Month: May 2019

Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

“There will come a time when it isn’t ‘They’re spying on me through my phone’ anymore. Eventually, it will be ‘My phone is spying on me.’” ― Philip K. Dick

Red pill or blue pill? You decide.

Twenty years after the Wachowskis’ iconic 1999 film, The Matrix, introduced us to a futuristic world in which humans exist in a computer-simulated non-reality powered by authoritarian machines – a world where the choice between existing in a denial-ridden virtual dream-state or facing up to the harsh, difficult realities of life comes down to a red pill or a blue pill – we stand at the precipice of a technologically-dominated matrix of our own making.

We are living the prequel to The Matrix with each passing day, falling further under the spell of technologically-driven virtual communities, virtual realities and virtual conveniences managed by artificially intelligent machines that are on a fast track to replacing us and eventually dominating every aspect of our lives.

Science fiction has become fact.

In The Matrix, computer programmer Thomas Anderson a.k.a. hacker Neo is wakened from a virtual slumber by Morpheus, a freedom fighter seeking to liberate humanity from a lifelong hibernation state imposed by hyper-advanced artificial intelligence machines that rely on humans as an organic power source. With their minds plugged into a perfectly crafted virtual reality, few humans ever realize they are living in a dream world.

Neo is given a choice: to wake up and join the resistance, or remain asleep and serve as fodder for the powers-that-be. “You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe,” Morpheus says to Neo in The Matrix. “You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”

Most people opt for the red pill.

In our case, the red pill—a one-way ticket to a life sentence in an electronic concentration camp—has been honey-coated to hide the bitter aftertaste, sold to us in the name of expediency and delivered by way of blazingly fast Internet, cell phone signals that never drop a call, thermostats that keep us at the perfect temperature without our having to raise a finger, and entertainment that can be simultaneously streamed to our TVs, tablets and cell phones.

Yet we are not merely in thrall with these technologies that were intended to make our lives easier. We have become enslaved by them.

Look around you. Everywhere you turn, people are so addicted to their internet-connected screen devices—smart phones, tablets, computers, televisions—that they can go for hours at a time submerged in a virtual world where human interaction is filtered through the medium of technology.

This is not freedom.

This is not even progress.

This is technological tyranny and iron-fisted control delivered by way of the surveillance state, corporate giants such as Google and Facebook, and government spy agencies such as the National Security Agency.

We are living in a virtual world carefully crafted to resemble a representative government, while in reality we are little more than slaves in thrall to an authoritarian regime, with its constant surveillance, manufactured media spectacles, secret courts, inverted justice, and violent repression of dissent.

So consumed are we with availing ourselves of all the latest technologies that we have spared barely a thought for the ramifications of our heedless, headlong stumble towards a world in which our abject reliance on internet-connected gadgets and gizmos is grooming us for a future in which freedom is an illusion.

It’s not just freedom that hangs in the balance. Humanity itself is on the line.

Indeed, while most people are busily taking selfies, Google has been busily partnering with the NSA, the Pentagon, and other governmental agencies to develop a new “human” species.

Essentially, Google—a neural network that approximates a global brain—is fusing with the human mind in a phenomenon that is called “singularity.” Google will know the answer to your question before you have asked it, said transhumanist scientist Ray Kurzweil. “It will have read every email you will ever have written, every document, every idle thought you’ve ever tapped into a search-engine box. It will know you better than your intimate partner does. Better, perhaps, than even yourself.”

But here’s the catch: the NSA and all other government agencies will also know you better than yourself. As William Binney, one of the highest-level whistleblowers to ever emerge from the NSA said, “The ultimate goal of the NSA is total population control.”

Cue the dawning of the Age of the Internet of Things, in which internet-connected “things” will monitor your home, your health and your habits in order to keep your pantry stocked, your utilities regulated and your life under control and relatively worry-free.

The key word here is control.

In the not-too-distant future, “just about every device you have — and even products like chairs, that you don’t normally expect to see technology in — will be connected and talking to each other.”

By 2020, there will be 152 million cars connected to the Internet and 100 million Internet-connected bulbs and lamps. By 2021, it is estimated there will be 240 million wearable devices such as smartwatches, keeping users connected it real time to their phones, emails, text messages and the Internet. By 2022, there will be 1.1 billion smart meters installed in homes, reporting real-time usage to utility companies and other interested parties.

This “connected” industry—estimated to add more than $14 trillion to the economy by 2020—is about to be the next big thing in terms of societal transformations, right up there with the Industrial Revolution, a watershed moment in technology and culture.

Between driverless cars that completely lacking a steering wheel, accelerator, or brake pedal and smart pills embedded with computer chips, sensors, cameras and robots, we are poised to outpace the imaginations of science fiction writers such as Philip K. Dick and Isaac Asimov. (By the way, there is no such thing as a driverless car. Someone or something will be driving, but it won’t be you.)

The aim of these internet-connected devices, as Nest proclaims, is to make “your house a more thoughtful and conscious home.” For example, your car can signal ahead that you’re on your way home, while Hue lights can flash on and off to get your attention if Nest Protect senses something’s wrong. Your coffeemaker, relying on data from fitness and sleep sensors, will brew a stronger pot of coffee for you if you’ve had a restless night.

Internet-connected techno gadgets as smart light bulbs can discourage burglars by making your house look occupied, smart thermostats will regulate the temperature of your home based on your activities, and smart doorbells will let you see who is at your front door without leaving the comfort of your couch.

Nest, Google’s $3 billion acquisition, has been at the forefront of the “connected” industry, with such technologically savvy conveniences as a smart lock that tells your thermostat who is home, what temperatures they like, and when your home is unoccupied; a home phone service system that interacts with your connected devices to “learn when you come and go” and alert you if your kids don’t come home; and a sleep system that will monitor when you fall asleep, when you wake up, and keep the house noises and temperature in a sleep-conducive state.

It’s not just our homes that are being reordered and reimagined in this connected age: it’s our workplaces, our health systems, our government and our very bodies that are being plugged into a matrix over which we have no real control.

Moreover, given the speed and trajectory at which these technologies are developing, it won’t be long before these devices are operating entirely independent of their human creators, which poses a whole new set of worries.

As technology expert Nicholas Carr notes, “As soon as you allow robots, or software programs, to act freely in the world, they’re going to run up against ethically fraught situations and face hard choices that can’t be resolved through statistical models. That will be true of self-driving cars, self-flying drones, and battlefield robots, just as it’s already true, on a lesser scale, with automated vacuum cleaners and lawnmowers.”

For instance, just as the robotic vacuum, Roomba, “makes no distinction between a dust bunny and an insect,” weaponized drones will be incapable of distinguishing between a fleeing criminal and someone merely jogging down a street.

For that matter, how do you defend yourself against a robotic cop—such as the Atlas android being developed by the Pentagon—that has been programmed to respond to any perceived threat with violence?

Unfortunately, in our race to the future, we have failed to consider what such dependence on technology might mean for our humanity, not to mention our freedoms.

