Is hyperinflation coming?

Some say yes. Shadowstats.com has a March 2011 report titled "Hyperinflation Special Report." It states:

"GAAP-based (generally accepted accounting principles) accounting then showed total federal obligations at $50 trillion—more than four-times the level of U.S. GDP—that were increasing each year by GAAP-based annual deficits in the uncontainable four- to five-trillion dollar range.  Those extreme operating shortfalls continue unabated, with total federal obligations at $76 trillion—more than five-times U.S. GDP—at the end of the 2010 fiscal year.  Taxes cannot be raised enough to bring the GAAP-based deficit into balance, and the political will in Washington is lacking to cut government spending severely, particularly in terms of the necessary slashing of unfunded liabilities in government social programs such as Social Security and Medicare."

Even if our government taxed every penny of wealth of every citizen in the nation, it wouldn't meet this obligation, estimated at $70 trillion. And even if all Americans were willing to go to work for the government without getting paid, to pay off our national debt, we know this would just encourage further spending sprees by those in Congress.

I'd heard that even if the incomes of everyone in the United States making over $100,000 were seized, taxed at 100%, it still wouldn't cover the budget deficit for this year at $1.6 trillion.

Propping up the Ponzi

The vast amount of money owed isn't a problem if the Fed simply buys up the government's debt, using freshly minted (or created into existence digitally) dollars.

The Treasuries that the Federal Reserve buy allows Fedgov to keep on functioning, despite the huge gap between tax receipts and expenditures. The gap is growing as receipts decline, due to massive tax breaks, and expenditures increase due to unfunded wars and "entitlements."

The scheme does break down when interest rates go up, or a sovereign debt downgrade happens. In their debate Tuesday over extending the debt ceiling, some members of Congress actually cited the S&P's reports on the possibility of a reduction in our nation's credit ranking, an event which would overnight make borrowing much more expensive.

If a debtor, even the size of our government, has too much debt then its creditors will react. Most often lenders demand more interest income in exchange for accepting the higher risk level associated with government debt.

If interest rates for government debt go up, other forms of debt issued by the private sector must necessarily go up. The reason for this effect is simple: if the government can print money to pay back its creditors, there's no credit risk at all. In reality, no matter how much debt Fedgov sells, it can simply print up the cash when they mature. On the other hand private corporations and states must actually accumulate the revenue by which they pay back their bondholders.

The relationship between the Fed and the banks creates a negative status quo, allowing the US government to borrow far more than other debtors ever could, given the total amount owed and questionable ability to pay it back, except through printing it. The method that allows the borrowing to continue unabated is when bond proceeds are rolled over, reinvested in the new debt.

Purchasers of US government bonds often use maturing AAA Treasuries and agency debt to buy newly issued AAA government debt. This replenishment function allows the debtor to keep borrowing, and disguising to the creditor his dependency.

The creditor in this situation becomes co-dependent, nurturing the debtor's habit to the point they feel obligated to continue to invest in Treasuries, or else bad things can happen. Of course there's the possibility that a financial entity choosing to cash out could be "Lehman'ed" or denied the privilege of borrowing new money from the Federal Reserve. Keep funding government through purchases of its debt--whatever its attractiveness--and your place at the trough will remain assured.

Another risk inherent in cutting off the debt addict is the possibility that the entire debt could become worthless, a write-off. As it is, the tax receipts drawn through the government offer enough to pay off the interest. US government borrowing in this respect is an interest-only proposition, as the total amount of debt--revalued to net present value--exceeds the ability of the US to repay.

Bad debts considered good

One way to cope that a lender can cope with debts that can't be repaid is to deny it. The best example of this might be from Japan's banks. From the beginning of the so-called Lost Decade, Japanese banks steadfastly refused to write off bad debt they were owed, largely from established clients in with huge investments in soured commercial real estate.

Rather than cut off their clients, the banks opted to preserve relations--a euphemism for looking the other way. It was easier on the bank's strained balance sheets to maintain the presumption that the bad loans weren't bad. If the loans were revalued to their market value, the losses would impact the banks' profit and loss statements and their stock market performance.

In some cases the banks went so far as to actually make new loans to their existing clients no matter what their creditworthiness. Better to preserve the illusion that their biggest clients were the best than to put into question the quantity of debt they'd lent, an issue that would reflect very poorly on the bank.

Relationship banking, with a price

Why is the Japanese example so important? An image-conscious industry, banks in particular are prone to bury their losses and misrepresent the credit quality of their holdings when it helps them. This is especially true for mortgage-backed securities. If the houses can't be sold for anything near their stated value, the banks have to recognize massive losses. Instead, it's easier to hide the scope of mortgage credit quality decline, and far more prudent as home mortgages provide the bulk of a bank's collateral. To qualify for government assistance, banks need to make home loans. The more mortgages a bank has on its books, the more it can borrow, then lend.

Home loans made in the past--many with a lack of caution--need to be preserved on the banks' books or they lose their chief source of collateral that allows them to draw more capital from the Federal Reserve and federal lending programs. Naturally, when the values of the mortgages unwind, so too does the stability of the bank's overall portfolio, as it needs to maintain a certain percentage of its outstanding loans in cash, a task made hard-to-impossible when the banks' main source of capital--mortgages--are constantly losing value.

This fear of marking-to-market may explain why banks are content to keep mortgages locked down rather than offer them for resale at prices far lower than the original mortgage, a process that would require them to recognize their losses. And considering the capital that they draw on from each mortgage may be levered nine or ten times, the amount of outstanding loans are vulnerable to capital requirements. According to the federal lending scheme, once the collateral banks use to borrow--the mortgages they lend--drop in value, vast portions of a bank's lending portfolio must be reevaluated based on the risk once the underlying collateral dissipates.

Banks borrow. Without that ability, they couldn't make money, especially in a declining real estate market like ours today or Japan's in the recent past. So it's the mechanism--a scheme really--that allows banks to borrow using mortgages as collateral that continues to threaten the economy.

Any effort to stimulate spending by loaning more to the banks has actually done nothing to help the economic recovery. Quantitative easing has failed to produce real economic gains; it may however have stymied even worse outcomes than slow growth we're now seeing in the U.S..

One big reason for the failure of so much easing to stimulate the economy is that the stimulus isn't getting into the hands of spenders. Nor is it going in to the purchase of new homes--new home starts have declined, there are fewer buyers as well. Where did the money go? To balance the books of the banks. The need to recapitalize was based on a decline in the real value of their mortgage holdings. With mortgages worth so much less, banks could only absorb the cash to cover tightening loan loss provisions--requirements imposed on banks in times of a deteriorating credit environment.

Back in the roaring mid-00's, Freddie and Fannie had no problem pumping vast sums into the mortgage market through the banks. Housing values were climbing, demand was higher, as evidenced by the number of starts. People were working and able to buy more house (more than they could afford in many cases.)

That all changed when the housing market went bust. To make matters worse, the decline of the financial economy meant the real economy went with it. Housing, you see, isn't just another industry; it's a bell weather of the general economy. Look around you and see how many people worked in housing at the peak of the bubble. Many are currently unemployed--most seem to have left the new home construction business permanently.

