WHEN PROPHETS BECOME HISTORIANS: The Map Makes All The Difference
Reflections for Act 2: From the Wilderness' Peak Oil Blog
Carolyn Baker
It was the fall of 2000, and I was surfing the Internet one Sunday afternoon, when for some strange reason, God knows why, I Googled “CIA And Drugs.” A plethora of sites appeared, and I began clicking on them, one by one. I was most intrigued with the story of Celerino Castillo since at that time, I was living in Texas, and welcomed any information about muckrakers from the Lone Star state. The next day I called Castillo thinking I’d get his voicemail, but I got him, and we talked for an hour. He emphasized that the one person I should learn more about was Mike Ruppert.
I began visiting the From The Wilderness website daily and soon became a subscriber. Being a curious investigative researcher and a college professor, I decided to email this Ruppert guy and see if we could have lunch during a trip I would soon be taking to Los Angeles. After reading all that he had endured over the years, I felt almost apologetic approaching him with such a suggestion. After all, I could have been Valerie Plame on a covert mission from “The Company” to make his life even more of a living hell than it had already been. On the contrary, Mike welcomed me warmly, and we became friends.
On another Sunday afternoon in September, 2001, I checked my email and found a special FTW bulletin for subscribers informing us that the U.S. stock market was about to tank—that the situation was dire, and something huge was on the horizon. Forty-eight hours later, that “something” blindsided the nation and the world, except for those many individuals who had received warnings, and for Mike who although not knowing what the “something” was going to be, had been connecting the dots and probably was not as surprised as the rest of us were.. Almost immediately, he put the stock market under his investigative microscope and illuminated the insider trading prior to 9-11 that has become one of the most solid pieces of evidence for U.S. government orchestration of the attacks.
In late 2001, I visited Mike again and then returned to the college classroom where for over a year, I felt terrified of discussing what I now knew to be true—that key members of the Bush Administration had foreknowledge of and perpetrated the events of 9-11. Only a fool would speak openly about this to a room full of students, I thought. But as the months passed and an avalanche of additional investigative reporting appeared in alternative media, I found myself no longer willing to remain silent on the issue.
By this time, I had also met and spent many hours on the phone with Catherine Austin Fitts. As I learned more about 9-11, the CIA’s longtime involvement in drug trafficking and money laundering through the stock market and U.S. banks, as I studied the nightmare of dirty tricks at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, as I researched the rigged elections of 2000 and the $4 trillion dollars missing from the federal government, as I began to learn about Peak Oil, and as the torrent of lies and phony intelligence preceding the Iraq War catapulted the U.S. into an invasion of that nation, the dots in my awareness were connecting. Damn! I was developing a map.
Today, as I listen to progressives rant about the Iraq War, global warming, the shredding of the Constitution as a result of the U.S.A. Patriot Act, the pandemic of corruption in Washington and in corporate America—as I hear them acting oh so surprised at the realization that their country has become a fascist empire, I feel fortunate and deeply, deeply grateful to From The Wilderness—Mike, Catherine, Cele Castillo, Dale Allen Pfeiffer, Richard Heinberg, Dmitri Orlov, Paula Hay, Matt Savinar, and a host of individuals who, like Mike Ruppert, are “information cops” and are sharing with the world what they have discovered as a result of onerous, diligent investigative research.
Has FTW gotten it wrong on some occasions? Absolutely. Imperfect human beings cannot be on target one hundred percent of the time, and I’m quite certain that FTW will get it wrong again; however, in the same sentence, I hasten to add the question: How often has mainstream news gotten it right—I mean really, really right? Even the most astute investigators are neither omniscient nor clairvoyant, but those who tend to get it right most of the time are those who have not only read the research, but have lived it. As I’ve listened over the years to the stories of Mike, Catherine, Dmitri and others who have nearly paid with their physical lives, I’m reminded that being able to read the tea leaves incisively has everything to do with what one has experienced as well as what one investigates.
Go to your computer or your TV, if you have one, and check out mainstream news. If you have been a subscriber to FTW for the past five years, you will not be surprised by anything you hear. If you’ve read Crossing The Rubicon, by Mike Ruppert, you’ll be even less surprised. I’ve probably given the book to fifty people and told at least fifty more to go buy it themselves. Currently, 42% of the American people believe that 9-11 was an inside job. Over 70% want another (next time authentic) investigation. The FTW “prophets” of years gone by have now become historians.
