The Coming Storm
By Mike Mercer, May 02, 2012
Introduction.
This article explains a probable sequence of
events in the near future, that could set the stage for the debate over
Utopia A or B.
If you are
sure that everything is going fine, then you may as well read (OR LISTEN TO)
something else. But if you have some concerns about various modern issues:
growing debt, rising unemployment levels, hyper inflation, possible shortages
of food and fuel, protests turning into riots, democracy turning into tyranny,
then you should consider the following.
Section I.
The
problems we are facing are systemic.
By that I
mean: our problems are not caused by simple random events impacting on a system
of civilized organization, which is basically sound. Rather it is the system
that gives rise to most of our problems.
For
example:
We may say
democracy is a good theory for how a state should be run. But the actual
practice we have in place, called representative democracy, is perverted in a
dozen ways. It has flaws which are exploited by an elite few. Intentionally
created or not, the flaws are protected and preserved because they benefit the established
elite. Thus change is very difficult.
In general
the same claim can be made about every organized system in society. They are
made to appear useful to the general population, but they are dominated by a
small group and serve the interests of these people first. Just look at the financial sector and the
crash of 2008. For example: Pension funds for a million ordinary people went
broke because the fund managers made some bad choices. Yet those same companies
made profits and those managers made huge bonus pay checks.
How do you
spell relief?
The
problems we face are systemic. But no one wants to admit this fact, because
fixing systemic problem is a huge undertaking. It requires no less than
abandoning the old ways and building a new civilization.
What we
have been seeing are band aid solutions being applied to the symptoms of our
social illness. They do no real good to address the deep rooted problems. For
example: The debt is out of control, in many nations, but the only solutions we
are offered are cut backs and downsizing. We must shrink government expenses so
that we may pay our debt, or more exactly pay the annual interest on the debt.
The useful services provided by our tax dollars are decreased, while more and
more public money is given over to private hands, for not noticeable benefit to
society. All solutions on the table today are just ways for us to continue
paying. They do not address the real issue.
The
problems are systemic, the solutions offered are superficial. The people are
getting fed up. A storm is coming.
Year after
year, there are calls for cut backs from respectable economic experts. We are
told to tighten our belts and accept less service in exchange for more
taxation. Never mind the talk of tax reductions; those only seem to help
corporations and rich people. Year after year, we see the wealth gap widen.
According to some statistics; “the top 20% of Americans owned 85% of the
country's wealth and the bottom 80% of the population shared the remaining
15%.” We see our pension plans downsized, while top government and corporate
executives make sure they are generously provided for in retirement.
Although there are massive attempts to full all the people
all the time, propaganda can’t hide the truth entirely. The media can distract
many people with mindless entertainment and it can convince some others with
pseudo-intellectual rhetoric that everything is OK, but it can not make the
reality of higher prices and fewer jobs into a rose garden.
People are getting upset because they are seeing reality hit
them in the face directly, or hit those near to them. Reports of conditions far
way are always easily dismissed. ‘It may be bad there, but here it’s OK’ we
feel for the 1000 of workers who lost their jobs when their factory moved to Asia. But unless it happens in our community and directly
impacts the people we know, the event is not taken to be real and meaningful.
What we are seeing today is the result of an increase in the
direct experience of the symptoms of our social illness by a large section of
the population. Higher prices and lower employment levels are hard to ignore.
Getting a job can be hard. Getting one that pays a good subsistence wage for an
entire family is almost impossible. Yet even if you have one, you are not safe.
The experts, the media, and your boss may all put pressure on you and your
co-workers to accept wage or benefit reductions.
It is no exaggeration to say there has been a war between
capital and labour over the past few decades. A fight labour has been losing.
Although the media has done a fine job of hiding this war behind stories of
free market mechanisms; claiming that it’s no person’s fault, that companies
must shift locations to the area with lowest labour costs, the truth is people
make choices and the market is just another system we invented.
People may not understand it all, but they are starting to
realize that our civilization is a mass of broken systems held together by
layer after layer of band aids and duct tape.
Section II
Our problems are systemic, our solutions have been
superficial, and our people are getting upset. What will happen next?
In 2011 we saw world wide protests. Many were peaceful. Most
were pointless. By that I mean they achieved no noticeable goals. They
expressed anger at numerous targets, with little in the way of practical planed
action to correct any problems. The 99% movement wanted the 1% to know that
they, the ones who turned out to protest, were no longer sleeping sheep. In the
name of the majority of people, they were asking the elected leaders to do
something about the injustice and the problems.
But the problems are systemic and the leaders are mostly
those who are part of the 1% or those who benefit from exploiting the faulty
systems of civilization. So no change resulted from the peaceful movements of
last year.
The authorities used a very logical tactic in 2011. They
ignored the protests, until the media interest stated to decline, and then they
broke up the Occupy camps on the pretext of reasons that had nothing to do with
the protest movement. The police said things like; “We are kicking you out of
this park not because we are trying to suppress your right to free speech, but
because your camp site is unsanitary.”
