Antigravics

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>> Playwright Harold Pinter has launched a fierce critique of the Iraq War, branding the US President and British Prime Minister war criminals in his lecture as winner of this year's Nobel Prize for Literature.

Pinter has demanded George Bush and Tony Blair be prosecuted under international law in the lecture.

"The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law," he said.

"How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal?" Pinter asked.

"One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought.

"Therefore, it is just that Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice."

"The United States supported and in many cases engendered every right-wing military dictatorship in the world after the end of the Second World War," he said.

"I refer to Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador, and, of course, Chile.

"The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them.

"You have to hand it to America.

"It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force of universal good.

"It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis."

In his lecture, he emphasised the difference between the separate worlds of literature and political life.

He said in literature, "a thing is not necessarily either true or false. It can be both true and false," adding however that "as a citizen I must ask: What is true? What is false".

Politicians are not interested "in truth but in power and in the maintenance of that power," he said.

"The justification for the invasion of Iraq was that Saddam Hussein possessed a highly dangerous body of weapons of mass destruction. It was not true," he said.

"We were told that Iraq had a relationship with Al Quaeda and shared responsibility for the atrocity in New York of September 11, 2001. It was not true."

Pinter won the 2005 Nobel Prize for his plays, which according to the Nobel jury uncover "the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression's closed rooms".
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/20 ... 526403.htm

"Especially important is the warning to avoid conversation with the demon.

We may ask what is relevant, but anything beyond that is dangerous.

He is a liar, the demon is a liar.

He will lie to confuse us.

But he will also mix lies with the truth to attack us.

The attack is pychological,.. and powerful.

So don't listen, remember that, do not listen."


WP Blatty's "The Exorcist"

http://news.com.com/Estonia+to+hold+fir ... 61005.html

>> The Baltic state of Estonia plans to become the world's first country to allow voting in a national parliamentary election via the Internet next month--with a little help from the forest king.

E-voting will be introduced for a parliamentary election on March 4, for the first time after it was used in more limited local elections in 2005. It is a fresh sign of Estonia's strong embrace of technology since it quit the Soviet Union in 1991.

The e-voting system was tested earlier this week, including the chance to choose the "king of the forest". Voters could pick an animal from 10 candidates, including moose, deer and boars.

The voting will take place by people putting their state-issued ID card, which has an electronic chip on it, into a reader attached to a computer and then entering two passwords. >>

Comment
This method would allow voters an oportunity to vet any political proposals made by a government that step out of the boundaries of their stated electoral promises.

Today a political leader once elected can enact a policy way beyond electorial promises if they can get a majority vote. Such a system is basically open to a legal fraud upon the people.

Bring internet voting on.

http://www.livescience.com/health/07071 ... y_rad.html

>> The world’s first atomic bomb test might have exposed unaware civilians in New Mexico to thousands of times the recommended level of public radiation exposure, according to reconstructed data in a new study.

The research, led by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), found that ingestion of radioactive materials—primarily from irradiated rainwater and goat’s milk—might have been a substantial contributor to public radiation exposure that was largely not accounted for.

The findings come on the 62nd anniversary of the world’s first atomic explosion and were presented at the recent annual meeting of the Health Physics Society.

‘Trinity’

The world’s first nuclear weapons test took place on July 16, 1945 in the desolate White Sands deserts of New Mexico. In a cryptic reference to a John Donne poem that he knew and loved, J. Robert Oppenheimer, lead physicist of the Manhattan Project and scientific director of the test, dubbed the location “Trinity.â€

http://www.livescience.com/technology/0 ... egacy.html

>> In his final State of the Union address, President George W. Bush devoted several lines to science and technology topics. He called for research and funding to reduce oil dependency and reverse the growth of greenhouse gases.

"To keep America competitive into the future, we must trust in the skill of our scientists and engineers and empower them to pursue the breakthroughs of tomorrow," Bush said.

But several scientists around the country aren't buying what they see as rhetoric not backed by funding. And they are frustrated by what they view as the White House's morality-based politics that they say ignores scientific evidence, distorts facts and leads to outright censorship of reports and scientists. The White House responded to the criticisms point-by-point.

