Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Despite Efforts, Population Getting Worse



Photo courtesy of Hot Springs Wizard. Honoring the landscape with a hand-made head on what he calls, "The Rock of Knowledge"

Happily, our friend from Belgium (AKA Spirit Across the Sea) has contributed a post to give us another starting place for the on-going conversation...

Attempts to Solve the Population Problem Only Make Matters Worse

Over population is one of those proverbial elephants in the living room that nobody wants to talk about, mainly because it is easier to ignore an insoluble problem than attempt to deal with it. Thomas Malthus essentially said that population would continue to grow until it ran out of food. He used different words but that is what he meant. The problem is that there is no way you can stop turkeys from having little turkeys or any other species including humans from having offspring. They have been doing it since pre-history and regard it as an inalienable right but this inalienable right has caused a problem. It doesn’t matter whether you blame it on the age of oil or any other reason it is a fact that there has been a mushroom cloud of people on the planet in the last hundred years and the Malthus train is headed at full speed towards the buffers. The world population is expected to reach seven billion by 2012. At a current population level of almost 1.4 billion, which is a mere billion more than the population of the USA and 20% of all humans on Earth, the Chinese saw the problem coming, switched the points at the last moment and sat back to watch the train head for the cliffs.

China Set to Abandon its Failing Population Policy

It is fairly obvious that if two parents have two children during their lifetime the children replace the adults and if these children replace themselves on a one to one basis then the population remains stable. If they have more than two children then the population increases and if they have less than two it decreases. In an attempt to decrease its population China did just that. From the mid 1970’s it limited each female to just one child during her lifetime so that the population would halve over one generation. The experiment was a partial success, which means it didn’t work or more correctly it worked but not in the way intended. It is true that this policy has prevented the population jumping by an estimated 400 million but it has also resulted in unforeseen social problems which are now preoccupying the regime. Normally children are born in roughly equal numbers of males to females. Nature skews this slightly in favour of males since generally they do more dangerous things like fighting in wars for instance. Proportions vary throughout the world with ‘normal’ being about 103 males for every 100 females but in isolated groups can be as high as 107 males to 100 females (jargon shorthand for this is a ‘ratio of 1.03’ or a ‘ratio of 1.07’). Currently China is approaching a ratio of 1.21 resulting in 33.31 million more men than women being born during the twenty years between 1980 and 2000 (and of course more since). This short post is actually about gender imbalance rather population per se. There are at least 33.3 million men roaming around China that can’t find women, many living a new phenomenon called bachelor villages, resulting in male depression; an increasing sex industry and crimes against females. It is so much of a problem that in the two years between 2001 – 2003 police freed 45,000 abducted women and children and these are just the ones they found. There is also a disproportionate aging population with too few working age people to support both the elderly and the state structure.

Since the time of Mao, China has dragged itself into the industrial age but old habits die hard and its mentality is still largely peasantry. The country is not known for its human rights or its social (welfare) policies. When the elderly become too old to work it is traditionally for the offspring to continue the pastoral life in the same locality and provide for the parents. In this way strong family bonds are maintained. Now with migration of the young into the new industrial areas combined with the one child policy, the elderly have become vulnerable in a way previously unknown. Previously, sons took over father’s duties in the fields and lived in the family home or nearby to care and provide for the parents. Daughters married and went to live with her husband or in the home of his parents. Thus it was mainly the sons and their wives who cared for the parents. In a way, sons represented their pension policy. Now with the one child policy that safety net has been lost especially if the son is enticed into the new industrial areas which could be a couple of days train journey away. If parents have a daughter they are even worse off since it is almost certain she will be lost to them during their working lifetime with no one to carry on the family line or provide for them in old age. Not only this, the daughter’s family has to provide a dowry on her marriage yet it is the bridegrooms family that receive care from her in later life. A growing market within China for affordable ultrasound scanners has allowed many parents to ‘choose’ for sons with illegal selective pro-choice abortions becoming an increasing fact of life. If this fails or the woman ‘chooses’ too late, then incidences of infanticide of daughters are reported to be drastically increasing. The administration now realizes it got a few details wrong and that even the plans of an authoritarian regime can be sidetracked by the will of the people. It is now expected that there will be proposals in the next five year plan (2011 – 2016) to drop or at least shelve the one child policy to replace it with a sliding scale policy where the one child per female law will remain in the main cities; two children per female in the designated countryside and three in areas like Tibet for instance where gender ratios are within normal world wide limits. It is suggested that this will be combined with some sort of welfare plan which favours girls. Proposed measures include exempting girls’ families from contributing towards school fees; parents with two daughters would also receive the equivalent of $150 pa for the rest of their lives (this is a lot in China); preferential health care treatment together with modern housing and secure employment. A care package for the elderly would also be provided. There are three foreseeable problems with this; firstly this break with existing policy would seriously conflict with China's population control effort; secondly there are not enough working people to pay for it and finally export revenue may get caught in the dollar’s demise.

Mainland Chinese have more in common with the Yanomamo People than with the inhabitants of Hong Kong

The above is just a knee jerk reaction of the people to an ill thought through policy by an authoritarian regime – and it couldn’t happen anywhere else, right? Well, No!
The Yanomamo are a tribal people who inhabit Venezuela’s jungle region along its southern border with Brazil. There are about 15,000 of them living in 150 or so scattered villages. If you accept the initial premise that they are often attacked by their neighbouring villages, then their solution to this can only be described as bizarre logic. But before that, some interesting numbers. Villages of forty members or less cannot survive since there are too few men to defend it. At numbers of 100 – 125 inhabitants, there is constant squabbling about policy and at a level of 150 inhabitants it becomes totally unworkable as a cohesive unit and splits into two. Bear with me for a few seconds because I am going to run the argument backwards and then the reason for the attacks will become clear. The villages are attacked so the attacked village needs a strong force of men to defend it and because of this the attacking side needs a strong force of men to prevail in their mission. In order to get a sufficient proportion of warriors it is customary for separate communities to practice infanticide against females. This leaves a disproportionate number of men and the reason for inter village conflict is to steal women from their neighbours. If they only had the wit to stop with the infanticide then there would be enough women to go around without any need for fighting at all. Maybe the whole thing is nature’s way of sharpening their survival skills.

Well that is all fine or not, depending on whether you are one of the victors or the vanquished and we can see the disproportionate numbers of males and therefore the connection with the mainland Chinese but what has all this got to do with the people of Hong Kong. Well it seems that the men of Hong Kong just don’t like very much to marry the ladies of Hong Kong and go on more of a poaching rather than raiding mission to the mainland. The reasons for this are not at all clear but it just is so. Perhaps city slicker males don’t like to marry city slicker ladies and go off to find mainland maidens. This leaves a more than an average number of local ladies on the island - for those of you who are interested in knowing this fact.

Imbalance Redressed?

Now that the ladies of Hong Kong have entered the conversation, is there anywhere else in the world that has a surfeit of women? Well it just so happens there is but I am not at all sure the surplus men of China would want to head there in droves. It is in Greenland and the Arctic waste territories; the peoples who are collectively known as Eskimos. The reason is not reverse infanticide but all the same, I am sure it is not one you are going to want to know about. Their diet consists entirely of fish and other sea life, seals, walrus etc and these species over the years have absorbed much of the toxic waste our civilisation has dumped into the sea – DDT, PCB’s mercury, cadmium and other heavy metals. These chemicals affect hormones and endocrines in pregnant women in a way that favours the formation of a female fetus. So next time you see an Eskimo woman smiling in your direction, just remember that she might be a sack of toxic waste.

Conclusion

It seems to me that when you set about deliberately meddling with the primordial forces of nature then nature has ways if biting back and although they might not always be conventional, they are always effective.

Sources

Rolic News – Chinese syndicated newspaper Dec 2009
Experts urge switch from one child policy

Human Sex ratio – Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sex_ratio

MSNBC.com
NBC: China begins to face sex-ratio imbalance
http://www.nsmbc.msn/id/5953508/print/1/displaymode/1098/

National Geographic Magazine August 1976 pp211
Yanomamo, the True People
(Borrowed from the doctor’s waiting room)

61 comments:

nina said...