Of course the damage to the real economy carried over to the banks, who saw profits on mortgage-backed securities turn sour, and even worse, many of these debt instruments were/are impossible to value and thus illiquid, at least until Bernanke and the Fed agreed to accept them in exchange for AAA Treasuries, in what was a outright transfer of risk from the private sector to the public.

Of course all that crap the banks pawned off on the Federal Reserve is toxic. Just like the commercial real estate debt that the Japanese banks carried, the MBSs were concealed from public view, where the public or bank shareholders might give pause to what they were told about their valuations.

And now the Federal Reserve has to keep buying government debt to manage the completely unsustainable deficit. The mortgage securities they bought at the height of the financial crisis languish deep in some Federal Reserve vault, unable to be sold and thus unable to be valued.

An asset of indeterminate value is worth far less than a low price, meaning that the Fed and everyone concerned would be better off--although not in the short run--to open their books to the world and create a market for all the MBSs where price levels can be determined. Otherwise the motive to obfuscate will continue, and weaken the Federal Reserve's fiscal condition.

Finding religion

One area where help could be bestowed on this process is through the nomination of Harvard professor Elizabeth Warren to a post of power, a move which the Republicans and Wall Street have vigorously resisted. By putting Warren in charge of at least some of the much-needed regulatory reform, a new precedent concerning transparency can be set.

Without creating a means to sell these depreciated securities, the assets on which they're based, the houses themselves, become illiquid. Foreclosures become questionable. Even the banks' own MERS computer system can't identify the paper trail establishing rightful legal ownership of property. Apparently during the boom years, everyone was in too much of a hurry to actually follow proper procedure, as determined as so many issuers of the original mortgages were to sell them off. So vast numbers of mortgages were bundled then sold to anyone who'd buy them.

Now, trying to reestablish who actually owns the properties has become uncertain in many cases. Besides, since the mortgages are bundled and distributed to different buyers, no single security holder can claim exclusive ownership of any single property. Legally trying to foreclose can therefore become a thorny issue.

All the while Fedgov has done all it can to insulate the banks from excessive risk-taking and borrowing during the boom years. Of course, handouts from the Federal Reserve (which found their way into the central bank of Libya no less) just encourage more risky behaviors. Rather than punish those who took too much risk, the consequences are mollified, undoubtedly encouraging more poor decisions by bankers and more systemic risk as all those bankers start swapping derivatives among themselves, thereby allowing new bubbles to be created for short-term profit--precisely the problem that got us into the 2008-9 mess.

How can it not happen again? How can the perfect storm come apart? It's possible to make our dollars stronger if enough of them are destroyed. If housing gets bad enough, and homes lose value, it's possible to shrink the money supply--a phenomena that just happened. Money--or, to be more accurate, bank credits--actually disappear, making the dollars out there worth more, a deflationary happening. Couple the drooping housing prices with broad unemployment and you have a recipe not for inflation but deflation.

The other side

Mike Shedlock, writing in The Market Oracle, makes a compelling case that hyperinflation isn't happening, nor will it any time soon in his article "Hyperinflation Nonsense Continues."

Among his many salient points, Shedlock explains that "Currencies are fungible" thus it doesn't matter what currency countries want to trade in. Dollars are worth in other currencies what they're worth and the dollars don't need to be actually held. With financial transactions occurring simultaneously the only consideration of whether to trade in dollars or not is the cost of exchanging them for local currency.

Hyperinflationists might add that if the US dollar is constantly losing value it doesn't make sense to hold a stash of dollars but rather use the dollar for the purpose of calculating cross-currency transactions only. In this regard, it doesn't matter what the dollar is worth persay, only what it's worth at any given time.

In this respect the dollar isn't so much an international reserve currency as a entry field on a calculator.

Mr. Shedlock goes on to quote monthly CPI using the government's figures--a proposition that got me going to shadowstats, above. The numbers appearing there are quite different than the government's on everything from unemployment to GDP. Shedlock criticizes high inflation expectations, while ignoring the fact that the government can avoid billions by understating CPI, due to the higher yields it'd be forced to pay on its TIPS, not to mention Social Security COLA increases. Evidence of motive to understate inflation isn't the same as understating inflation but it isn't a leap...

The real meat of the issue is whether economic activity slows enough to forestall the massive devaluation of our currency. If housing values collapse far enough, the total measure of money shrinks. We saw this on the upside in the housing market when money supply increased as housing supply increased. Home loans allowed the increase in values to increase the money supply. The same mechanism works in reverse: when housing bottoms, people own less, and they can't borrow. Capital dries up.

Shedlock makes the point that the loss of so much capital will "act as an economic drag for a long time." If for instance people are deeply enough in debt, without jobs, or with mortgages of declining value, neither an increase in available credit nor increased government borrowing/spending will be enough to cause hyperinflation.

Shedlock ascribes hyperinflation to political forces not economic ones. He may be right but I think the Austrian school is correct when it states that Washington, D.C. is increasingly the central focus of our economy. With the federal government hiring so many, increasingly the American people's economic future is tied to the efficacy of government borrowing operations. To finance the unsustainable, Fedgov turns to the Federal Reserve and banks.

Paradoxically, it's the bankers and overseas creditors who might force fiscal discipline on Washington. By forcing Fedgov to pay interest on what it borrow, the value of the dollar might be preserved and hyperinflation downgraded to mere inflation. The IRS taxing scheme was set up to allow the US to pay its debts off. Without taxes, a Lincoln-era greenback might become the money of the land, a currency issued directly by Congress that bears no interest. So the banking constituency provides a constraint on federal spending. The interest rate mechanism of course means the more Fedgov borrows, the more interest its lenders make. Yet without interest, the borrowing could go on ad nauseum, kind of like it does today, with near-zero interest rates propelling the spending spree.

Chances are, until interest rates rise and punish the borrowers, fiscal restraint is impossible. In this respect, financing federal spending through the private Federal Reserve cartel may yet offer some protection to the value of our money. Even so, I'd say that the shock created by spending cuts--"starving the beast"--will bring sufficient social turmoil capable of generating a political force capable of bringing rise to hyperinflation. Once the people realize Medicare and Social Security cuts are coming, they'll look for scapegoats. Above all, politicians will for political reasons avoid the backlash and spend freely, essentially bribing the voter.

Now as even Mr. Shedlock agrees, the economic damage create by political turbulence provides a more likely source of hyperinflation. At that time, it won't matter whether or not hyperinflation has begun. It will only matter if it's too late to salvage the empire's currency, once the empire has no more credit nor the political will to make the sacrifices necessary to stop spending too much. Printing money will simply become the great political expedient.

///

Recent comments at OpEdNews.com are here and here, with the latter being about the Executive branch power grab.

Web-based truths obligate us to prepare

There seem to be two takes on the response to the fallout. One says that there's an ongoing leak and the risk must be acknowledged. Another, held by the docile Americans, holds that what the government tells us about fallout means we don't have to do anything to react.

Well, the question of fallout is an objective one: there either is or isn't a direct risk. Now if there's a direct risk, some could argue it may not require taking precautions, being that the risk is too low. That assessment of the risk should be the result of objective analysis of all relevant facts, and presume a worst case scenario.

In the Internet age, if government simply says there's no risk, people are bound to question authority. While there've been plenty of good reasons to distrust the mainstream media, this in itself is NOT proof that a conspiracy is afoot. The media may just be parroting what the government tells them.

