November 17, 2000

Subject: Miscellaneous Subjects #42: News from wizard of oz + Forget Florida - Support Gore NOW! + Uplifting dream with Gore and Clinton + SOUL TRAIN + Palestinian hopes in tatters + Media omissions, army lies + Children in the line of fire + How to play the aid game + Global Manipulators Move Beyond Petroleum

Hello everyone

Here is one last compilation for this week.

Enjoy!

Jean Hudon
Earth Rainbow Network Coordinator
http://www.cybernaute.com/earthconcert2000

P.S. There won't be any Meditation Focus recommended this Friday as I was not available to prepare one and no one else in the Focus Group wasn't either. Hopefully we will resume our activities next week. We will soon send you all an invitation to join a new Advisory Group we want to create so as to assist us and form a pool of potential new core group members who will eventually join us in preparing the Meditation Foci issued every week. We also plan to circulate soon a survey to assess the level of participation and interest in our work.

Also some people have been reporting to me recently that they have received an email from me with the full subject titles but with nothing in the body of the email. I do not understand why this happens but if many are experiencing this problem, I'd like to know. Also if you want to get the material you missed, you can always download it from the website indicated above, near the bottom where each new compilation is archived as soon as it is posted to the list.

---

ERRATA!!

Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2000
From: Master Ho <ho@masterho.com>
Subject: Quotes from George W. Bush

Hi there

So you know, I ran this in the Reality Box a couple of weeks back....and one
of my reader's pointed out that these were not George Bush quotes, but a
list of QUAYLE quotes, with the names switched! We were directed to check
out quoteland.com and search for Dan Quayle.

Blessings on all your good work,
Master Ho

THANKS FOR LETTING ME/US KNOW!




Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2000
From: estelle <estelle@pnc.com.au>
Subject: News from wizard of oz

dearest jean

what a great job you are doing as always
i have had house guests for five weeks since my return from waterbirth2000
which was so exciting - and such a validation of my global mission for twenty years
still work to be done down under
we have gone backwards 25 years
the process of birth now one of human rights
time to take up my talking stick and soap box once more
for unborn babies and empowerment of mothers to be

what exciting times
love you latest
and would you believe the evening before usa election my dreaming was powerful
and the bottom line was a television broadcast where the anchor man introduced
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN - THE PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES
and BOTH WALKED FORWARD WITH COMMITMENT TO CO-OP AT COALITION!!!!!!!
imagine my surprise to awaken to headlines STALEMATE - TOO CLOSE TO CALL

and watching the shenagins since - one can only see the most extra ordinary
creative opportunity for CHANGE - and how the whole system has been exposed
worldwide for all to see

that we do have choices and that one person can make a difference
and the need to take responsibility to vote and have your say

my radio program has been about all this the last two tuesdays
putting it out on the airwaves - really the usa election is a interesting
reflection of what is happening on the planet - 50/50 - old way new way -
and half who have not woken up at all

whatever the outcome - it can only be positive - the system has to change
and which ever man holds office must do so with the goodwill and
co-operation of the other as neither have a mandate

truly miracluous

love you so much - keep up the good work

love love love
estelle
wizard of oz

estelle myers
11 florey crescent, springwood, nsw, 2777 australia
phone 612 4751 8401 fax 4751 8402
Mobile 0414 518 401
email estelle@pnc.com.au

Work like you don't need the money.
Love like you've never been hurt.
Dance like nobody's watching.
SING LIKE NO ONE IS LISTENING!

NOTE FROM JEAN: Estelle, a most energetic woman, has been at the forefront for years (in Australia and elsewhere) of the movement to enable interested women to give birth in water. So I asked her for some website references in case anyone of you is interested to explore this fascinating possibility. The babies born this way are said to be quite unique beings.

www.waterbirth.org
www.comadresinstitute.com
www.midwiferytoday.com
www.birthlight.com
www.freestone.org




From: "Freeda Cathcart" <stonecart@email.msn.com>
Subject: Forget Florida - Support Gore NOW!
Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2000

While the lawyers are scrambling around chasing suits all over Florida we could be doing something constructive to support Al Gore. When the absentee ballots are counted this coming Saturday if Gore does not win FL then he will probably be pressured to concede.