In email interviews this week with 21 researchers in various fields of study, LiveScience and SPACE.com found widespread criticism for Bush's "retardation of research," as one scientist put it, that threatens to knock the country out of its global leadership role in science and technology.

"Science has been seriously undermined by the censorship and alteration of testimony and news releases," said Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. "Science and facts are not a factor in decisions, and ideology dominates."

(A Democratic congressional report in December stated: "The Bush administration has engaged in a systematic effort to manipulate climate change science and mislead policymakers and the public about the dangers of global warming.")

"Scientific research and exploration have continued to advance during Bush's presidency," Peiser said. "The United States remains the top country in the world on every aspect of science and research and it is still the most popular destination for international scientists looking for a better career and future."

Trenberth's criticisms, however, were echoed by several researchers.

"Science establishes facts but facts can unmask bad policy," said Ken Caldeira, a climate and ecology researcher at Stanford University. "Thus good science has been seen as a threat by the Bush administration."

Alan W. Harris, senior research scientist at the Space Science Institute at La Canada, Calif., accused the White House of "systematic suppression of scientific evidence that does not support administration plans."

Responding to the criticisms, Kristin Scuderi, Director of Communications and Public Affairs at the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy, said thousands of scientists routinely conduct their business without controversy or complaint.

"There have been rare instances of inappropriate direction by individuals at the agency level, but these have been dealt with by the agency in each case," Scuderi said. "It is administration policy to rely on science, and such instances reflect errors in judgment made by individuals within agencies."

Joshua Hart, a psychologist at Union College in New York, summarized the frustrations of many researchers.

"The administration contributed egregiously to the false impression (among the public) of a scientific 'debate' about the existence and causes of global warming," Hart said. He also called "the retardation of research involving embryonic stem cells" one of the worst things that has happened during this administration, along with "the rolling back of funding of the social sciences."

"Since 2001 the administration has acknowledged the existence of global warming and the fact that human activities have contributed to it," Scuderi told LiveScience today. "It only takes a quick look at NASA or NOAA websites, for example to see that they reflect the actual state of the science of global warming. Prior to 2007 the basis for administration climate science policy was a report from the National Academy of Sciences. After 2007 the basis for climate policy has been the IPCC reports," referring to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

White House Office of Science & Technology Policy led the U.S. delegation to the IPCC, Scuderi said, "and has supported the IPCC process and endorsed its outcomes."

Hart also cited "the failure to adequately understand – and consequently convey to the public – the fact that the theory of intelligent design is consensually regarded, in the scientific community, as absolute horse**** unworthy of serious consideration ... thereby propagating, again, the illusion that there is substantive scientific debate on the topic (as opposed to the matter being settled, which it is, and unfit for inclusion in our nation’s science classes)."

"Intelligent Design is not regarded as a scientific topic," Scuderi countered. "The President's Science Advisor has been very clear on this point. The notion that the administration 'propagates' anything about intelligent design is absurd."

"A president who does not accept evolution is clearly someone who cannot change their mind in face of overwhelming factual evidence," said Sean Carroll, a professor of molecular biology and genetics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Suppressing science to suit policy is nothing new, explains Roger Launius, a former NASA historian and chairman of the Division of Space History at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.

Since the 1970s, Launius said, "some in industry and on the religious right have disliked the use of scientific studies by government officials as justification for actions that they viewed as counterproductive to their best interests." A broad and concerted effort to question scientific findings has affected everything from regulations on harmful chemicals and the control of tobacco to the energy issue, climate change, evolution, embryonic stem cell research, sex education and health care, he said.

"The Bush administration has been at the forefront of this effort in the first part of the 21st century," Launius said. "It represents a coordinated and frightening attack on the scientific consensus."

Launius said this administration "is probably not the worst ever when it comes to a commitment to science and technology, but it probably comes close."

One researcher who wished not to be named said "the further polarization and politicization of science" that has occurred under Bush "has been an outgrowth of partisanship that began during the Clinton administration."

The president got few high marks from the space-exploration community, either, his pledge in 2004 to return humans to the moon by 2020 seen as withering from lack of active support by the administration.

