Conflict is Inevitable
Eddison Flame
Photo by Jonathan Harrison on Unsplash
If you’re anything like me, you’ve been absolutely apoplectic this past week watching the United States orchestrate a coup in Venezuela. It has been truly horrifying to watch these things play out in real time. How bold and brazen these thugs have become! They are doing this right out in the open, they hardly even try to hide it.
Sure, they try to whitewash it with their typical propaganda. They obfuscate key facts. They paint Maduro as a criminal. They pass around cheap slogans. Where once we heard, “You’re either with us, or you’re with the terrorists”, now it’s, “either you stand with the forces of freedom, or you’re in league with Maduro and his mayhem”. It’s disgusting.
It’s disgusting and horrifying and saddening, but if there is one thing we gain by watching this tragedy unfold, it is a certain clarity about the state of affairs in the world. It makes it clear that conflict is inevitable. I’m not talking about conflict in Venezuela, although conflict is likely to unfold there too, I’m talking about a much larger conflict. I’m talking about a global conflict that must eventually occur between two ideologically incompatible groups.
There is one group of people which considers war both necessary and routine. Some members of this group make their money building and selling bombs and guns and tanks and missiles. These people need wars, otherwise they don’t make any money. Other members of this group make their money by taking and selling the natural resources of other weaker nations. These members need wars to ensure they get easy access to the resources they want. Other members of this group make their money enslaving the poorest people in these subservient conquered nations, putting them to work in factories with inhumane working conditions for inhumane wages. Other members of this group are facilitators, working in government or media. They plan, organize, fight, and sell these wars to a largely unwitting public. All these groups of people have formed a close knit coalition, working together to control and exploit the people of the world for their own collective material gain.
But there is second group of people which is the polar opposite of this first group. These people hate war and love peace. They hate the idea of exploiting the poor. They hate the idea of destroying lives for profit. These people cannot and will never accept such exploitative behavior. Period.
Herein lies the conflict. One group wages wars for profit, the other cannot bear to see people slaughtered. One group exploits the poor, the other cares for the poor. One group destroys the environment and pollutes the earth, the other cares about sustainability and the health of the planet. One group rules by might, the other by principles of individual sovereignty, equality and justice.
This is the inevitable conflict which must eventually occur. These two groups will eventually clash, because there is no way for the one to reconcile with the other. As long as one group is making war, killing people for profit, the other group must struggle against them.
Of course this struggle is already taking place, probably it began a long time ago. Certainly battles between these groups raged in the 1960’s during the anti-war and civil rights movements, but for a time the people of peace were largely beaten back. For a few decades the rulers of this world went largely unchallenged, but tensions are rising again as the battle resumes.
For now the battle is being waged mostly as an information war. The peace loving people are fighting to expose the truths of what is occurring around the world, and the war mongers are fighting to keep those truths hidden. For some decades the rulers mostly maintained information superiority, they managed to keep the truth of their affairs hidden, but lately they are making mistakes.
Hence the silver lining to this Venezuela coup. It is truly disgusting to behold, but it is being done very carelessly and very much out in the open. Hopefully it will fail, hopefully Guaido will realize he’s a stooge and have a change of heart, hopefully the people of Venezuela will come together and not be overcome by the U.S. imperial efforts to destabilize their nation, but if this coup attempt does lead to chaos in Venezuela, it might nonetheless work against the war-mongers in the end. The whole world is watching these events unfold, people in all the nations of the world can see ever more clearly what is being done by these criminals, and they will not remain silent forever.
The people saw what happened in Iraq, they saw what happened in Libya, they saw what happened in Syria, and now they’re seeing the U.S. imperialists go to work on Venezuela. Each time, with each new intervention, the truth about what is actually going on becomes clearer, and this inevitable conflict gets nearer.
That this conflict is inevitable is obvious. That tensions are rising, especially as the imperialists have in recent years gone into a kind of militaristic overdrive, is also quite clear. What I believe is not so clear to many people, especially the peace loving people of the world, is that this conflict will eventually be incredibly violent. So this is the final point I want to make in this piece, that eventually this conflict is going to become violent, even for us peace loving folk.
That this conflict will eventually become violent derives from the very nature of the war-mongers who currently control the world. These people end human lives for profit. If some group of people joins together to stop them, what do you think their response will be? Will they simply step down? Will they acknowledge their crimes and submit to their fate? Will they relinquish their positions of power without a fight?
Why do you think the police all over the Western world have been militarized? Is it really, as they say, simply a kind of accident, the result of having a surplus of military equipment, or have they been preparing for an eventual popular uprising all along? These people are in the business of controlling populations. Do you think they have not considered the possibility that people might one day stand up against them? But of course they have considered this. They know as well as anyone that this conflict is inevitable, and so they have taken measures, well in advance, to protect them when it happens.
So this is the point, whoever is on side of peace needs to be prepared. Conflict is rising, and soon it will come to a head. When it finally does come to a head, there will be a great struggle, and great violence will be perpetrated against all those who stand up for peace. All of us should expect this, and we should prepare for it. If we truly want to succeed in this, if we want to end their tyranny once and for all, we need to be prepared to meet it and overcome it.
SUPPORT OFFGUARDIAN
If you enjoy OffG's content, please help us make our monthly fund-raising goal and keep the site alive.