Next time things will be different.
There will be a next time because none of the issues have
been settled. It will not be as peaceful because both sides learned lessons
from last year’s events. The protesters learned to better organize and to plan
for police violence. The authorities have learned that ignoring people does not
silence them, and so a new method of quieting the mob must be used. Fear has
historically been the next weapon of choice. If the protesters can be made to
fear, they will not draw attention to themselves, they will be quiet. If they
are quiet then it can be claimed that no one is upset over anything. This is
extremely faulty logic on the part of the authorities, but it has worked in the
past.
We can
expect to see more protests, with more violence mixed into them. The police
will be accused of using excessive force, with video proof posted all over the
web. There will also be claims, some times true other times not, that
undercover police in the crowd stated the violence. These events will lead to
even more angry protests against the police.
The most
significant event will be the preemptive arrests of protest leaders in their
homes the day before a major event is scheduled to take place. Although the
term ‘domestic terrorist’ may not be used, that is how these people will be
treated.
The
preemptive raids aim to instill fear in the protesters, as well as rounding up
the ring leaders of the movement. Although fear will be generated, more
protests will be staged. They will cry
out against the unjust abductions and detentions of citizens who were
exercising their lawful rights to free speech. They will claim this act as one
more proof that government is out of control.
Section III
At the same
time the civil disorder is unfolding we can expect an economic crisis.
Trouble in
the Middle East will cause oil costs to rise,
so we will be paying an extra dollar per liter.
This mini shock will be a preview of what happen a few months later. As
the price at the pumps increases people will try to fill up, while the gassing
is good. Rather like they did during the oil crisis of the 1970s. This will
cause a temporary shortage as the demand exceeds local capacity. But more
importantly it will cause panic.
People who
are somewhat informed and paranoid will rush out to buy supplies. Food and
other essential goods will on the shopping list. Because any increase in fuel
price results in a rise in transport costs and thus in shelf price. “Better
stuck up on food before the price on everything goes up a dollar.” will be the
logical thinking. Of course doing so will cause a run on the stores.
As people
try to stock up on food and fuel, there will be some shortages and ugly fights
between over reacting consumers. Expect some full sized riots in the USA. However
control will be quickly restored, because there is no real shortage yet. The
critical point here is how the ‘Hegelian dialectic’ will come into play.
The mini
crisis in supply, more so than the increase in prices, will cause people to
demand that the government fix the problem and protect them in the future. The
solution that will be proposed will be a centralized emergency supply program.
The required laws are already in place, mostly under FEMA control in the USA. This talk
about will result in more protests.
Section IV
The death
of the dollar.
The USA will need
to inject more money into its economy, effectively borrowing more billions from
the world at large by selling bonds. However with a low interest rate and
increasing instability in America,
no one will want to buy. China
will demand certain economic concessions, assurances more solid than paper
promises, before it will consider buying more US bonds. Talks will go on till the
last hour, but will fail.
The market
meltdown predicted by many will occur. The dollar will be devalued drastically
on the world market. The cost of everything will double overnight, and then
start climbing day by day. People will panic.
Official
announcements try to calm people down, but these fail. As the stock market
falls sharply, we see the start of supply runs and bank runs. This is a more
serious repeat of the events in the mini shock a few months before. People rush
out to stock up on solid goods, some simply wanting useful supplies, and others
wanting to buy as many goods as they can before the purchasing power of their
money is eroded and their effective savings destroyed. On the stock market
activity mirrors this trend with massive selling off of paper investments and
the buying of commodities.
Empty store
shelves lead to more panic and consumer violence; in some cities riots brake
out. Congress is called to emergency session. There is talk of declaring
martial law. There is talk of the Chinese refusal to buy bonds, being an
economic attack.
On the world
stock market the massive sell off of US bonds begins.
Section V
The China vs. America conflict
After China
supported the Far East Asia Tribunal that found both British Prime Minister
Blair and US President Bush guilty of war crimes for misleading their own
people into unjustly attacking Iraq in 2003, it then declared that it would
defend any nation that was assaulted unlawfully ( attacked without UN sanction
) by the USA. Thus China
would consider America
a rouge ‘terrorist’ state if it acted unilaterally in an offensive way.
When the US eventually uses troops to suppress a riot in
one of its own major cities, China
supports the use of force as a legitimate way to solve serious internal
problems. A short time later China
invades Taiwan,
claiming it is using force to settle an internal situation. China has always maintained that Taiwan is a
rouge province, not an independent state.
This brings
America to the edge of war
with China.
Section VI
Martial law
in the USA
is declared during a night of riots and violence. Troops are used to restore
(try to restore) order in several major cities. The rioters are in fact not
part of the planned protest movements or the armed constitutional militia. This
is a critical factor that will be confused during the news coverage. Some
looters will claim this is the start of the revolution. But it is in fact an
unorganized panic response to the dollar crash.
The real
protest movements will turn up a day or two later. They will be organized and
peaceful until confronted by the police. They will act in the day time and make
clear demands. However violence is almost certain to occur when police try to
disperse them.