Complaints have been lodged that there is a mainstream media blackout over the impact of the leak. One theory would have us believe that the media blackout (or tone-down) is a cooperative effort by GE, which owns NBC-MSNBC with Comcast. This concept has added weight considering the Fukushima plant was built by GE on a GE design.

Not so much now--with the Libya story asserting itself--but earlier, CNN and Anderson Cooper were far more involved in the radioactive leak story, going as far as to stand among Tokyo skyscrapers with a handheld radiation meter.

Since Libya, the mainstream media has been distracted away from Japan. The nuclear incident seems to have been buried with tsunami rubble--a tragedy but one that's ended, whose time is passed. I wonder sometimes if Libya isn't a synthetic controversy meant to distract the American public from the radiation over their heads.

Unfortunately we can't assume the danger is passed here in the U.S., despite what our leaders tell us. The real story is actually how little government will do.

This lack of information makes us vulnerable. More than in the past, I'm roused by the need to provide the missing information. This is a instinct, I guess, that motivates me to write specifically for the Web. People will find out the truth, which can lead them to do the right things, saving future suffering.

The need to take action should at some point exceed the need to get accurate information, a function provided through the Web better than through other media. Yet as valuable as the Web is, it doesn't do the work. Many take no action on what they learn on the Web although the numbers who rely on it are growing. The recent Fukushima event has many pondering the effects; those with access to the Web are typically more aware of the situation.

Like the poor people who took to the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon leaked, what you don't know can kill you. Corexit 9500 dispersant made swimming treacherous. I've read stories of swimmers and recreational water users contracting what appears to be chemical poisoning and burns. For more see my envirosite articles on the spill from last year.

Anyway, information is only so valuable. Taking action is the key to this disaster. Whereas people in the Gulf could move away, or stay off the water, we can't avoid downwind radiation. Now as small as the risk may be, it's the absence of information coming out of our government that rightfully scares us.

This post actually began as a comment on the U.S. government response to Fukushima at OpEdNews.com titled, "Only fact is we are on our own." I cross-posted a recent article there on the Fukushima leaks from my enviro-site (link below.)

~start comment~
"I wrote on the radiation at OpEdNews before (here and here) agree there's a cover-up in play, and that the fallout posed a bigger threat than was being explained in the corporate media.

Just how bad is the radioactive fallout? We know there's some out there, but unless we have our own Geiger counter, how are we to know what's irradiating us?

This lack of information makes us vulnerable. As individuals, it would appear there is little we can do. Even most libertarians would accept that nuclear accidents are not solvable (nor preventable) by individuals but rather a responsibility of the state.

[To quote the author...]"Yet the administration has not provided us with a national supply of KI, or guidance for using it."

I agree with the urgency of the author's message. Nuclear accidents are a disaster that the people are very much forced to depend on government. 

As those resources are stretched--and cuts in budgets add up--I think we owe it to our families to be better prepared.

If there was a silver lining to Katrina, it was to give Americans a preview of what to expect in the event of a widespread disaster. Inadequate responses are to be expected. We can complain rightfully, that gov't has a responsibility but if it lacks the capacity to react, the accident moves on to "disaster status."

I think the Deepwater Horizon typified this helplessness. Let the maintenance degrade, let the regulators get "captured" by Big Oil hookers and free drugs and a crisis is inevitable. Same with cutting banking regs.

The inadequacy of the Fedgov response is an opportunity for the private sector. Naomi Klein has called this "disaster capitalism."

I've heard that with nukes, power companies must make some safety shortcuts in order to be profitable. In other words, if they do everything they can to make nukes safe, then they'll lose money. That's hardly a bullish indicator for this industry.

While the Deepwater was doomed due to profit motive, I guesss Fukushima was destined to fail based on the proximity to the ocean."
~End Comment~

Just how quickly would the government response degrade? First, there's the sheer number of incidents to manage in a disaster. Communication problems abound. In 9-11, we saw a failure to coordinate radio frequency and provide the right equipment to emergency response personnel.

Then there are people who are completely unprepared. They may not anticipate a crisis nor its combined effect. Elderly loosing medicine, for instance. Or tourists and the such, who can't evacuate. For more on the "golden horde," see the survivalist perspective below.

Much of the deterioration in the response can be attributed to human error in making bad decisions. For instance, people might stay to try and weather a hurricane, then back out and request assistance.

Or it could be like hundreds of motorists stranded on Lake Shore Drive in a recent snowstorm. They were explicitly to stay off the road but used it anyway.


Like other recent tragedies, there's now a sustained pattern of government neglect. I'm not going as far as to say there's a conspiracy afoot, but the bankers' bailout in 2008 showed, that given the right level of political influence in Washington, the private sector could exploit any tragedy. Nuclear leaks may be too politically unattractive, compared to post-war reconstruction, for instance. There's nothing good created out of protection, little to show for the vast expenses.

I would argue that we the people have a right to know the threat posed by the leaks. If people don't prepare, then they choose to trust their government.

Cynicism is well-placed. By not trusting the Official Explanation (whatever the crisis), we're more prone towards self-sufficiency, which has become something of a lost art in America.

Many of us simply don't have the stamina to raise our own food, store enough properly, and handle the physical end of a homestead-type existence. So we've become dependent on our roads, our sewers, our way of life can't sustain itself without cheap fuel. We've grown accustomed to having anything we want available to buy. Without power, or our credit cards, we're made mostly powerless.

The corollary of being dependent is to put trust into government to provide for us what we can't for ourselves. In times of crisis, this faith is misplaced. As systems on which we've grown to rely break down, we're bound to find ourselves dealing with a new reality.

Of course a energy crisis alone can't end America, it can end American as we know it, what survivalists might call TEOTWAKI: the end of the world as we know it. Rather than a deconstruction, the lifestyle would shift towards a simpler existence, marked with hard physical work for many. Rather than base our existence on the automobile alone, we'd be drawn to more primitive forms of transportation. Economic might similarly depart from traditional definitions as mechanisms like barter and alternative currencies--like work-for-time credit--replace a fiat currency decimated by overspending.

Now many of us wouldn't choose a frontier lifestyle. Not of our own free will at least. People would more likely sit around and wait for someone else to serve their problems. Some things would change but remain. Commerce/trade would persist into what some might call the End Times, kind of like the movie Eli, which I reviewed here last year.

I think the Mad Max series of movies typifies the kind of societal breakdown that could occur. We'd go from a system of justice to a society that's at the mercy of its own fragility. At this first stage, police would find themselves outnumbered by gangs. We're seeing this along the Mexican American border--no one wants to oppose the gangs.

The next stage is a more thorough decapitation of society. Authority wouldn't flow from the top-down but rather by those with the most power, who use it to increase their strength and popularity largely at the expense of weaker groups and the disorganized. Small feudal groups grapple with each other for control of dwindling resources.

The we get to Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, where a twisted form of order is established. In some ways we can see the seeds of our future self-destruction in the rudimentary reestablishment of that society. Fights are settled in an enclosed arena, where the bloodthirsty madness of the group turns even the mentally handicapped into objects of public sport.

Yes, we've regained some stability by that time, but the society is simply too warped to be worth saving, again, from self-destruction. What fell off the wall can't be put back together again. Or can it? Should it be saved, or will a better one come of the former's destruction? Popular support sides with optimism, for instance at the end of the movie Eli, where historians assemble knowledge lost during the apocalypse.

