There might be a day we wished we were as well off as Weimar....

A lot of the Tea Party stuff started when Ron Paul was running for President. While I don't agree with their position with regards to health care (I'm Canadian) the idea of more fiscal reponsibility is definitely a good thing.

At the time, many people in the Tea Party movement were actually anti-war (following Ron Paul's lead.) After all, Bush was spending trillions on Iraq and Afghanistan, and he's the one who started the big bank bailouts. If you want a federal government that's small and fiscally responsible, you need to stop the war and the bailouts. Unfortunately, the movement has sort of become a freakshow now, and no one is talking about the wars anymore.

Oh man, James. "Fuck Las Vegas and fuck Nevada." Golden.

I spent an unfortunate weekend there years ago and marveled at the spectacle of insanity, like a modern day freak show.

So, what are you going to write about when this thing totally winds down?

--Tommy

Paul B. Farrell's column of 2 2 2010, a forceful and cogent description of current economic predicaments, is one of the best business columns I have ever read. Thanks to 321gold. com for referring me to it. Say hello to "Great
Depression II".

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/our-debt-time-bomb-is-ready-to-go-ka-boom-2010-02-02?pagenumber=1

But even this amazing essay did not get the whole story. For that, look also at Eric deCarbonnel's column of 12 17 2009. I do not know much about the agricultural sector and I don't understand why the US Dept. of Agriculture would want to understate our food supply, but one of the items that lends credibility to this guy is the map of how many US counties were declared "disaster areas" last season.

http://www.marketskeptics.com/2009/12/2010-food-crisis-for-dummies.html

--by popcine, pronounced "pop-sinny'

I think there are lots of individual people out there who are really worried, but the knuckleheads are louder and they band together. I struck up a conversation with a stranger last week who seemed ready to hug me for being willing to talk about the dire state of things. It's important right now to stop keeping it under our hats. If we flush out the worriers, more of us can work together to adapt. There's a lot of mental preparation to be done for the coming contractions. Learning to live a bit more like those in the world who are already at the short end of the stick is a good start.

Lynn
http://www.10in10diet.com/
Diet for a small footprint and a small grocery bill

Jim, as you predicted, we are indeed entering the Long Emergency, and in the long term it may turn out ok, but in the meantime a lot of us ordinary souls could get crushed. There are a couple little tips on weathering the storm at The Nothing Store

Your descriptions of the south crack me up! I am so glad I moved to Upstate NY. We're still safe here, right? Thus far, we've fended off the Teabaggers. I expect this whole movement is going to implode--the Nazis were not trying to make a profit off each other.

Your descriptions of the south crack me up! I am so glad I moved to Upstate NY. We're still safe here, right? Thus far, we've fended off the Teabaggers. I expect this whole movement is going to implode--the Nazis were not trying to make a profit off each other.

This one should have the terbacky spittin', budweiser drinkin'
crowd seething. -the one who can read anyway. DC looks like an ant swarm but with less function. A perfect time to invoke the
reshuffling of the Titanic deck chairs.

The whole "sumptin' fer nutin'" e-con-omy really got its start under Ronnie Raygun.
First it was tax cuts for the rich and deficits funded by borrowing. Then as more & more jobs here were "off-shored", never to return, the "Con-sumers" were given easy credit to keep them pacified.
As the deficits grew higher, congress cravenly just raised the credit ceiling.
The closest we came to fiscal responsibility was under Bill Clinton who left a somewhat balanced budget and a projected surplus, which COULD have been used to pay off the prior debt.
But as we all know, Lil' Georgie just had to give it all to the rich plus some with more tax cuts that primarily benefited the wealthy.
The Sheeple were kept pacified again by turning thier own homes into ATMs via the magic of the HELOC.
Well, we all know how that has turned out.

I wonder, since it appears that President Obama, for whom many had such high hopes (all up in smoke now), will indeed be a one-termer.
The leaves the unappealing scenario of Prez Palin in '12.
At some point in the future, SOMEBODY will have to face the truth that the US is literally Bankrupt, and they will have to make the hard choices: Tell the People the ugly Truth, then take some action.
Ah, but the truth, will a Prez like Palin be able to tell the truth, and much more, act on it.
It WILL come down to a choice in this country between the "Defense" dept and Social Security, Medcare, etc.
Who will win? Will the Prez be able to cut "Defense" spending, or will they have to tell all the retirees and disabled that they will have to sacrifice so that the Pentagon can continue to occupy 1000 foreign bases, and kill uncounted millions of people, all just to protect the Corporate-Mil-Indst Complex.
Who do YOU think will win out?
Think: Was there ever a Peace Dividend from Prez Bill? No? Thought so....
So all you retirees, get used to living in a cardboard box stolen from the WalMart dumpster, along with whatever food you can scavenge from there too, 'cause THAT is really where the US is headed.

The problem with the "bought-and-sold errand boys they are" label is that it covers just about every sorry doofus in DC, from the top on down. Between venal corruption, incompetence, and empty speechifying they've got the place wrapped up.

Check out today's RUBES comic. Something For Nothing indeed!

"At the time, many people in the Tea Party movement were actually anti-war (following Ron Paul's lead.)"

I'm not so sure about that. I was at one of the early Tea Party rallies here in the Deep South, about a year ago and just after the inauguration. Did I see any anti-war signs, or anything decrying the fiscal profligacy of BushCo? No, I did not. Zero. Nada. Instead, just weeks after Obama's inauguration, I was treated to photos of Obama as witch doctor, with bones in his nose.

The Tea Party movement run by, and directed at, rubes who get all their information from Fox News. It is conservative spam email come to life. It is the new Know Nothing party, with their leader being a half-wit from Alaska who writes crib notes on her hand like some 5th grader.

The Tea Party people can go pound salt. They have big money backing them because the Republicans were such total and complete fuckups that they had to invent a grass roots opposition from whole cloth. It takes a LOT to get conservatives to notice reality and George Bush did it by crashing the economy and dumping the sons and daughters of conservative dipshits into two useless wars. There they were promptly blown up, charged to kill women and children and given seventeen kinds of PTSD.

Stack those Tea Party people up against the Burning Man crowd in a pitched battle and Sarah Palin's moronic, fleshy, followers would be so much charcoal in hours. I am simply not impressed with stupid and six-hundred isn't exactly a horde. Think about it; liberals who hang out nude, on salt flats, in August vs. the cottage cheese bodies of the Tea Bag republic. Liberal artists have proven real handy with welding torches and would whip up a bicycle powered tank before the teabaggers had finished up seconds on their customary biscuits and fatback gravy breakfast.

If they want to play beer hall putsch I say Bring IT ON.

Jim I agree wholeheartedly with your views concerning gambling "Fuck Las Vegas and fuck Nevada, and fuck all the casino operators in every pulsating gambling venue around this country. The last thing we need is to continue believing that it is possible to get something for nothing, or an industry based on that false principle."

To your "fuck..." I would also add a hearty fuck one and all the so called "professional sports" industry football, baseball, horse racing, auto racing, dog racing ...... which to my mind exist as adjuncts to the aforementioned casinos.

Living in NY's 23rd district I know neighbors who trek off to the local Native American Casinos to relieve themselves of money they can ill afford to part with and simultaneously curse Governor Patterson because he wants to close underutilized prisons in the North Country. One egregious example is located near Moriah, NY where the local prison houses 135 inmates secured by 132 prison employees.

