Humanity is at the final crossroads of becoming aware of the drama of the ecological and peace crisis in which it finds itself. The book "The Eco-Catastrophe" is a wake-up call to take note of the seriousness of the situation, to accept the Herculean tasks ahead, to understand the growth ideology of global capitalism.
The Rubicon book "The Eco-Catastrophe" proves that saving the planet can only be achieved by disempowering the elites.
by Ullrich Mies
[This article published in Feb 2020 is translated from the German on the Internet, Last Exit | Rubikon.news.]
Humanity is at the final crossroads of becoming aware of the drama of the ecological and peace crisis in which it finds itself. The book "The Eco-Catastrophe" is a wake-up call to take note of the seriousness of the situation, to accept the Herculean tasks ahead, to understand the growth ideology of global capitalism and its structural lack of peace as a cancerous evil. However, all conceivable solutions to the problems of humanity and ecology will only be available through a consistent overthrow of the "elites", because it is the centers of power which, out of ignorance, incompetence, malice, greed for power and systemic corruption, have been delaying all solutions for more than a generation.
Profound solutions are not to be expected from the decisive perpetrators of the world's problems. On the contrary, with all means of manipulation and propaganda, the centers of power try to continue their economic and political domination on the road to the abyss.
Those who believe that every generation has to reinvent the wheel of history are wrong: Many aspects that are addressed in the Rubicon book "The Eco-Catastrophe" were already known in the rudiments in expert circles 30, 40 or even 50 years ago. Many scientists and writers such as Carl Amery, Hoimar von Ditfurth, Herbert Gruhl, Klaus Michael Meyer-Abich, Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker had already dealt intensively with environmental problems as a result of the Western way of economy and thinking in their time. As early as 1977, the U.S. government under President Carter commissioned the major environmental study - Global 2000 - the results of which were presented in 1980: over 1,000 pages of environmental knowledge.
Since that time, no one in the ruling echelons has been able to excuse himself or herself by saying that he or she did not know or could not have known about the health of the planet. All these insights from the 1970s, 80s and 90s did not lead to the necessary fundamental rethinking. On the contrary, Global 2000 disappeared into the drawers under the Reagan administration and was followed not only by business as usual, but by the entry into the neoliberal phase of capitalism. Today, humanity is facing an environmental disaster because the centers of power have refused for the last 40 years to create an economic system that is in harmony with the reproductive possibilities of the planet.
Since humanity is obviously at the final crossroads to still save the planet and thus itself due to the gigantic failures of the ruling classes, authors, editors Jens Wernicke and Dirk Pohlmann, and the Rubikon editing and proofreading team had brought the book to the book market in a great feat of strength in just two months.
All those involved have made it their mission to draw attention to the dramatic nature of the situation, which can no longer tolerate any delay. The Fridays for Future movement and Extinction Rebellion have understood this and are putting pressure on the elites.
But unfortunately, their activities are being dragged through the mud by the eternal worriers from different camps because the movements are getting support "from the wrong side." In my opinion, it is crucial that young people become active and take to the streets for key concerns for the future, especially since these movements are by no means homogeneous. And it is a fact that every movement - no matter what its goal - is controlled, "accompanied" and infiltrated by lobby groups and secret services under the prevailing political circumstances and power configuration. Anything that is a thorn in the side of the centers of power will be dismantled. This is no reason not to put pressure on the ruling cliques.
The anthology differs from other specialized books on the environmental problem mainly by its radical approach: all authors are of the opinion that it is not enough with cosmetic corrections, with "green capitalism", this or that little reform. The entire team is convinced that the West must undertake a complete change of direction in its economic and political systems.
However, this can only be accomplished if the so-called elites - in whatever form - step down and power centers and political systems are completely reconfigured. The party-based representative political systems of the West have sufficiently demonstrated their total failure in terms of positive human development in harmony with the planet and are therefore currently in their greatest legitimation crisis after WW2.
"Saving the planet means overthrowing the ruling elites".
The authors of the book "The Eco-Catastrophe" continue where the traditional environmental or consumer organizations such as BUND, WWF, NABU, Foodwatch, Slowfood stop with their analysis and criticism. Some of these organizations do excellent work. But they do not formulate the necessary fundamental criticism. These associations obviously want to remain in dialogue with the ruling hazards. The question is, what hopes are to be pinned on any newly forming party leaders?
