Britain and the Long Emergency
V | 11.01.2011 13:00 | Analysis | Climate Chaos | Energy Crisis | Public sector cuts | Sheffield
An excellent summay of the unfolding situation in the UK.
http://orwellianuk.blogspot.com/2011/01/britain-and-long-emergency.html
http://orwellianuk.blogspot.com/2011/01/britain-and-long-emergency.html
As we enter the first weeks of 2011, all seems normal in the UK, at least on the surface. However, there are strong undercurrents that this could be an unprecedented year, and the government, building on the foundation of years of covertly introduced authoritarianism, is behaving in a manner that betrays this likelihood. No clearer indication that in reality, the elected government serves the interests of bankers (instead of that of the general public), could be made than Primeminister David Camerons language regarding the bonuses to Executives of bailed-out banks. The tentative suggestion for banks to be more "socially responsible"(1) without any actual legal obligations being imposed, demonstrates an attempt to assuage public anger at the banking system and the elected governments unconditional support for it, rather than any concerted effort to rein in systemic greed, wilful irresponsibility and criminality. Indeed, the fact that executives are expecting monetary reward on the basis of profits that have only been made possible by the massive input of public cash - in addition to the continuation of the very same practices that were largely the cause of the banking crisis in the first place - has not been allowed to enter the debate.
Meanwhile, a rise in VAT (Value Added Tax) from 17.5% to 20% burdens an already overstretched taxpayer. This change is "permanent" according to Chancellor George Osborn(2) - a remarkable feat for a tax which was introduced at 5% after WWII as a "temporary" measure. This change, among other things, pushes the price of petrol (gas) upto around £1.28 a litre - the equivalent of $7.50 a US gallon - and this is expected to rise further. This VAT rise, which also applies to all goods and services except food retail (for now at least) is guaranteed to increase the strain on high street businesses small and large, as well as tightening the screw on household budgets.
In addition to the tax rises, impending huge cuts in public services are becoming extremely apparent. Local Councils and the National Health Service are already feeling the pinch, not the least reason being that those who work in these sectors are unwilling to make day to day decisions because they are unsure of their job security in the light of announcements of redundancies and 'restructuring'. In his recent blog, well known Peak Oil/Sustainability writer John Michael Greer wrote on Industrial Civilisation being brought to its knees:
"Perhaps the most visible signpost along the way to that destination is the point at which a society can no longer provide for its future and pay its current expenses out of existing resources. You know that point has arrived when a society begins neglecting its infrastructure, slashing basic services, discarding those economic sectors that cost too much to maintain, and abandoning those people who lack the political clout to make good a claim on slices of the dwindling pie. Readers here in America who don’t find this description oddly familiar are encouraged to take a good hard look out the nearest window."(3)
Naturally, the same phenomenon is also readily apparent here in the British Isles.
Yet still, the underlying cause of this unfolding crisis - the collapse of a criminally corrupt pyramid scheme financial system that was founded on the assumption of infinite growth, now colliding with the limits of a finite planet - is not being discussed or even acknowledged in anything other than the most vague and misleading terms. This disparity might on the surface of government and bureaucracy, appear to be from ignorance of this underlying cause, but there is overwhelming evidence that the Deep State, in parallel with its counterparts in the USA, is not only intimately aware, but has been preparing for this convergence of crises for at least several years.
In his recent book "A User's Guide to the Crisis of Civilisation"(4), British Asian author Dr. Nafeez Mossadeq Ahmed of the Institute for Policy Research and Development, discusses the "UK Civil Contingencies Act 2004" which grants the government "Extraordinary powers to deal with social crises". He quotes Tony Bunyan of non-profit monitoring organisation "Statewatch"(5):
"At a stroke democracy could be replaced by totalitarianism… The powers available to the government and state agencies would be truly draconian. Cities could be sealed off, travel bans introduced, all phones cut off, and web sites shut down. Demonstrations could be banned and the news media be made subject to censorship. New offences against the state could be 'created' by government decree".