SNAFU

Jim--

When I read your contempt for your social inferiors, and hear it echoed by your fans, I can't help comparing it to Joe Bageant's rueful sympathy for his own benighted tribe of origin, which is also mine. (Go to joebageant.com). Guess which of you comes off as the more admirable and mature person. But then, Bageant has a real class analysis, and you don't. He asks how these deluded right-wing populists got to be the way they are, and rightly blames the capitalist system itself. So does Chomsky, so did Howard Zinn and many others. Check out Theodor Adorno on the psychosocial roots of the original, non-cornpone Nazis. Be more serious, less glibly journalistic.

"Tell the People the ugly Truth, then take some action."

Action such as ridiculing them for being so stupid will just be interpreted as more classism.

JHK may gain some insight in Chuck Chalberg's advice for Garrison Keillor:

"But behind it all is anger -- as in how could all those good citizens of liberal Massachusetts reject his party, his president and all those 50 million Americans without health insurance?"

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/83673057.html?elr=KArksi8cyaiUncacyi8cyaiUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUU

Working poor people are sick and tired {angry} of the non-working whom-evers telling them to "be happy and enjoy your work" while we run things, and then also being accused of hypocrisy for expecting the goobermint to keep its promises. Yes, yes, yes, they should never have believed liars - pot - kettle - black.

Jim, When you say fuck vegas and gambling you should include the biggest gambling degenerates, those in the suits on Wall St. It is absolutely amazing to me that every time there is any mention (cheerleading) of an economic recovery these jackasses start speculating (gambling) on oil futures. The real reason behind this economic meltdown was the high price of gas. It was killing the middle classes' ability to spend that money at Six Flags and the Outback. But just as with all this other bullshit they are feeding us, they once again got the attention and blame diverted to the sub-prime mess. Let the gas prices be set by supply and demand not by these crooks driving it up which will continue to keep people unemployed while they upgrade their yachts. Ban speculation on oil. If you want to buy it fine. Where would you like it delivered?

We Southerners get really angry when a "damned Yankee" like Jim blames our culture for poisoning the US.

Even when the Damned Yankee is correct. H.L. Mencken's "Sahara of the Bozart" is more valid than ever today, as even what passes for aristocracy in the South has become crass and stupid and money-addled.

The South is, as it has always been, the problem.

And Jim: I actually make corn pone at home. It's damned good eatin' round here, boy.

That's another Southern "thing": thinking Southerners love and hate our crazy region and its culture in the same instant. See Mark Twain, Tennesee Williams, William Faulkner, and Flannery O'Connor for more evidence.

It probably hasn't occurred to many of us that the US doesn't have honest work for a fat portion of the people that need a paycheck to pay rent and groceries. A minority gets paid hugely for doing fuck-all and the rest have to scrabble over the leavings. It does not help one bit that the wealthy minority have enough spare cash to purchase storefronts, homes, farmland and apartment buildings that they will never see and leave them idle if they don't get whatever arbitrary rent they demand.

Next time you walk past an empty storefront you just think about how efficient capitalism is by leaving assets idle. Somebody could maybe make a living out of there. Too bad some rich bastard would prefer your neighbors starve while he waits for his ideal rent. I may be a socialist but I don't want to take from you. You don't have shit. I want to take from the guy in Saudi Arabia that owns three-hundred rental houses in rural Oregon. He's a goddamn parasite.

I believe it was Thomas Jefferson, a Southern of a different time, who said that democracy demands an informed and involved citizenry. Today, unfortunately, we have neither. Entitlement has replaced our sense of involvement. Our limited attention span makes it impossible to connect the dots.It is all ours by birthright, with no effort required. And like a bunch of juveniles, when we don't get our own way, we say the system doesn't work. A sense of the common good, and community have long since disappeared from our discussions. Now it's all about what's in it for me. The fact that at this point in time the Republicans have lost what little intellectual curiosity that they had does not help. We need soultions, and a loyal opposition that can put better ideas on the table.
Jim instinctively sees all this, and I just wish that others did as well.

"I want to take from the guy in Saudi Arabia that owns three-hundred rental houses in rural Oregon. He's a goddamn parasite."

So you want to "take"? Well that makes you a parasite as that is exactly what parasites do. But not only do you want to "take" YOU want to take from a parasite. Wow, man...that's getting pretty damn low on the food chain. Whatever...

Jim:

We are channeling each other, see e.g., my comment on Frank Rich's 1/31/10 column, "The State of the Union Is Comatose":

Achtung baby! Welcome to Weimar Republic 2010, where the Democratic Party's fecklessness emboldens the incoherent Right to appear "dynamic" by comparison.

TO: "SmokyJoe" (above) re: the South has always been the problem.

As posted on Krugman's 1/31/10 column, "Once again, any sort of obvious, crucially-needed, intelligent reform is blocked by the Know-Nothings who hold our country hostage to their reactionary stupidity. It's enough to make you want to vomit. 59 Democratic senators and the country still cannot get anything significant accomplished. Howzabout we cut loose the Confederacy? They wanted out in 1860, and are still resisting any encroachment of values that don't embrace the fundamental justice of slavery as a social institution. Let them wallow in their "Liberty" and shoot each other in their armed-but-polite Jesusland while the rest of us get on with instituting a rational health-care system, sensible financial reform, sane gun-control laws, the abolition of the barbarous death penalty, etc.

I walked into our breakroom Sat and there was Sarah Palin, giving her hateful speech live on CNN. I hear that it was also carried by MSNBC. ABC News gave an entire segment to it on Friday.

This kind of publicity for a gathering of 600 people is ominous. Clearly, the East Coast media as well as the Atlanta media is pushing the fascist agenda. It's not South vs North. It's rich vs poor.

I complained bitterly about it and one of my co-workers asked why I hated Sarah so. She loves Sarah and admires her "strict constitutionality".

I brought up the right wing Christian problem. That wasn't a problem for her. I brought up the $20 million deficit she left her small town. My co-worker hadn't heard of that. I brought up the shooting wolves from helicopters. She said that Sarah denied that that happened.

I complained that the Green Party would never get the kind of free hours of publicity that the teabaggers got. She said she didn't like the Greens because we believe in single payer, and she thinks that poor people shouldn't get medical care. It shouldn't be a right.

I said it wasn't a right, it was a service that civilized countries provided their citizens.

I said I didn't like paying taxes for the military, but she was fine with that.

Then I said I didn't like paying taxes for road building.

This blew her mind. She'd never heard of that concept before. Why, of course government had to build roads. How would people get to work?

I said that should be their problem, like medical care for the poor in her world.

It was kind of funny to see a person who rails about entitlements for the poor constantly, be confronted with the concept that roads are an entitlement for those with enough money to buy a car.

I don't think she liked it!

The Tea Party started out with promise but it has turned into just another Dud, just like the Obama Presidency. They used to talk about reforming the Fed and getting out of the Middle East. Now it's starting to sound like just more Neo-Con blather. The proof is the prominence of that execrable know nothing Sarah Palin. That she is popular just shows the low level of American Culture. The proles say about her just what they said about Bush 2: I like her, she is just like me" - as if the speaker is fit to rule. No, you should want somebody smarter and more knowledgeable than yourself to to be commander and chief. It's just another chapter of the old Adlai Stevenson/Eisenhower conflict; gown vs town. Americans are repelled by hierarchy, thus leaving themselves open to be ruled by those who can manipulate the mass mind. Hierarchy is not overcome, just made secret and corrupt.

