The Joyride That Was The American Empire

Add comment August 10th, 2007

By: Carolyn Baker of Speaking Truth To Power

A review of Financial Armageddon: Protecting Your Future From Four Impending Catastrophes, By Michael J. Panzner

Sooner or later, everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences. –Robert Louis Stevenson–

A few days ago a friend called me just after hearing Michael Panzner on the Thom Hartmann show on Air America. My friend wanted me to read Panzer’s book, Financial Armageddon and see what I thought. Apparently, Panzer’s radio interview remarks were filled with passion and a sense of urgency, and upon reading the book, I experienced the same intensity in the author’s writing which pleasantly surprised me. Here was a financial guru with 25 years’ experience in the stock, bond, and currency markets and a faculty member of the New York Institute of Finance, who unlike Ben Bernanke and the silver-lining pundits of the financial pages, was not telling us that everything is going to be fine or that things will “bounce back in 2010″.

Anyone familiar with my writings knows that I have never claimed to be a fiduciary wizard, but in recent years I have written more on topics related to economics than at any time in my life. I do not believe that all social issues can be resolved if only we change how money works in the United States or the world, but I am profoundly aware of the role of economic issues-perhaps more than militarism, healthcare, education, politics, or any other institution, in the dead-ahead demise of empire. I also notice that few in the left-liberal end of the political spectrum have a firm grasp on economic issues which I suspect comes from a fundamental polarization between activism and financial intelligence-a reality which motivated me a few years ago to write an article entitled “Activists And Accountants: Absolute Allies.”

Michael Panzner is definitely not from the left end of the political spectrum, which makes the contents of Financial Armageddon all the more fascinating and momentous. I came away from the book with both remarkable reinforcement of my position that the United States has entered economic collapse, but also perplexed regarding the myriad blind spots that the author seemed to have regarding the causes of the current economic meltdown. I am not aware of how Panzner may have altered his views since the publication of his book earlier this year, but at the time of writing, Panzner did not mention or was not aware of a number of glaring realities regarding the gluttonous greed-fest that has characterized the United States since the end of World War II. I will address those inconsistencies first, then highlight the places where I think Financial Armageddon is absolutely on-target.

What is most disturbing to me about the book is what appears to be a total lack of perception regarding the role of fraud, theft, and malicious intent in the American and global financial train wreck which has been exacerbating over recent decades. Panzner seems to conclude that all of this is just one huge accident attributable to incompetence or the American consumer being lulled by creature comforts. The book begins with a chapter on debt-personal and governmental-a factor so pivotal in economic catastrophe, but little attention is given to the intentional engineering, for example, of consumer debt by centralized financial systems and how monstrously profitable it is.

In the recent documentary “Maxed Out“, Harvard law professor and author of several books on consumer debt, Elizabeth Warren, states that the middle class is near extinction not only because of a lack of financial information, but specifically because debt is, in her words, “obscenely profitable” for lenders. Panzner says little about this in the book, but he does say that “Ever-growing investment returns, an endless housing boom, and the Federal Reserve had conditioned Americans to believe that, inevitable good fortune would eventually bail them out-should it even prove necessary.” (4) The current debt nightmare, however, is not merely about “conditioning” but is, in my opinion, based on hard evidence, calculated and contrived. Both “Maxed Out” and “In Debt We Trust” make this exceedingly clear. Furthermore, in examining the history of the financial train wreck now in the making, one must grasp the history of America’s aristocracy, not only in the days of the Robber Barons, but within the past thirty years. Catherine Austin Fitts’ website subtitled, “The Aristocracy Of Stock Profits” provides an excellent historical account of this.

Nowhere in the book does Panzner mention the $1.3 trillion missing from the Pentagon or the $59 billion missing from the Department Of Housing And Urban Development and a plethora of other instances where money is “missing” as documented, again, by Catherine Austin Fitts. Nowhere does he address the issue of fraudulent inducement, also noted by Fitts in her audio CD on the housing bubble, which simply means, enticing people to borrow when it is obvious that it will be impossible or near impossible for them to repay.

It is crucial to understand that the current economic meltdown is a transfer of wealth from the middle and lower classes to the ruling elite. Wealth transfers do not just happen, nor are they the products of incompetency. They are intentional and well-planned. Central to wealth transfer is corruption at the highest levels of the economic and political systems. In hindsight, we look back upon the Savings and Loan debacle of the 1980s, at that time, the largest theft in the history of the world, yet today, our minds cannot begin to wrap around the wealth that has been stolen from the American people, making the S&L scam look like piggy bank pilfering–and to my knowledge, Catherine Austin Fitts at her Solari and Dunwalke sites, is the only person to have documented this so impeccably.

In fact, I recently received an email notice from Fitts stating:

Recently, we have seen numerous press accounts of bank and hedge fund losses from sub-prime mortgages. Remarkably, these reports imply that the losses are the result of a market downturn or contracting credit cycle. But there has been no mention of the extraordinary profits that were generated or who reaped them. There is no mention of who is poised to make a fortune on the bubble collapse. Even the most sophisticated commentators of our day are describing this financial coup d’etat as the unintentional consequence of “market forces.”

Coup d’ etat? How’s that for blowing the “incompetency theory” out of the water? Panzner alludes to corruption in his book but overall tends to place it in the future. Locating it in the context of a chaotic society during and after collapse, he says that “Corruption will likely become endemic…”, but, I protest, corruption is now and has been and is the principal reason for our financial predicament. In fact, in the opening of the chapter “The Retirement System”, he states that it is the leaders of the public and private sectors who put off an accurate assessment of what the future held, “even though they knew a day of reckoning would come.” (15) Yes, they knew a day of reckoning would come, and their intention was to feed as voraciously as they could off their current situations and be long gone before the reckoning. Just as the culprits of the Savings and Loan caper profited on the way up, they also profited on the way down, as will a few predators in the current subprime catastrophe.

In fact, an article this week in Forbes Magazine, “Profiting From The Meltdown” opens with: “A consortium of the nation’s leading investment banks have quietly created an index that is not only protecting them against the recent market meltdown but also promising to make them bundles of money in the process.”

Panzner does not mention the role of the Federal Reserve in engineering Financial Armageddon and the fact that it is neither “federal” nor has any kind of reserve. No expose of the Fed’s money policy, fractional reserve banking, or printing money out of thin air backed by nothing is offered. Nor does he illumine the reader about the Fed’s ultimate ulterior game plan. It appears that he is unaware of the global ruling elite, sometimes are referred to as the New World Order, who have engineered Financial Armageddon and will be safely ensconsed in their solar-powered bunkers, calculating their profits while surrounded with an abundance of food, water, and private security forces when all hell breaks loose.

One cannot adequately comprehend the perfect economic storm that is brewing worldwide without understanding the role of the Fed as one of the pivotal entities necessary for the construction of what financial analyst, Bill Bonner, calls the “Empire of Debt.” Curiously, Panzner does not address the reality of empire nor its historical ascension to global economic superintendent a la the Federal Reserve.

