From the April 2005 Idaho Observer:

A Quantum Shift?

We are in a crisis. There is a looming chaos on many fronts, but for the most part, people are oblivious to the storm that surrounds us. A few of us sense our pending predicament, but there is little we can do, as society stampedes to the edge of the abyss. Some are concerned for the well being of those things that are dear to them, but the big picture is generally beyond consideration. Most of us choose ignore-ance as a viable means to cope, but unfortunately, that doesn’t make the problems go away.

Patrick Henry said, "we must know the worst and prepare for it," but Americans like him are now few and far between. Wrapped in a blanket of convenience, our comforts and consumptive habits, we rarely venture beyond our sheltered existence to endure the elements and face the world as it is.

But what is coming, what are the causes and what can we do about it?

by Hari Heath

Upon the fruited plain

Soon after America was founded, our industrious nature began to bear fruit. After several generations, it became the next revolution—the industrial revolution. It promised the replacement of human labors with machine power.

As machines were applied to more of our laborious tasks, the institution of slavery would forever be altered. Not eliminated; altered. We have been lead to believe that the "Civil War" was about the abolition of slavery. But it was really about slavery of another form and tax revolt.

As machinery came to prominence in agriculture, the agrarian southern states preferred the less expensive European imports to the industrial north’s products. The north’s solution was to impose tariffs on the imports and alter the market in the north’s favor. The northern federalists prevailed in their quest for subjugation of the south by taxation, but it led to America’s bloodiest contested question: Will we remain a union of sovereign states or a federalized union of states?

The outcome of that contest thereafter reversed the structure of the people’s government. Emancipation was Lincoln’s ruse, but the silent motto was "slavery for all," as our government began descending deeper into the shadows. Two things from that era hastened our nation’s demise. The first was debt-based fiat money, the "greenback." The other was the discovery, utilization and monopolization of petroleum. In time, both would create the power that is now the root of our current crisis.

Techno-slavery

The promise of labor-saving devices has instead led to constant laboring to acquire and maintain the technology which held such promise. Most Americans require two jobs or more per household to maintain the status quo.

And credit. Can a modern American family survive without constant borrowing to make ends meet? Does our enjoyment of the fruits of technology intrinsically shackle most of us to mountains of debt?

Are we dependent on such an incredible amount of technology that quite literally, many of us could not live without it? Is the definition of slavery being a servant to a master? Is technology our master? Do most of us find ourselves in a condition of techno-slavery?

There are two sides to this picture. One side is pastoral bliss. We have more abundance and benefits than previous generations could ever have dreamed of. Our lives are so much better, now that we no longer have to toil in the soil, work hard for a living or break a sweat and develop calluses.

On the other side, our focus on skills for our techno world has left the majority of people unable to perform the basic tasks that would be necessary for their own survival. Combine this with a near total dependence on a series of fragile, technically advanced infrastructures, we are literally living on the edge.

The chasm

Our particular moment in time presents a precarious position. Juxtaposed on a precipice, most Americans are simply along for the ride and the view.

What most fail to see is that we are living under the seeming benevolence of a totally fiat monetary system. Lacking any real understanding of history, we don’t recall, that at 91 years of age, the private, congressionally chartered "Federal Reserve" Bank is the longest running fiat money scheme of all time. Most similar fiat schemes have failed within 20 years.

Powered by unlimited capital from its ability to create "money," the "Fed" has assumed powers beyond the imagination of most humans and it has spread, through its subsidiary affiliates, around the globe. The whole developed world has now followed this fiat monetary model.

The Fed has already captured 97 percent of the value of everything in America. Through engineered inflation, a hidden tax paid to bakers, we continue to give away our remaining value. With wealth that is literally borrowed into existence and multiplied by the "fraction" they keep in "reserve," our economy is based on future promises to pay with money that hasn’t even been created yet.

