinese that can be found wondering around its mining belts.
In Lubumbashi, the capital of the Congo’s copper-rich region Katanga, the Economist reported “a sudden Chinese invasion”.
Troubled Angola recently shunned Western financial aid because of the amount of Chinese money pouring into it, in return for commodities.
From Kazakhstan to Indonesia to Latin America, Chinese firms are gobbling up oil, gas, coal and metals.
We, as a Caucasian, patriarchal society, have reached our pinnacle and moved beyond to decline. Any attempts to deny this is fantasy. Not only is America in descendancy, so too is Western Culture, as the Daily Mail clearly sums up:
The U.S. company Orient Express complained when Tata tried to buy it, that any association with the Indian company would damage the Orient Express’s premium brand.
Responding, R K Krishna Kumar, a senior Tata executive, thundered that “Indian companies … will take their rightful place in the international arena.
“Enterprises and individuals must recognise and adapt to these fundamental economic changes. We believe that those with a fossilised frame of mind risk being marginalised.”
In a world in which we are no longer masters, it is a warning that we ignore at our peril.
The Wise give into the inevitable. Fools fight it.
As much as I would love to write about other subjects, I keep returning to News & Politics. I am appalled daily on how our nation has changed just in the last decade. This blog is developing a life of its own in enumerating the outrageous new course our nation has taken. What could be more enraging following image and the story behind it.
The Debate Link: Manchild in the Prison Land
Are you outraged yet? You should be.
The Economic stimulus package just passed by congress is a joke. It will not affect our economy beyond furthering the budget deficit by $168 billion. The reason is simple: the money is already spent. The $1,500 I expect from the deal (if I read the fine print correctly) is mostly gone with a mortgage payment and a weeks groceries and gas. Poof! I will not be using it to buy that wall mounted, high definition television from the local store.
The idea of the US Government handing out checks is laughable. In the words of Shel Silverstein: “get your coat and grab you hat, son. There’s a nut down on the corner giving dollar bills away.”
Aparently I’m not the only one thinking this way. From MSNBC:
(J)ust 19 percent of the people surveyed said they planned to go out and spend the money; 45 percent said they’d use it to pay bills. And nearly half said what the government really should do is get out of Iraq.
Forty-eight percent said a pullout would help fix the country’s economic problems “a great deal,” and an additional 20 percent said it would help at least somewhat. Some 43 percent said increasing government spending on health care, education and housing programs would help a great deal; 36 percent said cutting taxes.
“Let’s stop paying for this war,” said Hilda Sanchez, 44, of Waterford, Calif. “There are a lot of people who are struggling. We can use the money to pay for medical care and help people who were put out of their homes.”
I concur.
My neighbor lady is 88 years old. Her husband died a few years back and they have no surviving children. A scattering of friends, neighbors and her husbands 2 elder brothers are her only lifelines. My wife shops for her, as she can’t drive anymore. As far as I know all she does during the day is watch television and read newspapers. Ever since her husband died, she’s been cleaning out her house of forty years of accumulation. She’s methodically cleaning up after her life, putting her affairs in order and awaiting the inevitable. Some days are good and some days are bad. What kind of life is that in terms of quality?
I think on this as I read a New York Times article on Assisted Suicide. Please read it, it may become a very important subject to you one day.
Gloria C. Phares, a 93-year-old retired teacher in Missouri, wrote:
“I was healthy until 90, and then Boom! Atrial fibrillation; deaf, can’t enjoy music or hear a voice unless 10 inches from my ear; fell, fractured my thigh and am now a cripple; had a slight stroke the day after my beloved husband died after 61 years of marriage.
“I’ve lived a happy life, but from here on out it’s all downhill. Is there any point in my living any longer? I’m not living — just existing. I very much want to die, but our society doesn’t let me. Oh for a pill to ease myself out and end my pain, pain, pain.”
No authority exists that has he right to tell anyone they cannot end their life. Not family, friends, the government nor the church can dictate what is best for any person. To the extent that all these entities will try to do so, is the extent to which our society is most wrongfully arrogant.
We have Assisted Living. Why not Assisted Dying. Its humane.
President Bush, acting as the Unitary Executive, is making secret deals with Iraq. Under the euphemism “Enduring Relationship,” a Declaration of Principles has been documented, which outlines in the most glowing terms, unending embroilment in the desert.
One of the “Principles” is “Supporting the Republic of Iraq in defending its democratic system against internal and external threats.” This is bothersome on many levels.
And under the law, the president is entitled to broker a status-of-forces agreement without congressional approval.
“The president, as the commander in chief, can enter into an agreement and in theory, certainly as complex an agreement as he deems appropriate and necessary under the circumstances,” says retired Gen. Michael Nardotti, formerly the Army’s top lawyer.
But in the case of Iraq, even the most optimistic assessments don’t expect the situation there to become as stable as Japan or South Korea for decades.
“Bases of the U.S. around the world are not situated in an occupied country,” explains Raed Jarrar, an Iraqi political activist who recently testified before Congress on this issue. “For example, U.S. forces in Japan can’t just go out of their bases and [set up] a checkpoint in Tokyo. They can’t go around Tokyo arresting Japanese people.”
And in Japan or South Korea, the U.S. military isn’t allowed to maintain internal stability. In other words, it can’t protect those governments from internal threats. Indeed, in South Korea, two governments have been overthrown in coups in the past 50 years. The U.S. military could not and did not intervene.