Anyone who has risen to the top of the corrupt party apparatuses is already so deformed in human terms after sometimes decades of riding the ox through the party hierarchies that he has become part of the system. No one should expect anything from these parties once they get into government.
Extinction Rebellion is an exception to this rule. They have exposed this system we live in as absolutely toxic, not serving life, but waging war on life. This is exactly how the authors of this book see it. The rulers are waging war against this planet, against the diversity of life, against life in general, and thus against 99 percent of human beings. We consider this system to be toxic, hostile to life, and the so-called responsible people in the centers of power to be irresponsible perpetrators who serve environmental destruction, warmongering and the production of fear. The bad thing is also that the ruling cliques themselves have abused women's emancipation to heave mentally crippled women into leadership positions - for example, green-painted war parties or in war ministries - that were previously reserved for peace-incapable male psychopaths and sociopaths.
These parties are part of the problem, not the solution. We must abolish capitalism and the terror of competition associated with it. For competition means in essence nothing other than war of everyone against everyone internally and war externally against Russia and China as great rivals of the world-dominating power USA and its vassals.
We need a system of cooperation and not of confrontation. Cooperation is not to be had with this capitalism and its institutions like the Pentagon, the 17 affiliated U.S. intelligence agencies, NATO and the entire war and vassal complex because it is a structural system of violence. Destruction emanates from a structural system of violence, nothing else.
The basic evil we are in is a civilization completely out of control, destroying all ecosystems. The basis of this system is market radical capitalism run amok, sucking up all resources and turning everything into profit that it can somehow commodify. The ruling party-based parliamentary democracy, which is only a sham democratic construct, serves exactly this market radical capitalism.
With a few examples I want to outline the whole drama of the current situation. Here are some results from the Living Planet Index:
Plastic waste: in 2010 between 4.8 and 12.7 million tons of plastic were washed into the oceans from continents and ships,
Coral reefs: in the last 30 years, half of the coral reefs in shallow water areas have been destroyed. If the rate of destruction continues at the current rate, about 90 percent will be destroyed by 2050.
Mangroves: between 30 and 50 percent of coastal mangrove forests have been destroyed in a period of only 50 years.
Biodiversity decline and collapse of insect populations: Looking at global biodiversity, which is the population density of thousands of vertebrate species worldwide, the most recent index shows an overall 60 percent decline in population numbers between 1970 and 2014. Immediately threatened with extinction, according to the World Conservation Union's Red List, are 27 percent of the recorded 80,000 endangered species. The population of surveyed species in the tropical belt of Central and South America declined 89 percent from 1970 to the present. The extinction rate of species is currently about 1000 times the historical background extinction rate of species.
Rainforests: are being destroyed on an unprecedented scale.
The destruction of well over a billion animals and the death of many people as a result of the fires in Australia is only mentioned in passing.
All this is known to the ruling political actors. And because they do nothing against these catastrophic developments, I speak of organized political criminality, which dwarfs any conspiracy theory, no matter how abstruse. Those who delectate on alleged conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists - some funded by the EU and bearing professorial titles - would have to focus on the deep conspiracy practices of the centers of power if they were not part of the problem and too opportunistic.
As useful lackeys, these ignoramuses are not interested in messing with the actors of the dying planet, the imminent civilization collapse and the constant fear and war mongering. And the ruling elites would also like to set the pace in the death dance of the toxic system. They are guaranteed to continue until the last fish is eaten and the last body of water is poisoned, because they are hooked on the needle of growth like junkies and assume that they are not affected themselves. So it is also no coincidence that the rich and super-rich, who are served by the toxic system, already have their special bunkers built, where physical rot will eventually follow mental rot.
Are we discussing the wrong thing?
From my point of view, we are currently discussing in Western societies in a completely narrow way. This is no coincidence. The great ecological problem is reduced to the climate debate. To put it more concretely: The great ecology debate is not taking place at all, it must not be conducted at all, because otherwise the whole system would be thrown into a tailspin and possibly even those whom I call wealth-averse would start to think. The Internet war was started to prevent just that.
The only questions currently being raised are whether there is a climate crisis at all and whether it is man-made. This is a grandiose diversionary tactic, nothing else. Entire hate debates are being unleashed, new irreconcilable rifts are being torn open, the emotionalized mob would love to gouge out their eyes.
The intelligence services know how to do this. Their job is to control societies, to break up dissident groups - and to do so in the interests of the "elites."