There has been enough evidence of questionable ballots in the FL area and elsewhere to raise doubt in the minds of the electoral college. For instance if the electoral college in FL decided to split their votes that would put Al Gore potentially having 172 in total. Enough to win the election. Actually none of us know except the electoral college exactly how they might vote in the end. They have been following the coverage and have their own opinions. They might not even know how they might vote in the end as the mud becomes muddier down in FL.

Why don't we do something to support Gore like have a rally in DC? A nice diverse gathering to demonstrate that the people want Gore for the next President of US. It looks like this coming Friday and Saturday might be key days for Gore. Let's not regret sitting still when we could gather and make a difference. CLIP

Sincerely,
Freeda Lynne Cathcart
Roanoke, VA
540-989-9821




Date: 16 Nov 00
From: Ariel Ky
Subject: Re: [Miscellaneous Subjects #41

The other night I dreamt that I was climbing a mountain with another person, looking for a campsite. We encountered mountain lions and panthers who did not harm us, but let us pass by unmolested. We met another group of people who we quickly befriended. One of them had a wonderful Southwestern style house made of stucco near the top of the mountain and they invited us to spend the night there.

As we were climbing to the house, Al Gore, along with several friends, joined us. A little bit later, Bill Clinton showed up and came along with us. We all went to the house which was big enough to accommodate everyone. Someone started to play a guitar, hauntingly beautiful music that set a mystical mood.

We all felt blessed by the company, the surroundings, the sense of safety in the wilderness, and the beauty of the music and we began to sing together.

This dream makes me feel very hopeful about the outcome.

Ariel Ky




DAILY GRIST
16 Nov 2000
Environmental news from GRIST MAGAZINE
ttp://www.gristmagazine.com

2.
SOUL TRAIN
Representatives of 11 major world religions pledged this week to work together to help combat climate change, deforestation, and other environmental ills. At a first-of-its-kind conference in Nepal organized by the World Wildlife Fund, leaders representing Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jews, and Muslims, among other religious groups, highlighted the environmental teachings of their faiths. One conference attendee, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual leader of Orthodox Christians, has earned the nickname the Green Patriarch in part because he has declared that pollution is a sin. Pope John Paul II didn't make it to the gathering in Nepal, but he did urge last week that rigorous controls be imposed on biotechnology to avert possible "disaster for the health of man and the future of the earth."

BBC News, Sushil Sharma, 15 Nov 2000
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1024000/1024857.stm

New York Times, Robert Worth, 14 Nov 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/14/nyregion/14PATR.html

Bergen Record, Associated Press, Frances
D'Emilio, 13 Nov 2000
http://www.bergen.com/morenews/popeag13200011135.htm




From: Le Monde diplomatique <dispatch@Monde-diplomatique.fr>
Subject: November 2000
Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2000

Palestinian hopes in tatters

by ERIC ROULEAU

The failure of the process set in motion by the Oslo accord of 13 September 1993 is clear. As the territories erupted and Barak tried desperately to form a national emergency government with Sharon, the US decided to grant Israel hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid, confirming its bias as an intermediary in the peace negotiations. A page has been turned in the Middle East and the contagion may well spread. Yet for over 30 years the Palestinians and the PLO have gradually advanced towards acceptance of a solution rooted in the co-existence of two states. Their hopes for a just peace and a compromise solution, based on Security Council Resolution 242, have been dashed by Israeli intransigence, US bias, and the indifference of the international community.

Translated by Harry Forster

---

THIS ONE BELOW IS VERY REVEALING!!

From: http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/en/2000/11/07mideastmedia

Media omissions, army lies

by AMIRA HASS

Since the outbreak of what has become known as the Aqsa intifada, the Israeli media have been going by the declarations of military and civilian spokesmen. Normally this information is fairly precise, but this time it is full of lies, omissions and imprecision. One example: journalists were led to believe that the excessive use of force to disperse demonstrators was justified by the danger to which Israelis soldiers and civilians were exposed. This was the case on 29 September at Friday prayers at the Aqsa mosque when, according to army spokesmen, overexcited youths threw stones at Jews praying at the Western Wall.

The Israeli human rights organisation B'tselem published a report which confirms the version of Palestinian eyewitnesses. It says the stones were aimed at the armada of Israeli police whose presence on the Aqsa precinct was a provocation. What is more, the police did not used tear gas to stop the stone throwing but immediately opened fire with rubber-covered bullets which kill when fired at close range, as was the case here. The blood shed on this holy Muslim place unleashed a wave of anger throughout the country and the death of young Palestinians added fuel to the fire.

