George Bailey Speaks

Our annual Christmas Eve tradition is to watch the movie 'It's a Wonderful Life'.
The story is a good reminder of the impact that one person's good behaviors and selfless choices can have on the lives of others around them and beyond them.

This year I was particularly struck by the way the plot line also pointed out how today's bad banking behaviors and selfish corporate attitudes are negatively impacting so many average people's lives. As a result, the film's "Pottersville" nightmare, in all its harshness and vulgarity, now looms before us in real life.

But here, for your viewing pleasure, is Jimmy Stewart poignantly delivering the quintessential Frank Capra-esque comment on, and warning for, our times:

It's A Wonderful Life (1946) - James Stewart - George Bailey's Speech to Potter & the Loan Board

Cui bono

Yesterday the MSM was burying the Yemen connection to the Christmas eve airline terrorist. How exactly to say to TV viewers "Yemeni alQaida terrorists claim it's retaliation for - oops we forgot to report last month about Obama bombing Yemen - after all the Tiger story was so much more important to you". No, the dumbed down American audience can't handle the truth: better just say "Arabian peninsulars" did it and not explain any background. Just like the 1979 revolution in Iran had no US causation either, they're just crazy A-rabs! Better not use the word blowback either. Wouldn't want to confuse the message of the day which is
'They're out to get you" and

..."You shall be avenged!"

So today the MSM squawks lets go bomb em [again] in Yemen in retaliation for this inexplicable unprovoked [sic] act.

Blowback from Obama's bombs almost got those passengers and crew killed. And Obama answers retaliation with even more blowback risk for a bump in the polls amid floundering legislation. Look how resolute and presidential he can be! Very Churchillian.

Meanwhile names of peaceful dissidents are kept on the no fly lists and denied visas but the frigging bomber is let in despite warnings to the US embassy from his own dad? That list discrepancy involving banning peaceful foreign speakers with inconvenient truths didn't come up in the ad nauseum MSM "coverage" either.

I think they are not as stupid as they lead us to believe. I think they purposefully let this known threat in to keep up the domestic scare tactics. Why? For obfuscating more government-authorized theft. For changing the subject domestically away from the economy stupid. For rallying the sheeple to revenge. For reversing poll numbers. For war in Yemen over control of oil routes. Yes the system "worked" exactly the way they wanted it to work!

It is only a miracle that those passengers and crew are alive today.

Expect more inexplicable multi-layer security bungles from the "system" that mysteriously always works for the war profiteers and their power mongrels in Washington.

The Hopeful Cynic

My friends are sometimes surprised to learn that gylangirl did not vote for Obama [nor for McCain]. Instead she “protest-voted" third party. The Democratic Party’s Hope candidate was all about betraying the base, which, after all, is what the Democratic Party is famous for [see Clinton, William Jefferson: vis a vis “the end of welfare as we know it”; “don’t ask don’t tell”; NAFTA; the repeal of Glass Steagall banker abuse protection etc].

Gylangirl watched with dismay the presidential candidate's role in the Bush administration's Goldman Sachs bailouts and the president-elect's Goldman Sachs cabinet selections. Obama would betray us, gylangirl reasoned. But even she admits that when he walked out on that stage election night with his family, she felt that tiny glimmer of [soon-to-be-dashed] hope.

But that was then. It is becoming obvious to all but the most loyal party hack that Obama is only pretending to help the middle class during this recession; he is only pretending to oppose Bush’s Afghanistan and Iraq wars; and he is only pretending to rein in the US Treasury-sucking vampire banks; he is only pretending to support democratic elections in foreign countries like Afghanistan, even as he successfully engineered his very first foreign coup d’etat of another democratically elected president in Honduras.

His campaign volunteers and supporters are imploring him to stop and do the right thing. They seem on the verge of a heart-breaking psychological breakdown. Or rather, one could hope, a psychological breakthrough: to cynicism, the only reality-based political sentiment these days.