The narrowing of the debate into the corridor "climate change yes or no", is deliberately controlled. Because the whole capitalist system lives from the fact that we continue as before, and sells us this as freedom.
This narrowing is a masterstroke of psychological warfare and propaganda, because absolute certainty will only be achieved when the people in the coastal regions are up to their necks in water, when the last glacier, the Antarctic and the Arctic as well as the permafrost regions have thawed.
Mankind already has absolute certainty about the extent to which the process of civilization has damaged nature to an irreversible degree. In this respect, the narrow focus on the climate debate is a perfect masterstroke of the information warriors.
The great acceleration
The great acceleration described by the scientists around Will Steffen in their article "The trajectory of the Anthropocene: The Great Acceleration" refers to the fundamental change of civilization due to the unleashing of productive forces as a result of the industrial revolution starting around 1750. Parallel to this development of science and production ran a gigantic consumption of nature, which continues and increases until today.
In a large number of individual statistics with exponential curves, the scientists show that the planet, especially from 1950 onwards, with a further acceleration since 1970, became a raw material depot and a waste planet as a result of purposive thinking. From these statistics it becomes clear that it cannot possibly continue in the present style. Since the earth is an ecospheric total system, very many curves will collapse at once.
This raises the sole question: how much time is left for mankind to reach total collapse - if it does not immediately learn to reconcile with nature? We are talking here about a time horizon of a few decades, within which humanity may still have certain options for action that may save us from absolutely fatal developments. We only have to interpret the signs we already see today correctly and draw the necessary conclusions from them. However, we are far away from that.
But at least some of the young people have understood that their future is at stake. The realities of climate change are already emerging. The planet will spit humanity out like a rotten apple, at least the vast majority, if they don't come to their senses.
Overpopulation as a problem?
Overpopulation is certainly a problem - whether it is the biggest problem is another question entirely. With a halfway fair distribution of wealth in the world, half of the world's population would not have to live in misery, and the problem of overpopulation would certainly not be as pressing as it is today, because humanity would then not multiply so excessively.
According to the latest Oxfam report from 2019, 26 billionaires in this world own as much as 3.5 billion people. What kind of world is this anyway? What kind of political system is this that allows this to happen? This is nothing but the orchestration of hell on this earth.
A completely different point is whether the world population, if it continues as it is, will actually reach about 10 or 11 billion in 2050. It can also be without further ado that in the course of the next 20 years the total ecological crisis in combination with the climate crisis and new wars will unleash such a high destructive force that this high population figure will not even be reached by 2050. All future projections contain considerable uncertainty factors.
Everything is known
Everything we are talking about here has been known to the rulers for a long time. All the reforms are held out to the people as a carrot for purely cosmetic reasons. They serve as tranquilizers and lead to nothing. At best, they delay the necessary economic, political and cultural revolution.
All the hype about e-mobility, the hare-brained CO2 tax that further increases the tax burden on the population at large. Even if the rulers assumed some sanity and allocated the money from a CO2 tax exclusively to environmental protection, it still wouldn't change anything about the ravages of the current death economy.
But they will put the revenues from the CO2 tax, which they squeeze from the population, into militarization and rearmament and the development of a police state.
The EU Environmental Assessment
Environmental restrictions that go beyond symbolic politics also have no place at all in the EU. The neoliberal leaders and their governmental apparatuses have made the EU what it is today, that is, this EU is actually nothing but the continuation of disaster capitalism on a higher level. It is the project of the ruling elites to drive market radical capitalism to excess.
And now comes the report of the European Environment Agency on the "State of the Environment in Europe 2020". There we read:
"Change of course urgently needed to tackle climate change, halt environmental degradation and secure future prosperity."
One can only say: stupid! The state of nature in Europe is the logical consequence of this economic system. But of course this is not said so clearly in this environmental report. There are still attempts to reconcile market-radical capitalism with nature, but this is doomed to failure. Nevertheless, it is worth taking a look at this report. It shows very clearly that all meaningful parameters are already set to red for 2020, that is, negative trends and developments dominate. This applies, among other things, to
the protected species and habitats for birds and butterflies,
the aquatic ecosystems and wetlands, the state of marine ecosystems and marine biodiversity, the condition of soils,
chemical pollution and impacts on ecosystems, climate change and impacts on ecosystems, the emission of chemicals, the pollution of surface and groundwater, the concentration of pollutants in the air,
noise pollution of the population and its health effects, water pollution from chemicals and the risks to health. And by 2030, greenhouse gas emissions and reduction efforts, energy efficiency and renewable energy sources are additionally on red.
