PATTERNS OF DISASTER CAPITALISM? THE MIDWEST, AND OROVILLE DAM: PART ...

Yesterday, you'll recall, I took the opportunity of the recent storms to outline some definitions of "disaster capitalism" and to distinguish between what I am calling "primary" disaster capitalism, and "secondary" disaster capitalism. As you might also recall, I outlined my arguments for why the last couple of months' storms in the American midwest might be construed as at least the latter, and perhaps the former, and I've also outlined a brief argument that we might also be looking at actual weather warfare. But as I also pointed out, technologies capable of mimicking "acts of God" are difficult to distinguish from the actual thing. Indeed, for jurisprudence, the existence of such technologies poses a problem: how does one adjudicate contractual disputes that include "acts of God" clauses in contracts?

As I also indicated yesterday, many readers submitted articles about the problems with California's Oroville Dam prior to all the storms in the region I live in. The three at the top of the list:

Deja Vu: Is the Oroville Spillway About To Fail Just Two Years After Near-Disastrous Evacuation?

Complete failure at Oroville Dam

The Moment of Truth for the Oroville Dam-New Data Indicates the Coming Failure

A couple of years ago I did blog about the problems at the Oroville Dam in California, in conjunction with the fires there, all of which I still view in a kind of 60-40 split in favor of "disaster capitalism" being practiced by someone. In the case of the fires in California, there are enough prima facie indicators of exotic technologies in play to make me suspect that it's more of a 80-20 split.

In the case of the Oroville Dam, however, one might be looking at a modification of the patterns and definitions of primary and secondary disaster capitalism that I proposed yesterday. Let's look at a few statements from the lst article linked above:

I spoke with Paul Preston late last night and he indicated that some people, downstream from the Oroville Dam have packed up and left because of the anticipated dam failure. I asked Paul Preston, "How close is the dam to failing?" Preston replied "It could go by this weekend".. His comments, in part, are based upon the dire weather forecast in which intense rainfall is forecasted between Wednesday May 15 and Sunday, May 19th. This is significant because this could greatly add to the inflow and the outflow data which shows an extreme imbalance. And when we consider that the dam is 12 feet from overtopping, the danger multiplies exponentially. When any structure takes on more water, whether it be a ship or a dam, it is going to fail/sink.

...

Paul Preston has previously related to me that the California State Government has a financial motivation to see the dam fail based on the following:

  • The State of California is broke and the state is quickly reaching a state of insolvency.
  • If the Oroville Dam fails, the state will instantly quality for over a billion dollars in federal disaster aid.
  • The state has motive to see the dam fail.

Based on these facts, one can understand why when security of the Oroville Dam disappeared for 32 hours, foul play would be suspected. We have already seen the state dynamite the earthen sides of the dam and the constant flow of trucks and their subsequent vibrations are of concern to the locals in that they believe that the activity could contribute to the failure of the dam. Subsequently, tension and emotions are running high.

If the speculations advanced in this article are true - and I personally have no difficulty believing them -- then one can add a new twist both to the primary and secondary levels of disaster capitalism: that of insolvent states using such means to harvest money from the Federal government in the ultimate "wealth redistribution plan" in the form of disaster aid.

But it is the end of this article that gives one pause, for clearly the author, Dave Hodges, is thinking in terms of the wider pattern of weather which I have been concerned with in yesterday's and today's blogs.  Indeed, as of this writing, the system which moved through here a few days ago is expected to create problems from southern Ohio to Pennsylvania and most of New York state, on into New England. Here is Mr. Hodges' summary of the Oroville Dam problem in the wider context:

A policy decision has been with regard to the threat. Every time an article is published on the CSS site, about the condition of the Oroville Dam, until failure, the dangers will be published along with any new information. The following represents the risk associated with a catastrophic dam failure.