"NASA was given a vision, but neither the budget nor the political support to make it happen," said Joan Johnson-Freese, chair of the Department of National Security Studies at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. "That has to be addressed by the next administration."

Alan P. Boss, a planet-formation theorist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, said Bush is supportive of scientific research and exploration superficially, but not in practice.

"Most of the major science priorities in the vision, such as the Mars Sample Return mission and imaging extrasolar Earths, have been drastically reduced, delayed, or eliminated because of the shortage of funds to accomplish all of the worthy tasks in the vision," Boss said.

"The Bush administration has been supportive of the American Competitiveness Initiative," said Craig Wheeler, president of the American Astronomical Society. "That is good, but that support has not been translated into action and budgets."

Wheeler said something had to be done about the lack of vision for NASA after the Columbia tragedy. "The problem is that the administration did not maintain focus on that issue and the result is that NASA has been tasked with far too much with insufficient budget."

Scuderi said one of the vision's features "is that space exploration is 'a journey, not a race' and that it be accomplished 'step by step' in a sustainable way based on available budgets. NASA's budget is substantial, both for space science and for space exploration; its budget has grown steadily on an annual basis since the president announced the Vision for Space Exploration in 2004," she said.

"Currently NASA must fund both the vision and the shuttle program," Scuderi said. "And with the retirement of the Shuttle in 2010 — a pivotal element of the vision — NASA's budget will have significantly more resources available to accomplish the first lunar mission."

Others researchers, however, see the vision for NASA fading at a time when private enterprise aims high.

The vision has "effectively gutted existing programs in favor of much administrative restructuring that seems likely to be undone with a new administration next year," said Margaret C. Turnbull, an astrobiologist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. "Therefore I don't expect the vision to develop fully, and meanwhile the other big programs have been delayed or cancelled. Not good. These are uncertain times for space science, and our best hopes for near-term progress may be in privately funded initiatives, like the X-prizes."

Several researchers compared the soaring costs of defense spending with the flat or sinking budgets for science, basic technology research and educational initiatives to spur competitiveness.

"Our computers may be made in China, but most computers and software programs are designed in the U.S.," said Daniel Kruger of the University of Michigan's School of Public Health. "We have to be careful not to rest on our laurels though, lest we slip into a predominantly service economy."

Caldeira, the Stanford researcher said he "would like to see an administration that is willing to say: The world is round, life evolved on Earth over billions of years, humans are causing our climate to change, we or our children will need to pay later for what we buy on credit today, and consumption on this planet cannot grow exponentially forever without running into environmental constraints." >>.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6958091.stm

>> The Wall Street crash of 1929, "Black Thursday," was an event that sent the US and indeed the global economy into a tailspin, contributing to the Great Depression of the 1930s.

President Franklin Roosevelt led the US during the Great Depression
Franklin Roosevelt became US President after the crash
After a huge speculative rise in the late 1920s, based partly on the rise of new industries such as radio broadcasting and carmaking, shares fell by 13% on Thursday, 24 October.

Despite efforts by the stock market authorities to stabilise the market, stocks fell by another 11% the following Tuesday, 29 October.

By the time the market had reached bottom in 1932, 90% had been wiped off the value of shares. It took 25 years before the Dow Jones industrial average recovered to its 1929 level.

The effect on the real economy was severe, as widespread share ownership meant that the losses were felt by many middle-class consumers.

They cut their purchases of big consumer goods such as cars and homes, while businesses postponed investment and closed factories.

By 1932, the US economy had declined by half, and one-third of the workforce was unemployed.

The whole US financial system also went into meltdown, with a shutdown of the entire banking system in March 1933 by the time the new President, Franklin Roosevelt took office and launched the New Deal.

Many economists on both left and right have criticised the response of the authorities as inadequate.

The US central bank actually raised interest rates to protect the value of the dollar and preserve the gold standard, while the US government raised tariffs and ran a budget surplus.

New Deal measures alleviated some of the worst problems of the Depression, but the US economy did not fully recover until World War II, when massive military spending eliminated unemployment and boosted growth. >>>

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008 ... 235825.htm

>> We humans - especially those in the Western world - have never been healthier or freer from risk.