Mike Whitney states in his most recent article “Stock Market Meltdown” that:

Economic policy is not ‘accidental.’ The Fed’s policies were designed to create a crisis, and that crisis was intended to coincide with the activation of a nationwide police state…. The Federal Reserve is a central player in a carefully considered plan to shift the nation’s wealth from one class to another. And they have succeeded. Nearly 4 million American jobs have been sent overseas, the country has increased the national debt by $3 trillion dollars, and foreign investors own $4.5 trillion in US dollar-backed assets. While the Fed has been carrying out its economic strategy; the Bush administration has deployed the military around the world to conduct a global resource war. These are two wheels on the same axel. The goal is to maintain control of the global economic system by seizing the remaining energy resources in Eurasia and the Middle East and by integrating potential rivals into the American-led economic model under the direction of the Central Bank. All of the leading candidates-Democrat and Republican—belong to secretive organizations which ascribe to the same basic principles of global rule (new world order) and permanent US hegemony. There’s no quantifiable difference between any of them.

Whitney, of course, is talking about organizations like the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, and the Bilderberg Group. It is within these entities that the ruling elite have been planted and cultivated.

Additionally, Financial Armageddon does not mention energy depletion or climate change as precipitous factors converging with global economic meltdown, exacerbating it and creating what I have frequently referred to as the Terminal Triangle as we “cook on the road to collapse”. These are factors that will only intensify the grim post-collapse world that Panzner does acknowledge later in the book. However, to fail to mention the current and future juxtaposition of these three for the first time in human history is a glaring omission.

To his credit, however, Panzner does steer his writing into future scenarios which sound remarkably like those posited by Dmitry Orlov in his series on collapse entitled “Post-Soviet Lessons For A Post-American Century.” Echoing James Howard Kunstler’s adage that “suburbs are the slums of the future”, he states that “In the wake of the early 21st-century housing boom, the migratory landing points may well be the millions of condominiums and boarded-up new homes left empty or mired in foreclosure in what were once the hottest real estate markets.” (107) Reminiscent of Orlov he writes:

Meanwhile, newfound transparency in the wake of the unfolding financial crisis will expose a scale of fraud, corruption, and self-dealing that many will find almost impossible to comprehend. Day in and day out, reports will surface about hidden losses, false accounting, inflated appraisals, sizable off-balance-sheet obligations, valuation discrepancies, unregulated offshore entities, phantom, profits, insider trading, and businesses bled dry to enrich a few individuals at the expense of employees, investors, bankers, and bondholders.(116)

Sorry to say, but all of this sound a whole lot like the current moment, and certainly everything enumerated here will only worsen, and Panzner admits as much in the final chapters as he presents a world of chaos, lawlessness, hunger, thirst, homelessness, inveterate wandering, and people with nothing to lose doing whatever it takes, in order to survive.

I was getting worried early-on in the book that the author would not mention martial law and “vast detention camps”, but he does when explaining the extent of lawlessness, troublemakers, and immigrants “who will increasingly be seen as an unacceptable threat to national security.” (127) Additionally, “Americans will be confronted by an unfamiliar and frightening array of legal, financial, and security restrictions, including lockdowns, curfews, internments, capital and exchange controls, and even [oh yes especially] martial law.” (185) It will be a world where the dark and seamy side of life are apt to be predominant with addictions, vices, and suicide prevailing everywhere. There will be much thievery, scamming, and violent crime and as Panzner says, “People who underestimate the severity of the dangers ahead and fail to take the necessary steps at the outset risk being left penniless.” (142)

When all is said and done, Financial Armageddon offers some sound advice and strategies, which some readers may be aware of, for navigating the crumbling empire . The author insists that having access to information, especially alternative news, will be crucial. Not knowing or predicting how long the internet will exist or remain uncontrolled, he strongly recommends that people familiarize themselves now with alternative news sites and continue to do so as long as they can. In addition, he emphasizes hyperinflation and the risks it will entail in terms of using cash. Precious metals will be a strong hedge, and barter will become a basic, commonplace form of exchange. Practical knowledge of fundamental skills, healing with herbs and other alternative remedies, and personal disaster planning will be essential-as will be the ability to navigate a rotting infrastructure which, and I’m sure Panzner would concur, that in August, 2007, we are just beginning to witness the tragic consequences of.

Panzer also adds the spiritual factor in the equation:

Coping when many people are trapped beneath the rubble of an irresponsible or impetuous past will call for considerable courage, stamina, and resolve, which must come from within. Constant turmoil and heightened uncertainty about the future will require ‘what if?’ thinking and the ability to anticipate situations that used to be rare or non-existent. (143-144)

In addition, Panzner states unequivocally that:

For most Americans, the period ahead will be a time to scrimp and scrape and shy away from a natural sense of optimism that says tomorrow will be better than today. Instead of looking for handouts and loans, people will increasingly have to draw upon their own creative inner spirit to satisfy whatever needs they might have and uncover alternatives to spending money, without necessarily expending a great deal of valuable time and energy in the process. (179)

Gee, do I hear Panzner saying what I have been saying for years– that we must “kill hope and enliven options?” Yes, indeed I do, and I also hear in his chapter on Relationships, that brains, wit, physical fitness, and the best laid plans of mice and men without human connection and skills that enable people to sustain it, will come to nought.

I look forward to Panzner’s next book and trust that it will hit harder than Financial Armageddon. Nevertheless, I enthusiastically recommend this book as well as the Financial Armageddon website.

In summary, the joyride is over, and if you are reading these words, you are probably one of the few people in America or in the world who really understands what that means.

Removing a Failed President

1 comment August 9th, 2007

BY Joel S. Hirschhorn author of Delusional Democracy and Friends of the Article V Convention

We no longer can trust Congress to impeach and remove a terrible president. The Washington Post has published an op-ed piece by Robert Dallek that proposes a constitutional amendment to allow “ouster by the people” for removing a president other than by impeachment or because of incapacity. Considering the dismal performance of George W. Bush and his administration and the difficulty in obtaining impeachment, this is a fine idea.

Here are the main features of the amendment: The recall procedure would begin by obtaining a 60 percent vote in the Senate and House. Public pressure on Congress could help it shift decisionmaking to the electorate. Congressional support would initiate a national referendum that would be open to all eligible voters in state elections. Clearly, it should be done fairly quickly. The ballot would simply offer the choice of voting “yes” or “no” to the option of removing the president and vice president from office immediately. If the majority votes in favor of removal, then the Speaker of the House would become president and choose a vice president who would have to be confirmed by majorities in the House and Senate.

These are solid ideas that would add a much needed dose of direct democracy that would hold presidencies more accountable to Congress and the general public than any constitutional mechanism now available.

There must be limits in a functional and fair representative democracy to what a president can do. Bush has more than demonstrated that the presidency has become much too powerful, able to undermine our Constitution and the rule of law, sell out our national sovereignty, put us in incredible debt, waste American lives, and walk all over Congress.

There are 18 states that have a recall process for sitting governors. So this notion is not absurd. Interestingly, in only two cases have governors been removed through citizen action: In North Dakota in 1921, and more recently in California in 2003. Recall works, but has not been used frivolously.

As Dallek correctly concluded: “The nation should be able to remove by an orderly constitutional process any president with an unyielding commitment to failed policies and an inability to renew the country’s hope.” Amen.

