Economic Implosion is only one Factor in Our Demise

With no rebound in sight, there’s never been a slump like this - The Globe and Mail

The focus here is on the usual neoliberal casino economics of financialization, not the real, industrial economy. And an important context for such a continuing set of stagnant global economic conditions is glaringly absent in this limited analysis. It's much worse than what is suggested here.

Add to the mix the following: 1) the reality of peak oil - oil being the major energy driver of the economy - 2) potential water wars and 3) global food crises, both these largely because of climate change resulting from global warming, about which we continue to do nothing significant, 4) environmental and, when possible, reparation costs necessitated by the irreparable destruction caused by global warming.

Fantasize if you must that some technological innovation will come along and save us all, but the reality is no alternative energy source or distribution infrastructure is imminent, and there is certainly no political will on the part of either corporations or governments to change or abandon the current neoliberal practices in place.

Get ready.

Why Chris Hedges Believes That Serious Revolt Is the Only Option People Have Left | Alternet

Why Chris Hedges Believes That Serious Revolt Is the Only Option People Have Left | Alternet


"It is no more morally justifiable to kill someone for profit than it is to kill that person for religious fanaticism. And yet, from health companies to the oil and natural gas industry to private weapons contractors, individual death and the wholesale death of the ecosystem have become acceptable corporate business.

...

You do not fight tyrants because you are going to win. You fight tyrants because they are tyrants. Yes, we do not have the tools or the wealth of the state. We cannot beat it at its own game. We cannot ferret out infiltrators. The legal system is almost always on the state's side. If we attempt to replicate the elaborate security apparatus of our oppressors, even on a small scale, we will unleash widespread paranoia and fracture the movement. If we retreat into anonymity, hiding behind masks, then we provide an opening for agents provocateurs who deny their identities while disrupting the movement. If we fight pitched battles in the streets we give authorities an excuse to fire their weapons.

All we have, as Vaclav Havel wrote, is our own powerlessness. And that powerlessness is our strength. The survival of the movement depends on embracing this powerlessness. It depends on two of our most important assets -utter and complete transparency and a rigid adherence to nonviolence, including respect for private property. This permits us, as Havel puts it in his 1978 essay "The Power of the Powerless," to live in truth. And by living in truth we expose a corrupt corporate state that perpetrates lies and lives in deceit.

This attempt to "live within the truth" brings with it ostracism and retribution. Punishment is imposed in bankrupt systems because of the necessity for compliance, not out of any real conviction. And the real crime committed is not the crime of speaking out or defying the rules, but the crime of exposing the charade."