Oh, and one last comment, apropos of Vegas and the gambling industry. I will never forget the first time I passed through Vegas, and saw for the first time the invisible "curtain" of air-conditioning at the open-air entrances to the casinos. That's right, the proprietors did not want something as obstructive as a door to separate the soon-to-be-gulled customers from the rigged games devised to relieve them of their wages. So, they created "curtains" of high-velocity air-conditioning at the threshold of the property. In effect, they were blasting massive quantities of expensively-cooled air straight into the blast-furnace heat of the desert.

I recalled the sharp parental rebukes of my childhood to close the door quickly when the AC was running, because of the cost of the electricity to cool said air, and contemplated the cost to the casino owners of air-conditioning the entire 110-degree Nevada desert. It was then that the scale of the massive and certain profitability of the "gaming industry" began to dawn on me.

Jim, look at a map of Nashville. The Opryland complex is essentially within the central city area. It just happens to be isolated within a bend in the Cumberland River. Moreover, the "real" Grande Olde Opry building is still downtown; I'm looking at it now.

Opposing runaway spending does not make one a Nazi, and having an Ivy League degree does not make one wise. However, the South remains the punching bag for the East Coast elite. Apparently, burning Atlanta, Georgia, and Meridian, Mississippi to the ground just isn't enough for some people.

I know folks from three different Tea Parties. Pretty much typical middle-class, focussed on excess spending and harmful levels of taxation.

The San Antonio gathering had no rhetorical blather allowed. No right-wing-whacko signs. Young and old, Gringo and Hispanic.

Anybody who thinks this "medical reform" is actually an improvement just hasn't read the provisions of the Senate bill. It doesn't do damn-all to improve anything; it will raise the cost of insurance premiums and add to the deficit.

To alleviate ignorance: The Grand Old Opry has been around since 1925. It's hardly a "post-WW II" event. And it's not that it's proponents can't spell; it's merely a phonetic spelling of how the word is pronounced "down south". It's certainly no worse than a Bostonian's "I sawr the movie." Or "Cuber".

Sorry, Jim. I share your views about energy and monetary policy, but you come across as ignorant of first-hand real-world knowledge of much of the country's population. Unjustifiably snobbish, young man...

'Rat

Since this country produces absolutely nothing of importance anymore gambling and casinos have become our only economy. As far as the Tea Party is concerned the faster Sarah Palin is elected president of this casino nation the faster it's demise will be. Just think what is going to happen when this poor, decrepit old worn country runs out of medicare and social security. Hooooowah

>The closest we came to fiscal responsibility was under Bill Clinton who left a somewhat balanced budget and a projected surplus.

I'll never understand whether the folks who say this are deceitful or just dumb. The Clinton surpluses were the result of... ready... the Dot Com bubble.

A few years ago I had someone (a very well informed Australian) tell me about what a great manager of the economy Clinton was, and I explained this concept to him.

Then, the VERY NEXT DAY, he put a move on again to tell me what a great manager of the economy Clinton was, with no additional input or arguments.

I thought WTF??? And this is a smart guy!!! Just speechless.

But one of the first rules of human nature is people will believe what they want to believe.

Tea parties and Nazis. Hmmm! You Yankees invented the tea party. I believe it was the "Boston Tea Party". It was about excessive taxation, are maybe taxation without representation. It was in Boston, where the liberal socialists have now taken hold. If you just have the right bureaucratic in power with the right idea, everything will be alright. Bullshit!

Those who attend these "Tea Parties" want the same thing, probably, as the Bostonians of the 18th century. They want to keep the money out of other people's hands, especially politicians.

The Nazis were socialists. You Yankees can call them Facists, if you want. What's the difference? Does anyone understand that?

Become a libertarian. If don't understand what they stand for, read some of the writings of Thomas Jefferson.

Fuck Las Vegas and fuck Nevada, and fuck all the casino operators in every pulsating gambling venue around this country.

Question 1: Do you include Wall Street and its cheerleaders at Obama's alma mater (Harvard) and honorary alma mater (U Chicago) in the category "gambling venue"?

wouldn't "repulsive" work better than "pulsating?

I'm with you on this. Look at what Mr K wrote:

"The last thing we need is to continue believing that it is possible to get something for nothing, or an industry based on that false principle."

- An industry like the Wall Street bullshit factories maybe? False principle is their stock in trade.

"I'd go a lot further and shut down legalized gambling all over the USA, send it back to the margins,"

- Start with Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, AIG...

I suppose this is precisely because a cardinal article of Tea Party faith is that it should be possible to get something for nothing.

- Substitute "Wall Street" for "Tea Party"

There's no possible way that cornpones could do remotely as much damage as the smartypants bullshit artists from Washington, Wall Street, The Fed and Treasury and Ivy League colleges.

The smartypants ran business, government, Wall Street and the banks not the cornpones.

The cornpones that spent their lives in auto body shops, building sites, warehouses etc were expected to know how to fix cars, wire up houses, operate forklifts and by and large they did, they did their jobs. It's the smartypants that didn't.

Who was in a position to see likely outcomes, the smartypants with the megabuck degrees at the helm of society's institutions or the cornpones? You have to nail the blame for the mess we're in on the smartypants not the cornpones.

The cornpones are riled? They should be, their lives are going down the shitter. I don't think the smartypants in their mansions and yachts are doing much suffering.

Those whom the gods would destroy, they first grant wishes.

I'm sure the Wall Street crowd had no idea that their "me-first-fuck-the-rest" mentality would bring the house down around their heads.

I'm also sure that the "corn-pone-Nazi-Teabaggers" have no idea where their sick fantasies will take them. Possibly to penury and perdition? We know to where their desires have already led them.

Joe Sixpack and Sally Housecoat buried under credit card debt and drowing in underwater mortgages? Didn't see it coming, fools?

Congratulations all of you. You got what you wanted. The gods have smiled upon you and now they're laughing themselves sick!

Insane Shelter: I'll never understand whether the folks who say this are deceitful or just dumb. The Clinton surpluses were the result of... ready... the Dot Com bubble.

And so, whats your point? I don't think that people that believe this are either dumb or deceitful. Remember, the .com bubble was popped by, wait for it, wait for it....Wall St hucksters!

I, as well as many I know were involved in the so-called .com growth, and I can tell you that many a company that had a legitimate business idea or plan was promptly taken over by the MBAs who's only idea was to do the IPO, and dump the stock ASAP so they could walk away with buck-o bucks. The real idea guys behind the company were either bought off or pushed out the door so the MBA types could get the IPO sold.
And BTW, not all of the Clinton budget surplus can be attributed to the .com bubble, he also managed to cut spending (What? Not a tax&spender?) as well as RAISING taxes on the rich and big corporations, things that Bushit immediately reversed.
No, the huge deficits and quickly spent surplus can all be attributed to the Bushit tax cuts to the wealthy.
So, it looks like you are the a- dumb; or b- deceitful one, dude. Or just a plain asshole.

JHK sez: "Future historians who try to chart the unraveling of the USA's political tapestry might point to two events of the past week. The obvious first one was the Tea Party convention at Nashville. It was held not accidentally at the ridiculous Opryland Hotel and resort in the city's outer suburban asteroid belt, right next to the circumferential freeway, and next door to the defunct (1997) Opryland USA theme park, an attraction based on the cute idea that Tennessee rubes were too dumb to spell the word opera -- so the symbolism was perfect."

