The Death Of Materialism & The Rebirth Of The World

The Newtonian-Cartesian paradigm, or world view, of atomistic, dualistic, mechanistic reductionism, is a very recent, 400 year old delusion, a recent blink of the eye, and is now crumbling as an ideology, world view or paradigm. It is also by no means “scientific”. The evidence now refutes it. It is detritus, delusion, dogma, now refuted by quantum physics – and therefore, a thoroughly unscientific, lingering, but slowly dying, quasi-religious pseudo-science, clung to by dogmatic secular fundamentalists. Stop calling it scientific.

*

We could say, of course, that the 400 year old paradigm, or way of viewing the world, which is materialist reductionism, did have some degree of validity and usefulness – and that is true, of course. It divided the world, *in our minds*, into myriad, ever smaller pieces, giving rise to an explosion of knowledge about the way natural phenomena arise, change, and pass away. But knowledge is not understanding, much less wisdom. And dividing the world in our minds has ultimately proven disastrous – nay, catastrophic – leading us toward the brink of self-annihilation, while destroying and despoiling life on Earth at ever increasing speeds, and while producing great and increasing conflict, strife, alienation, inner hollowness, a terrible loneliness, sense of meaninglessness, and an insatiable hunger to fill the resulting inner void, leading to endless consumerism, materialism, escapism, addiction, voyeurusm, vicarious living, perpetual restlessness, anxiety, depression, mental illness and compulsive entertainment addiction, thereby accelerating the downward spiral, into further alienation, hollowness, and insanity. Clearly, this must change.

The world view of materialist-reductionism could also be described as a mental map, which all theories, dogmas, paradigms, philosophies and ideologies are. Some are more usrful or more destructive than others. Nazi idrology is incredibly destructive. Materialist reductionism, which is foolishly still referred to as “science”, is only slightly less destructive – and perhaps even more destructive.

Moreover, aside from usefulness versus destructiveness, a mental map, philosophy, paradigm or world view can be assessed based upon its degree of relative accuracy, in its ability to accurately describe the nature of reality. By that measure, as well as being incredibly powerful, in ways that have in some senses been useful and beneficial, and simultaneously, in other ways, being incredibly destructive, the materialist-reductionist paradigm has, of course, some degree of accuracy or validity. We know what molecules and atoms are, how metalurgy works, etc. But its accuracy is severely limited, as a mental construct, lens, map, or way of viewing the world. What we can call this Newtonian-Cartesian paradigm, which is atomistic, mechanistic, dualistic, and materialist-reductionist, is in some measure accurate, useful, and valid. But it also grossly distorts our perception of reality, life, the cosmos, and the nature of being and reality.

Imagine if you wanted to travel the world, and you had to choose between a map made in ancient Greece in 500 BC, and a map made in the 21st century using satellite imagery. Which one would be more accurate and more useful? Clearly the 2,500 year old map had some accuracy, validity and usefulness, but it was extrenely limited, with enormous blind spots, and enormous distortions of the real world. Well, our maps are outdated, once again. And the mental map which is the Newtonian-Cartesian, materialist-reductionist paradigm or world view, is now worse than outdated and obsolete – it must be abandoned, in light of the now mountainous and undeniable evidence, and it must be abandoned now, before our extremely distorted view of the world, destroys us all. Fortunately, this is exactly what is in the process of happening, as we speak.

*

A paradigm shift is underway. And the awakening has begun. Now, perhaps, we can begin to combine knowledge with wisdom, thereby saving ourselves from a self-made hell on Earth, and a self-generated final oblivion.

Reality is non-dual. Being is One. And thou art that.

But don’t take anyone’s word on things. Examine things for yourself. See for yourself.

Question everything. This is the path to enlightenment – and to a new renaissance, and a rebirth of our world.

JTR,

February 3, 2024,

Villa Samadhi,

Uruguay

(See Thomas Kuhn, The Structure Of Scientific Revolutions; Joseph Campbell, The Hero With A Thousand Faces; Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy; Alan Watts, The Book; Joanna Macy, World As Lover, World As Self; and Allan Wallace, Choosing Reality.)

