2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: This could have the effect of a revolution occurring under the radar... just consider... [View all]OSPREYXIV
(74 posts)(Apologies, I'm formatting hand-held)
The Koch brothers are just the tip of the iceberg.
A counter-revolution, engineered in slow motion, occurred outside the temporal frame that's been presented by the corporate media. On TV, it's always "Now!" It infantilizes the masses. History is what happens outside the margins of the screen and past the printed newspage. Every issue on the table today has been there since 1970. Been there. Got the t-shirt. Their agenda: to repeal all Roosevelt-era legislation (TR and FDR!!).
Since Reagan, what amounts to the Standard Oil trust was resurrected and a lobby representing a bloc of western extraction industries dictates to Congress and the President how to vote, controls foreign policy and encourages the myths of social/cultural/historical revisionism that use fear to impede all progressive legislation.
After Reagan's inaugural, the nation's electrical grid was re-committed to using stripmined coal to power its boilers. All EPA controls of their ruinous practices disappeared along with Carter-era plans for rationally developing electrical power. The development of "TVA 2.0" a study of how the lower Mississippi Valley could be developed for hydroelectric power, called "Gather at the River," was shelved. All plans, gov't support for solar, wind, etc. got tossed on January 21st, 1980. IMHO, that's "The Empire " George Lucas has been referring to all along in the Star Wars saga.
Freedom from foreign oil, freedom from oil, freedom for all, freedom from all enemies, foreign and domestic depends on free energy.
We have just been given what's probably our final warning and it may be too late. As Pogo once said: "We have met the enemy...and he is us."
The Chinese are not our enemies. The Russians are not our enemies. We are our all own worst enemies, planet-wide. There must be a quantum leap in energy production that puts a stop to the burning of fossil fuel to keep us fed, clothed, etc.
The caloric production ratio of agribusiness in the developed world is +/- 17:1. Seventeen calories of oil energy (minimum) are required to produce one edible calorie. Multiply by 3 to get meat. Do
the math. (Arable land, water, fertilizer, tractors, harvesters, trucks, packaging, ads, your gas, cooking heat, etc. X energy required to operate each subsystem X people on the planet, then project that number out from today as a trend line on a log scale. See where we're going here?
We don't have time for a revolution and we don't have any more time for their counter-revolution.
We do need a design revolution. The computer- driven mass mind that is evolving right before our eyes just might save us. As Captain Jack Aubrey always said to Stephen Maturin: "There isn't a moment to lose!" We are all crewmembers on board this spaceship, mortal creatures on a tiny speck in a vast and infinite Universe.
That universe is driven by electromagnetic energy carried on vast plasma currents. The physics we are being force-fed is hogwash. The Big Bang is a creationist fairy tale. It keeps things like they are.
We can wake up or we can drown in our own bilgewater as the oceans heat up and the land dries out. Plant more trees. Trees make it rain. Make it rain trees.
Rebuild the railroads. Re-engineer the machine tools of the agricultural industry for the coming drought (solar-driven, drip-irrigated, modular greenhouse tents). Use the aero-space industry's global intellectual assets to create a real-time biospheric, oceanic, and atmospheric all-planet monitoring system that's available to all 24/7/365.
Malthus was dead wrong. There's more than enough to make all of humanity successful.
Peace. If it isn't love, it's fear.
Good luck and Godspeed!