The Future is a Free-For-All

For years now I've had an active interest in watching the actions of "the powers that be", to use a phrase which is probably as fitting as any. Perhaps this fetish is the result of a kind of misplaced jealousy, but I personally prefer to believe that I'm only upholding the Jeffersonian ideal that cautions us to keep a critical and ever-watchful eye on our society's commanders.

And still another impulse stems from my experience in the financial markets. Anyone who's spent years in trading acquires a rather obtuse way of viewing the world. Because in the financial markets you cannot profit by waiting for "facts" and "proof". That's because for every potential opportunity there will always be "insiders" who know far more than you ever could have, and know it before you ever could have. Those insiders will be loading up their positions, putting their plans into place so to speak. However, with a trained eye you can learn to read their actions in the movements of the market. Their actions will tell you what they know. Then gradually the trend picks up steam and momentum as all the "trained eyes" out there begin to jump on board, then further momentum as the movement begins to generate it's own interest....in fact the build-up generally continues right up until the "news" actually hits the printed page and the facts are plain for all to see. And in certain cases it seems the insiders are the ones releasing this news. But regardess, more times than not that's precisely the point at which the insiders will begin to cash-out -- they'll unwind their positions and realize the fruition of all of their plans. And they'll do it right into the eager faces of the so-called "dumb money"--the patient, responsible people who perenially wait to take action until the facts are on the table, clear for all to see.

So with all this as background I was particularly struck by a couple articles posted last Friday over at Matt Savinar's site Life After the Oil Crash (which has been posting a wealth of information over the past couple months). The first was this transcript of a 1982 report entitled: "THE GLOBAL 2000 REPORT TO THE PRESIDENT: Entering the Twenty-First Century: A report prepared by the Council on Environmental Quality and the Department of State." The essential take-away "bite" was the following tidbit:

"This chapter presents U.S. and world energy forecasts for the midrange (1985-90) and the long range (to the year 2000). The forecasts, made during the spring of 1978, endeavor to reflect a range of uncertainty in future economic and demographic growth by presenting three projections of energy consumption trends." [...] "The conclusions can be summarized as follows:

...Petroleum production capability is not increasing as fast as demand....In the long term, the rate of petroleum reserve additions appears to be falling. As a result, engineering considerations indicate that world petroleum production will peak in the 1990-2010 interval at 80-105 million barrels per day, with ultimate resources estimated at 2,100 billion barrels."

Now I don't want to engage in any peak oil discussion, perhaps this report is right or perhaps it's wrong. But the thing I felt was worth highlighting was exactly what Matt points out: this just adds further confirmation that oil-depletion is not a new or fringe idea up on Capitol Hill, nor for that matter in any of the halls of corporate or government leadership. On the contrary, it's really only the general population of the country that is just beginning to catch on....having to catch on for themselves, since this information was never substantially presented to them.

But let's put that thought on hold, because the next little morsel of brain-food comes via this weeks Falls Church News-Press (which as I've mentioned before is perhaps the most influential "local" paper in the world). As peak-oilers probably already know, they've been covering the issue in serial fashion for several months now. Well here's just a snippet from the latest piece (which is nonetheless deserving of a full read):

"Until recently, the phrase “peak oil” was among the last elected and appointed official in Washington wanted to hear or see in print. Should there be any doubt as to the correctness of their position, one only has to look at what happened when President Carter donned a cardigan sweater and told us how one day we were going to run short on oil and how we should start sacrificing now to prepare for it.

Relevant administration officials are well aware world oil production will peak someday, but for obvious reasons, they don’t want to acknowledge this until they absolutely have to. They hope beyond hope peaking won’t happen until after they retire so somebody else can deal with the unpleasant consequences. "

I've said it in the past, and a great many others concur, it's always been foolish to believe that oil depletion was somehow an "unknown" or even an "uncertain" in Washington, D.C. As the News-Press puts it the "relevant administration officials" (a phrase to take special note of) have certainly known about the situation for years. Perhaps they don't know the actual "peak" date with any certainty, but they undoubtedly have a pretty good general feel for it. And I think it's safe to assume that if that peak period is indeed quite near (or even passed), that they have been preparing for that for some time as well. I think it's very important that we acknowledge this directly. Because when we know this to be the case, then we have to also recognize two inarguable facts.

The first is that we are on our own, that there is clearly no substantial intention to "deal" with the situation in any way whatsoever -- or perhaps more specifically, whatever preparations our elites have put into place, they did not involve us in them (I'm not thinking along "sinister" lines here but just considering evidence such as Bush's "state of the art" sustainable home, and David Rockefeller's and Sun Myung Moon's alleged multi-million dollar "intentional communities", etc.). Now admittedly in these past few "post-Katrina" months, this abdication by our government of its most basic social responsibilities has become broadly apparent. But to consider it in relation to a pending peak oil crisis allows us to seriously question, for instance, why we presently have an administration that is almost offensively preoccupied with pursuing its own personal interests and agenda to the exclusion of even its most nominal "administrative" duties. In other words -- and I know I'm not saying anything all that earth-shattering here -- I suggest the reason our government's actions have become so divorced from the "will of the people" is not because they are simply power-hungry and unconscionable sociopaths, but because they are blindly pursuing their own version of "A Blueprint for Preparation"...their own agenda of preparation for a global fossil-fuel depletion crisis.