A Sinking Ship On Fire: The Dismal State Of A Civilization (sic) In Slow Motion Collapse

(Written this morning as an open letter to a fine independent journalist)

Patrick, I found you on 21st Century Wire and was very impressed. Before I listen to this TNT talk on Rumble, and get a glimpse of your focus now, or foci, I want to say what comes to mind:

The thought was:

Dear Lord, I hope this isn’t too focused on the US. US politics are so sickeningly dismal and boring – like the politics of the country of my birth, Canada: nothing much ever happens that is positive in any big way, other than the watermark event of the truckers’ protest. Other than grassroots local action, not much of positive note ever happens in US or Canadian politics. It’s like watching a slow motion train wreck, or watching the Titanic go down.

Fortess North America – as the ruling power elite call it themselves (see my essays on the SPP) – as well as being one gulag under Davos, is now a sinking ship on fire, with the captain, crew, and the great majority of the passengers, all completely insane. Focusing on that is like slowing down on the highway to gawk at a multi-car pile-up collission, with bodies and body parts and flaming debris scattered about the road. What’s the point? Lend aid, or man the lifeboats, but don’t expect a change of course!

As the world’s leading cultural historian, Moriss Berman has said, It’s too late. It’s collapsing. It’s going down. And it’s now unstoppable. Trying to change the course of the US or North America, or the broader Western world now, would be, as Berman said, like trying to turn around an aircraft carrier in a bathtub.

The ship is going down. Leave now. Or if not, batten the hatches, and brace for impact.

The new renaissance that is now emerging, and the hope for the world, is no longer centred in the US, Europe, or the West. It’s in the Global South. That’s where the action is. That’s where the hope is. The US, Canada, Britain and Europe, sadly to say, are now plunging fast into a neo-feudal Dark Age. Get the fuck out now.

And who cares what clown is “elected” as El Presidente in the new banana republic of the USSA? The chance of real, significant positive change coming from that office is extremely small – slim to nil, as Doug Casey says, and Slim’s out of town.

It’s the collapse of the Roman Empire all over again. Berman, Jane Jacobs and others were right: it’s a Dark Age ahead for the former “First World” nations of the sinking ship that is “The West”.

Leave now. The hope is elsewhere.

JTR,

February 1, 2024

Villa Samadhi,

Uruguay

Renaissance, Resistance & Revolution

In terms of social movements, the Left is dead, for the time being, at least in the formerly industrialized, formerly “leading”, “developed”, First World nations of the (North-) West. The reason it is dead, is because it has been seduced into supporting authoritarianism, and has thereby been co-opted by the fascist corporate oligarchy, ruled by the Western business and political elite. (See my essay, When Liberals & The Left Lose Their Minds.)

What’s left, then? The major centres of resistance to the global corporate-fascist coup, are now in the Global South, the Majority World, where 80% of the world’s people live.

Meanwhile, the North-West corner of the world, that is, North America, Britain and Europe, is rapidly becoming a collapsing Third World, communist-fascist police state, and a deeply Orwellian corporatist technocracy – one gulag under Davos.

Awakening and resistance are growing globally, however, and with exponential speed – including in the North-West region of the world. But it is now the fact that the global awakening and resistance are strongest in Latin America and the Global South.

That being said, I think the strongest and grestest hopes for real, positive social change, are now coming from a loose coalition or constellation of forces, above all, from Indigenous movements, the global peasants movement, and a myriad of generally complimentary and synergistic popular social movements: including the ecovillage movement, the voluntary simplicity, nomad, permaculture, organic and homesteading movements, the anti-authoritarian right, which not only exists, of course, despite the messaging of the technocratic faux-left propaganda blitz, but is growing fast – and the anti-authoritarian left, which still exists and is also rapidly growing; along with the anti-authoritarian and decentralist currents within the environmental movement, which 40 years ago were predominant, but which are still alive now, and are resurging fast; and along with the natural health movement, and the many threads of the global freedom movement.

All of this should be seen as signs of hope. Moreover, it should be viewed within the wider context, which includes the major tectonic historical changes which are now underway: including a global paradigm shift, the emergence and rebirth of a multipolar world, and the decline and fall of the corporate-state oligarchy and empire of the North-West, formerly and foolishly referred to as “Western civilization”, “the Western world”, or “the West”.

