Understanding Peak Oil - Easy as Apple Pie!

Recently, while reading through many emails from readers on the ArkBuilders Newsgroup who are awakening others to the reality of Peak Oil, I realized that we Peak Oilers are having a lot more success this year compared to last year. The only exceptions seem to be with some of the new initiates and people who havve given up trying to awaken others out of frustration or fear of ridicule or whatever.

It is important to not give up because people networks within a sustainable system is where this crash event will eventually lead us all. I would like us Peak Oilers to continue onwards with even greater success in 2006 because an awakened people network is a powerful force. Sleep walking people are no help to anyone, especially during times of cataclysmic change. Orienting your network on today’s truth is a favor to them and everyone in their network including you.

The absurdity of all this is that nothing is more obvious than Peak Oil. Nothing is more dangerious than Peak Oil. There is a sardonic irony when such extreme apathy meets such ominous threats. The average american gets more worked up over Y2K, over their favorite sports event.

Sitting just beyond the veil of denial, we have on the one side all of this HUGE opportunity for those who prepare before the crash and we have on the other side all of this HUGE threats bearing down on those who do nothing.

So let us clear the air in here. This soon-coming crash event is clearly discernable to anyone and everyone who really wants to know the truth. Anyone who doesn't want to know the truth is condemned to live in reaction and confusion.

But if some late comers really want to get tuned into this event quickly, they should orient themselves to some of the many indicators of the coming crash zone.

1. For those with spiritual discernment - Bible Prophecy --> here
2. For those with social discernment - The Fourth Turning --> here
3. For those with economicc discernment – The Kondratieff Cycles --> here
4. For those with physical discernment – Peak Oil --> here

Luke 11:9 And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

Whether you are a scientist, economist, sociologist, historian, geologist, teacher, preacher, mechanic, domestic goddess, plumber, astronaut, professor, babysitter or whomever: the reality of the coming crash event is clear.

"But won't Alternative energy come online as soon as the economics demand an alternative?” This is the “endless transition” theory, common in our consumerist culture.

Let me answer the question about alternatives with the following question: "Is there a single large-scale alternative energy system that is not wholly dependent upon oil and natural gas in order to deliver meaningful energy to our industrial base?"

People forget (or don’t want to know) that wind and hydro and nuclear and hydrogen and solar all require oil and natural gas to mine, fabricate, assemble, deliver and service the highly capital intensive equipment necessary for all of those things to work.

And, as Matt Savinar has eloquently catalogued on his website:

According to author Paul Driessen, it would take all of California's 13,000 wind turbines to generate as much electricity as a single 555-megawatt natural gas fired power plant.

The numbers for solar are ever poorer. For instance, on 191 of his book The End of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous New World, author Paul Roberts writes: " . . . if you add up all the solar photovoltaic cells now running worldwide (2004), the combined output - around 2,000 megawatts - barely rivals the output of two coal-fired power plants."

These measurements are all over the place.

These measurements all say the same thing.

We are in big trouble by any measurement.

It is never too late to prepare, but it is getting late to prepare before the crash event.

We really have no excuse if we fail to act. Understanding Peak Oil is as easy as apple pie.

Will the So-Called "Truth Movement" Help US Avoid a New Stone Age?


Our children may inherit from us a unique future - The Stone Age on steroids.

The US is on the edge of collapse, being the most exposed to energy supply deficit. When the US collapses, global markets will shake. The rest of industrial civilization will eventually downscale, de-globalize, and become a lot less automated.

We can expect a period of calm between the US collapse and crunch time for the rest of the world due to the sudden drop in demand immediately after the US collapse. If we are smart, this period will not be wasted as we wasted our time during the previous warning given by the 1973 oil shocks.

Primary trends well underway are leading us towards a collapsed US dollar and eventually a re-monetized currency, probably just another legal tender note debased of any real value but made legal by fiat (decree).

A cascading collapse throughout local and global markets can be expected over the coming years as industries dependent on oil and natural gas (all of them), start buckling under the weight of what seems like ever spiraling costs. Actually, high costs will reflect a deficit in actual deliverable goods and labor, all made possible and transported by petroleum and petroleum-derived capital equipment.

Our sacred American dream may be one of the first victims to fall. The on-grid housing market is wholly dependent upon and totally valueless without a constant flow of energy intensive processes which will forever be increasingly costly as brown outs turn to blackouts and then finally, the grid crashes forever. Many communities and individuals will fumble with alternative energy ideas only to discover that every alternative in existence is dependent upon petroleum for the mining and manufacture and servicing of such complex capital equipment.

The real problem to face us will be when our whole system of industrial agriculture on which the whole world has been weaned and grown ceases to function without cheap and abundant oil and gas for all of the processes and inputs and maintenance required to keep food streaming towards us. Virtually every one of our ancestors before oil were directly involved with agriculture going back forever. That is a primary trend to watch and to believe and to prepare for.

Everything that we have, eat and do depends primarily upon cheap and abundant petroleum. As inputs go into deficit, outputs will follow.

Every commercial activity and almost everything we in the west do for leisure will be subject to radical change soon, as demands for cheap and abundant petroleum continue to rise even as supplies trend towards insignificance.

We will begin feeling the effects in the form of doubling and re-doubling of oil and gas prices and in the prices of everything that is made and done with oil and natural gas, which, again, is everything. Finally, we will suffer physical deficits and clumsy government intervention with ration cards, curfews and "camps".

Current trends foretell of widespread resource wars, police state autocracies and global industrial monopolies will become a central feature in the era of deficit. Eventually, these grand chessboards will also collapse as the means to operate such machinery is no longer available.

Mike Ruppert recently hit the center of the spittoon with his latest article: "FIVE RULES FOR SURVIVAL OF THE COMING COLLAPSE".

"...it is foolish to believe that any governmental preparation for Peak Oil will be publicly labeled as such. Most preparations, so as to avoid panic and/or political risk, have been carefully concealed in other documents and legislation such as the PATRIOT Act and the Homeland Security Act. In my earlier presentation and throughout the day today, it should be growing clear to you that official preparations for Peak Oil have been underway for some time. And – as I document in “Rubicon” – they include the attacks of September 11th, 2001 and all US government foreign policy initiatives since then."

Sadly, not everyone is as clued in as Mike Ruppert. And some of the deceived represent the very cutting edge of conspiratorial study today.

For example, Alex Jones says "Peak Oil is a Corrupt Globalist Scam" and "Russia is ready for unlimited future production of oil".



Alex Jones' article even goes so far as to put Peak Oil in quotes and generalize preposterous things, such as: ["Peak oil" is pure military-industrial-complex propaganda].

How and why would alternative media collude with top-level scientists and former energy insiders who have independently come together representing themselves as individuals, most having nothing to gain by “inventing” Peak Oil.

And why is it necessary to invent a natural phenomenon like depletion of a finite resource?

And why would big government supply us with an artificially bright outlook on energy, using every trick under the sun to keep the markets calm at every opportunity. If they were instigating Peak Oil against us, wouldn’t they want to give such a conjured artificial deficit some credibility?

Globalists invent Peak Oil? In reality, Peak Oil is what drives global powers into their furiously paced resource wars and power entrenchment efforts that threaten us regular folks with so much increasing tribulation today.

Yes, the global powers are deceiving us, but they are deceiving us in hopes that we DON’T believe in Peak Oil until it is too late, which it is anyway, at least for most of the world. The time to "get it" was 1973, or earlier, when we had a fighting chance at sustainability. We are overshot by over 2, maybe 3 times the natural solar carrying capacity of the earth now and even being AT carrying capacity might not be such a good idea either if we were to live in abundant bio diversity and natural surroundings. What we have failed to do voluntarily will be done to us by force, with a vengeance, whether by natural (food) or instigated (war) causes.

Alex said recently: "There is no such thing as a free lunch" when attacking the basis for this article - Wi-Fi a basic human right, says SF Mayor.

As is the case so often, he was right. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Free Wi-Fi is just another orchestrated con in a long series of events meant to move people increasinly into a tracking grid for centralized control. Likewise, abiotic oil is just an idiotic distraction to the reality of Peak Oil.

Earth to Alex - Abiotic Oil Is A Fraud!

Moon to Alex - When you use up a limited resource, you eventually find decreasing supplies and higher prices!

Pluto to Alex - Are the globalists responsible for holding us down on earth with excessive gravitational force as well?