For other ways to donate, including direct-transfer bank details click HERE.
Violent conflict on a wide or mass scale between “peaceful people” and the american state or even our own is not inevitable. There are other ways of bringing them crashing down. Think about non-payment and about non-violent resistanc, about non participation.
Venezuelans are tired of eating dogs while the fat bus driver dines on steak.
Becoming the reality in Murrka as well.Maybe we need regime change ,huh?
Is the ‘regime’ the fungi that appears above ground or the underlying interconnected ‘deep state’ of unconsciousness. In which case is what we think of as regime change the propagating means of the fungi? I like the idea of fungi here when we understand that on of its functions or gifts to the whole is the clearing up of the dead. In other words the terrain is the major factor, not that ‘pathogen’. Its also true that we could not be able to live in the body at least, without fungi and microbiota. The ‘we’ that has made an enemy of life itself is an insanity given power of identification. As if gaining control or dominion OVER life could be anything other than some kind of death walking. The strands of ‘geo-politc’ or global power struggle are firstly the undermining and subversion of our thought. This operates via a broad… Read more »
Sunday night. It has been one heck of a week since the Jan. 23 announcement by Trump, then Trudeau and the rest of the western world that they were supporting Regime change in Venezuela. It was a shock that jolted me to attention. I spent night and day reading tons of stuff and tried to educate myself. Spoke to family and got the “Oh dad you are making yourself sick again.” Even got to making a few comments here and there on great sites such as this. I especially liked this article of kits (Conflict Is Inevitable) that boiled it down from the complexity swirling in my brain. Like a roller coaster ride I was up-down and all around. One day I thought I could grasp it only to find it was a house of mirrors or a rabbit hole as some have suggested. I am nobody really, an old… Read more »
Every time we see through the illusion. We light a candle to the darkness. Every candle once lit. Sends its light into the shadows and exposes the illusion for more to see.
To be without apology or justification is to have not en-tranced the game of seeking to atone for or vindicate a sense of worth-lack or illegitimacy. But this is no victory or achievement over the game or gamers so much as leaving the bait untaken. What we do not use becomes obsolete by neglect. Conflict can be perceived outside us in discretely polarised forces. While this is our normalised or default worldview, I suggest it is so because it serves a hidden purpose. It puts our own ‘shadow conflicts’ outside and away from self. Shadow in the sense of a darkness within and beneath the ‘light’ of officially accepted narrative ‘reality’. Shadow in the sense of masked, hidden, unconscious or plausibly deniable – even to our ‘self’. Shadow in the sense that – seen in others and attacked or denied there – induces a personal sense of escape or mitigation… Read more »
Trumpetty joins Nutty as Wile E. Coyote strategist:
Putin authorizes development of advanced missiles in response to US suspension of INF
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/02/02/587452/Russia-US-INF-missile-arms-race
(Of course this means more profit for the Military Industrialists; but I like to think of the POTU$ as a someone working for the interests of the U$A as a whole).
Hasn’t the USA been sold (bought) for asset stripping? The setting up of Great Fears is the guarantee of funding or revenue streams. But that doesn’t mean destruction is not part of intentionally reshaping the world-mind. Wholeness is indeed the missing part that is ruled out by division and conflict. Is the ‘populist’ ticket simply the exploitation of the charge of denied fears (and hopes) that became an opportunistic power grab? The fact that popular is no longer any kind of democratic voice – is part of the mind-games going on. Re-Educating ourselves that becomes a cultural movement savvy to the identity politicking is a ground from which wholeness can grow through. This also in the moments of giving true witness amidst the circus of fakery. Whoever becomes part of its pathways of expression. IE don’t invest in the persons so much as the purpose being served. Integrative to wholeness… Read more »
The Fear of God is Utmost
But beyond these, my son, be warned: There is no end to the making of many books, and much study wearies the body. When all has been heard, the conclusion of the matter is this: Fear God and keep His commandments, because this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, along with every hidden thing, whether good or evil.…. (Ecc12:12-14)
Exactly. James Douglass in his already classic history of 10 years ago, “JFK and the Unspeakable” says that only by walking through the darkness of our history here, in USAmerica, will we earn the clarity to heal our past.
That has been so true for me, and I was raised in the midst of much of this. Fear God and do what is right and you will become who you are. All the better to pray for the perps who have done so many ignorant things that have led us to one impasse after another.
Our ridiculous situation has had the effect of “reducing” us to prayer.
And that is a better thing than many yet know, as the end of that process, fully lived, will find us “anchored in the joy of serenity.”
There is another way of looking at this that may join with what I feel you intend. Our true inheritance was ‘discarded or squandered’ in a mind that seemed to ‘go its own way’ as if a law unto itself. But remains our true inheritance because we did not and do not create ourselves. The dread terror of guilt’s inheritance sets a mind in ‘sin’ and hiding beneath fig leaf thinking as fear driven necessity under a sense of irrevocable loss of deserving of love and of being unsafe in relation to love. And so in this sense fear of God is a fear for our selves in the light of what we have ‘made’ of our selves – as pain in the heart of God and as an evil in the mind of God that must be stamped out, denied, excommunicated or killed. The projection of this judgement –… Read more »
Once again binra I am drawn to your words as being relevant to my own journey in seeking peace within while contributing to a world peace without. This is the intention in attempting to educate myself and others – to call out the lies and deceptions that foster wars of aggression. I realize that the western attack on Venezuelan has triggered outrage. How can it not when one is even dimly aware of the horrors wreaked upon the meek by CIA sponsored death squads for example or my revulsion for the likes of an Elliot Abrams who make it happen in the guise of democracy. In the face of such injustice are we not called to action in the very nature of our being? I think I get that “to fold to a sense of ‘self-protective’ dissociation” is not effective or even counter effective. I offer this with sincere respect.