In a nutshell, Malthus was soundly denounced by the luminaries of his time resulting in the streamlining of big ag supporting the population burden we experience now - in combination with the burgeoning Nadya Sulemans of the planet, probably products of streamlined corn syrup, all of which leads to bigger ag's ubiquitous smog which empowers anthropogenc climate chaos. All of that is just going to multiply into infinity unless the train actually goes over the cliff. It may already be too late, not that we didn't see it coming as far back as Malthus.

This is stupidly compounded by fundie beliefs and fundie administrations withholding aid on the condition abortions cease. Decent parents should supply their adolescent children with rubbers. It should be a law. Birth control must be OTC. Abortion - no parental consent and performed in safe, hygienic settings. Of course life is sacred, let's keep it that way with real reform which preserves and respects human rights from birth. The whole issue of rights for embryos is not only another draconian invasion of privacy, it is racist in its destructive regulation of womens bodies wherever imperialist governments desire continuation with a steady pool of combat ready males. We are in for far more now that private military contractors hold the reins.
If all imperialists were in jail for all their crimes against humanity, the aid dispensing business might not have to exist since loaned aid traps vulnerable populations into debt servitude for centuries.
The situation, as it exists globally today, is truly untenable.

freeacre said...

Well, one can see a huge market potential in China for the robot sex dolls! By the way, Nina... Santa began putting condoms in my son's Christmas stocking before he got a drivers license or had a first date.
Educate the women, and they have less children. But then everybody wants more consumer goods, which, in turn, depletes the resources even further and they all starve to death ...What a conundrum.
The only thing that makes any sense is that every 11,000 years there is a natural catastrophe (HUGE solar coronal event or tectonic shift, volcanoes that end up with an ice age, or something) and so there is a big Die Off. Then, the remaining humans can go about reproducing like humans do so well, and it all starts all over again. Paraphrasing Miracle Max once again, "there's doomed and then there's 'mostly doomed'." You'll have to excuse me, I am still reeling from reading The Road.
Thanks for another thoughtful post, Belgium. I don't see a pleasant way out of this one.

wv: pigra

Anonymous said...

From Belgium

These are two very enlightened viewpoints from females. I am really trying to find a form of words which are not condescending here. I believe that society should be open enough so that women can choose what to do with their own bodies without religious leaders or TV moralists wagging the finger of blackmail at them. By and large, Europeans are a particularly heathen lot resulting in religion loosing much of its former prominence in society. Even children brought up in a religious environment are responding to the pressure of society as a whole and choosing the bits they like the best. The populations of most European countries are declining and are only being balanced by economic migrations from the East. Yes, Catholic countries still exist, like Poland; Italy and Spain for instance but Catholicism in particular and religion in general is not the force it used to be. Curiously it is the people of relatively poor countries which are Catholic whilst the Vatican aligns itself with mostly rich countries and big business but that is another thing. The accolade apart, the contrast of Nina’s and Freeacre’s last statements is what this post was about.

Robot sex dolls for the Chinese huh. Maybe they should just be limited as standard issue for robo-cops and then it would be a meeting of minds.

Pangolin said...

Just pay men under 30 to get clipped. Something on the order of six years cost of educating a child should suffice. In a lump sum. Or trade it for a two year college scholarship.

A "Darwin scholarship" if you will.

This isn't quite as effective as tubal ligation but it's a lot cheaper and easier. It also adds to the level of difficulty for women in finding a mate suitable for raising children with. The guy doesn't have to tell you if he's truly fertile or not and to check you have to get a fresh sample.

A win all around.

Oh yeah. I fathered two and got clipped myself.

v'word: sconis, :blush:

Anonymous said...

"This is stupidly compounded by fundie beliefs and fundie administrations withholding aid on the condition abortions cease."

all the while caring little that RAPE, which obviously could result in those abortions, CEASE...
http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/01/20/haitian.womens.movement.mourns/index.html?hpt=C1

NO, that, by default, leads to talk in the 's word' language and such is the work of the devil. oh no, one daresent decend to delve into such as to do so would be to decend into hell itself and can only lead to calling drachonian destruction upon oneself and the whole of mankind!

little do we know and realize that denial in the forbidden zone is the very thing that can lead to such drachonian results to manifest. believe it or not, the kind of horror reflections noted in the comments at the end of the last thread is just one example. what may not be resolved and evolved within one may go out to align with and empower another.

SATS... as i'm sure you're aware rome still holds sway over entire nations of peoples. haiti, 80% catholic, being just one of them. they take little responsibility for the results of papal postition on birth control and instead blame the results on the people who may bow down to the altar of rome in the light of the day but throw bones and read intrals by the light of the moon... p

Anonymous said...

and oh yes... midst the throwing of bones and the beat of the drum is the shaking of she-ass which is, of course, only to blame for then triggering the latent machinations of man to then rape the irrestable ass of the woman... p

nina said...

(fa, Belgium, this was an essay who's time has come, its on everyone's mind regardless of their politics. I'm just squeezing in here touching the talking stick to say Thanks Belgium. So timely, so thoughtfully articulated.
Now to read the comments. I'm very grateful to you, and to freeacre too.)

freeacre said...

This is off topic, but the Murphinator and I got invited to attend a workshop in Redmond (North of Bend) on the food crisis in Oregon and how to deal with it. I notice on their handbill and also on their site, pictures of our vegetables from the garden are featured. So, they must have taken them off our blog last Fall. Nice to know there are ripple effects. We will attend and talk about preparedness, localizing food, the Grange, et al. Here's the link to the info:
http://centraloregonfood.blogspot.com/

freeacre said...

The male dominated religions can't abide women having the natural right over their bodies and reproduction. But, it is not only our right, but our duty to limit the number of our offspring to that which we are able to feed and care for. The population would be sustainable, as it was in the 500 native American nations if our food supply was natural (hunting & gathering) and not the result of commercial agriculture. Once again, the sick-and-wrong concept of "civilization" is doing us in.

Anonymous said...

From Belgium

Jeez p you are on a roll here. We must have touched a nerve, you are coming over like Pat Robertson, Rush Lamburgh and Ghana Ted Armstrong all rolled into one :-)

Sure it is a serious subject and those articles I put up show the interactions of people who manipulate world events from the shadows. I read a quote recently, maybe it was from you, about those who put peoples’ eyes out and then blame them for not being able to see. In a similar way there are those who perpetrate actions so that they can put the blame their victims like the Catholic Church contributing to overall world population. I believe however the publics general unawareness of what happens in the dark corners of life, derives from ignorance and not from disallowing the possibility of known facts. Ritual abuse, particularly child abuse is an acknowledged fact and although there are reported incidences of satanic connections I think it is a minority sect of what is out there.

As regrettable as they are, pregnancies resulting from aggressive rape are quite rare and hardly contribute to the population increase. This article:

http://www.christianliferesources.com/?library/view.php&articleid=461

puts the figure at around 200 out of six million or 0.0033% per year.

That’s sweet Nina, thanks. The talking stick is yours anytime you want it.

Pangolin, I admire your civic responsibility (smiley winky thing). Even though my wife is 12 years younger than me, the reproduction thing was not possible even when I met her so I got a free pass on the snick but we’d both had our permitted quotas in our separate former lives so that made it alright (sort of).

Freeacre, you are right. I am going to try to retrieve a quotation to support your last comment.

rockpicker said...

Collapse Song

A final time the ice dam breaks.
Strained by meltwaters,
breached by seep,
a thousand rivulets trickle
from beneath impounding weight,
when what triggering event, slide
or quake, catalyzes collapse

and lifts this ice? Camps at water's
edge break depleted. Rock flour
will muck slick forgotten slopes
for generations of rain. Downstream,
death songs float the unlucky home.
Lands the sages warned against
flash with salmon in the sun.

I fish forbidden stones and sage,
one moment stalking dorsal fins
with spear, the next, frozen
with clarity and fear from deep within.
I hear churning water thunder near.
Advice, unheeded, echoes in my ear.
But it's too late to run, and so I sing.


