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the Fet
Trad climber
Loomis, CA
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It's revealing that the Bushies will always resort to labeling those against their views (or O.peration I.raqi L.iberation) as far-left liberals. It's so easy to pigeonhole other people rather than actually examine reality with an open mind. Insult liberals, Ted Kennedy, etc. all you want. It doesn't bother me because I'm a Radical Centrist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_middle No that's not an oxymoron but a political viewpoint of someone who can actually look at both sides of the spectrum and make their minds up based on what is good and just, instead of buying into the bull (pretty much anything on AM radio) that reinforces your brainwashed/selfish views no matter what side of the isle you are on.
I'm an independent who wishes there were more than two poltical parties in our country. It always comes down to the lesser of two evils. Some people do seem like they are into politics to make things better (IMO McCain, Arnold, Jimmy Carter, not neccasarily the correct policies) and some are into it for power and control and selfish ambition (Bush, and I got to give credit to Rove for fooling millions of people into believing otherwise).
LEB back to your post:
Republicans giving people the most possible control over their affairs: Bush republicans want to impose their religious views on other people. Keep your theocracy out of my democracy. The supreme court's eminent domain decision shows the liberal side also has control problems. Freedom ends when your actions effect me and not before.
As far as the entitlement boogeyman the Republicans are always going off about, didn't Newt fix welfare? I guess he didn't do the job right then. What percentage of the budget actually goes to entitlement programs and what percentage of that isn't actually needed (by disabled, old, and sick people) I'm guessing a tiny portion. It's not right if it's not really needed, but it's not the big deal they make it out to be and it's much smaller than the pork barrel projects that are kick backs for political donations.
I agree with you that when someone attacks me I will crush them. I've studied 3 forms of Martial Arts and they all teach violence is a last resort but when it comes down to self defense don't hesitate to do whatever it takes to protect yourself. This WAS the case with Afghanistan (but unfortuneatly we diverted resources to Iraq and let Bin Laden get away). Was this the case with Iraq? Did they attack us or even plan to?
Once again Rove has done a magnificant job into fooling millions of people that Iraq was a threat to the US, it wasn't, but many people still believe this and that 9/11 was linked to Iraq, it wasn't. So the rational was changed to let's setup a democracy in the middle east to serve as a good example and then the terrorists won't hate us. Maybe a noble cause, but is it really our responsiblity and is it worth the lives of 1700+ American soldiers who signed up to DEFEND out country (we are about 2/3 of the way to having as many Americans die for W's war as were killed on 9/11) and 10s of thousands of Iraqis.
But why do the terrorists hate us? For interfering with their lives and having our military there (claiming they hate our freedom on the other side of the globe is a transparent lie). So although the average person in Iraq might some day have a more favorable view of the US for establishing a democracy there, the current and future terrosists will view it as attacking another country (or religion/race) without provocation and helping elect leaders (money talks) who are ex-oil company bigwigs in cohoots with the oil company executives / American politicians and it will fuel their hatred for the US. I'm not saying we should alter our actions to appease the terrorists but to ignore why they are motivated and then do exactly what they are pissed off about on a bigger scale (without justification) is just asking for more hatred and terrorism. It doesn't matter how many you kill because our actions are creating more of them. Are we taking the fight to them? For the present yes, but we know the terrorists have long range plans and you simply can't stop random terrorism. I believe Bush is making our country less safe in the long run.
As far as the environment it's really about being selfish. The world isn't going to come crashing down around us in our lifetimes (althought there may be some expensive challenges coming up such as saving coastal areas from flooding, health problems, etc.) but future generations will have to deal with the results of our actions. There was a recent report that we are using our resources 20% faster than the Earth can replenish them. Would it really be that hard to reduce our impact 20%? I got rid of the SUV and got an AWD minivan that get's 20%+ better mileage/less emissions. I recyle and reduce my trash by over 50%. My philosophy is I don't let my environmentalism get in the way of what I want to do, I just try to minimize my impacts, all it takes is a little effort. The real reason Bush won't sign Kyoto is he is an oil man and it will hurt their profits, boohoo. These giant oil companies each do around 2% of the GDP of the US, they have tons of money and influence. Bush hires an oil company insider as an Environmental consultant, give me a break, what do you think he cares about? What they don't realize is that quality of life is more important than standard of living. I bet I get more enjoyment out of climbing in the Valley for free, than they do cruising around in their giant gas guzzling yachts. And it's not really about the environment or tree hugging. The Earth will be here no matter what we do. It's about keeping the Earth good for people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism
Bush's budget is horrible. People think because they are paying less taxes he's doing a good job. But he's spending more than any Democrat ever did, and worse yet he's borrowing so it will have to be paid back with interest. What percentage of the total budget is interest? 10%, 15%? If we didn't have to spend that there would be no deficit (we have to pay for past borrowing now, but Bush is making sure those interest payments will continue for quite some time). I don't spend more than I make and I have a great net worth as a result, can't we find a president smart enough to do that? It's no wonder Bush ran his businesses into the ground. Bush the borrow and spend Republican.
The terrorist want to terrorize. If you actually worry about terrorism they are getting what they want. You are so much more at risk from auto accidents, etc. I feel it's been blown way out of proportion and Bush has used it as an excuse (helping the terrorists terrorize the American public) to erode our privacy and civil liberties and start an unjust war. How many people died on 9/11,
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the Fet
Trad climber
Loomis, CA
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I guess I ranted so long Supertaco cut me off lol.