So tonight Obama will announce his second troop increase for the war in Afghanistan. Thanks to the peace-prize winning president, there will now be more US troops in Afghanistan than there were Soviet troops back in the day. That’s a lot of blowback risk. Not to mention a lot of troop losses and billions of dollars in more national debt. And did you notice that Afghanistan is where empires go to die? But I digress.

The truly left wing peace activists who incorrectly placed him upon the anti-war pedestal are now in shock that they helped elect another war escalator. However, judging by the TV punditry, the dyed-in-the-wool Democratic Party partisans are neither shocked nor ashamed: they are dutifully shifting away from their Bush era anti-war positions so as to defend their leader. Because that’s what team cheerleaders do. They’ll justify the betrayal and accept any crumbs that fall: “no no-bid contracts this time” so hurray for Our war president! The more naive ones will endlessly hope, like Linus waiting for the Great Pumpkin, that someday, real soon now, or certainly after his 2012 re-election, Obama will justify their misplaced trust and their 2008 vote.

But gylangirl hopes that real soon now, many Obama supporters will join gylangirl in the ranks of the cynical, never to be fooled again. Yes, there she goes again, thinking it will be different this time. Hope springs eternal.

Rorschach and Awe

Today I was as surprised as most people to hear that President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize by the Norwegian- based Nobel Prize committee last night. My first thought was, what the? If the Nobel Prize committee thinks the new US president is a man of peace, they are in for a heck of a shock when he green lights the bombing of Iran during his first term in office. Which may be awkward now that he has a Nobel Peace Prize; he may just have to let the Israelis to do that dirty work after all.

What were they thinking in Oslo? They admitted that Obama hadn’t yet achieved anything deserving of a Nobel Peace Prize in his first few months of office except to ‘change the tone’ from Washington. They were apparently impressed enough with his lofty campaign rhetoric and obfuscating presidential speeches.

Most Europeans opposed former President Bush’s policies and behaviors. Europeans were ecstatic that Obama had replaced him. But really. Couldn’t they have waited until their preferred candidate actually delivered on one of his lofty promises? What was their hurry? Some theories:

The Nobel Prize Committee jumped the shark.

"A very special episode of the Nobel Peace prize." Obama won the peace prize simply for not being George Bush. In their efforts to demonstrate their great displeasure with George W. Bush, the Nobel committee had already awarded their peace prize to two other Bush foils: former President Jimmy Carter and former Vice President Al Gore. Barack Obama’s prize, awarded so early in his presidency, simply book-ended the virtual Bush face-slap. And, in excessive shark-jumping fashion, cheapened the value of the Nobel Peace Prize.

The sympathy vote.

From the rightwing “birthers” falsely questioning his natural born citizenship as a way to delegitimize his election; to Copenhagen’s rejection of his plea for a Chicago Olympics; to right wingnuts carrying loaded weapons to his presidential speech venues, this president has been under siege. Perhaps also the recent successful rightwing attempts to ban the president from speaking to US public school children lead the Nobel committee to mistake Barak Obama for an oppressed US dissident.

The fear factor.

Did the committee worry that modern day American racists, packing heat with impunity at presidential speaking engagements, were implying that they might attempt to cut short the President’s term and thus his opportunity to do prize-worthy good in the world?

Sheer manipulation.

[Please please don’t bomb Iran, Mr President! Especially now that our committee has honored you with a peace prize!] But this would imply that the Nobel committee understands the intentions of the current administration. Instead, I think the committee actually believes that the new president will fulfill his campaign promises to end US warmongering based on false premises. Republican congressman Ron Paul begs to differ with the assumption. [And on this point, gylangirl agrees with him.]

The Rorschach effect.

Once again, Barak Obama serves as a virtual Rorschach test for all who behold him. Republicans inexplicably see a terrorist coddler yet paradoxically hope that he will be soft on terror so they can replace him. Democrats see an anti-war champion of the poor, a redeemer of all that was once good about [small d] democratic America. [Gylangirl sees a two-faced neocon puppet who is already betraying his liberal political base.]

