“Switzerland could be the first country to impose driving bans on e-cars in an emergency to ensure energy security. Several media report this unanimously and refer to a draft regulation on restrictions and bans on the use of electrical energy. Specifically, the paper says: “The private use of electric cars is only permitted for absolutely necessary journeys (e.g. professional practice, shopping, visiting the doctor, attending religious events, attending court appointments).” A stricter speed limit is also planned highways.”
– Der Spiegel, the German publication (via the ironically named US website, Hotair.)
A few weeks ago, California’s government warned that petrol (sorry, gasoline)-driven vehicles would be compulsory soon, while warning of blackouts.
It’s a clown show out there, but who feels like laughing?
For a sanity check, I recommend this book, Fossil Future, by Alex Epstein, to my friends, and occasionally to those I want to torment, in my adolescent fashion. Excellent book that gets to the philosophical guts of what is wrong and malevolent about much modern environmentalism.
It has long been obvious that “you will all be driving electric cars” is a lie, the electrical grid, especially with the closing down of coal and other hydrocarbon power stations, could not power millions of electric cars.
In any case, such electric cars that will exist in the future will be computer limited – so they will only drive to certain places (say around town), not to certain other places (“rewilded” places – that used to be farms and ranches).
There are normally two stages to this sort of thing – “you are a PARANOID CONSIPRACY THEORIST – of course this is not going to happen” and then “it is inevitable, it is POLICY, there is nothing anyone can do about it now – so it is pointless to complain about it”.
The various international bodies, public and private (not that there is really much of a difference – in the modern Corporate State public and private are twisted together in “partnership”) have mapped out the future – and politicians find themselves sort-of dragged along in a vast web of official documents, conferences, “training”, and-so-on. If any politician publicly said something like “I do not support the man-made global warming theory” or “I do not support the Diversity-Equity-Inclusion Critical Theory Marxist agenda” they would essentially be saying “I resign” – they would be shouted down (often by people who, in private, do not believe in such things themselves) and held to be bringing whatever public body (or Corporation) they were working in “into disrepute” – and if they did not resign some way would be found to force them out – elected or not.
Presently it is still allowed to stay silent at public meetings and oppose all this stuff in private – but I doubt that position will hold.
Me? I am dead man walking – and I have long known it. That is fine by me – as I do not wish to be alive to see the future the international establishment have planned. It is a very long time – after all in the 1970s they were using the threat of Global Freezing to support the same totalitarian agenda of “Stakeholder Capitalism” (“public-private partnership” the Corporate State) that they are now using the threat of Globel Warming to justify. The objective remains the same (tyranny) only the justifications change. And some tactics, such as “if you are against us, you are a RACIST”, have remained the same for many decades. Herbert Marcuse and others worked out how “protecting disadvantaged groups” (and so on) could be used as a justification to exterminate Freedom of Speech and other basic liberties – and some political leaders, such as President Barack Obama, pushed this agenda till it became so ingrained in the institutions (public and private) that they did not have to push it any more – and could even pretend to think it had gone too far (whilst laughing at people stupid enough to believe them).
There is only really one chance to avoid the totalitarian future they have long worked for – and that is economic collapse, which might bring their system (which rests on flimsy foundations – their economic power is based on Fiat Money and Credit Bubble finance – the “Cantillon Effect” but on a vast scale) crashing down. But, on the other hand, such an economic and social collapse might be the very excuse they need to snuff out what is left of liberty. It could be “heads we lose – tails they win” – but let us hope NOT.
Those still about will get to see which way things go over the next few years – and the United States of America is key. How America goes will be how, eventually, the rest of the Western world goes.
By the way – I am fully aware there is a basic contradiction between Marxism (Classical or Frankfurt School) and the Corporate State agenda of the international establishment (the WEF and so on) – but they both wish to exterminate all basic liberties, so they are de facto allies at least till we are utterly destroyed.