Wow! Nicely done, Mr. Kunstler.
Having been to Gnashville quite recently, I can attest to the strange reality-denial, hemi-worshipping, dine-and-drink (and drink s'more) atmosphere of the entire area. (Suspicious local to visitor: "You must be one a' them READERS I hear'd tell of.")

For hundreds and hundreds of square miles around, every-damn-thing is about to be doomed to an isolation that is going to be a horrid shock to most of these folks. Once gas and diesel become to dear to motor on down to the Waffle House, it's gonna get ugly FAST. Things are much too far apart to be sustained any other way. (Well, plenty of horse breeding going on, sooooo, slow, but steady
wins the race?)

As for Gnashville itself? I think it really could be a viable entity in a lot of ways. They've actually made quite a bit of useful public spaces. The area "in back of" the capitol, where the farmers market (etc.) resides, is a good example. The corporate skyscrapers and high-rise hotels won't be good for much, but might provide some decent materials for recycling and repurposing. There is good land thereabouts, and the river should make trading a viable occupation.

BTW, I drove there (many, many hours), so I saw first-hand the dying towns and super-moto-buy-all-your-useless-shit-here centers along the way. I was a bit shocked; and I don't shock easy. To purposely build this kind of "lifestyle infrastructure" was awfully shortsighted... not to mention insane.

Furthermore, here is what Jimmy's brilliant state, New Yawk, gives us. Andrew Fucking Cuomo. Big Andy who is going after the evil bankers. The same Andy who was Secretary of Housing and Urban Development during the Clinton Administration. And what did ole Andy do whilst there? Well feast your peeps on the following from the Village Voice (of all fucking sources):

"Andrew Cuomo, the youngest Housing and Urban Development secretary in history, made a series of decisions between 1997 and 2001 that gave birth to the country’s current crisis. He took actions that—in combination with many other factors—helped plunge Fannie and Freddie into the subprime markets without putting in place the means to monitor their increasingly risky investments. He turned the Federal Housing Administration mortgage program into a sweetheart lender with sky-high loan ceilings and no money down, and he legalized what a federal judge has branded “kickbacks” to brokers that have fueled the sale of overpriced and unsupportable loans."

So this piece of sanctimonious shit, is grandstanding around on how he is going to clean up Wall Street and he did more damage with his FUCKTARDED policies than any 10 banks. And guess who will most likely end up as Governor of Jimmy's brilliant, Northern state?

For those who have not begun the journey back to sanity, planted a garden and worked out how we
re going to survive when the lights do go out [and they will] I wish you good fortune.

To those who have prepared or who are preparing, I say cheers to you.

To all of the hypocrites in congress I say burn in hell jackasses. All of the casinos in the U.S. are here for one reason and one reason only....revenue. The voice of the people counts for nothing when a municipality or state gets it in their heads that this is a revenue blessing. Same with lotteries. What a fucking immoral waste.

Saving the floundering automakers was another in a series of brilliant maneuvers designed by our ordained elites to save the unions and foist the expense onto the backs of working class America.

The time is coming when taxes must be raised, or government is shrunk, so get ready for it folks, because they sure as hell won't shrink the government or military sacred cows.

We need a new political party....The Personal Responsibility Party of America.

Good column this week, as usual. Thanks to JHK, I am now educated on the Weimar Republic, and had the privilege of reading an article from the Christian Science Monitor excoriating Obama for his comments about gambling in Vegas. That came from my quest to find out more about Reid's nutbar objections to what Obama said.

I wouldn't have believed this publication would side with the gambling industry if I hadn't seen the article. Fucking bizarre, like so much of what goes on in America these days. Living on the other side of Lake Ontario, in Canada, I see lots of that bizarro world thinking happening here too, and I wish we could shut you guys off sometimes.

We have Palin devotees here too, and a prime minister who is a fundamentalist Christian with delusions of becoming the new incarnation of George W. Bush. He clearly learns from your Tea Partiers and assorted other wing nuts and some of our more gullible citizens eat it right up.

But don't worry, these idiots will just give all our water, oil, natural gas and wood away to you Americans when you run out, then take a pat on the head for compensation.

Why if I was younger I would call for a revolution, now please! I figure we have about five minutes left before it`s too late.

Right on, Jim. Fuck Vegas and fuck casinos, including Indian casinos.

Here in California, there's a push for more slot machines in tribal casinos.

The state will cave in -- as it would rather do that than raise taxes -- and this can only end in disaster.

As the populace gets poorer and more desperate, it will flock to casinos, which will make it poorer and more desperate.

The US is now but a giant tapeworm devouring itself.

But, hey, at least we have the Super Bowl -- and cheese puffs.

PS -- Why no dissin' of the Super Bowl, Jim?

You're a clever one, aren't you, pissant?

Do you think that uttering your repulsive 5 word vocabulary over and over makes you a big man on the net? You spineless spray of monkey spunk.

Do us all a favor and remove the need for the planet to produce resources for you.

Jim, for a Yankeeee, you have a damned accurate view of at least one of the, unfortunately, major cultural threads in the south. As far as the significant minority you refer to (or maybe I'm delusional and its the majority), you seem to realize that they will not take the dissolution and eventual trashing of their newly (post WWII) acquired comfortable lifestyle quietly or with any degree of dignity. Things are going to get very violent here very quickly, I fear. The only thing holding it back now is, paradoxically, the main stream media's false and ridiculous insistence that the recovery is rolling along and that good times are just around the corner. When food prices really start escalating, when air conditioning is too expensive for any but the wealthy, when gasoline goes over a sustained $6/gallon, when the true unemployment level (U-6) goes to 30% (its at 23% now), the shit will hit the fan here in Dixie. We'll see a crime wave the likes of which Argentina has not seen or imagined. And, I would hate to be a member of the outgroup that the redneck hoardes focus on as the cause of their economic demise. For that matter, I would probably avoid having a northern state license plate being on interstates 10 or 75 going from north to south Florida once the fan gets hit. We'll see things that our grandchildren will tell tales about for hundreds of years, for sure. And then, the corn pone Hitler will arise to fix things....
Lock and load...
and Be careful
Wardoc, from deep in Dixie, and surrounded.

oh KAY

ed-doo-cashun time.

'corn-pone'

As in corn-pone nazi

Mark Twain talking about a black slave philosopher He once listened whilst the slave worked as a carpenter.

'
I can never forget it. It was deeply impressed upon me. By my mother. Not upon my memory, but elsewhere. She had slipped in upon me while I was absorbed and not watching. The black philosopher's idea was that a man is not independent, and cannot afford views which might interfere with his bread and butter. If he would prosper, he must train with the majority; in matters of large moment, like politics and religion, he must think and feel with the bulk of his neighbors, or suffer damage in his social standing and in his business prosperity. He must restrict himself to corn-pone opinions--at least on the surface. He must get his opinions from other people; he must reason out none for himself; he must have no first-hand views.
'

FYI

i enjoy reading about Jim's american south, because it offers an opportunity to showcase the prejudice of people who would recoil at such grotesque characterizations of almost any other group. every holla back to Jim's indictment of an entire geographic region is a reminder that hatred of a certain sanctioned kind is alive and well in a forum where higher ideals are often debated. its kinda funny.