By 24 October 115 Palestinians had been killed and 4,500 wounded in the occupied territories, plus 12 dead and 1,650 injured inside Israel proper. On the Israeli side, there were eight dead. It took dozens of B'tselem teams of investigators to verify the circumstances of each of these dramas. But all the witnesses have reported that, since the start, the Israeli army almost never used tear gas, despite the fact that it is an extremely effective way of dispersing crowds without casualties. Instead, the army regularly used snipers who targeted demonstrators, aiming at the upper part of their bodies in the first days of the clashes 70% of the dead and wounded had been hit above the belt, according to Palestinian medical sources.

Most of the Israeli media swallowed the story that the soldiers had only used weapons if their lives were in danger. It took filming of the gunfire to demonstrate that this was not the case; only then did the army admit to some "deplorable mistakes". The only possible conclusion is that the army had given the order to shoot in order to put an end to the disturbances. As we know, the opposite happened.

On 6 October the army spokesman reported that soldiers acting as outposts for the settlement of Netzarim in the Gaza Strip had twice opened fire on Palestinians who were shooting at them. On that day four Palestinians died and 24 were wounded at this crossroads. I was there. The spokesman failed to say anything about the dozens of isolated shots and bursts of gunfire that had come from the settlement itself. He also forgot to mention that soldiers, positioned on distant surveillance towers, had used submachine guns against thousands of unarmed demonstrators. The aim was clear: to dissuade the young protesters from approaching the Israelis fortified forward positions. In this case, the soldiers were not defending their lives.

The spokesmen had reported almost all the shootings by armed Palestinians. But the Israeli media were unaware of two facts. First, in general armed Palestinians only opened fire when the crowd had already been strafed by snipers out to kill. Second, Palestinian shots were singularly wide of the mark, as shown by the toll of victims on either side. In addition, Palestinian officials condemned what they called this "shooting at the sun".

The media meticulously detailed every clash of this sort, described as a "heavy bombardment" of the Israeli military outpost. In so doing, it reinforced the feeling among public opinion that Israel was facing a war launched by an army of similar strength to its own. Based on army information, Israel radio also reported that Palestinian ambulances were transporting tires and weapons to the scenes of the clashes. In fact, the Palestinians could easily use private vehicles to do this. In addition, the Red Cross is present everywhere the clashes take place and it controls the ambulances. This was a piece of disinformation to cover the outrageous attacks on the ambulances by Israeli troops and the killing of one of their drivers.

The names of the Palestinian victims were never reported on radio, TV or in the newspapers (apart from Haaretz): their anonymity spared the Jewish public from seeing the grief of their families. It was easier to present the events as a plot orchestrated by the Palestinian Authority. But in fact, Yasser Arafat knows that all big clashes and widescale agitation will one day rebound on his own authoritarian regime and its failure to keep its promise to create a truly independent Palestinian state.

All this disinformation crowns seven years of distorted coverage of the Oslo process. In general, the Israelis have been blind and deaf to the complaints of the Palestinians, for whom the interminable peace negotiations were bringing neither justice nor dignity. Undeniably, Oslo has locked the population of the Palestinian territories into so many fragmented cages, reinforced the settlements and tied economic development to Palestinian acceptance of a new form of Israeli control.

---

From: http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/en/2000/11/08mideastchild

Children in the line of fire

Demonstrations are nothing new in Palestine. They took place under the British and then - as now - the press accused people of pushing their children into the line of fire. Eyad Serraj is head of the Mental Health Community Centre in Gaza and a firm believer in peace. The question of the children angers him.

by EYAD SERRAJ

Some people ask why Palestinian mothers push their children into the line of fire and then cry over their dead bodies. At first sight, the question may seem logical. But the premise is pathological.

The right question is why do our soldiers kill these children? And in some cases in cold blood, taking aim with pinpoint accuracy. This question should logically lead to another. What are we doing here on Palestinian land? Instead, these same people prefer to look the other way. It is easier to see these children as hoodlums and devils, who actually provoke the soldiers into killing them. Perhaps these children don't want to live, they say. Anyway, how can their mothers have any maternal feelings?

We need to think about what lies behind this question. If Palestinian women have no feelings for their children, then the Palestinians are not really human. And if we're not really human, then we're not even equal to animals. After all, dogs and cats care for their young in times of danger. This line of thinking is reminiscent of how white South Africans used to think of blacks. How Europeans colonisers thought of native Americans and Aborigines. How Nazis thought of Jews.

