By The Ister for the Saker Blog
They say that great myths die hard, but as it fades into obscurity will anyone really miss the Saudi state?
Because the Kingdom’s cosmopolitan elite longed to be like the West, they imported European sports cars and erected enormous skyrises using slave labor. Riyadh and Jeddah transformed into shopping centers and hubs of oligarchic largesse while the oil-rich sheiks appeased the conservative populace by sanctioning Wahhabist doctrine, public beatings and beheadings, and other backwards symbolic gestures.
Saudi Arabia is essentially based on this great contradiction: posturing itself as the hardline leader of the Islamic world while aligning with America and carrying out a foreign policy that has killed countless Muslims, a contradiction that exists because it is an artificial construct of imperialism.
In the early 1900s, British spies in the Middle East sought to partition off Ottoman claims in the Arab Peninsula with the help of Arab rebels such as Emir Faisal. These spies who included Edmund Allenby and the famous T E Lawrence led the Arab Revolt of 1916 and successfully revoked Ottoman control of the region.
A little-known fact is that Israel and Saudi Arabia share this same point of origin. In December of 1918 after the success of the Arab Revolt, Lord Walter Rothschild held a banquet for Emir Faisal culminating in the signing of the Faisal-Weizmann agreement, used to demonstrate Arab support for the Balfour Declaration: the document that laid the foundation for the state of Israel. The rebels who had been promised a unified Arab state stretching from Aden to Aleppo had been lied to however, as the leaked Sykes Picot agreement revealed a plot by imperial powers to divide and conquer the Middle East along sectarian lines.
Today the pan-Arab doctrine of the government of Bashar al-Assad is the ideological progenitor of those early rebels who fought to unite the Arab world against the wishes of imperialists. The stoking of the Syrian Civil War was just an extension of century-old divide and conquer tactics, as the West sought to enrage Sunnis against the secular Syrian Arab government for the betterment of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, and Israel. Recall too that neo-Ottoman Turkey is aware of the imperial history and sees Syria as Ottoman territory lost to the West.
If the Syrian revolution ever had a grassroots base it was in the impoverished Sunni Idlib governorate, where Turkey and Saudi Arabia had for decades financed Salafist mosques and imams with the intention of eventually breaking this region off from Syria. Although the remaining terrorists in Idlib have yet to be defeated, Saudi Arabia’s failure to achieve full regime change in the Syrian Civil War marks its waning power: previously both Muammar Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein spoke out in favor of pan-Arabism and denounced the Saudis at the cost of their lives. Unlike the ideological and religious bonds that tie America and Israel, America’s commitment to Saudi Arabia was always strategically contingent and several developments suggest that it is declining.
America has abandoned support for the war in Yemen
The war against the Houthi movement in Yemen has been fought with a threefold strategy: sanctions to starve the Yemeni population, targeted assassinations to kill Shia imams and others tied to the Houthis, and traditional military force by Saudi conscripts. The Kingdom’s force has performed poorly and relied heavily on support from America. In one case in 2019, the Saudis were planning an attack in the disputed town of Najran in retaliation for missile strikes on Riyadh oil facilities. They were baited into a trap and over 2,500 were captured by Houthi forces. In blind retaliation, they struck a Houthi prison in Yemen and killed over 290 of their own prisoners.
It is no surprise in such conditions that morale is low among the Kingdom’s soldiers and that Iran has supported the Houthi side with weapons and intelligence.
Why has America abandoned its ally in the conflict? Simply, we don’t need Saudi oil as much anymore. Shale gas technology completely changed the nature of the global oil and gas industry and broke the Saudi monopoly. Recall my article The Empire is Losing the Energy War. Since then, more confirmation of this thesis has come around as prices have risen – beneficial to Russia, and oil experts have broadly agreed that Russia has won the most recent price war with the Saudis. America’s withdrawal in Yemen is an acknowledgement of their diminishing role and a reason which under Trump’s “Middle East Peace Plan” Saudi Arabia panickedly sought to tie its future not to oil production but to the creation of a joint security bloc against Iran.
Pipeline developments: NordStream 2 and Goreh Jask
By mid-2020, two major new pipelines are expected to be built. The first is the NordStream 2, which will cement Russia’s control of European energy markets. Washington is moving in slow motion to try and stop this pipeline but it is basically already done. Only 100 miles of pipe remain and the Biden admin’s early smackdown of the American energy industry with the Keystone XL cancellation means that there will not be enough American gas to provide an alternative to Russia. The German public retains a dislike for Russia but the industrialists have pushed ahead regardless.
NordStream 2 serves two other geopolitical purposes. First, Ukraine will be deprived of $1-2 billion of energy transit revenue, a big deal for a country with a $150 billion GDP. This also lowers NATO’s interest in Ukraine, which will suddenly have less of an ability to bottleneck Russian energy shipments to Europe. Second, the pipeline also reduces Russia’s exposure to Turkey as an energy transit and will allow Russia to be more “gloves off” in northern Syria without risking economic retaliation.
Iran’s Goreh Jask pipeline is expected to be completed by June 2021, and the development will improve the country’s energy situation by limiting its reliance on the Strait of Hormuz and opening up Southeast Asian markets to Iranian oil. In addition to promoting economic ties with the rest of Asia the move also allows Iran to potentially shut off the Strait of Hormuz in a crisis situation, a hypothetical move which never made sense in the past given that it would kill its own energy exports. Naturally, sanctions have been applied to the project but this has simply been used as an opportunity to develop domestic industrial capacity: over 95% of the parts for the Goreh Jask pipeline have been sourced domestically.