  1. A breach of the dam would release a 30 foot wall of water traveling at 75 MPH.
  2. The escaping water would reach Sacramento within 45 minutes (long estimate).
  3. Over one million people lie in the path of the water.
  4. After the dam fails, there is not time to evacuate the population.
  5. Thirty percent of all American retail crosses this area from ports on the Pacific Ocean. The effect on the economy would be catastrophic.
  6. The Central Valley is one of the most bountiful agricultural areas in the world. No crops would grow for years. Combined with the Midwest flooding, famines will result and extreme food inflation.
  7. America would teeter upon collapse.

While I am not as pessimistic as Mr. Hodges about the special brand of disaster capitalism that California might be practicing and its wider effects, there is no doubt that the general implications of a failure, which he has summarized in his seven points, would be very deleterious.

The bottom line for me is that disaster capitalism - both primary and secondary - is real, as is geophysical warfare. We will all need to sharpen our analytical skills. If anything emerges from a consideration of wider patterns in this respect, it is perhaps this: "they" may have switched the game plan from burning people out, to one of blowing and flooding people out.

See you on the flip side...

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Joseph P. Farrell

Joseph P. Farrell has a doctorate in patristics from the University of Oxford, and pursues research in physics, alternative history and science, and "strange stuff". His book The Giza DeathStar, for which the Giza Community is named, was published in the spring of 2002, and was his first venture into "alternative history and science".

12 Comments

  1. Pierre on May 25, 2019 at 7:58 pm

    for fun monty python army protection racket.

    http://www.montypython.net/scripts/armyprot.php

    ***
    Dino: How many tanks you got, Colonel?

    Colonel: About five hundred altogether.

    Luigi: Five hundred, eh?

    Dino: You ought to be careful, Co1onel.

    Colonel: We are careful, extremely careful.

    Dino: ‘Cos things break, don’t they?

    Colonel: Break?

    Luigi: Well everything breaks, don’t it Colonel. (he breaks something on desk) Oh dear.

    Dino: Oh see my brother’s clumsy Colonel, and when he gets unhappy he breaks things. Like say, he don’t feel the army’s playing fair by him, he may start breaking things, Colonel.

    Colonel: What is all this about?

    Luigi: How many men you got here, Colonel?

    Colonel: Oh, er… seven thousand infantry, six hundred artillery, and er, two divisions of paratroops.

    Luigi: Paratroops, Dino.

    Dino: Be a shame if someone was to set fire to them.

    Colonel: Set fire to them?

    Luigi: Fires happen, Colonel.

    Dino: Things burn.

    Colonel: Look, what is all this about?

    Dino: My brother and I have got a little proposition for you Colonel.

    Luigi: Could save you a lot of bother.

    Dino: I mean you’re doing all right here aren’t you, Colonel?

    Luigi: Well suppose some of your tanks was to get broken and troops started getting lost, er, fights started breaking out during general inspection, like.

    Dino: It wouldn’t be good for business would it, Colonel?

    Colonel: Are you threatening me?

    Dino: Oh, no, no, no.

    **



  2. Pierre on May 25, 2019 at 7:57 pm

    Reminds me of Ceasar’s rich backer who got rich from burning buildings (‘Cohencidentally’ convenient to what he wanted) and picking them up for pennies in the sesterces, or came as it was burning and offering to put it out with his brand new bright red fire truck (slave driven?) for a high fee. I have not determined his tribal status yet though I have my suspicions.
    I guess that kind of gangsterism is better than Gunther’s simply message to the USA 2008 when that magic potter formula for lending lots of money to paupers didn’t pay off (or did it), “hand it over, or the economy gets it”
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Licinius_Crassus
    a bit like nero’s wife (of the tribe) enjoying his fiddling whilst Rome burned and the tribal quarters largely unscathed, like certain factories (IGFarben, Ford) not being carpet bombed.