The second thing we need to face is actually just a corollary of the first: our future is a free-for-all. We may very well be in the bottom of the 9th, in which case the team that's leading also has the last at-bat. So if it seems as if they're playing like they've already won the game, then it's likely because they have. And if they act like there will be no censures or repercussions for their actions, then it's likely because they truly believe that there won't be (and if there are, they're apparently content to just hang them all on "velcro" Cheney, who apparently has long felt that his "second job" in the White House takes up too much of his time...). Realistically, thought, doesn't this explain the humiliating flagrance of all their offenses? Can there really be any doubt that the present administration has literally bet the bank toward achieving their vision of hegemony? Does their every action not give the impression that they believe the game itself doesn't even matter anymore? People who have much to lose are usually the most conservative in their risk-taking; so I would suspect the boldness of this administration's actions on the world stage may not so much indicate that they've felt they were "untouchable", as many people have argued, but perhaps instead that they strongly feared they stood to lose a great deal regardless, and therefore felt driven to undertake desperate measures of self-preservation. And I probably shouldn't have to point out that most of the current U.S. administration consists of energy industry insiders.

Now I don't wish to necessarily imply that anything nefarious is underway, that 9/11 was a set-up or that the "war on terror" is not a war to be fought so much as one to be incited.... Perhaps these things are true, but then again perhaps not. And admittedly I also can't really speculate too far into the lives of people in power, since they live in a different world than I do. But undoubtedly even that world consists of further social sub-levels and sub-groupings. So personally I imagine the simplest scenario: that we probably have just a handful of concerted survivalists in power who have leveraged their "insider" awareness of our pending crisis into an all-or-nothing grab for the brass ring--which is apparently becoming "Kings of the Earth" (and actually, I suspect they've royally bumbled it, but that's neither here nor there). But still, this is likely just a renegade bunch, a especially closed-minded clique within the larger social-circle of the elite. The rest of the likely "insiders" to this issue are probably just quietly going about their business, perhaps arranging their personal lives however they might and not making too many more waves in the mainstream of society than they are already accustomed to do. After all, the coming period of crisis is going to be a truly unique situation for all of us. The "world of the elites", if we might call it that, will realistically only reflect in microcosm what we already see on any popular peak oil discussion board, for instance. Some of these individuals will fear for the worst, and tend toward preparing themselves to maintain their sovereignty and control amidst a society that they feel certain will descend to those worst levels of beastiality that they undoubtedly recognize in themselves. But others within the "elite" will probably simply hope against hope for the best, and continue to run their businesses and lives the same way they always have, painting "crisis" talk as perhaps legitimate but really not worth getting oneself all that worked up over--"life's too short", as they say.... And some will undoubtedly bury their head in the sand, ignoring the evidence altogether. And perhaps even a certain subset will try to align themselves toward meeting an uncertain future with an open-mind and a flexible attitude -- although they certainly won't try to "warn" the general populace ahead of time because that would only cause panic and precipitate the situation (or more likely just fall on deaf ears and cause them to appear foolish). Maybe they won't even struggle to cling to all they've achieved...who knows? It takes all kinds to make a world.

So to finalize the above jumble of thoughts, I'd say that for my money I don't think we should or even need to wait until we see the evidence for peak oil on the cover of the NY Times. The circumstantial evidence is abundant already, for those who don't believe the outright admissions like the articles above. And besides, the things we need to be doing to prepare for a decline in fossil-fuel supplies are simply the things we should be doing as responsible human being anyway...the things we should have started doing way back when Jimmy Carter told us to: we need to be reigning in our consumption to buy ourselves more time. We should begin integrating with a more self-reliant way of living, maybe even detaching ourselves ahead of time from our automobile- and industrial agriculture-dependent lifestyle. We need to stop supporting the corporations who extort the Earth's resources and our human

But the one thing we should not be doing is just sitting on our hands. Because if the future is a free-for-all, then that means there is great opportunity to be seized as all the old rules, the ingrained habits, the institutionalized systems and the hard-fought hierarchies get shaken up and "redistributed" a little bit, and the playing field is levelled. I'm not saying this will happen completely or that it will happen overnight, but when our system collapses there will be as much creative energy released as there is destructive. It will be a time for gaining new things even as we're being stripped of the old, a time for us to experience expansive new freedom as well as a desperate clinging for control. It will be a time of soul-searching and of blame-casting, of unanswered questions and unquestioned answers. But when all is said and done, we will no doubt look back on the events that are still to come with a bittersweet fondness, the way we do all our growing pains. Thankful that they're over, but even more thankful that we had them.

Comments

[Paul]

Great post, good analysis.
Note however:
-Iraq's Oil Production plummeted since the US invasion
-Some geologists would not be surprised if Iraq has about the same, or even more, recoverable reserves than Saudi Arabia
-Repeatedly officials have declared it may take decades to stabilize Iraq.
So a possible conclusion may be that "the powers that be" are actually acting in the best interest of the US by "saving" Iraq's oil.

All the best from Holland
Paul

[Loveandlight]

This should prove interesting. Iran is preparing to sell its oil in euros. Didn't Iraq make a similar decision shortly before the invasion?

http://www.mehrnews.com/en/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=260851

[j]

The future is "free for all" sounds delightful, (flip slide of "a free for all"?) - worth some turbulence.

There may be other explanations for why the PTB are acting as they are though. It could also be they are so brazen because they think they have about 5 minutes left before they have to bolt to undisclosed locations.

At this point nothing they do could possibly make it worse for themselves(it is already fatal and most likely excruciating) So in a panic, they grab for more money as it has always solved their problems in the past.

Oh well, their own machinations have removed money's power and they get to survive on their integrity!!!!!!!!!!