As the global tectonic shift accelerates, in all of these ways, the rebirth of the world will begin to emerge, and become more and more visible, and in time, undeniable.

In historical terms, the world is changing and shifting now in extremely rapid ways. Some trends are ominous in the extreme. Others are deeply hopeful, liberatory and enlightening. In the short term, which side predominates in our personal lives, depends largely on how we choose to live, and even more so, on where we place ourselves, with some regions becoming increasingly dystopian, while other places experience freedom, a renaissance, and a rebirth.

In the longer view, however, we can say with certainty that no empire lasts forever. All empires fall. And the Western corporate oligarchy, which has now mutated into the new billionaire-ruled communist-fascist empire, is collapsing now, slowly, but with accelerating speed. In its death throes, it is a wounded, montrous predatory beast, extremely dangerous. But it is dying, nonetheless. And the plutocrats know it. That’s why the billionaires are resorting to the desperate measures of fascist totalitarianism, while building bunkers as fast as they can.

(See my essays and books: The Failure Of Propaganda, Sinking All Ships, Importing From China, The Worst Of Both Worlds, The Global Tectonic Shift, The Collapse Of The West, Slavery Or Rebirth, Enlightened Democracy, and The People vs The Elite.)

A new day is dawning for humanity. A new world is indeed being born. But like all births, there is pain. Keep a long term perspective – and never surrender. There is, as Thoreau said, more day yet to dawn.

*

The hope doesn’t come from corporate-communist China, by the way, as many people on the Left naively have come to believe. That is simply another example of large currents of the Left temporarily losing their minds – in the same way that much of the Left supported the Soviet Union, from 1917 into the 1950s, until the New Left of the 1960s reverted to the Left’s original heritage and roots, which are fiercely libertarian; and in the same way the neo-Maoist “Left” now, today, unwittingly supports the totalitarian corporate-fascist coup, that is presently underway. Idiocy by any other name would smell as foul – and still does.

China is a totalitarian police state. End of story. It may help defeat and dethrone the globally dominant, but rapidly collapsing Western technocracy, or corporate-fascist empire, but it is certainly not the hope for the world.

Supporting China is no different from supporting the neo-Maoist wokesters – or supporting Stalin. Totalitarianism is demonic egomania, and tyranny, utterly unacceptable and intolerable under any circumstances – just as the new corporate-fascism of the Western oligarchy is utterly intolerable.

Hope lies, as always, with the grassroots, with the people. It is we who will save and liberate ourselves, together – and no one else.

The world is changing. And it is the people who have the greater power, as always – and it is leadership from below, from millions of points of light, which is where our true hope lies: now, more than ever before.

JTR,
January 17, 2024,
Villa Samadhi,
Uruguay

The 21st Century Crisis Of Civilization

This is a reading list, not an article. I cannot repeat myself endlessly! Quality over quantity.

Excellent discussion here in the video below, but the discussion has a glaring avoidance of the political dimension. Such one-sided approaches are frankly doomed to failure, at least now, at this time in history, when radical change can not be left to a multi-generational, slow and gradual transformation.

See also:

The Structure Of Scientific Revolutions

World As Lover, World As Self

Choosing Reality

The Hero With A Thousand Faces

The Perennial Philosophy

Dreamtime and Inner Space

A Short History Of Progress

Peak Everything

When Technology Fails

Ancient Futures

The Wayfinders

Retrotopia

Year 501

Necessary Illusions

The Shock Doctrine

A Game As Old As Empire

Mutual Aid

The Chalice & The Blade

The Ecology Of Freedom

The Discourse On Voluntary Servitude

Walden and On Civil Disobedience

Oneness vs The 1%

And my own books and writings:

Enlightened Democracy

The People vs The Elite

The Failure Of Propaganda

Importing From China

Sinking All Ships

When Liberals & The Left Lose Their Minds

The Worst Of Both Worlds

Why The Left Libertarians Are Right

Flash Drive Revolution

The Collapse Of The West

And

Slavery vs Rebirth,

– Which together, synthesize the core reading list above, and much, much more.

