The Ultimate Goal of the Technological Age

And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him? And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.

And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world...

And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.

And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Revelation 13:4-8, 11-17

Roger Morneau was involved with a group that worshipped demons, and ultimately, Satan himself. The Lord saved him and brought him into the true light of Jesus Christ. While his testimony (in his books, and viewable online) is fascinating, one of the most remarkable things that he reveals is what he heard at a worship service where the Luciferian high priest spoke of The Great General Council of 1700’s. He said that at the beginning of the 1700’s, Satan held a great general council with all his spirit counselors, with one purpose in mind: to prepare for the great industrial age that was soon to break upon the world. It was revealed that Lucifer foresaw another age that was to follow that, where tremendous scientific discoveries would be made, and the world would enter a unique age, that would change the way everyone lives. It would serve to usher in the end times, and the conclusion of the great controversy between the forces of good and evil.

No one can deny that this has taken place exactly as planned.

The young people I work with could hardly imagine the world I grew up in—one with only 5 channels on TV at the most, where mimeograph machines (look it up) provided funky copies for schoolwork, 8-tracks provided our music and typewriters were what we wrote with. Even I can hardly imagine life without hundreds of television channels at the touch of a button, photocopiers and printers, mp3’s and vast amounts of information available with a few keystrokes on the internet.

Yet even I grew up in a world people a mere 2 generations prior would have found unfathomable. For nearly 6,000 years, civilizations rose and fell, but for the most part, lifestyle remained pretty constant on this planet. It is only in the last 150 years—since we entered the Technological Age—that the lifestyle, advantages, conveniences and “toys” of the previous generation have surpassed those of the previous one by Orwellian leaps.

I love iPods. I love computers, the internet, and mobile phones. I love television and movies. I love being able to get behind the wheel of my air-conditioned car and simply turning the key and being effortless and quickly transported vast distances. For that matter, I love being able to fly across the country in a matter of hours, and very soon, anywhere in the world in a matter of minutes. I love technology. But before we all get too comfortable (oh, wait... too late for that...), let’s analyze what has actually transpired here.

From the second we awaken from a night’s slumber, we depend on—no, take for granted—all sorts of invisible, silent, and violent systems that make our modern lives possible. Before our alarm clock can wake us up, it has to have power. Water, coal and wind power harnessed by turbines are turned into electricity, which is then sent through cables that are over our heads and under our feet. So it’s easy to forget that at any given time, we are surrounded by thousands, or millions or billions of volts of electricity coursing all around us. What would happen to our way of life should this supply be cut off? Our televisions, iPods, toasters, computers and all other electronic equipment would be completely useless.

Even something as simple cooking our breakfast begins thousands of feet underground, where the carcasses of prehistoric plants and animals are pulverized into gas, and sucked out of the ground and processed, and then piped all across the country through over one million miles of pipes—all of it there at the push of a button, to heat our water and our homes and cooking. What would happen should the supply of gas should be cut off? What percentage of us would know how to keep warm? How would we cook our food? How would we bathe?

I am an American, so of course, I have to talk about that modern miracle we call a car. Cars are built around the internal combustion engine. The average American car holds anywhere from 12 to 16 gallons of gasoline. It also contains at least 6 to 8 quarts of oil. This gasoline and oil are harvested, processed and distributed much as our natural gas is. This gasoline and processed oil fuel not only our personal transportation, lawnmowers and Jet Ski’s, but the millions of trucks and planes that are used to transport everything that makes our lives so convenient: all the toys mentioned above, our clothes, but ultimately, our food. Out of all the traps the Technological Age has set to snare people into serving the beast, this is the most nefarious.

Eighty years ago, the small town of Moab, Utah (population 5,000) fed itself. The locals ate beef from cattle that grazed in the cool of the nearby mountains in summer or on the warm canyon floors in winter. The townspeople tended melons, peaches, nectarines, tomatoes, onions, potatoes, romaine lettuce and many other fruits and vegetables. But now, the last of the old melon orchards are gone—bulldozed to make way for condo sprawls ironically named after the destroyed gardens. This pattern holds even for big cities—among them, Washington, DC, where as recently as the 1950s most residents got their produce from Maryland farms next door that are now subdivisions of tarmac and drywall.

