So it has begun...
I swear, these posts start out as only a couple of paragraphs, really they do. But the way everything is interconnected, the complexity of global issues is like the ultimate Rubix cube.
And so it has begun.
The first pillar of the five basic needs has been toppled. SWFSC, Security, Water, Food, Shelter, Comfort, in order of importance this list lays out in plain and simple terms what it takes just to stay alive. It's also a list of things an enemy can exploit in a globalized economy. Global food security is very unstable and is not looking too good on the recovery horizon.
The domino effect on energy control, price manipulation and the war on the US dollar has been set in motion. Without energy to produce food people all over the world will starve to death. Crops will be left to wither because there is no electricity to run irrigation pumps or fuel to fire up tractors and harvesters.
Some countries are beginning to hoard their staple crops. Others like Zimbabwe, once the breadbasket of Africa, now depend on foreign aid. Free food and medical assistance has been offered to and declined by some nations. Burma refused to allow the US Navy to deliver food, water and medical supplies. What aid they do allow in is mostly stolen then sold on the black market back to the very people who were supposed to get the food from the UN and other NGO's for free. The Burmese Junta controls it's people by controlling the resources. Castro starved a healthy and experienced native army out of the mountains in Cuba. Castro was not a native Cuban or even born there.
It's natural for a certain percentage of people to die from disease and famine, our terrarium can only feed X number of mouths and quench X number of thirsty gullets. The recent shortage and resulting hunger is not natural though. All of the resources exist or have the potential to be cultivated into existance to feed everyone in the world right now. The question is, even if everyone was well fed now, would the over-population problem still have to be dealt with at a later time. The answer plain and simple is yes.
Forget about peak oil. Peak arable land and peak fresh water is even more critical to your security. Like a Juggernaut, the global population is an unstoppable force of nature, where the poor and physically weak get weeded out with every cycle.
The US population has grown exponentially, In 1950, the US population was just under 60 Million. First the baby boomers were dropped off by the stork, then the boomers producing offspring brought on even more stork mail. Secondly with lots and lots of immigration both legal and illegal. It just occured to me that new born babies and illegal mexicans are both wetbacks of sorts.
The US, as has every other nation of the world, exploits people from other nations who arrive here without an invitation. The undocumented desperados arrive daily in the thousands or tens of thousands, the US census estimates that there are 20 MILLION illegal undocumented migrant economic refuge seeking sub minimum wage earning people crossing our boarders. we now have one third of our 1950 population living here illegally, for all we know the estimates are way off (as they usually are) and the number of illegals is actually EQUAL to our 1950 population. I wonder if they are all mexican, I bet not.
Now Mexicans and any other person from any nation wishing to enter the US undocumented and undetected can easily cross our boarder. Why the hell am I talking about Mexicans you ask. Well, it's all about resources. If the 20 million illegals are getting just 5 dollars of free shit every day on you and me the taxpayer, thats 100 Million dollars A DAY given away to non-US citizens. Everyone who worked to reap the benefits of their contribution to their own government trusted that the money would be for their future
security. Instead of security, the 100 mil a day giveaway has taken away our securtity. On top of foerign aid, kickbacks and other mils/bils given away to causes that will not directly benefit US tax paying citizens. The money spent on educating, feeding, clothing, housing and providing free healthcare to illegals without question may be the last straw. Just how strong is tha camel's back? How many straws can the camel hold before it collapses and has to be put down?
The only people benefiting from cheap illegal labor are the industrial/commercial industries, rich people with house staff and the exploited mexicans happy to lick the shit off of your ass as long as they are fed and get to live in a mansion. For many mexicans, that scenerio is paradise compared to the current economic condition for many south of the Rio Grande. Your choices are a) lick shit for a wage that would not pay a months rent in a modest apartment. 
Move on and jump on the exploit em while you can band wagon or C) Tell them we wish they could stay for dinner but we barely have enough for our selvs and the little extra we have is given away by our government.
