pundit plays catch-up

"all these tensions over land, water and food are telling us something. the arab awakening was driven not only by political and economic stresses, but, less visibly, by environmental, population, and climate stresses as well." thomas l friedman. n y times 4-8-2012 ____________________________________________________________________________ "in 'revolution and rebellion in the early modern world' university of california sociologist jack goldstone makes an excellent case for how the english revolution of 1640, the french revolution of 1789, the various revolutions in central europe in 1848, the jelali revolts in the ottoman empire, and rebellions in imperial china all emerged from the inability of regimes to deal with problems arising from sustained population growth and natural resource depletion." robert d kaplan. "the ends of the earth: a journey to the frontiers of anarchy." 1996. p.117 ____________________________________________________________________________ "elements of modernization and judicial dispute resolution, which were introduced in more peaceful times thirty or so years ago, swept away traditional strategies for problem solving or reconciliation without establishing new or functioning forms of regulation." harald welzer. "climate wars: why people will be killed in the 21st century" 2012 p.59 ___________________________________________________________________________ looks like old tom finally got around to reading bob's 1996 tome on the subject of the connection between resource depeletion and conflict...maybe he picked up a copy of the "post-carbon reader" or, better yet, read some richard heinberg...this bozo has been stumping for the globalitarian elite for decades folks and his sudden conversion is suspect in my eyes...it is the west's concept of "progress" that destroyed the traditional cultures in much of the world to benefit an economic elite that could then exploit the vacuum left behind as the displaced fled to urban slums ( see mike davis's book "planet of slums" for a detailed account of the destruction and subsequent "horizontal" proliferation of unholy slums around cities like lima and lagos ) and became cheap labor and fodder for anything you can do with expendable humans...the egyptians had a traditional culture that farmed the nile river valley for millenia tapping into the yearly deposit of rich silt delivered by the annual nile flood until old gamel dammed it up at aswan...now the delta is eroding and sinking...and how much chemical fertilizer do egyptian farmers now use and who sells it to them? seem my point? there's no whore like a reformed whore and if this isn't some sort of scam to increase the leverage of tom's economically well placed handlers i eat my hat with no salt...someone needs to kick tom in the nuts if for nothing other than being so far behind the curve on something i have been reading about for decades...maybe we could get bob kaplan or thomas homer-dixon to tutor the poor fool and get him up to speed...or get the n y times to banish him to the globe or the national enquirer where he belongs.