Yet according to Canadian author Dan Gardner, the Western world is in the midst of an epidemic of irrational fear.

The Canadian journalist has just published his book Risk: The Science and Politics Of Fear, in which he describes the growth of an unreasoning fear in all countries in the Western world and warns that this fear is causing us to make foolish, and at times, deadly decisions when we deal with everyday risks.

Mr Gardner says one of the most compelling examples of the dangers of irrational fear is the response of US travellers to the September 11 attacks.

"The difference in safety between driving and flying is enormous. Flying is vastly safer than driving," he said.

"So after the September 11 attacks, enormous numbers of Americans fled the airports and of course they still had to get around, so they started driving instead.

"As any statistician would tell you, when you have millions of people who are increasing their risk of something, then you're going to have consequences."

According to Mr Gardner, one researcher actually found that this shift from the airport to the roads resulted in the loss of approximately 1,500 American lives.

"That figure is actually six times higher than the number of people who were actually on the jets that crashed on September 11," he said.

But while there may at time be an overreaction, fear can also be entirely rational.

"Our brains did not evolve for this world. For example, here we are having a casual conversation as if we were sitting in the same room," Mr Gardner said.

"But we are in fact, on opposite sides of the planet. We've come to accept this is perfectly normal today, but in the span of human history this is absolutely a fantastically radical change.

"The brains we are using to try to grapple with this radically changed information environment were shaped in the Stone Age, so there's a radical mismatch between our intuitive systems for understanding risks and the world as it exists today."

Clearly, humans have had these "primitive" brains for quite some time. So why is it only in the last few decades that an irrational fear epidemic has emerged?

"Ask yourself this: before these last few decades, what sort of information environment do people live in?" Mr Gardner said.

"For example, after the London bombings, images taken by the cellphone camera of people who are on the train during the bombing were available all around the world, almost instantaneously."

Humans, it seems, are more aware of potential risks and catastrophes then they were a couple of centuries, or even a couple of decades ago.

But Mr Gardner says it is not a rational response to be more afraid when you have more information.

"If it were simply a matter of being aware, that's one thing," he said.

"But everyone in the English-speaking world knows that Madeleine McCann was the little British girl that was abducted and presumably murdered in Portugal.

"Now what does it say about my children, for example?... What does it say about their safety? Rationally, nothing, but that's not how the unconscious brain... assesses this information.

Mr Gardner says the brain has certain mechanisms that allow it to form quick judgements, which it then communicated as intuition, or hunches.

One of those mechanisms is called the availability heuristic. He says that if it is very easy for a person to think of an example of something, this mechanism communicates to us that thing must be common and therefore very likely to happen.

"It's absolutely untrue, but that's what you will feel - you will have a strong intuition that says 'this is true, be aware'," he said.

One of the toughest issues is whether people really are more irrationally afraid, or if there are simply different fears.

"It's how you quantify these things," Mr Gardner said.

"If you look at Western countries, you will find in country after country - and I don't know the situation in Australia, but I'm quite confident and I know how you'll respond to this - are our parents worried about their children being snatched by strangers?

"I suspect they are. Are they allowing them to play less outdoors unsupervised? I suspect there are. Do they put them in cars and drive them to school because they're afraid that they'll be abducted by strangers? I suspect they are.

"And why is that? I think it's because of this information environment."

Humans also tend to shrug off the bigger issues.

"It's the same as the intuitive mind, which can result in you greatly overestimating the risk of certain trivial risks," he said.

"It can also result in you greatly underestimating certain risks. One example is diabetes. Diabetes, particularly with the rise in obesity across the western world, is a very serious, serious business. People consistently underestimate the risk of diabetes.

"When it comes to determining the rationality of a fear, these things are open to debate... if you look at society-wide concerns, what are people bothered by?

"Those grand, global, catastrophic scenarios may compel some people, but they're not what show up as compelling the majority.

"The majority worries about crime, terrorism, child abduction, school violence, sort of more personal, local things."

And if an extraordinarily rare event occurs and gains media attention, Mr Gardner says this will cause public concern to rise.

"Public concern will draw politicians and they in turn will raise the volume," he said.