Ingestible or implantable chips are a good example of how unprepared we are, morally and otherwise, to navigate this uncharted terrain. Hailed as revolutionary for their ability to access, analyze and manipulate your body from the inside, these smart pills can remind you to take your medication, search for cancer, and even send an alert to your doctor warning of an impending heart attack.

Sure, the technology could save lives, but is that all we need to know? Have we done our due diligence in dealing with the ramifications of giving the government and its cronies access to such intrusive programs? For example, asks reporter Ariana Eunjung Cha, “How will patients be assured that the technology won’t be used to compel them to take medications they don’t really want to take? Could what started as a voluntary experiment be turned into a compulsory government identification program that could erode civil liberties?”

Let me put it another way.

If you were shocked by Edward Snowden’s revelations about how NSA agents have used surveillance to spy on Americans’ phone calls, emails and text messages, can you imagine what unscrupulous government agents could do with access to your internet-connected car, home and medications?

All of those internet-connected gadgets we just have to have (Forbes refers to them as “(data) pipelines to our intimate bodily processes”)—the smart watches that can monitor our blood pressure and the smart phones that let us pay for purchases with our fingerprints and iris scans—are setting us up for a brave new world where there is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

Imagine what a SWAT team could do with the ability to access, monitor and control your internet-connected home: locking you in, turning off the lights, activating alarms, etc.

Thus far, the public response to concerns about government surveillance has amounted to a collective shrug.

After all, who cares if the government can track your whereabouts on your GPS-enabled device so long as it helps you find the fastest route from Point A to Point B? Who cares if the NSA is listening in on your phone calls and downloading your emails so long as you can get your phone calls and emails on the go and get lightning fast Internet on the fly? Who cares if the government can monitor your activities in your home by tapping into your internet-connected devices—thermostat, water, lights—so long as you can control those things with the flick of a finger, whether you’re across the house or across the country?

It’s hard to truly appreciate the intangible menace of technology-enabled government surveillance in the face of the all-too-tangible menace of police shootings of unarmed citizens, SWAT team raids, and government violence and corruption.

However, both dangers are just as lethal to our freedoms if left unchecked.

Consider that on any given day, the average American going about his daily business is monitored, surveilled, spied on and tracked in virtually every way by both government and corporate eyes and ears.

Whether you’re walking through a store, driving your car, checking email, or talking to friends and family on the phone, you can be sure that some government agency, whether the NSA or some other entity, will be listening in and tracking your behavior.

This doesn’t even begin to touch on the corporate trackers that monitor your purchases, web browsing, Facebook posts and other activities taking place in the cyber sphere.

In other words, there is no form of digital communication that the government cannot and does not monitor: phone calls, emails, text messages, tweets, Facebook posts, internet video chats, etc., are all accessible, trackable and downloadable by federal agents.

The government and its corporate partners-in-crime have been bypassing the Fourth Amendment’s prohibitions for so long that this constitutional bulwark against warrantless searches and seizures has largely been rendered antiquated and irrelevant.

We are now in the final stage of the transition from a police state to a surveillance state.

Having already transformed local police into extensions of the military, the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department and the FBI are in the process of turning the nation’s police officers into techno-warriors, complete with iris scanners, body scanners, thermal imaging Doppler radar devices, facial recognition programs, license plate readers, cell phone Stingray devices and so much more.

Add in the fusion centers and real-time crime centers, city-wide surveillance networks, data clouds conveniently hosted overseas by Amazon and Microsoft, drones equipped with thermal imaging cameras, and biometric databases, and you’ve got the makings of a world in which “privacy” is reserved exclusively for government agencies.

In other words, the surveillance state that came into being with the 9/11 attacks is alive and well and kicking privacy to shreds in America. Having been persuaded to trade freedom for a phantom promise of security, Americans now find themselves imprisoned in a virtual cage of cameras, wiretaps, sensors and watchful government eyes.

Just about every branch of the government—from the Postal Service to the Treasury Department and every agency in between—now has its own surveillance sector, authorized to spy on the American people.

And of course that doesn’t even begin to touch on the complicity of the corporate sector, which buys and sells us from cradle to grave, until we have no more data left to mine. Indeed, Facebook, Amazon and Google are among the government’s closest competitors when it comes to carrying out surveillance on Americans, monitoring the content of your emails, tracking your purchases and exploiting your social media posts.

“Few consumers understand what data are being shared, with whom, or how the information is being used,” reports the Los Angeles Times. “Most Americans emit a stream of personal digital exhaust — what they search for, what they buy, who they communicate with, where they are — that is captured and exploited in a largely unregulated fashion.”

It’s not just what we say, where we go and what we buy that is being tracked.

We’re being surveilled right down to our genes, thanks to a potent combination of hardware, software and data collection that scans our biometrics—our faces, irises, voices, genetics, even our gait—runs them through computer programs that can break the data down into unique “identifiers,” and then offers them up to the government and its corporate allies for their respective uses.

For instance, imagine what the NSA could do (and is likely already doing) with voiceprint technology, which has been likened to a fingerprint. Described as “the next frontline in the battle against overweening public surveillance,” the collection of voiceprints is a booming industry for governments and businesses alike. As The Guardian reports, “voice biometrics could be used to pinpoint the location of individuals. There is already discussion about placing voice sensors in public spaces, and … multiple sensors could be triangulated to identify individuals and specify their location within very small areas.”

The NSA is merely one small part of a shadowy permanent government comprised of unelected bureaucrats who march in lockstep with profit-driven corporations that actually runs Washington, DC, and works to keep us under surveillance and, thus, under control. For example, Google openly works with the NSA, Amazon has built a massive $600 million intelligence database for CIA, and the telecommunications industry is making a fat profit by spying on us for the government.

In other words, Corporate America is making a hefty profit by aiding and abetting the government in its domestic surveillance efforts.

Control is the key here.

Total control over every aspect of our lives, right down to our inner thoughts, is the objective of any totalitarian regime.

George Orwell understood this. His masterpiece, 1984, portrays a global society of total control in which people are not allowed to have thoughts that in any way disagree with the corporate state. There is no personal freedom, and advanced technology has become the driving force behind a surveillance-driven society. Snitches and cameras are everywhere. And people are subject to the Thought Police, who deal with anyone guilty of thought crimes. The government, or “Party,” is headed by Big Brother, who appears on posters everywhere with the words: “Big Brother is watching you.”

Make no mistake: the Internet of Things is just Big Brother in a more appealing disguise.

Now there are still those who insist that they have nothing to hide from the surveillance state and nothing to fear from the police state because they have done nothing wrong. To those sanctimonious few, secure in their delusions, let this be a warning: the danger posed by the American police state applies equally to all of us, lawbreaker and law-abider alike.

In an age of too many laws, too many prisons, too many government spies, and too many corporations eager to make a fast buck at the expense of the American taxpayer, there is no safe place and no watertight alibi.

We are all guilty of some transgression or other.