-wv worman

Sandra B said...

Can I just say...I love you guys. This is a great site. Enjoying the posts and most definitely the comments!

freeacre said...

Hey, Sandra! If you love us, then you must be one of the troutpeople out there! Welcome to the campfire.

baz recon said...

just lit a spliff, but aarrghh f$#@K—it the mind is spinnin', it's green right ? So forg---ive me if I mis-understand:

‘As regrettable as they are, pregnancies resulting from aggressive rape are quite rare and hardly contribute to the population increase.’— SATS, or should that be STATS. Like I said, 4give if not understand—many orphanges packed to the brim scattered throughout world. From memory—goin' back 20 years, something like aahh, I dunno...

50,000 in an orphanage in Croatia—unwanted by their mothers. Their fathers raped them. Weapon of War—primary. Ethnic cleansing—media version. Consequences immense as with other societal aberrations as mentioned.

WV: protese

freeacre said...

Oh ho ho ho....I just gotta comment on the sudden "populist" switch that the Dems are making in response to the loss in Massachusetts. Oh...now that we know what the peasants want to hear, we'll just tell 'em that. uh huh. What's next? Geithner wearing denim shirts underneath his Armani jacket? Bernanke wearing work boots over his silk socks? Photo ops as Larry Sumners packs his own lunch? What a bunch of bullshit. Mutant miscreants. Greed goblins. Nefarious nozzles.

Anonymous said...

SATS... touched a nerve in me? no my friend, no moreso than usual given my observations of the sorry condition of the human condition. but i do want to respond to this stmt...

"I believe however the publics general unawareness of what happens in the dark corners of life, derives from ignorance and not from disallowing the possibility of known facts."

i'm assuming you are using the 'i' word to describe "lack of knowledge" and not as "to ignore". personally i doubt there's much difference between what happens in the dark corners and what happens exposed to continous light. energetically the dynamics are the same. when it comes to certain of awful things we're inclined to look away. to ignore. when it comes to certain forms of threat to survival we're inclined to suppress memory. in either case, ignorance may be the result. but i don't regard it as causal. particularly in the context of our discussion..

speaking of which, we've discussed ad naseum around this very campfire the disregard of known facts by the masses. facts smacking everyone in the face yet continue to fall as if on deaf ears and blind eyes. lemmings we call them. is it out of ignorance that they continue to be led over the cliff? was it their ignorance that stirred millions to a frenzied fury following hitler? is it ignorance that stirs millions to idolize false profits the likes of robertson as if his ilked rubbish is the only known fact? is it out of ignorance that we look away from billions barely existing on less than a dollar a day?

some would say so. but i doubt it. i think in certain of these cases its because we think we cannot bear the pain. and maybe we can't. cuz its incredible what goes on in the dark corners and down in the torture chambers. but so too right here in the light of day. but the people living it? man have they got a story to tell about just how much can be borne and still survive. haiti is showing this incredible will to survive to us now.

here's what i believe... every damn one of us is, to one extent or another, confronted with what is commonly referred to as our own inner demons. our own bag of rocks so to speak. those demons rise up from time to time and they do touch nerves in the individual. generally as a thought and/or feeling response triggered by a real, sureal, dreamed, imagined or fanticized experience and be that taking place in real time or otherwise. whenever that happens, to the extent it causes the individual to take pause to ponder it, that then is a known FACT to that individual. to each of us in our own ways. regardless of how the individual may or may not act upon it.

for example, if truth be told i doubt there are many fathers who could say they never once were stirred sexually by the mere presence of their own daughters. is such the work of their own inner demons or the innocence of a natural human function? except for my own inclinations thats not for me to say but for each to say in their own regard. my point is how we handle our responces to stimuli has everything to do with what happens to us AND, to some extent, what happens 'out there'.

sandra b... we are an odd lot here. that you've expressed love for it warms further an already warm fire. welcome to shelter from the storm... p

freeacre said...

...oh, yeah, I even forgot about the military rapes used as a weapon of combat. Geez.
And, Rockpicker, another beautiful poem. We're feeling those Yellowstone quakes with you. Everybody dies, but as they said in Gladiator, "Not Today." You get your butts over here! Sing while you run.

Pangolin said...

I must object to the base slander of the male of the species. As a father of two teenage girls I can assure you nature has provided them with the ultimate defense against the attentions of older men. There is no faster cure for priapism than the conversation of teenage girls.

Once you hear how they treat each other you have no doubt they are willing to betray any trust. Young men are too befuddled by hormones to listen and therefore are vulnerable. I pity the poor lads.


They are best admired..... beyond earshot. Preferably in literature.
Fiction.

Anonymous said...

From Belgium

I wasn’t going to mention rape but what I said was in response to this from p “all the while caring little that RAPE, which obviously could result in those abortions, CEASE...”. First of all I wanted to see if pregnancies as a result of rape added significantly to the population increase. The figures that were available were somewhat unreliable to say the least; we quickly get into arguments of rape not reported and the differences between domestic rape, statuary rape and aggressive rape. The more parameters you include the more assumptions and the less reliable the figures. I found the site I linked to earlier in which the author tries to get a figure working from first principles to compare with the official figure of 200 pregnancies per year from aggressive rape in the USA. Sorry if I did not mention that limitation in the previous comment. He came up with a probable figure of 240 and said that was near enough to the official figure. Even if the per capita or percentage figure is double or triple for countries in other parts of the world and the 0.003% figure say goes to 0.01% or 0.02% then this is not going to significantly affect the increase in world population or gender imbalance which is what this post was about. In many parts of the world, the third world particularly, there are orphanages full to overflowing. I don’t feel that many of the children are there because their mothers were raped. I am not including here the possibility that the woman became pregnant as a result of non consentual sex with her husband or live in lover. I am specifically talking about random acts of sexual aggression against women resulting in pregnancy. The parents of many orphans may just have died or were killed say in a traffic accident. If a woman is raped and then killed as a war crime then obviously there is no resulting increase in population. Many others in orphanages were just abandoned because the mother became pregnant from her husband but they were so poor that they could just not afford to feed the infant. This is particularly so in South America and is what happens as the Malthus train tears into the terminus. The first world likes to appear compassionate but certainly does not want the third world to come close to approaching its own standards of living.

Hey Sandra, Thanks for dropping in. We are a strange but welcoming lot. I believe there are those who just read the posts and those who hang out in the comments and I think you get a bit more from that. I had a look at your ongoing project and was very impressed. Even though I have the time to do such a thing now, I am a bit concerned it would finish up as a folly:-) I hope you can join us a bit more regularly, If you have been following for some time then you know we are all regular guys.

Hotspringswizard said...

Well thank you Belgium for your contribution concerning some aspects of the problem of changing population. Since humanity can't find itself capable of addressing or mitigating this monumental conundrum because of a whole host of complex reasons, the long list of other grave ills for all of us will continue to become more problematic. Any attempted solutions to the many difficulties that are beseting us will be crushed under the weight of growing populations in general.

So as Freeacre suggest the solution will likely come in the form of mass dieoffs due to most likely a collection of differant converging calamities. Peak Oil and Climate Change alone will dispense with untold millions.

In the news from yesterday I see that the supreme court has removed the limits on campaign contributions so now the corporations can take their immense wealth and will use it to gain even more complete control of the US political system to work towards their own shortside and distructive interest. The well being of the general population will be consistently thwarted ( as it has been already ) as the corporations defeat anything of benifit for the greater society that conflicts with profit driven bottom line of the corporate artificial construct.

This newly created sick infection of additional power will infect all aspects of our society much deeper than was the case already. Its another giant step away from freedom and any remaining semblence of democracy for the masses.

Meanwhile the " disaster capitalism " occupation is in full speed in Haiti. Seeing Clinton and Bush being presented as humanitarian leaders for the Haiti crisis is so ridiculous its beyond imagination. Why did bush ( like Golem ) have to crawl back out of the dark sick hole in Texas where he resides. I simply can't watch him because it makes me want to throw things, like shoes!

