MOMCOM's Mass Suicide & Murder Pact - 5

Once upon a time ...

Regular readers know that in the first post of this series Dredd Blog advocated the development of a division and discipline within psychiatry that would psychoanalyze powerful groups that exist within, and are a part of, civilization.

In the second post of this series we mentioned that some are beginning to use psychoanalytical terms when referring to the direction civilization is going, also focusing on some of the propaganda push-back.

In the third post of the series we went through the similarities between the Jim Jones-Jonestown mass-murder suicide pact and the current problem this series is focusing on (ecocide).

In the most recent post prior to this post today, we looked at some aspects of the problems which doctors are now calling the addiction to fossil fuels and the role denial plays.

Today, we will regroup somewhat to reemphasize the foundational validity of the series, that is, that its hypothesis rests upon solid scientific grounds.

No less than "The Father of Psychoanalysis" indicated that he saw no reason why the psychoanalysis of a meme complex is too far fetched to bring to fruition, whether that meme complex is a church, a political party, a state, the fossil fuel industry, or even an entire civilization:

If the evolution of civilization has such a far reaching similarity with the development of an individual, and if the same methods are employed in both, would not the diagnosis be justified that many systems of civilization——or epochs of it——possibly even the whole of humanity——have become neurotic under the pressure of the civilizing trends? To analytic dissection of these neuroses, therapeutic recommendations might follow which could claim a great practical interest. I would not say that such an attempt to apply psychoanalysis to civilized society would be fanciful or doomed to fruitlessness. But it behooves us to be very careful, not to forget that after all we are dealing only with analogies, and that it is dangerous, not only with men but also with concepts, to drag them out of the region where they originated and have matured. The diagnosis of collective neuroses, moreover, will be confronted by a special difficulty. In the neurosis of an individual we can use as a starting point the contrast presented to us between the patient and his environment which we assume to be normal. No such background as this would be available for any society similarly affected; it would have to be supplied in some other way. And with regard to any therapeutic application of our knowledge, what would be the use of the most acute analysis of social neuroses, since no one possesses power to compel the community to adopt the therapy? In spite of all these difficulties, we may expect that one day someone will venture upon this research into the pathology of civilized communities. [p. 39]

...

Men have brought their powers of subduing the forces of nature
to such a pitch that by using them they could now very easily exterminate one another to the last man. They know this——hence arises a great part of their current unrest, their dejection, their mood of apprehension. [p. 40]

(Civilization and Its Discontents, S. Freud, 1929, emphasis added). He did caution that the development of such techniques should be done carefully, which one psychologist has accomplished with an analysis of Wall Street workers (see When You Are Governed By Psychopaths - 2, section "The Diagnosis of Mania").

The reason for such a discipline, Dredd Blog argued, is that the problem involved is not a business problem, it is a psychological problem (ibid).

What better time than the present to get going with this analysis and give it the authority to get the job done, because:

It’s no secret where this denialism comes from: the fossil fuel industry pays for it. (Of the 16 authors of the Journal article, for instance, five had had ties to Exxon.) Writers from Ross Gelbspan to Naomi Oreskes have made this case with such overwhelming power that no one even really tries denying it any more. The open question is why the industry persists in denial in the face of an endless body of fact showing climate change is the greatest danger we’ve ever faced.

(MOMCOM's Mass Suicide & Murder Pact). In a similar vein others have gone further to focus in on the main meme complex involved:

But what all these climate numbers make painfully, usefully clear is that the planet does indeed have an enemy – one far more committed to action than governments or individuals. Given this hard math, we need to view the fossil-fuel industry in a new light. It has become a rogue industry, reckless like no other force on Earth. It is Public Enemy Number One to the survival of our planetary civilization. "Lots of companies do rotten things in the course of their business – pay terrible wages, make people work in sweatshops – and we pressure them to change those practices," says veteran anti-corporate leader Naomi Klein, who is at work on a book about the climate crisis. "But these numbers make clear that with the fossil-fuel industry, wrecking the planet is their business model. It's what they do."

(MOMCOM's Mass Suicide & Murder Pact - 4). The bottom line is that there is a meme complex, the fossil fuel industry, that is taking civilization toward its doom, that said meme complex is in denial of the reality, and that fossil fuel industry is deceiving others away from grasping that reality.

Freud has also explained:

Neurosis does not disavow the reality, it ignores it; psychosis disavows it and tries to replace it.

