Since 1900, 69 mammal species and 400 other vertebrate species have gone extinct.
Based on previous extinctions, only nine species would have been expected to die off in the same time frame without the involvement of mankind.
"Era of ‘Biological Annihilation’ Is Underway"
Ongoing 6th Mass Extinction.
New York Times
JULY 11, 2017
From the common barn swallow to the exotic giraffe, thousands of animal species are in precipitous decline, a sign that an irreversible era of mass extinction is underway, new research finds.
The study found that about 30 percent of all land vertebrates — mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians — are experiencing declines and local population losses.
In most parts of the world, mammal populations are losing 70 percent of their members because of habitat loss.
The study, published July 10 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, calls the current decline in animal populations a “global epidemic” and part of the “ongoing sixth mass extinction” caused in large measure by human destruction of animal habitats. The previous five extinctions were caused by natural phenomena.
Gerardo Ceballos, a researcher at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in Mexico City, acknowledged that the study is written in unusually alarming tones for an academic research paper. “It wouldn’t be ethical right now not to speak in this strong language to call attention to the severity of the problem,” he said.
THERE IS A LIST OF EXTINCT MAMMALS <HERE> WITH SOURCES GIVEN AND SOME IMAGES.
THERE IS A LIST OF RECENTLY EXTINCT BIRDS <HERE> , ALSO WITH SOURCES AND A FEW IMAGES.
THERE IS A LIST OF EXTINCT PLANT SPECIES <HERE> .
The following is a list I found of species "Extinct In The Last 100 Years". What I found most disturbing was that MOST have become extinct IN MY LIFETIME.
I will list many, but not all on that list, just an idea of how many... and how recently they disappeared.
-Zanzibar Leopard, Panthera pardus adersi. 1996.
- Carolina Parakeet, Conuropsis carolinensis. 1918
-1985 — Alaotra Grebe
-1941 — Arabian Ostrich, Struthio camelus syriacus
1940 — Arc-form Pearly Mussel, Epioblasma arcaeformis
1986 — Atitlan Grebe, Podilymbus gigas
1962 – Bachmann’s Warbler
1937 — Bali Tiger, Panthera tigris balica
1942 — Barbary Lion, Panthera leo leo
1967 — Great Short-tailed Bat, Mystacina robusta
1983 — Guam Flycatcher, Myiagra Freycinet
1969 — Blackfin Cisco, Coregonus nigripinnis
1970 — Blue Pike, Sander vitreus glaucus
1923 — Bubal hartebeest, Alcelaphus buselaphus buselaphus
1972 — Bush Wren, Xenicus longipes
1952 — Caribbean Monk Seal, Monachus tropicalis
1997 — Aldabra Banded Snail, Rhachistia aldabrae
1960 — Central Hare-wallaby, Lagorchestes asomatus
2007 — Chinese Paddlefish, Psephurus gladius
2009 — Christmas Island Pipistrelle, Pipistrellus murrayi
1985 — Christmas Island Shrew, Crocidura trichura
1966 — Independence Valley Tui Chub, Gila bicolor isolata
1977 — Colombian Grebe, Podiceps andinus
1964 — Lake Ontario, Coregonus kiyi orientalis
1956 — Crescent Nailtail Wallaby, Onychogalea lunata
1940 — Las Vegas Dace, Rhinichthys deaconi
1971 — Santa Cruz Pupfish, Cyprinodon arcuatus
1952 — Deepwater Cisco, Coregonus johannae
1927 — Thick-billed Ground-dove, Gallicolumba salamonis
1987 — Dusky Seaside Sparrow, Ammodramus maritimus nigrescens
1929 — Atlantic Eelgrass Limpet, Lottia alveus
1982 — Galapagos Damselfish, Azurina eupalama
1984 – Amistad Gambusia, Gambusia amistadensis
1985 — Eungella Gastric-Brooding Frog, Rheobatrachus vitellinus, and Rheobatrachus silus
1951 — Glaucous Macaw, Anodorhynchus glaucus
1989 — Golden Toad, Incilius periglenes
1938 — Grand Cayman Thrush, Turdus ravidus
1923 — New Zealand Grayling, Prototroctes oxyrhinchus