The premise rules out that the Palestinians are defending their land and their dignity - a basic human right. It suggests that Palestinians are violent for the sake of violence and that they hate Jews just because they are Jews. Those who believe this seem not to know - or do not want to know - that Israel is occupying Palestinian lands. And that this occupation is continuous, destructive and profoundly humiliating. And that it has been condemned by many Israelis and by Jews across the world.

---

How to play the aid game

by SYLVIE BRUNEL

After three years of drought, humanitarian aid organisations have come to the rescue of the famine-stricken Ogaden in southeast Ethiopia. But this disaster has little to do with nature. Rather, the famine has been cynically staged with the aim of attracting maximum international aid and capturing votes.

CLIP

The threat of "somalisation" of the Ogaden haunts the Ethiopian government, which has always neglected the Somali people but covets their land. This huge, sparsely populated space could be an ideal agricultural frontier for an Amhara nation in search of a demographic outlet.

Geographically, the Ogaden may be barren Sahel, but it holds enormous unexplored quantities of natural gas - 35bn cubic metres, according to a Russian evaluation conducted in the early 1980s. In 1997 a Chinese firm signed a contract to produce liquefied gas with the help of the World Bank. There is even a pipeline project to Harare (Zimbabwe), where a refinery can be built.

Brought to heel

What better way to bring this rebellious province to heel than to organise controls around the main perennial sources of water? Only the deep wells have retained water. Some of them belong to private owners who charge dearly for access. Others are controlled by the Ethiopian army. Those who want access must pledge allegiance: here as elsewhere, those who control food and water hold the power.

In April last year the Ethiopian military forbade access to the Wabe Shebele river, toward which thousands of families were gathering, on the pretext that it was full of bacteria. Food distribution, organised under army rule in the areas with the greatest population, allowed tight control over a territory until then poorly controlled by troops with little regard for local populations.

CLIP

Last year Human Rights Watch denounced the "secret war" in the Ogaden. The province had become a huge, closed military camp in which the army has carried out extortion and massacres, imprisoned people, and denied access to water. In April, at the height of the drought, the army suddenly changed its tactics and set itself up, unexpectedly, as the good Samaritan. It transported food and organised aid. Even if the quantities it distributed were insufficient - and distribution methods were a far cry from those used by real humanitarians - the aim was clear: the impact of food distribution a few weeks from the election could only work in favour of candidates for a federal administration that had, until then, been struggling to impose its legitimacy.

Cashing in on the famine

The means, however, were lacking. The fratricidal trench warfare between Ethiopia and Eritrea had been draining all the country's vital forces since May 1998 (2), with great loss of men, materials and financial means. Receiving international aid while rallying Ethiopians around a national disaster was an excellent move by the regime. On the pretext that roads and transportation infrastructure were lacking, the government concentrated the media and aid agencies in a calm area that was well controlled by the military. Its epicentre was the city of Gode, which has one of this under-equipped region's few airports. All the news reports by the world media on the "Ethiopian famine" were done in the same 50 kilometre radius - most of them in Denan, a town 40 kilometres from Gode, where the famine was particularly visible.

Symbols of absolute desolation, the bodies of dead cows lined the road from Gode to Denan. The cadavers were dragged along the road, carefully aligned and straightened up as often as possible - props for the famine display. The authorities led the westerners to the Denan cemetery to show them a few freshly dug children's graves and criticise the international community for its lateness in sending aid. They did not mention that, shortly before, they were still refusing to allow any western humanitarian aid organisation to be present.

In April Ethiopia was promised five times more food aid than had been planned before the media coverage of the famine. Close to 900,000 tons were promised - a considerable amount, and not tied to the cease-fire with Eritrea, since Addis Ababa had categorically refused to give in to such "blackmail". Crucially, this amount of aid was not founded on the real numbers of starving people.

Read the rest at http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/en/2000/11/14corruptionaid




Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2000
From: Mark Graffis <ab758@virgin.vip.vi>
Subject: Global Manipulators Move Beyond Petroleum

http://newdawnmagazine.com/Articles/Beyond_Petroleum.html

By SUSAN BRYCE

The Saudis have a saying My father rode a camel, I drive a car, my son rides in a jet airplane his son will ride a camel.

