CIVIL UNREST

It Seems as if The World is Holding Its Breath for The Inauguration But…

By

Michael C. Ruppert

(c) Copyright 2009, Michael C. Ruppert. All Rights Reserved.

Jan. 18, 2009 – Perhaps we should be holding our breaths for something else; something that is breaking out all over the world. Civil unrest now moves from a back to a front burner as a landmark on our map and a pressing issue for our discussion.

On January 16th and 17th I saw (either) cowardice or duplicity on the part of mainstream media. Chesley Sullenberger is a great pilot. Coming from an Air Force/aviation family I would be honored to shake his hand. The U.S. Air miracle on the Hudson was indeed that. But for almost 36 hours I watched in rage as the mainstream media, especially CNN, played the same four of five clips endlessly, over and over, rehashing the rehash – hour after hour. The anchors and their producers were either taking a break or regrouping. Several looked very bored. Not since 9-11 have I seen American media shut down news coverage of other important events to such a degree. But the US Air crash landing wasn't a 9-11 was it?

On January 16th the United States shed another 21,000 jobs… in one day. Globally, the economic collapse is hitting other industrialized countries much harder than here. Around the world "emerging" bourses are imploding at a faster rate than ours. Perhaps we should rename them as "disappearing markets" now. The disappearing act has hit turbo charge in Europe as a result of a now three-week old lack of Russian natural gas. Triggered by the economic collapse and compounded by human suffering in unheated, near-zero weather, riots – big ones – have erupted from Latvia in the North, to Sofia in the South. There is serious street fighting. Around the world, from China, to India, to Europe, industrialized nations are "frantically" preparing for civil unrest (China at a very rapid pace). Of course our map says that the US, the UK, Russia and a few others have been preparing for this for years.

Arab nations have lost $2.5 trillion (40% of their investments) thus far in the collapse and have postponed or cancelled 60% of their new development projects… You know? Those hotels where you can snow ski inside when it's 112 outside? That kind of a shutdown will cause the Arab oil-producing nations to explode in civil unrest as aggravated poverty, starvation and disease hit home in short order. Collapsed oil prices have exposed the lack of economic stamina in the region. (You thought Americans were foolish spenders.) The luxuries of the princes will now stand starkly contrasted against the barren desert of their subjects' lives. Thus, geography is giving us our first major political tectonic fault line. From the Baltic south, through Greece, into Turkey, then fanning out across the Middle East is a new frontier of soon-to-be flaming unrest

Unrest will happen here and it will happen in an earthshaking fashion within the next year. Could the evidence supporting this conclusion have been missed as we watched footage on the Hudson for the thirty-second time in 36 hours? Couldn't they have squeezed any of this other news in… somewhere?

WHILE WE WERE SLEEPING great folks like Rice Farmer continued to cull the world press to document the accelerating global collapse and send out stories on a daily basis. Good grief can that man read a map! When meshed with the research from both me and Jenna, the last three days have been an absolute horror show.

As examples:

The EU has effectively nationalized Britain's gas production to cope with the shutdown of Russian gas to Eastern Europe. Over the last two or three years I have received first-hand confirmation from North Sea oil and gas workers that – as a result of the North Sea's serious
decline and depletion – many nearly-empty oil fields are being converted to suck out whatever methane remains in now-depleted oil reservoirs. This has allowed geologists and owners to extend field life (profitability) for maybe a few more years. Now however, for the first time, British natural gas is flowing out to help Bulgaria, Bosnia, Croatia and many other east European countries which are shattering like ice crystals in the cold. British heating rates are soaring and there may be thousands more "excess deaths" there by freezing this winter. Already, a debate is underway urging UK withdrawal from the EU. It remains to be seen whether the heat from public opinion will warm policy making. Britain is a major candidate for imminent riots.

This current reversal is directly opposite to the map I drew at FTW between 2003 and 2006 which said that Britain would surrender its energy sovereignty to Europe. It did in 2006. But the combination of the sudden (if short-lived) surge in British gas production with the crisis in Eastern Europe has turned a few things on their heads. What is happening in Eastern Europe and the many other places around the world where riots are breaking out will give us clues as to what to expect here. I am afraid that we will be seeing civil unrest in the U.S. very soon and this is the gloom the media is cavalierly trying to "spare" us from so that Americans may have their inaugural moment.