I can’t wait for the time when ICE vehicles are banned outright, then something like a hurricane is on the way, and e-cars are shut down by the state to preserve the grid from crashing under the weight of everyone trying to get out of town, and citizens can’t leave.
Stephen R: I can’t wait for the time when ICE vehicles are banned outright, then something like a hurricane is on the way, and e-cars are shut down by the state to preserve the grid from crashing under the weight of everyone trying to get out of town, and citizens can’t leave.
And you know what will happen? The usual Green activists won’t condemn people for making us reliant on intermittent energy and leaving one stranded, but blamed fossil fuels on the hurricanes, and double down and demand even more sacrifices, even less ability to do things.
Like the author of the remarks I quote above (and perhaps like Volkswagen CEO Thomas Schafer, who made the “practically unviable” statement he quoted on LinkedIn – although, hoping for some state subsidies himself, Schafer avoided saying so), I think the proceeds from a tax on a state-subsidised industry might prove exiguous.
It’ll last until the inherent contradictions come clear to the majority. Then, once the credibility and willing suspension of disbelief and common sense become more and more things that the “elite” no longer command…?
The whole thing will evaporate in a puff of smoke. Probably fossil-fueled.
See, there’s this thing that most of the “elites” miss: The whole “There they go; I must follow them, for I am their leader…” phenomenon. They’ve managed to convince enough people of the whole crisis of “climate change”, and everyone was willing to go along with it… So long as it didn’t mean any real changes to their lifestyle and situation. People love to signal virtue, so long as it costs them nothing. Actually sacrifice-required virtue demonstration? That’s only popular so long as the crisis is identifiably existential, and everyone more-or-less agrees on it. Things like the Nazis in WWII, the Imperial Japanese… Those are things that can, for significant periods, inspire actual personal sacrifice.
Gaia ain’t enough. Watch this space, and observe how the greenies wind up getting pilloried in the future. Mark my words…
Why not pilloried now? Do they not deserve it in spades? Decade after decade of false alarms, ruthless scaremongering even unto the kindergarten, and waves of smug, ill-informed, un-informable zealots coarsening our politics and traumatising our children, all the while intent on wrecking the best civilisation the world has ever seen. The pillory is surely too good for them!
@FrankS,
The saturation/tipping point hasn’t been reached, as of yet. There will come the moment, just like with Ceaucescu, that everyone in the crowd looks around and realizes that everyone else has as little “belief” left in the system as they do.
When that happens? That’s the inflection point, the cusp, the beginning of the preference cascade.
What comes after that won’t be pretty.
@Kirk,
I’m not so sure that’s true. It is only going to get worse. The upcoming generations are even more heavily indoctrinated. There is no voice of reason. The blame for the collapse of their scheme that they assign to fossil fuels etc. will be believed, no matter how absurd, because the previous “normal” way of thinking is not even on the radar.
@Colli,
Oh, I’m sure that the “Powers that Be” are certain that the fraud is unassailable, that nobody will possibly notice.
Do remember, however, that the “Powers Which Were” inside the Iron Curtain were equally certain that their positions and ideologies were similarly secure.
How’d that work out, again? Did anyone foresee, inside the involved hierarchies, that things would not last?
Abraham Lincoln’s homily about “fooling some of the people, all of the time” being possible, while fooling all of them, all of the time? That’s a verifiable truism. Don’t think that just because they’ve pulled off this massive fraud that they’re going to be able to keep it going. They’ve only managed because they haven’t quite grasped that so long as things worked, they were believed. When their manifest inadequacies are generally perceived to be both dysfunctional and inoperative? Watch what happens.
I suspect that what happened at Gobekli Tepi was on a similar scale; elites discrediting themselves, resulting in the entire enterprise being abandoned and forgotten.
Kirk – even if they majority of voters somehow manage to break free of decades of brainwashing by the education system and the “mainstream” media and the entertainment media, what difference will their breaking free make – if Election Fraud continues?