Iran is increasing its influence in Iraq and Syria
The increased Iranian influence on Iraq suggests that supporting the overthrow of Saddam Hussein may have been a miscalculation by the Western bloc. The government of Hussein was aggressive on Iran-Iraq border issues and had a large and powerful military. With Iraq’s expensive military infrastructure largely destroyed and a diminished American presence, Iran has grown its soft power both through religious and economic outreach.
In southeastern Iraq, Iran is massively expanding and developing Shia shrines at sites like Kerbala as a method of promoting its influence. Some of these developments are enormous, for example the $600 million expansion of the Imam Hussein shrine, which was mostly constructed with Iranian funds and parts. These developments also give economic opportunity to both Shia and Sunni Iraqis who are paid to work in construction and benefit from increased tourism. Conducting business in eastern Iraq also gives Iran an opportunity to transact in a region unaffected by sanctions.
Political power is another way that Iran has expanded its reach. The prime minister of Iraq is aligned with the Saudis and Americans but outnumbered in parliament by pro-Iranian MPs, and has been able to do little to diminish the Iranian presence.
As far as Syria, the Iranian angle must be considered. In July of 2015, Quds force General Qasem Soleimani visited Moscow to work out the details of the Russian intervention with Vladimir Putin. Although Moscow denies this likely to maintain good relations with Israel, Hassan Nasrallah of Hezbollah recently stated that it was Soleimani that convinced Putin to enter the conflict. What was exchanged during that conversation in July of 2015? It is impossible to know but it can be reasonably assumed based on how things unfolded that the Russian intervention was largely a cover for Iranian movement into Syria.
The majority of the leg work performed in the Syrian Civil War was done by Syrians and Iranians. While Russia provided crucial air support and logistics, the on-the-ground troop counts have remained small. What Russian intervention did however was to provide the stamp of legitimacy of a powerful, nuclear armed nation to the Syrian/Iranian side, to prevent any major invasion, and to quickly soften the tones on the Assad government. By clearing ISIS out of central Syria, Iran has now created a contiguous path through Syria and Lebanon and upheld its Syrian ally at the expense of the Saudis.
Pakistan is drifting to Iran
In recent history Pakistan has been heavily dependent on Saudi Arabia, in part due to a Sunni majority and a large amount of outstanding loans financed by the Kingdom. As Sheikh Imran Hosein put it unflatteringly, Pakistan has served as “a shoeshine boy for the Saudis.” Several wedges are growing between this strong historical relationship.
First, Pakistan is warming to its neighbor Iran and the new prime minister of Pakistan has accelerated ties with its western neighbor in many areas. One is the accelerated development of a massive Istanbul-Tehran-Islamabad railway which highlights an emerging challenge to Saudi supremacy: the nascent Turkey/Iran/Malaysia/Qatar bloc in the Muslim world could potentially expand to include Pakistan. Keeping Pakistan away from Iran has long been an intention of the Saudis, who sought to fuel tensions with their neighbor by financing anti-Shia terrorism in Pakistan in the 80s and 90s. Nevertheless, the two countries seem to be getting over it and the populations of both nations rate each other positively in opinion polling.
Another sign of nervousness in the West about Pakistan-Iranian integration is the failed attempt to stop the construction of the new Iran-Pakistan oil pipeline with threats of sanctions. This will further pull Pakistan into the Iranian orbit.
A new major straining factor on the relationship with Saudi Arabia is Riyadh’s unwillingness to defend Pakistan’s claims to the disputed Kashmir border region. Pakistan has hoped that the Kingdom would defend its claim, but Saudi Arabia has been unwilling to do so.
Finally, there is the issue of Israel. Saudi Arabia would like to recognize Israel as soon as possible but doing so would cause massive protests in Pakistan and ruin the Saudi reputation there. Therefore it is trying to pressure Pakistan to first recognize Israel, something which would be unpopular and put the Pakistani government in a precarious situation domestically.
The Saudis are losing their status as the head of the Muslim world
Consider the Iranian ambassador to Pakistan’s recent comments while promoting the D-8 organization of Islamic nations:
“Countries like Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, Russia and China have the potential to form a new alliance for better future of the region”
None of this economic integration would be occurring if not for the US sanctions policy. The impact of sanctions has been to lay the groundwork for creation of a “Zone B” which circumvents the Empire entirely. A model that replaces proxy wars, regime change, and terrorist funding with peaceful economic integration and diplomacy. If Iran had full access to international markets it would have been content to sell its exports to the highest bidder and would not be forced to expand its influence regionally as it is currently doing.
What does this emerging “Zone B” look like? Well, let’s start with the Muslim countries labeled an “Axis of Evil” by George Bush and John Bolton:
Syria, Iraq, Iran. And of course we can add in Lebanon, Yemen, and Palestine right off the bat to this anti-imperial bloc. The growing ties between Sunni Pakistan, heterogeneous Syria, and Shia Iran foreshadow a geographically contiguous model of peaceful relations between Islamic nations untainted by the Takifirism of Saudi Arabia, with Syria and Lebanon serving as a tolerant bridge between the Sunni and Shia regions of the Arab world.
This bloc could then be combined with the D-8 Muslim countries: Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey. D-8 alone represents one billion people and over 60% of the Islamic world. Iran, as a major advocate of inter-Islamic integration through organizations such as D-8 would be the lynchpin connecting the resistance nations of the Arab world with the larger emerging Islamic economies in a new trade network to bypass sanctions. (It is worth adding that all D-8 nations other than Turkey supported Syria’s side against Saudi in the civil war, so such an alliance is not much of a stretch by any means.)