(The Loss of Reality in Neurosis and Psychosis, Freud, 1924, p. 185) . Thus, as previous posts in this series have shown, the fossil fuel industry has gone beyond neurosis, and is now into psychosis.

The Dredd Blog has also mentioned that the meme complex some have called "public enemy number one" is being considered by The United Nations, in early, embryonic proceedings in this matter, but in the context of criminal proceedings:

But should the bosses of polluting companies and the leaders of environmentally-unfriendly states join those responsible for mass murder in the dock. They could if a fifth crime against peace - ecocide - joined that list of human evils? The United Nations is now considering the proposal and the first test of how a prosecution for ecocide would work takes place on Friday, with fossil fuel bosses in the dock at the UK supreme court in London. It is a mock trial of course, but with real top-flight lawyers and judges and a jury made up of members of the public. The corporate CEOs will be played by actors briefed by their legal teams.

(Is 'Insanity' A Valid Defense To Ecocide?). Again, the idea of The United Nations handling this matter is a good idea, but doing so under a criminal prosecution may not be as effective as doing so under a system of psychoanalysis with the authority to administer therapy.

We must leave that to the powers that be who are not yet psychotic, and to the public which needs to break free from the Jim Jones of Jonestown meme complex (the fossil fuel industry).

The previous post in this series is here.

Inferior Structure - 2

I-35W Bridge Collapse

Our nation is falling apart in several significant ways.

For example, the obvious political division, religious division, the 1% - 99% division,  but now we know that it also is physically falling apart.

In yesterday's post we focused on the "fossil fuel infrastructure" (a.k.a. the dirty, crude oil industry).

We have looked at that murderous international industry before, but yesterday we began to look at another aspect of that nemesis which has been causing global warming induced climate change for decades, noting that it is now beginning to have an affect on the entire national infrastructure:

“We’ve got the ‘storm of the century’ every year now,” said Bill Gausman, a senior vice president and a 38-year veteran at the Potomac Electric Power Company, which took eight days to recover from the June 29 “derecho” storm that raced from the Midwest to the Eastern Seaboard and knocked out power for 4.3 million people in 10 states and the District of Columbia.

In general, nobody in charge of anything made of steel and concrete can plan based on past trends, said Vicki Arroyo, who heads the Georgetown Climate Center at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, a clearinghouse on climate-change adaptation strategies.

Highways, Mr. Scullion noted, are designed for the local climate, taking into account things like temperature and rainfall. “When you get outside of those things, man, all bets are off.” As weather patterns shift, he said, “we could have some very dramatic failures of highway systems.”

(NY Times, emphasis added). As Dredd Blog pointed out recently, they hog even the drinking water and pollute that too:

WE’RE now in the midst of the nation’s most widespread drought in 60 years, stretching across 29 states and threatening farmers, their crops and livestock. But there is another risk as water becomes more scarce. Power plants may be forced to shut down, and oil and gas production may be threatened.

Our energy system depends on water. About half of the nation’s water withdrawals every day are just for cooling power plants. In addition, the oil and gas industries use tens of millions of gallons a day, injecting water into aging oil fields to improve production, and to free natural gas in shale formations through hydraulic fracturing. Those numbers are not large from a national perspective, but they can be significant locally.

All told, we withdraw more water for the energy sector than for agriculture. Unfortunately, this relationship means that water problems become energy problems that are serious enough to warrant high-level attention.

During the 2008 drought in the Southeast, power plants were within days or weeks of shutting down because of limited water supplies.

(The Damage Has Been Done). We are living in a time that should be producing a plethora of jobs whereby we change our entire infrastructure, beginning with "fossil fuel infrastructure", by changing it to green, vehicular transportation, and let's not forget that the national power grid desperately needs a major upgrade too.

Regular readers know that Dredd Blog, since at least 2009, has been asking what nation our infrastructure tax money has been spent on:

"The enormous bill [the largest in U.S. history BTW] -- 1,752 pages long" costing "$286.4 BILLION" known as "the highway bill" was the republican congress and republican president's bill passed in late 2005.

But it did not stop the Minnesota bridge [see photo at top of this post] from collapsing and killing American citizens, nor did it stop the great recession that is still ongoing.

So how is the next most expensive public works legislation in US history going to be any different?

The answer is that nothing is going to work until we stop destroying wealth with the stupid wars, the stupid military spending gone pork barrel wild, and the stupid military propaganda deciding our fate.