In July this year BP Amoco, the world's second largest oil company, announced it had chosen a flower as its new emblem in a dramatic upheaval of the oil multinational's global brand. Unveiling the new emblem, Sir John Browne, BP chief executive, suggested that "BP" be read not as British Petroleum, but as "Beyond Petroleum".

The new green and yellow floral sunburst design distances BP from its core business of hydrocarbons. Replacing the company's ancient shield is the BP Helios mark, named after the Greek sun god. The new logo was designed by consultants Landor, who pocketed a US$7 million fee for their services. TV advertisements are currently screening in Europe and international media stations promoting BP as the company going "Beyond Petroleum". In the UK, one hundred million dollars per year has been allocated over four years for BP's television advertising campaign focusing on renewable energies.

Meanwhile Shell, another hydrocarbon giant has been `scenario planning' and has announced that "gas and renewables could meet almost 50% of the fuel requirements for power generation in Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries by 2020." In 1999 the company established Shell Hydrogen as a core business to develop opportunities related to hydrogen fuel cells and the company is pouring billions into research and development of solar, wind and biomass energies. Like BP, Shell is running a series of television advertisements telling the world about petroleum alternatives.

In a related development, the Ford motor company announced in October 2000 that the internal combustion engine would be replaced by hydrogen fuel cells `soon'. Ford is one of three major automobile companies that have committed to providing mass produced hydrogen fueled cars by 2004.

So what's going on? If you listen to the propaganda, the oil and car companies are just responding to `consumer demand' for environmentally friendly alternatives. But how many car owners have you heard lately demanding `clean and green fuel'? How many car owners do you know that are demanding cars that run on hydrogen fuel cells? Only a decade ago, inventors that said cars could run on hydrogen fuel cells were laughed out of town!

Has climate change spooked the major fossil fuel polluters into doing something positive for the environment? Do the oil companies want to capture a bigger slice of the energy market, hence their interest in renewables? Have they suddenly decided to take `corporate responsibility'? The answer to all of the above is a cynical `yes'. But there is one other overriding factor which has forced the global oil companies to look `beyond petroleum'.

Oil is a finite resource. The cup that the world presumed to be running over with oil has been revealed to be half full. "Beyond Petroleum" signals the beginning of the end for hydrocarbon man. We are entering the post-petroleum world.

In the closing years of the 20th century, technological advances enabled petroleum geologists to accurately estimate the reserves of oil worldwide. The entire globe has now been explored for oil and natural gas. In the mid 1990s confident forecasts regarding ultimate oil and natural gas production, the timing of production peaks and subsequent rates of decline, were made. The conclusion reached was that oil production would peak in the first decade of 2000. A `production peak' occurs when approximately half of the "Estimated Ultimately Recoverable" (EUR) oil has been recovered. From then on, it's all down hill. Demand will exceed supply.

CLIP

Corporate Partners of the New World Order

The United Nations Global Compact was announced at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland in 1999. In a speech to delegates, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan committed the UN to a Compact for the new century. The announcement signaled a historic alliance between transnational corporations and the United Nations, which Annan described as a creative partnership. The goals of the United Nations and those of business can, indeed, be mutually supportive, Annan told the delegation. The Global Compact has enabled TNCs to have privileged and unprecedented access to the United Nations.

---

NOTE FROM JEAN: To read an excellent critical analysis of this Global Compact, read
Tangled Up In Blue: Corporate Partnerships at the United Nations at
http://www.corpwatch.org/globalization/un/tangled.html

Here is a short excerpt:

"The ideology behind the Global Compact is a belief in the benefits of open markets, which are seen by high-ranking UN officials as "the only remotely viable means of pulling billions of people out of the abject poverty in which they find themselves." The term "open markets" may sound enticing, but in the real world it often means the kind of rules enforced by the WTO at the expense of developing countries, farmers, consumers and the environment. Peoples' movements against corporate globalization have very specifically targeted these rules and the ideolog behind them.

It is undeniable that many UN, corporate and government officials believe that globalization is essentially beneficial and merely needs some tinkering. As a Washington Post editorial on the Global Compact termed it, globalization needs a "softener" to dull its harsh edge, prevent a backlash, and improve the distribution of benefits. But there are many who see globalization as essentially "the push by big companies and financial institutions to have more power," as Martin Khor, Director of the Third World Network told the UN Millenium Forum last May. According to Khor and others, "we have to fight the system of globalization we have today."