Eventually, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we will all be made to suffer the same consequences in the electronic concentration camp that surrounds us.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2MgP2rc Tyler Durden

We might call it the war for Libya 2.0, given that following the Arab North African country turning to chaos and ruin following the 2011 US-NATO regime change war against Gaddafi, a new war for Tripoli is fast becoming internationalized in what threatens to be a full-blown proxy war. 

New reports this week have uncovered what appear to be covert arms shipments pouring into the war-torn country on “mysterious planes” in support of General Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA), which has since early April laid siege to the capital city. At the same time, there’s new evidence that external countries like Turkey as well as foreign mercenaries are bolstering the ranks of the UN-backed Government of National Accord which Haftar is trying to unseat. 

A new Al-Jazeera investigation caught what’s presumed to be weapons-laden cargo planes making repeat trips to makeshift battlefront air bases. What’s more is that they are attempting to go “covert” during the deliveries by flipping their tracking transponders off. 

According to the report:

Cargo planes were discovered flying clandestinely into bases controlled by renegade Libyan military commander Khalifa Haftar and dropping off unidentifed payloads at the time his forces attacked Tripoli last month, an Al Jazeera Arabic TV investigation found.

Satellite images and flight data show two Russian-made Ilyushin 76 aircraft registered to a joint Emirati-Kazakh company called Reem Travel made several trips between Egypt, Israel, and Jordan before landing at military bases controlled by Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) in early April, just as it attempted to seize the capital.

Haftar has long been described by many analysts as “the CIA’s man in Libya” — given he spent a couple decades living in exile a mere few minutes from CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia during Gaddafi’s rule.

In late April the White House had shocked UN and western allies by reversing policy which had up until then recognized the GNA’s authority, and bestowed legitimacy of Gen. Haftar’s forces. President Trump went so far as to thank Haftar for “securing Libya’s oil resources” in a phone call. 

This week Al Jazeera published photos and video footage of the illegal (under a recent UN arms embargo) arms shipments, as well as satellite and tracking data from the planes: 

Flight transponders appear to have been turned off while flying into the war-torn North African country. Libya is currently under an arms embargo imposed by the United Nations after years of fighting. 

Video published by Haftar’s forces shows one of the cargo planes – with the registration number UP-I7645 – after landing at LNA’s Tamanhant military base in southern Libya. It had taken off from Benghazi in the east, Haftar’s stronghold. 

The report cites a gulf affairs analyst named Bill Law, who said the war for Libya is now expanding into a full proxy war. “What we’re seeing are lots of players coming into Libya. It’s a recipe that’s almost heading to a Yemen scenario. We’re beginning to see a proxy war emerging. We’re looking at a pretty bleak situation. In this situation of a vacuum, you see players emerge and we’re seeing this now,” he told Al Jazeera.

Al Jazeera published screengrabs of a video published to Gen. Haftar’s media site, showing cargo unloaded from aircraft at a LNA military base. 

Aircraft have been observed flying into Libya with their trackers off, in what appears violation of a UN arms embargo on the country. 

Recent UN numbers and humanitarian monitors have put the number of displaced due to Haftar’s offensive on the capital at more than 40,000 civilians and a rising death toll of multiple hundreds, and thousands wounded. 

Among Haftar’s main backers include the UAE, Egypt, France, Russia, and recently the United States. Foreign mercenaries have been observed backing both sides, with Turkish as well as European military trainers reported to have recently assisted the Tripoli-based GNA. 

Interestingly, in a reversal of the well-known “weapons rat line” which in 2011 to 2012 ran from Libya into Syria, Damascus has this week condemned what it says is a covert program to transfer Syrian jihadists to Libya. 

Syria’s Ambassador to the UN Bashar Al-Ja’afari told the UNSC on Tuesday: “How can the fighters be transferred from Syria to Libya unless the support of governments benefiting from it?” as cited by The Libyan Address. “We have warned against the transfer of fighters to neighboring countries,” Jaafari added.

According to a summary of the intensifying influx of foreign fighters into Libya, the Middle East news site Al-Masdar noted:

Members of both the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL/IS/Daesh) and Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham have somehow made their way from Syria to Libya over the last year, prompting the governments in Damascus and Benghazi to question who is aiding their transfer.

Damascus and Benghazi have accused Turkey in recent months of helping to facilitate this transfer, despite Ankara’s rejection of accusations.

Turkey is considered a close ally to the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA); they are currently fighting the Libyan National Army (LNA), which is led by Field Marshal General Khalifa Haftar.

The twisted irony is that whereas Libya less than a decade ago was a main departure point for foreign jihadists entering the Levant region via Turkey to fight Assad, it now appears the same jihadists are headed the other way, and again in support of a NATO country (Turkey and the GNA’s UN allies).  

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2Wa4JoR Tyler Durden

Via The College Fix,

A student-athlete at Franklin Pierce University on Saturday became the first in the school’s history to collect an individual national title. That student-athlete is also transgender.

“A transgender woman who competed as a man as recently as last year won an NCAA women’s track national championship on Saturday. Franklin Pierce University senior Cece Telfer beat the eight-woman field in the Division II women’s 400-meter hurdles by more than a second, with a personal collegiate-best time of 57.53,” the Tribune-Review reports.

“As recently as January 2018, Telfer had been competing as an athlete for Franklin Pierce men’s team as Craig. Telfer finished eighth in a field of nine in the Men’s 400 meters at the Middlebury Winter Classic in Vermont,” the Trib reported. “The NCAA allows male athletes to compete as women if they suppress their testosterone levels for a full calendar year. Before that, they compete on mixed teams — with men and women — in the men’s division but not the women’s.”

In just its 7th year of existence, the @FPURavensXCTF has its first national champion. Senior CeCe Telfer took control of the 400-meter hurdles on Sat. PM and went on to post victory w/ a personal best time of 57.53. Read more here; https://t.co/vCukMSb7vS pic.twitter.com/gE3v7HQ3Ml

— Franklin Pierce (@FPUniversity) May 26, 2019

A news release published by the small, private New Hampshire-based university celebrated the win:

In just its seventh year of existence, the Franklin Pierce University women’s track & field team has its first national champion. Senior CeCe Telfer (Lebanon, N.H.) took control of the 400-meter hurdles down the back stretch on Saturday night and went on to post victory by more than a second, in a personal collegiate-best time of 57.53 seconds. Telfer also added All-America First Team accolades in the 100-meter hurdles earlier in the day, on the third and final day of the NCAA Championships, hosted by Texas A&M-Kingsville, at Javelina Stadium.

Telfer is the first student-athlete in Franklin Pierce history to collect an individual national title. It marks the seventh NCAA national championship overall in the history of the University, with all the previous crowns coming on the soccer field. …

Earlier in the day, Telfer also earned All-America First Team honors in the 100-meter hurdles, with a fifth-place finish. Running out of lane 7, she crossed the line at 13.56 seconds, just one half-second behind the winner. Pittsburg State senior Courtney Nelson, who had been the top qualifier out of Friday’s preliminary heats, took home the national title in 13.06 seconds. San Francisco State junior Monisha Lewis followed in second (13.29), while Minnesota-Duluth senior Danielle Kohlwey took third (13.31). Lindenwood senior Erin Hodge narrowly edged Telfer at the line for fourth place, with a time of 13.47 seconds.