For those US readers who have studied the details and implications of the Patriot and Homeland Security Acts as covered in Michael Ruppert's "Crossing the Rubicon", this should sound very familiar. It would seem that rather than using the limited available window of opportunity to ameliorate the unfolding crises of Economy, Peak Oil, Climate Change, Water and Food Shortages, Environmental Degradation, etc., which promise to make a misery of the lives of billions, the forces of government are instead utilising this period to entrench Elite position and consolidate and widen the scope of their power. Dr. Ahmed elaborates further:
"There is… significant scope for reasonable doubt as to whether emergency and anti-terror powers are genuinely concerned with protecting public safety, as opposed to instituting unchallengeable state social control powers in times of unprecedented crisis."
Even more disturbing is the reaction of Military/Intelligence Institutions to the crisis. Also quoted in Ahmed's book (page 185), A Ministry of Defence report (6) warns:
"The middle classes could become a revolutionary class, taking the role envisaged for the proletariat by Marx."
It is often these "middle classes" whom engage in democratically legitimate political dissent or protest of the type that the government is seeking to criminalise, who become the targets of such "anti-terror" policies - as for instance in the recent case of an undercover officer who penetrated an Environmentalist group in the UK, acting as an "Agent Provocateur" for some 9 years (7). This identification of the general public as a threat can be understood by the general tone of this and other reports, in which the upcoming scarcity of resources and economic hardship is seen as inevitable. The strategy implicit in these documents, explains Dr. Ahmed, is one of preservation of existing Establishment privileges, power and class divides, at the expense of the general population.
A predictable component of this strategy is the undercurrent of scapegoating employed by the media in which former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski's "Direct External Threat" is utilised as an "Uncivilised Other"(8), a "Subhuman Aggressor"(9) which can be blamed for a host of societal problems. This is the domestic purpose of the "War on Terror" being played by Western Intelligence Agencies, who having deliberately and systematically created and nutured a network of extremists for the purposes of Statecraft, then utilise the threat of these entities to terrorise their own populations with campaigns of propaganda and "anti-terror" operations in which few are ever charged with any crime. The accompanying tactic is to create divisions in those same populations by the dissemination of elaborate propaganda campaigns which seek to demonise domestic Muslim Communities by falsely associating them with extremism, or by racial sterotyping, providing a target for resentment which steers attention away from the powerful vested interests who are at the root of the crises.
A side example of this policy can be seen in the latest "gaffe" by former government Minister Jack Straw, in which he made controversial statements stereotyping Pakistani males with the offence of grooming young white girls for sexual abuse (10). Among many other such examples, encouraged and fuelled by the "tabloid" press, owned by oligarchs such as Rupert Murdoch, this attitude has the effect of instilling a dangerous ethnic and cultural divide among an already poorly educated and increasingly impoverished "underclass" who see all their ills as being caused by "immigrants" and "asylum seekers" or share the belief that Islam is "radical" and fundamentally associated with acts of terrorism. Such propaganda is designed to facilitate the perpetuation of foreign resource wars, and fuel the recruitment drive of young men and women willing to go and fight them.
SUMMARY
It should be clear from the above examples, of which there are many equivalents, that far from being ignorant of the impending collapse of industrial civilisation, governments at a Deep State level have been making radical and widesweeping preparations for the crisis, and the accompanying chaos that will go with it. On the other hand it can also be reasonably deduced that the more mundane aspects of government, local authorities and bureaucracy, ARE INDEED unaware and have been deliberately kept out of the loop by the Deep State, hence their inability to recognise and rationally deal with the unfolding challenges. It is clear from numerous Military/Intelligence Studies and Reports from both sides of the Atlantic, that the unaccountable component of our governments is preparing to fight "A Long Emergency" of increasing civil unrest, economic chaos and resource wars, complicated by environmental issues, but that this planning does not have the interests and well being of the general public at large, but rather those of the established power structure.
In light of this, recommendation to disengage with the system while resisting the temptation to engage in any destructive civil disorder would seem wholly appropriate.