Right. And too much intellectualizing will lead to no action as we stand by and watch the horror unfold. Evil thrives when good men stand by and do nothing. The time for action is upon us. Put on your safety vests and take to the streets! Pray for strength!
Part of the CIAs ‘scubbed’ version of interference in Venezuela…oops sorry Chile….. (of course its all different now folks😑, please note as they say themselves it is not all they did) ………’CIA’s response to the Hinchey amendment should be viewed as a good-faith effort to respond in an unclassified format to the three questions, not as a definitive history of US activities in Chile over the past 30 years. [Top of page] Summary of Response to Questions Q. All activities of officers, covert agents, and employees of all elements of the Intelligence Community with respect to the assassination of President Salvador Allende in September 1973. A. We find no information—nor did the Church Committee—that CIA or the Intelligence Community was involved in the death of Chilean President Salvador Allende. He is believed to have committed suicide as the coup leaders closed in on him. The major CIA effort against Allende… Read more »
You are referencing the CIA website as a source? President Truman ruefully called that remarkable agency, “The American Gestapo” for a reason. And that was at it’s dawn, when it employed a lot of well-meaning assets like Edward R. Murrow and Sen. George McGovern. I spoke with Dave Emory (one of the most knowledgeable observers: spitfirelist.org ) two years ago and he called it, straight up, “the world’s biggest Mob.” His site is a one stop shop for real facts about The Company. Going to the CIA site about the scoop on Chile, is like interviewing the fox outside the henhouse with bloody feathers still dangling on its maw. Or the Nazis. Reinhard Gehlen was made its first de facto head and the first thing he dead was to set up Otto von Bolschwing in Sacramento in a plum job, saying he’d been “de-Nazified”. Von Bolschwing was the architect of… Read more »
Correction: spitfirelist.com -a truly awesome 30 year plus compendium about all of this. A five minute perusal should confirm that, not to be missed.
One minute was enough: clueless guy who hit upon a few pearls..
Ijjit.
https://grayzoneproject.com/2019/02/03/wsj-venezuela-coup-leader-juan-guaido-neoliberal-capitalist-shock-therapy/
This is one of the best dissident pieces I’ve seen in a long time. Yes, conflict is inevitable and yes, we shall have to give the warmongers a bit of their own murderous medicine. Flame at this point does not yet address the question: How can we fight back against people who control a vast military, financial, information, and surveillance machine? One possible answer is provided here: http://www.veteranstoday.com/2014/06/17/the-al-sabbah-brigade/
I don’t think we can, FJ. We just have to let these people destroy themselves. Their system of crony capitalism and bogus democracy is falling apart at the seams. It is bankrupt economically, financially, politically, socially, racially, morally and spiritually. The United Snakes has a current military budget of $1,134 billion. Russia $61 billion, being reduced to 46. It has trillion dollar budget and trade deficits. It has been borrowing $4 billion a day. Debt levels are out of control, maybe $250 trillion. It has been de industrialised. Cities like Detroit have lost half their population and look like Wild West ghost towns. It has a corrupt, broken, dysfunctional political system incapable of reforming itself, throwing up monstrosities like Clinton and Trump. A society so polarised and divided it is on the verge of civil war. The crude threats and criminality of psychopathic, repulsive, cretinous, recycled thugs like Bolton, Pompeo… Read more »
that link was dead, try this one:
https://www.veteranstodayarchives.com/2014/06/17/the-al-sabbah-brigade/
Binra What happened to peak oil? Nothing. The pertinent question is “what happened to cheap, readily accessible oil”? Apart from the Middle East – it has all peaked and in decline. What is the shale revolution, tar sands wonder, or Venezuela’s ‘largest proven reserves’? It’s oil, Jim – but not as we know it! I’ve already dealt with Venezulean extra heavy crude in passing. So, what is shale? Sandstone impregnated with fissures of oil – that has to be shattered (hydraulically fractured – aka ‘fracking’) to make the oil accessible. I’m sure you are aware of many of the issues: water table contamination, high pressure earth tremors, polluting tailing ponds, gas flaring as a waste product (making unconventional oil 3-5 times as polluting as conventional); etc all of which have cost (financial and environmental) implications. That is what people don’t get about peak oil. It does not matter how much… Read more »
That was a reply for further down the page.
