I’d like to thank western civilization, capitalism, science in the service of death, and the religions, bigotry, and short-sightedness that made them all possible.
What am I thanking them for? Well, nothing really, just the end of the world. That’s right people, we’re all fucked, and we’ve no one to blame but ourselves (assuming, of course, you live in one of those countries that’s part of the `Western culture’ that Pat Buchanan is so suicidally dedicated to keep — everyone else is just along for the ride).
The way I see it, the human species has two ways out of this dilemma:
- Globally cut military funding, tax the hell out of the infamous fifth, and put that money into research for alternative energy, efficient recycling, sustainable farming, schools, colleges, refugee handling, and generally saving what little of the natural world we have left. Disallow patents for all the fruits of this research, and release the results to the entire world. Offer to help the `developing world’ build their capabilities in these fields. Stop all GM food production, and anything else that increases the likelyhood of famine or interruption of the food supply.
- Cut social services and increase the global military budget, replay the arms race and prepare for global thermonuclear war, which generally means the end of human life on this planet.
- Do nothing, and end up using the nuclear weapons we have much sooner in response to population pressures.
Granted, it’s not a pretty picture, but these are the choices that we have. Realistically, either the whole planet survives or nobody does — hang together writ large.
Unfortunately, from those articles, it appears as though the military is (unsurprisingly) opting for choice #2, because that increases their budgets exponentially, at the cost of everyone’s lives.
Finally, a little `fuck you’ goes out to the Baby Boomer generation, who saw what needed to happen in ’68, and turned back because they were afraid. You motherfuckers disgust me.
James Cape 
Obviously, I was pissed when I wrote the above, though I think the conclusions are not far off. Certainly if revolution in `the west’ happened at the end of the 1960s, as it appeared it would (at least enough so to scare the elites into things like The Crisis of Democracy), the environmentalists would’ve been in a much better position to push their ideas than they are now, basically shut-out of the mainstream by corporate interests. Likewise, the choices I presented are essentially the same choices presented by the Pentagon report.
Unfortunately, I know what this is leading to: A shift from the existing Keynesian-military model (where the state funds research in better ways to kill people, and the corporations keep all the profits) to a Keynesian-eco model (where the state funds research into alternative energy and such, and the corporations keep all the profits). Certainly any shift from military research towards environmental research is a benefit, but a core problem remains: the corporations keep all the profits, and if you can’t afford to pay the “life tax” to those corporations, tough shit.
For example: the U.S. government has poured millions of dollars into finding treatments and a vaccine for AIDS. The corporations which conduct that research then patent their results and charge outrageous prices for the drugs. Why does anyone think corporations doing environmental research would behave any differently?
Unfortunately, this will invariably turn into a symbiotic relationship between the eco and military sides of the basic Keynesian model. The eco side pisses off the world by saying, in effect, “pay us or die” (which they are doing as I write this [on a smaller scale] through the World Bank, IMF, and WTO [particularly the IP agreements]), and the military kills everyone who choses the “fuck you, we’ll take what we need to live” option.
And, of course, with a double-Keynesian budget, going to feed the energy and defense industries, none will be left for welfare, social security, health care, or any of the other societal needs. Naturally all this will lead to more crime, but that’s OK, because half the military research budget goes towards `preventing terrorism,’ which can just as easily be turned against the thief stealing bread to survive. He can then be sent to a privatized prison, where his $0.05/hr labor can be used to build the products sold by the eco and defense industries.