The Collapse Meme
The paranoid flip side to Glen Beck is Civilizational Collapse hawker Michael Ruppert, the subject of this creepy 2009 movie. Like Beck, Ruppert has a loyal fanbase who share his dark worldview, which he now propagates on the web through…get ready for it: Collapse Network.
Ruppert periodically posts videos on Collapse Network, such as this beaut from last week, in which he explains why Americans should be “scared shitless” by the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. His prediction:
It will not be long before we start seeing these same events happen in Europe and happening here as well. This is a very dangerous time.
Like Beck, Ruppert is also not shy about his prophetic prowess:
I’m the guy who can tell you which tree is gonna fall on you first–hopefully.
Now what’s really interesting to me about all this is that Ruppert has linked up with New Age survivalist/guru Tom Brown, who I’m familiar with. But that is a story or a post for another time.
The purpose of elections is to ‘go with the flow’ of societal shifts before they become violent.
With an audience of 5 of which Keith is 2.
If only that were the case. This is big business, peak oil, end-of the-world fear-mongering.
The morning of 12/21/12 will be a huge let-down for many people.
After the horrible disappointment that Y2K turned out to be, I guess they need something to look forward to.
The Reptilians and the New World Order better get their acts together.
If this guy truly believes society is on the brink of collapse, why is making internet videos even on the to-do list?
With Beck, there is a logical explanation for his madness. He’s in a business that depends on ratings for success. I don’t get why these other guys do it. But that’s just me and my logic.
Anarchy requires too much effort. We’d have to get off our butts and leave our computers. Forget it!
They are pretty much the same, except that Beck has a daily TV show with an average viewership of 1.8 million and Ruppert has a website with an Alexa rank of 184,352.
I remember this guy! Looks like CollapseNet has over a thousand members. This stuff, overlapping with a lot of the Zeitgeist “the shift is near!” crowd will always be big. It’s almost like there’s an inherent human (or just American?) trait to think that we are living in the end times, and it won’t be pretty when it happens (at least if you are not ready to take the leap of consciousness).
I am however, in my own way worried about some of the same things as Ruppert. Zombies are not one of them.
So the objection by some to this post is what exactly? That I didn’t say Ruppert has a miniscule audience compared to Beck? I thought that was self-evident. Would you have been more approving had I not mentioned Beck at all. Just trying to understand the latest knee-jerk reaction…
Oh yeah, this guy is definitely peanuts compared to Beck. But from my experience many of the ideas or the memes he promotes deeply resonate with a big crowd. I’ve probably met more people who share Ruppert’s views than Beck’s, but I do live in Canada.
#6
“It’s almost like there’s an inherent human (or just American?) trait to think that we are living in the end times”
Conflict is a necessary component of all fictional literature.
Man v Nature, Man v Man, Man v Self.
“John had a happy life laying in his hammock while his wife doted on him” isn’t going to sell many books or get anyone to ‘tune in next week’
True enough, it’s pretty universal, and the collapse meme is definitely an international phenomenon. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the US has more survivalist bunkers than the rest of the world put together.
As long as we’re on the subject of nutters, this guy imo is a top 5:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_%28Derrick_Jensen_books%29
“Premise Six: Civilization is not redeemable. This culture will not undergo any sort of voluntary transformation to a sane and sustainable way of living. If we do not put a halt to it, civilization will continue to immiserate the vast majority of humans and to degrade the planet until it (civilization, and probably the planet) collapses. The effects of this degradation will continue to harm humans and nonhumans for a very long time.”
Just trying to understand why the “flip side” to a prominent TV pundit is an obscure ranter with a GeoCities-style crappy web page. The first sentence of your post does rather clearly state an equivalence, in case you’re having people ghost-write your stuff now…
Ruppert is a perenial on peak oil forums, well his fans are. Apprently he offers some kind of doomer social networking thing for a fee.
Peak oil makes climate debate look sane in terms of many of the people it attracts.
KK #7:
Yes, KK,it’s because you wrote:
“Like Beck, Ruppert has a loyal fanbase who share his dark worldview,”
If the reader was supposed to add ‘…but Beck’s fanbase and influence is incomparably larger’, one might ask, why should the reader care at all? Entities with a ‘dark worldview’ and ‘loyal fanbase’ are a common as gnats, in the mediasphere, and not just as regards resources.