Santorum wants to gut the NWS and the NSF will drop behind EU science funding in the next couple of years. NSF funding in the 2006 budget is less in actual dollars than the 2004 budget. 1/3 of increase over 2005 is to pay for operation of ice breakers formerly operated by the coast guard. This year there is an 18% drop in education funding in the NSF.

Prior to 9/11, the solicitor general of the US, Theodore Olsen, stated that the government would openly resort to "lies" in pursuit of its policies. This comment passed without mention by US corporate media. The recent leaking of the smoking gun "intelligence will be fixed to policy" to provide the "case" for war in Iraq memo by the London Times has yet to find any mention here.

It's clear that both the Dems and Reps champion the US Empire, albeit in slightly different ways. I would say that the Reps are more Orwellian, but that's possibly presentism. As an historian of the US Empire, most people reveal their libertarian and anti-imperial proclivities when they are shown/discover the real "hows and whys" of our federal government and its owners. This is bourne-out by what is called/derided as the "isolationism" of the 1930s, which was actually a vast anti-empire movement/sentiment of about 75% of US citizens. The importance of this is clear when looking at US history college textbooks that omit the revelations of the Nye and Pecora Committees that formed the basis for the movement and provided the impetus for controlling big business. In 1943, FDR announced that "Dr. New Deal" was being replaced by "Dr. Win-The-War," and where we are today is a direct result of that policy shift.

Ross Perot was right in 1992 when he said big business and big government were morphing into one. Nader echoed that in 2000 by calling its structure a "Duopoly." I think that the executive branch needs to be eliminated/reduced to a bureaucratic branch whose ministers are directly elected in a national election, with greater oversight powers granted to an expanded House--something along the lines of the Articles of Confederation, while maintaining an overall federalist structure: Local, State, Federal. There might be a Prime Minister subject to recall along the lines of the Bolivarian Constitution of Venezuela. If the goal is to negate the power of the executive, this is one possibility. (It goes without saying that all campaigning for public offices would be publicly financed and the Corporate Media Trust would be busted and made to serve the public's interest for such change to occur.)

Shedding its Empire is the best thing the USA could do for its true interests. Such a move directly addresses the four main crises we face: Climate change, environmental poisoning, debt bubble, and fossil fuel depletion. Its literally Power Down.

Maybe it's not a coincidence that states and cities lead on wind and solar development?

Gentlemen and Ladies - if there is any evidence of the american populace beginning to unite, the wonderful Patriot Act provides the government the ability to legally revoke every single right as given under the constitution. If you read the entire act, you will find that every single right can be overridden, nullified, placed in time-out, suspended, deferred, or abrogated. The few that cannot are subject to notification deadlines, which we all know can be back-dated, as they are filled out by the PTB.

Based on the Dems being almost as bad as the Reps, and that their common allegiance to big business makes them much more like competing campus fraternities than true adversaries, this just leaves the people to make changes. These changes cannot be made at the crooked and rigged federal level election, especially without the popular vote.

People do not need to try and fight the Feds head-on. What people need to do is take back their state houses, unite their people at a level that the MSM doesn't prefer to work in (state and local), and then pass appropriate state laws. If it means that Fed funding doesn't get sent down the pipe, then let the states battle with the Feds as to what the IRS can truly tax, and place the disputed federal taxes in a state-owned local bank in an escrow account. Then borrow the funds in toto and leave an IOU instead, ala the Social Insecurity system...!! The power is in numbers, but the only way to do this absent the MSM (who will ALWAYS back the PTB) is at the state and local level.

I do think this might work, but until the MSM can be made a complete joke to Joe SixPack, he will continue to suck the drivel spilling from his television as actual "news". That is why it has to start with the states and with counties and cities. That is why every single day I spend hours explaining reality to people who are tragically unaware.

My opinion, of course. But I would like to know how others think the system could be revised, reversed, or otherwise changed to work for us rather than taxing and ruling over us.

It is not a question of "centralized government" versus individual freedoms. It is more a question about our systems of reward & punishment (carrots & cattle prods).