1969 — Greater Akialoa, Hemignathus ellisianus
1974 — Guam Flying Fox, Pteropus tokudae
1934 — Hawaii O’o, Moho Nobilis
1976 — Madagascan Dwarf Hippopotamus, Hippopotamus lemerlei
1940 — Houting, Coregonus oxyrinchus
1934 — Indefatigable Galápagos Rice Rat, Nesoryzomys indefessus
1951 — Japanese Sea Lion, Zalophus japonicus
1940 — Javanese Lapwing, Vanellus macropterus
1963 — Kakawahle, Paroreomyza flammea
1983 — Kama’o, Myadestes myadestinus
1985 – Kaua’i ‘O’o, Moho braccatus
1972 — Lake Pedder Earthworm, Hypolimnus pedderensis
1940 — Lake Titicaca Orestias, Orestias cuvieri
1960 — Raycraft Ranch Poolfish, Empetrichthys latos concavus
1914 — Laughing Owl, Sceloglaux albifacies
1944 — Laysan Crake, Porzana Palmeri
1950 — Lesser Bilby, Macrotis leucura
1933 — Lesser Stick-nest Rat, Leporillus apicalis
1950 — Little Swan Island Hutia, Geocapromys thoracatus
1965 — Santo Stefano Lizard, Podarcis sicula sanctistephani
1918 — Lord Howe Island Flycatcher, Gerygone insularis
1970 — Madeiran Large White, Pieris brassicae wollastoni
1981 — Marianas Mallard, Anas oustaleti
1960 — Brasilia Burrowing Mouse, Juscelinomys candango
1956 — Blue-grey mouse, Pseudomys glaucus
1969 — Tubercled-blossom Pearly Mussel, Epioblasma torulosa torulosa
1923 — Norfolk Island Starling, Aplonis Fusco
1969 — Ameca Shiner, Notropis amacae
1938 — Pahranagat Spinedace, Lepidomeda altivelis
1975 — Phantom Shiner, Notropis orca
1998 – Nukupuu, Hemignathus lucidus
1962 — Red-bellied Gracile Mouse Opossum, Cryptonanus ignitus
1927 — Paradise Parrot, Psephotus pulcherrimus
1914 — Passenger Pigeon, Ectopistes migratorius
1920 – Arcuate Pearly Mussel, Epioblasma flexuosa
1950 – Pig-footed Bandicoot, Chaeropus ecaudatus
1949 — Pink-headed Duck, Rhodonessa caryophyllacea
1977 — Eiao Monarch, Pomarea fluxa
2004 — Po’o-uli, Melamprosops phaeosoma
2000 — Pyrenean Ibex, Capra pyrenaica pyrenaica
1951 — Queen of Sheba’s Gazelle
1922 — Red-moustached Fruit Dove, Ptilinopus mercierii
2011 — Vietnamese Rhino, Rhinoceros sondaicus annamiticus
1940 — Darwin’s Galápagos Rice Rat, Nesoryzomys darwini
1917 — Rodrigues Day Gecko, Phelsuma edwardnewtoni
1940 — Roque Chico de Salmor Giant Lizard, Gallotia simonyi simonyi
1936 — Ryukyu Wood-pigeon, Columba jouyi
1970 — Clear Lake Splittail, Pogonichthys ciscoide
1950 — San Martin Island Woodrat, Neotoma martinensis
1938 — Schomburgk’s Deer, Rucervus schomburgki
1928 — Utah Lake Sculpin, Cottus echinatus
1961 — Semper’s Warbler, Leucopeza semperi
1930 — Silver Trout, Salvelinus agassizi
1964 — Rio Grande Bluntnose Shiner, Notropis simus simus
1935 — Horn Snail, Cerithidae fuscata
1954 — Maravillas Red Shiner, Cyprinella lutrensis blairi
1964 — South Island Snipe, Coenocorypha iredalei
1979 — Southern Day Frog, Taudactylus diurnus
1945 — Stresemann’s Bristlethroat, Merulaxis stresemanni
1996 — Swollen Raiatea Tree Snail, Partula turgida
1928 — Syrian Wild Ass, Equus hemionus hemippus
1919 — Tarpan, Equus ferus ferustarpan
1936 — Tasmanian Tiger, Thylacinus
1957 — Thicktail Chub, Gila crassicauda
1939 — Toolache Wallaby, Macropus greyi
1930 — Alvord Cutthroat Trout, Oncorhynchus clarki
2002 — Vine Raiatea Tree Snail, Partula
1942 — Wake Rail, Gallirallus wakensis
1983 — Aldabra Warbler, Nesillas aldabrana
1997 — Western Black Rhinoceros, Diceros bicornis longipes
1978 — White-eyed River Martin, Eurychelidon serintarea
1931 — Bunker’s Woodrat, Neotoma bunkeri
2007 — Yangtze River Dolphin, Lipotes vexillifer
1969 — Tubercled-blossom Pearly Mussel, Epioblasma torulosa torulosa
1940 — Arc-form Pearly Mussel, Epioblasma arcaeformis
1950 – Pig-footed Bandicoot, Chaeropus ecaudatus
Some websites list "only" 80 extinct species in my lifetime... "only" 80?
