Keep in mind that it was only about a century ago that Native Americans were being
systematically exterminated - to provide room for capitalist expansion. We may tend
to blame it on some kind of wild-west pioneer mentality, but to the land speculators, the
railroad builders, and the east-coast bankers, it was a fully-conscious program of
business expansion through genocide. I ran across a confidential letter written by
Thomas Jefferson, for example, in which he gave advice to an official about how the
natives could be most efficiently killed off (it had to do with encouraging them to get
into debt.)
Let's look at some of the things the West, especially the US, is doing in African
countries such as Rwanda and many of its neighbours. First of all, the IMF has
systematically destroyed the economies - in some cases utterly. From this cause
alone, large-scale famines began. Then civil strife 'arose'. Indeed strife did
'arise' out of the abysmal economic conditions - but it was helped along with a strong
push from US military advisors, and with shiploads of modern Western armaments.
The training emphasis was on 'security operations', which translates into the creation of
death-squad militias, much like those in
East Timor - which were also US trained. Out of these Western-sponsored civil-wars,
further genocide occurred, partly from increased famine due to disorder, and partly from
slaughter. No massive 'humanitarian' intervention effort was considered, I suggest,
because what was happening is exactly what was intended to happen - genocide _is the
fundamental agenda being carried out! Hence the corporate global media simply
reports these events as unfortunate, unavoidable, due to ancient ethnic hatreds or
droughts, etc. etc.
Another thing the IMF and World Bank are doing is dismantling health-care facilities in
these parts of Africa. Under IMF structural requirements, the budget for health care
is limited to something on the order of $3 per person per year. A new 'philosophy'
of health care has been adopted. Under this philosophy professional health care is
seen as being an 'elite institution', and the population instead is to depend on untrained
lay people to provide their care. Of these events, the elite media is simply silent.
And then there's AIDs. Some people claim to have proof that AIDS was invented via
biotech methods for the purposes of genocide. Perhaps. What we do know for
sure is that the West is doing nothing to deal with the epidemic in Africa.
Pharmaceutical research is aimed at expensive curative treatments, not at the kind of
vaccines that would be needed in the African scenario. Nor is the West making any
effective effort to spread an understanding about needles and condoms in Africa. Nor
is the magnitude of the AIDS epidemic featured in our media. Everyone knows AIDS is
a serious problem in the West, and victims are portrayed sympathetically in the media,
but Africa is generally ignored. The de-facto Western response to African AIDS is to
simply wait for them all to die.
So we have economic collapse, famine, civil war, and no health care - all systematically
promoted by the West, and explained away or ignored by the corporate media. And then
we have AIDS, with no Western response at all. Does this or does this not add up to
a conscious policy of genocide?
---
What I'm suggesting is that this is _one example of how our elite planners are dealing
with the collapse scenario. In this case, their thinking can be characterized
this way: "Too much population? No problem... let's just pick some groups
that aren't contributing much to the global economy and kill them off. There'll be
fewer mouths to feed, more land to grow food for the rest of us, and more water to
irrigate the crops." Do you perhaps reject that anyone could think that
way? Do you think all of the West's systematic actions came from nowhere? When
one economy collapsed, or one civil war broke out, it could be counted up to error.
Not when it becomes
a systematic pattern.
Genocide in Africa represents part of a 'final solution' to the problem of
over-population under an economic-growth paradigm. So that the survivors can
continue gobbling resources, some will have to be sacrificed. And the ones
sacrificed are those who consume the _least resources, the ones _least
responsible for the problems of excessive growth. Such are the ones who
contribute least to global economic growth. By the measure of GDP, they simply have
no value. Just like the Native Americans and Australian Aboriginals before them.
In Russia - where the birth rate is down, the death rate is up, the economy is in
shambles, and famine is an increasing possibility in many regions - we may well be seeing
a similar strategy unfolding, even if it isn't carried out quite so thoroughly. A
significantly reduced Russian population, with the economy owned by the West, would permit
most of Russia's vast resources to be exploited for Western 'needs'.
If any kind of nuclear exchange develops, in the region of India, Pakistan, and China for
example, that could used to accomplish a great deal of additional genocide all at
once. In such a scenario, management of media would be absolute, and whole cities or
regions could be annihilated (using neutron weapons which kill people and leave resources
intact) without us hearing about it. The full magnitude of such a war might only
reach the light of day much later. Most people in the US, for example, have no idea
of the magnitude of the genocidal suffering caused by the Iraqi sanctions, nor the extent
of damage in Yugoslavia.