The removal process has the distinct advantage of not immobilizing Congress when it pursues impeachment. More important, removing a president through a national referendum that involves many millions of citizens, rather than simply through members of Congress, makes incredible sense. If we the people really are sovereign, then we should have the constitutional right to remove a president.

Sadly, Dallek did not also support using a mechanism already in our Constitution to propose amendments that are unlikely to come from Congress. Our Founders placed in Article V the option of having a national convention for the purpose of proposing amendments. Only one specific requirement is given and that has been met, but Congress has refused to call an Article V convention, though more than two-thirds of state legislatures have asked for one and even though Article V says that it “shall” do so.

If Congress has refused to honor Article V and give we the people what we have a constitutional right to - an amendment convention operating outside the control of Congress, the presidency and the Supreme Court, then it seems unlikely to propose a new amendment that would give the nation a national referendum to remove a president and vice-president. Each of the two major parties will fear that someone of their party could be removed from office and that a Speaker from the other party might become president.

Pressure could be mounted now on Congress to obtain the new amendment for removing a president or it could be mounted on Congress to obey the current Constitution and give us an Article V convention. Choosing the second option has the huge advantage that by obtaining the nation’s first Article V convention we would also have the opportunity to consider other sensible amendments. Fears of an Article V convention have been nurtured over the decades by groups now wielding power over Congress through lobbying and campaign contributions. Such fears are nonsense. Whatever an Article V convention proposes must be ratified in exactly the same way that all proposals from Congress are ratified.

The second point, therefore, in favor of working in favor of an Article V convention is that Congress has also largely failed we the people. Making it obey Article V and give the nation an alternative means of national discussion of possible constitutional amendments that a corrupt Congress will never propose makes all the sense in the world. For example, there is serious attention being given to the idea of electing Supreme Court Justices, rather than continue allowing political considerations to choose them. But neither major party would want to lose its power to shape the court, so that amendment will not be proposed by Congress.

Learn more about the Article V convention at www.foavc.org. Friends of the Article V Convention has the sole mission of obtaining the nation’s first convention and will not support any specific amendment. But every group that now advocates some type of political or government reform that could be obtained through a constitutional amendment should join and support this umbrella group.

Great Video Resource Site

Add comment August 9th, 2007

By Rowan Wolf

I don’t know whether you have run across FreeDocumentaries.org in your web travels, but it is a boon to those of us who are into political films by independent producers. The good folks at Free Documentaries believe that information is critical to true democracy, and I strongly agree.

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No matter your political or social interest, you can find something of value at FreeDocumentaries.org. They have the following documentary categories:

• Media
• War
• 9/11 and London Bombing
• Domestic
• Election Fraud
• Environmental
• Israel-Palestine
• Iraq
• Afghanistan
• George Bush
• Latin America
• Globalization
• Politician
• Religious
• Activist
• Africa
• Societal
• Human Rights
• Health
• Animal Abuse

Some of the links are to trailers, and some to full length streaming videos. My only recommendation would be that they indicate with the video excerpt whether the link is to a trailer or a full length film.

So stop by FreeDocumentaries.org. If you are impressed, please support their efforts by donating or helping to spread the word.

When Collapse is No Longer Science Fiction: Choosing Hospice Work Instead of Hope

Add comment August 7th, 2007

By: Carolyn Baker of Speaking Truth to Power

By owning the truth and all of its distressing emotions, we empower ourselves beyond our wildest dreams.

Within the past month, America has witnessed two dramatic events which have illumined the devastating demise of its infrastructure-the New York City steam explosion in mid-July and the collapse of the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis, on August 1. And in the same span of one month, a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court “collapses” with a seizure. Now, in neon lights, we have the word “collapse” writ large across empire even as the overwhelming majority of Americans refuse to face the collapse of every institution in the nation: the economy, healthcare, education, religion, transportation, energy, political systems, and so much more. In fact, the word “collapse” is now being used in American journalism with increasing frequency to describe the ubiquitous crumbling of nearly all facets of our society. Yet as most progressives with the exception of Oprah, along with middle America, avoid talking about the ghastly plot of the recent novel “” or steer clear of discussing information such as that contained in the documentary “What A Way To Go: Life At The End Of Empire“, they have only to turn on CNN and see that collapse is no longer something imagined by Stephen King or wild-eyed, doom-and-gloom “conspiracy theorists”. Collapse is here, it’s now, and it’s going to exacerbate, and Minneapolis is a metaphor as well as another gruesome literal example of civilization’s grotesque self-annihilation.

One of my favorite characters in ancient history is Socrates, the Greek philosopher whom that society could not tolerate and who courageously drank the poisonous hemlock rather than compromise his convictions. Socrates drove his countrymen to distraction with questions-in fact he rarely provided answers and instead engaged listeners in inveterate interrogation. It was through those questions, he insisted, that people actually learn-that their eyes open and light breaks into sealed and darkened places. Although he was popular for a time, Socrates never sought to create a mass movement. He appeared on the scene at a pivotal time in Greek history but had no illusions about inciting mass consciousness. If his listeners heeded his message, he was content; if they didn’t, he was also content. He almost never offered “solutions” but perpetually needled his listeners with provocative questions. In other words, he refused to tell people how to help themselves but rather challenged them to go within themselves and critically think about how the solutions lay within each individual.

Not surprisingly, many individuals who label themselves progressive and read my website and books tell me that I should be doing more to spread the word and inspire mass consciousness. I’m not unlike some of my colleagues who also receive the same lament: “You should find ways to spread your message far and wide. If you don’t, you’re just preaching to the choir.” When I respond that I don’t give a rat’s ass about mass consciousness, these folks are aghast, shake their heads, and comfort themselves by reading Michael Moore’s website. Now there’s someone who’s inciting mass consciousness! Or is he? The big question is: Where does so-called mass consciousness go-if anywhere? Has anything in the past seven years in America significantly changed because of “mass consciousness”? What could be a better example of this fallacy than public opinion about the Iraq War? The reality is that the ruling elite have become even more intransigent in spite of mass opposition to the war and have cunningly and very successfully shredded the Constitution and our civil liberties in order to render any meaningful protest virtually impossible. In a fascist empire-and yes Virginia, we are living in one-mass consciousness is about as effectual in the face of tyranny as meditating on Goldilocks and the three bears.

I repeat: I’m not worried about preaching to the choir because there is no choir. Furthermore, individuals are either awake, in a process of awakening, or comatose and unwilling to wake up. My work is directed toward the first two groups.

Therefore, in sympathy with Socrates, my role as I see it, is to ask the right questions-evoke discomfort among the comfortable, announce the elephant in the room to everyone’s embarrassment including mine, and connect the dots to see what shapes appear. My audience is not the neocons but people who call themselves progressive and libertarian. So why can’t I just tell them what they want to hear and make them happy?

Well, because I care little about mass movements and mass consciousness which are manifestations of the capitalist, consumeristic paradigm of narcissistic privilege and entitlement. It is a theme touted by people who are still running around manically and frantically driven by the soporific of hope and who are sometimes frequent fliers to conferences on energy conservation, technofixes and global warming in search of solutions that will require no changes whatsoever in their lifestyles. Just get your new idea into mass media-get Susan Sarandon or Leonardo DiCaprio to endorse your gig, and everything will change-except the nuts and bolts of the paradigm that created Western civilization.