Regarding our gambling/entertainment opium, what can be more telling and ironic than the former Bethlehem Steel Mill in Bethlehem, PA. that was turned into a casino, albeit with tv cartoon dealers.

As a southerner myself, I'm not sure that some prejudices aren't warranted.

Any commenters here obese? Hey, extra chunky! It's not a disease. Put down the jelly donut! That food you're eating belongs to someone else!

Is that prejudice? If it is, fuck it. It's time someone starts levelling with these over-indulged, entitled, greedy, self-important throw pillows.

Resources from here on will get tighter. If we get to cannabalism I say we start with the well-marbled...

Jim - I am from upstate NY originally and still live on the east coast. You seem to view the south as beyond saving - not sure I agree. Have you ever read the collection of essays by the writers known as "the Southern Agrarians?" The book is called I'LL TAKE MY STAND. Please excuse me if you have already discussed this. I am new to your blog. Anyway I would be interested in your take on what these writers had to say about the older culture of the south, before the cars and strip malls and such. Of course I don't mean slavery! Granted the authors did not really address the race issue, and where they did it was with the bias of their time. Yet I found their arguments about a lost agricultural and spiritual heritage to be persuasive. Do you think any of that can be recovered? I have never received hospitality of the quality that was shown to me a few years back while visiting in Mississippi and parts of Georgia and South Carolina. It felt to me like a whisper of the old South was still there. What do you think?

"Notice, by the way, that the Tea Party people have never made an issue about the disgusting gambling "industry" -- not even the Jesus thumpers among them, for all their pretense about decency and propriety. I suppose this is precisely because a cardinal article of Tea Party faith is that it should be possible to get something for nothing. "

No sir, it is a cardinal article of Tea Party faith, at least to some of us, that individuals should be free to engage in whatever consensual activities they please, including those the elites find distasteful.

I agree that we're heading for serious inflation problems, and I think that one of the only ways for people to at least try to protect themselves is to invest in gold and gold mining stocks because of the continued debasement of the U.S. dollar. I read a pretty interesting article on some of these topics at http://www.goldalert.com/ called "Gold Price Holds $1,050 – Gold Correction Over?" that discusses the Federal Reserve and government's continued efforts to try to avoid the recession by printing more money, and the expense of our deficit and the dollar.

We're Weimar? That's just what I've been saying! I wrote about that on my own blog back in December! Didn't I say here that Obama is Swahili for Hindenburg?

But did you have to belittle Reba McIntire or Dolly Parton like that? :-O

"Obama is Swahili for Hindenburg?"
=================================
He...He...Looking more like that everyday, and I worked on his campaign. "Democrats"....when it comes down to the leadership, they always choose the big contributors over the people who elected them everytime,and they wonder why they lose elections? When they discourage half the electorate (most of which are natural democrats) and listen to consultants who consider it politically wise to abandon their principals and fight over the so-called independents, you know the situation is hopeless.

Anyone who stood back and looked at the massive legalized corruption which is D.C., couldn't be bothered with any of it, except as a source of satire.

JK--

Inside the mammoth Health 'reform' proposal(which almost nobody has even read) from our empty suit Leader was the proposal to cut $500B in medicare benefits over the course of ten years-- That money would ostensibly have gone as subsidies to Big Pharma and the megalithic Insurance bastion-- Perhaps to be followed later by contributions from the aforementioned Greed Corps' to a presidential library as payola for a job well done-- Maybe the old boy with the keep gubmint hands off his medicare was onto something-- The sense of entitlement that the mega social programs have engendered didn't initiate from CrackerLand but from the basically ponzi-funded legislation championed by the Northeast Liberal Elites from FDR forward to the smarter-than-thou- members of the NYTimes-poisoned Hip-oisee'--

MarkTwain once remarked that History never repeats itself but it certainly seems to rhyme on occasion-- Our version of the Weimar collapse should me monikered the My-Car Republic-- There isn't a single government in the world whose legitimacy isn't leaking away in direct and dismal proportion to its' financial integrity--

will

>But did you have to belittle Reba McIntire or Dolly Parton like that? :-O

Agreed, it's like we don't like hard left wing koo-koo thought so we attack Alantis Morissete. Clearly that'd be a move only assholes would make.

Here is a chart of all post WW2 job losses, and then recoveries. At this stage, months 27-29 all job losses were completely recovered in all recessions but 2001-2003. And that recession was a pimple compared to this one.

Recovery? Hah.

http://www.fundmymutualfund.com/2010/02/job-loss-rates-across-post-ww2.html

Which makes me think of Asia. Where is Asia today? Tell me, Asia, more about why you "don't think much of Jared Diamond."

I think Diamond is a world-class intellectual.

Ah, right on time...

JKH - I doubt if you have ever spent anytime visiting or living in the South. Sounds like you did spend alot of time watching "The Dukes of Hazard"

What a change from the situation the West faced in the 1990's. We had finally all but banished Communism from the face of the Earth [true their were still minor, insignificant outposts in places like Cuba and North Korea] and their was no credible challenge to the turbocharged, hyper-free market economic model in sight. Oil was dirt-cheap, climate change did not yet pose a threat to our way of life, and with exception of a nasty turf war in the Balkans, things were quiet on the international front. What the hell were we thinking when we tried to sell the rest of the world on the merits of Starbucks, Wal-Mart and all-you-can-eat buffets?

When we have high school grads working municipal jobs earning six figure incomes, then retiring at 51 1/2 to collect 90 percent of their highest paid year for life [all on the backs of the taxpayers who do not get anything close to this benefit] we have a problem. - ancona

On the backs of the taxpayers? How? The Unions have thier OWN pension plans, which have done better than the IRA/401's the Hucksters on Wall St have fobbed off on all the non-union workers out there.

So don't make claims like that, its just anti-union propaganda, in other words, BULL SHIT.

People lived in the South without AC and cars for hundreds of years. Thousands of years, if you count the Native Americans. Some of us will thrive here no matter what. Unfortunately, some will not, but I see that as a matter for compassion, not sneering.

The region is far from perfect. No region is perfect - not even New England. But if you get into the rural South, there are a lot of people who still have the culture of helping neighbors and relying on each other. Even many of the churches, whether you agree with Christianity or not, have a long tradition of helping in the community and causing the community to pull together. That's worth a lot in tough times.

I also think JK's overlooking the role of the very large Latino population in this country. Let's see - hardworking, used to helping each other, putting their families first, used to walking everywhere (at least in my corner of the South), and used to hot weather. Twenty years from now, I wouldn't be surprised to see the region mostly populated by Latinos.

I agree with whoever it was who posted above about Joe Bageant. He really gets the plight of the common person in the South and the real causes of this plight. Follow the money and don't blame it all on the regional culture. JK could learn a lot from Joe Bageant, both in class analysis and compassion.

Are the Tea Partyers an incoherent bunch of loosely organized people who lack normal clarity or intelligibility in speech or thought?

YES!

BUT THEN AGAIN, SO DOES THE U.S. FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. And unlike the U.S. Federal government, at least the Tea Partyers are sincere, patriotic and worried about the direction (DOWNWARDS!) that this country is headed in.

Also, the Tea Partyers are the ENEMY of MY enemy (namely; Hussein Obankster, Goldman Sachs et al) which makes them MY FRIENDS as far as I'm concerned.