Suffice it to say: worst president ever.
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NeverSurfaced
Trad climber
Someplace F*#ked!
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“The point being that I have had the time to sit on my ass in a hammock, do my research, and put together some sort of different worldview that I wouldn't have otherwise been able to. Whether you agree with it or not is up to you, but I'm interested in healthy debate.”
That’s fine and good for those of us corresponding from the land of “retirement” who have the time to sit around and do nothing but ponder the deeper meaning of life and how phucked up we really are, but what about the rest of us?
I’ve come to the realization that I’m part of the majority of Americans who don’t know what the phuck is going on. It’s only recently that I know what I don’t know, which is a lot; whereas most I believe still “don’t know what [they] don’t know” to quote some political spokes-hole.
I have painfully come to the realization that I’ve been lied into backing a war, which I’m not too particularly happy about. As it turns out I tend to adhere to the ideology of burn me once, shame one you, burn me twice… So needless to say I’m pretty much done with the whole thing. It’s pretty hard for me to take anything that comes out of, well, anyone’s mouth at this point at face value.
So what do those of us that have steady jobs, families, hamburgers to cook and phucked-up selfish conquests to pursue do? I don’t have time to sit on my ass in a hammock and do my research. Where do I go?
Even on this forum it boils down to what side of the fence you’re on. Everyone’s a liar according to everyone else, so who’s telling the truth.
Oh well, phuck it…I’ll just go back to cooking my hamburgers and hope someone else figures it all out. I sure as hell don’t know what’s going on.
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Gary
climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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fet said:
"But why do the terrorists hate us? For interfering with their lives and having our military there..."
fattrad said that was wrong and that:
"A majortiy of the muslim world that dislikes the US is because of our support for Israel..."
fattrad, I do not understand where your statement contradicts what fet said. It seems to support it.
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the Fet
Trad climber
Loomis, CA
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fattrad your are wrong, again.
"A majortiy of the muslim world that dislikes the US is because of our support for Israel"
Do you have anything to back up that claim? Why does Bush tell us the majority of people would welcome us a liberators and are supportive of us?
Why talk about the majority of the muslim world instead of Al Queda, they are the ones who attacked us. They stated why they attacked us. Yes Israel was one of the reasons, but if it was the sole reason they'd just attack Israel. People have been fighting over that region for thousands of years. Unfortuneatly whenever it looks like a good compromise can come about extremists on both sides blow it.
I think the US govt. should say to Israel - build your wall near the 1967 borders, take the key defensive positions you need in the West Bank and give the Palestinians an equal amount of land in return (a walled road from West Bank to Gaza), and get the settlements and security forces out of Palentinian areas in the next 3 years or we will start withdrawing our support. But there is too much Israeli influence in our govt. for that to happen. Yes they won that land in a war, but it would be nice if they took the high road, gave the palenstinians a state, and said we are compromising and being as fair as possible, it would take the wind out of the (Palestinian) terrorists sails.
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the Fet
Trad climber
Loomis, CA
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LEB thanks for reading my thoughts with an open mind. Kerry does come across as wishy washy, I wish we had had a third choice.
It sounds like you are saying the benefit of Bush as a strong military leader outweighs the possibilities of the religious right changing our laws. But that is already happening. Look at the people Bush appoints. Drapes on naked statues? Figuring out ways to erode civil liberties. Most of the things they would enact won't effect me, but I can still see they are wrong according to the ideals of America.
The "I know what's best for you" mentality is a part of the right as much as it's a part of the left. That's my whole issue with the religious influence. I don't want either side telling me what to do.
I hate the idea of my tax dollars going to people who don't deserve them, but I also think any person who's not totally selfish is willing to have their government devote part of the budget to helping people who really need it. Maybe 5%? I also believe an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure (e.g. after school programs for innercity youth who would otherwise end up in jail at our expense) and investing in our future pays off (e.g. helping people afford college so they make our economy more productive and competetive). I really would like to see some figures about how much of the budget goes to entitlement programs for people who don't deserve it and what we can do to eliminate it.
Poor Arnold, he tried to get rid of pension plans like so many employers have had to do, but didn't realize the political crap storm that would involve. If Arnie was smart he'd dump the Republican party and become an independent, cut every department's budget by 5% across the board and make them figure out how to deal with it, and if someone complained he could say "everyone else is cutting back, why can't you?"
NeverSurfaced: glad to see you're coming around :-)
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Khun Duen Baad
climber
Retirement
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Fatty, that's what I wanted to know; how many rural villages you passed through and the kind of peoples homes that you stayed, had tea in, or did some work in the fields. On a "political mission" you would have most likely been traveling as a fabulously weathly person, meeting wealthy people, in a wealthy, highly industrialized (ie. westernized) nation. I can respect your opinion as a Republican (and probably as an accountant) because you know where you stand and are able to express it, but your thoughts on Islam mean little to me personally; and it's strictly a personal thing, I'm sure plenty of people take a lot of useful info from you there.
Oh, and the majority of the world hates us for our support of Israel.
Fet, what do you think Berliners would have said in 1938 if you had told them that Dredsen would be ashes and coals in less than a decade and that they would clear cut the Tiergarten just to keep warm at night? What would the 1 million citizens of Rome have said at their peak if you told them they would number just 15,000 in a few hundred years? What about if you had gone to the bank on October 27th, 1929 and told them "Give me my money, in gold, right now. This is all going nowhere good". they would have laughed and laughed. Incidentally, speculative buying (with borrewed/imagined/Ponzi scheme money) is what linked Black Tuesday to Liebig's Law, which we'll touch on shortly.