Whether people like it or not – the Western world stands or falls with the United States, there just is not much of a Western world without the United States. And in the United States election fraud is being normalised – both by the Democrats and by their RINO playthings, the “controlled opposition” that is no opposition at all.
At least in 2020 there was some effort to hide the election fraud – in 2022 it was blatant “in your face” – with, for example, “technical problems” preventing many Republicans voting and gloating officials taunting people by pointing out how many fake mail-in ballots they had.
Yet nothing will be done about this – not Pennsylvania (where a brain damaged person was “elected” to the United States Senate), or in Arizonia, or elsewhere.
Why not just keep doing it? If people are just going to be shut down by corrupt bullyboy thugs of the FBI (and the FBI are corrupt bullyboy thugs – sorry “Mulder and Scully” do not exist is real life) and the corrupt (hopelessly corrupt) courts with their mantra of “you do not have standing – so we are not going to hear the evidence” (the mantra we heard so much in 2020 – but were told “it is just to get rid of Trump, do not worry future elections will not be rigged, this is just a one-off) what is the point of continuing?
To give just one example, everyone knows that Kari Lake was the preferred candidate of the voters of Arizona for Governor – if Katie Hobbs is sworn in as Governor (by the Democrats – with a few RINO lapdogs screaming “do not be an election denier”) then what is the point of going on?
They will end up doing this in all 50 States.
“People will not continue to vote Democrat when they have no power and no food”.
Who cares how people vote – when they are not allowed to vote (“technical problems” – say a blackout) and there are endless fake-mail-in-ballots.
The “controlled opposition” of RINO lapdogs (playthings of the “Woke” Corporations) will go along with “Net Zero” and everything else.
Some foolish people compared January 6th 2021 to the “Battle of Athens” back in the 1940d – when the people of Athens Tennessee overthrow the “election” of the Democrats who had taken over their town. But there were two important differences.
The small minority of the hundreds of thousands people who arrived in Washington who actually went on to the Capitol building were manipulated by the FBI (Roy Epps and co)- they got played like a fiddle. Even the doors (those big bronze doors) were opened with them – after some people in black face masks (hello Feds) broke windows. The people of Athens Tennessee were not puppets of the FBI – they organised themselves (without informers).
And the other difference? Neither the hundreds of thousands of people in Washington, or the small minority of them that listened to Roy Epps, and other servants of the FBI, to march into the Capitol building were armed – they were all unarmed.
The people of Athens Tennessee had a fire fight with the police department back in the 1940s – and the police department (a bunch of corrupt thugs – much like the FBI now) lost, because they were massively outnumbered and outgunned.
If you are taking on the government – then waving flags and shouting is not going to get you victory. It is just going get you dragged off to prison to be raped and abused.
As for informers – they can be anybody, even people you have known for years. Even if someone would not submit to blackmail themselves – they might if their children are at stake.
“Hello Mr Smith – yes we did plant those drugs on your son, but we control the courts so saying that will not help you. Now either your son goes to prison, and we happen to know he will have his penis cut off in the first week – and have it shoved down his throat. Or you help us a little – just suggest a few illegal things to your friends, and then we will arrest them, do not worry – it will be nothing major”.
Servants of the FBI are sometimes repulsive people – but sometimes they are good people, who just do not have much choice.
As for how the FBI, and the rest of the Federal Government, got to be this way – well “it is a long story”, but 1993 was a key date in the corruption of the American government.
I’ll simply point out that the FBI and other law enforcement types have to live among the population they purportedly police.
Lose the consent of the policed, and what happens? There ain’t enough of them to actually enforce the will of the oligarchs; review just how many “regime security types” you actually need to have available, in order to maintain power. The numbers are… Illuminating.