Close to 85 percent, perhaps even 95 percent, of the food that feeds Moab today either gets trucked or flown in over the red-rock desert—often from continental distances. Not only is this an absurd, wasteful and polluting system, where the average morsel travels 1,500 miles from farm to plate—but cut off that supply line, and the city would starve to death in a week.

In the first half of the twentieth century, a semi truck of fruit rolled out of Moab every day, out of acres and acres of orchards. Now, less than 5 percent still exist. The town has turned a blind eye to its agricultural roots, and it's something that nobody wants to talk about.

Local farming is gone, replaced by Mega-Farms (with unbelievable evils of their own which are best suited for another article). Eliot Coleman, author of The New Organic Grower, notes that an average 2.5-acre farm suffices to provide enough produce for 100 locals for a year.

Transcontinental food consumption has exploded. The value of international food trade is up threefold since 1960; the tonnage of food shipped between nations is up fourfold. Yet population has only doubled; what kind of crazy math is at work here? Is this really just the natural progression of time that has brought about these conditions? Or is there something, someone, behind the scenes, who orchestrated this with ulterior motives so nefarious, they would make Stephen King shudder? I suggest there is a mastermind behind it—someone who knows very well what he’s doing.

Transcontinental foodism is destructive, unsustainable, irrational. According to the Worldwatch Institute, an imported long-distance meal of typical value—meat, grain, fruits, vegetables—consumes up to four times as much energy and produces four times as much greenhouse gas emissions as the locally-grown equivalent. In 2002, food transportation was among the largest and fastest-growing sources of British greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile, trade studies in Britain find that the British import huge quantities of staples such as milk, pork and lamb—all while exporting comparable tonnages of these same products—trapped in lunatic "food swap" trade agreements made possible by formerly cheap oil, subsidized transport and centralized purchases by massive retailers

That this is complete madness is seen plainly when one realizes that locally-grown natural foods are immensely healthful, compared to what we are now subjected to. Pipeline food is necessarily polluted with additives, preservatives, pesticides—not to mention the germs of the many human hands and environments through which it passes (the latter most evident in the recent rash of Chinese food scandals—toxic fish, filthy shrimp, contaminated pet food).

If there's one big winner in the absurdist world-food supply line, it's large corporations. Just five companies control 75 percent of the global vegetable seed market; a handful of transnational companies control 90 percent of the trade in coffee and cocoa; five retailers account for 50 percent of all food purchases in France, Germany and Britain; Wal-Mart is now the largest food retailer in the country. At first glance, their biggest crime would be that they don't care about local economies. But remember—we’re talking about a much bigger plan here. One to bring the fate of the world’s population into the hands of a select group of individuals.

Just to show how easily the common man could thwart the plans of the powers that be, if the citizens of Vermont shifted a mere 10 percent of their food purchases to locally grown products, it would add more than $100 million dollars to the state economy. Part of this added benefit is the infrastructure that arises to grow, process and distribute food (packinghouses, slaughterhouses, dairies, canneries). A study by the London-based New Economics Foundation concludes that food that stays local generates nearly twice as much income for the local economy as food exported or imported. And this is only one of fifty American states, not to mention the other countries of the world.

Most Americans have neither the leisure nor desire to grow their own food, much less wander through the woods pulling roots and searching for berries. We are bound to the diet that's most accessible—fast food, TV dinners, the wilted things at the supermarket—because of pressures of rent, work, children, and—most important—because that's what the big food distributors make available. It’s all just part of the master plan to take us to a place where, at the mere turning of a few valves, at the mere closing down of our interstate highway system and airports—whether through martial law or natural disaster—our ability to survive will be shut off. Think of one of our most basic needs for survival—water. What would the millions dependent on a city’s water supply do if the city were to shut down their access? What would people be willing to do? The word “comply” comes to mind.

Trade in food goes back thousands of years. It's not inherently evil, but we're trading too much, and depending on oil, gas, freeways, semi trucks and airplanes—all of which could, and will, go away in a few well-planned “terrorist” attacks, or natural disasters. Even the experts can't see us going back to local—or even regional—food production. While we can, and should, try to move in that direction, the localvores who follow the “100 mile diet” are teaching us how hard it is to go back.

Or rather, impossible. You can’t go back home. We have been backed into a corner, and there is no getting out. Everything is in place for the mark of the beast to be implemented. Our only safety will be in the secret place of the Most High.

(Note: This article taken in large part from The Hundred-Mile Diet by Christopher Ketcham)