Add in China, Russia, Mongolia, Myanmar, and the ‘stans and this new Asian empire would come to span a lion’s share of the planet’s population, GDP, energy resources, and habitable surface area. Moscow and Berlin would emerge as gates between East and West while the sprawling trading network of China would provide an alternative to the overregulated and strings-attached commerce and financing available in the West. China has already replaced America as the major trading partner for most nations.
Though there are other concurrent factors at play, the state of Saudi Arabia which once served as the lynchpin for dividing the Islamic world is diminishing, as Eurasian integration progresses naturally. No color revolutions or regime change are required for this process to continue because:
Zone A’s claims to upholding human rights and other civil liberties increasingly appear like a bad joke: undermined by lockdowns, tech censorship, and politically correct speech codes
Zone B is working past historic rivalries in the pursuit of development while Zone A embraces legally enshrined racism and creates complex taxonomies of privilege to delineate tiers of citizenship
Zone B’s population is growing while Zone A’s is declining
Zone B’s share of global wealth is growing while Zone A’s is declining
Zone B has a burgeoning middle class while Zone A’s middle class is disappearing
Zone B is doing away with extreme politics while Zone A is swept by cultural revolution
The Ister is a researcher of financial markets and geopolitics.
Food for thought:
Can the world survive, i.e. provide enough resources to 8 billion people to consume like the west ‘golden billion’ did? (No)
And what happens when there arent enough resources? (Wars*)
* this time the wars wont be blamed on the west
you are assuming a great fraction of it would as a matter of fact insist on the materialistic consumption modelled on the west, which imo is pretty flimsy at best. you are also assuming technological advances stagnate and there exists no possibility of breakthrough in alleviation of current status quo.
“you are assuming a great fraction of it would as a matter of fact insist on the materialistic consumption modelled on the west”
this is what grand chess master putin said in one of his interviews,
and i am paraphrasing “you cant stop the population of the developing world
to reach for a better life”
“there exists no possibility of breakthrough”
resources only matter, technology only facilitates to spend or extract those resources at a faster pace
“you are also assuming technological advances stagnate and there exists no possibility of breakthrough in alleviation of current status quo.”
Even if tomorrow a magical potion were to be found that, for example, turned coal into oil at $60 per barrel, it would take 30+ years to transition in a meaningful way. Our investments in the current paradigm are absolutely huge. Just look at the disastrous attempt to move to the fake renewables – which are totally dependent on oil.
The USA, by neglecting Saudi Arabia, is fooling itself that its fracking makes economic sense. It does not – because the inputs to fracking come from oil. Anyway, the world economy cannot function with a low value of energy returned over energy invested.
I suggest you read the following to get a better understanding:
“Why Collapse Occurs – Why It May Not Be Far Away”
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2021/02/25/why-collapse-occurs-why-it-may-not-be-far-away/
An even better article (Hi Alfred, thanks for your offer of putting me in touch with GMC)
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2020/11/06/the-narrative-problem-after-peak-oil/
Note specially the fourth figure…
Tverberg’s article is quoted and is essential to understand the sheep’s thesis:
I think bucky’s thoughts on the topic should be know by all. He was a visionaire, and im sure if you talked about fracking or tar sands to him he would have a collapse or something.
https://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comic/energy-slaves/
I have heard it said that covid vaccines make people infertile. If this is true, and I personally believe it is, then things will not get to where you are suggesting.
The 8 billion people on Earth today will grow old and die and leave no descendents to fight over resources.
We have served our purpose. We have built the necessary infrastructure and technology for the chosen elite to live in a paradise of prosperity and plenty for centuries to come; a Utopia.
Every country that is going along with the pandemic nonsense and vaccinations is in on the plan.
It is a good plan, in my opinion, if one is a narcissistic psychopath.
The perps involved in sterilizing the people will have to find a different means of infiltrating many populations who apparently will have nothing to do with the vaccines coming out of the west at this point.
I don’t think Russians and Chinese will be sterilized nor most of Asia as a result. some of Africa might escape as well…those who use the Russian vaccine and not the western ones.
this is not an aspect of the Covid issue I have paid focused attention to, only in passing attention. yet it does not look like the ‘killer vaccines’ will be totally successful or very successful.
if our fears about the western vaccines turn out to be true then England is mostly toast because it seems almost all their people are vaccinated by now. Boris Johnson one of the very greatest of public, political buffoons ever would have seen to the end of the English people.
so also are the Jews of Israel. Israel appears to have been 100% vaccinated. and that is indeed a surprize given that the Zionists are supposed to be in charge, the creative fact and driver behind the whole Covid ‘fakedemic’ process. why would they poison their own people in the game…unless Israelis were given benign vaccines? a fake in a fake! Interesting.
but by the argument of Gilad Atzmon the Israelis were not given fake, benign vaccines but real honest to goodness Pfizer killer vaccines.
again…very Interesting
I don’t know anyone who has died of covid. And I don’t know anyone who knows anyone who has died of covid. So, why the rush to produce a vaccine?
If the sterilization theory is correct, two possible explanations come to mind.
1. Covid itself is what causes infertility, which would explain why some countries, like Israel and England, have rushed to vaccinate their populations against it, and others like Australia and most of Europe have imposed incredibly strict quarantine and lockdown measures to control and prevent the spread of a disease that for the most part amounts to a slight cough for a few days, while in other countries, everyone will catch it at least once before they are eventually sold a pointless vaccine.