"Abstract: Reindeer (Rangifer tarandus), introduced to St. Matthew Island in 1944, increased from 29 animals at that time to 6,000 in the summer of 1963 and underwent a crash die-off the following winter to less than 50 animals. In 1957, the body weight of the reindeer was found to exceed that of reindeer in domestic herds by 24 53 percent among females and 46 61 percent among males. The population also responded to the high quality and quantity of the forage on the island by increasing rapidly due to a high birth rate and low mortality. By 1963, the density of the reindeer on the island had reached 46.9 per square mile and ratios of fawns and yearlings to adult cows had dropped from 75 and 45 percent respectively, in 1957 to 60 and 26 percent in 1963. Average body weights had decreased from 1957 by 38 percent for adult females and 43 percent for adult males and were comparable to weights of reindeer in domestic herds. Lichens had been completely eliminated as a significant component of the winter diet. Sedges and grasses were expanding into sites previously occupied by lichens. In the late winter of 196364, in association with extreme snow accumulation, virtually the entire population of 6,000 reindeer died of starvation. With one known exception, all of the surviving reindeer (42 in 1966) were females. The pattern of reindeer population growth and die-off on St. Matthew Island has been observed on other island situations with introduced animals and is believed to be a product of the limited development of ecosystems and the associated deficiency of potential population-regulating factors on islands. Food supply, through its interaction with climatic factors, was the dominant population regulating mechanism for reindeer on St. Matthew Island.
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"Circumstance: The Age of Exuberance is over, population has already overshot carrying capacity, and prodigal Homo sapiens has drawn down the world's savings deposits.
"Consequence: All forms of human organization and behavior that are based on the assumption of limitlessness must change to forms that accord with finite limits.
Everybody agrees there is a limit to how many people this world can sustain, but nobody wants to talk about when we will get there, or what happen when we do. American's themselves have experienced 50 years of unrivaled properity and relative peace which was, cruelly, just enough time to eliminate any knowledge we might have gained in the Wars. Don't worry folks, we got another one for you. Japan's ghost acreage is 67% and the UK is about half. That means that 2/3 of Japan would starve and die without petroleum fed food. Ghost acreage is the additional land a nation needs in order to supply the net amount of food and fuel, from sources outside the nation (ie. the net imports of agricultural products, oceanic fisheries and fossil fuels). Onto Liebig's Law:
"Justus von Liebig, generally credited as the "father of the fertilizer industry", formulated the law of the minimum: if one crop nutrient is missing or deficient, plant growth will be poor, even if the other elements are abundant.
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100303_eating_oil.html
So tell us what the situation is likely to look like when you remove petroluem from the equation? This society is based on ONE thing, growth (and I think at this point we all agree on what is fueling that growth). Not a plateau, not rolling hills, and sure as fvck not a down-slope, cliff, of any other serious decline. After capitalism stops growing all bets are off. America won the cold war for simple reasons, it is tailored for exuberant consumption and by extension fueling a massive war machine. Communism was not designed to support a war machine (and as a consequence was never truly achieved) but after August 1945 (when we nuked the Japanese not once, but twice; after they had been actively trying to surrender for 6 months and they couldn't even get planes off the ground!!!) they had no choice. Which brings me to another point. In 1989 the Soviets were the only challenge for global power, they were the first nation to put a man in space, they were pumping. Then one day the world woke up and said, "Holy sh#t, this is a third world country". You think Muskovites thought it was all a dream before it wasn't?
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"When the earth's deposits of fossil fuels and mineral resources were being laid down, Homo sapiens had not yet been prepared by evolution to take advantage of them. As soon as technology made it possible for mankind to do so, people eagerly (and without foreseeing the ultimate consequences) shifted to a high-energy way of life. Man became, in effect, a detritovore, Homo colossus. Our species bloomed, and now we must expect crash (of some sort) as the natural sequel. What form our crash may take remains to be considered in the concluding section.
"Moreover, habits of thought persist. As we shall see in Chapter 11, people continue to advocate further technological breakthroughs as the supposedly sure cure for carrying capacity deficits. The very idea that technology caused overshoot, and that it made us too colossal to endure, remains alien to too many minds for"de-colossalization" to be a really feasible alternative to literal die-off. There is a persistent drive to apply remedies that aggravate the problem. [That's Jevons Paradox again folks]
"In a world that will not accommodate four billion of us if we all become colossal, it is both futile and dangerous to indulge in resentment, as we shall be sorely tempted to do, blaming some person or group whom we suppose must have intended whatever is happening to happen. If we find ourselves beset with circumstances we wish were vastly different, we need to keep in mind that to a very large extent they have come about because of things that were hopefully and innocently done in the past by almost everyone in general, and not just by anyone in particular. If we single out supposed perpetrators of our predicament, resort to anger, and attempt to retaliate, the unforeseen outcomes of our indignant acts will compound fate.
"If any substantial fraction of the more colossal segments of humanity did conscientiously give up part of their resource-devouring extensions out of humane concern for their less colossal brethren, there is no guarantee that this would avert die-off. It might only postpone it, permitting human numbers to continue increasing a bit longer, or less colossal peoples to become a bit more colossal, before we crash all the more resoundingly. All this tends to be disregarded by advocates of a "return to the simple life" as a gentle way out of the human predicament. Blessed are the less prosthetic, for they shall inherit the ravaged earth.