Note also:

The answer to our 21st century crisis of civilization cannot be found in the psychological-philosophical-spiritual-cultural spheres alone. The political-economic sphere must also be directly, and urgently, simultaneously addressed – as my work and Vandana Shiva’s work do, and to a frankly rare degree.

The outer affects the inner, as much as the inner affects the outer. Neglecting the political-economic dimensions can only lead to catastrophe. We need to bridge and unite the two realms, the inner and the outer, and now.

JTR,

Villa Samadhi,

Uruguay,

December 25, 2023

The Global Fascist Coup: Time To Face Reality

We need to stop making the irrational and unfounded, anti-empirical assumption that the corporate and financial elite are stupid – they are demonstrably sociopathic, but they are not stupid, as a class – and it would be stupid of them to not cooperate and coordinate, orchestrate, plan and carry out broad agendas based on their shared, common class interests, despite the obvious fact that they do compete with each other, as well. Of course they have broadly shared class interests, and of course it woulf be stupid of them to refuse to cooperate and coordinate broad agendas based on those shared interests. Therefore it is stupid of us to assume they do not act, in powerful ways, with coordinated, planned agendas, now globally, to further their shared interests. How is this not patently obvious and a matter of simple common sense?

There are only a few hundred power elites dominating most of the world, directing the biggest 1,000 corporations, the IMF, World Bank, WEF, WHO, G7, BIS, ECB, Fed, Big Ag, Big Tech, Big Pharma, Big Oil, the military-industrial-surveillance complex, the NGO-industrial complex, the major media, Blackrock and the big banks, and all major systems and institutions globally, as Peter Phillips showed in his recent book, Giants: The Global Power Elite. A terror and phobia of conducting such sociological, classed-based, systems or institutional analysis, is what has blinded the mainstream, academia, and particularly the left, for a long time now. Enough of that. Yes, the plutocrats have a plan, and no, it is not good for the people and the Earth. In fact, it is genocidal, ecocidal, war-mongering, imperialist, neo-colonialist, and fascist. To avoid all discussion or even thought of that obvious and by now undeniable fact, is simply foolish, and a matter either of a confirmed Stockholm syndrome, or sheer denial. It’s not merely an elephant in the middle of the room, which the public, the academics and above all the left refuse to acknowledge. It’s a mutated giant vampire squid in the middle of the room, so to speak, staring us in the face, though always camoflauged – and it is feeding off humanity and the Earth, and devouring both, along with our freedom, our human rights, our democracy, our future, our world, and with transhumanism, our very humanity itself. It’s time to deal with reality. Stop skirting the central issue of our time. A corporate-fascist coup is underway, and if we don’t admit it, then defeat it, our future will be dystopian and bleak, neo-feudal and horrific, followed by civilizational collapse, and quite possibly, the slow, agonizing death of the human species.

Time to face reality, head on. We can defeat this latest of empires, but only if we choose to deal with reality, by looking it straight in the face.

– J. Todd Ring,
Author of Enlightened Democracy, The People vs The Elite, The Collapse of the West, and Slavery Or Rebirth

Villa Samadhi,

Uruguay,

December 24, 2023

(Btw, Christmases will be merrier when we rip the vampire squid off our face.)

Strategies For A Creating A Better World For All: Crisis & Opportunity

Who rules the world? Two empires, which are in reality, two crime syndicates, the biggest in history, now dominate, and effectively rule over most nations on Earth: the corporate-fascist empire, which is the oligarchy that is based in North America, Britain and Europe, centred in Davos, at the World Economic Forum; and the corporate-communist empire, centred in Beijing, which is its partner in crime and its mirror image, as the two converge in a shared, totalitarian, neo-feudal social model of globalist technocracy.

What do the emperors and oligarchs fear most? What is the greatest threat to them? It is several things, but above all, the greatest threats to their power, which of course, they seek in every way to suppress, and which will pose a crisis to their globalist imperial rule as they increasingly arise, world-wide, are these:

1. The truth.
2. The power of a good idea, a vision for a better way, or a better world.
3. An inspired and empowered populace, which realizes, accepts, and embraces its power.
4. Unity, and overcoming of the central maxim of empire, which is to divide and conquer, and its disruption and displacement by a uniting of the people.
5. The threat of a good example, which is perhaps the most powetful of all.

