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Page added on January 21, 2018
Anniversary of the Trump Presidency Part One: Peak Oil and the Deep State
Click to download the audio (MP3 format)
As these words go to publication, millions are expected to take to the streets in centres across the United States, Canada and around the world, all in demonstrations timed with the anniversary of President Trump’s inauguration.
The thrust of the Womens’ March on Washington and its various affiliates is getting more women involved in electoral politics and ratcheting up the voter-turn-out as the mid-term Congressional elections approach.
Healing social divides, most notably around gender, sexual orientation, race, and immigration seem to be the defining issues motivating citizens to action. Interestingly, there seems to be less attention paid to urgent human security concerns related to military interventions, surveillance culture, and economic upheaval.
By and large, elected representatives are prisoners to other forces entrenched in society. In particular, the various corporate lobbies, or ‘special interests’ arguably have much more of an influence on decision-making than the gender of the politician in question. Further, an advanced technological civilization has basic material requirements in terms of energy and resources that need to be met to secure the prosperity of society members at all levels.
Analysts like Peter Dale Scott invoke the concept of the ‘Deep State’ as a way of referring to a permanent governing infrastructure behind the scenes that attends to these fundamental building blocks of society. The approach, at least in the U.S., typically involves forms of violence against the vulnerable including military expansionism, covert activities, and theft.
If elites are able to finance and manipulate election campaigns and election results in their favour, then what are the economic and other considerations in the background prompting the election of Trump and directing his policies in the future? That is the subject of this week’s Global Research News Hour radio program.
We first hear from J. David Hughes, author of two reports on shale oil and gas plays in the U.S. released in December 2016. He is convinced that the Energy Information Administration is overly optimistic about the energy picture of the U.S. and that a near-future short-fall of domestic supply could have damaging long term implications for America’s ‘energy independence.’ This interview was originally conducted a year ago.
Next we speak to commentator and past guest Mark Robinowitz. Robinowitz maintains that Trump was installed a year ago in order to take the fall for an inevitable economic collapse and to introduce unpopular military and other measures which would likely be continued under a future president, Democratic or Republican, male or female.
Robinowitz updates us on his thinking, elaborating on who exactly comprises the different factions within the U.S. ‘Deep State’.
J. David Hughes is an earth scientist who has studied the energy resources of Canada for four decades, including 32 years with the Geological Survey of Canada as a scientist and research manager. He is also a fellow with the Post Carbon Institute.
Mark Robinowitz is a writer, political activist, ecological campaigner and permaculture practitioner and publisher of oilempire.us as well as jfkmoon.org. He is based in Eugene, Oregon.
136 Comments on "Anniversary of the Trump Presidency Part One: Peak Oil and the Deep State"
Mad Kat on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 8:39 pm
Greg, you got it as usual. No Mad Max, just less. That is a difficult concept for most Americans to understand/accept.
Cloggie on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 8:50 pm
“I hope the blacks get pay back on old white uncle tom. I hope they rape his daughter when the oil starts to run out..Turn them into their personal fuck toys! Just tell little Sara to turn off that Taylor Swift and open up wide for a big black dick! LOL Ole Uncle Tom will stroke out!”
It is this level of hatred for white people that makes me think millimind is apneaman, who now has a forum career in bluffing himself into Scottishness.
But I agree with Antius that a civil war is coming in countries like Sweden, France, Holland, Britain and most of all in the US as a consequence of decades of enforced mass immigration by that rotten filthy stinking vile murderous US-George Soros empire aka The West that needs to be held under water until it no longer moves.
MASTERMIND on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 8:59 pm
Madkat
Living with less is not an economic collapse…Collapse by definition is fast…You and greg are arguing for a regression not a collapse
GregT on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 9:02 pm
More of your usual BS MM.
UC Davis Study: It Will Take 131 Years to Replace Oil with Alternatives (Malyshkina, 2010)
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es100730q
“This formula gives T ≈ 131 years for replacement of gasoline and diesel. The proposed market-expectations approach may allow policymakers to effectively develop policies and plan for long-term changes.”
University of Chicago Study: predicts world economy unlikely to stop relying on fossil fuels (Covert, 2016)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.30.1.117
“The historical record indicates that the supply of fossil fuels has consistently increased over time and that their relative price advantage over low-carbon energy sources has not declined substantially over time. Without robust efforts to correct the market failures around greenhouse gases, relying on supply and/or demand forces to limit greenhouse gas emissions is relying heavily on hope.”