My own book, U.S. HISTORY UNCENSORED: What Your High School Textbook Didn’t Tell You will be available later this summer. Not only has the FTW map served me superbly in navigating present time, but in illuminating our nation’s history as well. As for the future, while FTW is not in the business of offering “hope” it does offer us a treasure-trove of information that provides options, and while there is no “perfect plan”, and there are countless unknowns, it is reassuring to know from experience that having a reliable map makes all the difference. Act 2: From the Wilderness' Peak Oil Blog promises to add an important piece to that map.
Carolyn Baker, Ph.D. is an adjunct professor of history and a freelance writer for From The Wilderness. She has recently launched her new website Truth to Power at www.carolynbaker.org
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14 comments:
Carolyn, you had the sense to google "CIA and Drugs" before 9/11. At that time I was clueless as to how the world worked and would have remained blissfully so forever had not 9/11 dumped millions of tons of toxic debris into the air and buildings of Lower Manhattan among whose residents, office workers and students was my son.
It was to speak about this aspect of the disaster, which at the time was not widely known much less acknowledged by the Powers that Be, that I attended the Citizens' Commission on September 9, 2004 (held under the auspices of 9/11 Citizens' Watch, 9/11 Truth and NY911truth) and met Mike.
I remember the gasps as he cited Richard Cheney as the orchestrator of the attacks. Of course he also laid out the background to 9/11 of Peak Oil, an explanation which made so much sense, it was impossible to refute it.
Yet we who believe in and prepare for Peak Oil are a minute minority in the world. (I exclude those who think that 'preparing' means buying a hybrid car or making similar propitiations to the gods of energy in the hope of being left alone.) And it is difficult to persuade loved ones to join us in our preparations. (Some of us do not have the time or energy to spend on 'unbelievers' who are not loved.) This is so even in New York which prides itself on being forward-thinking and which felt first hand the sea-change that took place in the world on 9/11.
For the one thing that the accomplished, justifiably proud people of this city and the rest of the world cannot take in is that everything they've learned and worked for is going to become irrelevant. History is about to be reversed. Progress will look like stepping back 150 years. The rough-hewn salt-of-the-earth folk that some of our parents' generation fled for the sophisticated city, will be our gurus.
The argument they would engage us in - those who protest that scientists or Bill Gates or someone somewhere will think up a solution to the Peak Oil crisis - is not based in logic. It's the disbelieving cry of one who's just received a death sentence.
Jenna
Sorry, in the previous comment I meant to say "thousands of tons of toxic debris" not "millions." There were estimated to be between 1.2 and 1.6 million tons of debris at the site itself. But what's a few zeros among friends? J.O.
as always, the devil is in the details. the entire world did not end when we bombed hiroshima.
Talking Owl, you raise some of the most important fundamental questions that most of us shy away from most of the time. These questions deserve an entire article unto themselves, not just a comment. Indeed, they deserve a book and I'm not sure who would be qualified to write it.
Of course you're right about the difference between 1945 and now with respect to nukes and who is in charge of them. And by all means live it up in the present. But I don't think anyone, not even the most pessimistic Peak Oilist, would counsel you or anyone else to abandon hope for the future. We know that they themselves are not doing so. They are taking steps to survive and even to thrive. This speaks volumes about what they believe. They believe grim, even cataclysmic times are ahead but that forewarned is forearmed.
Thanks so much for commenting.
by the way, mike didn't write the comment at the top of the blog. i did. j.o.
from Carolyn Baker:
To Talking Owl I would say that the very nature of the realities confronting us makes many things extremely uncertain. The real deal is that we are all going to die sometime, of something, and if all you're worried about is dying, then by all means, do everything you can to prevent it, and don't think about anyting else. Preparing for Peak Oil isn't just about saving our own skins but doing what we can to help others in their preparation as well. It's about developing a consciousness of community and local solutions to global problems. It's also about cultivating a sense of meaning and purpose and being willing to learn from our experiences. The moment we begin to discuss these kinds of issues, we are in the territory of spirituality (not religion) and issues of the sacred dimension of life as well as the pragmatic and mundane. Yes, we can all eat, drink, party, and wait to get nuked, or we can find meaning and purpose in our lives by working and learning with other people who are on the same page how to create sustainable communities, be they small towns or small neighborhoods. You might begin by reading the opening web page of Matt Savinar's website: www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net
It's not often that Peak Oil experts are accused of being overly optimistic. So when they talk about the possibilities for hope that lie within small communities, I believe it's safe to bet on that solution. I will stress again that even the bleakest among them is nowhere near giving up. They're making preparations to live and even have an OK time doing it. And some of them also rely in the way you do on modern medicine.