Read the university’s press release and the Trib article.

h/t: Instapundit

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2McY1cT Tyler Durden

Update: Just minutes after the WSJ story hit, Trump responded with an tweet, thanksing the military service-members for the “spectacular job” they are doing, but denying the WSJ story: “I was not informed about anything having to do with the Navy Ship USS John S. McCain during my recent visit to Japan.”

I was not informed about anything having to do with the Navy Ship USS John S. McCain during my recent visit to Japan. Nevertheless, @FLOTUS and I loved being with our great Military Men and Women – what a spectacular job they do!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 30, 2019

*  *  *

As we detailed earlier, Donald Trump’s vendetta with John McCain has reportedly crossed over into the afterlife.

Ahead of Trump’s visit to Japan this past weekend, the White House asked the U.S. Navy to move “out of sight” a warship named for the late Senator John McCain, the WSJ reported citing according to an email reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The email dated May 15 to Navy and Air Force officials, outlined plans for the president’s arrival and included instructions for the proper landing areas for helicopters and preparation for the USS Wasp – where Trump was scheduled to speak – the official issued a third directive: “USS John McCain needs to be out of sight” the email said. “Please confirm #3 will be satisfied.“

The ship has been stationed at the Yokosuka Naval Base near the USS Wasp, where Trump delivered Memorial Day remarks and visited U.S. officers.

As the WSJ adds, acting Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan was aware of the concern about the presence of the USS John McCain in Japan and approved measures to ensure it didn’t interfere with the president’s visit, a U.S. official said.

When a Navy commander expressed surprise about the directive for the USS John McCain, the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command official replied: “First I heard of it as well.” He said he would work with the White House Military Office to obtain more information about the order.

Before Trump’s address, a tarp was hung over the USS John McCain’s name and sailors were reportedly directed to remove any coverings that showed the ship’s name. A barge was also reportedly moved near the ship to make it harder to see its name from the USS Wasp.

The animosity between Trump and John McCain, and even his name, was so great that the sailors on the ship, who normally wear caps with its name, were given the day off when Trump gave his address.

Speaking to the roughly 800 military men and women, some of whom wore “Make Aircrew Great Again” patches with a likeness of the president on their jumpsuits, Mr. Trump said he was joined by sailors from six other ships. He made no mention of the USS John McCain.

Trump also visited two military outfits to cap off his weekend trip to Japan. The president then met with U.S. troops aboard the USS Wasp, where he wished them a “very happy Memorial Day.”  As we reported previously, over the course of his 30-minute visit, Trump critiqued plans to change the design of some aircraft carriers’ catapults, recounted his trip to Japan and praised those aboard for their service.

The White House declined to answer questions about the reason for the directive or where it originated. The White House Military Office provides support for presidential travel, among other matters.

In July 2018, a month before the death of McCain’s – who feuded repeatedly with Trump in his last years – the Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer formally added McCain as a namesake of the USS John McCain, which had been named for his father and grandfather after it launched in 1994. McCain said at the time that he was “deeply honored.”

In August 2017, the USS John McCain collided with a merchant vessel, killing 10 sailors and tearing a hole in the left rear side of the destroyer. Trump, asked about the collision at the time, told reporters: “That’s too bad.” He later tweeted that his thoughts and prayers were with the sailors aboard the ship.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2EHJkZn Tyler Durden

Authored by Robert Wenzel via Target Liberty,

The 67th Bilderberg Meeting will take place from May 30 to June 2, 2019 in Montreux, Switzerland, the group has just announced.

It is believed that the announcement was made only days before the meeting to make it as difficult as possible for protesters and independent journalists to make it to the event.

Here are the details.

The annual Bilderberg Meeting is a three-day forum for informal discussions, between global insiders.  Every year, approx. 130 political leaders and experts from industry, finance, labour, academia and the media comprise the group. About two-thirds of the participants come from Europe and the rest from North America (But Asia can come up on the agenda though Asia-based leaders and experts are not invited–see below).

The first Meeting took place at the Hotel De Bilderberg in Oosterbeek, The Netherlands, from May 29 to 31 1954. Thus, the name.

The Meetings are held under the Chatham House Rule, which states that participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s) nor of any other participant may be revealed.

According to the group, this is this year’s agenda:

1. A Stable Strategic Order

2. What Next for Europe?

3. Climate Change and Sustainability

4. China

5. Russia

6. The Future of Capitalism

7. Brexit

8. The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence

9. The Weaponisation of Social Media

10. The Importance of Space

11. Cyber Threats

As can be seen, the members will be discussing (plotting?) with regard to issues of the day that seem to be moving in a direction away from freedom.

You don’t have topics such as “The Weaponisation of Social Media” and “What Next for Europe?” unless you have, or are looking for, solutions to the “problems,” solutions that are unlikely to be moving in the direction of freedom.

The lead topic, “A Stable Strategic Order” is also a tell.

The group has released these names as this year’s participants (my highlights).

BOARD

Castries, Henri de (FRA), Chairman, Steering Committee; Chairman, Institut Montaigne
Kravis, Marie-Josée (USA), President, American Friends of Bilderberg Inc.; Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute
Halberstadt, Victor (NLD), Chairman Foundation Bilderberg Meetings; Professor of Economics, Leiden University
Achleitner, Paul M. (DEU), Treasurer Foundation Bilderberg Meetings; Chairman Supervisory Board, Deutsche Bank AG