England ran successively out of trees and then coal and now oil. Where is the confustion in that? And if a country can do it, doesn’t it make sense that a world can do it? Should each country point their fingers outward at each other country and say “There is plenty of oil over there.”?

Take for example a pizza. If you eat it, you don't have it anymore. Look at the number of species becoming extinct due to land clearing. Non-renewable resources are a fact of the universe Alex. Geez Wiz! Why is a little guy like me educating you on basic principles of life, basic laws of thermodynamics and physics. Even you said it: "no free lunch".

There will always be a barrel of oil around somewhere, but there will not always be an ever expanding level of production of that oil. Hence, there will not always be cheap and abundant oil for our ever-growing oil-dependent world.

We are dependent upon 2005 levels of production right now at peak. As we trend down the bell curve towards previous levels of production world-wide, we will experience for the first time in the history of humankind a gap between total energy demanded and total available supplies.

It had to happen sometime. A quick glance at our population growth rates since industrial agriculture makes sense of the timing.

The right side of the bell curve will be painful for us. Preparations are woefully overdue, in part because people have always been telling us not to worry about the bell curve whilst we were on the left side looking up. The “stable growth” economists have forgotten that spaceship earth is a closed system, a human petri dish. Nature has ways of correcting “stable growth” that has gone too far.

Now that we have peaked, a relatively significant number of independent and diverse people who make sense of the Peak Oil reality are beginning to affect a begrudged awakening within media and politics. Paradoxically, a leading conspiracy analyst gets it all wrong and suggests that Peak Oil is “pure military-industrial-complex propaganda”.

People who base their views on erroneous foundations might have an appealing structure, but it the house is built upon sand, what kind of a structure is it?

While awakening family members I have actually been asked if I thought that I had a difficult childhood, among many other things. Ha, difficulty hasn't even started for our generation nor any generation previous compared with what is coming.

But nobody dares to consider the possibility that we are over-extended. The foregone conclusion among so many of us is that life will go on as it has “always” gone on. I put “always” in quotes because that word in the Peak Oil context usually translates to “during my lifetime”.

Many in Alex Jones’ age group and social upbringing have “always” seen sustainable growth of people, materials, choices for food, diversity at the workplace. Anything that challenges that assumption is seen as a conspiracy to take away what “always” has been.

But we weren’t always free from the callous hands of a plow or a blacksmiths hammer. And we won’t always have a finite resource representing millions of years of stored solar energy to burn in a society that will utterly collapse without it.

Peak Oil will be the biggest tragedy in written history. And it will happen to a generation that got all worked up about YK2, which is basically a fear of being without a computer for a couple of weeks.

Peak Oil will first devastate that country that uses 25% of the world’s natural resources while having just 5% of the world’s population. And still the majority of Americans believe that such a trend can be “stable and growing”.

The US is right now in Iraq setting up permanent military bases around the largest undeveloped patch of oil in the world today, and they are expanding massive amounts of finite oil and gas to do so. All this effort expended to keep things “stable and growing” for a little while longer.

The irony doesn’t stop there. We Americans are right now today engaged in the biggest crime against humanity ever recorded. So far, we have sprayed up to 3,000 tons of radioactive “depleted uranium” particles all over Iraq. Used in weapons shells, uranium bursts into clouds of dust upon impact and ends up in the Iraqi food and water supply. Cancer, miscarriages, unexplained illnesses and deaths directly related to this ultra toxic substance are increasingly reported by Iraqis and US service people in that unwinnable and wrong-headed war. So far, NGO’s and independent journalists calculate hundreds of thousands of innocent women and children and elderly have died as “collateral damage” in Gulf War II. How many more will die is difficult to calculate. Depleted uranium has a half-life of 4.5 billion years, which is effectively “forever”.

We are in the Iron(ic) Age. And the joke is on us. We have nobody to blame if we can't see the truth and change our ways. Sadly, by every indication, most of our generation won't and wouldn't even if they knew they must.

This reminds me of a story that I read from the Mogambo Guru in his article: "Wake up or be eaten alive by inflation!"

========================

The Psychology Of Civil Self-Policing And Obedience

1. Start with a cage containing five apes. In the cage, hang a banana on a string and put stairs under it. Before long, an ape will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the Banana.

2. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the apes with cold water. After a while, another ape makes an attempt with the same result - all the apes are sprayed with cold water.

3. Turn off the cold water. If, later, another ape tries to climb the stairs, the other apes will try to prevent it even though no water sprays them.

4. Now, remove one ape from the cage and replace it with a new one. The New ape sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his horror, all of the other apes attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.

5. Next, remove another of the original five apes and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm.

6. Again, replace a third original ape with a new one. The new one makes it to the stairs and is attacked as well. Two of the four apes that beat him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs, or why they are participating in the beating of the newest ape.

7. After replacing the fourth and fifth original apes, all the apes which have been sprayed with cold water have been replaced.

Nevertheless, no ape ever again approaches the stairs. Why not? "Because that's the way it's always been done around here!" Hahahaha!

=====================

Think of these apes in this psychological experiment next time you are confronted by the mentality of: “That is how it has “ALWAYS” been done around here.”

Peak Oil is the Achilles Heel of Alex Jones. If Alex finally decides to stop talking about it, or even better - ADMIT IT, then he will likely serve the diverse, diligent and truly independent Peak Oil Truth Movement with his otherwise bottomless genius regarding the New World Order and countless related issues.

I have a piece of Alex's genius about the NWO in audio format right here>>>. The rich insight and stream of conscience within this short audio will move you.

Alex has always represented the downtrodden, the unjustly treated, the little guy. Alex, to his credit, has always stood against tyranny and oppression.

I wish that discerning simplistic truths of Peak Oil was an easy task for him because, quite frankly, too few of us in the Peak Oil movement are clued in to the reality of the New World Order (NWO) and the plethora of threats being increasingly raised up against humanity.

The trend towards martial law and the police state equally obvious and demonstrably documented as is Peak Oil. Yet few in the Peak Oil truth movement give the NWO or 911 truth movement any credibility, and vice versa. Yet the two truth movements are inexorably intertwined into a single truth movement. Few besides Mike Ruppert in the alternative media seem to grasp both concepts and bring obvious links between them out into the open with current events as eloquently as he does.

I feel bad about tearing into Alex, but what choice do we have when both logic and discernment fail our heroes? We have so few truthful and honest people in our media that we must retain and support each one - with tough love if necessary. By the way, I wholeheartedly suggest that everyone reading this subscribe to Alex's Prison Planet TV. Frankly, no other Anti-NWO resource on the net even comes close. To get a quick glance at how close we are to martial law, check out this free 2-part article from Alex Jones: "Police State America - We're So Close Now", and 2) "The Pretext Is Now Set".

You, dear reader, have an opportunity to understand what few understand - That the Police State is driven by Peak Oil and the realities of Peak Oil are driving those in power to consolidate power and implement oppression at a mind boggling pace. Industry and politics are merged on this issue. They recognize that we are moving away from promissory notes because paper burns up during inflation. We are moving towards an age of enduring deficit unlike any other. Commodities are now king, long live commodities.

I can feel this article coming to a close. I sense your thoughts, dear reader, saying "So, now then... what about the solutions? Are some solutions going to come out of this or what?"

Yes. Solutions dear reader, even inspiring ones, are here…

How about holding hard money for a secure future, even while your savings wildly appreciate in value?

How about cashing in your on-grid home prior to the worst part of the real estate crash and then using the sale proceeds for more hard money (gold and silver)?

How about growing your own food organically within a community of like minded producers. That is one job that will be in growing demand for many decades.

How about keeping your family together, rather than warehousing the young and elderly at day care and senior care? There is wisdom on both ends of our lifespan that every family needs to tap and nurture.

How about being a person with solutions to people with incredible needs in the worst times of written history? A purpose in life matters more than image, and it shows.

In all likelihood, the best part of our future will have more in common with the best parts of our past than with our current “golden age” or relative peace and prosperity. Times were tough and we needed functional extended families just to survive back then. The family unit was one of the first casualties of prosperity. When oil leaves, we are left without 150 million tons of artificially produced nitrogen on which the whole world depends for daily survival. A massive and primary trend towards deficit is benchmarked by that all important indicator of food supply. For the curious or unconvinced, Richard Heinberg lays it all out right here in one of his many masterful Peak Oil analyses: "Threats of Peak Oil to the Global Food Supply".