What are they NOT counting?
There are other lists:
List of extinct cetaceans
List of extinct arachnids
List of extinct butterflies
List of extinct dog breeds
It appears each NATION keeps a list of the last date species were seen there.
Britain has one on invertebrates that have gone extinct in the past 100 years... wasps, bees, moths, butterflies, dragon-/damsel-flies, beetles...
We can say "Oh, well, it's just bugs", "just birds", "just fish", "just snakes and frogs", etc, but the demise of each species had an effect on other species.
It's rather like dominoes set up to fall.
Each species occupies a slot in an entire community, each community is part of a region, each region is part of the world.
Like it or not, whether we want to accept it or not, THERE IS AN ECOSYSTEM.
My grandfather, younger uncle, two cousins and I were fishing for bream one hot early summer's day and each fish that was added to the stringers was noted aloud by grandfather, who was not fishing.
For those who don't know, bream are a fairly small fish, plentiful back then in ponds all over the deep South. During certain times of the year, one could even catch them by making little balls of slightly moistened stale bread to place on the hook.
There would be six adults and five children for dinner that night.
When we reached exactly 77 fish, grandfather said, "Time to go clean fish."
Only the youngest among us pleaded for "just a few more minutes".
My grandfather took that one's small hand in his and began the lesson anew that we had all learned from him.
"Did you see how hard the fish fought to get off your hook?" he asked.
"Did you see how they still tried to get away when we put them on the stringers?"
"They wanted to live. They wanted to stay here and not be caught, but we caught them because we're hungry. Now, we have enough to eat. We won't take more than that so the others out there can live. If they live, next time we are hungry, maybe the ones we leave will have had babies who grow up like these and there will be enough fish for us to eat again."
Now, as he first removed each fish's head before scaling them, my grandfather thanked the fish for their lives, for helping us to live by their deaths. He thanked them with ancient words, spoken for centuries after centuries, the same giving of thanks used by his father, and his father's father, and his.
One was mindful of what it took to live.
He did the same thing when he killed anything we ate, even when he picked vegetables from the garden, took wild food of any kind from the land around him.
We were taught to leave a seed of some kind in the ground when we took a plant, and only took every third one until we had enough. During hard times, people left a pebble or a bead where the roots had been, if they had some, a promise for a seed when we had extra again.
It was a very solemn time of reflection when people ate back then.
To this day, I talk to my food.
Nothing escaped grandfather's attention when it came to life and death.
He admired dragonflies very much.
One day we were gathering kindling wood from the edge of the woods when we came upon a large spider web in which was trapped a small dragonfly.
My grandpa stopped and stared and my eyes followed his.
As the spider approached for the kill, the pretty little dragonfly struggled, trying to break free.
I reached out to free the little thing, but grandpa gently took me by the wrist to stop me. He shook his head, no.
As the spider wrapped its prey into a cocoon of silk, my grandpa sadly shook his head and let go my wrist.
"Spiders have to eat, too," he said. "That's how life goes on. I wish we could all live on just air and sunshine."
As the most fragile go, so go we all, eventually.
Humans tend to ignore all that are beneath them on the tree of life.
The lower 'branches' become less and less important to most, with only that top branch being what counts.
Seems like everything else must be relegated to 'prey', or to being a "natural resource", unwisely spent.
HUMAN SPIDERS
The eugenics crowd sees most humans the same way that spider saw that dragonfly, people of earth.
As our numbers have grown, some also see most of us as weeds that need pulling up and tossing on a fire, or as pests who need eradicating.