As for Britain and the EU, the Russian gas shut-off will end, hopefully by the end of this next week. A human can freeze to death in a matter of minutes. At present I see no substantial progress. The EU is almost blatantly capitulating by throwing Ukraine back to Moscow. Here! We don't want it! The shut off will pass. Britain's momentary ability to act as a swing producer for Europe cannot last. Public opinion in Britain will likely surge towards secession. But Her
Majesty's government knows clearly that this is suicide. Britain will ultimately remain at the end of the Russian natural gas pipeline. But in what condition is anyone's guess. Britain sits along another fault line – the one separating Europe from North America. As Mexico will decide whether it is a Latin American nation or a North American nation, Britain will be compelled to choose whether it is a European nation or a part of the United States, Canada and its far-flung
Commonwealth. As I write, the Russian gas shut off continues and the crisis in Europe nears catastrophic proportions. Please, any regular readers who live in or near the region, send us your reporting, local stories you and find, and your analysis. Artificial conditions in Europe have given us a glimpse of our near future. In Sofia, Budapest and elsewhere people and factories have, as a matter of survival, turned to burning coal and wood to stay alive. This is not as simple as just
a return to the Middle Ages because there are hundreds of times more people, concentrated in smaller areas. Already major cities in Eastern Europe are choking on air and water pollution from these "alternative fuels".

CIVIL UNREST IN THE UNITED STATES

This is little more than hunch at the moment. The three likeliest states to have civil unrest first are Michigan, California and Ohio. These are the states hardest hit by job cuts. Ohio is of most concern to me. California is just huge and fragmented. The "fires" here would be rapidly "extinguished" by a state that has well-developed and longstanding historical plans for civil unrest going back to the 1960s. There are really probably five states in California and the fire is unlikely to spread from one "region" to another because each region has a different economic base and a different culture. Michigan is geographically off to the side of the board and already something of a "wasteland". There are no densely-packed masses of dry kindling nearby.

But Ohio is entirely different. Already devastated by auto layoffs and other massive corporate failures, Ohio's industrial areas border and are in close proximity to Kentucky, West Virginia, Indiana and Pennsylvania. Lots of kindling in those states. At the same time as Ohio is devastated by DHL, auto and other layoffs, much of the nation's high-tech wind turbine industry in Ohio is also shutting down at the same time… just when we need it. The snake eats its own tail
for nutrition. It is the way money works… for now.

Civil unrest in Ohio could easily infect across state lines here, and cross another fault line that runs east and west, separating north from south; the Mason Dixon. Other earthquakes might be triggered. Eastward from Ohio are Pennsylvania and New Jersey. I wonder how much inter-agency advance planning DHS and FEMA have gone through so that they might operate fluidly across many borders, radio frequencies and jurisdictions. Those contingencies were planned for in the Patriot Act which congress didn't or couldn't read before voting on it. I described all of this in detail in my essay, "The 'F' Word" in 2001: http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/nov202001.html.

There isn't even ten per cent of the military manpower required to impose national martial law in the Continental U.S. (CONUS). But my guess is that there will be an expansion of troop deployment in the region around Ohio soon. We should all be watching where troops are stationed as they (and if) they start coming home.

We all will have a clear understanding of who Barack Obama is and what he represents in short order. He, his administration, and whatever his base is are going to have to show their cards soon. Very soon. What we know is that many of the so-called energy and economic "solutions" espoused by Barack Obama during the campaign and since the election will fail abysmally, at or near the gate. What we pray for are more frequent and stronger signals that ears are open to any who might have some real answers… namely the Peak Oil/Sustainability movement.

In the meantime… In looking at how civil unrest will unfold in the United States it has become pretty apparent that martial law, as we understand it will not be marked by either large numbers of troops/police in the streets or the oh-so-beloved concentration camp myths of the Far Right. The reason I have made this statement consistently for at least nine years is the same in both cases: lack of resources. There are not enough troops and there is also not enough money, food and manpower to put millions of Americans in expensive concentration camps… AND feed them.

The current economic paradigm's approach will be to leave as many displaced Americans as a self-mobile migrant work force that will feed, clothe and house itself on its own. That is much less expensive! Plus, when massive labor is needed it will take the labor pool to the work like a man dying of thirst will run for fresh water. The basic expense here is just to police and contain the mess, sort of put a fence around it.

I am one of the few fools to have read all of both the Patriot Act and the Homeland Security Act, I mean every word. I dissected both at FTW.

All these landmark pieces of legislation are really preparing for is two things. First, the absolute protection of critical infrastructure (e.g. water, power, telecommunications, Internet, hospitals, police and fire stations, airports, military bases, etc.). This is where the military will be used. Second, the maximized control of civilian populations through technology which can deprive them of access to both cash and credit (i.e. food and mobility). That coupled with nearly ubiquitous electronic surveillance and some very effective, non-lethal, area-denial weapons. Already I can see that millions of Americans are locking themselves into their own "die-off" prisons and the realization will not hit them for several years. I would not want to be locked in that virtual prison knowing my fate there.