2. The vaccine is what causes infertility, and since there is no way to verify the contents of the vaccine vials, we have no idea what the Israelis and English are being injected with, and neither can we verify what the Russian or American vaccine actually does in the body, so to jump to the conclusion that the Russian vaccine is ‘safe’ while the American is not, or vice versa, is no more than speculation.
Russia must know that the covid pandemic is nonsense. So, why bother producing a vaccine for a mild cough?
I have heard certain conspiracy theories that the “vaccines” are capable of identifying certain genetic markers, and selectively sterilizing people who carry specific genetic defects. In this scenario, only those people who have been deemed fit to procreate will be able to do so. I have also heard scenarios where genetic markers pertaining to certain races are identified and targeted for sterilization, while others are unaffected.
I believe that all world leaders today are privy to projections and models about what will happen in the world if the human population is not controlled, and I can see men like Putin, Xi, et al, agreeing that a ‘vaccine’ that will sterilize people with defective genetics is preferable over great wars over basic resources in 50-100 years.
Which is more humane? To wait and do nothing until billions die in bloody wars over food and water, or to inject people with an agent that causes infertility in those who are prone to cancer, diabetes, heart disease, dementia, etc, etc? Many would agree that choosing the latter does not make Putin and Xi bad guys.
Personally, I do not find it particularly tasteful, I think it is horrendous to be frank, but I don’t hold the fate of billions in my hands.
what are you doing…building two criminal cases against Putin…one on the Russian vaccine, and another on Putin being an elitist genocidal killer in effort to control human population growth while ensuring that only elites can replicate themselves?
there is no talk of the Russian Corona vaccination in the same way the Western vaccines are discussed…as killer injections. by now we would have a fair idea of what all the vaccines are and we do. that is why those of the west are referred to and discussed as killers, and the Russian one not
what population projections are you talking about?
the only people to whom such is important are elites who have social power and great fortunes to protect. population projections are important to them where numbers of people they can no longer employ and who constitute a threat to the status quo that ensures their poverty, while protecting the wealth of the elites. how does Putin come into that as president of one of the most sparsely populated regions of the world?
then again: social development is the most retarding of factors relative to population..so that when the developing world arrives are they not going to have a hell of a time keeping up population balance, far less growth?
what are the real factors relative to population? certainly not anything that would get Putin to involve himself in genocidal criminal activity, sullying his good name to this point! there can be no population projections of any accuracy that suggest at this point that the carrying capacity for humans on this planet has been achieved, nearly achieved, or even can be achieved at all, before all humans develop fully and probably run out of time to keep the species going indefinitely in nature.
all of that talk is capitalist propaganda to justify horrendous capitalist criminal activity against humanity as a whole
“Let me explain something to you. The sun throws a certain amount of energy onto this planet. We turn it into food, clothing, shelter, etc. It supports an amount of us, and it took 30,000 years for that amount to become one billion. Then we found a way to use ancient sunlight, sunlight trapped in oil and coal. We started to live off that. What happened? In just 130 years, our population doubled. The next billion took thirty years. The fourth billion has taken just 14. So here’s the question. What do you think is going to happen when that oil and coal runs out in, say, a hundred years? When there’s ten billion living on a planet that can support only one?”
Human population growth between 10,000 BCE and 1800 AD was 0.04% annually. Human population was 1 billion on the eve of the 19th century.
In circa 1800 AD mankind started using coal for manufacturing goods, running steamships and railroad engines. By 1860 it was being used to make iron and steel. And by 1880, electricity.
The human population doubled between 1800 and 1930, when it stood at 2 billion souls.
In the twentieth century mankind began using gasoline refined from crude oil to power automobiles and airplanes. By 1960 the human population had reached 3 billion.
And in the last 60 years, human population has more than doubled to over 8 billion. Since biomass on Earth has not significantly increased over the last 30,000 years, the increase in human population has come at the expense of other species populations.
Megafauna in the northern hemisphere were mostly extinct by 10,000 BC. And today scientists estimate that 150-200 species of plant, insect, bird and mammal become extinct every 24 hours. This is over one thousand times higher than the baseline rate. Judging from the fossil record, the baseline extinction rate is about one species per every one million species per year.
Ten billion people will need countless cows, sheep, pigs and chickens, and an immense amount of wheat, barley, rice and potatoes for sustenance. By the year 2100, the Earth’s biomass will consist mainly of humans together with the aforementioned species.
By the year 2100, ancient sunlight stored over hundreds of millions of years in fossil fuels will be gone for all practical purposes, and we will have to go back to using current sunlight, which cannot sustain a human population of ten billion as we know from the situation in 1800 AD.
Now, perhaps mankind will discover some other form of energy in the next few decades to sustain itself with, but perhaps we won’t. If we do, our population growth will continue at the expense of biodiversity on the planet. If we don’t, what then?
Both scenarios result in catastrophic consequences.
Putin is part of the elite of the human race. And he knows all this in much more detail than I do. He will choose to stop population growth now, because there is no alternative.
Time will tell whether I am wrong or right.