When everything is taken into careful account, there arises a credible argument that approximately 1/3 or 1/2 or even possibly 2/3 of all mankind will be forced to die during this century. And that isn't even the worst scenario. Some argue that such a “population correction”, if quick, would be a best-case scenario as far as the earth's solar carrying capacity is concerned. Of course, the obvious question follows: Who is considering what and what powers will they wield?

The following possible scenarios are not mutually exclusive, and may indeed be taking place simultaneously at some level already.

1) As Peak Oil reduces the artificial carrying capacity of the earth, can we suffer a population correction to meet the natural "solar" carrying capacity of the earth without greatly diminishing that same carrying capacity in the process? This is a big unknown. Reference what the Easter Islanders did to their carrying capacity as their means of sustenance disappeared forever... and remember, they didn't have access to nuclear, biological and chemical weapons!

2) As governments fall and find political convenience in blaming outside forces such as "terrorists" on the one side and "infidels" on the other, will we unleash all of our biological, chemical and nuclear weapons as Hitler would have done during his most desperate hours? This is a big unknown. But plenty of folks are referencing strong trends towards increasing instigation by our own western government, acting as terrorists to escalate and prolong a profitable war for weapons sales and further consolidation of the Police State by diverse authorities such as Anti-NWO warrior, Alex Jones here>>> and Dr. Elias Akleh, who seems to be representing a significant swath of the Muslim and Arab community here>>> and, for you mainstreamers, BBC is also here>>>.

3) Do the current globalist societies already have a plan to reduce specific groups of peoples from the earth, using for example ancient deadly diseases modified to be race-specific? We know that they have the technology to do this. This is a big unknown. For those who prefer to teach themselves rather than listen to others, here are a few Google searches for the sake of shock, enlightenment, and hopefully -well-considered immediate action:
* race specific bioweapons - the new thing
* P2OG - Terrorism from the Pentagram... er, I mean Pentagon.
* depleted uranium - The never-ending crime of crimes against humanity from Bush
* Martial Law FEMA - The future in the American gulag

I credit Alex Jones for waking me up to these and other similar issues. The above issues, and many more, are profoundly and articulately presented on Alex Jones' radio show and on his websites through videos, interviews and articles with some of the most credible and relevant voices on the planet.

Now remember, these are just keyword searches. My little commentary after each link is just that, a comment. You are free to discern whatever you want from your own diligent study on these topics. Just keep the pre-conceptions such as “forever sustainable growth” in check. Everyone can and should make up their own mind regarding issues of critical importance that seem to be bombarding us with increasing velocity with every new moon.

The speed of events are such that we need to focus on real actions. If others are to awaken, it will be through our example of preparing for the coming "Long Emergency" (James Kunstler), or "Powerdown" (Richeard Heinberg), or "relocalization" (Julian Darley, or "Undeveloping" (Nazeem Seyed-Mohamed, a favorite professor of mine at Uppsala University, where ASPO was founded by Colin Campbell and Kjell Alekett).

Silver is by far the most bullish commodity on the face of the earth today, and maybe the most bullish commodity that ever was. At under 10 dollars an ounce, it is the biggest no-brainer investments of all time. If you want to be sure, read the last 50 articles by the world's greatest Silver Guru, Ted Butler, right here>>>. After you consider his views regarding supply, demand, cost of production and other valuation measurements, then read around him to check his theories. The awakened state requires that we all form our own structures and that we build upon solid foundations of truth.

Will we enter a time of prolonged war after the next Great(er) Depression? After the resource wars finally come to an end, will we find stability after a new darker Dark Age? Will our children ultimately enter into a new Stone Age on steroids?

These are big unknowns. But one thing is sure; there will be no broad pre-dark age awakening for as long as the Peak Oil camp remains separated from the New World Order camp, and vice-versa.

I believe that Alex Jones is a great and yet unsung hero of our times, who has helped countless people awaken, including myself, to the rapidly increasing horrors perpetrated by consolidated power-hungry and sometimes ancient organizations against unsuspecting regular folks who just want peace, prosperity and happiness. The message of Alex Jones is consistently one of hope for humanity through individual empowerment.

Unlike 911, Iraq, martial law or Bohemian Grove, the Peak Oil crowd is not a contrived instigation by Globalist powers. We are diligent and independent individuals from all walks of life, many who are frustrated with big government and corporate powers for the exact opposite reason that Alex Jones claims is happening.

Alex, why don’t you come over to PeakOil.com or PeakOil.net and see what we have been discovering all this time. We need you with us!

Alex, in order to really get oriented really quick, please read and understand the basic paradigm of this whole Peak Oil thing from my e-friend Matt Savinar's high powered website, just 2-pages of condensed, ultra-credible nuggets of information and it is all hyperlinked right here: http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net

God Bless, good luck and take care,
Tate Ulsaker
Your humble student and fan
directinfo@hushmail.com

Just a few days ago, Matt Simmons used the term "collapsing civilization", and now Mike Ruppert says that "the United States is finished... with the arrival of Hurricane Rita."

FTW: "CNN is now predicting $5 per gallon gasoline..."

My Comment: I have read a couple of credible reports that the US industrial system will start breaking down at 4 USD per gallon. Makes sense. It is not just gas, but everything that depends upon gas, which is everything, going up in price forever until the system snaps.

FTW: "...I am certain that – barring divine intervention – the United States is finished; not only as a superpower, but possibly even as a single, unified nation with the arrival of Hurricane Rita."

My comment: Wow, it is not every day that a guy like Mike Ruppert goes out on a limb and gets it totally wrong. I should clearly state that I agree with him absolutely regarding the "US is finished" part. I know that the US will fall very soon but, since the storm didn't even hit yet, it seems a bit premature, but then perhaps he has already seen the cracks in the wall begin to burst.

In a related matter, I have heard from credible reports that the US is finished as a world power at 4 USD per gallon sustained and country-wide. It looks like we are near that time now. Using that famous metaphor (Arabian?)... "the stick that breaks the camel's back".

Well, nobody wants to feel condemned, so all serious and bad news should be accompanied with some positive advice, so here it goes:

Sell on-grid home, sell car if possible or at least downsize, buy all the silver you can, learn to farm organically, get your family back together, get defensive economically with minimum outflows, rent in a community of organic producers until land prices come back to the ground. Interact as a necessary component within a sustainable community in a place where you want to live. Basically we need to orient our life closer to an 1800's way of life and huge profit awaits those who shift from the promissory, debt-based, paper economy to the new asset, commodity, gold, silver, wheat, honey, corn, beans, lumber economy.

Life during a crash and post-crash doesn't have to reflect life of a crashing society. You can benefit from a crash by acting prior to the worst part of it. Promote responsible proaction. Start with youself and your family. Get oriented on the next age before it orients you away from our present collapsing age because Rita or no Rita, the US is finished and so is our way of life.

As Bush said, taking him out of context, "our way of life is non-negotiable". Yes it is. We can't negotiate our way to stay in it but we can benefit greatly by proactively positioning ourselves as far away from it as we can prior to the crash.

I just don’t understand why so many people refuse to talk about it.

Do you know that when the Tsunami hit in Sri Lanka, there was a guy riding his bicycle along the beach saying to the people, “Big wave, run! Big wave is coming, get out of here!”


The indicators were all there for locals. The tide was acting funny for hours beforehand and then there was the fact that a wall of water was clearly visible 10-minutes out if not more.

I feel like that guy on his bicycle sometimes and I see that most people are putting on their suntan lotion and telling me to shut up. We have become such a haughty and egotistical and selfishly oriented culture in the west.

Interestingly, those who grow up in a collapse are wise, frugal, considerate and thoughtful by comparison.

These are just facts of human nature. So, perhaps it is time for us to be corrected as a people, along with this correction on our way of life. I just don’t see why more of us can’t get oriented in the right direction before being corrected by the cascading collapse of industry, economy, politics, society and everything else coming our way – namely population correction, which ought to scare the hell out of we who see the current trend towards escalating resource wars.

Matt Simmons used the term "collapsed civilization".

Dependence on industrial civilization, and by extension - industrial agriculture, and by extension - petroleum, will lead us to a definite "die-back" scenario. That is just the logical conclusion of a wild pendulum swing which saw populations explode as petroleum consumption rates exploded, and were used to maximize the wealth of a few and maximize growth for growth's sake. It was our religion and our god is an idol and we worship ourselves to our detriment.