First we illegally occupy a sovereignty, destroy its government and prop up a puppetocracy in its place. Then we let the puppets kill the newly-deposed President. We next start negotiating - at gunpoint, of course - a business deal benefiting American oil companies. Since that failed, we are now negotiating to morph our armed forces into the Iraqi National Guard, to give us the right to protect the nation we broke from “internal and external threats.” We become their military. And, although unstated, I venture to guess that we will be the final arbiters as to who and what constitutes a threat.
Since the US is suffering the Pottery Barn effect (you break it, you buy it) with regards to Iraq, our Liar-in-Chief is tying up the loose ends of his failed hostile takeover bid of Saddam Hussein’s oilfields. As he does so, he is tying a noose around the necks of every single US Solider that will be killed in Iraq going forward, in perpetuity.
Coining vague catch phrases like “Enduring Relationship” or talk of an “Enduring Presence” in Iraq cannot sugar coat the reality that the US is an Imperial power creating a colony out of a previously autonomous nation. We’re there for the oil, and when it’s gone, we’ll leave. Not. Until. Then.
Luckily, people are asking the right questions, these days. Questions like “Is it legal.” the answer, as NPR notes, lies on the boundary between Agreement and Treaty. It’s down to semantics. Sadly, our government is ill equipped to handle the subtly of semantics. Bring in the lawyers.
Lawyering takes time, and our administration expects to broker this deal by Summer. We don’t have the time. We REALLY need to impeach these bastards.
Newsporn star Bill O’Reilly showed his brand of professionalism when he yelled and shoved a Barack Obama campaign staffer. Bill’s response: "I might have called him an SOB." A consummate professional.
As they say: "And now for something completely different." (OK - so I couldn’t think up a reasonable segue. Sorry.)
Wired Magazine outlines the Top Ten New Organisms of 2007, starting with hypoallergenic cats and ending with a yeast that can "Smell" poison. way cool.
“A kinder, gentler nation.” Remember those words? What ever happened to that idea?
Notwithstanding the absurdity of using such a phrase as political rhetoric, I remain partial to the idea - especially these days. It’s a bitter irony the utterer of those words is also responsible for the man who, as president, is presiding over the opposite national direction. One could say that all Presidents since Eisenhower have been steering our nation in that direction. The only difference is Our Mr. Bush has a deficit of subtlety.
Being kinder and gentler has its place, even in politics. Perhaps that is why Barack Obama surfaced as the Democratic winner in Iowa yesterday. The man exudes kindness and gentility. (being the most telegenic candidate by fair amount can’t hurt, either.)
While the O-man is not my favorite, I believe he is more electable than any other. Charisma is a large part of game, and Barack’s gleaming smile and steady confidence has projected him far already. And, I believe in his rhetoric about compromise. Having worked within the Illinois congress, he’s had a fair amount of challenge working for his constituency: Illinois being a Red State with a Blue lesion growing on it’s northeast corner. Hammering out the details is old hat even for such a youthful politician.
Dennis Kucinick is not so young, and he also has that Kinder, Gentler Nation aura. He’s my pick for the Presidency, although I suspect I’ll only get to vote for him in the Primaries. America is not about to elect a man that believes in Strength Through Peace. A flash flood of wisdom is unlikely to penetrate the grass roots of Political Ideology anytime soon.
But a man can dream, can’t he?
Or for a still unlikely - yet more realistic - fantasy, let’s Have Barack pick Dennis as his running mate when he accepts the nomination at the Democratic Convention. That would be amazing! Enter the Age of Carebear Politics. That thought is so “out there” even I can’t imagine the repercussions. But leading the world from the heart must be better than leading the world from the ass.
Put THAT in your pipe and smoke it.
Two headlines placed next to each other in the Washington Post’s daily email caught my eye. For clarity I’ll also include the first paragraph of each story - no more needs saying.
Bush Signs Domestic Spending Bill but Criticizes Pet Projects
WACO, Tex., Dec. 26 — President Bush signed a $555 billion domestic spending bill into law Wednesday, but not without taking a swipe at Congress for including pet projects that total about $10 billion.
Wars Cost $15 Billion a Month, GOP Senator Says
The latest estimate of the growing costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the worldwide battle against terrorism — nearly $15 billion a month — came last week from one of the Senate’s leading proponents of a continued U.S. military presence in Iraq.
wow……..
All of a sudden, Mike Huckabee is a frontrunner in the Republican rat race. Is there anyone who truly believes that a Repub can win the White House after the ongoing catastrophe that is Bush/Cheney/Rice/Iraq/Iran??????
Really.
For those few people so seeped in denial, my condolences. No one can argue with a sick mind. However, no matter how idealistic, how inexperienced, how indoctrinate a Democratic candidate might be, there’s no chance a Republican has for the top seat. None.
So why bother to give Mike an inch of news coverage? Only to save face in the coming disaster of credibility when the house of cards perpetrated by the Bush administration, held up by the MSM, comes inevitably to fall. A weak overture, but the only available stance left to a failed and failing institution
The NEWS as we know it is dead. Government, as we know it, has failed. Grass roots, restructuring politics, along with our adrift national identity, will regain - with strength - a rule "by the people, for the people." Or our Great Experiment will crumble. It has come to the Point of No Return.
Ask yourself: Where will you stand. Will you stand beside the Predatory Lenders, that steal your dreams? Will you stand beside the hospitals, drug companies, and their legions of lobbyists, who hold profits before public health? Will you stand beside the Gun Lobby, as they set aside Human Life, Human Decency, to increase monetary gains? And will you stand beside a military machine that is bent upon destroying innocents for the tactical advantage of controlling oil manufacturing and distribution? Ask yourself: where does your interest lie? What path most benefits your children?
Ask yourself: What is the Lesser Evil - and, isn’t is still evil? Is it justified?