References
(1) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12145612
(2) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12145417
(3) http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2011/01/tarpaper-shack-principle.html
(4) "A Users Guide to the Crisis of Civilisation and How to Save It" Chapter 6, "The Militarization Tendency" Pages 193-4
(5) http://www.statewatch.org/
(6) Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre, Ministry of Defence: Global Strategic Trends Program 2007-2036
(7) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12148753 "Trial collapses after undercover officer changes sides"
(8) "A Users Guide to the Crisis of Civilisation and How to Save It" Dr. Nafeez Mossadeq Ahmed
(9) Ibid.
(10) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12142177
Meanwhile, a rise in VAT (Value Added Tax) from 17.5% to 20% burdens an already overstretched taxpayer. This change is "permanent" according to Chancellor George Osborn(2) - a remarkable feat for a tax which was introduced at 5% after WWII as a "temporary" measure. This change, among other things, pushes the price of petrol (gas) upto around £1.28 a litre - the equivalent of $7.50 a US gallon - and this is expected to rise further. This VAT rise, which also applies to all goods and services except food retail (for now at least) is guaranteed to increase the strain on high street businesses small and large, as well as tightening the screw on household budgets.
In addition to the tax rises, impending huge cuts in public services are becoming extremely apparent. Local Councils and the National Health Service are already feeling the pinch, not the least reason being that those who work in these sectors are unwilling to make day to day decisions because they are unsure of their job security in the light of announcements of redundancies and 'restructuring'. In his recent blog, well known Peak Oil/Sustainability writer John Michael Greer wrote on Industrial Civilisation being brought to its knees:
"Perhaps the most visible signpost along the way to that destination is the point at which a society can no longer provide for its future and pay its current expenses out of existing resources. You know that point has arrived when a society begins neglecting its infrastructure, slashing basic services, discarding those economic sectors that cost too much to maintain, and abandoning those people who lack the political clout to make good a claim on slices of the dwindling pie. Readers here in America who don’t find this description oddly familiar are encouraged to take a good hard look out the nearest window."(3)
Naturally, the same phenomenon is also readily apparent here in the British Isles.
Yet still, the underlying cause of this unfolding crisis - the collapse of a criminally corrupt pyramid scheme financial system that was founded on the assumption of infinite growth, now colliding with the limits of a finite planet - is not being discussed or even acknowledged in anything other than the most vague and misleading terms. This disparity might on the surface of government and bureaucracy, appear to be from ignorance of this underlying cause, but there is overwhelming evidence that the Deep State, in parallel with its counterparts in the USA, is not only intimately aware, but has been preparing for this convergence of crises for at least several years.
In his recent book "A User's Guide to the Crisis of Civilisation"(4), British Asian author Dr. Nafeez Mossadeq Ahmed of the Institute for Policy Research and Development, discusses the "UK Civil Contingencies Act 2004" which grants the government "Extraordinary powers to deal with social crises". He quotes Tony Bunyan of non-profit monitoring organisation "Statewatch"(5):
"At a stroke democracy could be replaced by totalitarianism… The powers available to the government and state agencies would be truly draconian. Cities could be sealed off, travel bans introduced, all phones cut off, and web sites shut down. Demonstrations could be banned and the news media be made subject to censorship. New offences against the state could be 'created' by government decree".
For those US readers who have studied the details and implications of the Patriot and Homeland Security Acts as covered in Michael Ruppert's "Crossing the Rubicon", this should sound very familiar. It would seem that rather than using the limited available window of opportunity to ameliorate the unfolding crises of Economy, Peak Oil, Climate Change, Water and Food Shortages, Environmental Degradation, etc., which promise to make a misery of the lives of billions, the forces of government are instead utilising this period to entrench Elite position and consolidate and widen the scope of their power. Dr. Ahmed elaborates further:
"There is… significant scope for reasonable doubt as to whether emergency and anti-terror powers are genuinely concerned with protecting public safety, as opposed to instituting unchallengeable state social control powers in times of unprecedented crisis."