And friends should NEVER criticize friends.

Great comments Jim. But how can you not mention the cynical appearance of Sarah Palin? I watched some of her "address" and it was so patronizing and bull shit. Who are these people who admire her?

There is real pain out there. My hope is "the next revolution" is secular and progressive, not theocratic and reactionary. Obamaphilia disarms progressives; he's part of the problem, not the solution (Geithner, Summers, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc.) We can't trust Democrats to defend democracy.

Respectfully, I would like to tell all who are saying that WJC left us a budget in surplus, you are deluding yourselves just as WJC misled our completely deluded nation.
-
Social Security receipts were used to cover the budget shortfall; and, more importantly, if the budget was submitted and analyzed on an accrual accounting basis ( as all U S Corporations MUST DO ) instead of a cash accounting basis - the USA has not run any surplus in the last 40 or 50 years.
-
This is a fact, and arguing the point won't change the facts. Listen to the honorable and honest David Walker or anyone else who speaks truth to power. See the movie IOUSA, and so forth.
-
We are broke and have had trillion dollar deficits for much of the last 20 years when the budget is tallied on an accrual accounting basis.
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Yes, I know that the "power to tax" and "to print money" makes cash accounting work for all of our lying leaders. But I would like to ask you all, howzatt working for you?
-
It's long past time for truth, wouldn't you say?
-
SnowieGeorgie
-

Oh how delicate our system is...

2' of snow in Pittsburgh gave me the real taste of the long emergency I truly needed. I have visualized many of the situations discussed and described that may occur in the very near future... But seeing empty shelves where milk and bread were once overstocked...every generator, lantern, flashlight and battery sold out...3 gas stations closed and the 4th with a line 20 cars deep...Transportation was at a stand still for a day until the plows caught up and still greatly slowed down at that...Phone calls from far and near asking for help... Although only a short blip in time... It was an excellent opportunity to envision the situation as if it were permanent...or even simply a regular occurrence...hooking up a generator to run the furnace was a game changing experience as well...

Cheers World... and thank you JHK for the site...

Jim,
The progressives and peakers and doomers here in Nashville were appalled to have the Tea Party Convention here. Just so you know, we're not all rubes. There's even a Transition movement happening now. And there's a lot of foodie stuff going on -- several large community gardens, Manna, Food Security Partners. And those of us who get it network with folk in places like Hohenwald and Summertown, where I believe you have acquaintances yourself. So don't give up on Nashville. Some of us do know how to say opera -- believe it or not (to invoke the motto of the Ripley's museum in Gatlinburg, TN - a place you would love to hate).
Love your stuff, thanks for your work.
Pam

It would be nice to think that a lot of people will have time to consider adding a lot more insulation to their houses. The big energy sources of this century will be thermal mass and straw bales stacked to keep the cold off the house.

There will never be enough wood to heat the northeast with it's current population. There might be enough insulation.

I'm always amazed at the total lack of historical knowledge, displayed by Americans.

America is Weimar?????? You really don't have a clue, what you're talking about.

So where are the street fights between the left and the right? Where was the attempted coup d'etat by the right? Where was the general counter strike? Where was the attempt at a communist revolution? Which war was lost with what humiliating treaty as a consequence?? Has Kunstler got any idea how deeply looked down upon by the rest of the world many Germans felt between the wars?

Americans can be so silly, when trying to portrait themselves as failed Europeans. You're a bunch of nitwits, basing your knowledge on some half baked television documentaries.

Summer time.

I think it is going to be very hot. There is a lot of simmering anger and frustration pent up in the fleeting warmth of home. When it gets warm enough for folks to get out and group up, there is going to be trouble.

Tea party events in all their confused ideologies and prejudices are likely to erupt in violence just among themselves. With the random spectators, many on the edge with their own collapsing lives, ready pop and join in.

Sporting events, political events, even social events are going to be filled with folks on edge. A comment, leads to a discussion, leads to argument....Riots abound. There will be looting, property destruction, for the shear joy of getting back at the purveyors and pushers of gluttony.

All the little disagreements, little scuffles and symbolic pissing contests are going to be real, full blown, cascading, violence. Then the police start using the crowd control, the jails overfill. The real street wars begin. People versus the state in mindless directionless violence. Self perpetuating.

fun times.

"they stand for...anything in the constitution that allows them to wriggle out of obligations to the public interest at the same time that they get to push other groups of people around."

Actually, its a disregard for some parts of the Constitution that has allowed a series of wars, bank bailouts, and the resulting corporatism which has allowed groups to be pushed around.

I watch with glee as the idiots 'governing' this country rush it headlong towards certain disaster, and as 'democrats' and 'republicans', both equally in trance-like state, propose 'fixes' to our flaming Hindenburg state as it crashes to the ground.

O may it crash and burn!

I laugh as ignorant, fatass state and federal 'workers' are AXED & their bloated pension dreams go up in smoke...welcome to the real world you pukes!

We all need a mighty kick in the crotch.

Americans, you all bought the LIES of the last 50 years...caveat emptor!

mayberrymachivelli:"I will never forget the first time I passed through Vegas, and saw for the first time the invisible "curtain" of air-conditioning at the open-air entrances to the casinos. That's right, the proprietors did not want something as obstructive as a door to separate the soon-to-be-gulled customers from the rigged games devised to relieve them of their wages. So, they created "curtains" of high-velocity air-conditioning at the threshold of the property. In effect, they were blasting massive quantities of expensively-cooled air straight into the blast-furnace heat of the desert."

Nice story.

You ought to read Henry Miller's scathing critique of the USA entitled THE AIR-CONDITIONED NIGHTMARE - http://www.amazon.com/Air-Conditioned-Nightmare-Henry-Miller/dp/0811201066

Miller railed against many of the things which Kunstler spends his time writing about.

trouter:"Have you ever read the collection of essays by the writers known as "the Southern Agrarians?" The book is called I'LL TAKE MY STAND. ... Anyway I would be interested in your take on what these writers had to say about the older culture of the south, before the cars and strip malls and such. Of course I don't mean slavery! Granted the authors did not really address the race issue, and where they did it was with the bias of their time. Yet I found their arguments about a lost agricultural and spiritual heritage to be persuasive. Do you think any of that can be recovered?"

I'LL TAKE MY STAND is a great book - even prophetic for its time. It predicted many modern ills with its anti-consumerism, anti-urbanism, anti-technologism, anti-sprawlism, and so on. It was pro-rural, pro-small town, pro-agricultural, pro-local, pro-tradition, etc.

Basically the '12 Southerners' were writing against the increasing 'Northernization' of The South, i.e., urbanization, uncontrolled technology, everything being paved over, and so on.

They wrote to warn and prevent exactly the things which Kunstler and others have been criticizing for the past few decades. They wanted to prevent The South from becoming another techno-industrial sprawling mess; obviously they mostly failed...but their vision lives on.

It was written at the very beginning of the Great Depression (published in 1930).

If any of y'all are interested in reading the introduction to that book, check it out @ http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA01/white/anthology/agrarian.html

Apparently, a lot of folks don't understand Jim - at all, based on the comments here. Or I should say, a lot of folks don't like to hear the truth - which is more to the point. Jim you rock! And btw, I have never been to Vegas, and have no desire to go there. Finally, I went to a Superbowl party last night. I hate football, I went to see some old friends, and to party, not to watch that stupid corporate spectacle. The people who where into the so called sport, acted like brainwashed fools, during the game, during the halftime, and especially during the corporate mind controlling commercials. What I saw last night was a sporting event(?), and room of forty adults, with no clue. And I said to myself, yep, we're going down, which I already knew. But to see it in living color, is a different thing.