  3. goshawks on May 25, 2019 at 1:12 am

    I have a friend with family downstream of the Oroville Dam, in Yuba City & Marysville. I have a personal interest in this matter. So, I have done some investigating:

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Oroville_dam_aerial.jpg

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oroville_Dam_crisis#/media/File:Oroville_dam.jpg

    Wiki: “The dam complex was designed with four routes for water to pass from Lake Oroville:
    1. Through the hydro-electric generators, which have a combined maximum flow rate of 16,950 cu ft/s (480 m3/s).
    2. Through a river outlet (also known as the bypass valve) that has a capacity of 5,400 cu ft/s (150 m3/s).
    3. Through the main (service) spillway located on the northwest abutment of the dam, which is used to control the height of the reservoir by quickly releasing large amounts of excess water down a 3,050 ft (930 m) concrete-lined channel that extends to the river below. Water flow onto the main spillway is controlled by eight radial (Tainter) gates that have a combined maximum discharge capacity of 270,000 cu ft/s (7,600 m3/s) when the lake elevation is 905 feet. Since the sill elevation of the spillway is 813.6 ft (248.0 m), it can only be used at lake elevations above that level.
    4. Over the top of an emergency spillway, consisting of a 1,730-foot (530 m) long, 30-foot (9.1 m) high concrete weir beside the main spillway and the adjacent earthen slope of the abutment. Once the lake reaches an elevation of 901 ft (275 m) above mean sea level – 21 feet (6 m) below the height of the main dam structure – water flows, uncontrolled, over the weir and down the earthen slope until it reaches the river below.”

    As you can see from the above photos, the two Spillways are not part of the Dam structure. They are on the side of an existing, thick hill. During the emergency last year, the main spillway ‘cascade’ would have had to ‘eat’ all the way through the hill before it endangered a flank of the Dam. The same with the emergency spillway.

    With the repair of the two Spillways (to the specs they should have had), my understanding is that the authorities are now playing a waiting-game. Concrete does not instantly ‘cure’ to full strength. Over several months, thick concrete slowly cures from around 80% strength to 100% strength.

    Engineers would want to keep water from tearing at 80% strength concrete, so they have prohibited flow down the Spillways for as long as possible. This was accomplished by impounding water at dams upstream of Oroville Dam. Now, the upstream dams are full. Time has run out. Expect a ‘test program’ of flows down the main spillway, at ever-increasing volumes.

    Again, to short-circuit the fear-mongering, the Dam structure is fine, barring some form of “disaster capitalism.” The reinforced Spillways will probably do fine this year. But even if they start to get ‘chewed up’, the Dam structure is separate from them. Keep alert, but do not provide Loosh to the baddies…



    • zendogbreath on May 26, 2019 at 11:37 pm

      the baddies loosh seems to be their future excuse after inflicting their disasters to capitalize.

      the weir, emergency spillway and the spillway all look like they’re leaking and weak in spite of much said to the contrary after the $1.5?Billion spent? lame sounding stories to set aside such prospects include springs under the emergency spillway. also they’ve allowed trees to grow where all regulations require they be removed. that was one of the problems that caused the spillway’s failure in 2017.

      by photos i’ve seen in that video from aplanetruth, it looks like pg&e is setting up themselves as inept and out of funds and innocent of intentional wrong doing.

      kinda like using dew’s to start insanely hot fires and blaming it on not trimming trees over powerlines by transformer and power stations and then shutting down and not shutting down power at inopportune times?



  4. zendogbreath on May 24, 2019 at 10:59 pm

    ran across this today.
    https://www dot bit chute dot com/video/HWaTvCwYy-U/
    ADAM GREEN KNOW MORE NEWS ON FFW NEWS W/ DR. KEVIN BARRETT

    that’s how i found out that feinberg is handling the glyphosate plaintiffs the way he handled and buried the 911 victims and their families.
    https://en dot wikipedia dot org/wiki/Kenneth_Feinberg



    • zendogbreath on May 24, 2019 at 11:18 pm

      there’s a crazy history of dam failures that i didn’t realize until 2017.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0NDRiT56_E
      Oroville Dam Update May 20 2019 HARD EVIDENCE

      what puts me over 90/10 is the plan to replace the whole dam system with 8 new mega dams going over into trillions.