I think it is much less likely that TPTB are interested in us… or even me. I think they more fear a Spartacus now – or many of them – emerging from those who are about to die. Those of us here who followed the map and changed our lives have removed ourselves from that demographic. We will be needed, and soon. We must be ready.

So MY FIRST RECOMMENDATION is this:

Unless you live in a place surrounded by concrete canyons, and if you have family or a close network, a real neighborhood, go out and buy 5 watt FM walkie-talkies with rechargeable batteries. It's been a few years since I've done research but these radios, which can reach up to
two-and-a-half miles, are important for two reasons. First, they do not require any kind of licensing. Neither do they require the use of a satellite or a microwave relay tower. They can't easily be jammed or shut off. They are direct point-to-point and they will work when everything else fails.

A few on this blog were talking about Ham and shortwave. Both are going to be important but (repeating myself) we must survive the transition stage first. In all thinking now, start locally and work outward. If you do not command the ground under your feet you will never command the ground beyond it.

In an emergency you and your family might be forced to move in a mass exodus with large crowds. How will you know where your family is? How will you keep them together? How will you find one who is lost? How can you use your family to do things that others can't? Remember that if a bear attacks your campsite you do not have to be faster than the bear. You only have to be faster than the slowest camper. (Wink to Barry Silverthorne.) Quick, effective, close-in intelligence and reconnaissance will allow you to keep your heads while others are losing theirs.

Now I know that the Army Signal Corps and Army Security Agency have equipment capable of jamming all these FM frequencies in any battlefield condition. If you have this kind of communications at your disposal, however, you'll probably be far away by the time anything like that happens.

From now on start all of your immediate thinking from the local outward. Those of us who have tried so hard to save the world must also seriously think about saving ourselves from it as well.


MCR
*************************************************************************************

Jenna Orkin adds:


And it's another exciting Sunday evening at the OK or rather, the O-Shit blog.

I hope Barry's metaphor of the bear attacking the campers is apt. If it's not a bear but a tsunami that's coming, we're all screwed.

Along with the benign echo of 9/11 with the happy ending in the Hudson, the other story looping endlessly is of the First Couple-(elect), that paragon of beauty, intelligence and good will finally, the day after MLK day, overcoming. Photo-ops abound. The 'circuses' half of the Roman formula for keeping the people happy thrives. Soon enough we'll be clamoring for the 'bread' half and that'll be harder to come by.

When, oh when will someone get on prime time news with the truth? When are we getting our "blood, sweat and tears" speech? Churchill didn't give his until the Battle of France was underway; even then the people had to be confronted with brutal realities before they were willing to entertain his offer.

Not long ago this country, indeed this world, seemed more enlightened than any in history. So accepting were we of differences, so flexible, so open to new discoveries in the social as well as the hard sciences, so inquisitive and eager for knowledge. Francis Fukuyama seemed almost plausible, if a tad puffed-up, when he described the period as "the end point of mankind's ideological evolution."

Of course each era thinks that about itself. But at least we didn't feel like an exception.

Then it changed.

The barbaric behavior of various groups and governments, even individuals (Lindsay England) has made hatred of those groups and whatever they purportedly represent acceptable again. The longing for simplicity, for good guys vs. bad, induces a black and white picture that allows for distortion as well as catharsis.

More circuses, once again lacking the 'bread' of substance.

Although we're on the eve of a historic inauguration and it seems as though we can never go back, the truth may turn out to be the opposite.

What if - and on this blog we believe the 'if' is only a matter of 'when - things get a whole lot worse? How long will it take to blame the guy whose face is associated with the greatest disaster in the history of mankind? And the 'horse' - equality - he rode in on?

The backlash may be worse than any of us have ever known. In a dog-eat-dog world, people will look for reasons to justify killing. The hatred is ready and waiting, speaking of tinder.

Fukuyama's quote begins by describing the era in question, the 1980's, as 'the end of history." He may not have understood how literal that description could turn out to be.


Monetary Union Puts Half of Europe in Depression
An EU debt union is being created, in breach of EU law. Liabilities are being shifted quietly on to German taxpayers. What happens when Germany's hard-working citizens find out?

India Faces More Terror Attacks: US Study
Looks like we need to divert more troops to that region, eh?
North Korea Claims To Have Weaponized Plutonium
Obama To Face Iran Nuclear Crisis In First Year, ex-US Official Warns
The Big Idea For 2009 as Discussed at JP Morgan
Biotechnology