Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pr0n surfed, weak and weary,
Over many a strange and spurious site of "HOT XXX GALORE".
While I clicked my fav'rite bookmark, suddenly there came a warning,
And my heart was filled with mourning, mourning for my dear amour,
"Tis not possible!," I muttered, "give me back my free hardcore!"
... quoth the server:
404.
... being married to someone who knows the correct answer to the question "Are you ... Mary, Queen of Scots?"
A couple weeks ago, post-election, I wrote an entry called "Cassandra Complex". I got a few phone calls from dear friends who were really truly worried about me. (I love you all so much.) Last night, I was IMing with a coworker, and he sent me this PDF from the guy who makes the Life After The Oil Crash web site.
I'd read his site before, but this is a distillation of his beliefs. A manifesto, if you will.
Now, I think they guy's a little shrill. I think he's a little too far into tinfoil hat territory with all the conspiracy stuff. I agree that most of what he says is liable to happen or at least is not beyond the scope of imagination. I just don't know that it's all gonna happen as fast as he says.
I read this Peak Oil Headlines site pretty often. I also read this Solar News site as well, just for a bit of hope. I'm probably going to be buying a diesel car and running it on soybeans. We're winterproofing our house, which is really too large for our own good, and my neighbors and I are starting a community garden this spring. I don't know what else to do.
But if you want to know why I feel the future's so bleak, it's primarily because of doing a lot of research into the Peak Oil theory and being unable to find any holes in the argument. I'd sure love to hear someone debunk it and make me feel better about the prospects of the next twenty years.
Hey, check this out:
Thankya, Mother Jones! They're made in a union shop in Indonesia, and workers there are paid a fair wage. I've not bought a pair of sneakers in years and years because when Converse moved to China, (and got bought by Nikevil) there were no longer American-made, sweatshop-free sneakers to be had.
EDIT: Turns out they're made by a company called "No Sweat" that also organized the BlackSpot shoes by Adbusters.
Well, they're still not American-made, but at least they're not made by six-year-old kids.
For American-Made sneakers, your choice is pretty much exclusively limited to New Balance, which are made in Maine, for the most part.
Attention, Keith Olbermann and Thom Hartmann: Either hand us some proof, or shut the hell up. I and the rest of the straw-graspers here have had our hopes crushed more times in the last five days than I can believe. If you've got hard evidence, state your time and place and I'll be there with signs and torches. If not, quit jerking our chain.
From Neil Gaiman's blog:
Half-way through Election Day, feeling stressed-out and irritated, I decided to take my own advice (from the Harvey Awards keynote speech earlier this year)
As a solution to various problems you may encounter upon the way, let me suggest this: Make Good Art.
It's very simple. But it seems to work. Life fallen apart? Make good art. True love ran off with the milkman? Make good art. Bank foreclosing? Make good art.
Luuuurve you, Neil.
Why Americans hate Democrats
Bush's second-term test
Fiscal Catastrophe
And a pair from Salon: (Do the day pass; they're worth it)
Letters
Red-state Democrats speak out
And one from Kos:
The kids are all right
http://www.felbers.net/mt/archives/000945.html
Well.
We've really done it this time.
In 2000, we dems lost. It was close, but we lost, after much justified kicking and screaming. Many argue the legitimacy of that decision, myself among them, but in the end, we lost, for whatever reason.
We fell back, regrouped, and got ready for the 2002 election. We'll show them, we said. We'll vote out the bums. It's a mid-term referendum on Bush.
We lost again. Hard.
This sent the message to the Bush camp that the majority of people approved of their course of action. They got bolder. They invaded Iraq.
So we fell back again, regrouped, and got ready for the 2004 election. We'll show them, we said. We'll vote out the bums. It's a presidential referendum on Bush. We'll prove that we think he's done a shitty job so far, and no longer deserves to run this nation.
We lost again. Hard.