PARTICIPANTS

Abrams, Stacey (USA), Founder and Chair, Fair Fight
Adonis, Andrew (GBR), Member, House of Lords
Albers, Isabel (BEL), Editorial Director, De Tijd / L’Echo
Altman, Roger C. (USA), Founder and Senior Chairman, Evercore
Arbour, Louise (CAN), Senior Counsel, Borden Ladner Gervais LLP
Arrimadas, Inés (ESP), Party Leader, Ciudadanos
Azoulay, Audrey (INT), Director-General, UNESCO
Baker, James H. (USA), Director, Office of Net Assessment, Office of the Secretary of Defense
Balta, Evren (TUR), Associate Professor of Political Science, Özyegin University
Barbizet, Patricia (FRA), Chairwoman and CEO, Temaris & Associés
Barbot, Estela (PRT), Member of the Board and Audit Committee, REN (Redes Energéticas Nacionais)
Barroso, José Manuel (PRT), Chairman, Goldman Sachs International; Former President, European Commission
Barton, Dominic (CAN), Senior Partner and former Global Managing Partner, McKinsey & Company
Beaune, Clément (FRA), Adviser Europe and G20, Office of the President of the Republic of France
Boos, Hans-Christian (DEU), CEO and Founder, Arago GmbH
Bostrom, Nick (UK), Director, Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University
Botín, Ana P. (ESP), Group Executive Chair, Banco Santander
Brandtzæg, Svein Richard (NOR), Chairman, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Brende, Børge (NOR), President, World Economic Forum
Buberl, Thomas (FRA), CEO, AXA
Buitenweg, Kathalijne (NLD), MP, Green Party
Caine, Patrice (FRA), Chairman and CEO, Thales Group
Carney, Mark J. (GBR), Governor, Bank of England
Casado, Pablo (ESP), President, Partido Popular
Ceviköz, Ahmet Ünal (TUR), MP, Republican People’s Party (CHP)
Champagne, François Philippe (CAN), Minister of Infrastructure and Communities
Cohen, Jared (USA), Founder and CEO, Jigsaw, Alphabet Inc.
Croiset van Uchelen, Arnold (NLD), Partner, Allen & Overy LLP
Daniels, Matthew (USA), New space and technology projects, Office of the Secretary of Defense
Davignon, Etienne (BEL), Minister of State
Demiralp, Selva (TUR), Professor of Economics, Koç University
Donohoe, Paschal (IRL), Minister for Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform
Döpfner, Mathias (DEU), Chairman and CEO, Axel Springer SE
Ellis, James O. (USA), Chairman, Users’ Advisory Group, National Space Council
Feltri, Stefano (ITA), Deputy Editor-in-Chief, Il Fatto Quotidiano
Ferguson, Niall (USA), Milbank Family Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Findsen, Lars (DNK), Director, Danish Defence Intelligence Service
Fleming, Jeremy (GBR), Director, British Government Communications Headquarters
Garton Ash, Timothy (GBR), Professor of European Studies, Oxford University
Gnodde, Richard J. (IRL), CEO, Goldman Sachs International
Godement, François (FRA), Senior Adviser for Asia, Institut Montaigne
Grant, Adam M. (USA), Saul P. Steinberg Professor of Management, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Gruber, Lilli (ITA), Editor-in-Chief and Anchor “Otto e mezzo”, La7 TV
Hanappi-Egger, Edeltraud (AUT), Rector, Vienna University of Economics and Business
Hedegaard, Connie (DNK), Chair, KR Foundation; Former European Commissioner
Henry, Mary Kay (USA), International President, Service Employees International Union
Hirayama, Martina (CHE), State Secretary for Education, Research and Innovation
Hobson, Mellody (USA), President, Ariel Investments LLC
Hoffman, Reid (USA), Co-Founder, LinkedIn; Partner, Greylock Partners
Hoffmann, André (CHE), Vice-Chairman, Roche Holding Ltd.
Jordan, Jr., Vernon E. (USA), Senior Managing Director, Lazard Frères & Co. LLC
Jost, Sonja (DEU), CEO, DexLeChem
Kaag, Sigrid (NLD), Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation
Karp, Alex (USA), CEO, Palantir Technologies
Kerameus, Niki K. (GRC), MP; Partner, Kerameus & Partners
Kissinger, Henry A. (USA), Chairman, Kissinger Associates Inc.
Koç, Ömer (TUR), Chairman, Koç Holding A.S.
Kotkin, Stephen (USA), Professor in History and International Affairs, Princeton University
Kramp-Karrenbauer, Annegret (DEU), Leader, CDU
Krastev, Ivan (BUL), Chairman, Centre for Liberal Strategies
Kravis, Henry R. (USA), Co-Chairman and Co-CEO, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.
Kristersson, Ulf (SWE), Leader of the Moderate Party
Kudelski, André (CHE), Chairman and CEO, Kudelski Group
Kushner, Jared (USA), Senior Advisor to the President, The White House
Le Maire, Bruno (FRA), Minister of Finance
Leyen, Ursula von der (DEU), Federal Minster of Defence
Leysen, Thomas (BEL), Chairman, KBC Group and Umicore
Liikanen, Erkki (FIN), Chairman, IFRS Trustees; Helsinki Graduate School of Economics
Lund, Helge (GBR), Chairman, BP plc; Chairman, Novo Nordisk AS
Maurer, Ueli (CHE), President of the Swiss Federation and Federal Councillor of Finance
Mazur, Sara (SWE), Director, Investor AB
McArdle, Megan (USA), Columnist, The Washington Post
McCaskill, Claire (USA), Former Senator; Analyst, NBC News
Medina, Fernando (PRT), Mayor of Lisbon
Micklethwait, John (USA), Editor-in-Chief, Bloomberg LP
Minton Beddoes, Zanny (GBR), Editor-in-Chief, The Economist
Monzón, Javier (ESP), Chairman, PRISA
Mundie, Craig J. (USA), President, Mundie & Associates
Nadella, Satya (USA), CEO, Microsoft
Netherlands, His Majesty the King of the (NLD)
Nora, Dominique (FRA), Managing Editor, L’Obs
O’Leary, Michael (IRL), CEO, Ryanair D.A.C.
Pagoulatos, George (GRC), Vice-President of ELIAMEP, Professor; Athens University of Economics
Papalexopoulos, Dimitri (GRC), CEO, TITAN Cement Company S.A.
Petraeus, David H. (USA), Chairman, KKR Global Institute
Pienkowska, Jolanta (POL), Anchor woman, journalist
Pottinger, Matthew (USA), Senior Director, National Security Council
Pouyanné, Patrick (FRA), Chairman and CEO, Total S.A.
Ratas, Jüri (EST), Prime Minister
Renzi, Matteo (ITA), Former Prime Minister; Senator, Senate of the Italian Republic
Rockström, Johan (SWE), Director, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
Rubin, Robert E. (USA), Co-Chairman Emeritus, Council on Foreign Relations; Former Treasury Secretary
Rutte, Mark (NLD), Prime Minister
Sabia, Michael (CAN), President and CEO, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec
Sanger, David E. (USA), National Security Correspondent, The New York Times
Sarts, Janis (INT), Director, NATO StratCom Centre of Excellence
Sawers, John (GBR), Executive Chairman, Newbridge Advisory
Schadlow, Nadia (USA), Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute
Schmidt, Eric E. (USA), Technical Advisor, Alphabet Inc.
Scholten, Rudolf (AUT), President, Bruno Kreisky Forum for International Dialogue
Seres, Silvija (NOR), Independent Investor
Shafik, Minouche (GBR), Director, The London School of Economics and Political Science
Sikorski, Radoslaw (POL), MP, European Parliament
Singer, Peter Warren (USA), Strategist, New America
Sitti, Metin (TUR), Professor, Koç University; Director, Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems
Snyder, Timothy (USA), Richard C. Levin Professor of History, Yale University
Solhjell, Bård Vegar (NOR), CEO, WWF – Norway
Stoltenberg, Jens (INT), Secretary General, NATO
Suleyman, Mustafa (GBR), Co-Founder, Deepmind
Supino, Pietro (CHE), Publisher and Chairman, Tamedia Group
Teuteberg, Linda (DEU), General Secretary, Free Democratic Party
Thiam, Tidjane (CHE), CEO, Credit Suisse Group AG
Thiel, Peter (USA), President, Thiel Capital
Trzaskowski, Rafal (POL), Mayor of Warsaw
Tucker, Mark (GBR), Group Chairman, HSBC Holding plc
Tugendhat, Tom (GBR), MP, Conservative Party
Turpin, Matthew (USA), Director for China, National Security Council
Uhl, Jessica (NLD), CFO and Executive Director, Royal Dutch Shell plc
Vestergaard Knudsen, Ulrik (DNK), Deputy Secretary-General, OECD
Walker, Darren (USA), President, Ford Foundation
Wallenberg, Marcus (SWE), Chairman, Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB
Wolf, Martin H. (GBR), Chief Economics Commentator, Financial Times
Zeiler, Gerhard (AUT), Chief Revenue Officer, WarnerMedia
Zetsche, Dieter (DEU), Former Chairman, Daimler AG