A plethora of ideas abound about where civilization is headed and how we arrived at where we are. My ideas are generally rejected as “conspiratorial”, “angry”, and “depressing” by the so-called “choir” that people assume agrees with me. Yet I empathize with those individuals and their perceptions of me. Who would prefer embracing the notion that the world as we have known it is ending and that humans are likely to annihilate every life form on earth within the course of the twenty-first century and perhaps within the next decade or two? As a corporately-owned presidential candidate whose message is “The Audacity Of Hope” dazzles the progressive community with possibilities that do not exist, why would anyone choose to go down the opposite road into the despair of a very dark and daunting future? Why would anyone want to turn over rocks, dive deeper into the sea of incontrovertible evidence of humanity’s and the planet’s demise, and risk being sucked under by the appalling vacuousness of all “solutions” thus far proposed? It’s enough to send one screaming into the night-unless one has totally rejected the dominant paradigm.

And then there are those like Thomas Homer-Dixon in who insist that:

The good news — and there is some — is that the collapse doesn’t need to be total and catastrophic. We needn’t follow Rome into the dustbin. Rather, once the crisis is recognized, a new cycle can begin, if we’re willing to go back to the drawing board. The Fire of 1906 led to a better, more resilient banking system in the U.S. — not to mention better fire protection in San Francisco! — and the Great Depression led to a more resilient economy in the U.S. The problems of the 21st century can be faced in one of two ways: we can keep trying to add complexity until the world is one giant, possibly horribly Orwellian, system of command and control (and still too brittle to cope with the problems of the 22nd century!), or we can recognize the crisis for what it is and start from scratch.

What planet is Homer-Dixon living on? Certainly not this one. When more than 90% of Americans are clueless about collapse even in the face of global warming, a plummeting Dow, their own catastrophic financial plight, and the gargantuan loss of their civil liberties-when the majority of passengers on the Titanic have no idea that it’s sinking, how can any rational human being expect that they will “recognize the crisis for what it is and start from scratch”?

So now we enter new territory because the moment I demand confronting one’s hopelessness, I am also inviting us into deeper layers of the psyche which is the Greek word for soul. At that point we are under the radar of theories, facts, and even paradigms. We are brushing against our deepest terror, our most excruciating grief, and our billowing, frothing, fulminating rage. Suddenly, we are confronting our human limits, and in fact, our very own death. Yet until we can affirm that the planet is in a death struggle both literally and metaphorically, and until we can adopt the attitude that we are doing nothing less than inhabiting our days and hours in a funeral procession, we will kick and scream for hopeful solutions.

But the question remains, why would anyone choose to do this? Certainly not because they want to but only because it is the truest truth and because by owning the truth and all of its agonizing emotions, we empower ourselves beyond our wildest dreams. All of the energy required for our denial, positive thinking, making nice, appearing rational and therefore behaving like good little Stepford Citizens of empire, is now freed up to, as Andre Gide said, “let go of the shore” and swim into new waters of falling in love with the earth all over again-or perhaps for the first time, preparing ourselves for collapse, and doing so with the community and support of other earthlings who have let go of the shore and are swimming or sailing in lifeboats with us. Suddenly, options appear that could not have otherwise penetrated our addiction to optimism. Every moment, every plant, tree, animal, bite of food, drink of clean water-every star-filled night, every soaking rain, every sunset becomes precious because we have it now, and someday we won’t.

This is conscious preparation for death, and I and all those who are willing to embrace the reality of collapse are hospice workers for ourselves and the world. There isn’t much time left, and every moment is a gift to be savored, smelled, tasted, touched, and caressed. Why then would I worry about preaching to the choir? There is no choir– only those who are passionately committed to truth-telling and those who aren’t.

Someone has said that death is a place in the middle between birth and rebirth. In terms of literal death in this lifetime, we only experience it once, and whether it is our own death or the death of planet earth, it is as sacred as the moment of our birth. It is everyone’s right and privilege to defend against death and in so doing, opt for disempowerment. But I choose to continue savoring the empowerment that I have personally experienced in opening to utter hopelessness, and I’d like it very much if you would join me. Together we can let go of the shore and discover our deepest layers of humanity in life or in death.

Toward a Sustainable US Defense Posture: An Option to save $60+ Billion Over the Next Five Years

Add comment August 7th, 2007

By Carl Conetta of Project on Defense Alternatives

Abstract

In the coming decade pressure to reduce US defense expenditures will mount. Reducing America’s excess capacity for high-intensity conventional warfare offers one means for realizing savings. During FY 2008, US national defense spending will significantly surpass the $650 billion mark. Since 1998, the nation has allocated about $4.5 trillion to defense. About $1.5 trillion of this was due to spending above the 1998 baseline. This increment, together with tax cuts, have added more than $3 trillion to the gross federal debt - much of it borrowed from social security. Sometime in the middle of the next decade, however, Social Security will stop generating surplus revenues for use elsewhere, and the period of repaying - rather than borrowing from - the trust funds will begin. A plurality of Americans already believe that the nation is spending too much on defense - probably because they perceive a decrement in security despite a 75 percent inflation-adjusted increase in spending since 1998. Indeed, military capabilities in some areas have grown beyond manifest requirements. An example is the capacity of America’s three air forces to interdict targets from the air. Under current plans, the US capacity to interdict targets from the air will grow to 15 times the level existing on the eve of the 1991 Gulf War - far surpassing the capacities utilized in any of America’s recent wars. Significantly, the types of targets for which these capabilities are best suited have been declining in number since the end of the Cold War. The United States does suffer military deficits in some areas - but airborne precision attack is not one of them. Similarly, the United States can make do with fewer large-deck aircraft carriers. Cutting two air force fighter wings and two navy fighter wings (along with their associated aircraft carriers) can save the nation more than $60 billion over the next five years.

1. Introduction: A Budget Reckoning on the Horizon

Since the end of the Cold War, successive administrations have been unable to produce a stable consensus on a military posture for which America is willing to actually pay, rather than borrow. Not even the 11 September 2001 attacks were sufficient to prompt such a consensus. Although defense spending rose precipitously following the attacks (and the subsequent Iraq war), so has the level of deficit spending

Annual defense expenditures have risen by 45 percent in real terms since 2002 (and 75 percent since 1998). They stand today at about $650 billion - not counting an expected supplemental request in September 2007. If we treat the Fiscal Year (FY) 1998 national defense budget as a baseline or “floor”, and look at spending during the subsequent period 1999-2007, we see about $1.5 trillion in aggregate spending above that baseline. About 80 percent of this “spending above baseline” occurred after 2001. (Total national defense spending during the nine years 1999-2007 amounts to more than 3.9 trillion in “then year” dollars and 4.5 trillion in 2008 dollars).

The post-1998 defense boost has added to debt, rather than taxes, however - thus softening its political impact. Indeed, the Bush administration went further - mating its defense increments with a program of tax cuts, also born of borrowing, that is even more costly. And so, the historic tension between “guns and butter” has been mitigated by adding more than $3 trillion to the gross federal debt — much of this borrowed from social security and other “trust” funds. This putative “solution” is not sustainable.