Whatever the final outcome, it's a scary thought to consider the enormous suffering that accompanies a End Times-like event. Mind you that I'm not saying we're in the End Times, but rather than apocryphal literature and perspectives created in popular fiction may turn out to be accurate in some respects. In our age, End Times fantasy offers relief, a form of entertainment.

Instead of ignoring any possibility of risk (and thereby justify the lazy approach to do nothing about it), it's better to prepare for something bad to happen. The alternative is to accept what happens to you, like the half million Japanese in refugee camps. And if it can happen there, it can happen anywhere. Sure, there may not be a fault line where you life, but nuclear plants can leak, even far away.

A big downside of preparing is dealing with those who haven't prepared. I find the survivalist perspective entertaining in this regard. Yes, it does dehumanize the golden horde--not unlike a zombie shooter--but I guess this is the price that must be paid to keep yourself safe...or so they believe.
The original article by Brian T. at survivalblog.com explains:

"Misconception number five:  Needy hungry hordes will come from town.  Not likely, when local resources (read: booze and junk food), and the aid from whatever governmental response is exhausted they will do nothing.  By nothing I mean nothing that need concern you. They will sit in a refugee center or at home and pass the time playing cards, talking but essentially just waiting. Certainly the burning and looting that started seconds after the beginning of the event will increase until there is nothing left to burn or steal.  When food and clean bedding all run out they are not likely to walk out of town any more then than before. They are weaker by that time and as out of shape as most of us. They have rarely walked any distance at all in their adult lives and are unlikely to start now. The biggest reason is that they are psychologically predisposed, brainwashed, to wait for rescue and will stay in town.  It is easier to wait and thus easier to make hunger somebody else’s problem. With no gas and no desire to do any tiresome walking means you are not going to see many if any at your BOL(Bug Out Location.)  Most will sit and if they move at all they will head for another urban area rumored to be better, particularly if they are being trucked there by the National Guard or other entity..."

I'm not a survivalist nor ascribe to this opinion, but with so many real life horror stories, who can afford to ignore this zombification theme? On the other hand, I've been reading that interpersonal relations will become more necessary during End Times. Your life could depend on that doctor you know, or your replenishing food supply, or just in making a mutual support society in order to deal with the many issues of that period.

At the very least, those who've put in the work required to protect themselves can enjoy the benefits. The unprepared meanwhile will be like locusts, hungry and desperate. I read the following from a recent article on a survivalist site:

"the "golden hoards" actually are...your friends, family and unprepared next door neighbors and theirs, and theirs, and theirs. They will be the ones at your doorstep, if they know you have food and other supplies.
Can you turn them away? Will you shoot them if they won't leave? Will you risk sacrificing the lives of your family by joining the rest of the lemmings in the G.O.O.D. traffic jam? These are the big questions that need to be dealt with by those who are conditioning their minds for the realities of such events."

We don't see this deterioration in Japan. Survivalists would argue that's only because the response can be sustained for so long and that government-provided resources will quickly run out in a real crisis.

I saw this comment by Pogue on a post about the tsunami which exposes the schadenfreude some preppers might feel when crisis hits the unprepared:
"I love watching people panic over nothing. Ever notice how bad people freak out over a winter storm? They get the survival french toast makings (eggs, milk, bread) and go nuts. And ever see how many people wait until the last minute to evacuate ahead of a hurricane they’ve known about for a week. A disaster in the US would see total chaos. Hell, when Homestead was flattened in 1993, the people there rioted when the USG didn’t rescue them within 24 hours."
///

Pointing the finger first at ourselves

We're living in a world that we've created and we have no one but ourselves to blame. Our politics, economy and environment are all suffering from a lack of collective goodwill. Committed to ourselves instead of others, we've become a mob. The planet's suffering grows increasingly urgent and obvious with every passing day.

We all want the freedom that comes from democracy but no one wants to do the work. Jefferson said eternal vigilance was the price of liberty.

Our nation has always heralded individual rights and we all firmly believe what is right, in our Bill of Rights. Today, those who claim to support the rule of law are referred to as Constitutionalists, who are relegated to representation not in either major party but the Tea Party.

The Establishment should heed the will of the populace, which increasingly goes ignored. I guess if we were a pure democracy, our nation's policies and actions of our government would reflect the popular will. In framing the Constitution, the Founders feared government run solely by popular opinion, as this could easily fall prey to hysteria and hatred.

There are a few persistent violations of our Constitutional rights looming today. Our privacy is routinely violated. Corporations rule. The legal premise that all men are created equal should mean something. Corporations can't be people. Only people can be people.

We're being challenged in a number of ways, with our individual rights and freedoms under attack. We were told in the beginning of the age of Terror that our way of life made us a target, and to this day we're instructed to give up freedoms for security.

A nation of laws abides by the law but recent examples have shown that those with the money make the rules, a belief held by Macchiavelli, a great mind who lived in an age of greed and deceit not too different from today's.

We can blame culture for much of our self-inflicted misery. In our society, the prevailing attitude puts "me" above "we. Cocooned in an tapestry rich with marketing messages, individualism has devolved into unrepentant hyper-consumption.

The Boomer generation's lifestyle obsesses over luxury, and shopping, which brings only transient happiness. Spending makes one feel good but a lack of savings mean few will be prepared for retirement. We all know how easy it is to defer tomorrow's problems until tomorrow. I worry sometimes that the generations that follow the Boomers--a group to which I belong--has been tainted by so much crass consumerism. These days, movements towards self-reliance and re-localization are resurgent though.

Hard economic limits have emerged out of unchecked consumption, when the crash of 2008-9 dried out access to credit. Maybe the change, shock therapy though it may be, isn't such a bad thing after all. Simple as it may sound, we need to not spend to spend.

Yet the financial pain will continue, particularly for the middle classes decimated by falling real estate values, outsourcing, and high unemployment. Dependent on consumption-oriented financing, our economy now flails, drained of its chief source of sustenance, more debt. Our spendthrift, high-borrowing ways are repeated by our government. Like a borrower, our government spends money we don't have.

The burden of repayment--plus interest--falls to future taxpayers. Also, our government's excessive borrowing has led investor funds away from other worthy investments. In economic terms, this is called crowding out, a process whereby investors avoid riskier forms of debt (corporate, municipal) and instead go into bonds issued by our government.

For our government and private individuals, overspending--and its twin, over-borrowing--have forged an unsustainable path. We know things will get worse but how much worse will things have to get before they change? Until we stop the misbehaviors that have led us into the predicament we all share, the problems will only worsen, though their impacts might be delayed.

Another trend we've seen is that of neglect. Too much in our nation has been deferred. We've neglected our responsibility to leave future Americans a country in as good a shape as the nation we inherited.

Any society or person who puts off what can be done in the present is prone to ignore the effects of its procrastination. In our always-on, 24/7/365 world we do have good reasons for neglecting the future in favor of the immediacy of the present. There's so much to do, so much we think we need but really only want.

Environmental health and economic growth

The environment has been neglected, and we've seen this in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as in the ravaged mountains of Appalachia which have succumbed to mountaintop removal. We've been told by our representatives that regulation is bad, even if the companies they really represent systematically plunder the earth and deplete resources at unsustainable rates.