      what concerns me is i learned from “the fog of war” interviews of robt mcnamara that john kenneth galbraith was tasked with analyzing value of bombing during ww2 – that dresden’s firebombing (apparently far worse than nukes) was considered a failure because it allowed germany to rebuild that transportation hub too quickly and easily. that’s when they changed targeting and bombing tactics to intentionally incompletely annihilate targets.

      the necessary demolition before rebuilding hinders the target far more than complete destruction. similar to the bomblets and mini-mines that targets and only maims children in war zones. a permanently crippled family member is a much bigger drag on the target culture’s resources than dead family members.

      it’s an important issue to learn asap which way these hidden hand operators prefer to go. those fires that burned out all metal and humans to clear entire towns while minimally touching plastic and wood are spooky. but small compared to a dam or 10 bursting onto a million or 2 people. they don’t have to burst it to accomplish their physical goals. they could just let it ruin everything in the area slowly as they so far started to do. who knows what their hidden hand religion requires of them though?



  5. Westcoaster on May 24, 2019 at 7:49 pm

    I’ve been to that dam before. Friends has a mobile home on the side of the hill facing the dam. It’s huge and would wallop the valley for miles if it started to give.
    Yuba and Butte counties have been victim to other water-related disasters. Back in 1986 a minor levy break inundated a widespread area:

    https://www.appeal-democrat.com/yuba-flood-disaster-was-call-for-levee-renovations/article_638b501a-2065-5232-a668-1db597e59113.html

    I don’t believe our current state government has the courage, brains, or willpower to do much grand conspiracy. Newsom is an idiot. And our Federal representatives are even worse. I hope some of them get taken down in the current investigation on treason.



  6. Connedincalifornia on May 24, 2019 at 12:02 pm

    And so we all become grateful for man-made foods delivered by Amazon drones.



  7. Robert Barricklow on May 24, 2019 at 11:47 am

    W/a Governor like Jesuit Moonbeam…
    what could go wrong in sunny California?

    Disaster capitalism is growing in ambition and capabilities. Like the infamous Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, who thought starving to death a 1/2 million children was worth it; she also thought if you have the weapon you must use it; otherwise, what’s the point of having it. This is emblematic of the State’s group think.
    So?
    If the government…
    get’s its trigger-happy hands on God-like powers? Fuhgeddaboudit!



    • sagat1 on May 25, 2019 at 3:56 am

      Indeed. If ever one needs reminding of how cold and inhuman these ‘people’ are simply witness their lack of empathy at the very idea of killing innocent children. With a comment like that she should have been hauled away immediately and put in the loonie bin for the sake of humanity.



  8. WalkingDead on May 24, 2019 at 8:24 am

    I know there are many who question this site, and for valid reasons. However, at times this site does come up with information which is useful. The following article there goes along with today’s topic and highlights just how fragile our nation truly is at this point in time due to the intentional neglect of our infrastructure.
    https://phibetaiota.net/2019/05/j-c-cole-american-gray-swans-21-may-2019/
    As is indicated in today’s post and the article linked, once the trucks stop rolling from West to East our just in time delivery system collapses and the defecation hits the rotary oscillator. Add to this fact the loss of crops for an entire growing season in our agricultural areas and you have a recipe for disaster and anarchy in the streets.
    That West coast utopia has become a dystopian nightmare which may just bring this nation down; and there’s money to be made and those willing to make it regardless of the cost to humanity.



  9. anakephalaiosis on May 24, 2019 at 5:47 am

    Entering the mind of a gambler, we see the speculation in bursting reservoirs of energy, hitting the jackpot, in a rush of adrenaline.

    In London, the exiled crown prins of Norway, was gambling lives of civilians, against the prospect of targeting an enemy submarine.

    Understanding, that one’s life is just a chip in their game, then they know, that their game is up, as game is afoot in brutal empathy.



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