What must we do, therefore? That, from this straight-forward, and at least in hindsight, self-evident analysis, and revealed self-evident truths, should be perfectly clear.

So let’s get on with it. We have a world to liberate, and to heal. And the tide is turning.

– J. Todd Ring,

Piriapolis,

Uruguay,

December 16, 2023

The Big Picture: Markers Of The Global Tectonic Shift, Now Underway

Or,

The Big Picture:

Economic Strength vs Economic Insolvency:

US, Canada and Uruguay compared

Uruguayan national debt in 2023:
$40 billion USD
(52% of GDP)

Canadian national debt in 2023:
$1.4 trillion USD
Or
$1,400 billion USD

US national debt in 2023:
Roughly $30 trillion
Or
$30,000 billion
(Not including corporate and household debt, which brings the total to over $80 trillion)

Guess which countries are sinking ships.

Guess which country is called “the Switzerland of South America”.

The world, over the past 50 years, has turned upside down. North America, Britain and Europe are sinking. You can blame neoliberal globalization, deindustrialization and massive systemic corruption, aka, mass looting by the richest 1%, for that. Meanwhile, Latin America, the Global South and East, are rising fast.

The Titanic is going down. El Norte, the Global North, or (former) First World, the 500 year old empire of the North-West corner of the world, based in North America, Britain and Europe, is beginning to collapse. The Global Tectonic Shift is underway. Consider your options well.

J. Todd Ring,

Villa Samadhi,

Uruguay,

December 16, 2023

J. Todd Ring is the author of:

The Collapse of the West: Exodus and the Global Tectonic Shift

Slavery Or Rebirth

The Failure Of Propaganda & The Resort To Fascism

Sinking All Ships

Importing From China

When Liberals & The Left Lose Their Minds

The Worst Of Both Worlds

Flashdrive Revolution

The People vs The Elite

and

Enlightened Democracy

The author’s books, articles, references and interviews can be found on:

Barnes & Noble, Chapters, Indigo, Coles, ABE, Substack, WordPress, BlogSpot, Nolan Chart, Rumble, Spotify, Youtube, Facebook and Twitter / X.

Read, think, liberate.

Now.

– JTR.

On History: Clarity & Delusion

It’s good to see some of the millennia-old illusions about history being slowly peeled away. To speak of the Roman Empire as, “the world’s greatest killing machine” is refreshingly honest. But to refer to it as bringing “civilization” continues the perpetuation of old delusions. A millennia-old Stockholm syndrome is just one part of that. The Roman Empire was a slave empire, based on mass murder, looting, rape and pillage, oligarchy, and mass theft of riches, culture and land – hardly civilized, but rather, starkly barbaric. 

To begin to cease to talk of Celts and other non-Roman and non-Greek cultures as barbarians, is a great improvement, however. And to see medieval, ancient, and earlier peoples in a more human and less pejorative light is likewise a refreshing progress, out of the nearly universal modern delusions of inevitable linear “progress”. 

But to refer to “experts” continues the anti-empirical, anti-science, scholastic habits of automatic and unthinking, slavish veneration and deference to imagined authority figures. How about using the more neutral term, scholars? 

Moreover, why on Earth do we continue to call mass murderers and slavers, such as Constantine, for example, as “The Great”? Staggering delusion, that is.

Terms and concepts need a radical questioning and re-examination, in terms of history, anthropology, sociology, social theory, politics, and broader usage. The terms and concepts, including, civilization, barbarians, progress, and the like, all require a radical re-thinking. Terms such as “experts” are best dropped completely, replaced by reference to scholars, researchers or thinkers. Refering to power elites as “important people”, is yet another delusional habit, exemplifying a general and nearly universal case of mass Stockholm syndrome. Refer instead, simply, and more accurately, to the business, religious or political elite (elite in terms of being a power elite, not a moral or intellectual elite, of course), or refer to the landed aristocracy (not “nobility”), or simply call them the priviledged classes, ruling class, or the power elite.

