Elite control to subvert democracy is quite explicit when one sees the great rift between public policy and public opinion. A Pew Research Center poll showed that Americans believed the U.S. should mind its own business internationally. Three of four American troops serving in Iraq agreed, saying they should withdraw and end the war in Iraq, according to a Zogby-Le Moyne College poll surveyed by face-to-face interviews with soldiers. Unfortunately, public opinion does not guide domestic or foreign policy and we won't be leaving Iraq anytime soon. The vice president said that the "War on Terror" is a "war which will not end in our lifetimes."

The Program on International Policy Attitudes polled Americans' attitudes toward the last federal budget. Where spending is going up (military, Iraq, Afghanistan), Americans wanted it to go down. Areas where the budget was decreasing -- social spending, education, renewable energy, support for the United Nations -- people wanted it to go up. The 2007 federal budget is more of the same. A huge majority wanted to reverse the tax cuts for the wealthy. "Democracy" is a term we hear ad nauseum by the president's speechwriters and apparatchiks, but the word does not approximate our reality. The fantasies propagated about our government and economy start in our schools, which according to the Trilateral Commission are responsible for the "indoctrination of the young."

The unthinking public continues to be deluded by massive state-corporate propaganda campaigns on all fronts. The deception justifying the illegal invasion of Iraq will surely go down in history as one of the greatest achievements of American propaganda. The anti-Iran propaganda is working, as more than half of Americans think Iran is a threat to their existence. The driving motive of the invasion is to retain American global hegemony by controlling the last remaining significant energy reserves left on the planet. What this means is U.S. planners will attempt to rule the world and destroy the social contract here at home to pay for future imperial wars.

Petroleum geologists are not popular and their warnings of Peak Oil are underreported by the "liberal media." A 2004 meeting of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas in Berlin included representatives from BP, ExxonMobil and the International Energy Agency. A U.K. observer at the ASPO stated "for the record, Ghawar's (the world's largest oil reservoir, located in Saudi Arabia) ultimate recoverable reserves in 1975 were estimated at 60 billion barrels -- by ExxonMobil, Texaco, and Chevron. It had produced 55 billion barrels up to the end of 2003 and is still producing at 1.8 billion per annum. That shows you how close it might be to the end. When Ghawar dies, the world is officially in decline."

Matthew Simmons, CEO of Simmons and Co. International, the world's largest private energy investment bank, believes the Saudis are "out of capacity." Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham concludes, "America faces a major energy supply crisis over the next two decades. The failure to meet this challenge will threaten our nation's economic prosperity, compromise our national security and literally alter the way we lead our lives."

Richard Heinberg's book, "The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies," presents what will be the most significant event in human history -- the imminent decline of cheap oil -- and what we can do about it.

The current administration was inaugurated by stealing two elections, placed war criminals in key government positions, was complicit in facilitating 9/11 attacks, lied to the American people for the illegal invasion of a sovereign nation, contravened international law, used and still uses "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq and Afghanistan, and has subverted the Constitution. We live in a criminal state. The planet is facing an ecological crisis that will be irreversible if we continue with our system of waste, fraud, pollution and voracious resource depletion. Humanity was in "a race between education and catastrophe," according to H.G. Wells. Implementing a "power-down" strategy involves reducing "resource usage in wealthy countries, developing alternative energy sources, distributing resources more equitably, and reducing the human population humanely but systematically over time. It could save us, but will require tremendous effort and economic sacrifice." The inevitable confrontation with Mother Nature -- to rid itself of the human parasite and preside over the collapse of our unsustainable economic system -- is imminent. The question is whether a democratic global economy will evolve sooner or later. If later, we will sink to a level of barbarism never seen before. If sooner, we can work forging communities based on solidarity, mutual aid, tolerance and sustainability that will improve the quality of life and mitigate the damage done to the planet's fragile ecosystem that we are so dependent on.

(Lehnecke lives in Napa.)