When a guy like Matt Simmons, CEO of multi-billion dollar energy finance group Simmons International, warns of collapsing civilization, we might want to pay attention because he has a lot more to lose than most of us do.

The below article is a clash of very different ideologies. We have the analysts, who look at facts and then we have the manipulator employed by the US government and is probably, (I assume without any facts to support me), a member of a globalist secret society bent upon world-domination of the cloth that authored the infamous PNAC document.

There are 3 players:

1. Dr Edward N Luttwak is a military and national security expert and CSIS claims to provide world leaders with strategic insights on — and policy solutions to — current and emerging global issues.

2. Professor Kjell Aleklet is a Professor at Uppsala University in Sweden and President of ASPO, Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas, founded by Colin Campbel, Geologist from Ireland.

3. Matt Simmons is former Energy Advisor to Bush II and CEO of Simmons International, a multi-billion dollar energy investment company.

Two of the above players sit on the same side of the table. One sits on the wrong side.

Dr. Edward is sitting on the side of “forever growth”. His opinion is prevalent, at least publicly, in today’s Bush Administration and in the world.

Which side is right? Is the worldview right or is there a clearer and even opposite and even obvious reality that most fail to see?

Let's try to decide which camp has it right.

=============================

... Quote:

Dr Edward N Luttwak (EL) - The third reason is economic. The Saudis remember when oil sold for $12 a barrel or less. They fear that if they add capacity faster than their present very slow rate, the price will collapse again. So they will only invest in 2-3 million barrels per day of new capacity over the next five years - and that’s nothing like as much as the US hopes for. But even if the Saudis won’t play ball, the good news is that the price of oil is more likely to decline than to increase over the next five years.

Professor Kjell Aleklet (KA): This is an interesting statement. Even if nothing is done that is needed it doesn’t matter, as the price will decline anyhow. A lot of people seriously question this now, including NYMEX traders.

EL - It is easy to assume that today’s high oil price is caused by current market factors: a lack of big new oil discoveries and the loss of Iraqi output, combined with increased demand from medium-growth America and high-growth China and India. But in reality today's $61 oil price is chiefly a reaction to the low oil prices of the past 20 years.

KA: It looks as the price today is OK as it has been too low before. Fantastic statement.

EL - Cheap oil reduced investment in new, higher-cost production capacity which would have exploited deeper offshore oil, heavy oil and tar sands. It reduced investment in long-range pipelines and shipping to exploit remote natural gas finds. It reduced investment in other energy sources such as nuclear and coal, and in energy conservation. At the same time, it increased energy consumption - thanks to America's ubiquitous SUVs, faster ships and larger commercial aircraft fleets. High oil prices should reverse all these trends. This will happen quite quickly in greater use of coal, more gas transportation capacity and more oil production from high-cost sources.

EL - Some changes - including improved energy conservation - will come slowly. Others, especially the increase in nuclear capacity, will come very slowly indeed.

EL - Nevertheless, logic and experience tell us that - in spite of added demand, uncertain reserves and Saudi unwillingness to help - today's $61 oil will itself be the chief cause of a fall in the oil price to come. Expect to see it return to $40, then $30 - and maybe even less.

KA: At the end of the article we get the reason why Dr Luttwak has written this article, he likes to say “Don’t worry, be happy”. He has not convinced me at all. Now it is up to you to make up your own mind, but before you do that you should take the time to read what Matt Simmons has to say here about the article.

KA: On February 24, 2004 — Matthew Simmons, president of Simmons and Company International, and two Saudi Aramco executives, Mahmoud Abdul-Baqi, vice president, exploration, and Nansen Saleri, manager, reservoir management, analyzed the future of Saudi oil production at CSIS.

KA: As Matt Simmons was invited by CSIS, the organization to which Dr Luttwak belongs, to discuss oil production in Saudi Arabia and also recently published a book about the “Twilight in the desert: the coming Saudi oil shock and the world economy”, I asked Mr Simmons if he could read the article and make some comments. This is his replyt:

Matt Simmons (MS): The article is a well written piece that is supported by zero data as the author actually sort of admits. Like many others who love to write and opine on energy issues, he makes clear that Saudi oil reserves are essentially boundless and the only difficulty we will have is their leaders having the will and making the right investment decision to provide access to this oil. But even with his doubts about them ever adding so much oil, the writer can still not conceive that oil prices could ever stay at such ridiculously high prices of over $60 a barrel. Why he thinks $40 is a logical price is also not supported by any factual analysis. All he has in strongly opinionated hunches.

MS - I am sticking to what a modest stack of 235 SPE papers laid out. The age of the Saudi Royal Family is far less important than the age of the five key producing fields. This aging issue will not change, regardless of how high oil prices go. I also think that $65 oil per barrel is extremely cheap with converted to terms humans understand. $.10 a cup for a non-renewable extremely valuable, very capital intensive raw material strikes me as unsustainably low.

MS - Why so many "experts" assumed Middle East oil was so vast and so cheap is a riddle historians writing about the transition into the 21st Century will puzzle for decades. Why we also thought oil should sell for $.02 to $.04 a cup is an even great mystery. Was transparency so bad and knowledge of energy so poor in 2005 that society chopped down the last tree without realizing the tree was the last one around? Is this why society as it existed in the first few years of the 2ist century suddenly collapsed?

MS - The sooner these vague but well written stories cease and people awake to the crisis that is at our door, the faster we put a fire wall between us and what "us" can easily become: a collapsed civilization.


The whole article is here - http://www.peakoil.net/Luttwak.html
=========================

The term “collapsed civilization” coming from a guy like Matt Simmons, ought to wake us up to that very real possibility.

Indeed, if no real substitute for oil and gas is found, then it will be our eventuality. And I highly doubt that a substitute will be found all of a sudden now, as we are clearly on about the peak and trending downwards.

Our wake-up calls keep getting louder, yet marginally few additional people are ready to accept the gravity of threats that exist on the far side of Peak Oil’s slipery slope.

What will it take for mainstream press and politics to address this issue?

Or do they specifically avoid this issue?

Or do a few members of an elite cabal deliberately obfuscate this issue with terrorism in order to consolidate power into a police state prior to coming meltdown of society and industry?

That is a fantastic conspiracy theory, and supported by a load of coincidences too.

Mark Robinowitz seems to have gotten himself lined up along that theory pretty well below...



I am compelled to include a few recommendations from diligent and credible authors regarding the site http://www.oilempire.us

While I am not affiliated with the below site in any way, I am always amazed at the number of people that try to discredit an incredible theory just because it seems too incredible to believe.

I urge you, dear reader, to check out this site. Mike Ruppert seems to think the same thing. His recommendation is below the graphic.

Better yet, spend some time in the Oilempire site and see if a light bulb or two isn't revealed for you as well.

"Compelling work by 9/11 investigator Mark Robinowitz adding more knowledge to how the pieces fit together."
-- recommended link "for reason and reliable information" at Michael Ruppert's From the Wilderness publications

"I want to thank a dedicated and meticulous 9/11 researcher named Mark Robinowitz for giving me an analogy about bank robbers"
-- Michael Ruppert,"Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil," p. 590, mention of the "9/11 parable" article, a metaphor for understanding 9/11

"Oil Empire is among the best current political websites. 9/11 has been examined by hundreds of writers, some of them quite excellent and others more limited -- but there are still other 9/11 sites whose illogic and rhetorical chicanery suggests disinformation. Oil Empire is by far the best resource for discriminating among the various 9/11 sites, seeking the genuine and avoiding the bogus. The mechanics of 9/11 are important. But the crime remains an isolated incident unless it's framed in a larger narrative of world affairs. This is the great strength of Mark Robinowitz's website."
-- Jamey Hecht, Assistant Managing Editor, From the Wilderness

"The information and analysis on oilempire.us is excellent. As an activist for 9/11 Truth, I've reviewed many websites, and find oilempire.us clear, succinct, well researched, and internally consistent."
-- Emanuel Sferios, Webmaster, 9/11 Visibility Project, http://www.septembereleventh.org

Every Competent Analyst Predicts a Mighty Fall of the USA

"It's over. For the U.S. to win the Iraq war requires three things: defeating the Iraqi resistance; establishing a stable government in Iraq that is friendly to the U.S.; maintaining the support of the American people while the first two are being done. None of these three seem any longer possible. First, the U.S. military itself no longer believes it can defeat the resistance. Secondly, the likelihood that the Iraqi politicians can agree on a constitution is almost nil, and therefore the likelihood of a minimally stable central government is almost nil. Thirdly, the U.S. public is turning against the war because it sees no 'light at the end of the tunnel.'"