Very soon the amount of cheap credit available to the federal government from social trust funds will begin to decline; then it will disappear - probably around 2015. Thus, some variable in the current spending equation will have to give - and soon: defense spending, other federal spending, tax cuts, or current social security or Medicare benefits. To the extent that government focuses the pinch on variables other than defense - as the Pentagon might prefer - we can expect greater public sensitivity to the size of the Pentagon budget. Put simply: if taxes climb or services decline, the public will begin to feel the burden of the post-1998 defense budget increases.

Characteristically, the US public treats defense spending differently than other types of federal expenditure. The defense budget has a degree of immunity from simple trade-off calculations because (and to the extent that) it is viewed as essential to making secure all our freedoms and enjoyments. In this light, it is significant that, for the first time since the mid-1990s, a plurality of Americans - 43 percent - feel that the United States is spending too much on defense (according to a March 2007 Gallup poll).1 This, despite the long shadow of the 9/11 attacks and the efforts of the Bush administration to insulate the public from war costs. (The 2007 Gallup poll found that only 20 percent of Americans thought America was spending too little on defense. The split in 1993, following the collapse of the Soviet Union and America’s triumph in the 1991 Gulf War, was 42 percent saying “too much” was being spent and 17 percent saying “too little”.)

The shift in US public opinion that is already underway, together with the tightening of fiscal conditions in the future, will put substantial new political pressure on Pentagon spending. Fortunately, there are ample opportunities for safely achieving new efficiencies in America’s military posture, while also reconfiguring it to more closely fit the current and emerging security environment.

In the sections that follow, this memo explores one option for reducing America’s conventional military structure:

* Cut two (2) active-component USAF fighter wings, and
* Cut two (2) active-component USN aircraft carriers along with their associated air wings.

The resulting savings in procurement, personnel, and operations costs would amount to approximately $61 billion (in aggregate) over the next five years. Subsequent savings due to a smaller force structure would be somewhat less: about $6.65+ billion annually.

The proposed option is only illustrative, however. For several reasons, substantially greater savings should be possible - given strong and clear-headed political leadership.

• First, the proposed option focuses only on tactical combat air capabilities. Similar assessments are warranted across the full spectrum of US military capabilities, including strategic forces, surface and sub-surface naval combatants, air and naval lift, some ground force components, and various supporting structures and activities.
• Second, even with regard to tactical air forces, the proposed option only marginally rolls back some of the overmatch capability that the United States is adding to its arsenals (mostly by means of qualitative improvements to platforms and weapons). A closer look at the match between threats and defense capabilities, and a critical reappraisal of mission objectives, should permit some additional reductions in tactical air power.
• Third, reductions in force structure are associated with direct savings in personnel, procurement, and operations and maintenance. They also make additional savings possible in central support structures and functions - such as basic training, central logistics, and the military base infrastructure. The estimate given above for savings from the proposed cuts only marginally takes the latter type of potential savings into account because these are likely to be realized only in the case of a more comprehensive program of retrenchment and restructuring.

2. An option for savings: cut 2 Air Force wings, 2 naval wings, and 2 aircraft carriers

America’s air and naval power provide the nation with a unique advantage in the military realm - at least as regards symmetrical opponents. The experience of the past 15 years has shown this advantage to be a paradoxical one, however. The capacity of our armed forces to interdict discrete targets from a distance is growing exponentially, while the types of threat vulnerable to such interdiction are declining. And, while America’s capacity to quickly clear battlefields of traditional military foes has been amply demonstrated, its ability to translate battlefield victory into positive political outcomes has been cast in doubt.

In both of the US-Iraq wars, American airborne strike assets proved more than sufficient to quickly blunt and disable traditional mechanized forces, although the final destruction of adversary forces - the coup de grace - depended on the application of American ground power. And, of course, in the current Iraq war, the defeat of conventional forces did not spell the end of the conflict, but only a transition to irregular warfare. This is a form of war that will not be decided by America’s great preponderance of airborne strike assets. Similarly, America’s three air forces were able to destroy with virtual impunity a wide variety of deep and strategic targets in the 1999 Kosovo war and the 2001 Afghanistan war. Yet, again, in neither case could air power alone bring closure.

None of America’s post-1998 wars have required US commanders to push deployed strike assets to their limits - despite target lists running into the thousands. Moreover: in none of the recent wars has the United States deployed more than one-third the strike assets it had available worldwide. This suggests that we have passed the limit of utility for the sheer aggregation of airborne strike platforms - which today number approximately 2150 fighters and bombers. Our shortfalls in war- and peace-making lie elsewhere.

For several reasons, the United States can afford to reduce its Air Force tactical combat fleet by two wing equivalents and its naval air power assets by two carriers (along with their associated air wings). The relevant considerations are:

1. Dramatic improvements in the target attack capacity of sea- and air-based platforms, relative to the changes in appropriate threats; and
2. New methods for more efficiently and flexibly meeting the needs for sea-based presence abroad.

2.1 The recent evolution of US air attack capabilities

At the time of the 1991 Persian Gulf war, less than 8 percent of America’s combat aircraft - USAF, USN, and USMC - had the ability to deliver guided weapons autonomously. Since then, this capability has generalized throughout the combat air fleets, including large bombers. (The capacity of America’s fleet of 97 mission-authorized bombers to precision munitions makes it, in this regard, the equivalent of more than 7 wings of tactical aircraft.)

Although the Government Accountability Office (among others) have challenged the most ambitious claims made for precision-guided munitions (PGMs), a non-controversial conclusion is that they allow a five- to eight-fold reduction in bomb expenditure to achieve a target effect similar to that achieved by the best non-guided methods. (The advantage may be somewhat less for area targets.) Also contributing to increased combat capability since 1991 has been the generalization of night-fighting and all-weather capabilities throughout the combat air fleets and significant improvements in target acquisition and data fusion and sharing.

In light of the advances in US air attack capability, it is not surprising that the 2003 Iraq war involved only one-third as many combat aircraft sorties as its predecessor and less than nine percent as many air-delivered munitions. Notably: the proportion of air-delivered munitions that were precision-guided grew from 8 percent to 68 percent. The number of fighters and bombers deployed by the United States declined from approximately 1,100 for the 1991 Gulf War to 655 for the 2003 war. And deployed aircraft were worked much harder in 1991 than in 2003: about 1.3 sorties per day per plane versus 0.9.

Looking forward to 2010, the advances in US guided-weapon attack capability will continue as the combat air fleets add all-weather munitions of substantially longer range, smaller size, and greater accuracy with more numerous and “smarter” submunitions. Over the next five years we will see the introduction of (or more general use of) extended-range, jam-resistant JDAMs, the Sensor Fused Weapon, the Wind-Corrected Munitions Dispenser, Joint Air-to-Surface Stand-off Missiles, and the Low-Cost Autonomous Attack System. Perhaps most significant is the introduction of the GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) which, as noted by Defense Industry Daily, will “dramatically increase the strike capability of every combat aircraft in the US inventory.” Indeed, theoretically, the SDB will increase the PGM carrying capacity of America’s combat air fleets five-fold - from 8,000 weapons to 40,000.