All of this information comes from the pen of the EU's Environmental Protection Agency and is not doom and gloom from "wacky ecology nuts." It shows: The EU, based on market radical capitalism, is completely incapable of even approximating its own environmental standards. It confirms this in black and white. And so the question is: What still has to happen for the European Council, the national heads of state and government to come to their senses? Since this is obviously out of the question, the people must take their fate into their own hands.
While the EU fails to meet its environmental targets for 2020, let alone 2030, Ursula von der Leyen, as the new EU Commission President, is drafting a grand multi-trillion plan for a "Green New Deal." But this is nothing more than a continuation of the old growth policy in new guises. In this way, the problems that already exist are only being dragged out even further.
Instead of throwing trillions into a "Green New Deal" paid for by the people of the EU, gigantic investments should be made in cleaning up the damage done by the past and in renewing an agriculture that is close to nature. In addition, a completely new economic concept would have to be developed that thinks from the planet's boundaries. But this civilization is light years away from that.
Guardians of a system of exploitation
The whole vicious circle in which we find ourselves today, and which has brought the planet's ecosystems to the brink of collapse, began centuries ago with the rise of capitalism. The rise of capitalism and the rational thinking associated with it declared nature to be a plunderable storehouse of raw materials, abandoning it to exploitation and destruction. The basis is still today the ideology of the neoliberals, who still cling to this thinking because they cannot admit their total failure - even at the price of their own demise. At the same time, they are turning the planet into a garbage planet via the externalization of costs.
In other words, the neoliberal hasbarians have ensured that we have lost at least 30 years to make the necessary eco-social turnaround. Chris Hedges is absolutely right when he says that the ruling elites in the capitalist system were trained for the purpose of exploitation.
This is precisely why the neoliberal transformation of the entire education system was initiated via Pisa and the Bologna Process, in order to train precisely the functional elites that serve the perpetuation of the capitalist system. How correct Chris Hedges' statement is can be seen from the fact that Chancellor Angela Merkel said years ago: The "state is the guardian of order." And by that she meant the free-market radical agenda that the ruling politicians have been so intensely involved in knitting.
The military and climate change
And because the military is often decades ahead of civil society in its planning, the Pentagon has long accepted climate change as a fact because it sees itself massively limited in its ability to act, in its core task of fighting Russia and China, of waging wars in general.
A 2003 Pentagon study describes possible causes and effects of sudden climate change. Climate change is interpreted as a national and international security problem with potential implications for Department of Defense missions. Since that time, many studies have appeared from the military environment.
Initial analyses date from 1996, followed by 2003, 2007, 2014, 2015, 2018, and 2019, with the Pentagon attempting to predict, to the extent possible, the next 20 years. The senior commanders of the six Unified Combatant Commands on 4,000 bases in the U.S. and about 1,000 internationally are directed to report all climate-related data centrally.
The main risk factors identified in the January 2019 paper, "Report on Effects of a Changing Climate to the Department of Defense," are: Floods, drought, desertification, forest fires, thawing permafrost, further water scarcity, struggle for resources, famine, failing states.
In the U.S. itself, many military deployments have already taken place to mitigate the effects of hurricane disasters, associated flooding, infrastructure destruction, and to help with disaster control.
The military is not the Samaritan League of civil society, lest there be any misunderstanding here. Not just the U.S. war machine, but militaries around the world are adapting to climate change and the foreseeable consequences for military operability - because that is what the military cares about.
Is a post-globalist world conceivable?
A de-globalizing world is not a reversion to the Stone Age, but the basic prerequisite for giving life on this planet a chance again. A healing of the planet leads via de-globalization. It is clear that this cannot be realized overnight.
The authors of the book do not claim that they can save the planet. They are convinced, however, that the prerequisite for saving this planet and life on it is tantamount to overthrowing the ruling elites.
The "elites" will not be the ones to lead us out of this disaster. They certainly won't. The peoples can only do that themselves. They must realize that they are being held in check by the propaganda apparatus of the ruling elites. If they do not succeed in turning the wheel around, what the American writer Roy Scranton called "learning to die in the Anthropocene" is preprogrammed from our point of view. By this he meant not a single individual, but civilization as a whole.
The papal encyclical Laudato si' - a social revolutionary document.