BigB: Scarcity is maintained by design for the expansion of the power of possession and control. The energy cartels allied with financial and corporate power through oil and coal (and pharma) intends to upgrade (sic) to energy control via carbon-guilt indenture along with the Internet of Things for the real-time surveillance and control of transactions of energy (and money). The psyoperative subliminal of the article is ‘Conflict is inevitable”. This can be seen as already de facto true – and equated with ‘progress is inevitable’ where ‘progress’ operates the devaluation and destruction of the past as the ‘getting’ or becoming of victory over it. I read some Illich in the bath earlier – I feel it speaks to the issue profoundly: Toward A History Of Needs – Introduction (clip) ~ Ivan Illich The five essays in this volume reflect a decade’s thinkng on the industrial mode of production. During this… Read more »
I wish to thank you Binra for sharing these insights. If I am understanding, ‘modernized poverty’ helps to explain the freak out of the more affluent Venezuelan population to commodity shortages externally manipulated to create anxiety within and thus the foundation for the coup de tat. It helps to understand my own poverty since losing my place and identity in the neoliberal order as well.
You are welcome. The charged nature that I see is of a self-disempowering under the fear-illusion of gaining possession (that adds anxiety) and increasing control (along with denials that increase distrust and disorder). At the personal level we are generally experiencing others positively (reinforcing), or negatively (undermining). The system itself is deeply set, but the thinking that it depends on is ours – or rather our fear arising from a sense of lack or as Illich calls it poverty. I usually put it all in terms of living or acting out from a sense of lack. Like the addict, the more we feed the hole, the more lost we are from our wholeness. How we come back into our lives is obviously a rediscovering of what we truly what and are – despite the fears and resistances set against that. But instead of thinking ‘about it’ we can start now,… Read more »
BigB: As hydrocarbon extraction becomes less profitable, solar and wind become more profitable. And on a longer time scale. So, in a strange way, does the chemical energy of hydrocarbons. Because chemical energy is measured in volts (only 1-3volts) solar, wind and the photosynthesis that renews carbohydrate fuels all are driven by the nuclear energy of the sun, which is measured in thousands of volts. So is nuclear energy from uranium and thorium, with the promise of hydrogen>>helium fusion always round the corner. But none of these are get-rich-quick schemes. To extract hydrocarbons and burn them to CO2 & OH2 takes little time; one can recover one’s investment in a few years (even less if, like the Rothschild gang, one steals somebody else’s oil). But using the nuclear power of the sun to synthesise 2OH2 & CO2 back into Cn(OH2)2n + nO2 for re-burning takes longer. (Rothschild owns the land,… Read more »
The idea of the Sun as nuclear fusion is – I believe – completely wrong. There are nuclear reactions within the surface of the photosphere. The development of energy solutions is – I believe – tightly controlled and managed – as with health ‘solutions’. Life is managed as risk of sickness and of threat. killing Life before it kills us, is not so far from the nature of the current consciousness. The development of convivial technologies and cultural value through such active expression is suppressed and denied by a top down centralism of corporate canopy that effectively denies light and life to all that its covers. This includes the substitution of a regulated and managed life for relational freedom of being. The chokehold on the creative – is the sticking point or log jam of an arrested development – that has polarised to become a negatively aligned agenda of a… Read more »
I’m not entirely pessimistic about Venezuela. With crude third rate psychopathic thugs like Pompeo, Abrams and Bolton running the show, the Three Amigos, or the Three Stooges, I’m sure this will be as much a case of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice as Iraq, Libya, Ukraine, Syria, Yemen, and everything else these no hopers have touched over the past 30 years. It could be the final nail in the US Neocon/ neoliberal coffin.
I often think that they are so substandard that they are our best allies, but it is a cold comfort to have to test it.
I fear Guaido is too dull-witted to realize that he is a stooge and have a change of heart.
And large financial rewards are particularly appealing to the dull-witted.
I like this article because it is KISS (keep it simple stupid). For me the issue is apolitical. I don’t much give a damn about Left Vs Right, Socialism Vs Capitalism. These paradigms divide people. What I care about is Peace and the denunciation and renunciation of war as a means of solving geopolitical problems. We have a chance to solve many other problems together if we start with that premiss. Wars of aggression always create more problems than they solve. Unity among people is what will be required to build a lasting peace. A unity that is apolitical and universal. I too have been accused of being naive but when I interact with people directly outside of politics I discover wonderful people wherever there from, whatever their class or whoever they voted for. That is not to say that we should not defend ourselves from, or turn a blind… Read more »
I hope the person who voted against jeremmy hardy made a slip.that’s all i can say.
If it was me it was unintentional for sure.
Framed in conflict. The mind of man is (currently) framed in fear, conflict and guilt. The use of conflict as a weapon is the assigning of blame and penalty to others (away from self-set-apart), and taking power from their lack, loss, or destruction. One-up-man-ship that can seem absent in alliance with others in group-up-man-ship or mutual self reinforcing segregation. Conflict, identified as saviour and protector, divides in order to rule out the peace in which truth is recognised, lived and shared. And so the conflicted, in self-asserting possession are weaponised in vigilance against peace by the purpose of conflict given worth-ship and protection. Thus seeking to see in our brother the justifications for our withholding or withdrawal of worth and justification for attack – masked perhaps in feigned kindness, or held back in conditions where alliance serves to hide a secret hate. Presented as reluctantly forced into justified reaction to… Read more »
Great post Brian. I read most of it, but have to get ready to go into London to see two heavy rock bands. I very rarely travel into London, unless I have seen the bands elsewhere. I used to work in London for 13 years, a long time ago. The Noise of The Traffic is really going to hit me. The bands will be even louder, but by now, brought up on Motorhead, I’m getting a bit deaf. I like peace and quiet, until The tinnitus rings in my left ear.