Hoping4bestpreparingforworst:"I live in NC, but am from NY. There are more northerners here than southerners. I've seen a little of what he's talking about, but not that much. But, he's right about the surburban sprawl mentality here. They don't see the folly of not having invested in a real public transportation system. The only people you really see using public transportation here are poor people, and you have to drive to EVERYTHING! Very few walkable neighborhoods with the exception of downtown Raleigh,and maybe a few other places. Even something like a mild snowstorm puts the brakes on functionality here. They ran out of gas and food within hours of the snowstorm that hit us last week."

Hey genius, WHY do you think that you live in midst of a huge sprawling mess up there in Raleigh? It is because you Yankees MADE IT THAT WAY when y'all moved down here en masse within the past 10-20 years or so.

Before masses of you Yanks started moving down here to The South in the last 1-2 decades, the suburban sprawl in which you currently live did not exist; you said so yourself: "There are more northerners here than southerners." Bottom line: YOU YANKEES CREATED THAT SUBURBAN SPRAWL.

Y'all are the sprawlers, not us. Y'all Yanks are all about sprawl. The stretch from Washington DC all the way up to Boston is one long continuous suburb, surely one of the largest on Earth.

We Southerners prefer our small towns and rural areas, and we prefer that our homes be located on acreage and not crammed together like all of the homes which have been built here since the 'Neo-Carpetbagger' invasion started in the last 120-20 years.

I used to live in such a small town in NC, but in the last 10-15 years masses of Yanks (like you) moved down here and turned my general area in to a huge sprawling crowded mess of a suburb. Again, look in the mirror and to all of the Yankee neighbors you live around if you want to see who is responsible for the anarchic sprawl you live amongst...we Southerners sure didn't build it, you Yankee locusts did.

The South doesn't have the necessary infrastructure, jobs, tax revenues, or anything else like that to support the huge numbers of people (mostly Yanks and Hispanics) who moved here in the last few decades. Thus y'all have no one to blame except yourselves for the mess you have created - you've made your bed now lie in it.

Even the apologists of industrialism have been obliged to admit that some economic evils follow in the wake of the machines. These are such as overproduction, unemployment, and a growing inequality in the distribution of wealth. But the remedies proposed by the apologists are always homeopathic. They expect the evils to disappear when we have bigger and better machines, and more of them. Their remedial programs, therefore, look forward to more industrialism.

...

Turning to consumption, as the grand end which justifies the evil of modern labor, we find that we have been deceived. We have more time in which to consume, and many more products to be consumed. But the tempo of our labors communicates itself to our satisfactions, and these also become brutal and hurried. The constitution of the natural man probably does not permit him to shorten his labor-time and enlarge his consuming-time indefinitely. He has to pay the penalty in satiety and aimlessness. The modern man has lost his sense of vocation.

Religion can hardly expect to flourish in an industrial society. Religion is our submission to the general intention of a nature that is fairly inscrutable; it is the sense of our role as creatures within it. But nature industrialized, transformed into cities and artificial habitations, manufactured into commodities, is no longer nature but a highly simplified picture of nature. We receive the illusion of having power over nature, and lose the sense of nature as something mysterious and contingent. The God of nature under these conditions is merely an amiable expression, a superfluity, and the philosophical understanding ordinarily carried in the religious experience is not there for us to have.

Nor do the arts have a proper life under industrialism, with the general decay of sensibility which attends it. Art depends, in general, like religion, on a right attitude to nature; and in particular on a free and disinterested observation of nature that occurs only in leisure. Neither the creation nor the understanding of works of art is possible in an industrial age except by some local and unlikely suspension of the industrial drive.

The amenities of life also suffer under the curse of a strictly-business or industrial civilization. They consist in such practices as manners, conversation, hospitality, sympathy, family life, romantic love-in the social exchanges which reveal and develop sensibility in human affairs. If religion and the arts are founded on right relations of man- to-nature, these are founded on right relations of man-to- man.

...

The tempo of the industrial life is fast, but that is not the worst of it; it is accelerating. The ideal is not merely some set form of industrialism, with so many stable industries, but industrial progress, or an incessant extension of industrialization. It never proposes a specific goal; it initiates the infinite series. We have not merely capitalized certain industries; we have capitalized the laboratories and inventors, and undertaken to employ all the labor-saving devices that come out of them. But a fresh labor-saving device introduced into an industry does not emancipate the laborers in that industry so much as it evicts them. Applied at the expense of agriculture, for example, the new processes have reduced the part of the population supporting itself upon the soil to a smaller and smaller fraction.

...

All might yet be well, and stability and comfort might again obtain, but for this: partly because of industrial ambitions and partly because the repressed creative impulse must break out somewhere, there will be a stream of further labor-saving devices in all industries, and the cycle will have to be repeated over and over. The result is an increasing disadjustment and instability.

It is an inevitable consequence of industrial progress that production greatly outruns the rate of natural consumption. To overcome the disparity, the producers, disguised as the pure idealists of progress, must coerce and wheedle the public into being loyal and steady consumers, in order to keep the machines running.

...

Opposed to the industrial society is the agrarian, which does not stand in particular need of definition. An agrarian society is hardly one that has no use at all for industries, for professional vocations, for scholars and artists, and for the life of cities. Technically, perhaps, an agrarian society is one in which agriculture is the leading vocation, whether for wealth, for pleasure, or for prestige-a form of labor that is pursued with intelligence and leisure, and that becomes the model to which the other forms approach as well as they may. But an agrarian regime will be secured readily enough where the superfluous industries are not allowed to rise against it. The theory of agrarianism is that the culture of the soil is the best and most sensitive of vocations, and that therefore it should have the economic preference and enlist the maximum number of workers."

- http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA01/white/anthology/agrarian.html

In addition to the lovely excerpts above from I'LL TAKE MY STAND, how about another good piece of anti-technological writing?

Behold ladies and gentlemen, Theodore Kaczynski's "Industrial Society and Its Future" - http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Industrial_Society_and_Its_Future

"The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. They have greatly increased the life-expectancy of those of us who live in "advanced" countries, but they have destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to widespread psychological suffering (in the Third World to physical suffering as well) and have inflicted severe damage on the natural world. The continued development of technology will worsen the situation. It will certainly subject human beings to greater indignities and inflict greater damage on the natural world, it will probably lead to greater social disruption and psychological suffering, and it may lead to increased physical suffering—even in "advanced" countries.

2. The industrial-technological system may survive or it may break down. If it survives, it may eventually achieve a low level of physical and psychological suffering, but only after passing through a long and very painful period of adjustment and only at the cost of permanently reducing human beings and many other living organisms to engineered products and mere cogs in the social machine. Furthermore, if the system survives, the consequences will be inevitable: there is no way of reforming or modifying the system so as to prevent it from depriving people of dignity and autonomy.

3. If the system breaks down the consequences will still be very painful. But the bigger the system grows the more disastrous the results of its breakdown will be, so if it is to break down it had best break down sooner rather than later."

Jim, in honor of your article I'm submitting the following coinage as a new and potent meme.