It’ll be the same as it ever was. Until it isn’t, and then the nightmares start for the regime types. It’s exactly like I warned my Seattle Police Department acquaintances, who aren’t exactly living in secure or even potentially securable locations. You like living the way you do? The only way you keep on doing that is by maintaining that consent of the policed. The day comes that your neighbors hate you as much as the typical inner-city dweller does, even out in white-bread suburbia? That’s the day the regime collapses, because you can no longer find the bodies to go out and enforce their will. Who’s going to sign up to be a cop, when they witness cop’s homes being burnt to the ground with said cop and their families still in them?
These idiots have no idea at all what they’re messing around with. The idea that they’re somehow going to achieve a Chinese level of control with the tools they have available? Laughable. Once the they foolishly try applying the screws the way you’re suggesting they will, the whole thing will blow up in their faces.
You’re already starting to see the pushback with the FBI; I’ve heard a local prosecutor tell someone to their face that having the FBI testify in a court case was doomed to result in the perpetrator getting off because nobody believes an FBI agent’s testimony.
These idiots do not realize that there’s only a narrow margin where they can do what they’ve been doing. Go outside those lines, and the whole shoddy edifice is going to collapse on them like a Florida condo.
I don’t think that it’s necessarily the case that such a thing couldn’t happen, that the totalitarian statists might succeed, but it’s going to take a hell of a lot longer than most here presume, and it’s going to require a mind-boggling increase in the forces they have available.
I don’t think people quite realize that there’s a reality out there, one that is occasionally noted when people pay attention to the fact that the US issues six times more hunting licenses every year than the number of people in the Chinese military, and that gun owners in the US outnumber hunters six to one.
Contemplate that, for a moment, and then ask yourself what the hell happens when the general population reaches the conclusion that they no longer wish to be governed by the people in power? Do you think that the entire body of 800,000 law enforcement officers of all categories across the US is going to be on-board with playing regime enforcer, or that those 800,000 bodies are going to be anywhere near enough? Hell, add in the entire US military, and you’re still looking at less than 3 million to somehow enforce the will of the oligarchs on 332 million Americans. How’s that going to work, when you can only mobilize 1% of the population to control the other 99%? The other 99% that just happens to be more heavily armed than just about anyone else on the planet?
I’m here to tell you that even if I were on-board with what these idiots are doing, I’d be looking at the correlation of forces involved, and telling the idiot class that they were entirely on their own; I’m not playing that game. Period. It’d be one thing to play regime thug in a country like North Korea or some other equally dystopic nation, but here in the US? Are you insane?
The idea that you’d somehow survive the preference cascade, as a regime supporter, is absolutely delusional. You and your entire family would likely wind up envying the relatively swift deaths of the Romanovs…
Kirk – you forget the “controlled opposition” those self-described “Republicans” or even people who call themselves “Conservatives” who say what the regime wishes them to say – for example they are trotted out to denounce “election deniers” when they know perfectly well that the elections are rigged.
Turn the United States into the United Kingdom, where it is not necessary to rig elections.
The highest taxes in history, government spending that is vastly higher, endless regulations, enforced “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” with the destruction of Freedom of Speech and even 60 years of service is no defence against being destroyed if you say the wrong thing – say you are an 83 year old women and you meet someone dressed up in a fake African costume, and using a fake African name – assume they are African and you are “racist” and the media and the institutions (even the monarchy) will turn on you. 60 years of service? So what?
If the government health service fails, say 10% of the entire population of the country waiting for treatment, then throw more money at it – and when it continues to fail, denounce anyone who suggests there is a structural problem. Or bring the corporations in – as if the Corporate medicine of the United States is any less political than the government medicine of the United Kingdom – Covid exposed just how political Corporate medicine in the United States is (with Early Treatment for Covid 19 systematically smeared, and honest medical doctors ruthlessly persecuted).
If the British people vote for independence – pretend that they have independence. whilst maintaining open borders to their foes (whilst claiming that the borders are secure) and obeying all the regulations of the power they voted for independence from.
And, of course, go on to all the international conferences and push the international agenda of totalitarian control, DEI, SEG, Net Zero, Covid lockdowns, (soon de facto Climate Lockdowns) and all.