*  *  *

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2I5JpXH Tyler Durden

While corporate bond yields have been plumbing ever lower lows in the yield-starved “New Normal”, prompting even the world’s largest bond fund Pimco to warn that this is the riskiest credit market ever, Japan is about to deliver the proverbial “hold my beer” moment to the entire world. 

Aiful, the consumer lender which almost went bankrupt a decade ago, is preparing to sell Japan’s first ever yen-denominated “high yield” – and in this case we use the term very, very loosely – in the public markets, showing how desperate for yield local investors are, and how much risk they are willing to take in exchange for virtually no return, as negative interest rates have now become the new normal.

What is most remarkable about the bond sale in the country where the 10Y yield has been trading mostly in negative territory for over half a decade, is that the 18 month yen junk bond is set to price on Friday with a coupon of, wait for it, 1%.

Another unique aspect of the upcoming issuance is that it is taking place in the first place. As Bloomberg notes, the junk bond offering will be historic for Japan’s bond market, where companies haven’t felt compelled to sell below investment grade notes as they’ve traditionally had close ties with banks, who tend to be more forgiving than bondholders in tough times.

While few expect the offering to trigger an avalanche of junk bond issuance in conservative Japan, recent regulatory changes have raised the possibility that the country could eventually develop such a market.

One reason is that the world’s largest state-run pension fund, the Government Pension Investment Fund, revised guidelines last year to push its return envelope, allowing it to buy yen bonds with ratings of BB or lower. As such it will likely be a beacon for Japanese debt investors, who are traditionally quite conservative, have only been slowly buying more bonds rated BBB in the past few years.

Why Aiful? According to Kinya Numata, a manager in the company’s finance department, the easing in investment criteria, together with an improvement in Aiful’s own ratings, helped pave the way for the offering, The company intends to use the proceeds from the planned bond sale for its lending business, he said.

Japan Credit Rating Agency raised Aiful’s credit rating two levels to BB with a positive outlook in November, citing expectations that the company will be able to generate stable profits in the future as interest repayment claims decline. In other words Aiful was a C credit roughly half a year ago. Even more striking is that the company – which is neither a unicorn, nor “growthy” – recorded a profit for the first time in a decade in March.

And this company, which may or may not have a sustained positive cash flow is about to add billions in new debt at the coast of 1%. If only US shale drillers could get them some of this “high yield” Japanese debt, then the entire world would be floating in oil right now.

As for Aiful’s management, the bond offering comes as a modest consolation prize for over a decade of misery. Japanese consumer lenders have been under siege since 2006, when a Supreme Court ruling ordered moneylenders to repay exorbitant interest charges on loans, and lawmakers capped how much they could charge.

And now that Japan’s lowest rated companies have discovered the holy grail to keep corporate zombies “alive” a few extra quarters, how long until all of Japan is swimming under an ocean of 1%-yielding junk bonds, extending the NIRP misery of the New Normal even longer.

One final thought: imagine what Michael Milken could have done if US junk bond yields in the 1980s were 1%…

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2Wtttrv Tyler Durden

As the left piles the pressure on Speaker Pelosi to launch impeachment proceedings against President Trump following Special Counsel Mueller’s apparent ‘greenlight’ during his brief statement this morning, a rather large question looms over an apparent disagreement between Mueller and his boss, AG Barr.

 

During his statement today, Mueller said that his non-decision decision on whether the president obstructed justice was “informed” by “a long-standing opinion by the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) at the Justice Department that a sitting president cannot be charged with a crime…That is unconstitutional. Even if the charge is kept under seal and hidden from public view, that too is prohibited.”

However, as Gregg Jarrett reports at Fox News, according to William Barr, that’s not what Mueller told the attorney general and others during a meeting on March 5, 2017. Here’s what Barr told Senators during his May 1st testimony:

“We were frankly surprised that they were not going to reach a decision on obstruction and we asked them a lot about the reasoning behind this. Mueller stated three times to us in that meeting, in response to our questioning, that he emphatically was not saying that but for the OLC opinion he would have found obstruction.”

Barr said there were others in the meeting who heard Mueller say the same thing – that the OLC opinion played no role in the special counsel’s decision-making or lack thereof. The attorney general repeated this in his news conference the day Mueller’s report was released to the public:

“We specifically asked him about the OLC opinion and whether or not he was taking a position that he would have found a crime but for the existence of the OLC opinion. And he made it very clear several times that was not his position.”

Yet, today, Mueller was telling a different tale.

So did Mueller lie (to the public today or to the AG in 2017)?

Perhaps Nadler, knowing this is hanging over Mueller’s head will slow roll his calls for a Mueller testimony now.

As we consider the he-said, he-said above of whether Mueller did base his probe of Russian collusion (and obstruction) on whether a President could be indicted or not, we note Speaker Pelosi is still tamping down the impeachment inferno, saying , “Many constituents want to impeach the president. But we want do do what is right and what gets results what gets results.”

But while many cheered today’s statement as clearing a path for Congressional Democrats to seek impeachment, one famous liberal – Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz – was infuriated by Mueller’s partisan behavior today. In a furious op-ed at The Hill, Dershowitz slammed Mueller:

“Until today, I have defended Mueller against the accusations that he is a partisan. I did not believe that he personally favored either the Democrats or the Republicans, or had a point of view on whether President Trump should be impeached. But I have now changed my mind. By putting his thumb, indeed his elbow, on the scale of justice in favor of impeachment based on obstruction of justice, Mueller has revealed his partisan bias. He also has distorted the critical role of a prosecutor in our justice system.”

Adding that what Mueller said today “is worse than the statement made by then FBI Director James Comey regarding Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign,” regarding the recklessness with which she handled classified material, concluding defiantly:

“No prosecutor should ever say or do anything for the purpose of helping one party or the other. I cannot imagine a plausible reason why Mueller went beyond his report and gratuitously suggested that President Trump might be guilty, except to help Democrats in Congress and to encourage impeachment talk and action. Shame on Mueller for abusing his position of trust and for allowing himself to be used for such partisan advantage.”