Likewise, the term anarchy needs to be used with precision: it stems from the Latin, an-archos, meaning simply, the absence of an overarching or centralized power. To use the term anarchy as a synonym for chaos simply reveals that you are completely ignorant of political-economy, political philosophy, history, anthropology and sociology. Only the ignorant and the deceitful use the term in such a manner.

Terms such as terrorists, freedom fighters, rebels, populists, nationalists, and many more, require a careful, thoughtful, critical re-assessment. Dogma must die. Words have power. Therefore we must, of course, question them, and think critically about them. Naming is powerful. It can be spell-binded and blinding, fetters and shackles and chains for consciousness, nations, peoples and lives, leading to a conquest of minds, and a resulting mass delusion and subjugation; or it can be clarifying, and an act of liberation. Choose your words carefully, therefore.

Illusions, delusion, prejudice, dogma and self-deceit are beginning to be peeled away, but we can do well to accelerate the process. 

Confusion, illusion, denial and delusion, remain the norm, both inside and outside of academia, to this day. Let’s change that, shall we? It’s high time for a new renaissance.

 – J. Todd Ring,

Author of Enlightened Democracy,

The People vs The Elite,

The Failure of Propaganda,

Importing from China,

When Liberals & The Left Lose Their Minds,

The Collapse of the West,

And

Slavery Or Rebirth

December 14, 2023

Here is the generally well-done documentary that sparked this set of further musings on history, its uses and abuses:

My response to the lovely doc, above:

Excellent documentary – but you are still talking about “the glory of Rome”, and the “civilization” of Rome? Come now. Delusions die hard, but die they must.

Progressivism As Social Engineering For Elite Control

“Progressivism” as social engineering for billionaire elites’ increased power and control – that is its history and origin, and that continues to be its nature today.

But don’t take anybody’s word on things. Examine things for yourself. Think for yourself. Question everything.

See also, my essay, When Liberals and The Left Lose Their Minds.

And again, bravo Doug Mckenty, my friend, for the brilliant discussion in the video below, which inspired this brief, pithy post!

*

And yes, we must unite all forces of opposition to tyranny in any form, be it fascism, communism, technocracy, colonialism, neocolonialism, neoliberalism or neoconservatism, all of which are simply forms of tyranny, empire and authoritarian rule.

That means we must unite the grassroots libertarians, populists and decentralists, of both the left and the right – who represent the sentiments of the growing majority of the people globally.

The spirit of the time is towards freedom, diversity and decentralization. The age of empires is beginning to collapse. Simultaneously, the global awakening and new renaissance has already begun, and will triumph in the end.

That does not mean, however, that we can afford to be complacent. We cannot. The time to slow down, pause, decouple and disconnect, in order to deeply reflect, and thereby be able to truly reconnect – to our deeper selves, one another, nature, our own inner power, and our reality – is now. And likewise, the time for clear-minded, open-hearted action, is now.

A new world is being born, out of the collapsing dystopia of the presently ruling imperial system. We must now become the stewards, catalysts and midwives, to the birth of the new renaissance, and to a better world for all, in the spirit of freedom, compassion, ecology, and peace.

JTR,
December 2, 2023
Villa Samadhi,
Uruguay

Post-Script:

Watch for my newest books:
Slavery Or Rebirth,
And
The Collapse Of
  The West.

My books, interviews, podasts, bibliographies and articles are on Rumble, WordPress, BlogSpot, Substack, Amazon, Barnes & Noble,
Nolan Chart, Youtube, Spotify, Facebook and Twitter.

The origins of progressivism

Why The Globalist Technocracy Will Fail

The globalist corporate elite have announced their plans for the world, via the WEF, the World Economic Forum’s publicly released vision for 2030, among other venues. Their plan is most accurately described as a global neo-colonial imperialist project of consolidating and further centralizing all power, all wealth, and all ownership, in their hands.