Welcome Sandra :-) I've also found that the Trout Clan Campfire is a welcome oasis of truly thoughtful spirits :-)

Well we received boat loads of rain here in the high desert of So Cal due to 4 big storms in a row and this spring will bring a cornucopia of flowers and little growing things. I'm really looking forward to that :-)

Hotspringswizard said...

And Nina, I was checking out your website and reading some. Lots of great stuff! I first came across a link to your site back when I was reading the postings at John's site Survival Acres, before he stopped the open blog section back awhile. I'm very much impressed by the thinking and energy in your postings at your blog :-) Good to read your thoughts here when you have time for it too! Of course the collection of contributions made by all is what makes the campfire a rewarding place to spend some time :-)

Hotspringswizard said...

And this from Ralph Nader:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24478.htm

Corporate Personhood Should Be Banned, Once and For All

Today’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission shreds the fabric of our already weakened democracy by allowing corporations to more completely dominate our corrupted electoral process. It is outrageous that corporations already attempt to influence or bribe our political candidates through their political action committees (PACs), which solicit employees and shareholders for donations. With this decision, corporations can now also draw on their corporate treasuries and pour vast amounts of corporate money, through independent expenditures, into the electoral swamp already flooded with corporate campaign PAC contribution dollars.

This corporatist, anti-voter decision is so extreme that it should galvanize a grassroots effort to enact a Constitutional Amendment to once and for all end corporate personhood and curtail the corrosive impact of big money on politics. It is indeed time for a Constitutional amendment to prevent corporate campaign contributions from commercializing our elections and drowning out the civic and political voices and values of citizens and voters. It is way overdue to overthrow “King Corporation” and restore the sovereignty of “We the People”!....

Thats what should be done, but good luck with that!

freeacre said...

Just an aside... Nina's blog as well as our regular bunch and other favorites as well are linked on our home page.
I've never advertised anything on the site (except my book which resulted in zero sales...) but would there be any interest if I ordered some buttons or bumper stickers that said things like "Bad Serf" "Peasant Revolt" "No Incumbents" or "No Left or Right - Only Haves and Have Nots," do you think? It's just a thought.

Hotspringswizard said...

Hello Freeacre :-) Regarding your buttons, these days I collect rocks, bones, feathers, interesting pieces of wood and such stuff to put around my room to remind me of nature. Got lots of little clay heads that I made there there too :-) Perhaps some of the other Trout Clan folks will be interested in that idea of yours. I like the phrases your putting on them though :-)

Also I just tried that link " troutpeople.com " which is below " my book " and I don't see anything about your book on the page that comes up. Am I missing something? Did I hit the wrong link? Just curious since you brought it up and I wanted to take a look at what the link to your book was like ( since I read it after you gifted it to me, thank you ).

Also I got this eveing your other gift in the mail. Thanks for that too :-)

freeacre said...

Oh, yeah... there was an active link to troutpeople.com, but since I wasn't selling anything, I decided to drop it. Rather embarassing, actually. Sorry I brought it up. oh well.

Anonymous said...

From Belgium

Meant to say before Pangolin, you really break me up (smiley winky thing).

HSW, “Well we received boat loads of rain here in the high desert of So Cal due to 4 big storms in a row and this spring will bring a cornucopia of flowers and little growing things. I'm really looking forward to that :-)”

Bless the sunshine
Bless the rain
Bless all those
Who cause us pain

(from Benedictus by the Strawbs)

Freeacre, super idea but my footprint isn’t big enough to have a bumper. I could stick them on the back of a few busses though. Now isn’t that an idea that might catch on?

Anonymous said...

From Belgium

Freeacre, I am going to jump back in on your 10.07 comment re the effect of the male dominated religions. The three main religions of the Western and Middle Eastern world, Judaism; Christianity and Islam all follow the same God and are all male dominated. Roman Catholic celibacy has been responsible for actions by the church’s representatives which it regularly denounces and would prefer to forget about. Again this is an example of the big lie. The reason given is that priests are not allowed to marry so that they can dedicate their whole being to the service of God without being diverted. In truth it is because in former times, priests were prominent and powerful members of the community and therefore relatively rich. Rome didn’t want them dying and leaving their money to anyone except the church. This is yet another example of the perpetrators blaming their victims. It would seem that the Vatican is more concerned with its financers than with its flock. I wonder how God views this little bit of misdirection on his behalf?

I finally found the quote I had been searching for, it was a sharply observed comment from during the Regan years by Father Xavier Grostiaga who was a director of the Nicaraguan Economic institute. He was asked about the relationship between the breakaway Catholic Church of the Poor and the established RC Church represented by the Archbishop. He replied “The roll played by Christianity in the cultural framework of the Regan Administration is to legitimise (the) established powers of the world. The Church has always been with the big cartels; with big institutions; with big countries. Only in exceptions was the Church with the poor that developed with the third world. If the Church started legitimising the poor (and thus) the independence of small countries, the Church is legitimising established power, then the church is a subversive element. That is why they identify the Church of the Poor with communism.”

Therefore the roll of the Church is to stabilise the status quo and maintain the ever widening gulf between rich and poor. It must become ever more moribund as this gap widens.

baz recon said...

aahh, furthermore my statistical friend, not to sound contrary for the hell of it—haha ~ but genuine concern for my home, my hunting grounds, and a rapidly diminishing way of life.

Relatively recent conflict in the Balkans: Serbia / Bosnia over a brief period, throw in Chechnya, Lithuania, Romania, resulted in hundreds of thousands of unwanted children—all of them products of rape by the enemy. Ten year period ('65 - '75) in Vietnam produced 250,000 forgotten children. Venereal cream (even for married men)—standard issue as part of your combat kit, could be interpreted by soldiers as State-sanctioned whoredom. Just so all you wives know where your tax dollars are spent! Sorry Cpl. Jack.

aahh, every war's the same. Same war, different place, different face / same face / different race. Modus Operandi remains the same, both for the soldier, and his financier. Hundreds of wars—last hundred years, and a thousand wars before that, from Tierra Del Fuego to Lhasa. Objective: Gold, er God—arghh same thing. Mandate: steal it for Queen Esmeralda—she doesn't have enough. And a back room deal made with St. Peter's representative for the sanctification of indolent savage's souls freshly raped. Then educate them falsely, re-inforcing the idea they're uncivilized. And they will be by the time they're done. Foster dependency so they can't even feed themselves. What's next? Therapy with a therapist.

Yeah, millions of rape products over the centuries comprising the human race. And every one a born soldier. For what? Lust for gold, er god. Stupid bastards should slow down, and not be in such a hurry to get nowhere fast. Just out and utter crap—playing PR games to justify commercial interests. Consequences of State-sanctioned raping are far-reaching and not limited to the act. Nations rape of nations ... are not only significant but the original cause of over-population.

Besides the underestimated enormity and denial, and refusal to accept responsibility coupled with self-interest and ignorance of history oft repeating, to give us a clue, we continue to produce more of the same. Live exactly the same in spite of blathering on about our evil Corporate Masters whom we still incidently serve and worship—really—huh? More of the same doesn't produce different results, only a deeper crater which one day we will fall into. Meanwhile the Swiss will pass our gold onto the Nazis, just like they did before, and deny ever knowing you. It will ultimately do us no good to constantly blame our leaders ... or imitate them. They can't save us, and it's unrealistic or infantile to expect them to. They are us. Could we even cope with the truth?

Significant—Yes. One of those bastards could grow up to become Adolph Hitler ... or Hillary Clinton.


-------------------------- V -------------------------

“A time will come when a politician who has willfully made war and promoted international dissension will be as sure of the dock and much surer of the noose than a private homicide. It is not reasonable that those who gamble with men's lives should not stake their own.” ~ H.G. Wells (1866-1946) ~ Science fiction writer

freeacre said...