William Catton: Excerpt from Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change (University of Illinois Press)
And more from Fidel today:
_begin article
Havana, June 30 (AIN) Cuban President Fidel Castro warned Caribbean heads of state about an upcoming energy crisis and environmental problems caused by uncontrolled exploitation of natural resources and the "crazy waste" of oil-derived energy, according to the press of the Venezuelan Presidency.
"The crisis is more serious and deeper than imagined", said the Cuban President during his speech at the inaugural session of the First PetroCaribe Energy Summit of Caribbean Heads of State and Government, which held sessions Wednesday in the Venezuelan locality of Puerto La Cruz, in the state of Anzoástegui, with the attendance of 15 Caribbean nations.
Fidel Castro said that political and economic problems facing the governments of the western continent add to the situation that stems from the energy crisis. "Fuel begins to be scarce, that has been proved by irrefutable studies", said Fidel Castro.
President Castro said that the crisis is just around the corner, "it will take place during the current decade", he said. Reserves are no longer enough and the current offer can not meet the demand due to the crazy waste of oil, stemming from extreme consumption.
No Caribbean country will be able to purchase oil once its price reach 100 dollars a barrel, said Fidel Castro.
"The US administration knows this problem very well, or there would be no explanation to such a crazy and brutal war, which Washington has waged in that part of the world (meaning Iraq) with no cause at all and by deceiving the whole world and the US people. They (The US) do know more than all of us about the
existence of oil reserves; they know that the largest oil wells were already found and there are few left, said Fidel Castro.
In his speech, President Castro said that it will be difficult to find a more generous man than President Hugo Chavez. "He has been accused of giving away Venezuela's oil, those are intrigues, lies, campaigns, which can not mirror his greatness, his sense of responsibility with this hemisphere" said the Cuban
President.
I have known President Chavez for 10 years, I´m aware of his sensitiveness, his generosity and his sense of duty. I wish that there were some leaders like him in the world", said the Cuban Revolution leader.
Fidel Castro said that the survival of our countries will not be possible without the unity or relationship, which is being promoted by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
end article
"In a way, the world-view of the party imposed itself most successfully on the people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. By lack of understanding, they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm, because it left no residue behind, just like a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird. - George Orwell, 1984
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Khun Duen Baad
climber
Retirement
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This might be what you call "pretty close" to the '67 borders:
http://electronicintifada.net/bytopic/maps/351.shtml
But it's interesting to note that note a single square inch of Israel's wall happens to sit within Israel. What if America decided to build a wall on the other side of Vancouver, Tijuana, and Toronto? And what if we wanted to keep tanks rolling through the streets for a few decades?
Let's hope the UN would send troops with no bullets to DC.
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Degaine
climber
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KDB,
Our support of Israel is the excuse and not the reason that countries such as Saudi Arabia or Syria balk at instituting internal reforms. How many times have I read quotes (and I paraphrase) “We would gladly implement a democracy if only the U.S. stopped supporting Israel.”
I must admit, given your recent posts, I am quite surprised that you continue to buy the “support of Israel” propaganda B.S.
In addition, you paint such a doomsday picture of the world yet offer no clear strategies or solutions other than perhaps the offhanded “we need to reduce world population growth.”
It is easier to destroy than to create – why not throw out some ideas instead of simply breaking down others? Although perhaps the explanation from one of your posts:
“I'll mail you privately. I'm don't explain myself to anybody I don't respect, so the public is out on that one.”
We are apparently not worthy.
I could be wrong, but from the tone of your posts you seem very proud of yourself for your supposed “enlightenment.”
As for me, the only thing I know is that I know nothing. Yes, I quote Socrates, because I do not claim to be smart enough or “enlightened” enough to do anything different.
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For people like Fattrad who make outlandish statements such as this one:
“This is a clash of religions and civilizations, not much different than the crusades, I know this is a difficult concept to accept, that someone would dilike you just because of your beliefs, but this is the reality.”
Here is a quick FYI:
There are 6.2 billion people on this planet, of which an estimated 1.5 billion are Muslim. Of those 1.5 billion, 62% or approximately 935 million live in the following countries:
Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Burkina-Faso, Burma, Cameroon, China, Congo, Dem. Rep. of the,Cote d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Guinea, India, Indonesia, Kazakstan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, , Philippines, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Tanzania, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda, United States, Uzbekistan, Yemen.
Add to it Afghanistan and Pakistan and the number jumps to 1.1 billion or 73% of all Muslims.
Take the largest countries: India, Bangladesh, China and Indonesia and you have a total of approximately 530 million Muslims or 35% of all Muslims.
Take the countries proclaimed or assumed to be our enemies in this B.S. “fight of civilizations”: Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria,
and you have approximately 222 million people or 15% of Muslims worldwide. Hardly representative of all Muslims, hardly a clash of civilizations.
Canadians make sure we all know there is a difference between Canada and the United States, and Texans make sure EVERYONE knows where they come from, yet, fattrad you lump all the countries above together into the same boat.
India, Indonesia, China, Iran, and Egypt are very, very different from each other. As is Ethopia, as are the “black” Muslims in Southern Sudan from the Arab Muslims in Northern Sudan, and so on, and so on.
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Bruce Morris
Social climber
Belmont, California
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There's a strong hatred of Israel everywhere in the world.