A good question that many others, even left-leaning individuals, are asking tonight. We give the last words to Fox’s Greeg Jarrett as they seemed to sum things up well: “He refused to make a decision to charge the president in a court of law but was more than willing to indict him in the court of public opinion…His report was a non-indictment indictment. It was calumny masquerading as a report. “

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2I5qzQj Tyler Durden

An inflammatory video posted on a heavily regulated Chese media platform marks yet another escalation of words between Beijing and Washington, according to the Free Beacon.

“China must be prepared to fight a protracted war,” says a presenter on a video posted to Watermelon Video – a media sharing platform that is under strict control of Beijing’s Sate Administration of Radio and Television, “the propaganda control office that regulates all online and broadcast content,” according to the Beacon. 

“Trump’s ‘outrageous and selfish’ strategy might work for smaller countries, but it will never work for China,” the video continues. “To quote a well-written article in the Global Times: If the Americans want to fight, we will fight them until the end! And we will fight until the Pacific Ocean splits into two!“

During the voiceover, images of cargo ships, trucks and shipping containers in China, along with high-technology facilities in China, is shown. An Apple store and a Boeing jetliner also appears in the video and American fast-food companies in China. Criticism of the United States is illustrated with images of the U.S. Capitol.

…

Broadcasts or online reports that violate official rules can result in the closing down of the outlet and the imprisonment of its editors or reporters.

The inflammatory video was produced by a militant online propaganda group called Mars Phalanx, which is known for producing radical videos.

Analysts of Chinese propaganda said the posting of the video urging conflict with the United States represents a shift in official Communist Party policy in favor of more hardline anti-U.S. policies. –Free Beacon

The video report complains that Trump’s announcement of increased tariffs on Chinese goods was a sharp escalation of the trade dispute. 

“This is an undisguised threat from a modern imperialistic country,” according to the video. “Now that they can’t scare us with military forces, they resort to economic measures.“

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2HKqcMc Tyler Durden

Authored by Chris Martenson via PeakProsperity.com,

It’s time to have a serious conversation.  I know we’ve been having it, but maybe there’s another glove hidden beneath the one we’ve already taken off.

Put bluntly, there doesn’t seem to be any hope of avoiding a collapse of civilization.  The forces of the Business-As-Usual crowd are just too strong, the narrative machine too honed, the interests too entrenched to allow any sort of meaningful course correction at this time.

But is that the case?

Writing about the outcomes of the recent Australian elections which saw a pro-business, conservative government elected, Australian based reader-member ezlxq1949 said:

“They’ve stolen our future!”

That was the wail of the 11-y.o. daughter of a Greens candidate who cried herself to sleep the night after the astonishing election results came in. It couldn’t be worse; the public have sold themselves into almost complete captivity to the neoliberal élites called the Liberal Party. (Liberal = Conservative. Go figure.) It was supposed to have been a climate change election but became a jobs ‘n growth election.

Mind you, it wouldn’t have been much better if the opposition Labor Party had won; they’ve moved so far to the right that like the US we really have only one party with two heads. For instance, Labor would not commit to stopping the monster Adani coal mine.

So it’s goodbye to:

• the ABC (the excellent government broadcaster which has the gall and temerity to criticise the government of the day; the government badly wants to get even)

• renewable energy (fossil fools rule ok)

• the Great Barrier Reef (sliced and diced to let coal ships cross it)

• our river systems (suck them dry, privatise the water, send the profits to the Cayman Islands — as is already happening)

• the Great Artesian Basin (world’s largest and deepest, to be contaminated by coal mines and fracking)

• public services (cut back yet again to create a damaging government budget surplus)

• public health (to be Americanised)

• public education (to be privatised; maybe high schools this time)

• the Great Australian Bight (a pristine area which may have oil under it; damn the pollution, full greed ahead)

• southern ocean fish stocks (they’ll let the supertrawlers in now).

The environment is completely expendable. All resources are permanently abundant and all will be fed into the growth machine. Climate change is NOT HAPPENING. It’s fake, right? Bah. Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we fry.

There’s one ray of hope. Steve Keen predicts a severe recession, Depression really, within 6 months to a year from now. Our economy is indeed wobbling already. This will happen on the Liberals’ watch and they will be blamed for mismanaging the economy. This isn’t supposed to happen. Only Labor does that. Only Labor mismanages the economy. That’s what the Murdoch press drums into our heads. The Libs will panic. The Murdoch press won’t know what to say. Maybe this will shake up people’s belief and confidence in mainstream economics.

I’m not sleeping well at the moment. I wonder why.

(Source)

I feel your pain and anguish ezlxq1949!  You’d think by now people could have and would have gotten the message that Business-As-Usual (BAU) is a killing machine.

But, no, sadly they have not speaking to the power of the BAU narrative machine to spew out complete rubbish unchallenged in either deed or thought.

I wish I shared the hope that elections might do something, but I have no data to support this idea.  Whatever parties you have in your country, no matter how they differ at the margins, they are both, or all (depending on your country’s system), in agreement on the need for jobs, economic growth, and keeping things more or less headed exactly where they are now going.

For example, we might note that under Obama what few binding agreements came from Kyoto were set aside for another generation.

This piece captures that well, and speaks to the necessity of having some sort of a rebellion:

Social collapse and climate breakdown

A huge number of people – 350,000 and counting  – have downloaded Jem Bendell’s paper Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy.

Here I want to develop one thing that Bendell talks about: social collapse.

But first, for those who have not read his research paper, there are three key truths Bendell tells.

Three truths 

Firstly, climate change has been moving much faster than scientists predicted. Things are going to get very bad within the lifetime of some of us now living. We don’t know and can’t know how bad, or how quickly this will happen.

Everyone that Bendell speaks with bases their predictions on their political beliefs. That’s true of everyone I talk to too.

Bendell chooses to think that social collapse is inevitable, catastrophe probable and extinction possible. That’s my guess too.

A second truth: scientists have, for many reasons, been under constant pressure to downplay the dangers and extent of climate change, and not to scare the mob.

Non-governmental organisations have constantly colluded with governments and corporations to conceal the scale of the catastrophe, and to push solutions that will not solve it. Scientists and NGOs do this because their funders demand that.

A third truth: Bendell says it is hard, at first, to accept what is coming. I have found that too.

Climate politics

I first got involved in climate politics because I’m a freelance writer and in 2004 I decided to write a book about climate change. I thought it would be interesting and there would be a market, God forgive me.

I got involved with a climate action group – the Campaign against Climate Change – and started reading. Several months later I began having the same nightmare most nights for months. In that nightmare I was trying to tell some people something, and they were not listening.

What was happening is that I was understanding the implications of what I was reading. One reason is that I take science seriously, and I understand numbers. The other is that I already understood social collapse.

That was bad enough. For the next four years I knew what would happen if we did not act. Then at the end of the UN climate talks in 2009, on a Friday lunchtime in Copenhagen, I read the text of the agreement Barack Obama had just made the other governments agree to.