The competition for resources can be seen every day everywhere in the world. During times of plenty people are civilized, but when the going gets rough, people become more savage. Some will maintain a level of civility while others may regress to knuckle dragging. All ya need is a few rotten knuckle draggers or evolved elite with high aspirations to start a right proper war. Money and pussy make the world go boom, men want the pussy, women want the money. Sounds like the beginning of a catchy tune.
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From Answers.Yahoo.com
The Great Depression (also known as the Great Slump) was a dramatic, worldwide economic downturn beginning in some countries as early as 1928. The beginning of the Great Depression in the United States is associated with the stock market crash on October 29, 1929, known as Black Tuesday. The depression had devastating effects in both the industrialized countries and those which exported raw materials. International trade declined sharply, as did personal incomes, tax revenues, prices, and profits. Cities all around the world were hit hard, especially those dependent on heavy industry. Construction was virtually halted in many countries. Farming and rural areas suffered as crop prices fell by 40 to 60 percent. Facing plummeting demand with few alternate sources of jobs, areas dependent on primary sector industries such as farming, mining and logging suffered the most.....
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Just a few of today's news articles about food shortages
Food shortages feared across Spain -english.aljazeera.net June 10 2008
Record commodity prices and fears of food shortages have shoved technology and politics aside, motleyfool.com
Food Prices And Shortages Surge: Let Them Eat Dirt? - NuWire Investors, WA
Food shortage compels locals for animal hunting - NepalNews.com
Dominican officials crack down on food smuggling to Haiti - USA Today
Water Scarcity: The Real Food Crisis - AfterNet, CA
UN presses for solutions to food shortages - MoneyWeb, South Africa
UN pledges $1.2b to fight food shortages - ABC Online, Australia
Smudge of Weakness On Oil - AllAfrica.com, Washington - Jun 9, 2008
THE New York Times reports that, aiming to profit from food shortages, some mega-rich American investors are switching out of gold into farmland. ...
Burundi: "Food Has Become Too Expensive" - AllAfrica.com
Zimbabwe: from breadbasket to food shortages
Africasia, UK - Jun 3, 2008
There is a great movie called "A Day Without a Mexican" that is about a mysterious fog that rolls over California. When the fog lifts, all the Mexicans are gone and the state grinds to a halt because of it. Very funny. Thankfully the Mexicans are returned by the fog a day later to much fanfare and excitement.
I Don't mind the Mexicans being here. On the whole they seem to work hard and ask for little. They share their room and board with one another, and don't seem to commit much crime. It's the illegals that come across and don't work, suck off our social programs, and commit crimes that I have a problem with.
As for the food shortage, yeah, we should be concerned. Especially because a large portion of fertilizer comes from……Natural Gas. I wonder how much of that we have?
On another side note of things that go away when oil goes away or becomes too expensive, most plastics are made from oil. Try to not use anything with plastic in it for a day. Where is China going to get its raw materials to make crappy plastic items for us? There is coal and natural gas, but that’s just shifting the problem not fixing it.
The question I have is this: What, as individual (non rich and powerful) people, can we do to set things right? I really don’t know, but for now I think the first step is to agree that there is a problem to begin with.
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I do not mind mexicans either, just as long as they dont cost me anything. Believe me you! they are very expensive. We pay for all of their free social services while the wealthy save small fortunes using mexican labor. America could not have been built without immigrants.
Moving on though, the point is that the economic strain of supporting mexican families with our tax dollars is one more example of how relief is denied to the regular "classic" American but break a law and you get free money, a place to live and a free doctor.
Each straw weighs but a fraction of an ounce. every problem in America is straws and they keep adding up. American's are being pushed well beyond economic limits.
$100,000,000.00/day
Thats the cost of cutting grass, washing dishes and construction labor. I wouldnt mind so much if they wanted to actually become Americans but they dont. They come, they earn and they send most of the money back to Mexico.
One may find some interesting parallels between the fall of the mighty Roman empire and America. I wonder if Bush plays a fiddel?