Perhaps that seems harsh to you, but it is merely a fact of this present life.
We may well be at the top of the food chain, but just as in real life, VULTURES hover overhead, above ALL the branches on that old tree of life.
Webs are slung between the branches.
Some see the slots we "average citizens" fill here on earth as overcrowded and unnecessary in their private world, a world few of us live in.
When one doesn't respect ALL life, when one cannot relate to other races, other cultures, other values and see only a specific "species" as rightful "king", we are all in danger of extinction.
When we look at "terrorists" and see their desire to erase most of us from the face of the earth, why can we not also look at the powerful of earth and see that they do not intend to befriend and nourish and sustain any but those most like themselves?
History shows us this again and again.
The power-hungry don't stop wanting more power, just as the spider doesn't just eat dragonflies.
If George Orwell's books "Animal Farm" and "1984" don't convince people of this fact, maybe Ayn Rand's book "Atlas Shrugged" might?
In Atlas Shrugged, those whose innovations and wealth and abilities ran the world withdrew from the world, ready to sit back and watch society collapse, believing that they alone had the means to rebuild society to suit them.
We can look back in time and see an extinction event for most of the human population being planned thousands of years ago by invading hordes led by men who intended to eradicate millions.
Genocide is a common thing in today's world as well.
We can look at Indigenous populations all over earth who "got in the way" of the "movers and shakers" and were swept aside, out of the way.
We can look at the indigenous wildlife of every nation on earth and see many of them pushed to the brink of extinction, so then how can we not see that happening to US, as WE get in the way of the plans of others?
I have seen seven decades of life and, with this current state of health, may not see another decade, or another year, so it becomes more and more important to me to do now what my grandfather would not allow me to do that day of the spider versus the small dragonfly.
I still want to see the young dragonfly get another chance.
Human extinction risks: people are more likely to die in an extinction event than a car crash.
THE MOST LIKELY GLOBAL CATACLYSMS AS EXTINCTION EVENTS:
-Nuclear war.
-Cataclysmic weather events like hurricanes.
-Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and similar events.
-Famines, loss of water supplies caused by a change in the normal climate.
-Pandemics that kill tens of millions.
These are the most viable threats to globally organized civilization.
Then there are what the Obama administration called space weather events: solar flares, asteroid strikes, etc.
All are the stuff of nightmares and blockbuster movies—but unlike sea monsters or zombie viruses, they’re real, part of the calculus that political leaders consider everyday.
According to a new report from the U.K.-based Global Challenges Foundation, they’re much more likely than we might think.
In its annual report on “global catastrophic risk,” the nonprofit debuted a startling statistic: Across the span of their lives, the average American is more than five times likelier to die during a human-extinction event than in a car crash. Partly that’s because the average person will probably not die in an automobile accident.
Every year, one in 9,395 people die in a crash; that translates to about a 0.01 percent chance per year. But that chance compounds over the course of a lifetime. At life-long scales, one in 120 Americans die in an accident.
The Stern Review, the U.K. government’s premier report on the economics of climate change, estimated a 0.1 percent risk of human extinction every year. That may sound low, but it also adds up when extrapolated to century-scale.
The U.K. group estimates a 9.5 percent chance of human extinction within the next hundred years.
The Black Death of the 1340s felled more than 10 percent of the world population.
Eight centuries prior, another epidemic of the Yersinia pestis bacterium—the “Great Plague of Justinian” in 541 and 542—killed between 25 and 33 million people, or between 13 and 17 percent of the global population at that time.
The Spanish flu epidemic of the late 1910s, which killed between 2.5 and 5 percent of the world’s people, approached the medieval plagues.
AND TODAY?
"Elon Musk says human race should go to Mars before WWIII or cataclysm destroys life on Earth"
December 2015 – SPACE – Mankind may only have a brief window to set foot on Mars before a disaster such as a third World War makes it no longer possible, Elon Musk has warned. The founder of SpaceX, which was the first private company to resupply the International Space Station, fears such a war could set back technological advancements. His company is preparing to announce its ambitious plans for rocket and spacecraft technology to carry humans to the red planet.
Speaking in an interview with GQ, he said such a mission may be important to help ensure the long term survival of mankind.
DO YOU THINK 'AVERAGE JOE CITIZEN' WILL BE INVITED TO MARS?