In the Obama as Rorschach phenomenon, the Norwegian Nobel committee members see...a Christmas elf apparently. From Wiki: “Supporters of the Rorschach inkblot test believe that the subject's response to an ambiguous and meaningless stimulus can provide insight into their thought processes. For instance, the red details of card II are often seen as blood, and are the most distinctive features. Responses to them can provide indications about how a subject is likely to manage feelings of anger or physical harm. [However] in Scandinavia, "Christmas elves" (nisser) is a popular response for card II.” Could this ink blot cultural difference explain how, despite the danger in the Obama’s continuation of Bush era policies, the Nobel peace prize committee sees only an earnest man of peace, whose now bloody hands are mistakenly seen as bearing delightful holiday gifts to the world? If he brings only more US war-mongering for the oil in Iran, might they eventually want to rescind their peace prize? If they are anything like the US Democratic Party, they'll ignore that discrepancy. It was enough for them that he replaced the despised George W. Bush.

Perfect storm

Let’s talk about two of the 4 storms. A couple years ago, when consumption and GDP were going full blast, our prosperous world was rapidly approaching the point at which half the total possible production of crude oil would have been achieved. Oil is a limited resource; the biggest easiest to reach reserves were reportedly depleted; and there weren’t significant new finds to replace them. Any further oil production past ‘peak production’ would become an extremely expensive enterprise. The peak production point, represented as the top of a bell curve commonly referred to as The Hubbert Curve, probably occurred in 2005. Hubbert had predicted that, as the production levels dropped from the peak, prices would rise. Sure enough, after that, oil prices began to rise until they reached levels that threatened the existence of cheap oil -dependent industries like commercial airlines, SUV manufacturers, and exurban mcmansion builders.

The experts were projecting scenarios of over $200/ barrel oil for the foreseeable future. Since everything we do [agriculture, medicine, manufacturing, transportation, shelter, heating and cooling, etc] depends on cheap oil, this was a serious threat to our American [western] way of life. Since we were depending on oil imports from the middle east, the oil rich countries gained relative power in our political scene and simultaneously nationalized their oil industries. Resentments and worries about whether or not we could still control the flow of oil in our direction resulted in policy planning involving military invasions of those countries. Was our ability to keep driving SUV’s worth the life of your neighbor’s enlisted son? Apparently yes. But let’s not discuss that; instead let’s just convince your neighbor that her son died at the hands of crazy muslim terrorists. That explanation makes her loss so much more palatable for the rest of us.

But I digress. Back to peak oil: presumably, hyper-inflation was to have been the inevitable result of high oil prices since that would increase the price of everything made with oil, which of course is everything. Peak oil uber-doomers were projecting that nobody would be able to get food when truckers couldn’t afford to pull up to the grocery stores; that nobody would be able to drive anywhere, disrupting commerce and incomes; that hospitals would not have any pills, plastic tubing or electricity; that giant school districts would shut down due to inability of students to get there by bus. If you wanted to eat, work, and educate your kids you had better move into walkable towns with your own personal hoard of foodstuffs and herbal medicines to last twenty years. And don't count on alternative energy: that requires more crude oil for manufacture we hadn't arranged yet and it doesn't address the scale of our dependence. You can't run an airline on the inflated price of solar panels even if you could figure out how to fly solar.


Perfect storm

All this peak oil inflation talk has recently come into question due to the arrival of Storm 3, Financial Collapse, which has already been named The Great Recession and eventually shall become The Greatest Depression Ever. Two things have become clear:

1. Oil prices will be suppressed by demand destruction. Due to the collapse of credit, the enemy to guard against would be deflation not inflation. Getting out of both secured and unsecured debt would become more important than hoarding in a house from which you could be foreclosed/evicted. Rather than gas prices impacting workforce transportation to disrupt commerce, financial collapse destroys income to purchase anything including gas.

2. The slope of the Hubbert curve tail would be different due to Storm 3 demand destruction. Its long -assumed "bumpy plateau" and smooth descent tail would look more like a giant roller coaster ride, bringing on even earlier and repeat bouts of economic upheaval and social unrest.

So “The End Of The World As We Know It” is arriving sooner due to Storm 3, causing oil production levels drop off sooner. There would be no inflation. And we still could not afford to buy those deflated necessities due to income collapse.