Check also from: http://www.corpwatch.org/globalization/un/nyt-teachin.html
International Forum on Globalization Teach-In on
Economic Globalization and the Role of the United Nations
Can the United Nations Be Salvaged?

And from http://www.un.org/partners/business/davos.htm
Mr. Annan's speech "A COMPACT FOR THE NEW CENTURY"
At the World Economic Forum, Davos, on 31 January 1999

---

(Global Manipulators - continued)

Up until 1993, the UNs Centre on Transnational Corporations (UNCTC) carried out research, working to develop a code of conduct for TNCs. Corporations were extremely hostile toward the UNCTC and in 1993, an organisational restructure saw the Centre disbanded. Subsequently, UNCTAD (the United Nations Commission on Trade and Development) became the new UN focal point for work involving TNCs. UNCTADs role, however, has been to facilitate free trade and foreign investment flows, particularly in the developing world, not keep the power of TNCs in check. Considering the evidence presented in this article so far, it is possible to make the following conclusion:

We are confronted with the greatest transformation of human affairs in all history. The world will soon pump oil at maximum capacity. Once this happens, even minor disruptions will send immense shocks reverberating through the oil market, resulting in sharp and sustained increases in the prices of crude and refined products. This will cause economic growth to slow. Recession, even depression is possible. These looming problems became critically apparent in 1995,22 and have now been exacerbated by escalating tensions in the Middle East.

The peak of world oil production was reached in 2000, the roll over of the global energy clock (the real Y2K emergency). The corporations are now starting to unveil environmentally friendly technologies that they patented and locked away years ago. The TNCs must take control of alternative and renewable energy sources so that the masses continue to be dependent upon them. This way, continued profits and stability of the world economy is ensured.

The TNCs have banded together to usher in a new era of `corporate social responsibility'. This new `ethic' will see TNCs becoming concerned with human rights, the environment, labour standards, women and minorities. Corporate social responsibility means just that. The corporations will take responsibility for our social development. They will maintain that their good deeds are propelled by global environmentally sustainable ethics.23 This makes their charge for clean and green technologies more credible and believable.24

The TNCs have begun a swift and bold program to implement sustainable agriculture systems, to ensure that agriculture is more productive as demand rises and the use of fossil fuels declines. Genetic engineering not only enables the TNCs to respond to the increasing demand for food, but also enables them to increase their control of the world's food resources through mergers and vertical integration of markets. By setting global `standards' for sustainable agriculture, they will be able to dictate what food is grown, where it is grown, how it is grown and any other `treatments' that are deemed necessary.25

The UN is widely perceived to be the only global body with enough `clout' to solve the collective problems of humanity and the only organisation which can solve problems that cross borders and transcend national boundaries. Following the announcement of the Global Compact in 1999, the UN and the transnational corporations (the members of the WBCSD) have been busy working on an Earth Charter (http://www.earthcharter.org) which will be introduced so that their control will be all pervading. The alliance between the TNCs and the UN is a tactic that will ultimately consolidate control of the global agenda.

The risk of chaos, disorder and destruction faces the TNCs if they fail to adapt appropriately in time. But the people of the world see the dramatic consequences of global climate change before them. They see the need to change their ways and they are willing to make `The Transition' beyond petroleum.

The destroyers of our planet have usurped us. In the first decade of the new century, we may have had an opportunity to throw off the shackles of corporate control. A post petroleum world would offer many opportunities for independence, not the globalist vision of interdependence being foisted upon us. A post petroleum world would provide scope for food self-sufficiency, not food security, which the corporate capitalist system offers. A post petroleum world would provide the opportunity for people to look for real and lasting alternatives to the capitalist system.

In the closing paragraph of The Seven Sisters, Anthony Samson makes a dire prediction about the future of the oil economy:

The road toward any equitable control system will be a long and thorny one, and no solution can be acceptable to every nation. Any agreement over oil implies a first step towards some form of world government. But for this reason, the reward will be far greater than the security of oil supplies; it will be the beginning of a new kind of global responsibility between nations. Oil, which has been such a combustible element in world conflicts in the past, may yet prove a lubricant for world peace.

From the evidence presented in this article, it would appear that Sampson's prediction is coming true. `The Transition' to the post petroleum world is occurring and it will be used to usher in a new era of global governance and corporate control.

Footnotes:

CLIP

Read the rest at http://newdawnmagazine.com/Articles/Beyond_Petroleum.html







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