"That in turn will lead to more media reporting and all the while, of course, the public is processing this information using these Stone Age brains, the intuitive sense of threat rises.

"I've documented in the book some really quite extraordinary examples where there basically isn't any rise in the real, underlying risk, but because of this back and forth, this feedback, as we discuss it, the noise just gets louder and louder and and the fear just rises and rises." >>

http://physorg.com/news131969964.html

>> Using advanced functional imaging methods, New York University neuroscientists have found that certain motion pictures can exert considerable control over brain activity.

Moreover, the impact of films varies according to movie content, editing, and directing style. Because the study, which appears in Projections: The Journal for Movies and Mind, offers a quantitative neuroscientific assessment of the impact of different styles of filmmaking on viewers' brains, it may serve as a valuable method for the film industry to better assess its products and offer a new method for exploring how the brain works.

The researchers relied on two methodological tools in their study: functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and inter-subject correlation (ISC) analysis. fMRI utilizes a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner—like that routinely used for clinical evaluation of human anatomy. But it is reprogrammed to get a time-series of three-dimensional images of brain activity. In a typical fMRI experiment, a time-series of brain activity images is collected while a stimulus or cognitive task is varied.

ISC analysis is employed to measure similarities in brain activity across viewers—in this case, it compared the response in each brain region from one viewer to the response in the same brain region from other viewers. Because all viewers were exposed to the same films, computing ISC on a region-by-region basis identified brain regions in which the responses were similar across viewers.

"In cinema, some films lead most viewers through a similar sequence of perceptual, emotional, and cognitive states," the researchers wrote. "Such a tight grip on viewers' minds will be reflected in the similarity of the brain activity—or high ISC—across most viewers. By contrast, other films exert—either intentionally or unintentionally—less control over viewers' responses during movie watching. In such cases we expect that there will be less control over viewers' brain activity, resulting in low ISC."

To stimulate subjects' brain activity, the researchers showed them three motion picture clips: thirty minutes of Sergio Leone's "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly"; an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents "Bang! You're Dead"; and an episode of Larry David's "Curb Your Enthusiasm." To establish a baseline, subjects viewed a clip of unstructured reality: a 10-minute, unedited, one-shot video filmed during a concert in New York City's Washington Square Park.

The results showed that ISC of responses in subjects' neocortex—the portion of the brain responsible for perception and cognition—differed across the four movies:

-- The Hitchcock episode evoked similar responses across all viewers in over 65 percent of the neocortex, indicating a high level of control on viewers' minds;
-- High ISC was also extensive (45 percent) for "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly";
-- Lower ISC was recorded for "Curb Your Enthusiasm" (18 percent) and for the Washington Square Park, or unstructured reality, clip (less than 5 percent)

"Our data suggest that achieving a tight control over viewers' brains during a movie requires, in most cases, intentional construction of the film's sequence through aesthetic means," the researchers wrote. "The fact that Hitchcock was able to orchestrate the responses of so many different brain regions, turning them on and off at the same time across all viewers, may provide neuroscientific evidence for his notoriously famous ability to master and manipulate viewers' minds. Hitchcock often liked to tell interviewers that for him 'creation is based on an exact science of audience reactions.' "

However, the researchers emphasized that low and high ISC does not necessarily imply that the viewers were not attentive to or not engaged with the events in those films.

"ISC measures only the ability of the filmmaker to evoke similar responses across all viewers," they wrote. "Similar brain activity across viewers, or high ISC, can be taken as an indication that all viewers process and perceive the movie in a similar manner. Variability in the brain activity across viewers—that is, low ISC—can be due to either a less engaged processing of the incoming information, which occurs when daydreaming, or due to an intensely engaged but variable processing of a movie sequence."

For example, they add, an art film may demand an intense intellectual effort from viewers that differs from one viewer to the next, resulting in differences in neural activity.

Apart from the findings, the study points to a new method—inter-subject correlation (ISC) of brain activity—for measuring the effect of films on viewers' minds, which may pave the way to an innovative approach the researchers label "neurocinematic" studies. While they add that a cognitive science analysis of film is not new, functional imaging methods may be of use to both film theorists and the film industry by providing a quantitative, neuroscientific assessment of viewers' engagement with a film.