Taken from:
Commentary No. 167, August 15, 2005
"The U.S. Has Lost the Iraq War"
by Immanuel Wallerstein
http://fbc.binghamton.edu/commentr.htm

******************

Yes, it is over. Good analysis from Immanuel Wallerstein and he is basically saying what I was saying 2-years ago. Check this out....

Prepare for strife
- by Tate Ulsaker, March 27, 2003

To the Editor,

"...Daniel 7:4 - "The first [was] like a lion, and had eagle's wings: I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man, and a man's heart was given to it." A translation of this "first beast" setting off a final war might be: Lion = UK, Eagle = US, wings may indicate air superiority, man's heart may indicate a new humility which is sure to follow a great Roman fall. Are we seeing the beginnings of this prophesy take place?

I would suggest, whether secular or spiritual, that we not exhort each other to seek peace but rather to prepare for the coming strife. We can see the weather tomorrow. Can't we also see the times in which we live?"

http://www.hpr1.com/archives/mar2703/dearjohn.htm

******************

Truth can come from any valid study, be it spiritual, economic, political and other sciences. To find the truth, all you need is desire. Knock and understanding will open to you.

My article was submitted in March 2003, during the euphoria of the US "victorious" invasion when we were going to stomp on Saddam and bring democracy to Iraq. Few asked why the United States supported the rise of Saddam when he was a counterweight to our other failed coup in Iran. The darkness of the American mind is impennatrable when it comse to wrongful acts of their own government but truth is a bitter pill for apologists.

Let's go back to that date in March. While all of that euphoria was capturing the hearts and minds of America, why was I one of the few Americans saying that the US would lose the war and fail as a nation?

Back then, with all of that "shock and awe" bombing on TV, what American would have predicted failure. Certainly not one who was watching TV. And after all of those bombs hit their "hardened military targets", then we had the "speed kills" dash from the coastal launching bases through peasant towns towards Baghdad, which fell without much resistance.

At that time, more than half of all Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, according to an Associated Press poll conducted shortly after the invasion.

Don't forget all of the euphoria out there in zombie-land at that time. And let's be clear, "zombie-land" describes accurately that special relationship that the American public has with their mass-media outlets.

Zombies refused to think then and they refuse to think now.

OK, so we see what 2 years can do to the "world's only superpower" when it fights an unjust war with a losing strategy against a popular rebellion. And now, what are the key indicators showing what will happen to America in the soon future?

A Few Critical Economic Indicators:
1) Historic high debt-to-gdp ratio (higher than 1929)
2) Historic high debt-to-equity ratio (housing bubble way off the charts)
3) Stocks still not corrected from high pe ratios (stock bubble)
4) Loss of manufacturing jobs to China, India (trade deficit can only get worse or collapse)
5) Dollar losing global reserve status and value and we are extending our debts by printing rather than contracting government budgets (collapse of the dollar is imminent)


Have a look at the above graph. I couldn't find one with the 2004 year end update so I made it myself using government numbers.

If that graph doesn't ring alarm bells, then nothing I or anybody says can make any difference. Just keep taking debt America. Keep allowing government to get bigger. Keep relying upon government to "do something" for you. Maybe it will work next time.

Although, let's consider the track record of the US government first, shall we? I mean, what happened when they declared a war on poverty? Poverty skyrocketed. War on drugs? Drug use skyrocketed. War on terror? Ha!

And why is that?

Because the job of government, as a power structure, is to expand by whatever means possible. The easiest way in an environment like America, is to raise taxes and fees and public debts incramentally forever, and claim that expanding government is a "service" to society. And all of those extra bureaucrats didn't help distribute wealth, they helped consume it. And all of those extra government services designed to help end poverty actually helped expand dependency and demand for big government. Meanwhile, the private sector produces continually less of the wealth for a nation because the cost of doing business increases. Big governemnt to end poverty? More likely create poverty.

And what about drug use? The US government is so big and balkanized that we have plenty of components of government actually bringing in the drugs, using the DEA and CIA and big city police departments. Don't believe me? Good, you shouldn't. Check it out for yourselves. Ask Mike Ruppert, former LAPD and dozens of other credible whistleblowers. The little guys on the front line have a better chance of telling the truth than a carefully crafted administration policy report, right? Good, we are on the same page with that one.

And terror? Well, do what Alex Jones said on that one. type "P2OG" into a search engine.

Did you see that? Amazing isn't it? So we have proof that the Pentagon is getting at least as dirty as these illusive terrorist masterminds they claim to be trying to capture. This may lead some of us to question what happens when both sides of a conflict are engaging in an escillating terror war? Could we be seeing more terror in the future as a result? And when one side has a long history of being paid CIA and MI6 assets (Al-Quaida), specifically for purposes of carrying out terror acts, then one has to wonder who benefits from all this terror as government gets bigger and more intrusive. Right? Still with me? It is all about "Cui bono?" Who benefits?

A Few Spiritual Indicators:
1) At the peak empire, the general public knows instinctively that empire is collapsing, so they enter into a state of denial manifest though haughty, arrogant behavior. This is a big mistake. In fact, the opposite is required. Humility will save the soul of America while empire collapses.
2) RFID microchip implants are a beast-ly way to control a population, especially when it is mixed with the national ID card.
3) Global government is becoming a reality, from NAFTA to CAFTA to the world's more powerful trading zones. A strict policy to keep open borders will continue to support a stong trend away from nation-power, towards global power. Is a second Babylon rising from the junk heap of failed nations?
4) Israel is the baseline focus of conflict in the world. Now that is not a surprise to you and I, but it is abolutely amazing that all this was predicted with uncanny accuracy in a 2000 year-old book. Long before "Israel" the state was reborn and before oil was discovered and before Islam was a religion, we had a book that basically predicted the Middle East predicament. Israel is indeed that "immovable rock" the causes nations to stumble, as indicated in Zechariah 12:1-5. You gotta admit, some of these Bible prophesies are worth a second look just because so many of them seem to be unfolding these days.

Conclusion: Although spiritual matters are more difficult to grapple with and prove, it is at least possible to see that we are entering into a time of incredible significance. We may indeed be experiencing the initial birth pangs which will lead us consistently towards the biggest threat against mankind in written history.

What would cause such a threat in the physical world?

Physical Indicators:
1) Peak Oil is my number one mega-big benchmark because it is provable using charts and graphs and worldly understanding. If you understand Peak Oil and follow the thread back through to...
2) the coming collapse of industrial agriculture and, therefore to...
3) the coming deficit of food supply, and therefore to...
4) the coming population correction.

Until this day, no one can tell us how we are going to make 150 million tons of petro-fertilizers on which the world's 6.5 billion have come to depend. If you are like me, then you might need a little help to understand what 150 million tons of fertilizer actually means. Well, Richard Heinberg is ready to help us understand. He tells us that 150 million tons is "...equaling the total amount of available nitrogen introduced annually by all natural sources combined." - from a paper presented at the FEASTA Conference, "What Will We Eat as the Oil Runs Out?", June 23-25, 2005, Dublin Ireland

When that artificially developed fertilizer becomes as scarce as the petroleum from which it is made, we will have a big problem on our hands. And many claim that our leaders know all about this. Hence the resource wars and the police state and the consolidation of power.

Do I hear someone beginning to understand what kind of a mess we are in today?

You see, substitutes don't exist comparable to oil and natural gas. Yet people are going about their day as if "they will think of something". Even now, at the peak of population and oil and economy, people hope that something else will replace oil and that somebody else will think of something.

These are indeed times of "great deception", a fact that leads us right back into spiritual analysis. And therefore another prediction: America will awaken ONLY AFTER the crash hits us. This is obvious.

What makes me so sure?

People in gereral and especially Americans today are susceptible to primitive propaganda tools. Watch this and be amazed...

Question: Remember that April 2003 event when they took down the Saddam statue?

Here is what they showed on the news:

Looks like a big crowd of Anti-Saddam protesters doesn't it? And you recall now as you look at this picture what they were saying on the news right? There were all of these "spontaneous" Iraqi demonstrations and celebrations. And of course the western mass-media would have no reason to project propaganda tactics upon us right?