...all of the above lends itself to my calling Congress a collection of pimps. And now, with the new ruling from the Supreme Court that corporations can contribute unlimited funds directly to election campaigns, we can also imagine that the robes of the "justices" are festooned with corporate logos.
Soon, everything will be "privatized." Read that "corporatized." The Post Office, the FDA, social security, the military, etc. will all be outsourced as profit making ventures. The country itself will no longer be a functional entity. Instead, the U.S. will be a marketing region, it's citizens just customers. Privacy and personal freedoms of every sort will become quaint memories.
The Court has just accomplished what no terrorist, or "armed loner," or army could have done - destroyed America and all it stood for. What got started in 1923 with the establishment of the Federal Reserve, and perpetuated throughout the lifetimes of the three Bush Nazi patriarchs, just became complete. They won.
Now what?

Anonymous said...

"Venereal cream (even for married men)—standard issue as part of your combat kit, could be interpreted by soldiers as State-sanctioned whoredom."

ha! thats a similar argument forwarded by the objectors of condoms. but yup, the wisdom of foresight prior to foreplay could conveniently be extrapolated by the self-deceiving mind seeking justification for an overiding objective. in this case, to get laid. it dawned on me at some point along the way that if i needed an excuse to drink all i had to do was go to an AA meeting where i was sure to hear someone's drunk-a-log story as told completly different than my own. conclusion: therefore, i'm not an alcoholic!

from time to time SATS reminds me of my reckless use of the non-sequitur. for which i'm genuinely grateful, btw. and so, have been studying up a bit. but i have a long way to go. so, SATS, would the former (the soldiers conclusion) be an example of affirming the consequent while the latter (me headed to the nearest drink) be an expamle of denying the antecedent? i dunno. i'm disjucted, conjuncted, and brain fried by it all! but works as justification for being glad i didn't try to become a lawyer! screwed up as they are one can easily deceive oneself into thinkin such is saveable from their own horseshit.

and speaking of denial...

"Besides the underestimated enormity and denial, and refusal to accept responsibility coupled with self-interest and ignorance of history oft repeating, to give us a clue, we continue to produce more of the same."

well put BAZ. and in the wake of such reflections i forward and continue to affirm that denial begets experiences equal to or greater than the denial so the denial may be cleared. were we to give that premise any consideration of credibility then alot of things just might start making a whole lotta sense!! it might even include what appears to the rational minds everywhere as the non-sequitur. i dunno, like i said, such twists of logic blows me fusses and curls me toes... p

Anonymous said...

The Court has just accomplished what no terrorist, or "armed loner," or army could have done - destroyed America and all it stood for.

certainly disturbing. but, should we be surprized?



Now what?

we can quit playing the game. thats what. cuz this is one where the only way to win is to not play. but that don't mean we have to quit talkin and writin about it here around the campfire and in our extended lives and relationships. in the process of that maybe we can begin to bring ourselves to begin to question just what it is we think it is that america stands for. maybe seeing that will lead to seeing america in the past tense as not so tramatic any longer and what were once immortal heros and idols were no more than reflections of the human condition.

treasonous? NOT!! jes callin a spade a spade and no moreso than can be found hidden in plain site and walking the pages of history dripping with blood. if we have the balls to look and call it like it is... p

Anonymous said...

Just as a fire is covered by smoke and a mirror is obscured by dust, just as the embryo rests deep within the womb, wisdom is hidden by selfish desire.
– Bhagavad Gita

Scrap Wood

Anonymous said...

From Belgium

That’s kinda interesting in an academic sort of way but what has it got to do with attempts to reduce the population resulting in gender imbalance?

rockpicker said...

As nightfall
does not fall at once,
nor falls oppression.
With both
there is a twilight
when all remains unchanged.
It's in such twilight
we all must be aware
of change in the air,
however slight,
lest we become
unwitting victims
of the night.

-William O. Douglas, slightly tweaked

rockpicker said...

Arrogant man, tinker of things,
flaunts his genius on waxen wings.
Will he, doting at the pool,
discover he has loved a fool?
Having wearied of arts and odes,
now he buggers genetic codes!
The creature thinks himself a god.
Still, he ends up under sod.

baz recon said...

FB, Jesus—The solution is obvious. Do I have to spell it out for you? STOP THE WAR (I know, easier said than done), and the population will stabilize. Ole grey matter's gettin' bit soft in yuh old-age—eh? HIT THE DECK ... AND GIVE ME 50. NOW, HAHA. Millions ain't insignificant mate. No way. Call me autistic, but I can do the math—in me head .. even ah, with a fifth of Jack—hah. The dots connect—net result.

p... hah, yeah what can I say ... guilty your honor. What shalt thy punishment be? The Siberian front? Or the American Gulag Archipelago, that you can never leave. As for me history lesson, ahh, wuz trying to keep it brief, but cover maximum ground, so perhaps erred on the side of brevity. I guess longer versions could expand understanding, but am hesitant to write War & Peace under current constraints. Someone will recognize trigger references—all searchable. For example try cut 'n' pasting > Verbotin frucht into your search engine :-)

Yeah, it's a pain in the ass seeing dead people. Travel brochures never depicted them. I blame the bankers, or accept responsibility. More and more, I'm clearly seeing (slurp) the issue isn't really us and them, but us. As you're well aware, there is a strong propensity within the human animal to ‘scapegoat’ rather than accept responsibility for one's actions. Including supporting or one's partial role contributing to the problem. Evidence is overwhelming in this regard, and yet commonly rejected unrecognized. Disconnection. “Denial is the most predictable of all human responses.” ~ The Wachowski brothers

rockpicker—powerful poetry. Every one speaks to me.

Tiger in the nite .. burnin', shit—tales onfire!

Anonymous said...

Belgium the only way to reduce population is disease and pestilence.
My Gita quote was meant to change tone. We are all way to serious. You cannot enjoy life with all this seriousness.

Another quote from Buddha

We are what we think
All that we are arises with our thoughts
With our thoughts we make the world.

We can talk,blog and stand on the street corner and bemoan this stuff for ever and change is never going to happen.

So enjoy your own changed world and let everybody else go to hell.

For me it is buds, beer and Buddha

Love
Scrap Wood

rockpicker said...

Scrap Wood,
Life may not seem so "good" from inside compound wire.

Below is a final paragraph from a Kitco article up on Cryptogon today.

"...The enslavement of the American people has been orchestrated by a pernicious Master Class that has taken the United States by the throat. This Master Class is now choking the nation to death as it accelerates its master plan to plunder the people’s dwindling remaining assets. The Master Class comprises politicians, the Wall Street money elite, the Federal Reserve, high-end government (including military) officials, government lobbyists and their paymasters, military suppliers and media oligarchs. The interests and mindset of the Master Class are so totally divorced from those of the average American citizen that it is utterly tone deaf and blind to the justifiable rage sweeping the nation. Its guiding ethics of greed, plunder, power, control and violence are so alien to mainstream American culture and thought that the Master Class might as well be an enemy invader from Mars. But the Master Class here, it is real and it is laying waste to America. To the members of the Master Class, the people are not fellow-citizens; they are instruments of labor, servitude and profit. At first, the Master Class viewed the citizens as serfs; now that they have raped and destroyed the national economy, while in the process amassing unprecedented wealth and power for themselves, they see the people as nothing more than slaves."

I would argue that the Master Class actually views the rest of us as 'useless eaters.' Or, as Deek Jackson is so fond of saying, 'landless peasant fucks.'

Denial is not a sustainable option. Sooner or later, unless U intervenes through 'natural calamity,' all of us must confront this approaching political/economic tempest.

Anonymous said...

Rockpicker I said nothing about denial. Read the Buddha quote then read your "kitco comment". Maybe you might understand. When your will is linked to your intellect at the very depths of your personality, you discover yourself as you really are – secure, wise, compassionate, and intimately connected with all of life.

Paranoia will destroy ya. Will you let that happen? I think not. Just as I don't want that to happen to me. But will the majority see it as that way. Again, I don't think so. So you make your life better.

Scrap Wood

rockpicker said...

Fear is a sign of intelligence, or at least awareness.

Not to suggest that fear be allowed to paralyze.

But we must be aware of the approaching storm. Then we can make informed decisions, ie., exercise free will.

Do we fight the Beast?

Attempt to placate the Beast with blood sacrifice?