Even more disturbing is the reaction of Military/Intelligence Institutions to the crisis. Also quoted in Ahmed's book (page 185), A Ministry of Defence report (6) warns:
"The middle classes could become a revolutionary class, taking the role envisaged for the proletariat by Marx."
It is often these "middle classes" whom engage in democratically legitimate political dissent or protest of the type that the government is seeking to criminalise, who become the targets of such "anti-terror" policies - as for instance in the recent case of an undercover officer who penetrated an Environmentalist group in the UK, acting as an "Agent Provocateur" for some 9 years (7). This identification of the general public as a threat can be understood by the general tone of this and other reports, in which the upcoming scarcity of resources and economic hardship is seen as inevitable. The strategy implicit in these documents, explains Dr. Ahmed, is one of preservation of existing Establishment privileges, power and class divides, at the expense of the general population.
A predictable component of this strategy is the undercurrent of scapegoating employed by the media in which former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski's "Direct External Threat" is utilised as an "Uncivilised Other"(8), a "Subhuman Aggressor"(9) which can be blamed for a host of societal problems. This is the domestic purpose of the "War on Terror" being played by Western Intelligence Agencies, who having deliberately and systematically created and nutured a network of extremists for the purposes of Statecraft, then utilise the threat of these entities to terrorise their own populations with campaigns of propaganda and "anti-terror" operations in which few are ever charged with any crime. The accompanying tactic is to create divisions in those same populations by the dissemination of elaborate propaganda campaigns which seek to demonise domestic Muslim Communities by falsely associating them with extremism, or by racial sterotyping, providing a target for resentment which steers attention away from the powerful vested interests who are at the root of the crises.
A side example of this policy can be seen in the latest "gaffe" by former government Minister Jack Straw, in which he made controversial statements stereotyping Pakistani males with the offence of grooming young white girls for sexual abuse (10). Among many other such examples, encouraged and fuelled by the "tabloid" press, owned by oligarchs such as Rupert Murdoch, this attitude has the effect of instilling a dangerous ethnic and cultural divide among an already poorly educated and increasingly impoverished "underclass" who see all their ills as being caused by "immigrants" and "asylum seekers" or share the belief that Islam is "radical" and fundamentally associated with acts of terrorism. Such propaganda is designed to facilitate the perpetuation of foreign resource wars, and fuel the recruitment drive of young men and women willing to go and fight them.
SUMMARY
It should be clear from the above examples, of which there are many equivalents, that far from being ignorant of the impending collapse of industrial civilisation, governments at a Deep State level have been making radical and widesweeping preparations for the crisis, and the accompanying chaos that will go with it. On the other hand it can also be reasonably deduced that the more mundane aspects of government, local authorities and bureaucracy, ARE INDEED unaware and have been deliberately kept out of the loop by the Deep State, hence their inability to recognise and rationally deal with the unfolding challenges. It is clear from numerous Military/Intelligence Studies and Reports from both sides of the Atlantic, that the unaccountable component of our governments is preparing to fight "A Long Emergency" of increasing civil unrest, economic chaos and resource wars, complicated by environmental issues, but that this planning does not have the interests and well being of the general public at large, but rather those of the established power structure.
In light of this, recommendation to disengage with the system while resisting the temptation to engage in any destructive civil disorder would seem wholly appropriate.
References
(1)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12145612 (2)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12145417 (3)
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2011/01/tarpaper-shack-principle.html (4) "A Users Guide to the Crisis of Civilisation and How to Save It" Chapter 6, "The Militarization Tendency" Pages 193-4
(5)
http://www.statewatch.org/ (6) Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre, Ministry of Defence: Global Strategic Trends Program 2007-2036
(7)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12148753 "Trial collapses after undercover officer changes sides" (8) "A Users Guide to the Crisis of Civilisation and How to Save It" Dr. Nafeez Mossadeq Ahmed
(9) Ibid.
(10)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12142177
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