---
I am not claiming that these kinds of genocidal policies are an effective (albeit
abhorrent) solution to the collapse scenario. What I am suggesting is that the
elite are _not ignoring the collapse crisis, but instead are taking drastic measures
of various kinds in conscious response to that crisis. They may be reckless drivers,
but they _are endeavouring intelligently to steer around the obstacles in their path.
They are awake, not asleep - even if they are demonic. We need to pay closer
attention to how they are playing this 'end game'.
---
Putting this all together, we can see that one of the strategic elite responses to the
environmental-collapse scenario is to return to a drastic version of Western
imperialism. The third world (to which new nations are being added every day) is to
simply be milked dry so that the West can continue longer in its consumptive growth
mode. Poverty, disease, famine - and outright genocide - are all totally acceptable
if they facilitate this milking-dry process.
Population growth in the West itself is relatively stable and manageable - so to our
elite leaders there _is no_ immediate crisis of over-population! "Billions
of 'them' will die - so what? Like dinosaurs and Aboriginals, they didn't
adapt. Such is life. Their women shouldn't have had so many kids. It's
their own fault." If you think this can't happen, then just consider the
response of Western publics to the genocide _already going on. They don't even
know it's happening, or else they shrug it off with a shallow rationalization, handily
provided by the media.
---
At a more systematic level, elite planners have set up institutions which are actively
measuring and quantifying all of the Earth's resources, creating an 'end game' budget of
resources. They're using the latest satellite technology to map every water source,
every acre of arable land, every mineral site, etc. These can be correlated with
population data, consumption statistics, and other databases, so as to work out an
accurate time-sequence of the end-game of our support systems - based on current
trends. You might say they're making a multi-dimensional video of the end of the
world.
Most assuredly, our capitalist leaders are not asleep at the wheel. They are not
going to retire to the first-class Titanic deck and fatalistically watch their video while
the water pours in. They're going to use this information to figure out which
populations should be culled when, so as to keep the West on its consumption binge for as
long as possible. As regards petroleum for example, the IMF has already set prices
at a level where many parts of the third world can no longer afford to use it for
transportation, and hence remaining supplies are being channelled toward the West and the
other remaining industrialized nations. Our leaders have demonstrated
conclusively that they will use whatever means are necessary to implement whatever
measures are deemed advantageous by their spreadsheet analysis. No sacrifice is too
great to insure the survival of capitalism, as long as someone else pays the price.
In Canada, I'm sure you're aware of the controversy regarding water rights. As part
of a global water-consolidation program - the result no doubt of the kind of resource
surveys described above - initiatives have been launched to privatize water resources
globally, and to modify the rules by which water resources are allocated. The scheme
in Canada seems to be aimed at stealing Canada's water, and making it available to US
agribusiness - possibly to alleviate the effects of climate changes expected from global
warming. As water is confiscated by such means in the third world, most likely to be
used to irrigate corporate plantations, we can expect massive famines as a direct
consequence. These no doubt will be reported in the media as being the result of
'drought' - sad, but unavoidable. Again, drastic measures - but diabolical and
effective - not
desperate.
---
This ungodly endgame scenario can be challenged only if we stand up and claim our humanity
and collectively demand to control our own destinies and those of our communities and
societies. And, as they say on some Pink Floyd track, you will 'hear no starting
gun', instead 'ten years will pass' and we'll find ourselves accepting conditions that
today would have us all out on the streets.
The defining moment can only come from inside ourselves. We must decide we've had
enough. And if we can't do that now, I suggest, there's no reason to see why it will
be any different later.
Which brings us back to your point about a need-to-plan mindset. _Yes, we
need to begin planning immediately to rebuild the social commons! But
instead of planning for a post-collapse commons, let's begin building that commons right
now - and let's call that commons a 'grass-roots revolutionary movement' (for a democratic
renaissance?). For activists, I suggest, our greatest 'need to plan' is in
the area of how-to-get-the-movement-started. We can't wait to agree on ideology
first - harmonizing agendas must be part of the movement process. There is nothing
to wait for - whenever we're ready we can begin. The job only becomes more difficult
the longer we wait.
solidarity,
rkm
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cj@cyberjournal.org
a political discussion forum.
crafted in Ireland by rkm
(Richard K. Moore)