Or ignore the ripples in the water glass, and hope the Beast goes away on its own?

-wv shelly

murph said...

I think we can agree that the rapers and pillagers have virtually taken over our country. Although, this also seems to be true of almost anywhere in the world. Now if the bastards would just leave us alone, yes, we could make our own reality. However, I think it is also obvious that they are not going to do that, they want us kneeling at their feet, period. After all, they are the self proclaimed masters of the universe.

I agree Rockpicker, they don't give a fuck about us.

Scrap Wood, yes, if they will leave the citizens alone while they rape and pillage, we can create our own reality. However when the jack booted thugs show up on your doorstep and make demands from you, your personal reality is suddenly nullified. And, I also agree with you that the best we can do is create our own reality, but in my view, the PTB is not going to leave most of us alone to do so. They are going to impose themselves themselves on our lives. Get used to it. The important thing, again in my view, is how are you going to react when the impositions destroy your reality. Do you fight it, or do you accede? I think that is the most important question for everyone. Every time we accede on a point, they win another round.

Personally, I really try to take the stance of the Zen Buddhist warrior. You can fight them dispassionately and detached. If we don't, we will become literal slaves. I find that to be unacceptable.

Anonymous said...

BAZ... no error, no foul. you were mearly pointing out a foul error on the part of others. i was mearly suggesting they are not alone.

freeacre said...

Well, hearkening back to the subject of population, a friend sent a report that is interesting. It says that the populations of the major developed countries are all aging (with the exception of Russia). All these countries face the same crisis - social security programs that are not designed to support populations that live as long as they do now, and diminishing young people to support them. Therefore, they have to have immigrants to fill in the labor pool, but the immigrants don't fit in well with the greater culture. Russia doesn't have this problem at this time because they die (drink themselves to death) before their official age of retirement.
I agree that the burden of masses of people living 20 years beyond their productive capacity is a terrible drain on a country's resources. Couple that with the burden of caring for all these children with autism for the whole of their lives, and the crisis is just about unimaginable.
The crisis could be mitigated if we would somehow change our thinking to include the concept of "enough." as I have stated in previous posts. We currently have no sense of enough. Never enough money, possessions, time, medical interventions, et al. I told my friend that, personally, once I hit 65, I would be willing to accept a free pass for a year on Amtrack and/or an extended river cruise in Europe with the understanding that once I got home I'd take a go-to-sleep cocktail from which I would never wake up. But, knowing the government, no such pleasant alternative would ever be conceived. So, I guess it's back to looking forward to pestilence, starvation, or a life-ending asteroid grand slam, or its equivalent.
Rats. I would have enjoyed the cruise.

wv: minful

rockpicker said...

Minful,

You crack me up!

At the rate earth changes are happening, we might not have to wait long to witness some real major population reduction, compliments of our Angry Mama.

I suppose most have read by now the charge that the Haiti earthquake was man-caused with deployed longitudinal EM wave generators. If some nut, (government), focuses on Yellowstone with one of those things, (H.A.A.R.P.), it will be an event the whole planet participates in.

And it's all so unnecessary. The planet is not overcrowded. We're just not allocating resources equitably. And we're not even attempting to live sustainably.

But we could, without resorting to war, concocted pandemics, famine or economic predation to eradicate defenseless populations whose resources we covet.

Grow your own food, save your own seeds, make your own music, find your own way. Don't buy shit you don't need. Re-elect no one. Don't fly. Kill your tv. And Stop Feeding the Beast.

The federal income tax is not only unjust and illegal, it is now totally moot. No amount of tribute will, or possibly can, save this dysfunctional system.

Through action, we express intent. We exercise free will when we reject the broken visions of a dissembling future offered us by inept elites. Disobedience with innovation, (element of surprise), begets confusion while weakening the power brokers' grip.

Cuba and Russia both have learned a great deal about self-reliance and self-preservation in the last twenty years. There's an excellent film out about Cuba facing a de facto peak oil shortage in the early '90's, due to its benefactor's collapse. They did it by everyone pitching in and growing their own food.

Same in Russia today. Something like 40 pc of Russia's domestic food supply last year was produced locally in small gardens.
Probably has some positive effect on the drinking problem, too, I might imagine.

Scrap Wood, I don't dismiss your sentiment out of hand, as I too feel the interconnectedness of all things, and also trust the soul lives on after the body, (the 'experiencer', through which we perceive this reality), crashes.
But in order to continue running programs, we do need to be aware of threats to our systems.

wv fragiali

Hotspringswizard said...

I was just looking at the photo of mine at the top of this topic, and from one perspective it looks like some otherwordly eye staring back at me :-)

I have been making little clay heads like the one seen in the photo for some time, all differant types, and since I've been doing this its like alot of things, it rearranges things in the mind to make you more pre-disposed to notice things related to that new thing my mind is engaged in, making little abstract faces.

Now I see faces in lots of things that I would have never noticed before, varieties of human faces, animals, creatures, etc. Interesting how the mind works.

On another subject I was watching Thom Hartman ( poor guy look beat lately ) on Free Speech TV today and he was really woundup talking to this one guy about this new supreme court ruling about the corporations and their contributions ( bribes ).

The guy he was talking to said its all ok because the corporations are a collection of people who certainly deserve to be allowed to " voice their opinion ". Another caller-in brought up the point that the constitution gives all these rights the corporations have now been given, to people, not collections of people ( or corporations ), and he said these rights were created to protect, give a voice to " the people " to help them protect themselves from artificial constructs like corporations, or other powerful collections of people who would wield undue influence because of the access their riches could bring them. Great point!

My wife showed me an article in our local paper about Air America going under. How long will it be till the corporations and their new found power push out any kind of alternative media, what ever its form, because of its detrimental characteristics in terms of the bottom line for corporations, profit beyond everything else?

Seems to me about all we can realistically due is try and remove ourselves to what extent we can from the system. We grew up ( in the US and many places elsewhere ) in a time of realative plenty so retrenching from that will be very hard for most. The newer generations will experience a differant reality as time goes along and will not have the mental crutches we built up of needing and desiring to keep alive a paradigm of living which has seen its zenith ( thankfully so ).

Continued......

Hotspringswizard said...

So in little ways ( which all add up to something greater ) I incorporate simplicity into my life. For instance I shave my head and only rebuz it about once every three weeks or so, because it makes my life more simple. I wear basically all the time the cheapest cloths you can find ( except at a thrift store which is cool too ) which are sweats ( and tee shirts all given to me ). Its like wearing your pajamas all day :-) I only eat two meals a day which I find alot simpler.

I purposely seek simple pleasures like hiking, spending time with my family, making little heads from clay I find, etc. I keep my social life simple too so I don't have to run around in the car all the time visiting people, not that I don't cherish the important relationships in my life too :-)

Well its stuff like that that can help. Of course I've only mentioned just a few things, and am not saying I don't consume things to one extent or another. We will all have to get used to the reality that our consumption of everything will have to decline and cope as we can.

One thing I think of at times to bring my focus back to things larger than myself is I think of my being out in space, at such a distance away from this earth we live on that it looks like some very tiny light blue pinpoint in the blackness of the greater cosmos.

Everything thats ever been of humanity has happened on that little point ( or very near it, space stuff ). But then if I look around me in my distant point in space, what does all of that really mean compared to the grandness, complexity, and incomprehensible infinity of the rest of the creation around us?

In the larger scheme of things, all that humanity is, was, or will be is like a mere shadow passing through the halls of time. As one of the countless ghost within this shadow my time here is immeasurably fleeting too. So as much as I can, I try to take it all in, and try and create a postive impression in the sands of this time I have :-)

Hotspringswizard said...

Oh and like clockwork, now that I have finished composing and re-reading this last post of mine, and my mental energetic output is reduced since I'm done with the task, our parakeet has begun to chirp happily :-)

Remember I mentioned before that this happens all the time. Its a curious thing, this little parakeet that seems to be able to sense my change in mental energy level, without any visual cues :-)

rockpicker said...

the bird's hip.