For a long time, economic growth has been posed as an either/or to economic growth. Judging by the massive BP oil spill, most of the damage is economic in nature. The millions of people whose businesses have suffered are the victims, right alongside the Gulf region and its wildlife. So the price of environmental neglect and pollution is economic more than anything, which makes assumptions about economic growth vs. the environment obsolete.

To keep economic growth, a new paradigm is emerging: sustainable growth. The extractive industries like mining and drilling need to practice sustainability or be force to practice it. Otherwise companies like BP will take unacceptable risks and damage the rights of others to utilize the seas, which are a shared resource, not the exclusive property of any one corporation.

A reckoning might not be that far off. Global warming could shorten vastly the time between what we do to the Earth and the consequences. With the combustion engine spewing out so much CO2, it's only a matter of time before the impact of too much CO2--heating--is felt in the environment.

Another one goes in the Gulf

Recent events are an indication that more environmental destruction is on the way. I just saw today that another well had blown up in the Gulf of Mexico. Reports are sketchy at the present, but I believe we'll see a pattern of regulatory violations--coupled with inadequate enforcement by Fedgov--that preceded that event.

We've all heard that Gulf oil drilling goes deeper and deeper, and all the risks associated with that, but the Norwegians don't seem to lose their deep water wells like we do, at a rate of 2/year or more.

How much of the ecological damage could have been prevented by adequate enforcement? I'm not going to guess. I will tell you that I don't dwell on "could" scenarios. It's pointless speculation. I'd rather dwell in certainties and try to limit timeframes. It is certain global warming is occurring. We see the effects what I call Global Climate Radicalization frequently.

We can hardly decide on what to call it--it being this odd potpourri of droughts, floods, storms, and forest fires. The "climate change" label is more accurate than calling it "warming" as we can anticipate heat but not the effects of heat. You just get a sense that something bad is out there. {For readers of my review of the movie The Road, we get a sense of some troubles out the window, where The Man (played by Mortensen) is illuminated by fires burning outside and shuts the window.

To give a good example, the link between mismanagement of forests and flooding is strongly established. Cut down the trees upstream and, surprise, you get more flooding downstream. Until a big rain comes--an event more likely with climate change--people can ignore the loss of vegetation. It's only when flooding worsens to apocalyptic levels that people can guess the a major compounding contributor: deforestation.

Apparently the horrible situation in Pakistan was made possible not by too much rain (as likely as that is in the New Normal) but by clandestine cutting of forests. If the environmental axiom that fewer tree=more flooding holds, then the failure to protect Pakistan's forests is a big deal. Now, and only now, with so many homeless, can the people and government address the need to protect their forests. This new direction will clearly face reactionary forces which exploit the corruptibility of officials in the Third World.

How soon before they forget? Or, to be blunt, how bad does it have to get before people start taking environmental protection seriously? Well, if the politicians aren't accountable, they might choose to ignore illegal deforestation, which makes future flooding not only worse but entirely preventable.

Another area where decay is evident is our infrastructure. I've seen no mention of bridge repair despite the horrific collapse of a major bridge in Minneapolis three years ago. The problem might not be that things are going wrong, but rather no one seems to be taking responsibility with preventing tragedies. All our politicians want to pose as if they're helping once the disaster strikes, but where is the leadership (and media spotlight) when it comes to the little but vital improvements that need to be continually made?

Our image-conscious politicians don't see much gain in infrastructure. The American people seem unwilling to make repair of our nation's crumbling infrastructure a top priority. Yes, you could blame people in "high places" for not "being the ones who start...to mold a new reality...closer to the heart," to borrow the song by Rush. But ultimately we must take individual responsibility regardless of what we've become as a people. Failing to maintain an infrastructure is a collective failure but it's people, not their leaders, who will bear the consequences.

We all know it's true: pollute one area too much and the land show it, toxins kill off crops, the vitality of the land diminishes and remediation becomes necessary, like all those SuperFund sites littering the U.S.. The timeframe between cause and effect appears to be shortening, courtesy of climate change. Years of pollution and inadequate management of resources makes the time of reckoning that much sooner. It's like the Lakota Sioux medicine man, Floyds Looks For Buffalo, who speak of a revenge by Mother Nature who's been so abused by man (Part 4 on youtube here.)

Like Floyd, I believe I have a responsibility to tell people of a coming event. I guess you could call it the medicine man in me. I think many people like me have been labelled tree-huggers, or conspiracy theorists, in an effort to diminish not our credibility but the validity of the truths we present. It's simply easier for a society that wants convenience to ignore the inconvenient, to marginalize those who would dare tell it it's wrong, or facing doom.

I can tell you for sure that we're facing economic consequences for over-consumption, this is true. I can also tell you that things will get worse, far worse, if we don't change. I guess the effectiveness of my message depends on how badly as a people want to hear what it is I'm saying.

Back by popular demand: the post-apocalypse

Looking at the movies I reviewed last month, it doesn't really matter whether people were warned of a coming apocalypse. No mention is made in the movies Book of Eli and The Road of what caused things to go bad. Once the bombs fall and food runs out, I guess who or what started it really doesn't matter much.

The popularity of movies in this genre today suggests people intuitively assume we're due to receive some really nasty rebuke from God. People may just assume this. Heck, it's nothing new, people have been drawn to tales of earthly destruction since the first storyteller spoke in front of the fire, telling tales of unimaginable horror and mayhem, capturing spellbound his audience and cementing the place of the apocalyptic story in human history forever.

If it's true that we are all linked to one another, it would therefore hold that we share our misery and our pleasure. As much as we'd like to build castles for ourselves, man is a social animal. We really can't excel without other people, and as big of a pain as others may often be, I guess we all need to get along. Mother Nature plays a vital role in linking us not only to each other but to the space we all share. In limiting us to one physical place, we are forced to examine the metaphysical and spiritual dimensions of our existence.

No such evaluation of where we stand as a society can ignore the importance of preserving our common humanity. I guess these apocalyptic movies serve an important purpose to transcend whatever horrors we face, and show how we can emerge from the apocalypse changed but perhaps wiser for it.

In The Book of Eli, they destroy the Bible, blaming it as a source of problems. I don't know if this act of destruction creates a new order, although the villain thinks rediscovering the Bible will. And Eli eventually reaches a place where a restoration of pre-apocalyptic technology and civilization appear inevitable.

In The Road, a new life awaits at the end of the road. We can see what's happened to the earth, cannibalism, etc., and it may frighten us but simultaneously the idea of a new start gives us hope. And hope is the light that can steer us out of the darkness. Unfortunately mankind just seems destined to screw things up, causing the apocalypse. We seem almost destined to self-destruct. But slowly, these stories tell us, we can laugh again, and live once more in a world that gives us a second chance despite our failings.

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Hollywood fantasy or dark future reality? The movie Children of Men reviewed

I recently saw the movie Children of Men, based on a novel by P.D. James, directed by Alfonso Cuaron. For those interested in seeing the movie, you may want to avoid this review until you've seen Children of Men; I've tried to avoid spoiling surprise where I can.

The futuristic world is England in the year 2027. The future James paints is one of totalitarian-type governments. According to the plotline within the story, the world endures a series of cataclysmic events beginning with a flu pandemic in 2008.