So is peak oil going to cause TEOTWAWKI? No. It got the ball rolling by complicating the financial storm with initially high oil prices. But storm 3 is the big mover now. Oil production will still drop off due to demand destruction but the oil production conundrum will become a moot point. Due to the current financial collapse, TEOTWAWKI arrives long before the depletion of the cheapest producible oil reserves.

But Peak Oil will prevent us from climbing out of the financial abyss. We climbed out of the last Great Depression because we had increasing levels of oil production available at the time. This is how we supported both WWII and the manufacturing base of the post war era. But because we have passed "Peak" Oil production, calls for stimulus spending and war spending jobs will not work this time. As productivity ramps up, the price of the increasingly expensive oil to maintain it would threaten the system again. So these Keynesian economic solutions from the 1940's era are no longer feasible. We can't outrun this financial crisis. Better take cover; thanks to peak oil, it's a perfect storm.

Change we can believe in

This weekend I visited a relative whose political opinions and social attitudes are diametrically opposed to mine. Our conversations usually devolve into defensive shouting matches. This time I was determined to keep it pleasant, ignore the traps, and not react. My husband did not think I was capable of resisting, and declined to accompany me. With helpful reminders from a borrowed Buddhist meditation CD, I was successful in my goal of just observing my discomfort and being present in the moment instead trying to fix my feelings by fixing him. The change in my own behavior was so freeing that, listening to the CD again on the way home, I decided, why yes, perhaps I would like to become an “aspiring warrior Bodhisattva”, having only just heard the phrase yesterday afternoon.

Although our political opinions were so different, I was able to agree with some of my host’s declarations. We both do not trust the Democratic Party. [He thinks they are socialist as reflected in their primary campaign statements; I think they are fascist as reflected in their legislative votes.] We both think that the Constitution has been virtually scrapped and that Washington is heading for totalitarian territory. [Of course, I have thought this 8 years longer than he has.] It was interesting to have a right wing worshipper of the likes of Limbaugh, Palin, and Beck validating some of my perceptions. Yet he denies that global warming is induced by human activity; he used the word ni**er more than once; and he believes there is enough untapped oil in the U.S. to keep our non-negotiable way of life going forever. He was passionately dissatisfied with the general concept of government-financed health care yet specifically satisfied with his Medicare.

When I compare my rightwing relative to 'progressives' active in the Democratic Party and in environmental movements, I cannot say that they suffer less cognitive dissonance. They think that a Democratic Party -endorsed healthcare plan written by insurance companies will improve health coverage. Green-washing seems to be the widespread accepted response to our dire climatological situation. They’d rather try to grow oyster spat off their polluted dock and buy a fifteenth purse [made from recycled plastic!] than ride public transport or stop shopping for accessories; they’d rather purchase imported organic out-of-season produce than help start a neighborhood vegetable garden.

Like their counterparts on the right, liberal activists think that casting a vote, writing a letter, signing a petition, or attending a short protest rally [on a Saturday] will influence a politician. The war-profiteering lies and Wall Street -induced class warfare, which evoked their outrage under the Bush Administration, continue now under their beloved President Obama without much protest. Liberal Democrats are patiently and politely waiting for their party leader to honor those peace-and-justice-sounding promises that inspired them to work so doggedly hard for his campaign.

My ego tells me to point out their error [or worse: gloat ‘I told you so!’]. But they don’t need me to make sense of delayed political gratification. Rather than criticize their hero, I could just observe their trusting passivity and gradual disillusionment. I could just stay present with my discomfort - and theirs - without trying to fix either. As with my conservative relative, I could just look for and validate points of agreement in their statements. In this way, I will not distract either of us from our respective paths of enlightenment.

“May all sentient beings enjoy happiness and the root of happiness. May we be free of suffering and the root of suffering. May we not be separated from the great happiness devoid of suffering. May we dwell in the great equanimity free from passion, aggression, and prejudice.” Namaste.

Four storms

I learned about all this stuff on the internet over the past five years. I don’t watch the latest popular TV shows, or go shopping much, so I’m not in the loop when it comes to more popular discussion topics. So it can be a real drag for my family and friends when I happen to change the subject to what I want to talk about.