Tony
Hey Binra,
Nobody wants to be lectured at.
You should try plain talking.
Fair Dinkum – you give the meaning you want to take. I reach for words to best serve the meanings – my person is not the telling not is yours ‘told’. I have to live with myself-with-you and with the world as I meet it. The strait talk is that if I deceive myself I meet a deceitful world. That puts me in the driving seat of the meaning I give and take from a situation… knowingly or in an unwatched mind. The illusion is thinking to see the illusions or sins of others without looking through our own. So everyone has their take, suss or judgement on anyone and everyone ELSE but NOT themself. And be-lives as if they are right and the world is what they ‘see’. I am not offering yet another judgement – but an invitation to look at the mind that makes them – at… Read more »
Excellent article, but conflict is not inevitable. The vast majority of these evil people on the other side, have been clearly identified. They are even quite brazen about it, yet are very small in number. There are still graceful solutions to all the world’s problems. People are waking up, at every level of society, and every level of power. Even the world’s financial problems can be easily resolved. Almost the entire world is in debt, but they are in debt to ” these evil people on the other side”, who already have far too much power and money, than they know what to do with, and have an ideology that they worship, which is over 2,000 years out of date, and based on war and destruction. The debt, that cannot be paid, should simply be cancelled. This has been standard practice for thousands of years. It still is for individuals.… Read more »
We here in the disunited UK are again sleepwalking into another Iraq scenario. May and her little band of Tory thugs endorsing the criminal actions of America are walking down the same path as the war criminal Blair re supporting Bush in his greedy quest to control the Middle East. Mass protests are required to let these thugs know that we will not repeat this folly.
I can get behind this article. Disgusting is the most apt word for these events.
But when Left and Right are stealing each others lines like there are actually opposing sides I’m somewhat more pessimistic than the writer.
The irony in this is that we the people ( left or right ) pay for the States’ Military. The One percenters have no army or air force of their own. They use what is ostensibly ours. In the UK it is Her Majesty’s Armed Forces. She is literally in charge despite us paying. In the US it is different and if the alleged leaders had to stomach to take the peoples military back to serve the people then a lot of warmongering would be de-escalated. The Gilet _ Jaunes are being attacked by a force which they pay for as well. These are the things that need doing but in order to do it you have to have changes of governments. This change is what all governments fear the most. It’s no accident that the most bellicose in military matters are two rapidly declining Empires. China is not just… Read more »
Hitler needed Vidkun Quisling. Trump needed Juan Guaidó. Look no further.
Admin et al.
Jeremy Hardy Died.
The only voice on the BBC that was truly socialist, is no more.
Any chance Off-G getting a piece on the great man?
Eddison, mate, really appreciate your words and your sentiments, aye. I too, see major conflict on the horizon, especially if theres a massive economic collapse, as some are predicting. As you point out, its absolutely no accident that the police have been militarised in Western countries, and protests involving rioting or violence, lengthy prison terms await. Psychopaths like Bolton, Pompeo, Abrams, Kagan, Haspel, Cheney, the entire cabal of Neocon nutters are Not going to willingly give up their power and wealth and beg forgiveness. Neither will those who run the multinational corporations and banks. It will Never happen. The really sad reality is lots of blood is going to be spilt. We are in this situation because of the sheer lust for power and control and greed of a tiny minority. Who bow at the altar of mammon. And also because they have the contemptible presstitute media in their pockets.… Read more »
Mammon AND Moloch, actually.
What would Gandhi do? Nothing. He’d be dead by now. Gunned down by an “IDF” kiddie killer with dum dum bullets from a British sniper rifle. Or clubbed into a coma by Macron’s Zionist trained Boot Boys.
We are so close to the day to day .A long detached view is useful as your excellent analysis is. These two groups have been there all along ever since power and law and control replaced community and the general good. The present situation could be seen as the last dying attempts of imperialism to survive the information age and panic as obsolete energy sources run out.
Why no mention of Israel, the elephant in the room. They have been behind all the Middle East wars and have long been active in Venezuela given that their ambassador was kicked out of Venezuela in 2009 because of Venezuela’s objections to Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians.