"Doctor Ready to Perform First Human Head Transplant"
"Russian man volunteers for first human head transplant" - CBS News
WELL, THAT MAN HAS BEEN 'DE-SELECTED' AFTER TWO YEARS BUT THE OPERATION IS STILL SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN THIS YEAR.
DO YOU THINK THIS WILL BE OFFERED TO THOSE WHO CAN'T EVEN AFFORD MEDICAL INSURANCE?
THE RUSH IS ON TO MAKE DEATH A THING OF THE PAST...FOR THOSE WHO CAN AFFORD IT.
HITLER'S "SUPER-RACE", NIETZSCHE'S "SUPERMAN" ARE GOALS OF THOSE WHO WOULD RULE THE WORLD.
IN REPOSITORIES UNAVAILABLE TO THE MAJORITY OF EARTH'S POPULATION, THE NECESSARY THINGS FOR THE CONTINUANCE OF THE HUMAN SPECIES ARE BEING GATHERED AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE.
"Arks of the Apocalypse"
New York Times, July 13, 2017
"All around the world, scientists are building repositories of everything from seeds to ice to mammal milk — racing to preserve a natural order that is fast disappearing.
The seed vault is perhaps the best-known project in a growing global campaign to cache endangered phenomena for safekeeping. Fortunately — the leak snafu notwithstanding — scientists, governments and even private companies have become quite good over the last decade at these efforts to bank nature.
The San Diego Zoo’s Frozen Zoo cryogenically preserves living cell cultures, sperm, eggs and embryos for some 1,000 species in liquid nitrogen.
Inside the National Ice Core Laboratory, in Lakewood, Colo., a massive freezer contains roughly 62,000 feet’s worth of rods of ice from rapidly melting glaciers and ice sheets in Antarctica, Greenland and North America.
The Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington maintains the world’s largest collection of frozen exotic-animal milk, from mammals large (orcas) and small (critically endangered fruit bats), in order to help researchers figure out how to nourish the most vulnerable members of any species: babies.
An international project called Amphibian Ark engages in ex situ conservation by relocating amphibians, the most endangered class of animal, indoors for safekeeping and sperm collection."
NORAD MOVED BACK INSIDE CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN...WHY?
TRUCK DRIVERS WHO HAVE, ALLEGEDLY, BEEN REPORTING DELIVERY OF TONS OF FOOD ITEMS AND MEDICAL SUPPLIES SINCE 2014 TO THE MILITARY THERE, LOCAL RESIDENTS CONCERNED WITH THE ARRIVAL OF UP TO 500 SUCH TRUCKS A DAY AT SOME LOCATIONS ARE A BIT DISCONCERTING.
MANY SMALLER COMMUNITIES ARE SEEING SEVERAL EMPTY SHELVES WHERE ONCE THERE WAS ABUNDANCE.
TARGET'S CEO APOLOGIZED FOR EMPTY SHELVES.
WHY THE SHORTAGES?
SMALL TRUCKING COMPANIES ARE BEING FORCED TO STOP MOVING FREIGHT THEY SAY BECAUSE OF GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS.
IF TRUCKS STOP MOVING, WE WILL REALLY SEE EMPTY SHELVES.
SPACE WEATHER?
In 2015, NASA and the National Nuclear Security Administration announced that they will work together to monitor potentially dangerous asteroids while also exploring methods for deflecting or destroying objects that could threaten Earth. AND THEY DO WANT AN OKAY TO USE NUKES, IF NECESSARY TO DEFLECT ANY THAT COME OUR WAY.
THE RUSSIANS HAVE ONCE AGAIN SET OFF AN ALARM ABOUT AN APPROACHING OBJECT THAT LOOKS LIKE IT WILL HIT EARTH, EVENTUALLY.
[ Vladimir Lipunov, a professor at Moscow State University, announced the find in a short documentary, "Asteroid Attack," posted on the website of the Russian Space Agency.] OUR GOVERNMENT DENIED THAT.
NO PROTECTION IN THE EVENT OF NUCLEAR STRIKE.
WHY NOT?
EVEN WITH THE GROWING THREATS WE'RE TOLD EXIST FROM IRAN, NORTH KOREA, RUSSIA, CHINA, IS OUR GOVERNMENT DOING WHAT THOSE GOVERNMENTS ARE DOING, BUILDING UNDERGROUND SHELTER FOR THEIR CITIZENS?