War on terror themes run throughout in the sets. One banner reads: "Alone, Britain soldiers on."

Immigrants have lost their rights in the movie and are herded into refugee camps, one a converted coastal city reserved for immigrants. We do not know the extent to which citizens and non-citizens are treated once they've entered the system; we get the feeling the people simply disappear, regardless of nationality.

In the tradition of apocryphal works, Children of Men depicts a world that has given upon hope because it's lost its children.Children of Men is cast in a time when women can no longer have children.

The movie begins with media coverage of the death of the world's youngest man, "...Diego Ricardo, the youngest person on the planet, the youngest person on earth was 18 years, 4 months, 20 days, 16 hours, and 8 minutes old" represented the world's most recently born person, grown to adulthood.

The world's next youngest person--a woman--then assumes the title of world's youngest person and receives the accompanying celebrity.

Theo Faron (Clive Owen) tries to complete his mission--one not of his choosing but rather one assigned him by his former beau, played by Julianne Moore.

Retired (and well cast) Michael Caine, who plays a retired political writer Jasper Palmer, who's friends with Faron. There, in an isolated homestead which offers the solace of solitude, Caine grows pot while tending his catatonic wife.

A quick scan of Palmer's desk reveals a posted newspaper clipping of a 2008 Award as best political writer, and shows an article with a picture of a traumatized woman, accompanied by the headline "Woman Claims Torture." From the blank stare and silence of Palmer's wheelchair-bound wife throughout the movie, we are left wondering as to the cause of her condition.

Some past dark secret in their lives speaks of their lives spent in decline and isolation, yet they have each other. Dark skies brood over the English moors that surround the country cottage, evil encroaching from a society gone mad.

Children of Men is about a world that devalues human dignity, degrades the value of human life, and even supplies them with free Suicide Kits, advertised under the Quietus brand (a concoction of rat poison which is perfectly legal, according to Caine's character Palmer, although pot remains illegal).

What began as a national effort to expel immigrants ends up affecting all, citizen and non-citizen alike, who must contend with the savagery of the anti-government forces. In other words, no one is safe.

A movie like Children of Men succeeds by casting a compelling picture of a future of a dire and dying world.

The saddening picture probably won't brighten any viewer's day, but some among us do have a curiousity concerning end-of-times events and sequences and are drawn to these kinds of stories. Somewhat pathetically, we enjoy contemplating the possibilites that would have to concur in order to bring that world into being.

We skeptics tend to guard our disbelief, and view realism as a vital plot ingredient.

My Inner Omega Man

Cataclysmic compositions have long been a fascination of mine, and I feel drawn to the bittersweet isolation of one man or a few in a world of chaos, anarchy, or zombiefication. One of the first and best of these movies is Charleton Heston's The Omega Man; the Planet of the Apes series also helped plant the apocalyptic theme in me.

I'm not much into Costner's Waterworld and Postman or Romero's zombie movies, but I do respond to some of more plausible future scenarios like those painted in Children of Men, although a world like that depicted in the movie may be equally illusory when its main premises are considered. The fewer the number of implausible events in the futuristic society, the easier it is for me to enter into the escapism that I seek out of these kinds of films.

I don't want to dwell too long on the macabre elements in the movie, because many of these movies are sensationalized, in typical Hollywood style.

Hollywood is often tempted to take shortcuts and other deus ex machina plot devices which can stretch whatever realism might be there into the realm of fantasy. Unlike novelists, movie-makers do have the heavy burden of creating a visual pantheon in order to sustain the alternate world created out what were formerly just words.

I also just saw The Last King of Scotland, where a young Scottish doctor Dr. Nicholas Garrigan, played by James McAvoy, becomes Idi Amin's personal physician and adviser. No such doctor existed; still, the creation of the mythical doctor offers a bridge into Amin's personal life--a character with whom the audience can identify and sympathize not only with the doctor, but Amin as well.

To be credible as a form of entertainment for the skeptics among us, the movie's environment can be theoretical yet must also be plausible. Historical precedent might not matter to all or even most of the viewers, but plausibility is central to believability for fans of apocalyptic works like me.

It's hard for viewers like me to imagine the future world if lacks realism. In explanation of early effort to create a matrix from the second movie in that series, designers of the first matrix had lost entire "crops" because the world they'd created had been too full of love and happiness, and thus too unrealistic for those whose brains were wired into the Matrix.

The world of Children of Men is frighteningly plausible in all regards except perhaps the loss of children from our planet--a point made clear when main character Theo Faron (Owen) wanders through a rotting, vine-infested school barely recognizable save for long-idled student desks.

Plausibility of the Scenario

Premise #1 for the movie is deportation and sequestration of non-British nationals.

Raids are now taking place in the US by Immigration Customs Enforcement, which cast detainees in prisons awaiting deportation, separating them from loved ones over sometimes vast distances. In an article originally posted in American Prospect, David Beacon's "The Story of the Smithfield Raid" follows the enforcement crackdown.

One such workplace raid occured in the Smithfield meat processing plant in North Carolina. Beacon explains:

That day, the migra (agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, part of the Homeland Security Department) picked up 21 people while trying not to alert the rest of the plant's laborers. One by one, supervisors went to Mexicans on the line. You're needed in the front office, they'd say. The workers would put down their knives, take off their gloves and walk through the cavernous building to the human resources department. There, ICE agents took them into custody, put them in handcuffs and locked them up in a temporary detention area. Later, they were taken out in vans and sent to immigration jails as far away as Georgia.

Bacon goes on to talk about the possible motivations for the raid, which could well have been to bust up unionization efforts. He explains:

...organizing efforts, and not the 21 detained workers, were the real target of the raid. Mark Lauritsen, packinghouse director for the United Food and Commercial Workers, says the Department of Homeland Security and the company "were worried about people organizing a union, and the government said, 'Here are the tools to take care of them.'"

In the Smithfield case, union activity and efforts to raise awareness concerning worker rights and safety conflict with a corporate agenda.

Anti-immigration sentiments run strong in much of the far Right-wing. However, Republicans have been reluctant to heartily combat the flow of illegal immigrants.

Democrats are broadly thought to be more sympathetic to the plight of illegals; it's no coincidence that Hispanic voters are predomimantly Democratic voters: converting illegals into voters would likely create more Democrats, unless of course Republicans can outshine the potential new voters by offering amnesty or better terms, perhaps like a antiwar Republican might pander to the Democratic base.

Hispanic political influence dominates both parties. Xenophobic tendencies could be exacerbated in a time of economic chaos or catastrophe; whether a more radical approach might be the possible under Republican or Democratic leadership remains unclear.

Select immigration raids could well evolve into broader sweeps. Such a radical approach would reduce illegal immigration, but many corporations believe in the benefits to their bottom line of hiring illegals, saving on labor costs, and dodging pesky unionization.

It remains to be seen whether the corporate interests exploiting cheaper labor will continue to shape our immigration policy.

Often, corporate interests trump worker concerns; the two groups are on opposite ends of the burgeoning political divide in this country. Our government's willingness to let corporations dictate and influence policy also plays contrary to the interest of its citizens.

A big part of the corporate influence in American politics today is about protecting the financial interests of--as Marx would put it--"owners of the means of production."