In 2010, America’s combat aircraft will possess twenty times the interdiction capability — on average and unit for unit, as their 1990 counterparts. Currently planned US air forces will be smaller, however - resulting in an aggregate capability somewhat less than 15 times greater than in 1990.

By comparison, traditional conventional adversaries have not nearly kept pace with US developments. Already in 1997, the Defense Intelligence Agency had noted a 20 percent reduction in armor threats. More generally: the United States moved from spending only 80 percent as much on defense as its potential adversaries did in 1985 to spending 250 percent as much in 2001. Since then the gap has widened further. Today the United States accounts for more than 60 percent of all military modernization spending worldwide, while Russia and China, for instance, together account for less than ten percent.

The dramatic growth in the capability of US combat aircraft does not imply that a commensurate reduction in fleet size is advisable, however. Quantity of platforms remains an important factor in that flexibility increases with the size of air fleets and risk declines. The United States would not want to put its “eggs” in too few baskets. Still, some significant reduction from the presently planned fleet size is possible.

How much is enough? We can gain some insight from America’s recent wars. During the past 15 years, the United States deployed air armada’s of various sizes to fight its wars: 1,100 combat aircraft in 1991; 300 for Operation Allied Force (plus 200 allied); approximately 250 for Operation Enduring Freedom; and 655 for the main combat phase of Operation Enduring Freedom. The average number of combat sorties flown each day varied widely: 1,400 for Desert Storm, 140 for Allied Force, 82 per day for the first 78 days of Enduring Freedom, and 700 for Iraqi Freedom.

Given current capabilities and those new ones now emerging and being introduced, the United States might handle comparable contingencies with combat air packages comprising 200 to 500 fighters and bombers. With a future all-service force of 1,920 mission-assigned fighters and bombers, the United States could surge as many as 1,250 combat aircraft at one time - a sufficient number to handle multiple war and deterrence tasks. And this total is consistent with the proposed rollback in numbers of USAF and USN air wings.

2.2 Rethinking the demand for aircraft carriers: fewer will do

The proposed reductions affect not just aircraft, but aircraft carriers as well - and this deserves a closer look. Among US air power assets those that are carrier-based have a special role. Where access to land bases is limited, aircraft carriers can bring tactical air power within reach of enemy bastions. Together with other sea-based strike assets and long-range bombers, carriers can help overcome the anti-access challenge. But this fact should not exclude them from consideration for reduction. In fact, the United States has more of this asset than it reasonably requires. And, it is important to remember that sea-based air power is relatively vulnerable and expensive. Indeed, sortie for sortie, it costs more than twice as much as land-based tactical air - all things considered.

America’s requirement for big-deck aircraft carriers can be divided into a “surge” requirement for crisis response and a peacetime requirement for continuous forward presence. Relevant to the surge requirement is the actual experience of recent wars. Three or four aircraft carriers were directly engaged in Afghan operations at any one time during October-December 2001. During the first phase of the 2003 Iraq war, four or five were engaged. During the 1999 Kosovo war, one.

In none of these wars were the engaged carriers employed to their fullest, however. For instance, during the first month of Operation Iraqi Freedom, naval fighters flew an average of 0.8 sorties per day. They are capable of flying two, at least - and the Navy claims they can do more, in a pinch. Looking to the future: The target attack capability of each air wing will increase significantly with the addition of smaller, longer-range, and more accurate PGMs. In 2005 Senate testimony, then Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Vernon Clark, asserted that the number of targets that a carrier air wing could attack per day would increase from 700 to more than 1,000 by 2010 - having already risen substantially from 200 in 1997. Implicit in this is the option to reduce the overall number of carriers and wings.

In its FY 2007 budget, the Navy asserts that, given an 11 carrier fleet, it can surge six carriers for war within 30 days and another within the next 60 days. This, as a result of its new Fleet Response Plan (FRP). This implies an emergency or “surge” utilization rate of 63 percent. A somewhat higher rate could be achieved through changes in homeporting arrangements, rotations of crews, further reorganization of maintenance schedules, and reduced utilization of carriers for simple presence missions. Some reform along these lines would allow a 9-carrier, 8-wing fleet to surge “five plus one” for crisis response. In 2010, these six carriers, fully utilized and equipped with weapons now being fielded or procured, should be able to strike well over twice as many targets per day as the five that deployed for Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Supplementing the future offshore strike capability of US carriers would be the long-range attack capability of America’s bomber force - able in the future to carry five times as many PGMs as today (on average). Also supplementing carrier power would be the rest of the Navy’s surface fleet and the four Trident submarines that have been reconfigured for conventional missions. The surface fleet is equipped with approximately 8,000 Vertical Launch Systems, which can fire Tomahawk missiles - as can the Tridents. The Navy is building its stock of conventional land-attack Tomahawks up towards a total of 6,000 or so. (Approximately 800 were used in Operation Iraqi Freedom.) Finally, the Navy will have mini-carriers to call on as well, once the new class of LHA(R) amphibious assault ships are commissioned. Among other aircraft, these will carry 20 F-35s.

With only eight active and one reserve big-deck carriers in the fleet, the Navy would not be able to keep more than 2.5 of them continuously “on station” during peacetime - even given recent FRP innovations. However, homeporting one more overseas would increase this number, as would a crew rotation scheme. At any rate, peacetime naval presence abroad need not center on aircraft carriers. This much is recognized in the Navy’s new Global Concept of Operations, which allows for greater flexibility in assembling naval groups. Today, these include not only Carrier Battle Groups but also Expeditionary Strike Groups (built around amphibious assault ships), Surface Strike Groups (built around surface combatants), and independent operations by the Trident cruise-missile subs. These smaller, more varied, and more numerous groups allow for greater flexibility and more thorough coverage.

3. Calculating the savings

Cut two (2) active-component USAF FWEs (fighter wing equivalents)

• Steady state savings (long-term average annual): $2.65 billion per year;
• Average annual for FYDP period: $5.25 billion annually; and
• FY 2008: ~$4 billion

Cut two (2) active-component USN aircraft carriers and associated air wings

• Steady state savings (long-term average annual): ~$4 billion
• Average annual for FYDP period: $6.95 billion.
• FY 2008: ~$5 billion.

3.1 Cut two active USAF “equivalent fighter wings”

• This reduction would incur more than $1.65 billion in operations and supports savings annually - that is: savings from the personnel and the operations and maintenance accounts. (Savings per wing would be half this sum).
• Steady-state modernization savings (encompassing procurement and research and development) would slightly exceed $1 billion per year - or about $500 million per wing per year on average. About 60 percent of this sum would derive from cuts in planned procurement of aircraft. The remainder would derive from a wide assortment of equipment and material (mostly ammunition and missiles) used to enable the squadrons’ operations.

An equivalent fighter wing comprises 72 Primary Authorized Aircraft. Associated with this are at least 40 spares, trainers, and test aircraft. Thus, cutting two air wings involves a reduction of approximately 224 aircraft in the currently planned fighter fleet.