In other words, we aren’t going to stop burning fossil fuels anytime soon, and a runaway greenhouse event is likely in YOUR future.
“Solar and Wind produced less than one percent of total world energy in 2016 – IEA WEO 2017
https://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/KeyWorld2017.pdf”
Shows coal, oil, and natural gas consumption, growing out to 2040.
MASTERMIND on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 9:03 pm
Madkat
Actually it will be a mad max but worse..I know thats hard for many Asians to except.
GregT on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 9:08 pm
“Collapse by definition is fast”
Economic collapse is a process, not a moment in time, and it will affect different peoples in different areas around the globe, at different times, with differing severity.
GregT on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 9:10 pm
“I know thats hard for many Asians to except.”
For grade school educated English speaking people, that would be ‘that’s hard’, and accept.
MASTERMIND on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 9:14 pm
Projection of World Fossil Fuels by Country (Mohr, 2015)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016236114010254
All three fossil fuels are peaking within the next decade..So the high estimates of climate change wont be met…
MASTERMIND on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 9:16 pm
Greg
Not if there is another electronic run on the banks like what happened back in 2009.
Mad Kat on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 9:17 pm
Greg, MM cannot get his brain wrapped around that fact. Collapse is probably the wrong word to use. Disintegration or contraction would be better used to describe the coming end of BAU.
It will not be even all over the world. How can it be, there are 180+ nations, all having different situations and resources? I use the fact that the Ps uses two CUPS of oil per person/per day. How can that be equal to the US that uses two GALLONS per person/per day? Who is going to miss oil the most? Hint: Not the Filipinos. But, you know that. MM doesn’t.
MASTERMIND on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 9:17 pm
Greg
Your right its a process that has been going on for forty years. Global GDP and US gdp have been slowing down for forty years. And soon they will collapse totally leading to a mad max..What happened to “BRING IT ON”…..LOL Look at you now! LOL Scared!
MASTERMIND on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 9:19 pm
Madkat
I didn’t choose the word collapse the computer models at MIT did..Blame the computers not me! Why dont you and Greg just be honest you both are nowhere near prepared for an economic collapse..You prepared for a contraction..Which is different..
Mad Kat on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 9:19 pm
BTW MM. I am NOT Asian! I am a born and bred American. A 14th generation American. My family was here when it still belonged to the crown. 1734 to be exact. What is your lineage?
MASTERMIND on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 9:21 pm
Madkat
They will soon go from having two cups to zero cups! In a New York minute!
GregT on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 9:23 pm
“Projection of World Fossil Fuels by Country (Mohr, 2015)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016236114010254”
“All three fossil fuels are peaking within the next decade..So the high estimates of climate change wont be met…”
From the abstract of the above report:
“The High scenario indicates that fossil fuels may have a strong growth till 2025 followed by a plateau lasting approximately 50 years before declining.”
Mad Kat on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 9:25 pm
Ah! MIT made a mistake! The infallible ivory tower idiots are not 100% truthful/factual are they? lol
And why should we even consider what you think about the future? We have not seen any realistic scenario in your comments. I will say that, when the SHTF, we will ride it out much easier and with a lot less pain than you will. I expect to be a survivor, not a loser. I am sure he does also.
GregT on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 9:26 pm
“They will soon go from having two cups to zero cups! In a New York minute!”
That would be an average MM. Obviously. Many already use zero cups.
Mad Kat on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 9:31 pm
MM, oil will only be missed by the city folk who ride buses and require food deliveries. Most of them will return to their families in the countryside. The is where most of the two cups are used. But you, assume that the Ps will not have local oil sources. Not so, but it is not my responsibility think for you.
BTW: The Ps produces 10% of the oil it uses so total collapse would not happen. Just restricted use. And the Ps electric supply is 40%+ renewable. Again, restriction, not total loss.
MASTERMIND on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 9:41 pm
Greg
The Best Guess has the highest probability. Which is the middle chart showing steep decline.
https://imgur.com/a/gM2Ec
Now go hug a tree you climate alarmist!
GregT on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 9:46 pm
All three scenarios show human beings continuing to burn oil, coal, and natural gas, well beyond 2100.