Many corporations want the floodgates of America opened to cheaper labor, illegal or not. Many technology companies easily fill H1-NB Visa quotas and demand more, so they support immigration. Employers on the higher-end of the wage scale (at least for immigrant labor) are more legally bound to legitimatize the employee credentials through the organized worker importation program.

Lower skilled illegal immigrants go most likely to jobs where they can be paid in cash and made part of the invisible economy. The complexities of registering all US employees, as ICE intend to do under a new system, faces mammoth logistical issues in addition to privacy concerns, legal issues, and political obfuscation.

The Power of Race

Minorities disenfranchisement is nothing new, interesting in Bacon's article is the level of solidarity between blacks and Latinos, so the conjoined political influence of those groups cannot be underestimated by either party. Both have fought racism; the inherently anti-Mexican dictate of ICE actions makes the two groups natural allies, who between them would have a combined and rising 70 million people or so.

Terrorism could trigger round-ups, but the Mexicans aren't likely to commit such acts, nor would Mexicans be associated with terrorism. Far more likely is some economic chaos, which would exacerbate racial tensions. Even then, huge contingents of politically connected African Americans and Latinos would make politicians pay a huge price at the polls.

Economic issues could provide a pretext for deportation. In The Last King of Scotland, Amin expels all "Asians"--predominantly long-term residents from the Indian subcontinent, many of whom had been born in Uguanda.

Amin feared the political influence posed by the dominance of so-called "Asians" in the Uguandan economy. As a wealthier and better educated segment of society, Amin labelled exploitation of Africans by so-called Asians as the source of Uguanda's economic problems.

In effect, Western societies are made up by ethnic groups; destroying the immigrant communities would mean destroying members of similiar ethnicity. This isn't to say immigrants have been fully assimilated; it's simply hard to believe that legal immigrants would stand idly around as their illegal brethren are deported and/or hauled off to camps.

Even now Hispanic influence certainly impacts immigration policy. Under a new bill, citizenship has been offered as part of an amnesty would make illegal Latinos a potentially dangerous political enemy in the many regions of our nation with a large Hispanic presence.

Polls suggest anti-immigrant opinion lies in a good chunk of the population, but a majority appears to favor immigration reform that would allow citizenship and tolerate amnesty. Could the majority voice be quashed in favor of a broad immigration crackdown? Perhaps not, with the political influence Hispanics wield and would presumably exert on behalf of their illegal brethren.

Wholesale deportation would be difficult if not impossible as a result of logistical and moral challenges. Hispanics in the military would undoubtedly have problems following orders like the soldiers in Children of Men. Still the world has seen plenty of examples of inner-racial violence.

Large-scale deportation would have to be militarized, as Katrina has shown us that no one else in the Federal government is capable of managing a refugee crisis, much less engineering a "solution". Still, the prominence of minorities in our military limits the upper capabilities of effectiveness of any enforcement.

Artificially created disasters might be alllowed to purge one area of its inhabitants--like a neutron bomb, without the radioactivity. The wake of Katrina has seen a large increase in the numbers of Hispanics in New Orleans. African-Americans may make up less of the city's population, although it's not clear if the black economy is threatened by illegal immigrantion, or how many will return. We also don't know how thoroughly the city will be rebuilt, most notably how much the government appears willing to do to help predominantly African-American portions of the city which still lie devastated.

Hypothetically, inhabitants deemed more friendly to the regime (or more necessary to its recovery) could then be introduced while its former inhabitants languish in refugee camps, or are geographically dispersed. Numbers reduced, they lose political influence in the affected region or control over the land they formally inhabited: we say they've been ethnically cleansed.

Premise #2: Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing

Director/screenwriter Cuaron offers an ultra-realistic combat scene in the end, with an extraordinary munitions display. The superior camerawork envelops the viewer in the intense action sequences which are quite horrifying in their realism. Adjusting to the jiggling, hand-held camera was hard at first, until later action scenes where it immerses you into the intense violence.

This week has shown us violence coming from one such refugee camp in Lebanon, which are as I understand it, horrific and violent places not far removed from concentration camps of the Nazi era: except perhaps that the detained have guns. While there may be no genocide by the governments running the camps, the systematic rape of human dignity is a common element.

The treatment of Arabs stands out in Children of Men. We do see a "Allah Akbur" procession of angry Islamists in the movie, who actually carry a French flag in what must be some symbol of cross-channel significance.

The government's treatment of non-British nationals subsists on the premise that one group should be identified and cast out of British society. Muslims are in this respect the Jews of Nazi Europe, as they are easily stereotyped, already disenfranchised and seen as outside the mainstream cultural values of "citizens".

These examples are most troubling when viewed in their historical context: It's the progression that's frightening; what begins as a limited ethnic cleansing devolves into broader killing. "First, they came for the Jews," Pastor Niemoller's saying goes.

Jews were purged at first, with more mainstream sources of resistance targetted for elimination later, after the regime had begun its genocide. Next were the trade unionists, homosexuals, priests, gypsies, mentally ill, not in any particular order, though that too may have been carefully orchestrated in order to reduce discalm that would certainly accompany any ethnic cleansing as the number of persecuted groups expanded to reflect whatever the twisted objective sought through the genocide.

In The Last King of Scotland, Idi Amin is driven ever deeper into genocide, thrust onward by his paranoia, which builds during the course of the movie. Towards the climax, Amin is killing entire villages of rival tribes, women and childen too.

There's no denying governments can go to extremes, so the historical precedent is there. Yet it's virtually impossible for a government to kill off vast numbers of people, with a few exceptions, notable in Rwanda and Cambodia--both more primitive societies than ours or England's.

The Nazis rose to power in a German democracy, so the ascent of genocidal regimes is possible in the secular West. But if the Nazis are taken as an example of ruthless efficiency in their genocidal campaign, even they failed to rid themselves of all Jews and they had years to do it. We don't know how long the deportations have been going on in Children of Men.

For the US or Britain to root out their illegals would be a multi-year task, and certainly lack the efficiency of the Nazi death machines. As resistance to the deportation and confinement of immigrants rose, a larger body of persons classified as undesirables or enemies of the state would grow and compound the logistical problems involved in finding and transporting victims, even if ovens were waiting for them.

The instant emptying of Phnom Phen by the Khmer Rouge upon their seizure of that city in 1975 provides an extreme example of instanteous genocide, herding the people out of the city, giving them an hour, as I heard said while I was there. Starvation over the long-term contributed to a large proportion of the fatalities--the re-education camps were mismanaged collectives first and killing fields second; in the eyes of the Khmer Rouge, starvation saved a bullet.

Governments are open to extreme measures in an attempt to identify potential counter-revolutionaries. Extremists on the fringe left like Maoists may possess an even more paranoid vision of a new order. As Nicholas Cage says in Merchant of Death, the worst groups were those with the name "Liberation" in their title; these guerillas take their violent solutions with them into government.

Few regimes could commit genocide on a scale of the Khmer Rouge; still the callous objectivity and flippant decision by which boy soldiers determined who of the newly conquered lived and died reminds us of Holocaust movies. In Schindler's List, the Nazi death camp officer played by Ralph Fiennes executes camp prisoners from afar with a sniper rifle--an arbitrary act of execution meant on establishing the alternate reality that all in the camp laboring below must be constantly working, and not idle, which could be result in execution; a twisted code but a code based on logic nonetheless, perverse as it might be.