-wv knesse

Anonymous said...

fragiali-ty notwithstanding there is valid argument that the planet is not overcrowded. as RP points out its only overcrowded in the context that its not sustainable in the ways we currently attempt to sustain life. i agree with this in theory and, previous campfire converstions around 'free energy' and such aside, there are some pdg ideas in the way of tech being forwarded. some of the staunchest proponents of this are folks who call themselves professional futurists. i heard one of them interviewed on coast recently. the guest was joel barker who claims to be the first person to popularize the concept of paradigm shifts for the corporate world. he talked about various technologies already on the drawing board that will be driving forces behind such shifts in the coming times. like verticle farming. another is waterless toilets. no, not chemical ones. ones where waste is collected and picked up on a regular basis just like garbage is today. then composted on a massive scale and returned to enrich depleated soils. and ya, it does take into account the massive amounts of toxins such as pharmceutical lacings in human waste and includes ways to mitigate that. the waterless toilet not only appears to address water shortage it addresses food shortage and returning soils the food is grown in back to life sustaining balance. one unintended consequence is population increases.

futurists such as barker, who's main objective is to monitor such developments and prognosticate argue that necessity is the mother of invention. that out of necessity we make such paradigm shifts and in the end save ourselves from our own demise. its a valid argument justified by past experience and there's certainly plenty of evidence that tech is moving far faster than ever before.

but so is population increase. which begs the obvious question: can it move fast enough to happen in time? right now, even at todays rapid rates, tech of this nature takes time to deveolpe and then to impliment. generally at a minimum of 5 to 10 years from the time an idea is first conceived, moves through R&D to manifest into something physical and goes through testing of all stripe including market. add to this the transition period which can take another 5-10 years to achieve full saturation and become "a way of life" in real time. this one was acknowledged by barker.

another prob is the interests of those who've layed claim to the current way of life. the CD is a good example. the CD was held off market and/or out of reach to most consumers for several years until the cassette disk market had been thoroughly milked. this one nor any like it were not talked about.

also not talked about was the tenacious tendency for a continuing application of effort or skill toward a particular project or goal to decline in effectiveness after a certain level of result has been achieved commonly referred to as the law of diminishing returns. such inconvenience has a tendency to happen even to projects or goals that are static, stable or otherwise under some sort of control. in context of population explosion this becomes a real ass... errr, i mean head scratcher... p

rockpicker said...

This last point sounds like the entropy in the pause Clif High talks about.

http://halfpasthuman.com/timeexpo2.html

22 trillion times a second?

Getting in sync
might atomize us
I think.

freeacre said...

I dunno, p. Even if we were somehow able to add additional humans on the earth and feed them all - it seems we'd just be crowding out more and more animals and forests, etc. And, how are we supposed to build all these high tech things when the world is running out of rare earth metals that are necessary for their construction? And, what about the culture-killing life-style changes that imposing this technology on traditional cultures would entail? Plan to house all those forest dwellers in high rise condos? Naw... what is the benefit of increasing our numbers if we all have to hook up to the matrix and all the animals and wild places are gone? I'd rather figure out how to insulate the tepee,bring back the buffalo and wild salmon re-populating the streams. I just made some smoked salmon - and that just has to be included in the "quality of life" calculations. I am not looking forward to slurping down some ocean slime once all the fish are extinct.
And, Rockpicker, I really liked that treatise on Time that Clif wrote. It strikes me as the best I've read.

rockpicker said...

Belgium,

As for the Yanomamo; it seems the time is ripe for a Hiawatha or a Jesus to come on the scene.

As for man manipulating population growth to achieve some preconceived median, mention of 20th century eugenics, as promoted, (if not conceived, by prominent America industrialists at the end of the nineteen hundreds), seems in order.

Let me lift the corner of this rug to reveal, not my own views on the subject, but to offer a glance upon a vast and little-mentioned topic that may actually play a more important role in current affairs than any of us can know.

http://www.eugenics-watch.com/eugbook/euod_ch1.html#15

Question: If social engineering projects to control quantity are condoned, who controls the 'controllers' from adjusting quality as well?

Anonymous said...

From Belgium

Rp I will catch the link later but in the meantime:

There has been talk that acts of rape during military conflicts are responsible for significantly increasing world population but is this so? The rape rate of 0.003% pa figure has some merit for a country such as the US which does not have armed conflict in its homeland and acts as a baseline against which rape levels in war zones can be measured. It does seems to me however that whether the grunt is back home getting his grunt with his sweetheart or whether the grunt’s grunt is a spoil of war the resulting population increase is going to be about the same in either case. If it is more one way or the other then I don’t think the imbalance will be overall significant.

I am no advocate for war but let us have a look at the proposition that ending wars will stabilise the world population. China has the largest population in the world by a long way so let’s take a look at their military history in recent times – say since the Boxer Revolution, a time when the age of oil was really kicking in.

1950 Piled in with North Korea against the US - result stalemate
1950 Invaded Tibet against a sticks and stones opposition
1959 Put down a rebellion in Tibet against the same opposition
1962 Border skirmish with India
1969 Border dispute with Russia over Damanski Island (just north of N Korea)
1970 Border dispute with Vietnam
1979 China invaded Vietnam over the removal of ally Pol Pot in Cambodia
2004 China reinforces the Three Gorges Dam against terrorist attacks.

Apart from levelling the playing field in Korea and giving the Vietnamese a scare, there was no mass slaughter on China’s soil as a result of invasion that was going to seriously affect the population.

Wikipedia gives the current population of China to be 1.335460bn and the current world population to be 6.798500bn which is 19.64%

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population

It is hard to say exactly what the population would have been had there not been a population program in China but the Chinese themselves estimate that there has been approx 400 million fewer births as a result of the program. If we add 0.4bn to both the Chinese and world populations we get 1.735460bn for China and 7.198500bn for the world or 29.95% increase for China and 24.11%for the world. That is a jump of 5.9 percent of world population in thirty years that has been prevented. Even the Chinese administration admits that their census figures are underestimated because in rural areas the one child policy is not strictly adhered to and at census time offending couples join the transient migration to the big cities. It appears that the notion that ending all wars would stabilise the world population comes from the school of faulty logic. I am not disputing that such things occur, sometimes they happen in great numbers and permanently add to the population in conflict areas but the idea that spoils of war pregnancies drive population growth is a pretty bizarre concept.
There again if anyone wants to run this one past me again, I am quite willing to listen.

Anonymous said...

FB pt 2

What I think is more interesting is that since the early 1970’s world year on year population growth has been declining. Yes the total numbers are still going up but each years increase is less than the previous years increase. Of course it is not a line you could draw with a ruler; there are a series of plateaus and dips as would be expected. During the great Chinese famine of 1960/1 the population growth in that country dropped the population growth rate by 2.85% in one year into negative numbers as would be expected by the Malthus theory. In 1963 the world yearly growth rate was 2.1% which rose to 2.14 by 1971 but since then it has fallen steadily to the last available figure 2008 of 1.17%. If we look at the most gradual decline of the graph from 1975 to 2008 the annual increase rate dropped from 1.88% to 1.17%. It took 33 years to drop 0.71% and if this trend continued at the same rate, which is a pretty big IF, then zero growth would be achieved in (1.17*33)/0.71 = 54 years from 2008 which is year 2062 after which it would start to genuinely decline. This assumes that there will be no resource problems during this time and the PTB will be nice to us all but it is a kind of interesting figure anyway.

Vietnam has been specifically mentioned so let’s have a look what happened to the population growth rate here. The US was involved in this country between 1961 and 1975 and during this time it is true that the annual population growth rate rose from 1.95% to 2.36% when it fell back to 1.73% in 1983. It was still falling during the 1979 Chinese invasion which may say something about US soldiers and Chinese soldiers but probably more about the ferocity of the Vietnamese. After 1983 it inexplicably rose to 2.46% (higher than its US war peak) in 1987 before dropping back to its present level of 1.23%. Whilst it is true that the Vietnamese have been having an ongoing pop at the Cambodians, there was no occupation of Vietnam to explain this peak.


http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_pop_grow&tdim=true&dl=en&hl=en&q=Population+growth+World

Click on ‘more info’ to see a shaded world map of higher and lower growth rate countries.
And Freeacre, it is true that Russia’s population has been contracting since 1993.