Specifically: the proposed reductions would involve capping the planned F-22 fleet at 122 aircraft for a reduction of 57, which is 1.5 equivalent squadrons. Additionally, the planned F-35 purchase would be reduced by 167 aircraft (or 4.5 equivalent squadrons). Total modernization savings due to these reductions would be approximately $16 billion, and all might be realized between 2008 and 2011. Additionally, $200 million per wing might be saved every year due to reduced demand for other equipment and material.

Calculated in terms of “steady state” costs, the total savings from cutting two wings would exceed $2.65 billion per year - or $1.325 billion per wing. Against current plans, however, most of the procurement savings will be realized in the next four or five years - as noted above. The actual average annual savings for these years will be approximately $5.25 billion annually - or $2.625 billion per wing. Looking at FY 2008 alone, however: only $4 billion in savings can be realized this year.

3.2. Reduce the planned aircraft carrier fleet and air wings by two

• “Steady state” (or long-term average) annual savings would be approximately $4 billion (or $2 billion per aircraft carrier and associated air wing.)
• Average annual savings for the next five years would be approximately $6.95 billion. (This is a substantially greater sum than the “steady-state” figure because substantial ship and aircraft procurement costs will occur during the next five years under current plans.)
• Savings in FY 2008 would amount to approximately $5 billion. (FY 2008 savings are lower than the estimated average for the next five years because acquisition costs for the next CVN-21-class carrier have not yet begun to register substantially.)

The estimated savings from reducing the number of carriers and associated air wings involve three broad categories of expenditure: personnel, operations and maintenance, and modernization (including research, development, and procurement).

• Annual personnel savings for each carrier and associated air wing reduced would be $375 million; for the two carriers and air wings, the savings would be $750 million yearly. Commensurate with this, active-component US Navy end strength would decline by 11,000 personnel, approximately.
• Operations and maintenance savings would be $800 million per carrier (including associated naval air wing) per year - or $1.6 billion for two carriers and air wings per year.

Not included in this estimate are reduced costs for recruitment, training, or central administration and support. Potential savings in these areas might easily and significantly exceed $100 million per year, under this proposal. However, realizing this additional savings would require a separate “infrastructure reform” effort. Thus, the estimated additional savings are not included here.

Modernization savings involve not only the carriers themselves and their associated aircraft, but also a wide variety of other equipment and material not included in operations and maintenance budgets. Steady-state annual modernization costs are $858 million per carrier and associated wing. Thus, reducing the fleet by two of each results in a greater than $1.7 billion reduction in steady-state requirements.

In terms of ship building requirements: the United States could forgo the next two in the CVN-21 series for a potential savings of $26 billion over 9 years. Although most of these savings would be realized during the period 2010-2017, $200 million might be saved in FY 2008.

The estimated cost of planned air wings (including spares and training aircraft) is $6.29 billion each - or almost 12.6 billion for the two wings. The USN’s evolving carrier air wings include, minimally: 44 fighter-attack aircraft, 10 electronic warfare and command and control aircraft, and 11 helicopters serving a variety of purposes. In addition to primary mission aircraft, the Navy purchases spares and trainers, which can increase the lot by as much as 80 percent.

With fewer air wings, the Navy would have a reduced requirement for purchases of F/A-18E/F and F-35 combat aircraft. The F/A-18 buy could be reduced by 65 aircraft for a savings of $4 billion. The F-35 buy could be delayed and reduced by 92 aircraft for a savings of $4.5 billion. The balance of savings in aircraft acquisition would involve the E-2C/D Hawkeye, SH-60R Seahawk, and EA-18G Growler programs.

Notes

1. Joseph Carroll, “Perceptions of “Too Much” Military Spending at 15-Year High,” Gallup News Service, 02 March 2007; www.galluppoll.com/content/Default.aspx?ci=26761&pg=1&VERSION=p .

Historical Dèjá Vu

Add comment August 5th, 2007

 By Rowan Wolf

Iran and Nicaragua in barter deal.

Yes, the above article is written in 2007. Yes, Daniel Ortega is the president of Nicaragua. Yes, this is the same Ortega who was the head of the Sandinistas. So, it is not too surprising that U.S. policy has (not) shifted so much that Ortega might have “strained” relations with the United States - particularly when you throw in warming relations with Iran.

Perhaps you remember the “little embarrassment” known as the Iran-Contra Affair? Reagan wanted to fund the rebel Contras in Nicaragua and the Congress told him “No.” Not being satisfied with Constitutional constraints, he authorized a little covert deal whereby the U.S. sold weapons to Iran and used the proceeds to fund the Contra rebels.

[There was also the business of drug deals and shipping cocaine into the United States for sale in poor and predominantly African American neighborhoods in Los Angeles, but that is another story for another day (see Gary Webb’s Dark Alliance: The Story Behind the Crack Explosion).]

So here we are in 2007 with Iran and Nicaragua formally establishing relations with each other. After all, in 1987 they didn’t know that they were in business with each other. Of course, Saddam Hussein likely didn’t know that while he was receiving support from the U.S. for keeping Iran in “check,” that the U.S. was also arming his (and supposedly the United States’) sworn enemy.

One has to wonder whose U.S. “interests” will prevail in 2007. Dèjá vu with a bit of a twist?

Other Pertinent Resources
Nicaragua U.S. State Department

Nicaragua. Barry & Honey. FPIF. Vol 2:32, 1997.

A Country Study: Nicaragua. Library of Congress. Library of Congress Call Number F1523 .N569 1994

A Metallurgist’s Insights Into the Minneapolis Bridge Disaster

Add comment August 3rd, 2007

BY Joel S. Hirschhorn author of Delusional Democracy and Friends of the Article V Convention

The incredible collapse of the Minneapolis bridge will send a message to the nation that has been repeatedly sent for decades, but that our political system has refused to effectively respond to. America’s physical, engineered infrastructure has been in desperate need for massive spending to repair and replace, but the multi-trillion-dollar cost has been rejected by local, state and federal politicians.

First, understand that I have a professional background in this area. My career started as a metallurgist, than I obtained a Ph.D. in Materials Engineering and became a full professor of metallurgical engineering at the University of Wisconsin, Madison where I taught about mechanical metallurgy and failure analysis, and in my consulting practice regularly worked on explaining actual failures of products and systems.

Many academic and professional groups have for many years produced countless reports on mounting unpaid public costs for updating our crucial physical infrastructure, including bridges, but going way beyond those to, for example, roads, water and sewer systems, tunnels and much more. Make no mistake: The deeply researched and totally supported case for a massive national infrastructure spending program could not have been clearer. But spending on infrastructure is not sexy and politicians at ALL levels of government have found countless excuses for not facing the totality of the problem. Instead, public spending is dribbled out, dealing with the most urgent problems or, worse yet, the ones that are the most visible to the public. But unaddressed are massive numbers of problems, such as the Minneapolis bridge and thousands more bridges, that our bureaucratic system has learned to game, postpone, rationalize and, therefore, put the public safety at considerable risk.