Well, watch this....

And now let's have a closer look...

Click on the picture for a bigger view

Would CNN and ABC and CBS and MSNBC and the Washington Post and the New York Times and all of the Tribunes and Posts out there intentionally lead the American public into deception?

So, how did all of this deception overtake Americans about the Iraq war?

Well, there was plenty of accurate reporting, but how come the mainstream news outlets couldn't get it right with all of their resources? Certainly someone in the mainstream press would have noticed that the angle on the camera lens focused on 20 people around the statue of Saddam is misleading, since there were only 20 people there. And certainly someone could have told the talking heads not to present all of this like a popular revolt out in the open square against Saddam.

The mainstream press is deliberately misleading the American public. I have no proof as to the reasons, but the proof of the fact is irrefutable.

So where should we go for our news?

Check out some independent sources for the real facts of what happened to the Saddam Statue in April 2003...

"A tale of two photos" - Information Clearing House
"Army Stage-Managed Fall of Hussein Statue" - Propaganda Matrix
"Don't be fooled by the spin on Iraq" - Common Sense Almanac
"What Is Happening In America?" - Rense
"Bare Square?" - Counterpunch
"The decline and fall of American journalism" - Working For Change
"Staged toppling of the Iraqi regime was propaganda stunt" - On Lisa Rein's Radar

There are thousands of independent regular people out there interviewing and reading interviews from Johnny Carpenter and Sally Smith about their on the ground experiences in Iraq.

What are they telling us?

1) The Iraq war is a fraud. There are no WMD's... well not from Iraqis. Americans, however, are spreading radiation into Iraq by the thousands of tons.
2) We are spraying thousands of tons of radioactive munitions into Iraq and it is entering into the food supply, water supply and genetic code of our servicemen and women and Iraqi children and women and neighboring countries. This is the greatest crime against humanity right here. With a half life of 4.5 billion years, the world now has inhalable dust particles from Uranium spreading around the world, thanks to G. W. Bush and this Neo-Con Administration and the desire for oil.

Want irrefutable proof? Look no further than the guy who "wrote the book on depleted uranium cleanup" for the US Pentagon, Major Doug Rokke. There are thousands of documents out there from every credible mainstream and alternative media imaginable. Just Google search: Try this one!

Conclusion: We need to stop listening to carefully scripted, big moneyed corporate media and we need to listen to regular people like yourselves. This is simple enough for a child to understand, but brainwashed minds no longer can access simple analytical skills.

Taken together, the two above points surely makes the US look bad in they eyes of the whole world, and it should.

America attacks a defenseless and now proven innocent country on the basis with "pre-emptive" occupation and what do Americans do?

Meanwhile, Iraqis have already been starved by the blockade and the innocent are the ones paying the highest price, squeezed between the US and Saddam and oil and the full range of fighters there in their territory. The bombs being dropped by America doesn't discriminate between child and "insurgents". In fact, the last place an rebel or terrorist or fighter will go is into an apartment. But the US is undermanned so what else to do when taking fire from a city block? Level it, right? Bomb them back into the stone age, right?



America, you will pay for this in a way that you never imagined. A punishment will come due for these crimes. It is way past time to get yourselves oriented on truthful knowledge and to adjust your lives accordingly. You are already at terminal velocity towards a crash zone. At least have the humility to see you are wrong and change your ways. The crash is unavoidable at this point, and the empire status is about to become history. Your survival as a people and a culture hangs in the balance and your mindless distractions are tipping you towards the "Sack of Rome" scenario.

So Wake Up America! Give the world a break from your tyranny complex. Why don't you just focus on giving your kids a descent world to live in?

***

"But today, the cameras are gone, and flags are folded up -- and Kulick's family will continue to live with the loss... None worse than his 9-year-old daughter. "Amanda is in denial," Jim Kulick said. "She said her father promised her he would come back from the war, and she still believes that."

There are so many devestating untold stories out there on this Iraq fraud war.

Still we have half of the country believing that we are fighting terrorists.

The average american will listen to the news channel and get all pumped up, but will they listen to people on the front lines? No. Well, plenty of brave military Master Sergeants and Generals and lower are saying, LOTS ARE SAYING... many, many, many people on the ground are saying that they are not fighting al-CIA-duh! They say that they are fighting local poor people who join the rebellion.

And think about it for a minute America! Put down your remote control and stop eating potato chips here for a second.

If real Iraqi terrorists were bombing your city and if they killed half of your family with bombs, including MOSTLY, yes I know the facts, MOSTLY women and children (because that is what bombs hit... fighters are not in their apartment buildings, you see). So when they kill MOSLY women and children and your family is destroyed, what do you do?

I will tell you what you will do. You will put down your remote control and your potato chips and you will pick up a gun. You will make cheap exploding devices. You will join a popular resistance. And when you start fighting, you will use whatever resources become available from your popular resistance.

Army and Marines on the ground are saying that they are fighting a popular Iraqi uprising.

They say that they are killing too many women and children. Yes, they don't like it but that is what military does in crowded cities. Bombs blow up little kids. That is what they were made to do. Fighters don't stay at home, they strike and get out of town. Under-manned armies drop bombs. You see, this whole thing is doomed.

I have another good post following this one which proves that the Iraq war is lost. I mean proves to a thousand percent.

However, why don't you send this post out to every potato-chip couch potato that you know in the land of the free and home of the brave and ask them a question:

Who are you going to believe - Fox news or "Johnny K." below?

=============

The legacy of "Johnny K": Fallen Philly soldier revealed the ugly truth about IraqAttytood

Full story here:
www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/002316.html
August 20, 2005

Last week, we wrote about the unspeakably sad story of Gennaro Pellegrini Jr. -- Philly cop, welterweight boxer, and National Guardsman. The 31-year-old's life was hitting full stride when he received a fateful phone call ordering him to serve in Iraq, just two weeks before his hitch was supposed to end. Pellegrini was quite unhappy, but he went -- and he paid with his life, along with three of his Pennsylvania National Guard colleagues who were killed in a ruthless ambush near the Iraqi town of Beiji.

Also slain in that Aug. 9 attack was one of Pellegrini's brothers-in-arms, a Whitpain Township firefighter named John Kulick. Kulick -- a 35-year-old from the suburbs, an avid fisherman who loved too much mustard on bologna sandwiches and was called "Johnny K" -- had become had become fast friends with Pellegrini, the tough, tatooed city cop from a rowhouse block of Port Richmond. But the road that these two salt-of-the-earth guys had taken to Beiji could not have been more different.

As a professional firefighter, Kulick was devastated by the loss of so many colleagues at the World Trade Center in the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. That sense of duty is what prompted him to joined the Pennsylvania National Guard, even though he was already on the far side of 30 and the devoted and involved divorced dad to his daughter, Amanda, who is in grade school. And when his Guard unit from Northeast Philly was called up last December, he told his worried family that he wanted to go, to fight terrorists "over there."

In fact, Kulick's brother Jim -- in a radio interview this morning -- said they watched the movie "Blackhawk Down" just days before his departure for Iraq. After the end of the movie (which depicts the 1993 Somali insurgent attack that killed 18 U.S. troops), John Kulick declared, echoing his commander-in-chief and without irony, "Bring 'em on."

We heard Jim Kulick this morning on the Michael Smerconish show on WPHT-1210. The reason Smerconish invited him on was to talk about the emails that John Kulick had sent home from northern Iraq in the months before he was killed. Over the eight months that the Philly-area firefighter served in Iraq, his opinion of the mission changed radically.

As described by his brother, John Kulick's emails tell the story of a patriotic American who was betrayed -- by his own government. Because it was John Kulick's government that -- after spending more than $100 billion on Iraq -- sent him into hostile territory without the proper armor. And it was John Kulick's government that sent him into a war that lacked a strategy, and that, as a result, not only eliminated the enemy but was waged in a way that created new enemies every day.

Jim Kulick said his brother's emails showed a man who was becoming more and more worried. John Kulick said the insurgents were using increasingly sophisticated IEDs -- improvised explosive devices -- and were firing rocket-propelled grenades, or RPGs, into their camp. "They had to hide under their cots -- there was nothing they could do," Kulick's brother said. "The Humvees weren't armored, or lightly armored -- they were basically useless. At first they were sending them out in pickup trucks. They weren't really equipped to fight this war."