It’s not the economy: it’s the EROEI – stoopid! The current carbon capitalist world system does not understand surplus energy or EROEI, as it is so fixated on maximal short term returns for shareholders. It can’t comprehend that their entire business model is unsustainable and self cannibalising. Which is bad for us: because carbon net-energy (exergy) economics it is foundational to all civilisation. The ignorance of it and subsequent environmental and social convergence crises threatens the systemic failure of our entire civilisation. The Venezuelan crisis affects us all: and is symptomatic of a decline in cheap oil due to rapidly falling EROEI. This is a global concern that underpins everything. I can’t find the EROEI specifically for Venezuelan heavy oil: but it is only slightly less viscous than bitumen – which has an EROEI of 3:1. Let’s call it 4:1: the same as other tight oils and shale. Anything less… Read more »
BigB, I really enjoy your posts, and I also enjoy reading Dmitry Orlov. However, belief in Peak Oil is a large part of the problem, because Governments believe it too. This belief is based, on another belief, that oil is a fossil fuel. This belief is not supported, by the most fundamental laws of physics. I researched the theory of Peak Oil, in great detail nearly 20 years ago, starting off with resources such as dieoff.org. I accept the logic of the arguments, in almost every detail, except they are all based on the belief that oil is a fossil fuel . I have also researched a great number of the scientific papers, and other resources, which to me conclusively proved that oil is not a fossil fuel. I don’t expect you to believe me, and without a degree in physics and maths, you are unlikely to understand the scientific… Read more »
Thanks Tony I am well aware of the Abiotic Oil Theory (AOT): and you are absolutely right – the science and physics might as well be in Martian to me. However, I am also aware of those, such as Ugo Bardi and Richard Heinberg, that would understand the papers. Basically, there are two AOTs: strong and weak. Strong means I would be three feet deep in oil right now. Weak means oil will reform over geological timescales. Which is no use to us. We need oil in the coming four decades to make any real impact. Although the reserve replenishment ratios are at a low (basically, we can’t afford to explore …CapEx budgets are being consumed in capital expensive extraction of tars, etc) we will find more oil, there is no doubt. What we will not find is cheap oil. More and more expenditure will go into extraction, less and… Read more »
http://www.williamengdahl.com/englishNEO31Dec2018.php
‘Whatever happened to Peak Oil?” – Engdahl
Great comment BigB : Less is more and more free time to enjoy learning, without poisoning our kids minds, hearts, Soul & Habitat and undermining their potential to exist equitably, with a physical balance that respects the scientific need to communicate, without damaging our Biosphere further, nor warping our Ionosphere with heaters like HAARP , which alter the Jet Stream currents. Long ago, the rational conclusion in my humble opinion , was to Open Source intelligence & engineering in real time. Eg. if I am engineering the weather today (a reality nobody wishes to discuss), wherever I am , BigB has a moral right to understand my actions, in order to calculate collectively elsewhere , the supply & demand consequences of whatever forces of energy were applied to achieve my goal of going skiing on Sunday … or watering crops, or for the Chinese Olympics in Beijing: for which they… Read more »
Tim (and Balky) I’m a bit wary of the techno-fix. Technological and efficiency revolutions increase energy and resource consumption (the Jevons Paradox) …whilst be limited by EROEI for all other resources. Beyond a certain level of efficiency: any further progress is subject to diminishing returns for marginal benefits. For instance, I think it is quite well accepted (outside magic realist imaginations) that a hydrogen economy would be an energy sink …and an evolutionary backwater. And just what would the energy footprint of a distributed ledger blockchain SDR be? That’s a lot of solar panels …or energy and resources that could be better deployed elsewhere! ‘Wetiko materialism’ is my term for the Western psychoses. It’s a Cree term for it : which is taking on a new meaning in the work of Paul Levy, David Ray Griffin, Fritjof Capra and others – in what I would describe as an emergent quantum-process… Read more »
From where I’m sitting, global conflict seems a very long way away. I’d say, with neoliberalism and home ownership, we keep ourselves on a short leash because a few crumbs are being brushed off the top table and those recipients of imagined wealth through debt (home ownership) are loath to give it up. I base my argument on Brexit. The thought of a possible 30% drop in house prices is a disaster for many, no matter which party they support. And the probability of not being able to retire to Spain or France makes them very angry. They should be rejoicing for their children and the citizens of France and Spain who will not have to suffer house price inflation, but they don’t think like that. With a defence budget 10 times bigger than the next country and an economic reliance on it staying that way, I’d say the inevitable… Read more »
”A billion men seeking peace cannot be enslaved.”
”Only our desire for it can bring about a new and better world.”
So said Henry Miller in his book, ”The Colossus of Maroussi.” Old Henry was utterly scathing in his descriptions of the media, saying that they only bring death and misery.
In the context of the warmongering Guardian and its lickspittle contributors, I can only agree with him.
”This is the inevitable conflict which must eventually occur.” Eventually? I think that it has already started. And it is not going to be a long drawn-out conflict, like say the 100 years war. Climate change will make it short. Choose your side Eros or Thanatos, Life or Death.
Conflict is inevitable so choose the side you believe to be right and fight for your belief. Here is a brave lady who chose to stand and fight NATZO, the “irresistible armed might” of the evil powers discussed above — and is now fighting an even bigger foe: cancer.
Asma Assad wearing a gay chemotherapy headscarf, back to work after her operation, comforting the parents of a fallen Syrian soldier:
?w=700
Asma Assad recommends to women: Scan early and scan often.
“But there is second group of people which is the polar opposite of this first group. These people hate war and love peace. They hate the idea of exploiting the poor. They hate the idea of destroying lives for profit. These people cannot and will never accept such exploitative behavior. Period.” Where does this second group buy its goods? Or do they not partake in the capitalist economy at all? The fact is, we all of us in this second group are hypocrites (though the degree of hypocrisy may differ) because we have to participate in the capitalist system to ensure our own survival. We also, if we live in the West, are obliged to pay taxes to fund these wars. And what if what we protest as capitalism’s excesses are not its excesses at all, but essential for/integral to its survival? I.e. there is literally no choice, other than… Read more »
Yes, we’re all in it together one way or another.