Like so many broken Indian treaties, our bonds (debt notes) are held around the world as the basis for another flaming financial fiction, the "derivatives" market. Promises to pay, which promise other promises to pay, are the basis for this multi-trillion dollar endeavor. Such imagined wealth makes the wealthy insanely so.

But a house of cards is still a house of cards, no matter how big it gets. The Federal Reserve has set a new record for longevity, but history has proven these schemes all fall down eventually.

With every country and regional alliance clamoring for its own fiat scheme, this is a teeter that will soon lose its totter.

Petro wars

While Americans go along for the ride and the view, what fuels our ride? Monopolistic cartels following the Rockefeller model have steered us down the path of the petroleum age. Alternatives, many of them efficient and environmentally sound have been suppressed by the cartel, while all manner of petroleum-consumptive devices have been encouraged and provided—often with a zero down payment.

A century of petroleum gluttony in America is now expanding as the "Third World" develops and desires what Americans take for granted. And the transition of China from a nation of communist farmers to the greatest capitalists on earth will soon exponentially expand the demand for petroleum as the supply reaches its peak. The war for oil is only beginning.

Lawless antithesis

As the antithesis of everything our nation’s founders stood for, the current "government" is debased beyond lawful recognition. Every facet of the Constitution has been trashed and trampled save the names of the offices of those who pretend to be our government. The government is best described as "a crime that is constantly inventing new ways of perpetrating itself."

Many Americans still fly their flag with pride and stick plastic ribbons on their cars, but Stalin, Hitler and Bush are destined to share a common legacy.

Social degradation

The degradation of society is following suit as the policy of growth and expansion reaches its climax. The cultural and family values of yesteryear have passed on with those who lived them. The "me generation" now has children and grandchildren whose main focus in life are the I-box, Play Station and Game Boy. Such virtual reality is augmented with reality TV where we can all learn to be like commercials.

Limited carrying capacity

All of the virtual realities cannot overcome the fact that humans are an organism whose continued existence is dependent on an ecosystem. Our efforts to live in excess of the carrying capacity of our immediate environment is presently successful because technology allows us to extract our needs from a larger environment, enhance short term productivity and disguise the damage. Technology can only prolong the inevitable.

The weak link in our techno system is all of them—the domino stack of infrastructures. All of our modern day infrastructures—fuel, finance, food production, transportation, communication, energy supply, industrial production, consumer commerce, health institutions and things we take for granted like water supply and sewage disposal are interdependent. None can function for very long without all the others.

Sitting atop such a precarious precipice, it’s not a pretty picture for those who are just along for the ride and the view.

Three paths

There are three paths at the crossroads before us. We can continue our current course, to the edge of the abyss, all the while enjoying the ride and the view. When we reach the end of terra firma we can try and fight against the hordes whose limited world-view has driven them to the edge. But it is likely to be a futile effort at such a late date.

We could engage in violent revolution against the myriad of oppressions and schemes which have brought us to this predicament, but that, as history hath shown, tends to repeat the cycle, typically destroying the meritorious aspects of social achievement, while leaving the survivors to wallow in a dark age until a new ruling elite emerges to begin a new cycle.

A quantum shift

Or we can take the leap and work individually and collectively to promote a quantum shift in the way we engage the world.

We first have to step into a new dimension and realize the depth and gravity of the program we have been operating under.

Assuming personal responsibility, each of us, according to our own conscience, must learn to manage and limit our own participation with the current program that had been laid down for our society. Just saying "no" to the corrupted components of our social matrix, as a matter of right and responsibility, we can withdraw our consent. En mass, we can forge that quantum shift.

With sane development, we need to explore the alternatives and apply solutions. Quietly, many of us are already proceeding on this path. The way ahead is paved with many suppressed inventions, therapies and technologies that hold much promise.

But the biggest challenges ahead are liberation from a petroleum-dominated world and achieving an honest economy while chaining big government to an anchor and sending it out to sea.