(Note from your frienly blogger... Does the gentle reader know about "psychological armor"? Oh yes, the US government made Humvees to LOOK and FEEL armored but they DID NOT want armor on them. Off to war we go in psychological armor. Why? Well, that is for us to figure out isn't it? Click Google and try these keywords: "psychological armor" and "Humvee". You will find this article and many others: http://www.rense.com/general66/pssyh.htm)

Kulick told his family that troops were taking police vests that had been donated to them and putting them on the floor of the Humvees instead of wearing them. Jim Kulick noted that at the same time his brother was reporting this, two of his friends who are area police officers serving in Iraq told him they had needed to bring their own sidearms. In his emails, John Kulick had begun to describe the war as "a quagmire."

As disturbing as those reports were, what Kulick had to say about the conduct of the war was even more troubling. He told his family that the Iraqi police "were corrupt and inept and there was no way they could ever train them to the degree where they could keep order." And when his unit went out after insurgents, far too many innocent iraqis were killed in the crossfire. And, Kulick reported home, "the more hate that created." When the Americans left an area, the insurgents came back the next day.

Eventually, when Kulick saw Iraqi citizens kneeling in the street in prayer, his interpreter would tell him they were praying for the Americans to leave. "They would rather live with evil they knew rather than live with us," Kulick said in his emails. "We were killing them as much as the insurgents were."


Kulick and his fellow Guardsmen were riding in a Humvee, reportedly armored, on night patrol on Aug. 9 when a large bomb -- containing as much as 25 to 30 pounds of explosives -- that was hidden in a drainage culvert under the roadway exploded and killed them. Just hours earlier, Kulick had called his father to tell him where his will was located and that he would want a full military funeral.

It's too early to say whether the tumultuous events of the last few weeks -- the deaths of so many Guardsmen from Pennsylvania and Ohio, the groundswell of support for grieving anti-war mom Cindy Sheehan -- will be remember as a turning point. Jim Kulick said this morning that the U.S. needs to set a timetable for getting out, and host Smerconish -- a political conservative who supported the war from early on -- was surprisingly sympathetic. Said Smerconish: "We're adrift."

Yesterday, John Kulick received the type of funeral he had asked for. His flag-draped funeral procession along York Road in Montgomery County drew firefighters from 61 local departments, and featured all the pomp and circumstance that is appropriate for a true hero like John Kulick.

But today, the cameras are gone, and flags are folded up -- and Kulick's family will continue to live with the loss. Jim Kulick said his family is "devastated" by what happened in Iraq.

None worse than his 9-year-old daughter. "Amanda is in denial," Jim Kulick said. "She said her father promised her he would come back from the war, and she still believes that."

Amanda Kulick doesn't understand what happened to her father.

Neither do we.

Original article is here:
www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/002316.html
===========
Dear American: Is Kulick lying when he says: "We were killing them as much as the insurgents were."?

No.

And wouldn't that create a bit of a rebellion if a muslim country were to invade the USA killing MOSTLY women and children?

Sure.

We would rebel. And the Iraqis are rebelling as people do under those conditions. And they are targeting the country that looks different, has a diffent God, sets up military bases nearby oil rigs and ports, and steals UNMETERED oil. Yes, we don't even meter the oil we steal. By the way, no-bid contracts for stealing Iraqi oil are going to Dick Cheney's company Haliburton right now today.

This is too rich and dark to simply label "irony".

It is like trying to prove that the sun has risen by pointing at the sun and saying "look". I just can't believe the ignorance out there.

Please send this message out to your Made in China American flag waving, war supporting, non-thinking couch potato US citizens and tell them that the guy who wrote this voted for Bush II in his first election, he calls himself a former Republican with even some sympathy for the Christian Right. But now he is standing up against the tyranny of his President in the same way that we all wished that the Democrats would have stood up against Bill Clinton.

Should "We the people" remain divided when it only serves this false, two-party theater rulership over us? Let's join and listen to the little independent. We can turn off our news channels and wise up a bit to save our lives, can't we?

The Russian Peak Oil Scenario, Part 1

The Legendary Dave Howell interviews Tate Ulsaker


Recently, I was honored to meet another giant of the Peak Oil truth movement right here in Moscow.

David Howell, co-authored the classic “Energy for Survival: The Alternative to Extinction” way back in 1974, during the early days of our now rapidly escalating energy crisis.

A quick Google search will pull up thousands of references to David Howell’s book, still being quoted and referenced by organizations like: http://www.urbanecology.org.au/ and http://www.co2andclimate.org/.

Local bookstores might not stock it as often as they used to but you can buy it at Amazon or Barnes and Noble. My copy should be coming to me by mail in a few days.

I have not yet read the book, but I did meet with Dave Howell. It seems to me that Dave’s views basically parallel the current leaders like Kunstler, Campbell, Heinberg and others. Basically, we all realize that we are face-to-face with a multi-headed dragon that humankind has never dealt with before.

Since the publication of Dave’s book 30+ years ago, he has watched with concern as generations of presidents and peoples in the US and the world have chosen lifestyles and policies, totally ignoring the message within his book which is prominently displayed on the front cover with that ominous title: “Energy for Survival: The Alternative to Extinction”. The message can’t get any more succinct and it can’t be any more right. Paradoxically, it can’t get any more ignored. To our peril, we have lost our chance to avoid a face-to-face confrontation with the multi-headed dragon called Peak Oil. But we did not lose our chance to survive.

Survival was precisely the topic of interest discussed between Dave and me. The following discussion takes the form of an interview. Dave suggested interviewing me on the subject of avoiding the coming collapse and we focused upon Russia as a post collapse survivor nation.

Dave and I were introduced with help from a moderator of EnergyResources (ER), a popular newsgroup at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/energyresources/, where we both have contributed opinions.

The following 17 questions were provided to me by Dave via email. Subsequently, we met over a beer and talked for several refills worth of issues. I am humbled that he would interview me on a subject that he knows so well. The following is not an actual dialogue but a set of questions concerning Peak Oil today and how it will likely impact Russia VS the rest of the world.

Dave Howell (DH): Tate, I’m bringing up the oil-peak question and post-oil-peak possibilities with increasing frequency among my students. Most of the stuff that I read; e.g., on the Energy Resources (ER) site, is focused on the impacts on America, so I’ve got some pretty good ideas of what life is going to be like there. What I can’t give my students any guidance on is what they can expect.

You’re in the business of consulting with and giving advice to many of Russia’s largest and most influential Western businesses, and to do that you have to have your ear pretty close to the ground. I know that you are also very much up-to-speed on the issue of peak oil and on the nearing global warming crisis. And of course as a Russian ex-pat you have more than a passing interest in the art of survival here. So from your unique vantage point, your educated guesses would be very helpful in providing me – and my students – with some broad guidance about how these upcoming developments are going to uniquely affect Russia. So I’m very grateful for your taking your time to think about some of these questions.

Tate Ulsaker (TU): Questions from you Dave give me reason to reflect. You have been aware of Peak Oil for decades and you have a lot to teach others. I will try to support that effort with your students.

DH question 1: Somebody on the EnergyResources site recently speculated, “Perhaps the greatest threats to the U.S. in the coming decades are Europe and Russia.” Do you agree with this?

TU: Dave, I don’t agree at all. It seems to me that Russia is not threatened nor does Russia have any advantages in threatening the United States. Besides, no nation on earth is doing more to destroy the United States than the United States. Our currency markets have nowhere to go but Weimar, we produce almost nothing of exportable value any more, our borders are wide open even as we wage expensive resource wars with expensive resources and we have built economic bubble upon bubble. There is no way out of our mess from this point except through collapse of our currency, stocks, housing, and industry. Eventually, society and civilization as we know it will follow. This process has already begun. I believe that we have reached Peak Oil or will reach it this year. Russia and the rest of the world know what to expect from a US collapse so they will benefit by simply waiting for opportunities on the geopolitical and economic landscape as the US falls into the junk heap of post-empire status.

DH question 2: But some people believe that Russia is a threat to America still. If that were true then where exactly could that threat potentially come from? Energy? Military? Social? Competition for resources?

TU: Well, that is a good point on a few levels. Political minds in the United States these days believe that a sovereign country is “threatening” the viability of the United States whenever that country refuses to sell raw energy resources at the volumes and price levels so required for United States global hegemony. Americans are right to fear collapse, but the only real solution is to eliminate the need to steal resources from weaker countries through unfair political, economic and military pressures.