Putin may indeed be as you describe him! I hope not. you reason in a straight line…that is not the only way to go especially given that elitist options are not the best options relative to resolution of the situation you have described. what is or are the most positive human responses available?
the end of capitalism for sure, the development of systematic social organisation based on the very truth we know containing surely some of which you described streamlined as we go. that means a society that takes fully into into its routine movement human truth and responds in the necessary ways that gives us the best chance universally, comprehensively
you appear to not notice that we all die anyway so there is no need for elitist genocide…and that part of the solution requires the most full development of the human alive…and that development is entirely consistent with coming into the truth of existence and acting according to that truth. we are natural of nature and we must live by nature. so the truth of nature must replace the nonsense especially religious nonsense so that humanity as a whole aware of existential truth can respond the best way we can.
what the hell is the problem if we are all going to die one day anyway. there is no alternative but to organize society based on truth that we have proved all along the way. there are actions, reorganizations that can be taken right away that would reduce tremendously the pressure humans put on the planet/nature/environment. such reorganizations would also reduce population increase immensely. couples would have many less children that they do now.
social development has that effect so why constantly staunch general human development in the process of the accumulation of wealth by a few all the time? we have been doing this for millennia and that has produced this state we are currently in. it is time to end capitalism/elitism immediately and organize life in the interest of indefinite human survival. individual cars disappears as form of human transportation. food becomes produce in huge ways of what is necessary only and most of food production returns to small farming to which modern technology that may be necessary can be applied in ways that do not aggravate the same concerns you have listed. food production for a city can take place around that city that eliminates vast transport networks of huge trucks and trains and boats and planes
then science and technology holds vast potential in the discovery of means, ways to carry out human needs in much cheaper ways that they are carried out currently…and by cheaper I am taking into consideration all costs, those you have enumerated and those I do not even see at this point.
we have the reality that we do at this time. I did not make the world but I must deal with it and I will not begin from the negative. I want human survival and to die knowing that we go on and do so well. Capitalism must be ended immediately if possible, and the global social life revolutionized into forms that allow humanity to respond to life according to the truth we have proven, truth that requires of us such responses or the consequences if we do not… plain and simple
this is a quick response on my part. I just came back to this thread and saw it. I did not expect anything like this and I appreciate it immensely. I got to go but will be back to it as soon as I can. please excuse all typos
It is true that with advance of technology to capture and use more energy has coincided with the growth of population. The question is- did advance in technology actually caused the population growth, or it is merely coincidence, badly misunderstood. There could be other factors and variables in the play, besides consumption of energy, that we overlook or do not know about.
What we see around is quite opposite – where there is wealth, populations decrease. Population started decreasing in Nordic countries more than 50 years ago. Where do we have population boom? Places like Nigeria, Bangladesh, Sub-Saharan Africa, Indonesia, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Egypt, Brazil. No China on this list, where fertility rates started dropping, coincidentally with their economic growth. Russia and former SSSR countries have more resources and land than they could possibly use, yet they have population growth issues. USA may have net increase in population, due to intake of South American refugees – who are fleeing the poverty at home. Without the influx of Mexicans, USA population is decreasing. Black population is decreasing not as much as white in USA, but then, poverty is more prevalent among Black population.
Population growth is controlled by probability of offspring to survive. Poverty increases mortality, across the board, and more babies is the natural answer. See, population in late 19th and earlier 20th century did not increase in Europe because cars were invented. Nope. It increased because after horses had gone, huge swats of land were freed to grow food for people, instead for horses, mules and oxen, which were main means of transportation before cars. Do not forget that European and USA populations of those times were dirt poor.
It is poverty that drives population up. Advance in technology trickle down enough to give people hope that things are a changing, but do not really change their lives. Even the poorest of poor have cell-phones. Is their life nay better for that? Pull people out of poverty and they stop making babies. They focus on 1 or 2, and put all their life energies into those 1 or 2 which have more chance reaching adulthood and having their own 1 or 2 kids. When reaching adulthood is not very probable – one needs plenty of kids, in hope that at least some, 1 or 2 maybe, will survive to have children of their own. Having one or two kids per woman is less than is needed to provide population growth, you need 2 or more for that.
Pull people out of poverty, and population drops, which decreases pressure on resources. The picture we have about resources today is a skewed one, influenced hugely by business interests, not by any logic or natural needs. And that same thing is precisely what keeps people in poverty, who in turn produce more kids, instinctively trying to continue the bloodline and the species.
Mother nature knows what she is doing and there is nothing we can do about or against thet.
Perfect response Zidar. this is what I had in mind but could not have aid it better myself.
I had ideas about this issue before but I took more notice after E J Lerner’s book in the 19 nineties…The Big Bang Never Happened. I am no worried about human chances from a natural standpoint but from how we have developed largely from the development of exploitative societies and forms of global domination, ever since the emergence of European cultures
one may suggest a negative and ethnic element in that comment but that is not my intent. European domination erased the element of nature as dominant, the arbiter of existence, and replaced it with organized religion in which a god made everything, along with forms of the exploitation of society, ultimately capitalism. there is much of value in the development humanity has achieved because of European domination but equally much of danger that must be eliminated…can only be changed, eliminated by the elimination of systems of exploitation of humans by humans.
Nature must regain its place as arbiter in life at this stage, the development of all humanity become central to human movement and of course focus on the development of knowledge about nature in the process of ensuring human indefinite survival which is our key our goal. all flows from the securing of that possible goal…indefinite human survival in nature.