“We declare our right on this Earth to be a man, to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this Earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary.”
— Malcolm X, 1965
“By any means necessary” – indeed Malcolm’s words seem more vital and relevant today then they ever have – and for a wider range of critically important reasons.
“Victory achieved by violence is tantamount to defeat since it is temporary.” _M.K. Gandhi It is clear that Malcolm X was approaching that perspective, that wisdom, in his last months, since, like Gandhi, like King, he had come to see how the dialectic plays out. All those who develop into that ineluctable wisdom of peace, and are also very politically potent and prominent, are men “marked for assassination”. See a pattern here? X, Gandhi, King, JFK and RFK and Honest Abe. All executed in a shocking heartbeat by a bullet. And in public. Remarkably consistent circumstances. Oligarchs maintaining their grip -their “Iron Heel” as Jack London called it memorably, “by any means necessary.” Ballots voided by bullets. It’s almost as if the victims were “on” to something, and the ghouls who run this world didn’t want us to be too encouraged by peacemakers. Any means necessary must be the right… Read more »
“There is one group of people which considers war both necessary and routine. Some members of this group make their money building and selling bombs and guns and tanks and missiles. These people need wars, otherwise they don’t make any money. Other members of this group make their money by taking and selling the natural resources of other weaker nations. These members need wars to ensure they get easy access to the resources they want. Other members of this group make their money enslaving the poorest people in these subservient conquered nations, putting them to work in factories with inhumane working conditions for inhumane wages. Other members of this group are facilitators, working in government or media. They plan, organize, fight, and sell these wars to a largely unwitting public. All these groups of people have formed a close knit coalition, working together to control and exploit the people of… Read more »
@ John Ervin. I enjoyed reading your comment but would disaagree with the Sainthood of JFK. He was responsible for escalating the IndoChina war(the vietnam war)by taking the number of US “advisors” from just under a thousand to 16,000 and presided over the Bay of Pigs incident and the Cuban Missile Crisis. To his credit, though, was his rejection of the JCS to orchestrate false flag attacks on American soil to promote sympathy for another invasion of Cuba, which I still believe was partly the reason he was assassinated by the CIA and LBJ affiliates who wanted further military conflict against communism.
Other than that I found little to fault your observations and affirm the sentiments underlying your narrative.
First, you might want to read James Douglass “JFK and the Unspeakable.” He speaks of Dr. Norman Cousins, one of my father’s clients, who was chosen by JFK as a liaison between the White House, Castro, Kruschev, and Pope John XXIII. Anyway, the documentation of that seminal work by Douglass, a Catholic lay theologian and student of the assassinated Fr. Thomas Merton, is well sourced and will clear up any historical misunderstandings, OR long time CIA disinfo. ALSO: “History Will Not Absolve Us” by E. Martin Schotz is unforgettably brilliant and contains many primary documents that are revealing of all this, to say the least. The author has generously, and very patriotically, made a free copy available online. “Something like scales” of long time PROPAGANDA fell from my eyes, to pataphrase the Book of Acts, as I read one document after another, all within the last year or so. Douglass… Read more »
I was going to suggest also “JKF and the Unspeakable” ,one of the best books IMHO on JFK.
I believe JFK also had an epiphany when discussions started with Khrushchev .
I would recommend it also to anyone wanting to find out more about JFK.
What you say is all based on CIA disinfo.
That’s not opinion, that’s “facts should be sacred” to quote someone’s tagline.
Read the books I referenced here. The Schotz book is free online.
They clear all that up beyond any doubt. Any shadow of a doubt.
PRIMARY SOURCE DOCUMENTS. Long suppressed or ignored by a lovely thug media.
And who said JFK was a saint? I wrote of his martyrdom for peace. And that’s clearly documented in NSAM 263 sent to A.G. RFK a month before the author’s murder, “most foul”.
Martyrdom of that kind trumps many kinds of mere sainthood!
(Just don’t tell the folks at Langley, VA, that. They still have a bottomless budget to disinform us endlessly, relentlessly, incessantly, about the Kennedys et al. A HALF CENTURY PLUS LATER.)
LOL
John People who take the Douglass novella as some sort of sacred text can only do so if the do NOT reference the primary source documents. I’ve been referencing primary sources for years, and they paint quite a different picture of JFK, and particularly RFK. The area I am most au fait with is the incorporated ‘Thirteen Days’ propagandic narrative, which Douglass relies on as primary (but is a contrived fiction finished by Sorenson). Which can only amount to a deliberate historiographical rewriting of the primary documents to create a narrative fiction. Particularly as Douglass cited the primary ExComm tapes: then rewrote what they say – selectively creating a JFK/RFK against ‘the Unspeakable’ counterfactual fiction. RFK was the chief hawk pushing for invasion from day one to the end. Thus, the ExComm tapes and ‘Thirteen Days’ are incompatible sources: so blending the two cannot produce a faithful or historically accurate… Read more »
@John rvin. Thank you for the reply but with regard to JFK – you are batting on a losing wicket. I am not able to accurately refute what you reference as clearing up any doubt. The Schotz book did not cut it for me at all, neither was the Douglass mismatch and hotch potch. The tapes and wiretaps etc. that were released or “acquired” did nothing if not hang JFK and his brother by their own rope and whilst Nixon was a complete and utter monster along with Kissinger, JFK will forever have blood on his hands and as a Catholic, he should have had nightmares. He was most definitely a war hawking, self promoting sinner, as have most of the US Presidents been as weree the CIA and the JCS.