(Inferior Structure). The 1% plutocrats who brought this on us, through greed and lack of foresight, control the money necessary to bring us back to infrastructure reality:

... the U.S. is becoming a Plutonomy – an economy dependent on the spending and investing of the wealthy. And Plutonomies are far less stable than economies built on more evenly distributed income and mass consumption. “I don’t think it’s healthy for the economy to be so dependent on the top 2% of the income distribution,” Mr. Zandi said. He added that, “In the near term it highlights the fragility of the recovery.”

(The Graphs of Wrath, quoting WSJ, emphasis added). But the 1% say they won't spend it, won't be "job creators", because of "uncertainty", which means that they have made themselves "uncertain", but want to blame others for their own criminal failings.

The previous post in this series is here.

The Damage Has Been Done - 6

Unusual Greenland early melt

In this series Dredd Blog has focused on the world wide drought.

Today we focus on some of the unintended consequences that are happening in the United States, where the drought is very severe.

But first let's remember that global warming induced climate change, has been brought to us because of fossil fuel addiction.

That anthropogenic warming has been also fingered as the primary cause, the main, ongoing global event that is responsible as the fundamental causation of the current drought in the United States.

That would mean that the fossil fuel industry is responsible for water shortage in more ways than one:

WE’RE now in the midst of the nation’s most widespread drought in 60 years, stretching across 29 states and threatening farmers, their crops and livestock. But there is another risk as water becomes more scarce. Power plants may be forced to shut down, and oil and gas production may be threatened.

Our energy system depends on water. About half of the nation’s water withdrawals every day are just for cooling power plants. In addition, the oil and gas industries use tens of millions of gallons a day, injecting water into aging oil fields to improve production, and to free natural gas in shale formations through hydraulic fracturing. Those numbers are not large from a national perspective, but they can be significant locally.

All told, we withdraw more water for the energy sector than for agriculture. Unfortunately, this relationship means that water problems become energy problems that are serious enough to warrant high-level attention.

During the 2008 drought in the Southeast, power plants were within days or weeks of shutting down because of limited water supplies.

(Will Drought Cause The Next Black Out, emphasis added). Last year the Army Corp of Engineers had to bomb levees along the Mississippi River because it was flooding.

This year the water level of the Mississippi River is so low that barges cannot navigate it fully loaded.

And recently there was a surge in the summer melting of the Greenland ice sheet that surprised those who keep track of it.

The graphic at the top of this post shows melt that took place in less than one week (see Greenland Ice Melt - Shocking Speed-up).

Another possible unintended consequence of upset climate patterns is the possibility that pandemics could be increased (see The El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO)–pandemic Influenza connection: Coincident or causal?).

The previous post in this series is here, the next post in this series is here.

Phase Five Of The Currency Wars? - 3

In this series we have been monitoring the "talk about China", in terms of its economic impact on the western economies.

Our McTell News even when combined with our educational system does not inform us in any meaningful way of the magnitude of what is happening in the world.

Some of the economic reality-realignments are as significant as global warming, yet there is no talk of either of these issues in real terms, even in the presidential debates of the ongoing election cycle.

It is as if we think we control the world because we have military bases and/or operations ongoing in about 200 nations now.

We are wrong to assume that the west is invincible:

"The scale and pace of Asia’s transformation is unprecedented and the implications for Australia are profound. The Australian Government has commissioned a White Paper on Australia in the Asian Century to consider the likely economic and strategic changes in the region and what more can be done to position Australia for the Asian Century."

(Australian Government Website, emphasis added). We did not call it "The Asian Century", as the Australian government does, but that is certainly a good way to put it.

What we did note is that various people we quoted were saying virtually the same thing albeit with different words:

Dredd Blog has been pointing out China's serious consideration of the problem and how their foreign policy has been forming like storm clouds on the horizon:

At least we should consider the words of some watch-dog types who have an ear to the economic ground and who say they hear thunder approaching:

China has ordered managers of its vast currency reserves to withdraw from risky dollar assets and retreat to core debt guaranteed by the US government, a clear sign that Beijing is battening down the hatches for fresh trouble on global markets.

(China Orders Retreat, bold added).

(Phase Five Of The Currency Wars?). Economic heavyweights in China continue to talk about dumping the dollar ...

(Phase Five Of The Currency Wars? - 2). The Dredd Blog message in this series has been that eastern dynamics are more significant than our press and educational systems seem to be aware of.

Not to mention our foreign policy that has been focused on the control of oil through military invasions and occupations.

The "Asian Century" is another way of saying "The Century of The East", perhaps indicating that the past century was "The Century of The West".