(2009) "The human species will disappear," wrote the French playwright and poet Edmond Rostand: "Little by little the small star which is our sun will lose its lightening and warming force. Then, of all this human and superhuman civilization, these discoveries, philosophies, ideals, religions, nothing will subsist. In this minuscule corner of the universe, pale adventure of the protoplasm will be eliminated forever - the adventure which perhaps is finished already in other worlds and may be renewed in another world, which is everywhere supported by the same illusions, creating the same tortures, everywhere equally absurd and vain, everywhere promised final failure and infinite darkness from the start."

Maybe sooner than expected for the human race, according to Michael C. Ruppert, a former LA police officer and whistle blower on the CIA's alleged drug-smuggling operation, who for the past 30 years has been an investigative journalist, self-publishing his From the Wilderness newsletter in which, among other stories, he's exposed the Pat Tillman cover-up in Afghanistan, predicted in 2006 the economic collapse ("Get out of debt right now"), and foreseen the near-future global apocalypse.

Also, according to R.U. Sirius on the website 10ZenMonkeys.com (not mentioned in the film): "After going public with his claims that 'the Bush Administration was in possession of sufficient advance intelligence to have prevented the attacks, had it wished to do so' almost immediately after 9/11, this ex-narcotics officer found himself speaking to auditoriums packed with enthusiastic hemp-wearing lefties, paying as much as $25 for the pleasure of having their darkest suspicions confirmed."

Considering the "speed at which things are falling apart," Ruppert says, looking for the 100th monkey (the tipping point of critical mass that leads to everyone's realizing what new behavior must be embraced), our only hope for survival is a revolution in the human soul and mind. In March 2009 filmmaker Chris Smith interviewed Ruppert for this monologue documentary in which Ruppert, after applying his critical thinking to information mostly outside the mainstream media, articulates what he sees as the final fate of the planet unless we can restore a balance between growth and resources.

For sharing his viewpoint he personally took heat from former Vice President Cheney and former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, resulting (he believes) in his efforts being sabotaged and his offices burglarized by the FBI.

Referring to geologist Dale Allen Pfeiffer's prediction of peak oil (when half of all oil reserves are depleted) in 1991, following up on Marion King Hubbard's 1976 calculations, and the attendant energy crisis, Ruppert asks: How much oil is really left? Witness the "bumpy plateau" of oil prices. In addition to being consumed for energy needs, he reminds us of how much stuff is made from petroleum products, from plastics, paint, and tires to toothbrushes and toothpaste. It can't all be replaced.

The rapid increase in the world's population of people has followed the swift ascent of oil consumption; when the latter crashes (law of entropy and finite resources), so will the former. The US government, knowing about the coming crisis for at least as long - among the reasons for secrecy surrounding former Vice President Cheney's energy task force - has encouraged deep-water drilling, quietly cheered the melting of the Arctic ice cap to eventually get at oil beneath, and promised "fair access" to oil in Iraq to US companies. Saudi Arabia, worried about a revolution among its population if expectations for an improving standard of living aren't achieved, has begun exploring offshore because its own land wells, which supply 25% of the world's oil, are going dry.

He dismisses alternative fuels and substitutes for the gasoline-powered internal-combustion engine: ethanol (a joke that requires more energy to produce than it delivers), tar sands (huge quantities of fresh water necessary for boiling), hydrogen, and the battery-powered electric motor (depends on another energy source). Similarly he nixes alternative energies: "no such thing as clean coal," nuclear power plants (expensive with lengthy approval process), ocean tides (limited to coasts), solar and wind (transmission limitations in antiquated electricity grid).

Commercial food production is dependent on oil and gas - ten calories of energy are expended for every calorie consumed - with chemical pesticides, ammonia-based fertilizers, irrigation pumps, and the oil-powered machines that plant, spray, harvest, and deliver the crops.

In addition to the energy sinkhole on which our civilization rests ("peak everything"), Ruppert describes how "the whole economy is a pyramid scheme" with our fictional monetary system created out of thin air from a fiat currency (symbolic, unreal, unlike gold or silver), fractional reserve banking (e.g., $10 loaned for every dollar deposited), and compound interest.

From bankruptcies in California and Michigan to Greece and the UK, the people in charge are losing control. He discounts the ability of human ingenuity to rescue us. Disowning the appellation of messiah, Ruppert insists: "The only person I'm responsible for saving is me." (Why then is he a heavy smoker residing in Culver City, CA, within a megalopolis from where he says the population will be forced to flee when the collapse occurs?)

However, in addition people's changing their minds through stages of grief, from anger to acceptance, to believing there's a way out of this, he says: "Community is what will save us." Rugged individualists will fail. "Everything will be local," he predicts as neighbors support one another and barter: "We have to survive the transition phase," when shortages eventually leave nothing on the store shelves, recommending buying gold and storing seeds. (Adding charcoal and urine to replenish his soil, he doesn't mention humanure composting, which would be advisable when the sewer systems fail.)

He becomes very emotional in declaring that there's no need for debate since the collapse of civilization is "taking place right now"; but when the time comes for public acknowledgement, the government and the mass media will lie that "nobody could have predicted this." Asked about his spiritual outlook, Ruppert answers simply by quoting 1 Timothy 6:10: "The love of money is the root of all evil."

In the LA Herald Examiner, Randall Sullivan raises the question of Ruppert's paranoid obsession: "you begin to wonder if the courageous and the crazy are the same people." Nevertheless, if the situation on Earth has become "the cliff event" like on the Titanic, Ruppert states elsewhere (posted on Mac Slavo's website SHFTplan.com): "And what happened on the sinking of the Titanic? There were not enough life boats. And what I said in the movie clearly was, if you're on the Titanic and you know the ship is going to sink, and you find one group of people who says that 'the ship is unsinkable - unsinkable - you're doomers, you're gloomers, you're not politically correct, I'm going to the bar, I don't want to say anything that will upset anybody, leave me alone.' The big mistake that many people who got what was happening did was to try to persuade those people. I say, Let them die."

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Copyright © 2010 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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