On a higher level, we end up with fundamental ethical-moral and thus philosophical questions. These must be answered in favor of life if man is to have a future on this planet. It is hardly a coincidence that the current Pope sees himself in the tradition of Francis of Assisi, 1182 to 1228. He has gone down in history not only as the founder of a religious order and a saint, but also as the bearer of humanism, of holistic thinking with respect for life.
If we disregard the religious aspects of the encyclical Laudato si', it is a powerful manifesto against the ruthlessness of our current economic system, a loud cry against the destruction of the common home or "our sister", as the Pope calls the planet.
The writing is a manifesto against those in power, against stupidity, indifference and ignorance, against insensitivity and rationalism of purpose. The encyclical is a single indictment against the madness of our time and against the self-inflicted dramas of this civilization.
Above all, Francis writes that those who hold political and economic power are obviously eager to conceal the problems and hide the symptoms that are already visible everywhere.
The manifesto is not just reduced to climate change, but is a comprehensive look at current environmental problems. Pope Francis addresses, among other things.
the water issue,
the loss of biodiversity,
the general deterioration of the quality of life and
social decline.
The pope also turns his attention to global social injustices, and above all he deals with the ignorance of the powerful in economics and politics, as well as the indifference of the public to the future problems that are rolling towards them.
He denounces the subjugation of politics to technological thinking and finance. Above all, he connects the destruction of the planet and the claims of the rulers to ever more resources and growth with the question of war, with the danger of the increase in international conflicts.
He castigates pseudo-reforms that keep us ever more trapped in the current crisis circulation, and the seemingly logical solutions that exist solely to continue on the destructive path for a while longer. The Pope gives a fundamental rejection to all those who believe that they can solve the current gigantic crisis with technical programs and little reforms.
Despite all the excellent things that technological progress would have contributed in a positive sense to the development of human society, the negative side of the entire technological development, of technologically oriented thinking, would absolutely have to be seen as well. These sciences would also have led us into a great misery. Above all, man in the course of his development would not have been able to combine technological growth with genuine responsibility, with the formation of conscience and ethical education. We are in danger of technology degenerating into violence and power over man himself.
The ideology of technological logic, of technological rationality, is so dominant in the globalized world, he says, that it grasps at both nature and the human condition itself. In section 114, Pope Francis points to the urgency of a cultural revolution. Regrettably, however, Francis does not get to the bottom of the property question. We must, however, radically question the property order, which carries with it injustice, violence and wars.
According to Francis, we are not in two crises side by side, an environmental crisis and a social crisis, but in a single and complex crisis, a social-ecological crisis. Its solution can only be found in the sense of a holistic approach.
If one then looks at the so-called Christian Democratic Party in this country, it embodies in everything the absolutely diabolical-toxic contrast to what Pope Francis demands or what still has any connection to Christian thinking. The CDU is a rallying point of growth fetishists, ecological hotheads, warmongers, police state supporters, conquerors and imperialists. It is the darkest reaction. Inwardly, CDU politicians divide society through competitive terror, consumerism and disorderly immigration; outwardly, they divide society through commodity export warfare and the preparation of wars of aggression.
And so it is no coincidence that activists from Greenpeace took away the C from the CDU's lettering as part of a satire action. They should also have removed the D, because this party has as little to do with democracy as with Christian values. Then only the U would remain. A union of war inwardly and outwardly. But the same applies to all ruling parties.
Mankind is currently facing three major crises caused by the ruling economic and political actors:
a gigantic financial crisis,
the planetary ecological crisis and
the lurking danger of war caused by the world conquest obsession of the USA and its vassals.
What can the individual do?
Of course, everyone must fundamentally question his or her own consumer behavior if he or she cares at all about the environment and the planet. We, the authors, are also convinced that the required new system cannot be based on voluntary self-restraint. After all, the voluntary self-restraint of the industry did not contribute to saving the environment, but was just a smokescreen to keep on doing business as usual.
"Saving the planet" means making fundamental changes in one's own life and leaving the never-ending escalating spiral of demands. Anyone who believes he has to buy ten torn-out chicken thighs for 2.98 euros can do so as part of his free purchasing decision. Only he should be aware of the fact that he makes himself the irresponsible integral part of a murderous Quälfleischindustrie. Their tentacles lead up to the destruction of the rain forests, because on the areas cleared of life there exactly the fodder is cultivated, which this Quälfleischindustrie needs.