MASTERMIND on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 9:46 pm
People always say again: We need to save our planet. No, we do not. The planet is going to save itself already. It always has done. Sometimes it took millions of years, but it happened. We should not be worried about the planet, but about the human species.
-Dennis Meadows
GregT on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 9:54 pm
The best ‘guess’ scenario, shows humans continuing to burn oil and gas to 2200.
Doesn’t exactly support your global collapse scenario within 10 years, now does it.
GregT on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 9:56 pm
“Now go hug a tree you climate alarmist!”
“We should not be worried about the planet, but about the human species.”
Make up your mind MM. You appear to be more than a little bit confused.
MASTERMIND on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 9:59 pm
Greg
Once they peak we can’t increase global GDP which will cause an economic collapse…
MASTERMIND on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 10:02 pm
Greg
I am worried I am not the one who ignorantly claimed “BRING IT ON”…LOL
But hey Greg I am going to stop arguing with you…I hope you have a nice life and survive the collapse.
GregT on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 10:04 pm
“Once they peak we can’t increase global GDP which will cause an economic collapse”
Economic collapse doesn’t equate to human extinction, and according to at least one of your so oftenly repeated links, 4 billion people will still be left on the planet by 2100, burning coal, oil, and natural gas.
GregT on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 10:07 pm
“But hey Greg I am going to stop arguing with you”
You aren’t making any sense MM. Your links do not support your conclusions, and many of them say exactly the opposite of what you do.
GregT on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 10:22 pm
“I am worried I am not the one who ignorantly claimed “BRING IT ON”…LOL”
I’m not worried MM, and will be just fine.
“Bring it on” isn’t so much for my benefit, as it is for my children (your age), their children, and their children’s children.
I enjoy all of the wonderful amenities that modern industrial society has provided, but I don’t need them for survival.
Mad Kat on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 10:22 pm
MM, Perhaps you are thinking of my “Bring it on” comment a long time ago? I do want the end of the US empire to happen tomorrow. A financial collapse there will end it’s ability to plunder and murder where it chooses. Peace may finally come to the world. I’m prepared. “Bring it on!
MASTERMIND on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 10:24 pm
Every major monthly US government economic report – employment, GDP, inflation – is little more than a fraudulent propaganda tool used to distort reality for the dual purpose of supporting the political and monetary system – both of which are collapsing – and attempting to convince the public that the economy is in good shape.
https://imgur.com/a/gjkqV#L25EK9s
MASTERMIND on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 10:25 pm
Madkat
Its not about you being prepared its about everyone else around you not being prepared…You are discounting everyone else…This is called “survival Bias”.
GregT on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 10:31 pm
“Every major monthly US government economic report – employment, GDP, inflation – is little more than a fraudulent propaganda tool used to distort reality for the dual purpose of supporting the political and monetary system – both of which are collapsing – and attempting to convince the public that the economy is in good shape.”
That’s all been going on for decades already MM.
GregT on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 10:33 pm
“Its not about you being prepared its about everyone else around you not being prepared…You are discounting everyone else”
That was among our biggest considerations when we moved where we did.
Food, water, shelter, and security.
MASTERMIND on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 10:36 pm
An estimated half a million women resort to illegal abortions in the Philippines each year
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/101east/2018/01/philippines-baby-factory-180117092641851.html
GregT on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 10:46 pm
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began abortion surveillance reports in 1969 to document the number and characteristics of women obtaining legal induced abortions.”
“Between 1970 and 2014, CDC reports nearly 44.5 million legal induced abortions.”
That would average over 1 million ‘legal’ induced abortions in the US per year MM.
GregT on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 10:46 pm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_statistics_in_the_United_States
Mad Kat on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 11:16 pm
Greg, MM is desperate to make other places look worse than the US. He grasps at straws, not thinking to check similar stats in the US. Not thinking, is his trademark.
I liked his “…everyone else around you not being prepared…” Comment. He was obviously talking about his situation not ours. My neighbors will hardly notice any changes. They are already mostly self sufficient. Anyone who lives in your neighborhood is also likely to be mostly self sufficient. No WalMart just down the street.
GregT on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 11:23 pm
If MM is truly being sincere Mad Kat (which is highly doubtful), then my guess would be that he is suffering from severe depression.