We didn't lose because we lost Ohio. We didn't lose because we lost Florida. Sure, all the Rovian (notice I didn't say Republican -- there's a difference) skullduggery at the polls helped -- but that doesn't change the fact that we lost the popular vote by over three million pulls of the lever. We lost because 51% of this nation was still willing to authorise Bush as the leader of the country.
We not only lost the Presidency, but we lost the House and Senate by horrifying numbers. We've effectively given the Neocon Machine the All Systems Go, carte blanche to ravage our tax system, our civil rights, and invade whatever country looks at us cross-wise.
I'm completely horrified at this.
Not because the Republicans won. I need to take a moment to clarify this.
At my house, politics was often seen in the same light as professional sports. Nyah, nyah, my team won and yours lost, you big fat losers, you. Dems, Repubs, they were just uniforms to be cheered at, like the Michigan/Michigan State line that ran through the house.
That's not what this is about. I don't hate Republicans. In fact, I treasure my Republican and Conservative friends, and very much enjoy hearing their viewpoints -- a well-rounded person cannot live in an ideological bubble. (Again, big difference: Most of my hardcore Conservative friends have thrown up their hands with the Republican party). Having grown up in a Conservative household, there's a lot to be said for not only the Conservative belief system, but their work ethic -- you don't get anything unless you've earned it, no handouts for you -- and I still believe in a lot of that.
However, and let me boldface-italicize this so that no one misses it: the Bush Administration behaves like neither Republicans nor Conservatives, and any Republican or Conservative who thinks so is only fooling herself.
I could go into endless examples, like Bush's drunken-sailor spending, the complete and utter disregard for peoples' private lives and bodies, the gigantic expansion of government and its control over your personal choices. However, I won't. Others have done so, and far more eloquently than I. Head on over to Daily Kos for that.
No, rather, after several long nights of long thoughts, I've finally been able to crystallize what sets this pack of weasels apart from the party and mindset they claim to champion.
The Bush Adminstration refuses to take responsibility for its actions.
There, that's it, that's it in a nutshell.
A Conservative Republican would have looked at the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and said "Americans do not, cannot, will not behave in this manner. I, as Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces, take full responsibility for the actions of our soldiers and those that made these horriffic command decisions, and will punish them accordingly. Our military forces are the pride of the world, and will remain so, because we do not allow our servicemen and women to act like the barbarians we are trying to oust from power."
A Conservative Republican would have looked at the deficits -- on both personal and Federal levels -- and said "We cannot spend any more money until we pay off this debt. We will cut corners until we are solvent, and only then will we increase spending."
A Conservative Republican would have looked at the looming energy crisis and demanded energy sacrifice at home, rather than continuing to encourage people to "return their lives to normal" -- Buy that huge SUV and drive it everywhere, don't worry about its milage -- it'll stimulate the economy. Independence, self-sufficiency and waving off reliance on others are some of the most admirable traits of the Conservatives I know.
A Conservative Republican would have looked at the gay marriage issue and said, "Whatever people want to do in the privacy of their own lives, and under the worship of their own God is their own business -- regardless of if we happen to disagree with their choice -- and for the Government to step in to the private lives of citizens and dictate their religious choices and individual persuit of happiness goes against everything we believe in. However, we'll create a separate set of tax codes over here for civil unions."
No, ladies and gentlemen, what we've got here are a bunch of Neo-Conservatives who have Empire on their mind. They like their power very much, and they have no intention of giving it up. For America -- and the rich NeoCons that run it -- to remain on top, at the current level of consumption and income, everyone else must remain on the bottom. If we lift up Third World Countries, we'll have to give them some of our stuff, like oil. If we lift up the working poor, the rich would have to give up some of their money. If we allow the individual to become more self-sufficient and less of a rabid consumer, they won't need the big corporations as much -- and the corporations will not be as profitable.
