The Party’s Over
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Category: Politics
Forum Name: World Politics
Forum Description: World Politics
URL: https://www.islamicity.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=2246
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Topic: The Party’s Over
Posted By: Duende
Subject: The Party’s Over
Date Posted: 11 September 2005 at 9:28am
I�ve just finished reading a book which has changed my life. It is
not the Koran nor the Bible. It is called The Party�s Over; Oil, War and
the Fate of Industrial Societies, by Richard Heinberg. While the media
groan on about the Palestinian problem, the terrible state of things
in Iraq, the lack of direction in the European Union, or the weather,
the world is running out of oil. The real threat to our way of life right
now is not whether Iran starts producing nuclear weapons, not the
threat of terrorism, but the INEVITABLE loss of energy to use as we
have been doing for the past century.
Nobody is talking about the only other thing we can all face
with absolute certainty besides our own deaths: oil will run out. The
world can not continue as it is on less oil every year. And since no
modern society is prepared for even a gradual decline in energy
supplies, the inevitable result of blackouts and too-expensive petrol/
natural gas/diesel/kerosene is anger, and resentment of complacent
politicians leading to wide spread rioting and looting.
The current US leaders have for long been concentrating their
energies on protecting their own interests. American style democracy
depends entirely on big corporations and their freedom to behave as
they wish in order to reap profits and gains. They have consistently
fought regulation as though it were a disease. Politicians have
ensured them freedom from infection because politicians generally
are bought by these interested parties. Therefore it is largely the big
corporations who control American policy.
It is obvious the present American administration will stop at
nothing in order to preserve its way of life- founded upon the readily
available reserves of fossil fuels. America has just 5% of the world�s
population but the largest collection of war making machinery, the
biggest arsenal, in the world. The United States has refused to sign
the Kyoto agreement on reduction of greenhouse gases (most of
which are produced by them) It refuses international inspections of
its weapons of mass destruction, refuses to acknowledge the
international criminal court, it has undermined the UN convention
against torture and the biological weapons convention, and generally
disregards international laws and treaties. With the price of oil in
�petrodollars� every consuming country in the world is subtly
subsidising America�s economy. It is America who has the most to
lose with the 1 to 2% yearly decline predicted in oil production. Big
corporations such as Chevron and Mobil have already begun their
timid public awareness advertisements, but nobody is paying any
attention.
The US is desperately seeking to uphold its own economy,
faltering because of the depletion in the world�s oil reserves. Control
over its own media means few of its citizens are currently aware of
the depletion in oil available, the growing cost of extracting this fuel,
and the subsequent inevitable rise in prices to consumers. Those
who don�t want to hear about this, or don�t want to think about any
life style challenge, will simply say people have been predicting this
for years. Well, its time for the predictions to come true and the
prophesies to be fulfilled. A peak in world oil production was
probably reached in 2003, which means it is downhill from here on.
Petrol and everything associated with it will simply get more and
more expensive from now on, until it simply becomes too expensive
to pump out. Which means all of manufacturing industry, all
industrialised agriculture, and all transportation will be affected.
America controls a disproportionate degree of the world�s oil
production. What it doesn�t yet control, it is actively seeking to:
overtly (Iraq under the pretext of spreading democracy and
capitalism) and covertly (e.g. mismanaged coup attempts in
Venezuela). Meanwhile it has operations underway across the Middle
East and Asia in order to destabilize local governments of strategic
worth, by promoting �anti-western� religious-based ideologies which
can be turned to their advantage.
Part of their current strategy involves demonising Islam, a
strategy they have successfully sold to Britain�s Tony Blair, and
France�s Jacques Chirac. This enables them to build a scenario where
Islam becomes the greatest enemy and threat to the petrol-based
economies of Western Europe and North America (the only spheres
which really matter,) because coincidentally, the world�s energy
reserves are found largely in Muslim countries. By painting Islam as
the great demon of modern times, they can more easily persuade
others who have been affected by so-called Islamic terrorism to unite
in their fight to gain control of whatever oil fields they do not already
directly control, by the quickest and most effective method available
to them: war. America will stop at NOTHING in order to protect its
lifestyle and values, at the cost of millions of lives both within the
United States and abroad, cashing in the lives of many �brave
Americans� using their military strategy, and the lives of insignificant
others i.e. foreigners, non-Christians, and particularly Muslims.
It is already too late to put in place adequate alternative energy
supplies. The only recourse now to maintaining the lifestyle of buy,
use and throw away is what the current U.S foreign policy is engaged
in doing. For the first time however, the veil has slipped, and the
world�s citizens have glimpsed the real reason for America�s alleged
zeal for promoting freedom and democracy, and many of us are not
willing to support nor condone it. America must increasingly be
marginalised from International trade /economic agreements and
organisations and allowed to run its own course of inevitable self-
combustion. This may appear to be an impossible task, given the
scope of �globalization�, but we must make strong efforts to
marginalise the United States of America if we are not to be dragged
down with it. I feel sorry for people like Bruce, a good Christian
American energetically defending his country�s actions abroad. It is
impossible for them to accept any of the above, it is too intellectually
challenging and I can imagine will cause something akin to apoplexy.
This predictably will be externalised as sarcasm or peculiar wit and
denial, denial, denial. Laced with as many emoticons as you like. My
posting is a small effort to get people to think about something more
important for us all than whether or not the world is a safer place
since the American invasion of Iraq.
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Replies:
Posted By: ummziba
Date Posted: 11 September 2005 at 9:47am
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Assalamu alaikum sister duende,
A good post! Unfortunately, most humans would prefer to live blissfully in their denial than to face truth head on. Scary times ahead.
Peace, ummziba.
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Sticks and stones may break my bones, but your words...they break my soul ~
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