As a metallurgist I can pretty much assure you that if there is a technically honest and complete investigation, the ultimate explanation of the Minneapolis bridge failure will be related to fatigue cracking in the metal structure. Already, news reports have revealed some prior observation of a fatigue problem with the bridge and that the bridge had a relatively low rating of four out of a possible nine, showing that it was structurally deficient. The game played by virtually all government agencies is to find excuses for delaying the most costly repair or replacement of bridges and other parts of our physical infrastructure. As just another example, in most older urban areas there are constant repairs of busted underground water pipes. What is really needed, but avoided, is a total replacement of very old underground pipe systems - in many places 100 or more years old!

Government inspection programs have been terribly compromised over many years. The incredible political pressures to minimize spending on infrastructure have filtered down to the people, procedures and technologies used to examine bridges and other things. When it comes to bridges it is also important to admit that many aspects of our automobile addiction have raised risks, including enormously greater numbers of vehicles creating heavy traffic during much of the day in urban regions. Add to this the massive increase in vehicle weight resulting from the incredible increase in monster SUVs, as well as huge increases in large truck traffic.

The Minneapolis bridge collapse happened during evening rush hour because that was a period of maximum stress, and that would be the trigger for expanding existing fatigue cracks. Once fatigue cracks get to critical sizes they grow and propagate very rapidly, producing powerful loads and stresses on remaining steel components and creating what appears to be a virtually instantaneous bridge collapse.

The remaining public policy question is clear: Will the nation spend what is necessary? Seven other major bridge collapses in the last 40 years have not done the trick. Inadequate bridge inspection has been a frequent documented problem, as well as some design defects. Many people have already died from bridge failures. But still the nation’s elected officials have not bitten the bullet and agreed to spend trillions of dollars over several decades to bring America’s physical infrastructure up to the most modern standards.

Think about all this the next time you go over a bridge.

[The author can be reached through Delusional Democracy.]

Review: Escape from Suburbia

Add comment August 3rd, 2007

By Carolyn Baker of Speaking Truth to Power

The 2004 documentary, “End Of Suburbia”, produced and edited by Barry Silverthorn and written and directed by Greg Greene, was a stunning and chilling cinematic landmark which placed the issue of Peak Oil and its consequences squarely on the world stage and connected the dots between the unsustainable suburban lifestyle and perilous issues of the twenty-first century such as food production, population die-off, and economic meltdown. Recently, Greene and producer, Dara Rowland, have released the sequel, “Escape From Suburbia” which examines the journeys of several individuals who have fled or are in the process of fleeing from civilization. It highlights how they are building new lives and new subcultures which offer the possibilities of deepened humanity and sustainability. Unlike “End Of Suburbia”, “Escape” spends less time interviewing the usual Peak Oil experts and follows the escape routes of ordinary people who are passionate about removing themselves from a culture of over-consumption and extinction.
After a brief explanation of Peak Oil, the film opens with the departure of a baby-boomer man and woman from their suburban home in Portland to an ecovillage in Canada, then moves into focusing on two gay men from New York City, Philip and Tom, who are eagerly planning their escape from the Big Apple to a venue where they can utilize the plethora of farming and permaculture skills they have intentionally acquired over the past few years. Juxtaposing these “escapees” is Kate from Toronto who strongly believes that her calling is not to escape but remain in suburbia and dig in to green it and make it truly sustainable. Interwoven with the various vignettes is Philip’s personal experiences with the 2005 Petrocollapse conference in New York and the 2006 Local Solutions To The Energy Dilemma conference in that city which he helped produce, Philip adamantly insisting that New York and cities like it are not only unsustainable but are self-destructing before his eyes. On the opposite coast in Willits, California, the film highlights a number of its residents engaged in creating a relocalized, sustainable town of 13,000 people who are energy self-sufficient and passionately involved in community building.

“Escape” is refreshing because regardless of what viewers may consider feasible or unfeasible responses to the collapse of civilization, it is a powerful testimony to the reality that we do have options and follows the path of several individuals who are seizing them with remarkable creativity. What is under-emphasized in my opinion is the urgency with which those options must be taken in the face of global warming’s rapid progression, the likelihood that we have passed Peak, and the reality of economic meltdown and a burgeoning fascist dictatorship in the United States. Some scenes, such as sections of the interview with Philip and Tom which conveyed the direness of the situation, may have been edited out in order to make the documentary more palatable to more skeptical viewers. Nevertheless, “Escape” affirms the stark reality of collapse and the glaring truth that some individuals are consciously organizing their lives around preparing for it.

At the same time, Greene leaves us with numerous unanswered questions such as: How will newcomers to an ecovillage be received, and how will they integrate into the community? Will their transition be successful in their eyes? Will they regret making the move, or will they thrive? How will two gay men navigate collapse in a homophobic world where gay and lesbian people more often than not have no connection with families of origin because they have been rejected by them? How will gay and lesbian people be received in ecovillages or communities comprised primarily of heterosexuals? What will be the specific challenges to gay men and women in a collapsing world? Will people of various ethnicities be genuinely welcomed in such communities, or will they encounter prejudice behind politically correct rhetoric? What is unique about Willits? And what will transpire in similar communities committed to self-sufficiency and relocalization? What options exist besides the creation of ecovillages? What options exist for people who want to leave the United States and live in other countries besides Canada?

For me, the most riveting and wrenching footage in the film was the destruction by the Los Angeles police of South Central L.A.’s community gardens in 2006. I was thrilled that Greene chose to include this footage because it destroys all notions of “hope” and “happy endings.” Moreover, it raises deeply disturbing questions about the extent to which ecovillages and sustainable communities will be allowed to function in the face of a dictatorial response to civilization’s collapse. I have no words to describe the sensations in my body as I watched the obliteration of the gardens in South Central by order of the L.A. City Council which had voted to replace them with a warehouse. “Rape” is the only word that even comes close to describing scenes of lush plants and fruit trees being bulldozed as those tending their former garden plots valiantly resisted police or sobbed in abject despair.

The film’s archival and current footage are masterfully woven together, along with a musical score even more haunting and appropriately timed than that of “End Of Suburbia”. So is there anything wrong with Greene’s sequel documentary? Well actually, there is: the price. Whereas “End” consistently retailed for around $25 U.S. dollars, “Escape” retails for $35 plus shipping which approaches $40, and its screening rights have been set at $1500-a marketing decision guaranteed to result in pirating and many fewer people seeing the film which in my opinion is tragic because “Escape” needs to be seen by everyone concerned about Peak Oil, climate change, and economic catastrophe.

The film is a mix of hopeful fantasies such as those offered by Kate from Toronto and Guy Dauncey, President of British Columbia’s Sustainable Energy Association, and the non-sugar-coated reality offered by James Howard Kunstler, Richard Heinberg, and Mike Ruppert. As always, these two opposite poles of reality offer the daunting challenge of holding both as opposed to eliminating one or the other.

Collapse is axiomatic and inevitable, and-human beings are not powerless in the face of it. Although in my opinion we are powerless to prevent it, we must decide how we want to live in the throes of it. “Escape From Suburbia” offers some options worth considering. They are not magic bullet remedies, and some viewers may be deluded by the more hopeful voices in the film, but overall, the usefulness of “Escape” is not even in the options it includes but in the empowerment it evokes. If nothing else, it enticingly demands that we become busy doing something, rather than nothing, in preparation for the end of earth-murdering, humanity-annihilating civilization.