These Neocons are so determined to hold on to their power -- and expand it -- that they're willing to say anything, use any tool to achieve their ends. The most visible tool they've used is Fundamental Christianity. They've played up Christian Values so heavily that they're able to shove abhorrent legislation past intelligent people by telling them that it's for Godly reasons. If your candidate's anti-abortion, the Heartland and South will continue to vote for him regardless of what horrific tax cuts he's giving to the richest of the rich, regardless of how many of their sons and daughters he sends off to war. (As an aside, I'd even argue that some of the Candidates don't fully believe in the moral choices their party is having them adopt -- just look at Dick Cheney's reaction to the Gay Marriage issue. He doesn't believe it should be decided on the Federal Level, and yet he goes along with it, because his party says it's one of the best ways to get the majority of the Fundamental Christian vote.)
These guys are selling war, profiteering and hate, and they've wrapped it in the robes of Christianity. Jesus, my friends, told you to love your neighbors, not bomb the ever-loving crap out of them. I have a whole essay on this cooking on the back burner, so I won't go into it now. But. What they've done is recognize that the majority of the country -- the Heartland and the South -- is primarily Christian by belief. It's also primarily Republican and Conservative, politically. So what do you do if you want to get legislation and actions that are diametrically opposed to the typical Republican/Conservative party line past a nation chock-full of Republicans and/or Conservatives? You appeal to their religious morals, scare the daylights out of them, and tell them it's all for their own good.
Finally, one of the most amazing things about this whole race is that John Kerry advocated doing all the things I suggested above -- all the truly typically Conservative and Republican, self-responsible, self-aware decisions -- and the Rovian Spin Machine still managed, somehow, to convince the people of America that Kerry was a Bleeding-Heart Liberal.
I am amazed at the depths these NeoCons are willing to sink, and even more disheartened and amazed at how many well-meaning, good, Conservative and Republican citizens are willing to give them free reign to do so.
I'm not usually one to make public statements like this, but I feel like I have to write this all down someplace and see if anyone responds to it. Most of it will probably sound like tinfoil hattery, but it's what's going through my mind on continuous tape-loop. Feel free to poke holes in my argument -- in fact, I'm begging you to do so. Please, someone, tell me that I'm getting this wrong.
Here's what I feel is going on in America at the moment:
Bush wins another four years. My friend Jen points out that his decisions are going to get more outrageous now that he's not jockeying for re-election, and I'm inclined to agree. That means he's going to persue the Neocon agenda at full steam ahead. To me, this means a few things.
From all the news I've read, and everything I can surmise about the world, there's a very finite amount of oil and natural gas left in the world. At America's current rate of consumption, there's simply no way to sustain our present lifestyle for much longer without making sure the rest of the world remains (financially speaking) exactly where it is today. By this, I mean that if even 1 in 10 people in China and/or India and/or Russia were to own a car and drive it on anything even slightly resembling a regular basis, there simply would not be enough oil to go around -- it's within the Bush Administration's best interests to keep Third World countries exactly where they are on the oil-consumption scale. China, by all reports, is starting to industrialize at an alarming rate, and are more than willing to purchase any oil supplies we can't -- and are more than willing to pay higher prices than we can afford. Russia has enough reserves to hold its own for a while, but sees no need to not keep a hand in the Middle East, nor does it see a need to play nice with us if they don't want to.This means that, surprise-surprise, the Middle East suddenly becomes a very important place.
Now, many sane people would look at the coming storm and assign some serious belt-tightening: Slap the automakers with steeper fuel-efficiency standards, work like crazy on the Hydrogen Vehicle plan, ask Americans to carpool more, drive less, bike to work, switch to wood/corn/alternative heating, and fund Biodiesel (made from soybeans, which will only help the American Farmer) initiatives and research into bio-oil reclamation (like my pet obsession Thermodepolymerization). But no. Rather, our current administration is run by oilmen, and they'd rather wring every last cent out of the situation, with absolutely no apparrent regard for the economy, or for that matter, human life -- ours or the so-called "enemy's". They've even been willing to fabricate a war, costing our country hundreds of billions of dollars -- think what $87B could have meant to our school systems -- for the sake of getting a controlling interest in the governments of oil-rich countries.