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Khun Duen Baad
climber
Retirement
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Degaine,
You're right, it sure is an excuse just like a lot of their other hipocracy. But I don't consider the Saudi royal family (nor certain facets of the culture of that country )of to be true to Islam. For example, the Qu'ran forbids making money on money. This is why for a long time you couldn't make reservations at Muslim owed hotels in Thailand (I know, probably elsewhere as well) because that would require a credit card. Similarly, Sharia law doesn't say that you cut a thief's hand off for stealing; "cut the hand" means that you would get a little nick between you thumb and forefinger that would leave a visible scar whenever you exchanged money thereafter. I don't pretend to believe that is the sole reason for strife, there are plenty of other reasons. But really, Israel seizes all the best farmland (a real commodity there) and water rights not to mention that their nuke arsenal is pretty shocking. I have lots of friends in IsraHell, as they call it, and my lord have I heard some shocking tales.
As far as hatred the world over for our policy, what I meant that before the current Iraq war it was the most common question you would get from most people when chatting politics whilst traveling. It's in the minds of the masses, not necessarily the governements.
"The gathering was an organizational meeting for Brad Blanton’s independent run for the Virginia Seventh District U.S. House of Representatives. Blanton’s working slogan is “America needs a good psychiatrist.” And we got a lot accomplished in that direction, despite my intellectual flatulence and Brad’s orneriness. Any psychotherapist who actually gets people to pay for advice such as “F*#k’em if they can’t take a joke” must be called ornery at the very least. And any politician who thinks he can get elected on the basis of extreme honesty, well…
"Anyway, I came away from the meeting deeply struck by one thing. Every person there seemed to understand and acknowledge the coming global human “die-off.” The one that has already begun in places like Africa and will grow into a global event sometime within our lifetimes and/or those of our children. The one that will kill millions of white people. That’s right, clean pink little Western World white people like you and me. Nobody in the U.S. seems to be able to deal with or even think about this near certainty, and the few who do are written off as nutcases by the media and the public. Mostly though, it goes unacknowledged. All of which drives me nuts because the now nearly visible end of civilization strikes me as worthy of at least modest discussion. You’d think so. But the mention of it causes my wife to go into, “Oh Joe, can’t we talk about something more pleasant?” And talk about causing weird stares and dropped jaws at the office water cooler.
http://www.hubbertpeak.com/duncan/Olduvai.htm
http://www.mnforsustain.org/duncan_r_olduvai_theory.htm
Degaine, the reason I am offering what you interpret to be a negative view is because most people haven't haven't come to really appreciate how far past true sustainability we might actually be and I'm trying to really drive that home for people who care, those who don't I could give a shlt less about, because inmy belief it is the most serious issue that has ever faced mankind. The hydrocarbon twins, energy decent and planetary warming (whether it is made-made or not), are going to be exciting years indeed. I've been to the Arcitc four times and it was the first thing that really woke me up to how serious an age we are living in. Warming is at least 50% greater at the poles and the effects are absolutely astounding. The Inuit talk about global warming like we talk about the war or what's on television. I can't drive home this point enough. 20 years ago they would get a 70 degree day maybe once or twice a summer if everything lined up. Now they get 3+ months of baking heat, and I mean baker. Cedar and I watched the hottest day on record in the ARctic from the glacier below Mt. Asgard as rock rained around us. The mozzies have gotten out of control, you can't really go anymore without a bug net. It's maddening. The massive meltoff is silting up tributaries and creating the weird quicksand sh#t that wasn't around before. The ice in the winter looks the same but used to be 5 feet thinck and now hunter's are falling through regularly. you should look into Inuit history and how when the scottish whalers killed all the whales and left after the inuit had spent 60 years forgeting trad techniques by hunting with the guns whitey gave them and becoming dependent on food from the Hudson compnay. The Co. booked with the whalers (who were there for oil, you think they wanted the meat?) and they left the inuit to starve. So they did. after massive famine the Governemtn stepped in and killed everybodies sled dogs and stuck them in permanent settlements, many much farther north than they traditionally lived such that Canda could claim the land under international law. To make a long story short they feel like they live in Purgatory that is quickly becoming Hell. they used to look forward to winter because they could leave town on skidoo when the ocean froze. The big event in town every year is when the one shipment shows up with all of their food and gas for the year.
Anyway, I've put quite a bit of scientific evidence out there and I haven't heard anything positive come back other than rhetoric or "technology will save us". I want to hear it, that why I'm putting ideas out there for public debate.
Here's a good commentary about that:
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I've been on a long book publicity road trip around California, with a side trip to Seattle on Thursday, and it's hard not to feel hopeless about this country after being here. It probably doesn't help that my 10:30 red-eye flight has been delayed ("aircraft availability," the sign says) and I don't know whether I will make my morning connection in Washington for the final flight to upstate New York. My experience with United Airlines is that they (that is, the remaining skeleton crew) are a gang of lying f*#ks who will make up any excuse to disguise the fact that their company is a barely-functioning shell. As a matter of fact, there was not a single United employee in the entire P-7 terminal when I got here at 8:00 pm and I had to walk a half mile over to terminal P-8 to find a live gate agent. What you see in this miserable airport is simply the death of the airline industry. The airlines are the giant "canaries in the coal mine" of our imploding economy. They can't make any money, even running fully-loaded flights, with the price of jet fuel (which is little more than kerosene) not even very high yet. But I stray from my point.