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Sorry to beat a dead horse. How do you figure illegal immigrants get free money and free healthcare? This seems to be a popular thought, but I don't believe it to be true. Perhaps we can have Dissident go undercover as a Mexican and see if he can get his foot fixed for free. Another myth seems to be that they get free education. If all that is true, call me Jose. I'll throw away my ID today and be an illegal.
The truth is that they get shit money for hard work. They get no health insurance, welfare, or social security. If they ship money to Mexico, so be it. Labor and materials are tangibles, money is not. Mexico can have the money.
Your big, faceless, evil corporations are not profiting from them. Small construction companies, restaurants, and homeowners do. The cheaper labor keeps the price of the products/services they provide down. Companies over 30 employees are more regulated and are therefore less able to leverage immigrant labor. The funny thing is, the Mexicans are charging more and more now, so their labor has almost reached parity with that of a genuine citizen.
On to America's collapse. It could happen, sure. When it does, we will all just have to sneak over the border to Mexico, since they have all our money now
I call dibs on Cancun.
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Gee. I neglect the RP site (well, the computer in general) for a day and a half and look at all the activity I missed. Even you wrote, Scorpio!
Ok, about the article. I found this somewhat depressing, probably because of the truth in it. I agree with "if they wanted to actually become Americans..." I know someone who is Mexican & when he came here he went through the process of becoming a citizen. He and his roommates worked at a restaurant in the borough and L was the exceptional to the wanting to become American rule. Whenever we went to see him my girlfriend was trying to learn Spanish so she could communicate with his friends. He wouldn't allow it. He said, "We are in America now and they have to speak English."
Which leads me to schools, which I know I've bitched about before. A lot of students in the Borough are Mexican who speak little (if any) English. For a while many students were classified merely because they couldn't keep up with the work. Not because of a learning disability but because they didn't speak the language and there was no one at home to help them. Although classification was wrong, the solution took jobs away from wonderful, yet not tenured teachers. More ESL classrooms were established and less qualified teachers who were bilingual (Spanish speaking of course) got the jobs. At parent-teacher conferences and IEP meetings we often needed translators. Not quite right.
Alright, done venting.
Good day all!
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You are right, the fact that some immigrants choose not to learn English and assimilate into our culture is a problem, especially when this causes them to put a burden on our infrastructure. I'm sure Scorp will tell us that it adds up to billions of extra dollars in teacher's salaries
Stupidly enough, America does not have an official language. Maybe one day it will be Spanish?
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Illegal immigration is not THE problem in America, just one of them. English can not become the official language because of freedom of speech. I'm quite sure the fore fathers meant freedom to say what ever you wanted as long as you had money, were white and said it in english to begin with.
Our bill of rights is not perfect, but it's better than what many countries have. The problems arise when clever people with the title Esq. want to make a name for themselvs and figgure out the loop holes. Our bill of rights is a joke these days. Illigal immigrants are given more protection then we the people have.
America is being invaded and attacked. Not with AK-47s or bombs or airplanes or battle ships, but with economic and political warfare. America has become a socialist nation with limited rights of freedom. Uncontrollable illegal immigration, high cost of energy, food shortages, All of these are the things are being used to destroy the American way of life.
The will of the MAJORITY is clearly being ignored by our government. The minority are not only given special attention, they are given disproportionate preferental treatment in many cases.
Anyway, the article was not about Mexicans, it was about the collapes of the global economic system. The same conditions that caused many many wars.
Security
Water
Food
Shelter
Comfort
Forget about your personal wishes or opinions based on your own moral standards. Look at the facts of history and you will see that all the signs are there. Be objective and crunch the numbers. The life boat is already overloaded.
The world is headed towards some very bad times. Will you be a survivor or fertalizer?
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I'm a survivor. I'm going to add the title Esq. to my name, and work on ways to exploit the situation.
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Probably not a good plan, I fear that the lawyers and politicians will not be on the list of survivors. Especially if the takeover is millitary.
