Global War and the Malthusian Imperative Ed Rippy 12/14/04
	In 1798 an English parson named Thomas Malthus wrote a treatise called "An Essay on the Principle of Population." It was a lengthy work, but its thesis was simple -- and chilling: unchecked, human population increases geometrically, doubling in a given period of time, while arable land could be found and cleared only arithmetically, adding some increment while the population doubled. An example will make this clearer: start with two arbitrary units each of people and land, and assume that people can clear two units of land in the time it takes the population to double. The population increases in the sequence 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, . . .; the land increases in the sequence 2, 4, 6, 8, 10,. . . . The exact numbers are irrelevant, although they alter the actual rates at which population and cropland increase; the result, sooner or later, is the same: the population outstrips the food supply, and people starve. The forces that check population growth are war, pestilence, and poverty -- and ultimately, starvation.1 Food is not the only thing that people consume; the same principle applies to all physical resources. Malthus did not know of two factors that have appeared in modern times: industrial societies have lower birth rates (in fact, some now have negative population growth, and their governments are paying people to have children); and advances in agriculture have vastly increased the productivity of farmland. Thus, in industrial societies, mass starvation has been postponed. But the increased productivity uses immense resources (tractors, harvesters, transportation, fertilizers, pesticides, to name only a few), and these resources are finite. Population is growing fastest in less-developed countries, and people there (understandably) want material standards of living like those of the industrialized countries. The twin pressures of increasing population and increasing per capita resource use would wipe out the world's resource base -- already strained -- very quickly indeed. In order to maintain their wealth and power, the global movers and shakers must kill off a large portion of us and enslave the rest. They are certainly capable of understanding this. If whoever is pulling the strings has such plans, obviously they are not going to admit them. But others have seen the same thing: one writer sees two billion (one-third of the present population) as the target.2 Malthus's checks of war, pestilence, and poverty will do the trick quite nicely for them, and they have arranged for these. We all know about the war; as US Vice-President Cheney has said, the "War on Terrorism" may not end in our lifetime. Poverty, too, is widespread and increasing.3 And they are readying the pestilence. The US biowarfare budget is up,4 and the Model Emergency Health Powers Act that passed after 9-11 allows forced medical treatment or quarantine in case of biological emergencies. Under this act, officials are immune to prosecution, and can confiscate any property they deem necessary. In short, if the Governor of a state says that there is a biological emergency, officials can inject people with anything or lock them up. What if the "vaccinations" are in fact a contagious disease? Who will know? Then again, there are many other ways to spread biological agents -- and the military is developing more with its new budget.5 Endnotes: 1. Robert L. Heilbroner. The Worldly Philosophers (Revised Edn.) (New York: Simon and Schuster 1961) 71ff. 2. Michael C. Ruppert. Crossing the Rubicon (Gabrola Island, BC, Canada: New Society Publishers 2004), 39. 3. Project Censored. Wealth Inequality in 21st Century Threatens Economy and Democracy (http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/1.html). 4. Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, Analysis of the Anthrax Attacks (http://www.fas.org/bwc/news/anthraxreport.htm). 5. The Center for Law and the Public's Health. Model State Public Health Laws (http://www.publichealthlaw.net/Resources/Modellaws.htm).