Which is that what you see in California is a society with a tragic destiny. I was all over the Bay Area earlier in the week, from San Francisco to Silicon Valley to Berkeley and even down to Santa Cruz, and that was bad enough, But then I got down to Los Angeles on Friday and have been in a state of pathological reflex nausea ever since. Despite their lame attempts to rebuild a few pieces of the 2000-mile-long streetcar system that they gleefully destroyed in the 1950s, life here is all about cars and it will never not be about cars -- until the reality of our oil predicament falls on the hapless public like a hammer of God and the people of California die for their f*#king cars in their f*#king cars and over their f*#king cars. I understand that the scene here is not qualitatively different from Dallas, Orlando, Atlanta, Northern Virginia, Miami, New Jersey and other cloacal hot-spots of the world's highest standard of living. But I digress again, sitting, as I am, on the floor of terminal P-7 because I cannot find a single electric outlet anywhere near a chair, and being fifty-six years old, with an artificial hip, this is not the most felicitous scheme for composing one's thoughts.
I was invited to give a talk at Google headquarters down in Mountain View last Tuesday. They sent somebody to fetch me (in a hybrid car, zowee!) from my hotel in San Francisco -- as if I had any choice about catching a train down, right? Google HQ was a glass office park pod tucked into an inscrutable tangle of off-ramps, berms, manzanita clumps, and curb-cuts. But inside, it was all tricked out like a kindergarten. They had pool tables, and inflatable yoga balls, and $6000 electronic vibrating massage lounge chairs, and snack stations deployed at twenty-five step intervals, with lucite bins filled with chocolate raisins and granola. The employees dressed like children. There were two motifs: "skateboard rat" and "10th grade nerd." I suppose quite a few of them were millionaires. Many of the work cubicles were literally modular children's playhouses. I gave my spiel about the global oil problem and the unlikelihood that "alternative energy" would even fractionally replace it, and quite a few of the Googlers became incensed.
"Yo, Dude, you're so, like, wrong! We've got, like, technology!"
Yeah, well, they weren't interested in making a distinction between energy and technology (or, more precisely where Google is concerned, a massive web-based advertising scheme -- because it is finally clear that all this talk about "connectivity" just leads to more commercial shilling, shucking, jiving, and generally f*#king with your headspace in the interstices of whatever purposeful activity one may be struggling to enact on the internet).
The taxi-cab ride to Berkeley (on Google's tab) ran over $160 on the meter. In Berkeley a radical leftist grandmotherly lady interviewed me for a radio show and once that was over she began to tell me about the chemical contrails that Dick Cheney was cross-hatching across the Berkeley skies for the purpose of controlling the masses of earnest, whole-foods-loving, undyed-wool-wearing devotees of diversity and turning them into whorish Stepford sex robots. Everybody knew it was a cover-up, she said.
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Maybe you think I offer a negative view, but what if there is no solution? Certainly not one anybody is going to like or voluntarily pursue. Don't forget that from an economist's point of view oil can never "run out", there will always be some in the ground for some price. There will haves, and have-nots. There will be herders, and there will be sheep. All estimtes I've read are that we have a future to look forward to that closely resembles Somalia today. I have a buddy who was a BBC war camera man for many years, no freelance, and he lived in Somalia for ten. So I know something about society there. JonO, in fact, was the mythic 5th journalist with the 4 who "lost their faces into the sand in front of them" after they were plucked off a tank at the beginning of the Afghan war. He had a picture in his Somalia diplomatic passport smoking a doob with General Aideed's arm around him and he skated. He was in Bangkok in March, 2002 desperately trying to get an Iraqi visa and simultaneously allegedly chasing OSB. These two American (John's a Brit) spook-looking thugs showed up at our guesthouse acting weird and with wierd questions, VanDerKlooster was sitting right there and will confirm this, and the next day JohnO has a bloody mark across his forehead where an American pistol hit him in the face as he was told he "better stop what he's doing.
No, what you interpret as "elightenment" is extreme apathy and a complete abandon of hope as well as being confident in my position, and nobody here is doing anything to curb that which really bothers me because it's forcing me to say a lot more about myself than I would like it. I WANT TO HEAR SOME SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE. I want somebody to tell me how you are going to convert $4 trillion in petroleum infrastructure to hydrogen; diffusion problems and where the hydrogen is going to come from aside. I want somebody to show me the numbers on tidal energy or how we are going to magically pull methane hydrates out of the Gulf without releasing massive amounts in the the atmosphere befor we can burn it and do the same. I want someone to tell me how the dollar is going to be just fine,(http://www.resourceinvestor.com/pebble.asp?relid=10323); (http://www.safehaven.com/article-3134.htm); gold markets aside (rememebr the early 80's silver crash??? I know a guy who was on a plane from Nepal to Hawaii with 8 friends humping 30 pounds each when the market when from $40's to $3, it's a great story of getting screwed) Okay, I'm a short guy and I don't like to take shlt from anybody. When trouble comes my way I step up and head it off at the pass, you can't imagine what it's like to be snatched out of the darkness and have your face pressed into the dirt by an AK. It changes they way you look at some things and the way you act about others. In my opinion, being a "liberal" is just having the ability to question your own opinion and I have spent years doing that. It took a few mortar rounds coming in an somebody getting executed for me to start really doing it, but it was right about that time I realized that I don't ever have to "do" or "be" anything in life. I don't have to "produce" anything (something like 90%? of American exports are currently intellectual property, and that isn't producing anything physical). And right about when I was being called a liar broadly and public I stopped giving a flying fvck about what the public thought about me. I became disgusted by commercializtion of the outdoors and my role in it, so I dropped it all in an instance. You all can climb and treat the rock however you want, I don't have to participate in it. What's wrong with that? If you really care to know more about what I think or why I am the way I am I'll ask Werner to fwd you the message I sent him, he seemed to think I have good intention regarding those who I care about. I entirely recognize how little I know, which is why I went far and wide asking people questions to get different answers rather than seek them from inside my own framework. It shattered my whole world.