The basic question you're raising has to do with a subject which, as you suggest, has been neglected within the Peak Oil movement, partly because it's so vast: How to triage the oil resources that remain. Certainly medications are high on the priority list.
The office of Congressman Roscoe Bartlett has considered this topic as have many experts and eventually I'll be posting a blog about it in the hope of setting off a conversation.
Both for your own sake and that of your children, I hope this blog doesn't get you down. That's a more important issue than whether or not you all go do Disneyland. (Talk about people deluding themselves. That place is paved with plastic smiles.)
from Carolyn Baker:
Talking Owl, I don't mean to offend, but the attitude you are expressing is one of the problems we are facing, i.e., "Peak Oil movement people, please tell me what to do." I understand your concern and your fear, but many, many people are in the same boat. I don't know anyone in my immediate circle of friends or extended family who's not on some type of medication. And yes, in Cuba, when it was cut off from the Soviet Union, some people died without their medications. There is no magic bullet answer!! Each of us must deal with the medication issue as best we can individually and collectively. Perhaps you need to consider making a trip to Mexico or Canada to get massive quantities of your meds. You might also find a doctor who would work with you on this. You and you alone have to decide if you want to prepare or if you don't, and if you decide to prepare, many questions can't be answered FOR you but only BY you as you struggle with finding the answers that work for you. I don't know anyone in the P.O. movement who has an answer to this question, and it concerns me as it concerns you because I don't want to think about living without the medications I need either. However, I have not decided to throw in the towel and not prepare in other ways. There's a tired old saying in 12 Step programs that I haven't thrown out with yesterday's styrofoam cups: ONE DAY AT A TIME. I see preparation for Peak Oil and for life in general (even if there were no Peak Oil) as finding a balance between long-term preparation and living a day at a time.
I wanted to address a few things in this blog and some of its comments last night,but I was starting to fall asleep in my chair at around 5AM and didn't have time.I really need better sleeep habits.But anyway,this paragraph caught my eye in your blog Carolyn:
"Has FTW gotten it wrong on some occasions? Absolutely. Imperfect human beings cannot be on target one hundred percent of the time, and I’m quite certain that FTW will get it wrong again; however, in the same sentence, I hasten to add the question: How often has mainstream news gotten it right—I mean really, really right? Even the most astute investigators are neither omniscient nor clairvoyant, but those who tend to get it right most of the time are those who have not only read the research, but have lived it..."
I just wanted to add that unlinke mainstream media,Mike will actually admit when a mistake is made,and take pains to address it,appologize for it,and issue a corrective statement.I can only think of one instance where mainstream media has done so,and that was with the intentionally falsified documents about Bush having gone AWOL from the Air National Guard.
I do however recall one incident in which a fake story by Fox News having to do with leaked memos of Bush conspiring with the media was posted briefly at FTW and then removed without comment,and questions about that nag at the back of my mind as hard as I try to dismiss it.
Anyways I'm sure there is a reasonable explanation.Anytime someone casts doubt my way about Mike's credability I just remind myself what he has gone through,and I also remember Catherine Austin Fits' introduction to his book where she states "Mike is on your side." She has been through ordeals similar to Mike's and I believe them both.