“Mother Nature Does in Fact Know What She is doing!” and it is best for us to come to know as much of that as possible, to assist our own purpose of survival in the process, not to function at cross purposes with it
society must evolve into forms of organized popular control, by the people for the people. that is our major challenge how to end class society, how to make one class of all humanity with the one purpose we must all all have….as above collective indefinite survival.
no elite class based on exploitation of the majority for its own survival can work in he general interest of humanity. no middle classes can either as they are always facilitators of the established exploitation and require it the exploitative state to stay in place to ensure their own social position. only ordinary folk have it within their own routine existential interest and function, to be the interest consistent with the general interest of human survival
society must be revolutionized to bring this general collective interest into play as the base of social existence and function by making sure social organization form reflects this period at the expense of all minority domination of society. it is time to end all power minorities running society, for the people to rise up take over and grapple with creating the ways they as collective run society in real democracy, so they can to ensure that under their collective direction society will function in the interest of all.
there is no way humanity will survive any effective and viable shape or form for any length of time hence, in any other way but in general democracy in their various nations and cultures. communities etc. in my estimation time is running out for humanity, the evolution – or revolution- to which I refer is immediately essential for human survival
I would say that some of the main factors that have influenced population growth are, electricity, irrigated agriculture using pumped water, refrigeration, indoor plumbing, indoor heating and air conditioning, long distance transportation, dams, industrially produced chemical fertilizers and pesticides, plastics, etc; all one way or another the result of coal and oil exploitation.
Defining “mother nature” and what is and is not ‘natural’ is problematic. There are two schools of thought.
1. Those who believe that everything is natural and part of nature.
2. Those who believe that there is a distinct and well-defined division between how plants, insects, animals and indigenous people (eg. uncontacted tribes in the Amazon) live, and how modern ‘civilized’ people live.
Animals tend to enhance the biome which they live in, making it more suitable for life. For example, when they eat something, they leave behind their excrement which nourishes other lifeforms and enriches the biome, thus forming a sustainable cycle. When modern man eats something, his excrement is taken out of the cycle for all practical purposes, thus impoverishing the very soils and ecosystems that feed him. Amazonian people follow the pattern of animals in this regard.
There is a phenomenon in the Amazon rainforest, called terra preta, which is Portuguese for black earth. Terra preta is the most fertile soil on Earth, and it is the result of indigenous habitation. It consists of soil that is enriched with charcoal and ashes, animal bones, broken clay vessels, human excrement, etc., ie. just refuse from the native’s lifestyle.
The point is, those who live a natural lifestyle, naturally enrich and enhance their environment, making it more suitable for life. And over a billion year period, natural life has created the massive and intricate ecosystem of the Earth today.
Modern man not only withholds his excrement from the ecosystem, but instead leaves behind trash, polluting the environment he lives in, and degrading it, making it less suitable for life.
Animals and ‘natural’ creatures tend to form symbiotic relationships with other lifeforms in their environment. The entire Amazon rainforest, for example, is one giant network of these symbiotic relationships, where every creature performs a function which upholds the integrity of the whole ecosystem. Amazonian people have been living in the rainforest since at least 10,000 BCE, and their presence has not degraded the jungle. If anything, they have acted as the gardeners and caretakers of their vast garden/forest.
Modern man does not form symbiotic relationships. We enslave those creatures which we can benefit from, like cattle and chickens, which we keep in nightmarish prisons, pumping them full of hormones and antibiotics, and we exterminate those that do not provide us with direct benefit, even if indirectly they contribute to our survival and well-being. Or we “accidentally” poison them, even though they are beneficial to us, like the bees.
Some believe that the myth of the Garden of Eden refers to the jungle, the natural world which our ancestors lived in, in harmony and balance with nature, as a part of nature, and one with nature.
Looking at the Amazonian natives, it is clear that our ancestors were driven away from that lifestyle at some point, and today we cannot return to it. Instead, in our anger and desperation, we are destroying this planet.
The ‘way’ is obvious: we must return to nature. Instead we build more and more complex technologies which destroy nature while further estranging us from it.
Yes, we can. But there was never a golden billion anywaym, was there?
An enlightening and informative article. I was interested to find that the 21st century attempt to split Shia from Sunni (the propaganda tactic which featured so prominently in the Anglo-Zionazi-Capitalist invasions of Iraq and Syria) goes back to British agents Lawrence and Allenby in the early 1900s. Curiously enough, when I began to ask why the EU$A was invading Yugoslavia and dropping more bombs on Serbia than Hitler did, my search led back to the same point — British policy 1890-1914.
“Mesopotamia — oil. Serbia — gateway to Mesopotamia” — 1900s slogan chalked in British Foreign and Colonial Office.
Take a deep dive into British and Saudi history from the mid 1700s.
Wahhabism is a construct of the British.
The Brits “invented” this extreme “religion”; recruited and sponsored the proselytizers, and supported (funded) the spread and imposition on Muslims, especially in British constructed “Saudi” Arabia.
https://www.scribd.com/document/19073545/British-and-the-Rise-of-Wahhabism
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344227705_SAUDI_ARABIA_AND_ITS_RELATIONSHIP_WITH_WAHHABIS_BRITISH_AND_JEWS
https://trvid.com/video/saudi-arabia-is-a-british-creation-ZxwWfv7x5og.html
https://trvid.com/video/british-empire-and-the-creation-of-saudi-arabia-wahhabism-isis-ideology-N_raODb_8sE.html
The reason Saudi Arabia is losing influence is due to it’s falling oil reserves. According to one analyst, the Saudis have exaggerated their oil reserves by as much as 80 % (you cannot exploit oil for decades and still hope to have massive deposits). The current war in Yemen was an attempt by the Saudis and the West to grab untouched Yemeni oil. The invasion turned into a joke. The Saudi military has the primary task of protecting the Saudi Royal Family. Protecting the country came second. It’s performance in Yemen was laughable, as the troops did not wish to fight, preferring a life of leisure in Saudi Arabia. This being the case, the West will undoubtably make a separate deal with the Yemenis, while Saudi Arabia will in the end be left to it’s fate.