Mad Kat on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 11:27 pm
BTW: Illegal abortions in the US may exceed 500,000 per year, PLUS the million plus legal abortions.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/06/opinion/sunday/the-return-of-the-diy-abortion.html
http://www.numberofabortions.com/
Successful finger pointing requires research … first.
Mad Kat on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 11:29 pm
I agree. Not rational most times. Maybe on meds? A waste of a good life. Getting depressed is easy. So is not being depressed, but I guess it is more and more common in the US these days.
MASTERMIND on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 11:30 pm
Madkat
your president is one of the most evil and cruel dictators in the entire world.
Theedrich on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 11:46 pm
The Pentagon, not Russia, is the REAL “colluder.” In the last years of Obamism, the military-industrial axis felt it was being starved for funds by the domestic leftward shift in politics, what with sequestration and all. What to do?
In 1959, Daniel Ellsberg (the “Pentagon Papers” man), at a seminar set up by then National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger at Harvard University, gave a lecture titled, “The Political Uses of Madness.” Ellsberg reveals this in his alarming The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner (published December, 2017), p. 310. So the idea has been around for a while, After the unexpected election of Trump as president in 2016, CIA-Pentagonia dusted off this “emperor-as-psychopath” concept and began colluding with Trump, who was posing as a populist “maverick” who might use seeming irrationality to wrest power from a paralytic Congress and the Swamp, and shift it back to the axis.
Magically, several generals suddenly found themselves in high positions in the new administration. Also magically, tensions began emerging between the U.S. and Iran, as well as between the U.S. and North Korea.
Noteworthy is the fact that Trump tends to attract not just unemployed Whites, but also the most patriotic parts of the electorate. Generally speaking, the military is by nature the most patriotic and rightest sector of any country, so the partnership between a president who wants to “make America great again” and the armed forces could only be expected, a natural fit. Alas, one of the generals, Army Lieutenant General Michael Thomas Flynn, briefly National Security Advisor to Trump, made a booboo by fibbing to Vice President Pence about foreign contacts, and was dismissed from the administration, since the leftist media would have used those contacts to attack Trump himself. Despite that mishap, the Pentagonians got others of their number into similarly high positions.
But in order for the aforesaid axis to get more money, it had to justify its existence by finding an enemy. What better hostile country than minuscule North Korea? It can be portrayed as the incarnation of Evil Itself: a combo of Nazism and Communism, a brutal dictatorship, and a demonic system working on protecting itself with The Bomb. In addition, its tinyness makes it the perfect target. Meanwhile, South Korea, afraid that the U.S. is going to attack the North, thereby causing a “dead-hand” annihilation of millions of Southerners in response, has invited the North to participate jointly in the winter Olympic Games.
For the axis, this is a no-no. Rapprochement between SK and NK? To the exclusion of the U.S.? It cannot be! Thus the military, in collusion with the White House, is apparently planning to decapitate NK, with “tactical” nukes if necessary, even in the midst of the games. After all, the Jewish God is on America’s side. A few million more Korean dead won’t matter.
MASTERMIND on Sun, 21st Jan 2018 11:54 pm
Theo
North and south korea marched together in the last Olympics as well..And the US isn’t going to nuke NK during the Olympics! LOL
MASTERMIND on Mon, 22nd Jan 2018 12:14 am
Inequality gap widens as 42 people hold same wealth as 3.7bn poorest
https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2018/jan/22/inequality-gap-widens-as-42-people-hold-same-wealth-as-37bn-poorest?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_b-gdnnews#link_time=1516595983
Mad Kat on Mon, 22nd Jan 2018 1:16 am
MM, “…your president is one of the most evil and cruel dictators in the entire world.”
MY president is Donald Trump. You are probably correct about your description of him. Not to mention delusional, immature and uneducated.
As for the Philippine president. I agree with his tactics totally. I see a leader doing the best for his people, not corporations. Not kissing the US ass like the two previous. He uses diplomacy, not threats, to deal with China and Russia. His method is face-to-face talk, not immature tweets.
Since you do not live here, have never been here, and likely never will visit, you have zero knowledge of realty in the Ps. You only prove that you are brainwashed by the US MSM. Nothing more.