Adam Smith's "invisible hand" is greedy, grubby, selfish and shortsighted (profits in the next Quarter are the only thing that matter). In some instances, this free market tool is extremely successful --giving the uneducated masses that which they most want-- even if Madison Ave. first tells them what they want.

In other instances (i.e. oil depletion), the free market mechanisms for individualized reward & punishment are extremely counterproductive. We instinctively know it. But we blame the players rather than "the system".

GM is not wrong to make SUV's. That is where the maximized profits lie (or layed --until last Quarter when hybrids became the rage). As a corporate animal, GM was doing what its genes told it do: maximize short term profits. You can't blame a corporate animal for doing what it was born to do.

Similarly in American politics, the reward goes to the leaders that tell the clueless masses what they want to hear --read my lips no new Texas, we still dance with them that brung us. Reagan is still royalty and Carter is a down-in-the-clay peanut nerd. Go figure.

What is needed is a reward system that rewards those who do the long term correct thing (i.e. get us off of oil, address global warming) rather than rewarding those who do the expedient and popular thing.

Anybody have ideas on how to make it so?

P.S. Communism was an abysmal failure because the reward system there was for having "party connections".

According to my mentor C West Churchman, the "time value of money" was the worst thing invented by man.

It basically says that consumption today is better than consumption in the future. In practice what it means is "I don't care what my children and grandchildren have to go through as long as I can have my feast today" All I can say is that we are in for a hell of a hangover!

The species homo sapiens has reached the pinnacle of evolution because it is the most selfish and aggressive on the planet.

These attributes are requsite and positive for evolutionary domination, but are drawbacks for the cooperative global unification which appears to be necessary in order for humanity to respect the gift of earth's resources, which are being rapidly squandered in the drive for continued aggressive growth.

How do you train a cat not to pounce on a mouse , or a bird to not fly away when frightened? How can you ask corporations to stop trying to make more money? How can a scientist be instructed to not think of new ways to research? And how can you ask global consumers to stop or slow down consumption?

Small numbers of enlightened consumers understand what is at stake and have the discipline to minimize consumption, but I would estimate that 95% do not care or do not understand the dangers of over-population and over-consumption, and never will.

What the world really needs is a good depression, or a massive ecological disaster, to make the point that we are living way beyond our means and to act as a warning that profligate consumption without replacement will result in catastrophe. I would hope that this event will not be a quick slide down the right side of Peak Oil. If it is, there

...if it is, there will be no second chance.

Step Back said, "What is needed is a reward system that rewards those who do the long term correct thing....
Anybody have ideas on how to make it so?"

And J said, "I would like to know how others think the system could be revised, reversed, or otherwise changed to work for us rather than taxing and ruling over us."

I had already provided the basic answer to J's question prior to its asking. It needs further development, but it's Madisonian in its essence.

The development of a new paradigm, Step Back's question, is much harder to answer and ultimately will need more space. Being an historian helps me because I have greater knowledge of how peoples "made it" in the past. But, there is no "golden age" residing in the past to return to.

The Russians had what was/is called a Soviet--town council--that provided a forum for the villagers to combine their energies/capital for the mutual benefit of all. Lenin/Stalinism perverted that fundamental idea, but it's reviving as a result of the economic war waged by the USA on the former USSR. In fact, a good sense of what awaits the USA can be seen by taking a hard look at Russia's current state.

In any new paradigm, the primary goal will be the satisfication of needs--water, food, shelter, clothing, reproduction. It's when we come to wants that any proposed change becomes tough because everyone's wants are somewhat different. For example, gaining more knowledge and wisdom are my wants once my needs are satisfied, now that I'm almost 50. Wants are also based upon what the culture can deliver and how it apportions status. As a Trobriand Islander, I could become a "big man" if I grew the greatest numbers of yams and then gave them away at a massive party. In the Chinook culture before Europeans destroyed it, a similar status could be reached through the complex Potlach ceremonial process. Both of these cultures were very rich and still are to some degree. Examining Hopi culture would also lend additional insights; and so forth.

Another question needs to be asked: What good are rewards if the value system on which they're based is perverted--debased? Wouldn't that render the rewards false, meaningless?