Intellectuals
in the movement will publicize two main camps of ideas regarding how the nation
should be reformed. The moderates will demand a sizable restructure of society
to conform to historic ideals of democracy and capitalism. The radicals will
demand the entire corrupt system be torn out by the roots and a new modern
utopia civil order installed.
Section VII
The Civil
War
The
unofficial start will be the preemptive arrests of protest leaders. At this
point any serious militia groups and survivalist/ preppers will know that the
end is just around the corner. They will go into hiding or onto high alert,
ready to defend against any night time round up by police or Homeland Security
agents. At the same time the extremists
will start to put their attack plans into motion.
When the
dollar crashes and martial law is declared, the talk of centralized supply
control will be taken very seriously. It will become a real project. Citizens
will be required to donate food and essential supplies. Corporations holding
such goods will be required to sell them to FEMA. This will produce a great
deal of anger among some groups.
Some of the
best known militia units will actively side with the organized protesters. So
there will be a well armed civilian group in the mix when the conflict with
police occurs. The militia will not allow a dozen club swinging cops to beat
half to death an unarmed woman. There will be blood in the streets.
The
government will outlaw all armed militia groups. The round up of suspected
rebels will begin. Small acts of resistance will broom into big media events,
despite the official network policy of filtering events to ensure the public
remains calm.
But it is
only when sizable organized groups start to refuse “illegal orders” that the
civil war can officially be said to have started.
Section VIII
The Agenda
21 conspiracy
The elite,
for various reasons, want a reduction in world population. The public
propaganda is all about sustainability; balancing a number of people with a
number of renewable resources. It is happy fluffy talk about a better world.
However a major hidden reason for a population reduction is a matter of
control.
Our
problems are systemic. The only way to fix the world is to destroy the system
and build a better one. More and more people are realizing this. The protests
are the tip of a reactionary ice burg. But the elite do not want the system
fixed. They control it and it brings them everything they want. A popular
revolution would destabilize things; some of the elite would be killed, others
would survive but with out place or power in the new society.
The
situation may be understood as a question of control methods. For the past
50some years the Huxley system has been used (it is illustrated in the novel A
Brave New World) People are controlled by entertainment and education, they are
not oppressed in obvious ways. But this system is braking down. The sheep are
waking up and demanding change. So an alternate method of control must be put
in place, at lest in the short run. The Orwellian system (as seen in the book 1984)
is the answer.
The
economic collapse will be the key stone, causing a majority of people (who are
still sheep) to cry for the government to take care of things. The centralized
supply system under FEMA control will be the tool that saves civilization. Or
so the authorities will claim. In reality it will be the tool that kills
millions. Food shipments will be lost, damaged or delayed so that many are
underfed and some entire towns starve to death. Those who oppose the good work
of FEMA will of course be enemies of the state.
The survivors
of the tough times will be disarmed and disheartened. They will be happy to
just be alive, grateful to the government that saved them. They will overlook
the oppression they find themselves in and rationalize it as a necessary evil.
This tactic is already a tried and proven phenomenon in the world of labor
relations. People today are expected to be grateful for any job they can get;
having any job, even a low paid high stress one, is better than having no job
at all.
If the
elite get what they want, America
will become an oppressive totalitarian state, doing what is required to
survive. This will likely include annexing its neighbors, to form a solid North
American Union. Unlike the historic situation in Europe,
when the Black Plague killed off large numbers of people the workers gained
power because there was a labor shortage, a modern downsizing of population
will not produce a similar effect.
If the
elite continue in power, the modern system of society will continue too.
Solutions to fix the past mistakes will be superficial and mostly products of
propaganda.
However,
all this is not a forgone conclusion.
The civil
war will be a real struggle, between the 99% vs. the 1% with the possibility of
a better civilization rising from the ashes. The exact for it takes is hard to
imagine. But we can make some educated guesses.
Because
many of the American freedom fighters are supporters of the constitution, we
can expect that they will look back into history for their social model. They
will want a return to small community life with emphasis on local independence
and democracy. They will want to construct an idealized golden age of small
town America.
Perhaps taking ideas from De Tocqueville’s famous book ‘Democracy in America’
published in the mid 1800s.
Alternately
it may be a technological socialist utopia with massive rebuilding projects. Although
there will be strong anti-centralization sentiments, it is not impossible to
consider a form of democratic socialism that does not run counter to the constitution.
In any case a new civilization must
drastically alter all the old institutions and laws; it must abandon, if not
execute, its old leaders. Because if the elite are allowed to remain
influential, they will find faults in the system (no system is perfect) and
they will exploit them for personnel gain.
What we
need are idealists with a desire to make the world a better place for people. What
we need is a clear division between persons and corporations, which puts the
rights or humans far above those of legal business entities existing for
profit. Our new leaders will not be perfect, but we need them push forward,
free of old ideas about how everything has to be done.
This is the point at witch time the utopian camps A and B make their play for control.