Scrap Wood I think I followed a fairly normal route in my awareness of what is going on in the world. I always realised that the media slanted the news but didn’t always know how to spot the propaganda. Initially I found alternative news sites which led to other sites and I tended to live in the doom news. I think I have figured out how many of the strings work and now I am living in rp’s twilight zone. I realise that at some point the boot will fall and there will be a 3am knock on the door. Once you have come to terms with the worst that can happen then you do a bit of basic preparation and spend the rest of the time getting on with your life. I believe that overall non compliance will stretch things out a bit longer but as Murph pointed out this tactic will only go so far.

rockpicker said...

I hope everyone enjoys the speech tonight.


..."While searching to find the date of the State of the Union address, I came across something I was not looking for. It was an official announcement from a government agency that I did not know existed. The Office of Force Readiness and Deployment on their official website is calling for medical workers specializing in cardiac problems. The heading says: "2010 State of the Union Address." The complete announcement reads as follows: "Dear Commissioned Corps Officers of Tier III Roster D: The U.S. Capitol Police and the Office of the attending Physician, through the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR), Office of Preparedness and Emergency Response, has asked the Office of Force Readiness and Deployment (OFRD) to roster five medical strike teams of physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants and registered nurses to provide care for Basic Life Support and Advanced Cardiac Life support incidents during the 2010 State of the Union Address in Washington, D.C. Capitol Area Provider Team #4 will be working this event but we will need to augment their team with additional clinical assets from Tier III Roster D. A date for the 2010 State of the Union Address has not been set yet, but the proposed dates are 19, 25 and 26 January 2010." The announcement goes on to say that all of these heart specialists will be "in field uniform-Woodland Pattern, USPHS Ball Cap & T Shirt." (13)

When I read this announcement, I immediately began to wonder what Obama will say that would cause so many potential heart attacks. I also thought of Luke 21:26, which reads as follows: "Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken."

What is next on the agenda of the Illuminati conspirators? The Copenhagen Climate Summit was a complete flop and fiasco as the majority of nations walked out in protest! (14) Even though church bells rang worldwide in support of the Copenhagen meetings, there were not nearly as many bells ringing as hoped. (15)..."

-from a piece entitled
America--The True State of the Union, available here:

http://lasttrumpetnewsletter.org/2010/02_10.html

wv calmsa

Anonymous said...

It appears that the notion that ending all wars would stabilise the world population comes from the school of faulty logic.

by stable you mean in number right? not location?

i'm assuming numbers. i haven't had a look at the wiki piece sats so maybe the notion was posited there? or, or, or, someplace else? and by whom?

such a claim is a new one on me so i've never considered the possibility. but whatever be the energy provoking my knee to jerk and a laugh to laugh is obviously in alignment with your observation. i can't even begin to imagine how one could result in the other. if anything it would seem at first glance the opposite would result.

the same knee jerk is wont to wonder about something else too. things that upset the apple cart like wars and revolutions and uprisings have a tendency to trigger exodus. of peoples. at the same time such events are playing out. a certain percentage of populations are always moving around anyway. some coming. some going. its elementary to conclude that if 2 leave and one comes the population decreased. during such times of upheaval such activity tends to weigh toward increase and of those tends to skew toward the going. assuming the population is not under house arrest this is a factor that would likely skew any analysis of the affect of war on birth rates if its not taken into consideration. especially one vested in analyzing any affect the carnal behaviour of the occupying armies might have one way or the other. so it seems to me any serious analysis of birth rates during such times needs to include any fluctuation in migration of the general population in that context.

the same knee jerk agrees that war pregnancies have little impact on overall population growth. where they do have impact is in the ways these pregnancies came about. any attempt on trying to analyze that would face even greater challenges than one simply trying to analyze an impact on pop numbers but my same knee jerk suspects its not a pretty picture.

in closing your fine comment you said... I think I have figured out how many of the strings work and now I am living in rp’s twilight zone.

i think that would make a fine topic for a blog entry. i'd love to hear the details with particular interest in the comments it will provoke... p

Anonymous said...

OFRD site... http://ccrf.hhs.gov/ccrf/

more specific, the DC area team which would include events at the capital... http://ccrf.hhs.gov/ccrf/FactSheets/CAP_Fact_Sheet_FINAL.pdf

unfortunately the trumpeter didn't provide a link.

could the prophetic machinations of an evangelical leader of a small band of followers in the colds of wisconsin lead to this...


http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=com.microsoft%3Aen-us%3AIE-SearchBox&rlz=1I7RNWO&q=Office+of+Force+Readiness+and+Deployment+Basic+Life+Support+and+Advanced+Cardiac+Life+support+incidents+during+the+2010+State+of+the+Union+Address+&btnG=Search&aq=0&aql=&aqi=g1&oq=Office+of+Force+Readiness+and+Deployment+

note the key words generating 28,100 hits. and likely generating restlessness 'mongst millions of natives.

based on what? seemed to me the only way to maybe find out was to ask. so i fired off the following email to the OFRD adde provided on the CCRF site... P


Attention: Anyone connected to or familar with Capitol Area Provider Team #4,

Hi. I'm writing to get a response to a claim being made that an anouncement was posted somewhere on the OFRD site stating...

"Dear Commissioned Corps Officers of Tier III Roster D: The U.S. Capitol Police and the Office of the attending Physician, through the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR), Office of Preparedness and Emergency Response, has asked the Office of Force Readiness and Deployment (OFRD) to roster five medical strike teams of physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants and registered nurses to provide care for Basic Life Support and Advanced Cardiac Life support incidents during the 2010 State of the Union Address in Washington, D.C. Capitol Area Provider Team #4 will be working this event but we will need to augment their team with additional clinical assets from Tier III Roster D. A date for the 2010 State of the Union Address has not been set yet, but the proposed dates are 19, 25 and 26 January 2010."

The claim seems to originate from here (embedded link). The author, apparently the evangelical leader of a small band of followers in Wisconsin and publisher of the newsletter linked to, did NOT provide a link to back up the claim.

A search of key words: Office of Force Readiness and Deployment Basic Life Support and Advanced Cardiac Life support incidents during the 2010 State of the Union Address generated 28,100 hits from google suggesting the claim took to having legs 'mongst various "alternative" websites.

The question is, is there anything to it and if so, what would provoke such an announcement? Only you can provide the answer.

True or not I expect you're pretty busy today in any regard. I appreciate your service to our country and I'd appreciate any response to my querry you're authorized to give at such time in the future as may be convenient to you and within your realm of authority.

Thanks in advance,

wv...fulade

rockpicker said...

seen this?

http://dprogram.net/2010/01/25/could-vancouver-2010-could-be-the-next-911/

rockpicker said...

seen this?

http://dprogram.net/2010/01/25/could-vancouver-2010-could-be-the-next-911/

wv-- sesesses

rockpicker said...

How lucky can ya get?

"...As personnel representing hundreds of government and nongovernment agencies from around the world rush to the aid of earthquake-devastated Haiti, the Defense Information Systems Agency has launched a Web portal with multiple social networking tools to aid in coordinating their efforts.

On Monday, Jean Demay, DISA's technical manager for the agency's Transnational Information Sharing Cooperation project, happened to be at the headquarters of the U.S. Southern Command in Miami preparing for a test of the system in a scenario that involved providing relief to Haiti in the wake of a hurricane. After the earthquake hit on Tuesday, Demay said SOUTHCOM decided to go live with the system. On Wednesday, DISA opened up its All Partners Access Network, supported by the Transnational Information Sharing Cooperation project, to any organization supporting Haiti relief efforts..."

rest of the story here--

http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20100115_9940.php

Anonymous said...

The Father of Voluntary Simplicity: Richard Gregg
http://www.soilandhealth.org/03sov/0304spiritpsych/030409simplicity/SimplicityFrame.html

Scrap Wood