Saudi Arabia is an artificial creation. It is nothing more than a union of sheikdoms, whose sheiks receive an annual bribe to recognize the House of Saud as the ruler of the country. Analysts are wondering what will happen when Riyadh has no more money for bribes. They expect the country to disintegrate.
Saudis had better learn to breed and ride camels again when their oil runs out. So much for the ‘Kingdom’, which I see is always capitalized.
Though Pakistan can be trusted as much as Turkey can, which is to say they can’t be trusted one bit, it will be good if Iran starts to concentrate as much on economic matters as Iran concentrates on war matters.
Once the economy gets going the funds for research and technology is there for military improvements, Iran has a golden opportunity on its hands with Iraq and Syria to build the Shia Crescent stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. Ok, neither Syria or Iran has much going for them right now but a start has to be made somewhere. So start with agriculture, start with water management, eventually enough funds will be available from the land to enable manufacturing and industry to take root. Iranian businessman should buy water rich land in Iraq and Syria, half the produce going towards the workers in those countries, the other half going to Iran.
So think big but start small, first the Shia Crescent with agriculture, then manufacturing and industry as the bombings lessen and economic conditions improve, then this Zone B business. “start by doing what is possible and soon you’ll be doing what is impossible”.
So what if the West bombs Iran, then the Persian Gulf is closed for decades afterwards and Saudi Arabia is finished. There is zero possibility of Western boots on the ground in Iran and so Iran can survive just like the Houthis are right now. Concentrating on agriculture and water management across the Shia Crescent would render the biggest dividends under this scenario.
“Ok, neither Syria or Iran has much going for them right now but a start has to be made somewhere.”
I don’t know how accurate that assessment is. Iran has a full spectrum of industrial production, from automobiles and submarines to tooth paste and tooth brushes. Iran is starting a production line for domestically designed passenger airplanes. They are desalinating seawater and pumping it far inland. Iran is a major steel and concrete producer.
Iranian agricultural production is immense, but whereas Israel, for example, exports its pomegranates to Dubai at 5 dollars a kilo, Iranian pomegranates rot in the orchards because they cannot be exported and domestic demand simply isn’t high enough. To put a precise figure on it, Iran produces one million tons of pomegranates per year, and only ten thousand tons are exported, mainly to China.
“Iran ranks 1st in fruit production in the Middle East and North Africa. 2.7 million hectares of orchards are being harvested in Iran with an annual production this year of 16.5 million tons. Per capita production of fruit in the globe is 80 kilograms while in Iran it is 200 kg according to official FAO statistics. The Iranian calendar year ending in March 2010, Iran produced 4.5 million tons of citrus fruits and 3 million tons of apples. Iran has been ranked between 8th and 10th in global fruit production in different years. In the productions of pomegranates and pistachios, Iran ranks first, in dates and cherries, 2nd, 4th in the production of apples and walnuts, and, 7th in producing citrus fruits.”
If Iran were given a fair chance to export its fruits to countries like Australia where a single pomegranate costs $5, you can imagine what would happen to the Iranian economy.
I have seen the peach orchards in Iran, where thousands of tons of peaches are left to rot each year because their market value is under 10 cents USD per kilo, which makes it unfeasible to ship them to the market. Fruits, vegetables and herbs are cheaper in Iran than anywhere else in the world.
Iran produces fighter jets and satellites, and every kind of pharmaceutical drugs. Drugs are so cheap in Iran that any Western person would be shocked to learn, in my opinion. Iran also has a bustling medicinal plant and herb industry.
Iran produces the cheapest gasoline on Earth. And the cheapest diesel fuel. Iran builds its own roads, dams, skyscrapers, ships, etc, etc.
I could go on and on. But suffice to say that Iran produces pretty much everything necessary for a civilized country, which is more than could be said for 80% of the world.
“..it will be good if Iran starts to concentrate as much on economic matters as Iran concentrates on war matters.”
True understanding of Iran is absolutely lacking in the West and on this site. Because of international sanctions, Iran is the closest thing to a fully self-sufficient economy, but the same sanctions have also made Iran the most corrupt country in the world.
It seems like every month there is some enormous embezzlement from the government to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars which mysteriously find their way to Swiss banks together with the perpetrators, who are then protected by Western governments.
The ins and outs of economic corruption in Iran are beyond the scope of this comment, but rest assured that there is nothing quite like it anywhere else in the world, for the simple reason that if you embezzle or steal from pretty much any country in the world, you will be hunted down and extradited to face charges no matter where you go (unless you are Jewish), whereas stealing from Iran and taking to the West is actually encouraged by certain parties in the West.
Iran is so heavily mired in corruption, that were it not for the seemingly endless natural resources it possesses, the whole country would have been rendered ineffective by now.
The challenges Iran faces are not just a near total economic isolation, but constant assassinations of scientists, brain-drain, military existential threat, unstable war-torn neighbors that Iran must stabilize, highest drug addiction per capita in the world because of US-Afghan cartels that ship methamphetamine and heroin to Iran at the cheapest prices anywhere in the world, the burden of sustaining the only anti-Zionist Resistance movement in the world single-handedly while Russia/China pander to Israel and the US gives it billions of dollars of free money every year, fighting numerous proxy-wars against the world hegemon, currency devaluation because of a rigged world economy, a neo-liberal majority population completely brainwashed by Western media, environmental catastrophe, etc, etc.