I get various reactions when I bring these issues up in conversations. A few people get it. But more often, people probably wonder to themselves: "Nothing’s different around here. If something were really wrong, everyone else would know. What is she talking about???"

I am talking about four storms of collapse approaching on the horizon:

Climate/Ecosystem Collapse,
Natural Resource Collapse,
Financial System Collapse, &
Political System Collapse

These issues are reflected in news headlines every day. For instance, scientists have been warning about rapid climate change for years. As nothing has been done to reverse the problem, crisis timelines are being shortened, and so their warnings are becoming more shrill.

Peak Oil, peak minerals, and peak fresh water depletion implications are being discussed in all sorts of government planning reports and studies, including by the US military, and of course on internet doomer blogs.

Financial jeopardy in the current banking system has been in the headlines daily since last November and the crisis has now expanded to threaten the rest of the world economy with another Great Depression.

Political change of leadership often follows economic disaster. We've seen this recently in countries such as Iceland and Japan. This is only the beginning. Trends experts are predicting widespread economic hardship and political revolutions not seen in centuries.

Some authors are comparing our American situation to the fall of the Roman Empire, or to the American and French anti-monarchist Revolutions, or to the recent collapse of the Soviet Union.

So far, the mainstream media is still focused on the kabuki puppet political theater [i.e. what dirt some rightie said versus what dirt some leftie said] in order to get both political bases riled up about such diversions. Therefore the media would lead everyone to believe, once again, that ‘nobody could have foreseen’ these crises. But there have been warnings all along from very perceptive analysts in all these fields of study. Plus we’ve all heard [on the so-called “history" TV channel, in popular books, and movies] similar warnings drawn from some extremely unusual sources...such as religious apocalyptic literature.

From Judeo-Christian bible quotes and ‘codes’; to sectarian traditions such as Roman Catholic Fatima prophecies; to middle ages sages’ [Nostradamus /Michelangelo /DaVinci] writings; to American protestant ‘left behind’ end-of-days novels; to ancient Mayan calendar ‘predictions’; to New Age astrologists’ interpretations of planetary movements: they all seem to agree that at this time we are on the precipice of some epochal changes.

Personally, I don’t put my trust in these pseudo-faith-based assertions about my future, but I do find their prophetic commonalities very intriguing. They all seem to be confirming what many meteorological and social/political scientists, whose logic I can more easily follow, have been extrapolating about our future.

They all say that we have reached the end of an epoch with varying dire predictions for the aftermath. What comes after may be a total surprise. Are we ready for it? How do we want to handle major societal changes: with grace to help each other, or with divisive rage against The identified ‘Other’? Other usually means foreigners; those of different race /class / gender /political party /religion; hungry neighbors; or needy strangers. What social conditions would determine which path we take? And can we do something now, whether personally or collectively, to help create the conditions which would favor our own best behaviors in such circumstances?

The seeds already sown

We are at an end of an era. Call our predicament Pluto in Capricorn. Our generation passes from a time of great faith and prosperity into an era of great turmoil and loss. During our lifetime: the earth has finally exceeded its human carrying capacity so that human activity has pushed the planet's oceans and land eco-systems into global environmental destruction; the world economy has exceeded its capacity to sustain our artificial way of modern life and will collapse of its own weight; and our elected leaders have finally lost their oligarchal ability to maintain the facade of a representative democracy. We are watching the inevitable results now. This generation shall finally reap what seeds prior generations have sown.

Personally, all my precious beliefs have been shattered. I once trusted that parents knew best, that religious and academic leaders knew best, that political authorities knew best and wanted the best for all of us. But apparently, all was not right with the world. The truth is gradually being revealed to our generation: corruption, vanity, and deceit run rampant throughout all our formal institutions. Soon, something's got to give. When it does, will our generation give in to despair and repeat the violent patterns of self-centered predecessors; or will we transform ourselves and our world into a more harmonious vision for organizing human living arrangements?

This blog is my attempt to give personal witness to that question.

gylangirl