Davy on Mon, 22nd Jan 2018 6:23 am
People don’t understand intent and creeping moral hazard. Many simpletons resort to conspiracy theories and many intelligent ones create them. What is going on today with the lies at all levels is systematic and global. We are in a world of increasing dysfunction and corruption but we are not in a world of only that. If we were in that completely corrupted world of specific intent as a policy we would already be collapse.
What we are seeing is the creeping moral hazard of disregard for the rule of law, disregard for accepted business practices, and the lowering of generally accepted accounting standards. We are seeing principals of ethics and free markets eroded. This affects fairness and equity. These are both social, business, and political related. We are seeing this with the media and with government structures like the security services among others. This is what happens to terminal civilizations, IMA, this has always gone on here and there but it is now the extent that is worrisome. This corruption is now part of the global fabric. In China it is part of accepted business practices to have two books in some sectors.
This is how civilizations fail but we can’t say this is something governments are doing purposely as a bad policy. Governments are not cheating the common citizen as a policy. This is a self-organizing civilizational behavior that is increasing over time. There is nothing said that this might be contained and reversed at some point. People are realizing this and if they voice concern maybe this might change but how much can be changed once it is part of the social fabric? How much can we change the fact civilization is in terminal decline?
There is a reason for this condition and it points to general decay and decline of growth and productivity of return on investment. Many businesses and governments are technically insolvent without todays creeping moral hazard. Debt and in particular bad debt that has propagated since the 08 crisis is being pretended and extended by these policies. It is easier to look the other way in creeping moral hazard then to admit to serious problems by dealing with these problems. This is human nature. We all know the individual can play all kinds of games with himself and others when serious mental or personality problems develop. This same condition scales up.
This is important to consider because it affects the other creeping moral hazard of blame and complain that is so prevalent in society. Everyone is pointing fingers at others but few of these people are looking at themselves or at the systematic problems that are beyond blame. How can we point fingers at a problem that is self-organizing at the civilizational level? Many of these issues are preexisting condition of human nature manifesting itself systematically when the conditions allow it.
Today so much of society is a mess because we are a late term civilization. We have gone linear for far too long and it is likely per natural law we enter succession. All ecosystems do. In our case this will mean a significant break. In our case this could be very bad because we have overextended ourselves many times. Many studies say we are an order of magnitude over extended with population, complexity, and energy. Energy includes food and water the most vital element of a civilization.
The best thing we could do now is the same as with the individual and that is accept we have this problem and treat it clinically instead of criminally. Yes, the egregious criminality of moral hazard must be stopped but in the case of our civilization in dysfunction and decline we should learn from it. This means adapting and mitigating to something that cannot be changed. You cannot change many condition but you can adapt to them and mitigate the results. Our civilization will end but we can make that end less painful by being intelligent about it instead of being emotional in the blame and complain game. The problem is the recrimination will surely increase instead of decrease and it may be the match the lights the fire of collapse. The last thing we need today with all the problem and predicaments we have is add poor behavior to it. Criminalizing preexisting conditions is poor behavior. Blame and complain is poor behavior. Civilization is dying let’s be honest about that.
Davy on Mon, 22nd Jan 2018 6:24 am
“As for the Philippine president. I agree with his tactics totally. I see a leader doing the best for his people, not corporations.”
Sure mad kat, keep believing that and you will feel better.
Davy on Mon, 22nd Jan 2018 6:41 am
“North and south korea marched together in the last Olympics as well..And the US isn’t going to nuke NK during the Olympics! LOL”
Who knows these days? This would be a perfect false flag opportunity to attack NK. It is so outrageous but those are the best reasons for false flag scenarios. False flags are lies and lies are effective policy in war. It is also a great surprise attack opportunity because it is so beyond what is accepted morally. The Olympics represent just the opposite. Imagine the irony of it. An Olympic game initiates a civilization ending world war? This is almost story book that this year the Olympics might symbolize a coming together of man or it might bring out his worst. The circumstances are amazing. Olympics happening in such a dramatically tense place to begin with amazes me. History is fascinating.
Revi on Mon, 22nd Jan 2018 7:19 am
The nuclear winter Olympics?
MASTERMIND on Mon, 22nd Jan 2018 7:24 am
Davy
Imagine the irony of it. An Olympic game initiates a civilization ending world war?
LOL that would be the all time irony!