Anyway, the only strategy is an immediate and gradual power down. the sooner it happens, the better it will be in the long run. Period. But c'mon, do you really think that's going to happen? Let me repeat again for Dick and George "the American way of life is not negotiable". Yesterday GWB told the danes that Kyoto would have "wrecked" the economy. He's right, growth is the only way forward in the capitalist book. The ONLY way. you'll note I'm not telling anybod how to live, them driving their Hummers eagerly with help precipitate the crash and we'll be better off in the end. I'm not bitching about the war, gosh, I'd sure hate to think my taxes were fueling the world's most expensive,powereful, and military force to sit on it's ass in Ft. Bragg. Really, who wants those tanks over here blasting depleted uranium all over the place? Do you think people are going to get POWERDOWN through there heads without people like me willing to raise their voice and play the as#@&%e?
Jim Kunstler does a good job, see his website http://www.kunstler.com/index.html or his book The Long Emergency.
I would suggest to everybody to read Matthew Simmons new book, Twilight in the Desert, it's a very important work and he is a firm Bush supporter and close energy advisor for those to whom it matters.
http://www.simmonsco-intl.com/research.aspx?Type=msspeeches
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Degaine
climber
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Thanks for the response, KDB. Nice post.
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Khun Duen Baad
climber
Retirement
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Degaine,
I think you might find this a relative commentary.
An exert:
Americans are at various stages of awareness and acceptance of our addiction. Viewed from afar, the range of public attitudes seems remarkably similar to the five stages of grief famously described by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, or acceptance.
http://peakoil.blogspot.com/2005/04/confronting-americas-addiction-to-oil.html
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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The past few years have motivated me to do a lot of that "Hammock Research" that Singha mentioned. Politics had only been a peripheral bit of knowledge in my life before that. I don't have kids or a relentless job so I've had time to dig deep. I tried to keep an open mind and consider all the possibilities.
I'm sorry to say that, even as a positive person who is optimistic about almost everything, my investigations have led me to nearly conclude that civilization is at the brink of SERIOUS change due to oil depletion. The real question is the timing. Will it become critical in your lifetime or will it be the central issue in your kids lives when they are your age?
I say "nearly" conclude since we never have all the data and can never anticipate every turn of events. Jesus could save us, Aliens could land, Science might invent something new and save the day. Any of those three things might be equally likely or unlikely. Yabo fell free-soloing, he should have died, a tree caught him.
The fact that a miracle might occur is no reason to count on one, or justification to endulge in denial, but I've found that is exactly what folks are dying to do.
I've tried to have dialogs with many of my friends and partners about the ramifications of oil depletion. It has struck me how anxious folks are to skirt the issue, shoot the messenger, change the subject, anything but do their own research and become more educated about what will be a gigantic issue for humans sooner, or not much later.
It's natural. We have a lot to lose, and we don't want our kids to sacrifice either. We can't even face the certainty of our own death (whether there is an oil crisis or not, we're all toast before we live to be 120) and we don't want to face that our dreams might not come true the way we've planned. There is a lot of anger, resentment and denial on the subject of what we do about oil depletion.
As long as this is the case, humans will refuse to face the problem and the problem will be very much worse when it comes home to roost because of that denial. You might call me a doomsayer or conspiracy theorist, but until you've run the numbers and analysed the situation, you're just trying to make yourself feel better without knowing corresponding evidence to the contrary. I'd love to hear it. I have no investment in things going poorly. I love my life more than anyone I know and I'll hate to see things change.
The problem is, there are no good forseeable solutions to this problem that allow civilization to grow and consume as it has. Society will run short on energy and the consequences will become extreme over an unknown period of time. Solutions come in bits and pieces. A little biodiesel, a little solar, a little wind, a lot of powerdown, and unfortunately, a probably resurgence of drilling everywhere (offshore, in Yellowstone and the Artic, no holds barred) and nuclear.
There will be positive aspects as we forget petty concerns like Brittany Spears and fashion, quit seeking senseless luxuries and fads, and come together as community members and families. Compassion and spirituality may be easier to come by as the veneer of our vanity is stripped away. I've hung out with people living in mud huts eating rice that are as happy as millionaires or maybe more happy than most. Maybe some of that wisdom will come with hard times. Some folks will be angry and go wild. Much of current "anti-terrorism" posturing has the ulterior motivation of being set to control an angry domestic population.
Nothing can change until we acknowledge the problem. Unfortunately, acknowledging the problem on a large enough scale would crash financial markets and create a serious immediate economic problem that might make solutions even more difficult to finance. I suggest that you find out for yourself if this oil depletion issue is real, and if you find it to be true, try to inform your immediate community so they can make choices that make life more sustainable when energy gets pinched, rather than harder. Don't replace your fireplace with a gas insert.
If we don't gradually (although quickly would be better) develop grassroots awareness of the problem, and begin stitching together piecemeal local solutions, it won't matter if you made your own personal preparations for adversity. Would you really sit there and get fat while the neighbors went hungry? Don't lose your soul trying to save your life.