I can't say I agree with Video DP.It sounds to me like waiting to jump off of the train until it crashes.Personally I'd like to get necessary preparations for the inevitable out of the way ASAP so that the free time I'll have after those preparations are made can be spent helping others prepare,or just simply taking time to relax and enjoy a state of relative non-emergeny until it starts making itself apparent in bigger ways than just the increasing price of energy, the products shipped using that energy and the increasingly mild winters and hot/humid summers I've been noticing here in the midwest.
plaiche has left a new comment on your post "When Prophets Become Historians: The Map Makes All the Difference":
Owl, Jenna, Carolyn (who I became an instant fan of in NYC),
As Carolyn points out the ramifications of PO are so fundamental as to be quite impossible to know in advance how to prepare for each potential eventuality. For Owl and me it seems it is often tough to even maintain a reasonably life affirming attitude towards the future as we feel/await its continued effects. I confess myself having finished up a lucrative IT contract in Europe a year ago have succumbed to some rather depressing places as I (somewhat feebly) try to align my life with my knowledge. I have gone broke, drove away an amazing woman and pushed many other loved ones away to as I ignore Matt Savinar’s advice and spend far too much time on Peak Oil related information. Non-fiction sucks :-P
With that said, Jenna’s comments about emerging from “cluelessness” and the discussion on medication got me thinking about my own radical background and some thoughts I have had of late that pertain. I first learned of the CIA and their drug involvement in 1996 via a documentary aired on the Discovery Channel. But my initial radicalization began at the age of 20 some 5 years earlier when I decided I needed to improve my health. I was a 275 lb former high school football player at the time (squarely in the “part of the problem” camp), and I knew enough to realize that I had no idea how to take care of my body and was at increased risk of things getting worse now that organized sports was behind me.
I don't know where to begin to explain the details of what I learned about nutrition and digging further: greed, government, the earth and environment, health and medication and so so much more. I have not trusted a single institution of any size since. The outward result was 90 lbs gone in 5 months that 14 years later I have never put back on. The result as a human being learning about the world around me is very hard to summarize as that experience continues to affect every my perspective to this day. I often tell people that it truly was nutrition that first radicalized me. Becoming a father magnified this exponentially.
At the brilliant Local Energy Solutions Conference in New York City two months ago, I was amazed at the mix of minds that came together. Most here know at some high level how Mike Ruppert ended up leading a movement dealing with Peak Oil, but at the conference were many others (some who didn't even know about Peak Oil by name) that had aligned with the conference from completely different origins. Some were renewable energy experts, sustainable agriculture experts, environmental experts, or petroleum geology experts. The cross pollination and perhaps more importantly the underpinnings of this unique intellectual confluence brought depth and connections to various aspects of my own background that I had not anticipated. The one area I felt was begging for a voice there, but I only saw on the outside of some of the various participants who were obviously already living and eating much closer to sustainability, was the area of nutrition itself.
I have meant to write about this for some time, and perhaps I will expand this soon. In the meantime Owl I am going to make some statements that might sound as preposterous to you as hearing the US government was behind 911 was to Jenna 5 years ago, but if you explore them you will find them to be accurate. In all likelihood, your body doesn't need the medications you are taking. What it needs is rest and detoxification which only occurs when we give it a break (including from medications which tax our organs heavily). While they may be required in some short term way (balanced with other aspects of your health that require changes), unless you are in an advanced state of decline you can get off of them and be far healthier in the process. A reduced and radically modified diet, fasting AND the absence of these powerful compounds themselves have the potential to remove what currently stops your body from healing itself far more permanently and effectively than the pharmaceuticals we have become "dependent" on in our (and we all agree here) suicide civilization. I have experienced and seen these effects first hand many times. It is miraculous but true.
I am NOT minimizing how difficult it is to believe this at first, and I am NOT minimizing the challenges involved in changing our habits (as I still drink coffee and alcohol I often call myself a courageous hypocrite). In fact the difficulties in accepting this information and making the necessary changes long ago curtailed me sharing this information with others as my passion for it and my own dramatic results rarely proved enough to convince others around me. People would rather concoct wild theories that I lost weight due to AIDS or had energy from drugs than accept that I had learned something that produced dramatic results. Besides, they could always consult the mainstream and find the Daniel Yergins of health and nutrition to dismiss me and go back to sleep.
The reason I choose to comment here is that Peak is driving these changes from a totally different angle. The impeccable wisdom of earth's systems for nourishing us are going to be forced back upon us by Peak and its impact. So long Piggly Wiggly microwave meals. Reluctantly or willingly, these forced changes will erase epidemic proportions of everything from obesity, childhood diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and cancer to lesser known ailments like gout, fibroid tumors, eczema and erectile dysfunction (the list is truly exhaustive). While it could eventually mean starvation for some, I am only half kidding when I say that a good portion of this country could hibernate for 6 months and emerge healthier. Our daily caloric needs are a small fraction of what we currently consume and our health will benefit long before it suffers.