It is a hybrid global system they are pushing hard to construct now, which fuses Western corporate-fascism with Chinese corporate-communism, technocracy, transumanism and neo-feudalism. To call their vision dystopian would be a radical understatement. But their plan, which has been described as the Third Industrial Revolution by Jeremy Rifkin, the seemingly well-meaning but woefully naive intellectual in residence to the ruling Western power elite, who makes Klaus Swab and Yuval Harari look like the pseudo-intellectual talking poodles that they are; and which has been called The Fourth Industrial Revolution by Klaus Schwab, the lapdog spokesperson for the corporatist power elite; will fail. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, as well as by evil ones. Here is why the technocracy will fail.

1. Global warming and the ecological crisis broadly can only be adequately addressed if small-scale, community-based, regenerative organic agriculture, permaculture, agroecology and holistic management are at the centre of our response. The elitists at the WEF and in Beijing, however, refuse to share power; therefore, this plan, which empowers the people and is radically decentralist, is rejected outright. That leaves the plutocrats of the West and the oligarchs of the East, only one choice remaining, and that is to further back the utterly failed petrochemical-industrial agriculture model, which has already been proven to be an economic, social and ecological disaster.

Pursuing the elite-driven, hyper-centralist plan, with industrial agriculture as its foundation, will only lead to further acceleration in species loss, pollinator die-off, global warming, global toxicity and pollution, aquifer depletion, soil erosion and soil depletion, pesticide and herbicide resistslant super-pests and super-weeds spreading, desertification, crop failure, food shortages, skyrocketing food prices, global famine, social unrest, riots and revolution, and systems collapse. And no amount of “big data”, “connectivity”, AI, lithium batteries, smart phones or surveillance, can possibly save it.

It is a system that is rapidly destroying its own social and ecological foundations. In other words, the power elites’ plan is just another historical example of imperial hubris and imperial over-reach, leading to inevitable collapse.

2. The Davos-WEF/Bejing-CCP plan relies on vast quantities of rare earth minerals, that simply aren’t there – lithium being just one example. Therefore, it is not renewable energy which will save us, but the more humble and courageous approach, of admitting that we have been addicted to materialism and consumerism, and that a voluntary simplicity, combined with decentralization, re-ruralization, re-localization, horizontal rather than vertical power relations, and a radical increase in quality of life, diversity, and freedom, are what are urgently needed now.

Again, the plan of the power elite is based in hubris, and wishful, magical thinking, or else in outright lies, and can only result in systems collapse.

3. The plan of the now deeply intertwined and partnered Western and Eastern power elites, rests upon further heights of complexity, in an already vastly over-complicated modern society. It furthermore centralizes power in an even more extreme manner and degree than already exists. And it further increases the already stratospheric inequality, in both power and in terms of wealth – “You’ll own nothing, and you’ll be happy.” As has been known for a long time, by Tainter, Aristotle, and others, over-complexity, excessive centralization, and excessive inequality, all lead to the collapse of regimes, empires, civilizations and societies. But, as is typical, imperial power elites are driven by egomania, power-lust and greed, and therefore, their hubris becomes their downfall, because imperial over-reach is something they cannot help, but compulsively fall into, every time. No matter how tall the ziggurat is built, it remains a castle made of sand – and the tide is coming in.

4. The financial and economic collapse that is rapidly approaching, which will make the Great Depression look mild, will devastate the ability of the Western and Eastern power elite, both, to carry out any such bold plans, beyond mere coping with matters of survival, as their empires collapse – financially and econonically, and also socially and politically, as revolution and rebellion explode world-wide, in the wake of the combined squeeze on the people – of economic devastation, simultaneous with a growing authoritarianism and staggering inequality.

The harder the oligarchy squeezes the people, the more rapidly the explosive flash point is reached. It is like squeezing plutonium: add enough heat and pressure – and boom. But again, all emperors and all empires do the same thing: imperial hibris breeds imperial over-reach, which brings collapse. So boom it is. Bastille Day is coming, fast.

5. Global oil production peaked several years ago, meaning, the era of cheap, abundant, fossil fuel energy is rapidly coming to an end. Between peak oil, and a peak in nearly everything else, including critically important rare earth minerals, the power of the twinned, Siamese empires of Davos and Beijing, and their ability to project their power, not only globally, but even locally and regionally, is rapidly crumbling beneath their feet. These two leading crime syndicates, which are the twinned, and now deeply intertwined, dominant empires on Earth, may be able to retain control of certain nations, regions, and totalitarian mega-cities for a while yet, but their twilight is approaching – and their collapse is now irreversible, and well underway.