Every religious text says in some form that money is the root of all evil; yet the accumulation of monetary wealth in our culture is greatly esteemed. This is the vast contradiction earthquake fault underlying our system. As Marx forsaw, it's THE contradiction that cries out for resolution. To top things off, we have a very reckless and lawless culture that carries additional consequences--very few if any will cooperate with you if you are viewed as combative/aggressive.

Human nature tells me status will be sought in the future just as it was in Vedic India 7,000 years ago, which means hierarchies are likely. I would favor a system that channeled the energy that goes toward seeking status into the pursuit of all of nature's secrets--many of which already need to be relearned. Such a system would be managed by all--a participatory democracy that becomes habit-like, second-nature--whose institutions genuinely seek to advance the "general Welfare" (The Preamble to the US Constitution is still a worthy guide) and are open to all. Perhaps repeating 1776 in 2008 is an idea worth considering.

Most of us were taught as adolescents, sometimes strenuously, to share what we had with others. Of course, today's children learn very quickly that sharing isn't rewarded by society, getting more than everyone else is. Imagine the Sea Change that would occur if society actually rewarded sharing. Remember George Harrison's song Imagine? Imagine .....

And to think that Clear Channel banned it when Bush played Hitler and invaded Iraq.

Realists state the obvious: people will do as they have always done -- irrational grasping for more comfort, pleasure and possessions.

The American empire is counting on this. Our weapons budget this year will equal the weapons budget of the entire rest of the planet. Who, what, will turn that aside?

Dems and Republicans alike plan to stay on top of a volatile population over the coming decade. That's about as far ahead as they are thinking: to keep a tight lid on it.

Thank you karlof1 for your well reasoned counter-question: To reward what? And thanks to antifa for pointing out that people have always irrationally grasped for individual power.

I have this dellusioned hope that one good new idea can change the world. Much of our behavior is guided by how we are educated (or *not*) in childhood. Proof of this is in the many different cultures around the world. Each group acts in accordance with the rituals, etc. that are ingrained into them during youth. What if "healing the planet" became part of their ingrained belief system?

Our American education system stresses the 3 R's and the 3P's ....
Read'in
Rite'n, n
Rithmetic

Profits,
Profits, n more
Profits

What if we pushed for new curricula to be added into our schools:
Global ecological awareness,
Global energy awareness,
Global ethics awareness

(The GE's. Jack Welch would be proud)

What if our hero worship system was altered to recognize those who do most to save the planet rather than those who pop the most steroids so they can pop the most home run hits over the back fence?

Call me dellusional, but what if it can come to be nonetheless?

Nearly ten years ago, during the Contract With America hoopla, I was talking with a friend about Gingrich & Co. I told him that right now you could walk up to the GOP leadership and lay out a plan to reduce the size of government ala Ross Perot: wipe out business subsidies, make corporations pay their fair share for the armed defense of their overseas "property", get out of NATO, let black communities organize their own self-defense instead of an expensive occupation by suburban redneck police, etc. And the GOP would say, "It's not about less government, it's about white government."

As a sometime Texan, a former Republican, and a ferociously lapsed Southern Baptist, I know where these bastards are coming from. Their utopia is the 19th century, and the only division in their ranks are those who prefer the old Slave South and those who prefer the Robber Baron North. But they're stuck worshipping a market that globalized everything and made us all interdependent. So the 19th century state they are increasingly seduced into copying is Victoria's bloody Empire, which also had to control a global class system to keep its poor at bay. The Right's core nostalgia, though, is for the Old South, which proclaimed States' Rights and then pushed through the Fugitive Slave Act, then created a militia network to control the countryside, then seceded and was forced by the Civil War to create an authoritarian state, then was defeated and evolved into the feudal tyranny of Jim Crow and the KKK. That's the difference between white government and limited government. Their working class supporters never loved free enterprise as much as they loved a class system in which the worst of them was guaranteed by law and rope to be above the best Black man. Now their leaders are racing to develop a new paradigm to replace "race" with a new category of subhuman to justify the need for tribal unity. The definition of that will go a long way to determining how much oppression will be directed within our borders as Christian values, or overseas as Empire. If Cheney knew about Peak Oil long ago, it was clever of him to ally with the Christian Right and keep his options open until he could see how fast the energy problem would develop. A slow decline probably will be used to justify grabbing more and more foreign oil, with poor whites gladly becoming a class of global cops, soldiers and prison guards. But a fast decline means those whites will be allowed on a rampage to crush all domestic resistance to a theocracy hanging on to survival.