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I wouldn't actually be a lawyer, of course - I'd just be posing as one. Lawyers are the priests of the business world, people tell them everything.
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By the way, HUH? Military takeover? Government sponsored or militia? Wouldn't they have better things to do than to kill lawyers (not that it wouldn't make for good target practice)? You are hinting that you are somehow in the know of all this big action, but you are cruel and do not share with us, only tease. You sound as if your next move is to relocate to Montana and collect lots of guns. Shhh, quiet! What's that sound? Shit, what are all those black helicopters doing going towards Scorpio's house?
-B the Sarcastic
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Mr. Beneficent,
I think I understand what you are getting at about America being under attack, and about our own government not looking out for the best interests of the majority. What I am having problems with is your delivery. I know that you have spent a lot of time researching all of this and connecting the dots, but as a reader I have trouble accepting your conclusions at face value. I am a natural born skeptic, so when I get conclusions shouted at me without also getting the background information, it sets off a red flag for me. I need to connect my own dots. Sometimes the way you write reminds me of Marpel when he kept saying that the bible is 100% accurate and that he had done much research on the matter, but he never shared any of it with us (well, except for the program he wrote that has something to do with numerology and the bible.)
I think you and Dissident have hit on important topics with the collusion of the oil producers and the government loosing sight of their purpose because of some individual’s greed. I hope that in the future we can revisit these topics with more details added. When we talk of a rich and powerful few, they should have names - so should their companies or organizations. Proof of links between governments and these powerful individuals and companies should be provided. Enemies should be named, their tactics and reasons spelled out. I know you see the connections so clearly that you may find it unnecessary to spell things out for us, but some of us are not as observant and need the hand-holding.
Thanks,
B the slightly less apathetic today
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I don't know if it is as much of a conspiracy as it is something that just naturally happens. Every government in the world has had it's ups and downs. We are lucky because we live on the new world where they only real animosity is a slightly humbled south eventually seeing things Lincoln's way. Americans are laid back compared to the rest of the world. The jews and arabs are still going at it, along with the persians, the Turks, and every other seat of a failed and defeated ancient empire.
This is a cfombo of old school manipulation of resources to get the chess pieces in motion. More like that dumb ass football game that vibrates. One can only point the game piece in the right direction, but chaos almost certainly occur as the pieces go in slightly less than random directions. It is still chaotic but a certain level of predictability will exist.
That predictibility is seen throughout the history books and current newspapers. Like Granny said "there ain't anything new under the sun". The same political and economic cycles happen over and over again throughout history, just on a different scale that is proportional and relevant to the time the rise or decline of an empire was happening.
Since the prediction of bad times is based on the food crisis and the worsening fresh water problems like drought, pollution and poor land management, all of the links provided have all the backing data. line up the links and have some TTS app read it to you as a bed time story.
I have no idea why people like fiction so much, the real world is so much more exterme and brutal. Hmmm, maybe steven king is light reading compared to the news paper. I love King, scares the Shyte out of me.
Dont worry about choppers and spooky men who can kill with their thumbs and stuff. I am not a ...uuum...dissident....I am merely a dissatisfied customer of the government of the United States of America. As far a a mil takeover, I am not suggesting it, I am figguring that the military would have to be onboard with the rest of thier fellow countrymen and call a time out for every croked politician and industrial giant responsible for the F'd up mess were in.
Whenever there is a major change in any government, according to historic patterns, it usually happens with the unmighty gun and is ended with a score card inked by the mighty pen called a treaty.
I'm glad you are slightly less apathetic.
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You are spot-on about the world being cyclical with slight variations. History definitely repeats itself. I will have to read your bedtime stories to get my dots connected, I guess. My only other question now is what do you think we can do to fix/change/alter/stop the pattern?
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Some related news on the rapidly rising cost of energy and food...
http://money.cnn.com/2008/07/16/news/economy/cpi/?postversion=2008071610
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