Source: New York University >>>

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/ ... 62,00.html

>> AUSTRALIA will join China in implementing mandatory censoring of the internet under plans put forward by the Federal Government.

The revelations emerge as US tech giants Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, and a coalition of human rights and other groups unveiled a code of conduct aimed at safeguarding online freedom of speech and privacy.

The government has declared it will not let internet users opt out of the proposed national internet filter.

The plan was first created as a way to combat child pornography and adult content, but could be extended to include controversial websites on euthanasia or anorexia.

Communications minister Stephen Conroy revealed the mandatory censorship to the Senate estimates committee as the Global Network Initiative, bringing together leading companies, human rights organisations, academics and investors, committed the technology firms to "protect the freedom of expression and privacy rights of their users".

Mr Conroy said trials were yet to be carried out, but "we are talking about mandatory blocking, where possible, of illegal material."

The net nanny proposal was originally going to allow Australians who wanted uncensored access to the web the option of contacting their internet service provider to be excluded from the service.

Human Rights Watch has condemned internet censorship, and argued to the US Senate "there is a real danger of a Virtual Curtain dividing the internet, much as the Iron Curtain did during the Cold War, because some governments fear the potential of the internet, (and) want to control it" >>>

http://www.white-history.com/hwrdet.htm









and much more at site

>> According to the 2000 US census, 88% of Detroit's population is non-White. This percentage is even higher in the city center. Detroit qualifies as the most ruined city in the USA. In addition to massive White Flight, the non-White residents started the tradition - which has spread to other cities - of "Devil's Night". This is the habit or burning down parts of the city on the night before Halloween.

A huge non-White population, combined with annual arson attacks, bankruptcy, crime and decay, have combined to make Detroit - once the USA's leading automotive industrial center - into a ruin comparable with those of the ancient civilizations - with the cause being identical: the replacement of the White population who built the city, with a new non-White population.>>>

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010 ... 839031.htm

>> An example of Switzerland's "direct democracy" in which any citizen who collects 100,000 signatures from eligible voters can force a nationwide referendum on their chosen cause.

# "I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution - taking from the federal government their power of borrowing." - Thomas Jefferson

# "History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance." - James Madison

# "Politicians are the same all over: they promise to build a bridge even where there is no river."
- Nikita Khrushchev

# "Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws." - Mayer Amschel Rothschild

# "When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes... Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain." - Napoleon Bonaparte

# "If the American people only understood the rank injustice of our money and banking system - there would be a revolution before morning..." - Andrew Jackson

# "Whosoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce... And when you realise that the entire system is very easily controlled, one way or another, by a few powerful men at the top, you will not have to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate." - James Garfield 1881

http://www.alternet.org/media/146005/we ... us_moments

We Stand on the Cusp of one of Humanity's Most Dangerous Moments
We will have to resist the temptation to fold in on ourselves and to ignore the cruelty outside our door.

>> March 18, 2010 |
Aleksandr Herzen, speaking a century ago to a group of anarchists about how to overthrow the czar, reminded his listeners that it was not their job to save a dying system but to replace it: “We think we are the doctors. We are the disease.” All resistance must recognize that the body politic and global capitalism are dead. We should stop wasting energy trying to reform or appeal to it. This does not mean the end of resistance, but it does mean very different forms of resistance. It means turning our energies toward building sustainable communities to weather the coming crisis, since we will be unable to survive and resist without a cooperative effort.

These communities, if they retreat into a pure survivalist mode without linking themselves to the concentric circles of the wider community, the state and the planet, will become as morally and spiritually bankrupt as the corporate forces arrayed against us. All infrastructures we build, like the monasteries in the Middle Ages, should seek to keep alive the intellectual and artistic traditions that make a civil society, humanism and the common good possible. Access to parcels of agricultural land will be paramount. We will have to grasp, as the medieval monks did, that we cannot alter the larger culture around us, at least in the short term, but we may be able to retain the moral codes and culture for generations beyond ours. Resistance will be reduced to small, often imperceptible acts of defiance, as those who retained their integrity discovered in the long night of 20th-century fascism and communism. >>>

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