Old-Thinker News
July 29, 2010
The world, it seems, is reaching a critical juncture in history. Current trends are pointing towards dramatic changes in government and society. Long standing institutions are scrambling to stay afloat as new rivals challenge old ideas. Meanwhile, the global elite, foreseeing these changes, is fighting to retain control over a global system that is being torn apart by economic meltdown and a global political awakening. As top global strategists like Zbigniew Brzezinski have admitted, cracks are forming in the many bases of establishment control.
Global Political Awakening
Global governance has been a long term goal of elites for decades. However, a global political awakening is taking place that is proving to be a major stumbling block under the feet of the world’s elite. During a recent Council on Foreign Relations meeting in Montreal, Zbigniew Brzezinski admitted that, “Mankind is now politically awakened and stirring,” stating that a fractured elite “…makes it a much more difficult context for any major power, including currently the leading world power, the United States.”
In an earlier speech in 2009, Brzezinski elaborated further, saying, “…in early times, it was easier to control a million people, literally it was easier to control a million people than physically to kill a million people. Today, it is infinitely easier to kill a million people than to control a million people. It is easier to kill than to control….”
An example of Brzezeinski’s lamentations can be seen in the failing European Union. The EU, an admitted brainchild of the Bilderberg Group, is a globalist pet project that was to be a model for global governance. Today however, the EU is suffering an economic meltdown and discord that is bringing a backlash against the collectivist ideology behind the union. Global and regional governance faces an additional problem, specifically the fact that without the perception of an outside threat the coherence of the system falls apart. Pascal Lamy, Director General of the World Trade Organization and frequent attendee of Bilderberg meetings, stated in a November 2009 speech that,
“The anthropological dimension of supranationality has probably been underestimated. Once the imminence of the menace of a new war has disappeared from our horizon, it is as if the glue that holds Europe together as a community will also disappear. As if there were no common myths, dreams and aspirations.”
Lamay further stated that “…We are witnessing a growing distance between European public opinions and the European project.”
Indications of a fractured and apprehensive elite were abundant during the 2010 Bilderberg meeting in Sitges Spain. Public awareness has spread significantly enough for several Bilderberg attendees to decline invitations to the annual meeting this year, fearing reprisal upon returning home.
While the global political awakening is breaking methods of control that have worked in years gone by, the current financial crisis and the resulting power grab by global banks presents another problem for free peoples world-wide.
Dinosaur media bites back
A brief look at the failing mainstream media will unveil one of the top trends indicating this historical time period. Sensing the rise of alternative news sources, government is moving to tax news websites in an attempt to stifle competition. At the same time, several newspapers are moving to online content and charging for the service.
In the 21st Century, Online media and news websites have become the dominant provider of information. China has blocked a large portion of the internet from its citizens for this reason, seeking to maintain control. The future of the internet world-wide, according to author and “web critic” Andrew Keen, will be monitored by “gatekeepers” to verify the accuracy of information posted on the web. The “Outlook 2009″ report from the November-December issue of The Futurist reports that,
“Internet entrepreneur Andrew Keen believes that the anonymity of today’s internet 2.0 will give way to a more open internet 3.0 in which third party gatekeepers monitor the information posted on Web sites to verify its accuracy.”
Blogger Andrew Steele writes, concerning a recent incident involving Congressman Bob Etheridge of North Carolina, “Because cameras are more widely available to the average consumer and because of the popularity of user fed sites like YouTube, citizen journalists have become abundant in America over the past decade.” Steele continues, “This phenomenon has weakened the controlled media’s power to influence and shape reality, as well as the power of politicians to control their exposure through that media.”
The current consensus among the intelligentsia in government – Obama regulatory Czar Cass Sunstein for example – is that information must be filtered in the new media age. “Conspiracy theories” are becoming too prolific, and an intellectual elite must guide society toward “right ways” of thinking. This type of social engineering is the driving philosophy behind many of the current initiatives coming from the Obama White House.
While the mainstream media will attempt to hold its position and stifle the growing juggernaut of alternative media, its growth has proven too explosive to be contained. Bloggers and alternative news websites continue to break stories of significance across all spectrums of society. An example; BP’s recent attempt to use photoshopped images to give an exaggerated impression of its oil cleanup efforts was exposed by a blogger.
Looking to the future
During the past few years, several reports have been released from the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defense, the Washington Post, the U.S. Army War College, and the Rockefeller Foundation in conjunction with the Global Business Network that outline potential futures for humanity. Ominously, they all carry strikingly similar dystopic themes.