History has seen constant purges, and we see this behavior worldwide. Western governments have a tradition of leniency on immigration, so the capacity for ethnic cleansing appears quite low.

Premise #3: Government Abuse of Authority

In Children of Men, what begins as a national effort to expel immigrants ends up affecting all, citizen and non-citizen alike, who must contend with the savagery of both pro- and anti-government forces. In other words, no one is safe.

It's not what may happen in the future that makes us fear Children of Men's world, but rather the plausibility of what we already know our governments to be doing.

A Children of Men world is indeed possible, and the War on Terror provides us a present-day bridge into an Orwellian future.

Opposition to torture and the mistreatment of minorities and immigrants stands out in the movie. The abuse of authority has becomes a rationale for violence against government, which perpetuates the cycle of violence.

Early in the movie, we can only guess how badly the State mistreats its citizens. Later, as the plot unfolds we get a fuller picture of an Orwellian state ethnically cleansing its population; we come to doubt that the purge is limited to immigrants.

I suppose this slow parting of the curtains of secrecy is a dramatic device meant to gradually expose the deep and dark functionings of government, only after government extremism is put in context of revoultionary actions taken by anti-government partisans, whose bombings and violence demonstrate inhumanity to their fellow man on a standard of morality no better than the soldiers and police.

Resistance to mistreatment and disenfranchisement is a popular theme for anti-establishment movies, which Children of Men must be considered. It's against the totality of the state's power and the subjugation of the individual to it that the movie viewer must revolt.

State power makes an old familiar target, and anarchist and revolutionary types will certainly revel in the resistance to the imposition of State power upon the individual as it is depicted in the Children of Men. Yet by going into the hearts of partisans, we see no virtue--the self-defined revolutionaries are shown to be power-hungry and vicious, as cold and calculating as the organ of any government body could ever hope to be.

The Terror War has increased the probability of a Children of Men world. Civil liberties have been restricted, wiretapping arbitraily conducted. Perhaps the frightening part isn't necessarily how far our State has become in the measures of totalitarianism, but instead the direction which the war on terror and attack on individual rights are taking us, towards a society ruled by racism, fear, and paranoia.

England has wired its cities with integrated Closed Circuit cameras which undoubtedly fuel fear of a police state. In the US, distinctions between citizens and non-citizen are increasingly ignored in the surveillance society of today. 9/11 became both motive and opportunity to impose restrictions on Constitutional liberties in the name of fighting terror.

Here or in Britain, both nations are headed in a direction where minorities and terrorism suspect have lost legal rights which be a first timid step towards the wholesale dismantling of our legal system.

Bush's use of signing statements, the politicization of the Iraq War, and the continuing illegal eavesdropping have sent obvious signals that the Executive seeks to assert its supremacy. Congress would be turned into a debating society. Our laws have become subject to limitations, exceptions, and circumventions at the whim of the Executive solely responsible for enforcing the law.

Coupled with acts of terrorism, there is a potential for declaration of martial law. Post-Katrina, we've seen a federalization of our states' National Guards and the passage of the Military Commissions Act, which basically codifies the President's right to control any military element in any way he sees fit.

A change in the form of government and complete breakdown in the rule of law has not come. We simply aren't there yet, and the advance of time cannot bring a Children of Men world to us, at least not without more undermining of our legal codes.

Premise #4 - Breakdown in Order; Abuses of Human Dignity

Economic collapse and anarchy are rather ordinary expectations in cataclysmic literature. Advancing to a post-apocalyptic scenario requires breakdowns in law and society, or a precipitating event like terrorism or the ever popular experiment-gone-wrong.

Starting a string of unfortunate events in Children of Men was a global flu pandemic in 2008, an event certainly within the realm of possibility.

Economic woes provide a necessary context for the anarchy that ensues to make the threat credible. To be specific, the threat must be real in the present, and foreseeable in the not too distant future.

Mel Gibson's Mad Max is a good example of a downward spiral from the first movie's simply ineffectual Halls of Justice, introducing the need for vigilanteism, followed by groups fighting over resources for their survival in the second movie. The third, Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome issues in an alternate society with rules forged by the brutality of survival in a post-apocalyptic world.

Children of Men lets us imagine the events that led to the genesis of its world, flashes of horrific visions of violence and destruction. Children of Men leaves most of the breakdowns in society to the imagination of the viewer.

I thought back to the "experimental aversion therapy" (imdb.com review) dispensed upon Alex de Large (Malcolm McDowell) in Clockwork Orange, whose eyelids are forced apart as he's forced to view for hours on end in a twisted effort to purge young Alex of his inner evil.

Children of Men speaks for the frailty of human dignity. Viewers might be enraged by the treatment of detainees in the movie, which parallels the prisoner abuse at the hands of our government in the War on Terror.

In one scene of overpowering force, a devoutly Christian woman, Miriam, is confronted, then "detained" as their bus passes through security into a refugee camp. The bus stop is a surrealist, Auschwitz-type environment. The scene ends with the bus pulling out as a black sack is cast around Miriam's head.

The cruelty Miriam faces forces reexamination of viewer reactions to the treatment of enemy combatants in Guanatamo and Abu Ghraib.

The movie advocates sympathy for the problem of prisoner abuse here and now, in places like Guantanamo, and with the treatment of terrorism suspects like Jose Padilla.

By thrusting the viewer in a future world of hopelessness, or chaos, and evil, we can better recognize the slippery path which we've taken. Anticipate the evils we could face in the future, encourages actions here and now, and leaves us less inclined to remain detached from our all-too-possible fate.

I would say the movie's purpose is not to show the world as it might be, but rather to warn us what it could become, and show that love for one another can eclipse even the darkest hate that life might bring us.

By showing the depths to which society can depreciate, we feel compelled to take action now, to confront the threat of dehumanizing each other with racism, which is the dark root of ethnic cleansing, a systematic process of depopulating a region based on its ethnic makeup.

Dismantling the Children of Men world before it comes becomes an moral imperative. If we tolerate the rise of an oppressive government, we're collectively guilty--ultimately we will all pay consequences.

In the end, the movie sends morally uplifting messaging in its embrace of hope for the human race, representing the return of child-birth and -rearing to the world. There is hope, even in the depravity of the future world created in Children of Men.

One of my initial reactions to Children of Men was that I should prepare for the worst case scenario laid out in the movie--a sort of reaction similar to that motivating builders of bomb shelters. Yet before too long I realized I couldn't hide from such a world, were it to come true. Who can remain preserved indefinitely in a cocoon of safety when a civilization starts to unravel? No one is safe, not even the Omega Man. We all get bitten.

At a certain point, it matters little to ordinary citizens whether by society had broken down through neglect, Nazi-like totalitarianism or simply fanaticism like that of the Khmer Rouge. Eventually all the citizenry suffers regardless of their status within the State.

The more I thought about the plausibility of massive deportations, the less plausible I imagined the Children of Men to be in the United States, which removed some of the movie's plausibility and thus it's impact. Still, who's to say what's possible, considering the current trend towards government abuse of authority, extralegality, and militarism, which coupled with some economic catastrophe, pandemic, and/or acts of terror could bring such a world much closer.

Other Sources

A 2007 documentary titled "Children of Men; Visions of the Future" is available; I plan to see it as well.


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