The NeoCons, as outlined in their Project for a New American Century, seem to think that the only way to control this situation is to control the entire Middle East. The general idea is that we knock out the governments in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Jordan, replace them with governments friendly to ours, and continue business as usual.
Only, things aren't going according to Plan. Iraqis were supposed to greet us as liberators. This was supposed to be easy. But it's not, largely due to our own hamhanded bungling of the operation. We've effectively squandered any good will we had, and we've killed in the neighborhood of 100,000 Iraqis, mostly civilians. (How many eyes does that make in return for our eye?) So the operation's gonna get more expensive.
So where does Osama fit in to all this? Well, here. He's publicly stated that he's going to try to bankrupt the US. How? By making oil more expensive. If he throws enough scare into the stock markets, oil prices soar. If he bombs enough pipelines, oil prices soar. If he turns enough Muslim-controlled governments against us, oil prices go up even further.
This is where my Cassandra Complex starts itching. When I view a playing field like this, I see oil prices beginning to approach $75 to $100 a barrel within the next 10 years. For anyone keeping score at home, that's roughly double what it is now. That means increases in the cost of everything. Food. Gas. Shipping. Goods. Manufacturing. With Americans facing high unemployment rates, crushed under mountains of unnecessary, self-inflicted consumer debt, and any new jobs being worth $9,000 less per year than the old, now-lost jobs, this leaves us woefully unprepared for the assured inflation and higher costs.
So, figuring on this, the Middle Eastern oil becomes still more important, as does the Neocons' need to assert their plan. So, by my calculations, that means they're going to need to manufacture a lot more fear and doubt among the population. They've already got that routine down pat.
The circle goes round and round until it reaches Orwellian proportions: We need more war, so we generate more fear, which creates the kneejerk self-defense feeling, which inspires more war. Soon, it'll be perpetual war. A populace both frightened for their lives and in deep financial trouble will be very easy to control.
Check out this quote from Goering at the Nuremberg trials: "Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
Like I said. Circular reasoning, perpetual war.
Now, along with all that fear, I don't see our rights coming back anytime soon. With Rehnquist out for chemotherapy, and two other Supreme Court justices expected to retire shortly, Bush will get to appoint no less than three new SCOTUS justices. That will give us, no doubt, a solidly conservative Supreme Court. You can virtually kiss Roe V Wade goodbye, and expect other things like the Patriot Act to pass or be upheld easily. Let's just remember here that our Attorney General spent taxpayer dollars to cover the naked breast of the statue of Justice.
I see a very long, very dark time ahead for America: increased poverty, loss of jobs, runaway inflation, disregard for human life at home and abroad, a draft, restricted civil rights and total loss of abortion rights. Add these up and I see America heading for a place where, due to skyrocketing oil, fuel, fertilizer and transportation/production costs (bear in mind, they're all inextricably related) food shortages are possible. We won't be able to fly grapes in from Chile in February any more. Staples like bread and milk will jump to higher prices than we've seen since WW2. We won't be able to ship food aid overseas to poor nations as readily because we'll need more of it here. This to me indicates the distinct possibility of greater starvation worldwide -- we simply won't be able to respond to the poorest of the poor, and third world nations will suffer disproportionately. We'll have to give up our second cars; they'll starve to death.
I don't know if I can live in a world like this. I especially don't know if I can bring children into a world like this. A world of suspicion and hate, with my email monitored and my right to choose long-gone, a world where the working poor can look forward to feeding their children into the meat-grinder of war because their government manufactured a new cause for fear.
Please, someone, call me on this. Please, tell me I'm over-reacting. Shoot my argument full of holes, I beg of you.