Step Back: There's already a movement called Culture Jamming somewhat centered around the ezine Adbusters. Additionally, there are a number of alternative schools that teach the type of curriculum you suggested as needed to promote change.

Admittedly, these efforts are small, but they form parts of a much larger whole. There were a pair of speakers I heard at SolFest 2 years ago(?) who detailed their research into the rise of Culture Jammers and estimated that @50 Million US citizens could be so classified as of 2002. So your "what ifs" are actually in the process of Becoming.

In education, there's what's known as a "teachable moment." The times we now live in more than ever could be thought of in the way. It's possible to teach, put forward ideas, in every day conversation. The weather's been strange where I live and where most other folk live. This provides the opportunity when chatting about the weather to bring up climate change, something I engage in all the time when I'm at the grocers, or when I'm traveling I'll ask how the local weather's been impacted by climate change. There're farmers and ranchers I run into all the time who tell me their observations, like how much earlier this year's onset of Spring was compared to just last year. These sorts of educational interactions are far more enduring than any TV ad and go far towards deatomizing our atomized society.

karlof

I think that given the current direction and lengths our government is willing to go, if we shed our empire, where will the focus of our giant FEDERAL MACHINE turn - inward? God I hope not, but without our current adventurism, our power mad government might be working on controlling us even more tightly than they are now.

I realize that you answered a large part of what I asked, but I cannot see that happening, can you? Reagan is the only guy I remember that even spoke of limiting government. Historian, tell me of others... from my perspective, government seems to be not only becoming bigger, but becoming almost club-like. The resistance to reduction will be countered by HUGE groups (education, fed/state/local muni workers, military industrial complex, anyone receiving government funds, etc). Can government grow forever, until we are all working for it?

I see many parallels to Rome in the current state of our affairs - what about you?

And the reward for doing the correct thing is simple if you pull back and look at all we are facing - increased survival. If my kids are taught sustainability, then they are ready and equipped regardless of what everybody else does. It's kind of like "survivalism light" - it makes them better citizens, inspires confidence, and best of all, it is the right way to live. (ok, snipe away if you want )

One nice thing about the current situation - I am no longer regarded as a kook when I share my POV... which is like karlof - at every mention of weather or gas prices.

...taking solace where I can.

J--Until the 1930s, the federal government was very small, I'd have to look up the actual numbers, but it was easilly 1/20th today's size. Its growth started with the first regulatory agencies at the beginning of the 20th century under TR and then WW1 saw it grow some more.

It's been argued by many of us Historians Against The War that the only way to reduce the size of the federal government is through withdrawl from Empire and the National Security State its symbioticly attached to. With the current state of IT, a government the same size as 1932's would easilly be possible--most government employees then were clerks and secretaries outnumbering the size of the combined armed forces. Reducing the Executive to a Bureaucratic branch without the types of powers it now has, as I suggested, would promote greater freedom and democratic involvement in its management by the electorate and Congress--something that has now almost vanished since 1981. Think of saving a Trillion dollars a year at the minimum, money much better used to solve the crises we confront.

Thanx karlof! I get it, and it could happen.

Maybe what I am asking is HOW do we get government to immolate itself numerically? As it stands, we have such a large population that IMHO we have taxation without adequate representation. Federal power has all but strangled most state governments - they are on the big federal teat, and know no other way to operate.

So, how do we, as a people of a land where election results are questionable, corporations snuggle eagerly and nightly with the Feds (see Kennedy article in Vanity Fair), and the Patriot Act allows any citizen to be arrested or have property confiscated outside due process... how do we move to slay this beast and reduce federalist government?

Talk about a teaching moment !

How do you get people to step back and think outside the box they have been caged in their whole lives?