NO!
WHY THE RECENT HEADLINE LIKE THE ONES BELOW?
EVEN STEPHEN HAWKING HAS SAID WE HAVE MAYBE 100 YEARS BEFORE WE EITHER DESTROY OUR OWN SPECIES OR GET ANNIHILATED BY SOME UNFORESEEN EVENT.
You're More Likely to Die in a Human Extinction Event Than a Car--The Atlantic
Will Humans Survive the Sixth Great Extinction? - National Geographic
One in 500 chance humans will be extinct in a year, mathematician
How are humans going to become extinct? - BBC News
LEARN TO SAVE YOURSELVES, PEOPLE OF EARTH!
LEARN NOW THE WAYS OF THE 'SPIDERS' OF THIS WORLD, THEIR ENTRAPMENTS, THEIR TECHNIQUES, THEIR WEBS OF DECEIT.
LEARN TO DEPEND ON YOURSELVES AND NO ONE ELSE BUT PERHAPS A "HIGHER POWER" THAN MAN TO HELP YOU SURVIVE WHAT WILL BE AN "EXTINCTION PROTOCOL" IN DAYS SOON TO COME.
WOULD IT BE TOO MUCH TO IMAGINE THE POWERFUL OF TODAY SENDING OUT A MODERN VERSION OF THE "SMALLPOX BLANKETS" WE NOW KNOW WERE USED TO KILL EN MASSE, OR WOULD IT BE LIKELY THEY MIGHT "POISON THE WATER-HOLES" AS SOME DID IN TIMES PAST?
SOME HAVE CALLED THE ONGOING FUKUSHIMA 'ACCIDENT' SHINZO ABE's PRIVATE NUCLEAR WAR AGAINST THE WORLD. IT WILL TAKE AT LEAST 100 YEARS TO BEGIN TO STOP THAT.
HOW MANY POLITICIANS, WALL STREET CEOs, VERY RICH PEOPLE DO YOU KNOW WHO LIVE NEAR OUR NUCLEAR REACTORS OR NUCLEAR WASTE DUMPS?
IF NUCLEAR ENERGY IS SAFE, WHY DON'T WE FIND THEM LIVING NEAR IT?
WHAT DO THEY KNOW THAT WE AREN'T INFORMED OF?
THERE ARE A MULTITUDE OF WAYS TO ACCOMPLISH "SILENT EXTINCTION".
HOW DO WE KNOW WHAT IS IN THE FOOD WE EAT, THE WATER WE DRINK?
HOW HARD WOULD IT BE TO FLY A SINGLE PLANE OVER A CITY AND DROP A POISON LIKE CYANIDE ON IT?
DO YOU SEE THIS AS PARANOID THINKING?
IF SO, THEN YOU DID NOT READ THE KISSINGER REPORT NOR ANY OF
THE STATISTICS ON AMERICAN DEATHS CAUSED BY ENVIRONMENTAL 'HAZARDS', TOXINS, CHEMICAL ADDITIVES, NUCLEAR WASTE, ETC.
THE TEA ROOM HAS PROVIDED VALID DATA REGARDING ALL THIS IN HUNDREDS OF ARTICLES HERE.
THE 1% AND 2% AND 0,5% YOU HEAR ABOUT ARE INTENT ON THEIR SURVIVAL, SO WE MUST BECOME JUST AS INTENT, NO, MORE INTENT THAN THEY ARE ON OUR OWN SURVIVAL.
AGAIN, LET HISTORY TEACH YOU...AND LEARN, MY FRIENDS!
LEARN SO YOU DO NOT PERISH!
___________________
FURTHER READING:
--Science Meets UN Agenda 21, Eugenics and Population Control
-- A PREDICTION FROM THE NOT-TOO-DISTANT PAST:
There will be a stronger and stronger demand that some board or some single individual should be given power to act on their own responsibility.
The cry for an economic dictator is a characteristic stage in the movement toward planning.
Thus the legislative body will be reduced to choosing the persons who are to have practically absolute power.
The whole system will tend toward that kind of dictatorship in which the head of the government is position by popular vote, but where he has all the powers at his command to make certain that the vote will go in the direction he desires.
