Iraq War Year Five: The Winter Solders 2008

[Chris Knipp]

Come on down and lead a revolution. The trouble is, we're too prosperous down here. Even the poor have got cars and TVs. That's the only explanation. Not enough desperation. This is also not a political country. And as you note, what political intelligence there flickered on the American horizon has been put to sleep by TV.

[Johann]

Not enough desperation. There you go.
That's it in a nutshell.

Leading a revolution usually leads to martyrdom (no doubt somebody would cap my Canadian ass in record time) and I'm not interested in that type of glory.

I think you got it exactly right Chris. Not enough desperation. No sense of urgency.
There's no profound sense of "This has gotta change".
People are very easily manipulated. You distract them with something that they find entertaining and...REVOLUTION OVER.

Sad.
What can you do?

[Chris Knipp]

Your ass would be quickly capped, taking to the streets is at least dangerous for your body.

Besides, you may be focusing on the wrong enemies. Aren't they all working for the big corporations? and since those are multi-national, where can you get at them? This is a well-nigh unbeatable monster now.

What can I do? Write about it, like before.

[Johann]

I listened to one of Kurt Vonnegut's last radio appearances and he had these interesting things to say:


The Iraq War is about OIL. These dumb people in power were so ignorant, thought it'd be so easy. These guys didn't know anything. They didn't know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite. They didn't know ANYTHING. They just thought it would be a piece of cake and scare the shit out of the Muslims. If you elect a really Dumb President you get a really Dumb country. The weapons of mass destruction....I tell you this: If they had thought that Iraq had anything to fight back with, they wouldn't have DARED invade. They said that Iraq was threatening us...well, they don't look like a lot of white Americans, and Race always works in this country, incidentally.
So it is essentially a Racist war.
Howard Zinn, a friend of mine who was a bombadier in the Second World War said "The Enemy is war". He said he hates Hollywood because Hollywood has made war reputable. there is nothing good about war. It is utterly horrible.

9/11? What is interesting is that it was the SAUDIS who flew the planes. But the Saudis are our "GREAT ALLIANCE", of course. It was never said that it was the Saudis who did this. That's dainty. Not convenient to go to war with your bedfellows...better go after someone else...

[Chris Knipp]

Well, Vonnegut was sue right, but there are no new insights there.

This isn't a dumb country. But it's got a dumb government. Dumb and dumber!

But the times they are a changin'.

[Johann]

Changing? I don't know.

Maybe only in that our fossil fuels are going the way of the dodo bird:

Vonnegut again:
To Future Generations: Please accept our apologies. We were roaring drunk on petroleum. We still are. The price of fossil fuels will go through the roof. There will be no substitutes for gasoline. The only power a human being ever had was in an automobile. People will not give that power up easily. Eventually we will run out of fossil fuels. The world is ending.

You heard it from the man himself.

I bought a book called "The Final Energy Crisis" and I'm gonna start reading it soon. Gotta get my knowledge on if the shitstorm to come is as big as I'm anticipating..

[Johann]

Yes, and that is one of the points I've heard a lot about this energy crisis:
China and India will be the hardest hit, the ones with the biggest populations.

I have a very bad Hurricane Katrina type vibe over this.
What is going to happen when every vehicle grinds to a halt?
The experts are claiming somewhere around 2016 the oil will be dried up, but others are claiming next year.
And when there is no more gasoline...look out chachi.
Cities will have absolute chaos on their hands.
People will kill each other for gas.
There's a 6-part movie on youtube about this very scenario.
Some posters yell :We'll never run out of oil or gas you idiots!
but they are dead wrong.
Gas stations have been around our whole lives.
It's hard to imagine them being gone, but imagine it.
Then what are you gonna do?
This is a huge huge issue that nobody seems to see coming.
par for the course...

[Chris Knipp]

I mean I think the republicans are going out and Obama is likely to come in, and he has some good plans for developing new energy sources.

Nothing is quite as simple as Vonnegut would make it. Ultimately oil is a key issue of course in the emphasis on the Middle East, but also the presence of Israel and America's support of it, and the desire for world dominance.

Vonnegut is right about the appeal of the automobile for independence. That's his best point. But just because we're hooked on that independence that cars bring, we're not doomed. We can keep cars and save the environment because cars can run on other things than gasoline. And they're starting to do that already.

It's not exactly a secret that we will eventually run out of fossil fuels. That isn't any insight. Of course as the planet gets more urbanized, three has to be more public transportation. So that's where other energy sources must come in. Actually coal seems to be more of an issue than oil.

Isn't the greatest problem of all overpopulation? That causes or exacerbates all the other problems. Maybe Vonnegut, with his apocalyptic vision, recommended or predicted a planetary nuclear war that would wipe out most of the world's population. He did envision a future world in which older people were sent off to suicide centers.

[Johann]

Why is there a desire for world dominance in the first place?
Who's dick is so small that they wish for world dominance?
Don't we deserve a world where that kind of berzerk chickenshit
has zero currency?
All that is is fear-based B.S., de facto.
Who said "Don't Fear Fear For Fear's the Mind-Killer"?
Matt Good?

Our dependence of hydrocarbons won't doom all of us, but it will doom a great many.
Alternative energy sources won't save everybody.
More public transportation?
That's an understatement.
Whole cities will have to overhaul their entire infrastructure in order to counter the lack of transportation.
I see no plans underway for that.
I see no major cities laying the groundwork for this most serious of potential problems.
Vonnegut got it Chris.
He got it.
There's different ways to be doomed.
And the energy crisis will show us plenty of those unique ways.
No energy?
No economy.
Yes it is that simple.
Whole livelihoods up in smoke, whole lives upended.
It's that simple.

[Chris Knipp]

No, nothing will save everybody. People come and go. Why the desire for world dominance? Ask Genghis Khan. Or ask Chalmers Johnson ,author of Blowback, The Sorrows of Empire, and Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic, who's been chronicling why he thinks that desire is bringing the USA down.

I think it's presumptuous to claim to know that we are doomed, or to think that we're going to be the downfall of the planet. Not that I am a global warming denier. That damage is real and the consequences are becoming more and more visible. we don't know what the ultimate results will be, though.

Sometimes it's "that simple," but mostly, when vast forces and vast changes are concerned, it's anything but simple.

There will not be a "no energy" situation. Not as long as there is mass.

[Johann]

Genghis is long since dead.
And Johnson won't tell me what I don't already know: power and money-mad freaks have ruined everything.

It's not presumtuous to see the writing on the wall, is it?

We're only the downfall of ourselves. As George Carlin said, the planet has been through much worse things than us humans.
The planet survived and will survive through much worse than us.

The bottom line is we gotta wake up as a species.

[Chris Knipp]

Carlin is right.