That text ended the Kyoto agreement and said that henceforward no government would have to make compulsory cuts in emissions. Every government could choose what cuts or increases they wanted. The Paris talks in 2015 extended that to 2035.

I understood what Obama had done immediately. That text ended the possibility of action for a generation. Since then, I have understood social collapse is coming.

(Source)

The Extinction Rebellion is capturing that energy of those who realize that we may well yet have to go down swinging.

The powers that be would like us to continue with the fantasy that politics could, may, might, possibly offer a sliver of a chance…if only we could elect the right sorts of people!  (Spoiler alert, those sorts of people are never placed on offer to be elected…they are comprehensively weeded out well before then, as we see with Tulsi Gabbard currently in the US for merely daring to offer an alternative to the Bomb First crowd).

In the end, it may simply be that humans cannot rise above their brain stems.  Collapse is already baked in the cake.  So then the question becomes who you wish to be in these times?  How will you act?  What sorts of decisions are you going to make?

That’s what I asked in my most recent pieces entitled From Survival to Significance and Creating a World Worth Inheriting.

The continued ““market”” jamming efforts (as well underway today, again) are just attempts to ignore the inevitable.  The continued efforts of the mainstream media to heavily promote completely irrelevant items while totally ignoring extremely important topics are best understood through the lens of evolutionary biology.

Humans, you see, are with few bright exceptions, wired wrong to manage connecting complex dots.  When given the choice between basic biology (eating, reproducing, and staying safe & warm) and engaging in a bit of temporarily difficult introspection or thought, nearly everybody defaults to basic biology.

Our leaders know that dynamic well, as do advertisers and media moguls and so they give the people what they want.  It’s dreadfully simple, easy and popular.

It takes a rare individual to buck that trend.  The young tend to be far more facile at it than the old.  That’s why rebellions usually begin with the youth.

But meanwhile, the unthinkable is forcing its way into our collective consciousness.  The ecosystems of the world that have gently held civilizations over the past 10,000 years are collapsing.

Rains no longer fall where they should, or too much where they shouldn’t.  The careful food webs developed over hundreds of millions of years are being suddenly upended.  What will it mean that phytoplankton numbers are dropping like a rock, or that insects are 80% depleted?  Nobody knows.  What happens next is completely unpredictable.  Such is the nature of complex systems.

Let me quote again from the above piece of writing, which goes on to speculate how the power structures will go about dealing with the inevitable crises.  After writing about the many tens of millions killed during various state imposed famines, wars, and pogroms he writes:

All these numbers are approximate, you understand. No one was counting properly.

Almost none of those horrors were committed by small groups of savages wandering through the ruins. They were committed by States, and by mass political movements.

Society did not disintegrate. It did not come apart. Society intensified. Power concentrated, and split, and those powers had us kill each other. It seems reasonable to assume that climate social collapse will be like that. Only with five times as many dead, if we are lucky, and twenty-five times as many, if we are not.

Remember this, because when the moment of runaway climate change comes for you, where you live, it will not come in the form of a few wandering hairy bikers. It will come with the tanks on the streets and the military or the fascists taking power.

Those generals will talk in deep green language. They will speak of degrowth, and the boundaries of planetary ecology. They will tell us we have consumed too much, and been too greedy, and now for the sake of Mother Earth, we must tighten our belts.

Then we will tighten our belts, and we will suffer, and they will build a new kind of gross green inequality. And in a world of ecological freefall, it will take cruelty on an unprecedented scale to keep their inequality in place.

These formerly “unthinkable” thoughts are now popping up all over the place in print, word and deed.  The students on strike in Europe, the Yellow Vests, and the Extinction Rebellion are all examples.

I hinted at these things in The Crash Course, and purposely did not expound upon them because I was trying to gently wake those who were close to waking already.  I did not want to scare people back to sleep by drawing the conclusions to the many possible ends.  For those with the ability to add and subtract, and to connect dot A to dot B, the implications were clear enough.

A global civilization that is expending 10 or even 20 calories of fossil fuels to grow and deliver a single food calorie, yet has no plans on the books for how it will feed everyone once that source of energy runs down, has a predicament on its hands.  The author quoted above takes the next step and connects the dots through history to conclude that we’ll probably just ignore that predicament until we can’t and then be rather unpleasant about it all with each other when the time comes.

He’s got history on his side, and the 11-year old quoted at the top has managed to rightly conclude “they’ve stolen out future!”  Indeed, they have.

Sustaining the Unsustainable

I would hazard that about 99% of everything in the mainstream media is dedicated to sustaining the unsustainable, and 100% of everything in the financial “markets” is geared towards the same.

Politicians seem to have a near complete inability to grasp these issues while in office, and a stunning ability to “get it” once they’ve left.

Would it surprise you to learn that most of the financial titans who spend their every waking hour promoting and leveraging the system for their own private gain also have but out plans and escape holes readied?

This idea of sustaining the unsustainable is really so popular that it’s never examined.

I did recently when I observed that if the US Federal Reserve gets its way, and somehow magically manages to create 3% real GDP growth for the next century, what will it have done?  Will it have saved us all and delivered to us some awesome future?

Well, if we take the US economy as being $20 trillion now, it will be $385 trillion after 100 years of 3% growth.

That would make the US economy alone nearly 5 times larger than the entire world economy right now.  Need we point out again that even 1x current world GDP is killing the planet?  Is it not self-evident that it’s not possible for the US alone to be 5x larger than the entire current world economy without destroying everything that even makes having an economy possible (or worth it) in the first place?

Or what if we magically held world population steady from here, but then delivered the equivalent of an Australian standard of loving to everybody?  Well, then we’d increase consumption by the planet’s citizens by a factor of more than 20.  Oops.  Another unworkable idea.

These are very simple thoughts to entertain but let me list for you know every single question of this sort posed by every journalist covering the Federal Reserve’s hearings and press announcement:  0

None.  Nada.  Zilch.

How is this even possible?  How can the most powerful entity in the world, charged with steering the economy to ever larger levels never, not once, be asked a question along the lines of “tell us please, if you are as successful over the next 100 years as you have been over the past 100, what sort of world do your models indicate for us?”

How is this not a legitimate question to ask?  Every one of us has an interest in the answer, including every single journalist, but the question is never asked.

Why?

Probably because the answer would be too disturbing to the average sensibility (or brain stem)

And yet, the pressure grows.  The natural world that sustains us all, the immature space fantasies of Bezos and Musk aside, is the most important thing there is.  Destroy that, and all the rest matters not one tiny bit.

Someday, I predict, your choices will narrow down to “join the young” or “become one of them.”  Rebel, or suppress the rebellion.  This side, or that.  Agent of change, or victim of circumstances.

Same as has been true every time throughout human history when the rains did not come, and resource became tight.

Once things have gone too far in one direction, then collapse is in the cards.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2QCVXd2 Tyler Durden