Planning for the masses leads to dictatorship because dictatorship is the most effective instrument of coercion and, as such, essential if central planning on a large scale is to be possible. There is no justification for the widespread belief that, so long as power is conferred by democratic procedure, it cannot be arbitrary; it is not the source of power which prevents it from being arbitrary; to be free from dictatorial qualities, the power must also be limited. A true "dictatorship of the proletariat," even if democratic in form, if it undertook centrally to direct the economic system, would probably destroy personal freedom as completely as any autocracy has ever done.
Individual freedom cannot be reconciled with the supremacy of one single purpose to which the whole of society is permanently subordinated. To a limited extent we ourselves experience this fact in wartime, when subordination of almost everything to the immediate and pressing need is the price at which we preserve our freedom in the long run. The fashionable phrases about doing for the purposes of peace what we have learned.to do for the purposes of war are completely misleading, for it is sensible temporarily to sacrifice freedom in order to make it more secure in the future, but it is quite a different thing to sacrifice liberty permanently in the interests of a planned economy.
“The “social goal,” or “common purpose,” for which society is to be organized is usually vaguely described as the “common good,” the “general welfare,” or the “general interest.” It does not need much reflection to see that these terms have no sufficiently definite meaning to determine a particular course of action. The welfare and the happiness of millions cannot be measured on a single scale of less and more.
"Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom," de Tocqueville said.
"Democracy attaches all possible value to each man," he said in 1848, "while socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude."
To allay these suspicions and to harness to its cart the strongest of all political motives—the craving for freedom — socialists began increasingly to make use of the promise of a "new freedom." Socialism was to bring "economic freedom," without which political freedom was "not worth having."
To make this socialist argument sound plausible, the word "freedom" was subjected to a subtle change in meaning. The word had formerly meant freedom from coercion, from the arbitrary power of other men. Now it was made to mean freedom from necessity, release from the compulsion of the circumstances which inevitably limit the range of choice of all of us. Freedom in this sense is, of course, merely another name for power or wealth. The demand for the new freedom was thus only another name for the old demand for a redistribution of wealth.
As the writer Peter Drucker expressed it in 1939, "the complete collapse of the belief in the attainability of freedom and equality through Marxism has forced Russia to travel the same road toward a totalitarian society of un-freedom and inequality which Germany has been following. Not that communism and fascism are essentially the same. Fascism is the stage reached after communism has proved an illusion, and it has proved as much an illusion in Russia as in pre-Hitler Germany."
No less significant is the intellectual outlook of the rank and file in the communist and fascist movements in Germany before 1933. The relative ease with which a young communist could be converted into a Nazi or vice versa was well known, best of all to the propagandists of the two parties. The communists and Nazis clashed more frequently with each other than with other parties simply because they competed for the same type of mind and reserved for each other the hatred of the heretic.
[SOURCE] http://www.zerohedge.com/news/fa-hayek-great-utopia
--SETTING UP THE NEW UTOPIA...
In the book 'The Assassination of New York', the deindustrialization of the city—more than 700,000 manufacturing jobs, two-thirds of the total, disappeared between 1950 and 1990, a period when national factory employment rose by more than a third—wasn’t merely the product of “outside forces” like globalization and technological change. It was planned, via the influence of the RPA and other entities like the Real Estate Board of New York on the city planning apparatus. Instead of protecting manufacturing as a valuable resource using zoning and tax breaks, exactly the opposite tack was taken: zoning changes and tax breaks designed to squeeze the little factories out and replace them in accordance with the six-part hierarchy listed above.
The strategy was so successful in Manhattan that by the 1980s, planners started looking across the water for fresh opportunities. Then-Mayor Ed Koch appointed a Commission on the Year 2000—consisting of the usual cast of lawyers, bankers, developers, philanthropists and the like—to plan the transition to a new millennium. The commission published its report, grandly titled New York Ascendant, in 1987, the year of a great stock market crash (though not as great as 1929, the year of the RPA’s plan).
Among other things, it envisioned pushing the central business district out from Manhattan and across the East River into Queens (particularly Long Island City) and Brooklyn (particularly downtown). The development in these frontier zones would be more back-office than executive suite, but it would require the displacement of existing industrial properties (Long Island City) and low-end retail. Of course, planners are too discreet to use the word “displacement”; instead, New York Ascendant describes the agenda as one of improving the “ambiance.”
//WW
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