Those, which speak in this context of the rising Ökodiktatur, are exactly those, which either did not recognize yet that they live in a real capital dictatorship or which comfortably furnished themselves there. They, too, will eventually realize that the system has reached its limits. In a class society the advantages and the disadvantages are always unequally distributed, insofar the rich and super-rich will be able to compensate environmental damages as a rule sooner than those who already have nothing to lose. Those who still believe that they should live according to the false concept of freedom of the market radicals do so at the expense of other people, nature and the entire planet. In my view, the term ecodictatorship is the second stupidest term that has found its way into the language after the term "lack of alternatives".
Personally, I am convinced that every grassroots, extra-parliamentary movement is absolutely important. After all, the parliamentary system was not conceived to represent the real interests of the people, but to serve the interests of the oligarchs. To confirm this statement, it is enough to look at the last 30 years and see how Germany, but also the EU, have turned into an elite project. Only every extra-parliamentary movement must be fully aware of being disrupted, divided and finally weakened in its thrust - if not - dismantled by the forces of darkness. The stronger an anti-capitalist ecology and peace movement becomes, the more the secret services, think tanks of the ruling class, reactionary trade unions, ruling cliques in the parties and above all the denunciation columns of the ruling media industry massively influence its development.
It becomes maximally problematic when a grassroots movement for environmental protection and peace, like the Greens, gets involved in the realpolitik of parliamentary business. This goes fundamentally wrong, because the corruption practices of the ruling political establishment will always ensure that nothing remains of the actual concerns of such a movement - these at least have no chance of ever being translated into practical politics. This is the lesson of the last decades.
The whole process of the development of the Green movement in Germany should be a warning to us here. In this party, the worst Russia-haters and warmongers have boxed their way to the top, surpassing even their male colleagues in stupidity and ignorance. In the course of the corruption process, nothing is left of the original peace concept of this green movement, and as far as the environmental protection aspect is concerned, this party has long since degenerated into a defender of market-radical capitalism. Above all, any grassroots movement that is serious about ecology and peace must link its demands to a fundamental change in the political system that breaks with party rule.
Surely, we agree that individual behavioral changes will not save the planet. The individual's options for exerting influence in this absolutely muddled situation are limited, but that does not mean that lethargic waiting is permissible. I can well understand the people who are thinking about what they can do themselves in a positive sense. I would just like to give them some advice:
Throw all payback cards and newspaper inserts with special offers in the trash immediately. What is currently cheap for you is guaranteed to be expensive for someone else. All these tools were invented to encourage you to store.
Do not take out enslaving consumer loans.
Give up torture meat from factory farms. The era in which our fathers in the post-war period were proud to be able to eat a good piece of meat every day must be over. There is really no question of "good" meat any more. In addition, high meat consumption promotes cardiovascular disease and ultimately puts you in the grave earlier. And consider, who eats much meat, eats the rain forest equal also on and the humans, who were driven out from there.
Say goodbye to the use of disposable items and do without any kind of plastic.
Tear up all sealed surfaces wherever you can. Some front yards with all the stone rubble resemble dead moonscapes. Plant as many native flowers and herbs as you can.
Finally, the most important thing is to escape the influence of the ruling mass media wherever you can, because they are the ruling media. They are the propaganda machines that have educated people to become stupid will-less consumers, that persuade them that they can't do anything anyway, that make the new wars palatable to them, that encourage them to buy new expensive electric cars, that talk them into a cheap flight and tell them that the climate catastrophe and the eco-catastrophe is an invention of crackpots. This means that the most important act of self-liberation goes through hygienic measures of one's own mind in order to recognize into which constructs of manipulation, lies and violence the rulers and their media spin us in order to form us according to their image and to prevent us from active action.Ullrich Mies: "Who are the apocalyptic horsemen of our time?"
Ullrich Mies is a social and political scientist. He studied in Duisburg and Kingston/Jamaica. His main interests are international political conflicts, organized peacelessness, state terrorism, neoliberalism, erosion of democracy, criticism of capitalism and militarism as well as the conservation of biodiversity. He has been self-employed since 1994 and has lived in the Netherlands for 30 years. He writes for Rubikon, Neue Rheinische Zeitung, Neue Debatte and many others. In 2017 he and Jens Wernicke published as editors "Façade Democracy and Deep State: Towards an Authoritarian Age", in 2019 as sole editor the book "The Deep State Strikes: How the Western World Creates Crises and Prepares Wars" and in 2020 the book "MegaManipulation: Ideological Conditioning in Façade Democracy".
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