6. Meanwhile, a global awakening, and a new renaissance, is not only emerging, accelerating, and growing fast – by now, it is unstoppable. The ruling power elite are trying to hold onto a dying worldview, paradigm, ideology, and system. But history is against them.

Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come. And the pen is indeed mightier than the sword. The idea of freedom, with ecological stewardship, diversity and peace, is simply far more inspiring, and compelling, than an elite-ruled plutocracy, technocracy, or neo-feudal oligarchy, where a handful of people hold total power, and the values of freedom and individuality are said to be quaint relics of the past, “legacy” values, to be abandoned and dispensed with, in the pursuit of an imagined “greater good” – which is itself a lie. The people are waking up. And moreover, they are also waking up to their power.

7. As David Hume, Eitienne de La Boite, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Thoreau, among many others, have realized, the people always have the greater power. The ruling power elite depend upon, and need the people, but the people do not need the power elite. That means the people always have the greater power. Moreover, we outnumber the ruling power elite by nearly a billion to one. They have no chance.

When the people become fed up with a ruling system, power elite or regime, they will shake it off, like a dog shakes water off its back. And that time is coming soon. The plutocrats know this – which is why they are building bunkers as fast as they can, or else are daydreaming, a la Bezos and Musk, of blasting off into space. But even their bunkers will only forestall the inevitable, and for a very short time at that. Ozymandians of today, take note. Your time in power is nearly up.

Conclusion:

What do we have on offer now, at this most critical juncture in recorded human history, in terms of a vision for the future? Well, we have many voices, but few options.

There are, of course, many who echo Jordan Peterson, in saying that global corporatist neoliberalism is the best of all possible worlds. They can be dismissed at the start, being the Dr. Panglosses of our present day.

Then there is the dark Orwellian technocratic vision of Klaus Schwab and the new Royal Court, the new Palace of Versaille, which is the corporate-state de facto government, as the Financial Times calls it – the World Economic Forum – which aims for a global Borg society, based in transhumanism and technofeudal totalitarianism, in which “You’ll own nothing, and you’ll be happy.” If you like nightmarish dystopianism, this vision may be appealing.

Or we have the equally bleak vision of Yuval Harari, telling us the world is full of “useless eaters”, who are presumably disposable, along with the lucky few, who, like himself, will be willing if not eager Borg slaves, rather than be liquidated.

Yuval and “Dr. Evil” Klaus Schwab are in accord here, of course, both being the talking poodle lapdogs of the ruling corporate oligarchy. Both preach the beatitudes of neo-fascism and technofeudalism. Hell on earth, is what their “vision” amounts to.

Then we have the rosy eco-lah-lah of the tragically naive and blinkered Jeremy Rifkin, with his magically appearing mountains of lithium, with which to power his techno-wonderland, in which the elephant in the room, which is the emerging totalitarian police state, is imagined not to exist, and to be no threat at all. Cue the Pink Floyd, Sheep.

Or, we have several voices bearing imminent sanity, including, frankly, Vandana Shiva and myself, saying that it is now a matter of Oneness vs The 1%, and The People vs The Elite – and what must be done is to embrace our freedom and our power, and to heal our world through a much more thoughtful ecological stewardship, through unity in diversity, through a globally networked and federated decentralization of power, and through a rejection of all empires and oligarchies: to reseed the world and the future of our one human family on Earth, and build a better world for all, through a global renaissance and rebirth – based in the cardinal founding values of freedom, compassion, diversity, mutual aid, ecology and peace.

I think our choice should be clear. It is now a matter of freedom and rebirth, or technocracy and slavery, followed by collapse, and the extinction of the human species itself.

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It is now a matter of slavery or rebirth. Let the revolution begin. And let it be Gandhian, as it must be, for strategic reasons alone. The empires are falling. The time is now.

J. Todd Ring,

Author of Enlightened Democracy, The People vs The Elite, The Collapse Of The West, and Slavery vs Rebirth.

Villa Samadhi,

Uruguay,

November 17, 2023