The woes of Iran are too numerous to list in full here, but they stem 50% from sanctions and psychological/media warfare and economic terrorism instigated from abroad, and 50% from the utterly corrupt neo-liberal mentality of the post-Revolution Iranian populace.
Thanks for your insights.
Whoops, my bad, that was supposed to read “Ok, neither Syria or Iraq has much going for them right now but a start has to be made somewhere.” – and that’s because both Syria and Iraq have been bombed to smithereens. In the Shia Crescent Iran is the only one standing on firm feet.
Personally I don’t like anything to do with Globalization, even though more money can be made out of it. The more self sufficient a county is, the better off that country is in the long run. But the neo-liberal mentality of global trade makes everyone richer even to the extent of opening one’s borders to all and sundry and the OWG does prevail unfortunately.
Wished China and Russia would be more open to build an Economic Triangle with Persia
“Ok, neither Syria or Iran has much going for them right now but a start has to be made somewhere. So start with agriculture, start with water management, eventually enough funds will be available from the land to enable manufacturing and industry to take root. Iranian businessman should buy water rich land in Iraq and Syria, ”
Sounds to me like an AZC prospectus aimed at White Western Liberals with inflated ideas of their own progress relative to the darkies who need to be enlightened “Like we are”.
Uhm, Mr highly esteemed PhD, I’m a darkie from South Africa living in South Africa.
Err, gT, I’m sallow-complexioned, South African born, and having visited my native country a few years ago I would say, Look around if you really think “the neo-liberal mentality of global trade makes everyone richer “. You have drunk your enlightenment from the teats of Anglo-American Co.
Vote Communist at the next election.
Biden has Saudi Arabia over a barrel and the Saudis continue taking it.
The US continues (and will continue) to “support” Saudi aggression against Yemen so long as Saudi Arabia continues military contracts/purchases of U.S. weapons systems and services. The US continue to squeeze the Saudis to make sure that such contracts and purchases continue. This is done in the manner of extortion through voiced positions and stances which the US publically takes on the international stage -either for or against Saudi Arabia, and through the release or withholding of information regarding the brutal dismemberment/murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the 9/11 “attacks”, composition of the UN commission on Human Rights, and who knows what else. It’s the power of blackmail which USA holds over Saudi Arabia.
Until the Saudis tire of being squeezed, extorted, manipulated, and mastered by Brain-dead Biden, Yemenis will continue to die due to U.S. war profiteering through Saudi purchases.
We must beware of wishful thinking; but, that said, it’s an encouraging analysis.
The US has created the “Coalition of the Sanctioned”, which will further degrade the value of the Petrodollar for global trade. This may not be happening just by US government missteps.
The Phoenix legend tells of a bird [empire] that builds its own funeral pyre, then claps its wings to ignite the flames, birthing a new Phoenix, that collects the ashes (physical assets) of the old bird into a sacred urn, to offer up to its god [Mammon].
Burn the Public debt, and haul the Privatized assets away.
And then there’s Greece and the Leviathan field in the Med. Talking with a Greek friend she laughed at me and said Greece has plenty of oil. As I then tried to explain to her the capital costs of trying to extract oil from the bottom of the Med would be so exorbitant that Greek people would never be able to afford it. Gasoline at what 15.00 a liter can you imagine? I digress to something Gail Tverberg says about oil extraction is that if it costs 200 a barrel to extract the oil many producers would just leave it in the ground. They would never ever be able to recoup their investment in time and money to make such an endeavor even possible let alone profitable. No one works for nothing.
I remember to watching a docu on England’s push to find and have their own oil in the North Sea at a cost if I remember correctly was trillion dollars. They managed it of course being England but even for them the cost would be too exorbitant I’d say anyway if lets say the North Sea dried up tomorrow yes? Was the investment really worth it?
When one really starts to look at and study oil and the geo-politics of it all its mesmerizing. Politically it must be a horror show it really must be.
and then theres the precious metals. Take a look at this quote:
“According to the website for Montreal-based Kitco Metals, which buys and sells metals and also reports on market trends, palladium is currently selling for just over $2,800 Cdn an ounce, although the Kitco 2021 outlook says it could rise to $3,000 by the end of the year.
Platinum was selling for $1,500 an ounce on Monday, while rhodium was going for about $30,000 US an ounce at the end of February.” https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/catalytic-converter-thefts-rise-as-metal-inside-more-valuable-than-gold/ar-BB1e7tcn?li=AAggNb9
great song by the way…
https://youtu.be/JkhX5W7JoWI
Should mention to if the Med was extracted the oil still has to be refined into usable product and guess what most if not all refinery are old and dilapidated needing extensive maintenance to continue running. Then there’s shipping satans excrement to the refinery which is located where? Russia or America? lol
I guess add another few dollars to the price of 15.00 a liter? Or maybe Greece will build there own refinery?
Failing to factor in the devastation climate change is already wreaking on the (mostly tropical and overpopulated) “Zone B” invalidates most of the author’s arguments.
German Death Camps Formerly Referred To as Nursing Homes Assassinating Patients En Masse With Vaccines!
https://www.globalresearch.ca/whistleblower-25-residents-german-nursing-home-died-after-pfizer-vaccine/5738701
Andrea Iravani
“…Keystone XL cancellation means that there will not be enough American gas to provide an alternative to Russia” ??
I was not aware that Keystone XL was designed to transport natural gas – I thought it was strictly for crude oil.