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In case you missed it, RawStory on September 01 published an article by Daniel Tencer.
German military report: Peak oil could lead to collapse of democracy
Peak oil has happened or will happen some time around this year, and its consequences could threaten the continued survival of democratic governments, says a secret Germany military report that was leaked online.
According to Der Spiegel, the report from a think-tank inside the German military warns that shrinking global oil supplies will threaten the world’s economic foundations and possibly lead to mass-scale upheaval within the next 15 to 30 years.
International trade would suffer as the cost of transporting goods across oceans would soar, resulting in “shortages in the supply of vital goods,” the report states, as translated by Der Spiegel.
The result would be the collapse of the industrial supply chain. “In the medium term the global economic system and every market-oriented national economy would collapse,” the report states.
That collapse could, in turn, cause many countries to abandon free markets principles, the report states. Deals would be struck between oil-exporting and oil-importing countries that would fix prices and remove large amounts of oil from the global market place.
“The proportion of oil traded on the global, freely accessible oil market will diminish as more oil is traded through bi-national contracts,” the report states.
That would prompt some governments to abandon free market economics altogether, the report suggests. With peak oil causing “partial or complete failure of markets … [a] conceivable alternative would be government rationing and the allocation of important goods or the setting of production schedules and other short-term coercive measures to replace market-based mechanisms in times of crisis.”
But the report also warns that the economic crisis caused by shrinking oil supplies and skyrocketing prices could be seen by the general public as a failure of market economics as a whole — and with it, the political institutions that created those economic systems.
Public anger at the existing system would create “room for ideological and extremist alternatives to existing forms of government.” Populations would fragment along political lines and “in extreme cases” this could “lead to open conflict.”
[snip]
Last Sunday, the UK Observer reported that Britain’s Department of Energy and Climate Change is refusing to release documents related to peak oil, even though, as the Observer noted, previously released documents argue the veil of secrecy around the issue is probably “not good.”
The UK government is reportedly canvassing leading scientists and industrialists for their advice on how to build a contingency plan for peak oil.
And earlier this year, a report from the US Joint Forces Command stated that “by 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 million barrels per day.”
The report continued, “While it is difficult to predict precisely what economic, political, and strategic effects such a shortfall might produce, it surely would reduce the prospects for growth in both the developing and developed worlds. Such an economic slowdown would exacerbate other unresolved tensions, push fragile and failing states further down the path toward collapse, and perhaps have serious economic impact on both China and India.”
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If they believe peak oil is a danger to democracy, why aren’t they doing anything about it, or trumpeting this assertion from here to kingdom come?
A natural conclusion, if they attempt to hide these prognostications, is that they don’t actually believe in democracy, if they believe a real and exigent danger to it needs to be considered a secret.
Oil has trumped the constitution every time so far, that will continue. Oil will die a hard death when it goes and will try to take civilization down with it (accustomed to the political power, won’t accept being overruled). This is what will happen if the people can’t get control of world governments, invest in renewable/sustainable energy etc. in order to prevent this outcome.
prerequisites of a Democratic Polity: A politically engaged and active body politic with sufficient intellectual acuity to mould informed public opinions without succumbing to sophistry and propaganda.
A fractured, conflicted and uninformed populace is just what the gentry and nobility need to combat any threat to their power. The ruling elite was about 3% of the English population in 1800, and seems to be holding about that same percentage now in its ex-colonies.
Democracy is not a synonym for Free Market.
true believers they would be putting their money in energy that was not oil based. The military goal of perpetual war for oil and a global economy that ships goods and food all over the world using oils seems like a loser for them as well as the . People already see the failure of ‘free market economics’ it is a con. The collapse of everything means the collapse of their economy which if you ask me would not be a bad thing. People will develop their own solutions to the collapse of their insane vision of globalism and free markets.
Reducing growth means what? They grow nothing but useless money which they then hoard at the top and use to destroy any real progress or growth. Screw the military, why would any sane economic theory or even one that wanted to remain lucrative not have enough sense to start making money off alternative markets that will replace oil. The military has a vested interest in killing and destruction and absolutely none in democracy or self determination.
So their really saying that the world order the military industrialist’s have hoisted on the world’s countries is a house of cards that is going to collapse. Who could have known? Perhaps they better learn to their wars like the insurgents do. Colonialists and empires from the Romans to the British never seem to realize that too big always fails. Full spectrum dominance over nothing. Good riddance. As for democracy, their world order is the antithesis of freedom or equality or even growth.
for the power brokers is just a means to an end: A tool to be used to increase thier power and satisfy some perverse desire to inflict pain on others. It is true that diminishing resources, especially that of oil, are described as “vital US national interests”.
Their greed and lust for power has completely blinded them from seeing that their plans for global imperialistic dominance is completely unsustainable. I can only venture to guess that they only live in the moment to feed their greed.
I never mock the teabaggers. I fear them, even as I share the fears of some of them of our government’s totalitarian potential (which some others of them would buttress).
I never say, how can they be so stupid, so irrational, so crazy.
Peak oil is one of the things on my doomsday list. One step towards the crunch time when the U.S. doesn’t have the oil it needs at the price it needs it, and the economy is in crisis, and …
And when the shit hits the fan, I see two essential paths from there. The U.S. can become part of a new world order where it is not the top dog, where the Chinese-led coalition becomes hegemonic. Or it can go to MAJOR war (not the little skirmishes we today think are wars) to seize the oil fields. If the latter, then it needs the crazies, such as our nuclear-armed ally in the Middle East.
And the crazies at home. Then a crazed, militaristic, nationalistic force may be required to maintain order at home.
Thus the desire by some to maintain our presence in Iraq and Afghanistan (and accompanying bases) forever.
Obama rides the fence, because he wants to keep empire affordable. Should the empire further unravel, then he would be cast aside. And those who have coddled the crazy right these past years will let go of the leashes.
The U.S. won’t go quietly without a fight. There’s a reason the United States has a large, nuclear arsenal.