I see emotional catch phrases being tossed around here. Phrases like "big government" and "taxes" and "Democrats", etc., etc. All of these are monkey noises invented by we, the rulers of the Planet of the Primates. Mother Nature does not listen to such noises.

It is unimportant whether the social order is called a "Democracy" or a "Federalist system". What matters is that we monkeys get our act together so we stop our exponential population growth and our burning of carbohydrates. Otherwise, no matter what noise is attached to our form of governance, there will be no Kingdom on Earth to rule. We will "all" be dead. That is the message that needs to be drilled into the populace.

The Armagedden Metiorite is on its way. But it is not a space rock against which we can hurl Bruce Willis, Ben Sick-Afflick and a cast of 1000's. It is a Tsunami. It is Hubbert's Wave.

The ones I get the biggest laugh from are those who sponsor web sites on "How to profit from the coming energy crisis". What's next? "How to profit from the end of the world?" It's time to get off that soapbox about profits, profits, profits. The bottom line is the shadowy one your tombstone casts as the sun sets on the other side of it!!

Could not a TV commercial be made with that message embedded in it? The Tsunami is on the way and the smiley heads on TV are fretting over how many "points" the Dow will shift the day after tomorrow. It's a madhouse. (as Chartleton Heston would say ... Planet of the Apes)

Government Growth, Epilogue

Just spotted this one liner from another commenter:

The Politicians answer only to the [Land] Developer's Dollar ...

Brilliant. That puts the buck in its lockbox.

The comment was part of Kunstler's Rapture piece

See
http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/2005/05/the_ra...

Well Step, I suppose a commercial could be made, but it could only get airtime overseas...MSM wouldn't do it unless it was something so spectacularly armageddon-ish that most wouldn't believe it. Their PTB would have to ok it also.

And there really are websites that basically address profiting from all of the four horsemen we seem to inevitably discuss.

Guess that's why I think money is always at the root of any problem - money and profit are what get in the way of treating each other with respect and dignity.

I am so far outside the box that I am just not that worried. But I worry for civilization, and I plan to help my children and neighbors.

And I think karlof stumbled on something I can buy into. If we somehow get back to a government that must respond to the people, then I think we might have something. But if money enters the picture in its current form, it also will be doomed.

Congressional Awareness of Energy Crisis Growing

May 11, 2005 9-10 pm EST: special orders session on House floor

5 Republican congressmen (wow a whole handful) appeared on CSPAN live tonight to discuss the growing "energy problem". It was not limited to peak oil.

The special session was chaired by Vernon Ehlers (R-Michigan).

Also speaking were:
Wayne Gilchrest (R-Maryland)
Bob Inglis (R-S. Carolina)
Zack Wamp (R-Tennesse)
Roscoe Bartlett (the Peak Energy expert of the House)

Basically, many of them believe that, well heck, if we can put a man on the moon, we can lick this thing with our endless or bottomless "ingenuity"

Some of these people are also on the Intellectual Property committee which is systematically gutting the rights of America's individual inventors by pushing for a new Patent Deform package. What's good for Bill Gates must be good for America --I think Bob Inglis said something like that. We all remember GM's slogan: what's good for GM is good for America. Obviously that was true. Thanks GM.

I think the Patent Deformation package is yet another reason why we will not be able to worm our way out of this with technology.

The US, by virtue of such programs as "No Stupid Child Left Behind" and other educational disasters has gutted the scientific community. Everybody is not endowed with the same gifts - we are not all equal, except under the law (supposedly).

There is now a movement here in Houston to disallow after school detentions and time-outs for kids. This will leave teachers with absolutely no administrative tools to maintain order, and it will devolve into a circus in Texas schools.

Science is also looking at the same thing the oil opatch is facing - fewer and fewer students and graduates. This is due to education being perverted by school funding requirements. Now IP is becoming polluted, leaving creative people without protection for their ideas.

This patent nightmare is going to kill creativity by forcing every inventor to sell out to corporate interests due to the legal burden. Only patent attorneys and corporations benefit. Everything will need to be run through a university due to legal expense, and universities are some of the largest, most asset-rich corporations in America.