Sorry, but that’s the way I lean after hearing and learning of ALL the REAL facts.
“Profits over people, or people before profits.
Simple as that. There really is no overlap, when you cut through it all. No matter what they say.”
You are completely mistaken, and rather than being simple, you are guilty of being simplistic.
Oh, snap.
Whatever!
Life is so simple when you understand it, fully . . .
You don’t, yet: & your comments regularly demonstrate this >>>
Keep searching yourSelf, for the answers.
They will come first from within . . .
As science leads the way forward and shines the light on your weak comprehension of …
The End Game.
Logic determines only one permanent revolution and it will come from within.
Tone it down a bit with your categoric rhetoric & opinion, daily , free your mind and listen to others.
Perhaps you might come to comprehend , where Technology leads ,
if you take the time to question your values & core needs.
Ubuntu, have fun sharing & learn simultaneously, about yourself & from others.
Always Learning,
Tim
Union compounds strength / Съединението Прави Силата
Sadly too late for anything to be done – Germany the United States and the United Kingdom delayed the end of World War 2 while plans were hatched that allowed Germany to escape the wrath of Russia.
This has all been going on since World War 1 and now they have a corrupt foothold in China despite what they say in the media – we have all been marked with a star on our foreheads and are now carrying the coffins that we have each made for ourselves – fashioned out of human greed and stupidity.
Let us all march with our coffins to that safe haven called Dresden.
If enough people around the world become aware of the bombshell information on Venezuela compiled by journalist Ben Norton, there may yet be a chance for averting unnecessary war, violence, bloodshed and destruction becoming experienced by the good people of that nation. Please share the truth about Venezuela everywhere:
https://grayzoneproject.com/2019/01/30/us-economic-warfare-venezuela/
Jerry Alatal: “there may yet be a chance for averting unnecessary war, violence, bloodshed and destruction”.
Indeed. Chavez and Maduro were democratically elected, and the people of Venezuela showed their good sense by not following the capitalist MSM line.
Democracy is a two-way street; the people need good candidates, and good candidates need a people not a sheeple.
Like in Venezuela, Cuba, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Russia and China: their people chose good candidates, and their choice showed good results in resisting the AZC. Resistance is fertile, and can be done by ballot as by bullet.
If we fight on their terms we will lose as we will become just like them ,violent and extreme just like them .There is another way and it has been offered to us by the peacemakers through time immemorial . We , the peace makers will not fail .It is time .Time for the new world to be born . Be strong and from the heart because that is where this battle will be fought .
I agree, summitflyer. For some reason, many people seem to regard peacemakers as anti-establishment …and even treasonous. This is promoted wholeheartedly and with glee by the MSM. I watched the BBC’s Question Time last night and was appalled at the nature of the discussions on the Venezuela situation. Most on the panel, who clearly knew nothing about Venezuela other than the US line of propaganda that they have read over the past few days in the MSM, endorsed the simplistic, naïve approach of ‘getting rid of Maduro’ as soon as possible to make Venezuela a democratic and wealthy country again. The only one on the panel to suggest otherwise was Labour MP Richard Burgon who made clear that he acknowledged the situation for the Venezuelan people was “dire” but supported the idea of mediated peaceful discussions to agree a solution. Unbelievably this was met with derision by others who almost… Read more »
@JudyJ. You have some stomach lass or can afford new TV remotes. I can’t watch BBCQT without risking the telly or denting the wall next to it if my aim is off. Good for you!
Hi Susan,
It can only be the masochistic side of my nature! It is tortuous and depressing but for some perverse reason I like to keep abreast of the nonsense being spouted in public domains. My sanity and what remains of my faith in human nature do end up seriously compromised though!
J.
An idea heard so often: “…and we should prepare for it.” How?
Yup. Like being told to ‘prepare for impact’ on a burning plane.
This is the obvious question. I thought about addressing it here, but there is no short or easy answer. On the one hand, just being aware of the situation is a step in the right direction.
Beyond that I have two suggestions. First, if you’re willing to be open-minded, I suggest you pray for help and the wisdom to know what to do to get through these times ahead. Second, we get to work building and growing a network of enlightened individuals who are ready to work together to get ourselves and others through these events when they begin.
dhfabian,
Human beings inherently become concerned when knowing their fellow human beings face dangers of physical harm in the range which includes death from war. Whether conscious of it or not people will sense the reality that all people, all life and all things are sacred and one, and therefore protective actions in response vary in ways dependent on the intensity and/or awareness of each individual. A good example is Mohandes Gandhi and his deep knowledge of Hinduism reflected by his actions in India, illustrated by the fact Gandhi considered the sacred book Bhagavad Gita his personal equivalent to the Christian Bible. Your essential question is how can a human being prepare for life’s greatest spiritual battle.
Should people choose to read the Bhagavad Gita by clicking “Hinduism” at the following website, perhaps some benefit will manifest with respect to such an all-encompassing, profoundest of all preparation. Namaste.
http://www.sacred-texts.org