Anyway, there's no magic wand to make our problem go away. You can add oil depIetion to death and taxes as unavoidable and unwelcome events. Let's say I told you that we're all going to die sooner or later. Awareness of our inevitable death might help us frame our priorities when we face our mortality. You could say "Why aren't you giving me solutions!!??" I don't have them and nobody ever has had them (if you think the only solution that's valid would be a way to avoid death.) I could only suggest ways to make the best out of life.
So try to fight the urge to write off the warning about this danger with some kind of anger or denial. I know you're all busy, but take a look at this issue and decide if it's going to touch you or not. Then at least, we can search for solutions together and try to help each other if times get hard.
Peace
Karl
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Khun Duen Baad
climber
Retirement
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This thread is starting to give me headache, but I couldn't resist this one.
DETROIT - General Motors Corp.'s sales soared 41 percent in June to their highest monthly total in nearly 19 years thanks to a heavily promoted discount that allowed customers to buy cars and trucks at the employee rate, new sales figures showed Friday.
In response, DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group said it will match GM starting July 6 with an employee discount program of its own. Despite falling sales, Ford Motor Co. declined to match GM on Friday.
Asian brands also continued their surge last month. Toyota Motor Corp., Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co. all posted their best June sales periods ever in the United States, while South Korea's Hyundai Motor Co. said June was its best single month on record.
Hmmmmm, so I wonder what they are going to do when they run into a major cash crunch next year??? Golly, Beaver, what do you think would happen to the economy if American auto-makers starting going down like dominoes?
Karma's a bitch.
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In 1922, most Americans relied on the efficient trolley networks that crisscrossed the cities. Only one in 10 Americans owned an automobile. General Motors (GM) president Alfred Sloan recognized a huge marketing opportunity in the remaining nine. Under his auspices GM spearheaded a plan to systematically eviscerate the nation's street car companies, replacing them with bus lines that would eventually make way for the ever growing number of private cars. Over the next 30 years, thanks to the automotive industry's energetic public relations campaign, motorization became synonymous with modernization. The great American love affair with the automobile was off and running. GM's infamous slogan: "What's good for General Motors is good for America."
Starting in the 1920's, General Motors executives-- placing their profit motives ahead of the public interest --masterminded the purchase and destruction of the nation's trolley companies [over 200 of them]. Tracks were taken up, destroying a mass transit infrastructure that would cost billions to replace. Trolley cars were torched and replaced with GM-manufactured diesel-fueled buses. Some citizens fought to keep their streetcar systems, but to no avail. The citizens of Los Angeles, for example, wanted to keep their beloved yellowcar trolleys, but before long the GM-controlled trolley company had switched to buses, dramatically increasing pollution in Los Angeles. By 1946, National City Lines, a bus company funded andcontrolled by GM, Standard Oil, and the Firestone tire company,operated public transit in over 80 cities. The ascendancy of thecar was soon to follow. "This is the American dream of freedom on wheels!" crows a GM pitchman in a post-war automobile film showing masses of cars streaming through a Byzantine cloverleaf intersecion. "An automotive age, traveling on time-saving superhighways."
In the 1950's, with a virtually unlimited war chest, the U.S. highway lobby was by far the most influential pressure group in Washington D.C. In 1953, GM president Charles Wilson became Secretaryof Defense, and used his position to push for interstate highwaysas a vital part of national security. That same year, Francis DuPont, whose familywas the largest GM shareholder, was appointed Federal Highway Administrator. At DuPont's urging, President Eisenhower began construction on the then $50 billion Interstate Highway system. The proposed highways, opponents argued, would bisect existing communities, slicing them to shreds. Pollution caused by the influx of cars would wreak havoc on the air quality in the surrounding neighborhoods. All over the country, people fought back against the interstates. They stopped 17 urban freeways across the nation, but most were built as planned. "It's not our government," one activist said sadly. "It doesn't belong to us because we haven't paid enough for it. The people who own the government have bought and paid for it." Today, more people drive cars in Los Angeles than anywhere else in the United States. The streetcar system that once operated so efficiently there has been reduced to a painfully inadequate bus service used mostly by the working poor. Across the country, the death of effective mass transit has drained the life out o furban centers as downtowns have become modern ghost towns.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Matt is resting up to take over in Round 2 when Singer and I get tired to replying to your long winded conservative diatribes.
Fatty and Dr. Dean = bandwidth hogs
Ok, maybe not.
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Ouch!
climber
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You can't deal with these neocon wackos. When cornered, they invariably resort to their fallback position...Jaaysus.
They have a mandate from Jaysus to whup up on all them p'nogafers, aborshunists, pointyhead intelleckchewals, seckuler hoomanusts, and city slickers who don't copulate with mules.
They are waiting on the rapture. In many cases, the rapture is their sister or first cousin, when she buds out. If'n it ain't the rapture, it's the rupture...when the dang mule kicks.
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Ouch!
climber
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These neocons that flock to the Holy Land imagine themselves as Jews with a special dispensation to consume great quantities of chitlins, hog jowls, and Kosher hams.
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Turbin Durbin
Social climber
A better place than Gitmo
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How about posting some of your own thoughts instead of just rehashing all that jibberish?
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Ouch!
climber
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I prefer facts to thoughts. Thoughts can be the product of the diseased neocon mind. Facts speak for themselves. You a rapture man?
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