As Old-Thinker News reported in March, the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defense published the Global Strategic Trends – Out to 2040 report. This report was an update to an earlier 2006 MoD report – DCDC Strategic Trends 2007-2036 – which extended its strategic vision to 2036, depicting flash mobs, brain chips and revolution.
The updated Out to 2040 report covers a wide swath of societal and technological issues, and anticipates an exaggerated rift between haves and have nots. The MoD also saw “…the emergence of a global elite, a powerful network of individuals and institutions that sits above the level of individual states and influences the global agenda…”
Analysts writing in the 2008 U.S. Army War College paper “Leadership in the Era of the Human Singularity: New Demands, New Skills, New Response,” portray a future in which multiple scenarios are possible. One sees a new renaissance and unprecedented human development aided by technology, the other a new dark age of world-wide high tech totalitarian control.
In the Human Singularity paper, Dr. Barton Kunstler documents the impact of ESI’s (Enhanced Singular Individuals), as well as the profound effect on society that human-enhancing technologies may have. Kunstler states,
“This is the crux of power and also a focus of much futurist thought. Technocracy has long been depicted as uniform and oppressive, with social control the primary aim. In broadest terms, ESIs will influence social organization to reflect and favor the expression of their outsized talents. This shift could imply a commitment to creativity and innovation, with society organized to favor artists, visionaries, scientists, and inventors… Or it could result in 1984-like scenarios due to the power endowed by invasive, body -and psyche- penetrating technologies.”
Kunstler continues, foreseeing a possible scenario of “…absolute totalitarian global control.”
“The level of intelligence and physical well-being ushered in by the human singularity could lead to another type of singularity, a “historical singularity.” It could turn out to be a condition of absolute totalitarian
global control. Or we may witness its opposite: a dramatic rise in collective wisdom…”
Yet another recent report released in May 2010 from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Global Business Network presents a disturbing future. Among the many issues raised, “Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development” outlines a world in which low level conflict spreads world-wide while,
“The global have/have-not gap grew wider than ever. The very rich still had the financial means to protect themselves; gated communities sprung up from New York to Lagos, providing safe havens surrounded by slums. In 2025, it was de rigueur to build not a house but a high-walled fortress, guarded by armed personnel.”
On April 27, 2008 the Washington Post printed a lengthy report titled “Washington’s Future, a History“. The article is the product of a collaborative effort of various experts from governmental and business positions. The report outlines two future scenarios played out over the next 17 years. One of them features an America in which national ID cards have been adopted; citizen journalists are monitored and censored by round the clock internet police; cities have become locked down zones riddled with checkpoints (which can be breezed through by those who have the proper electronic implant), and the standard of living for the majority of the population has dropped dramatically while a wealthy elite flourishes.
The Post article follows the footsteps of various fictional characters in a future dystopia, one of whom is Victor. This particular character is responsible for monitoring citizen journalists. He is
“…assigned to monitor and massage bloggers and citizen journalists who wrote about and took shots at the feds. Just as the work of journalism had devolved to a ragtag crew of volunteers working out of their cars and bedrooms, now the government was outsourcing much of its effort to communicate with voters, and Victor was supposed to be on round-the-clock patrol to catch any opinion wildfire that might be threatening the policymakers in his assigned sector.”
Elsewhere, security clearance implants allow “officials” to move freely through checkpoints. The Post article continues,
“The privatization of the roads and transit lines Paula would have to use to get to Konterra, the nation’s burgeoning satellite capital in northwestern Prince George’s County, made a commute from Washington all but impossible. Only the top ranks in her agency could possibly afford a long commute during premium-priced rush hour, and Paula could hardly switch to all-night work hours with the kids at home. The drive from Washington to Konterra took long enough; now, the checkpoints at the gateways that controlled movement in and out of the inner District could stretch any workday by two or three hours, especially for people like Paula who still had no security clearance implants and little prospect of being able to afford any.”
The report further describes this society in collapse as energy rationing and “cyber meltdowns” spark protests. The poor and lower classes are effectively walled off from wealthy elites living in high tech cities.
If there were ever a time for activism and involvement in the direction of society, it is now. While the future may not look exactly like the picture painted here, there is a reason that multiple reports over several years carry such similar language. Will the internet remain uncensored? Will the press remain free? Further down the road – but not very far in the distant future – how will we deal with technologies that will intrude into our bodies and minds? Will a tyrannical global elite – as envisioned by papers published by the Ministry Defense, Army War College and others – dominate the globe in a technocratic scientific dictatorship? We face complex and multifaceted issues that need to be addressed.