I know it sounds radical, and of course it is viewed in the context of our culture. Nevertheless, it is true, and as I search the world around me for things to be hopeful about and try to balance similar concerns I have to yours that we may witness destruction that makes our insanely violent history as a species pale in comparison, I am heartened when I look at the umpteenth obese toddler and I note to myself that we will simply be unable to poison our own children (and adults) this way in the future. Closer to the medication issue, two days ago I got a similar feeling when I looked in my mother's cupboard in her home and saw the half a dozen bottles of pills she takes daily to combat the toll of the standard American diet. I believe she is strong enough that Peak may just help her where I wasn’t able to. Like it or not, millions will learn that doing nothing but hydrating our bodies and leaving all of our energy available for the body to cleanse and heal itself is the most sophisticated healing process conceivable. Pharmacists and Geneticists are but modern day snake oil salesmen when you truly get beyond the haze surrounding health (which is as thick as the haze surrounding oil, energy and geopolitics).
So, if you want a specific step you can take to prepare Owl go to Amazon and pick up a copy of Fasting Can Save Your Life by Herbert Shelton (his thinnest volume), or for a more modern feel Fasting and Eating for Health: A Medical Doctor’s Program for Conquering Disease by Joel Fuhrman, M.D. (Fuhrman has treated my only son and many family members and friends here in the northeast). If you want some free info first, search the web on “Natural Hygiene” and fasting and do a little reading. Remember, keep your mind as open as all of ours needed to be when we stepped out of the American Mythology and learned about something like Peak Oil. I promise you will be rewarded especially if medication is the main thing retarding your desire to try and thrive in a post carbon world. Either book is fairly short, but they will start you on a journey to understanding how powerful the human body truly is even after decades and decades of abuse. By the way, Shelton is long since passed away, but many practitioners including Fuhrman can advise you directly and put you on a trajectory to throwing away your pills for good before you are forced to do so as may occur. Like Peak Oil, it ain’t easy to get your head around but it’s true. THink of it as your nutritional Peak Oil and get your own answers. Good luck.
Oh and as for the nukes: nobody can do anything but guess there (or organize a coup de tat). It’s a fascinating topic and might fashion what comes more than energy but it is not an inevitability like Peak.
Meanwhile, High Fructose Corn Syrup and Big Pharma: Rest in Peace
Michael
I know exactly what you're talking about plaiche.I have just recently finished reading an excellent book about this called (people look at me funny when I mention it)"Natural Cures 'They' Don't Want You To Know About" by Kevin Trudeau.
Now I probably don't have as good a BS detector as Mike Ruppert,or some of his colleagues have,but this guy seems to know whats up.He has even sued the FTC for misleading the public.He states in his book that(as FTW states it is with Big Oil)profit is the bottom line for Big Pharma,the FDA and FTC,and that it is in these organizations' best interests to keep people sick and dependant on prescription and non-prescription drugs.In addition to this,Kevin states that these organizations also supress natural(non-patentable)cures.You can go to www.kevinfightsback.com and see clips of him defending himself against media attacks as a guest on various shows.
I posted two(out of several) websites that he reccommends in a different blog topic.One is on solar gazing,and the other is about solar healing(typoed as heating in the comment I posted the link on).I had also refered to a comment I tried to publish in this blog topic about his book,that I thought just hadn't been accepted by Jenna.It turns out it might never have been sent.It was sent back to me in my E-mail by some mail service I can't remember the name of.Anyways,I'm glad you brought the subject back up.
Chris
P.S. In reference to your farewell to Big Pharma and HFCS I find preference in the phrase "Rest in Pieces"
""as I hear them acting oh so surprised at the realization that their country has become a fascist empire, I feel fortunate and deeply, deeply grateful to From The Wilderness—Mike, Catherine, Cele Castillo, Dale Allen Pfeiffer, Richard Heinberg, Dmitri Orlov, Paula Hay, Matt Savinar,""
2016 and only Catherine's blog can be accessed. What happened to everybody else ? /student
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