“But why do the people not vote Conservative?” – they do Kirk, there has been a Conservative Party government in the United Kingdom for the last 12 years. It is not the same as a Labour Party government – there are differences at the margin, but the basic line of policy (an ever-bigger government and cultural decline) continues.
I am sure the “Woke” Corporate State regime in the United States would accept a “Republican Administration” as long it was the correct sort of “Republican Administration” – that would carry out all the policies the “Woke” Corporate State regime wants carried out. Of course, there would be differences – but the basic line of policy would continue, continue in the Collectivist direction the international establishment wish it to go in.
In Britain when people get “fed up with the Tories” they vote Labour, and when they “get fed up with Labour” they vote for the Conservative Party – and either way the policy of the international community continues – that has been the way since 1990 (since Margaret Thatcher was betrayed), the “legally nonbinding” Agenda 21 (now Agenda 2030) was signed only a year or so later – by Prime Minister John Major “we have spent more money than Labour promised to spend”. Yes, there are differences – the parties are NOT the same, but the general line of policy continues to go in the wrong direction, the direction the international establishment wants it to go in, as it has done for more than 30 years. George Herbert Walker Bush agreed to “legally non binding” Agenda 21 (now Agenda 2030) just as John Major did – and President Clinton and Prime Minister Blair continued the general agenda. Even if Agenda 21 has never existed policy would have been much the same – as it just codified what was general international fashion anyway.
Chances of armed resistance to all this? Zero – no chance at all. Indeed, if anyone suggested it I would assume they were a police informer – because they would be.
As for the United States – it may go the same way as the United Kingdom.
Not all of those mail-in ballots are fake – some of them are REAL.
Look into the eyes of the students – those brainwashed zombies who voted (and they really did vote – I repeat some of the mail-in-ballots are real) for Katie Hobbes in Arizona and John Fetterman in Pennsylvania, and so on.
You cannot reason with the “Woke” students – there is nothing there to reason with, nothing human left in them. Or if there is something human left in them, it is buried so deep under years (indeed decades) of conditioning that you cannot reach it – not before they tear you to pieces (as a “racist” or a “transphobe” or whatever).
That is the future the international community has planned for everyone – where even if they are starving, they will still demand more Collectivism, because they have been totally conditioned to hate and despise liberty and personal responsibility.
Remember your own example, the people who murdered the Romanovs did not produce a less Collectivist regime – they produced a vastly more Collectivist regime.
Even if people are starving they may still go along with the agenda – if they are no longer capable of understanding an alternative based on private (not government and pet corporate) ownership of land and manufacturing, commodity money (not fiat money) and Real Savings (not Credit Bubbble finance).
I make no apology for repeating what the economic foundations of this international establishment are.
“Climate Denier!” is much like “Election Denier!” – it is an effort to turn any dissent (on anything important) into “Holocaust Denial”.
Newspapers such as the New York Times in the United States and the Guardian in the United Kingdom supported tyranny overseas as long ago as the 1930s (for example Stalin – the Marxist ruler of the Soviet Union who murdered tens of millions of people), but they claimed to support Freedom of Speech at home – they even made a fetish of their support for dissent.
But since the 1960s the media has gradually changed – these days they are full Herbert Marcuse – Freedom of Speech is “Repressive Tolerance” because it supposedly harms “disadvantage groups”.
This does not just cover the Diversity Equity and Inclusion agenda – it covers everything, including “Climate Justice”.
In the world of the future there is no to be dissent, not on anything important, and Freedom of Speech will just be something that evil “racists and Transphobes” believe in.
That is what the schools and the universities have taught – no dissent, Freedom of Speech is “repressive tolerance” that harms “disadvantaged groups”.
Disadvantaged groups that include BlackRock – which controls ten trillion (trillion) Dollars of investments.
Thus Frankfurt School Marxism serves the Corporate State.