I am just now discovering that resource wars are nothing new. Resource acquisition, I am finding, has always been a central part of any war strategy, regardless of the official reason for waging war. Many times, resource acquisition is the primary purpose for waging war in the first place. The history books print the officially stated reasons that one side will declare war on the other side. Many times, this is necessary to garner public support for an unjust resource war that would otherwise fail to win moral support for the many sacrifices to be made. And who benefits?

Most Americans are only aware of the good side of US policy but they discount or fail to consider the dark side of US policy that arguably began with wiping out American Indians using small pox-laden blankets and extended from there to every corner of the globe until we find ourselves now spraying thousands of tons of radioactive depleted uranium into the Iraqi cities, food supply and water supply. The official reasons for waging war change through time but the central purpose seems to be largely about resource acquisition. Americans have stopped asking the question “who benefits?” They have stopped thinking for themselves and are therefore easily misled into wars that don’t make any sense upon even cursory analysis.

So on that level, yes, Russia can easily be painted as a threat to the American people because Russia may be in a position to deny America oil in the very near future as demand outstrips supply. America is not a good partner for Russia because America has nothing to give Russia in return for petroleum. After the dollar collapse, the US is finished except for nuclear weapons, bravado, and misguided policies.

So, back to your question about a potential threat from Russia against the US. The biggest threat coming from Russia would be if Russia would simply curtail sales to the US in preference for a more sane policy of internal economic and social development.

If president Putin were drunk enough to listen to my advice about all this, and if I was not in fear of losing my life for inadvertently insulting him, here is what I would say:

“Mr. President, do what is best for Russia because what is sane for Russia is sane for the world. Go ahead and start decreasing US access to your oil. Why sell a finite and dwindling and much demanded resource prior to the biggest bull market in the history of mankind?”

“Russia is the world’s only energy exporter with a military power of significance. The US is not your master. The US is on the verge of the post-imperialist junkyard and blind to that impending certain fate. Your country has the potential to do what the United States failed to do in 1973.

“Mr. President, we Americans have failed to develop a sustainable society and so our leaders are driven mad to secure ever-dwindling supplies just to prolong the coming collapse. Their choices are limited to resource wars today because their vision was limited to a mindless petro-growth 30-years ago. Russia can either follow the path of the United States towards guaranteed collapse or Russia can find her own path towards possible peace and prosperity.

“With Peak Oil’s evident arrival in 2005, America is poised for a mighty collapse on a level commensurate with her status as the world’s sole superpower. Until now, the world has been foolishly following in the unwise footsteps of America towards greater industrialization and increased dependency on the dwindling supplies of petroleum products. Resource wars are no solution, but they tempt leaders to engage in contests that waste the very resources being sought in the first place.

“The direction of the world is clearly undesirable, but Russia has a different possible destiny. Perhaps using the collapse of America as a tool for social change, Russia might implement programs that depopulate mega-cities, empower vast agricultural zones with a fair homesteading act and new regional powers.

“No country on earth has the combination of land, energy, educated peoples and political will to do what Russia can do right now at this critical juncture of civilization. Mr. President, you have a chance to break away from this highway to destruction and to chart your own path towards a secure future for your people.

“If successful, your legendary status would be sealed in history as a pivotal figure of hope for all mankind, of no less stature and respect than India’s Ghandi.

“With your political will, the coming crash of America will spark a move inward for Russia, rather than outward to additional resource contests involving China, India, Europe and others. Let the nations of the world continue trading the blood of their peoples for dwindling resources if that is their desire. Russia can begin building a nation that will last far beyond these temporary resource wars.

“And with each success, Mr. Putin, please don’t forget to seal your borders...”

(at this point I would raise my 100 grams of vodka up with a gesture to make a toast)

“…because a sustainable Russia with a prosperous, peaceful, self-governed, expansive, organically producing series of agricultural communities will be the desire of everyone in the world in the post-petroleum stone age.”

(Then, following the distinctive clink of our respective shot glasses, we steep our glasses upward and gulp down the fuel while exhaling through our teeth… Then I look up and to my surprise, I see that I have been given space to add one more memorable phrase. I seize the moment.)

“…and Russia will be the desired place of everyone in the post petroleum world by the same token as your would be partner, America, was the desire during the age of oil.”

(And then I woke up from that strange dream with a blazing hangover and I wondered what am I doing on the floor by the computer at 3:00 AM?)

DH question 3: What do you think is the future for ex-pat Americans here?

TU: I will answer a bit later Dave. I think my wife has some remedies for this hangover in the kitchen.

***

Question:

How do you celebrate the end of an era? The end of civilization? The end of modern comforts and 50-years of relative peace and prosperity?

Answer:

I don't know. But if you are in Russia, you can celebrate it in the traditional ways: Vodka, banya, music, friends, a free spirit, a few laughs, an empty stare and general acceptance of difficulties endured in the past and yet to come.

Today, we substitute the vodka for imported beers and everything else remains the same. With torched industrial farm products over hot coals, we drink our liquid bread and endure the non-service of a resort 2 ours by a hardwood benched train outside of Moscow. The word "comfort" is a relative term to Russians, but consuming energy is not a new experience. Russians have not managed to connect a great deal of comfort to the burning of fossil fuels, and maybe that is all the better for them. Therefore, consuming Peak Oil products is a sufficient enough way to celebrate in Russia what the death of what consumerism means elsewhere.

And what celebration in Russia would be complete without a salute to the electric Russian banya?

The Russian banya is not just a room, it is an experience. It is a system of health rejuvenation. It seems like a disaster to the untrained eye, but look carefully, the Russian banya is pure craftsmanship.

First, you heat a pile of rocks with electricity (in the city) or coal (in the country) until the rocks approximate the glow of molten lava.

When the thermometer in the room hits 100 degrees Celsius, which is the boiling temperature of water, then you dump a few buckets of cold water over the rocks and endure the searing pain of volcanic steam the fills your lungs with a bottle of menthol extract which was designed to last for a week in the public house.

To calm the menthol effect, beer adds some of that rustic smell and balances the percent of menthol in the air with a caramel flavor even as the menthol continues to hit the naked eyeball like fresh-squeezed onion juice.

By some miracle, electric currents never seem to shock the person pouring all of these liquids over the temporarily cooled rocks. We are left to conclude that Russian electricians are genius enough to idiot-proof the wiring which leads to the molten rocks, or perhaps a more likely explanation is that all Russian banyas sit on top of a lava flow and no electricity is needed.

The cooled rocks turn back to lava in about 10-seconds, igniting our lungs with more menthol. The steam brings our skin into close contact with the wet variant of the 100 degrees boiling point of water that dry heat fails to deliver.

Since this is a farewell party to Peak Oil in Russia, comfort doesn't matter, even as we burn fossil fuel to American standards. None of that matters because one shouldn't concentrate too hard on philosophy at a farewell party. Or a funeral. Or the most enduring collapse of written history.

This is a time to enjoy the moment of having our bones begin to store up heat like lava rocks and we are forced by survival to consider a fast exit from this banya within 10 seconds of reaching our own individual boiling points. And we imagine for a moment what would happen if someone locked the door from the outside.

For some unknown reason, all Russian banya doors open from the inside out, tempting the murder alibis of: "Oh, he just had too much vodka with his shashlik and fell asleep. I was watching TV at the time. It was loud."

But what is on the outside of every respectable Russian banya door?

Ice cold snow or ice if in the countryside.

But we are in a city-version. So we celebrate a relief from our heated bones by jumping into an ice pool just two steps from the banya door.

Kerrrrpluuuuush! Water everywhere.

A funny thing happens if you jump into the pool for just 5 seconds and get out: Your pores close.

Here is a great secret of the Russian banya: People who jump in for 5 seconds stay warm for the rest of the evening. People who stay longer, may wish to return to the banya and start the whole process of pain all over again. You control your evening by controlling your time in the ice pool.

So how do you celebrate the farewell of Peak Oil, 50-years of relative peace? The era of relative peace and plenty? The golden age of "civilization" (in quotes)? The beginning of a massive population correction and an unprecedented string of global resource wars?

Well, such a celebration should be taken seriously.

In Russia, I don't believe that anyone will complain if we celebrate the passing of peak oil by using energy in a way the ridicules comfort and celebrates a friendly experience. What it all means was not even a topic of conversation on that particular weekend in mid-August 2005.