Weim-R-US

Spread the meme, folks - and remember, you heard it here first.

"His constant concern has been the emergence of a "technological tyranny" over humanity." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Ellul

THE TECHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY:

"In our cities there is no more day or night or heat or cold. But there is overpopulation, thraldom to press and television, total absence of purpose. All men are constrained by means external to them to ends equally external. The further the technical mechanism develops which allows us to escape natural necessity, the more we are subjected to artificial technical necessities. . . The artificial necessity of technique is not less harsh and implacable for being much less obviously menacing than natural necessity. When the Communists claim that they place the development of the technical society in a historical framework that automatically leads to freedom through the medium of the dialectical process; when Humanists such as Bergson, or Catholics such as Mounier, assert that man must regain control over the technical "means" by an additional quantity of soul, all of them alike show both their ignorance of the technical phenomenon and an impenitent idealism that unfortunately bears no relation to truth or reality.

Alongside these parades of mere verbalisms, there has been a real effort, on the part of the technicians themselves, to control the future of technical evolution. The principle here is the old one we have so often encountered: "A technical problem demands a technical solution." At present, there are two kinds of new techniques which the technicians propose as solutions."

- http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jsa3/hum355/readings/ellul.htm

ALSO - http://people.usd.edu/~ssanto/ellul.html

I love 3/4ths of what Jim has to say, but one thing Jim avoids is the need to cut military spending and the whole imperialist military agenda. He justified the Iraq war. At least the Teabaggers are trying to organize though it is just a Republican cover group. Palin is an idiot but when she asks "how's that changey hopey stuff going?'" it carries a sting.I don;t think it at all wise to lump all the libertarian types together. This dualist politics is just a steam valve while the real power brokers continue to exercise ownership. Obama is pimping for Goldman Sachs and the military industrial complex and that is where all the real money still left in this country is going. The Democrats are not about to hoist up an FDR. They are as shackled to Corporate bribery as the republicans..

It's probably either join up with the Greens and start a counter movement or sit around belching false fire while war , eco madness and corporate rape enslaves the planet.

Right now the central issues are war, the lack of local productivity , usury and wall street gambling with taxpayer money. We need a constitutional convention and a serious 3rd party that grabs more attention than the teabaggers. Survivalism is not going to be a good bet against people who hunt mooses from helicopters and stash black market automatic weapons in the basement.

Interesting that one of the founders of the Tea Bag movement is not a southerner, but a Chicagoan who hails from Wheaton, a far western suburb that is steeped in Fundamentalist Christianity.

Interesting also that this man, Rich Santelli, is formerly a member of the Chicago Board of Trade and went on, in the 90s, to work for CNBC, which was the major media cheerleader for the debt-driven hyper-growth in debt and asset-inflation in the past 10 years.

Let's not bash the South while sparing those of us Yanks who were the chief architects and cheerleaders for the fake growth of the past 10 years, or really, the past 30 years. These people are, like Santelli, wealthy, well-educated, and well-connected.

At least the uneducated working classes of the South and elsewhere can plead ignorance of what they're doing.

So much cannot be said of the elite who created this unsustainable fabric, including the government policy-makers who drove the whole thing by means of policies designed to foster unsustainable growth and steer tens of millions of people into a way of life that we knew 50 years ago could not be sustained for much longer than that.

Clustermuck, your pandemic hatred of Christianity is disgusting.
America has done the unthinkable and it deserves to pay a handsome price. George Bush was a disaster as a President, I wholeheartedly agree (and this from a Republican). I guess he thought like a CIA operative and this really did not equip him for political office. The Republican Party as failed its constituents.
But, to throw out the baby with the bathwater and vote in Obama, Americans had to be completely out of their minds. That idiot doesn't know the differences betweeen a Marine Corpsman and a Marine "corpseman". We are really in trouble when both sides of the isle are out of their freakin' gords.
Of course, I'll I have to do is drive anywhere in my homestate of California and observe the freak show. Its Halloween everyday in California. How long can a State or a Country for the matter last if the people are nothing but freaks? (If I am one of them, may I be struck down with lightning.)
I blame our problems on Congress. They are the Evil Empire, not the Soviets or the Iranians or ever the North Koreans or Chineses. It is Congress who has thrown all of our asses in a heap.

VK:"wealthy man leaves his wealth to his son and it starts to build. Before long, you have an Aristocracy based on Wealth, a Plutocracy like we have now. Surely this is one of the worse forms of Elitism possible."

One of the key lessons of history is that ALL aristocracies and ruling-classes will grow decadent in time and decline - this is what is what we are currently living through; the current 'aristocracy' or ruling class has grown mostly decadent and they are in decline, and now we are in this strange middling period where no one is really in charge because no one group or new elite has arisen to replace the old ones.

I really do not like your thoughts on Southern folk. I think the following should be the TEA PARTY theme song!!!!!!Ben in Tennessee

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=378198368701279760#

Hey Jim, it's Lee in Texas, the psychotherapy person.

Quite a bit of synchronicity today on your post. Today in my office I pulled down a book titled The Nazi Seizure of Power, an account of the way the last days of the Weimar Republic played out in one town of 10,000 in Germany. It was assigned to me back in the 70's in a history course.

A friend came into my office and saw me flipping through it, asked about it, and I told him that I thought what's going on these days is looking more and more like Weimar.

And then I come home tonight and find your excellent post on the topic.

Thanks, Jim, take it easy, Lee............

These yahoos you sneer at would also be the first ones to offer to tow your Prius out of the ditch with their pickups. This whole 'keep the government's hands off my Medicaid' (I think you mean Medicare) meme is such a straw man. Stop talking about that guy and I'll stop remembering the woman that thought Obama was gonna pay her mortgage. Take that out of your little rant and what exactly are you complaining about? These Tea Party types just want to be left alone. Thousands of years of human slavery and now we're free and Kunstler wants us to be slaves again because he disapproves of our choice of music or because we want to have a little fun before we kick the bucket. You're no David Mamet.

I think Jim woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning and wrote a misguided characterization of millions of his countrymen.

Calling someone a "Nazi" in modern America is a pretty serious charge. Think about it. This is a country that learns it's history from movies. What does it mean, to call someone a "Nazi?"

Well, the "Holocaust movie" is of course Schindler's List. It was shot in black and white, so that Americans would think they were watching "actual footage of the Holocaust." I hope the Wiesenthal Center locates that monster Ralph Fiennes, who not only has escaped justice for the past 75 years, but also seems to possess a secret Nazi formula against aging. The man looks great for 115 years old!

In all seriousness, calling someone a "Nazi" in modern America is equivalent to calling them a "child murderer." I really don't think those Tea Party people have a higher percentage of psychopaths than the general population. Calling them the equivalent of child murderers is terribly unfair, to say the least. Perhaps you could apologize to them? I, for one, would forgive you your artistic temperamental fit. Tuesday, Jim wakes up and he's again a serious intellectual and realized his CF nation post of 2/8/2010 was a bit over the top. Happens to the best of us. Bygones!

Anyway, I want to make a pledge to Jim, and I hope others will join me.

Jim, if the Nazis ever come after you, cornpone or otherwise, I swear on my honor that I will hide you at my house at the risk of myself and even my family, and I mean that. Nobody should be murdered or even assaulted for their religion or ethnicity.

Who's with me? Who else would shelter Jim from Nazis? I think there's a whole country full of us. Clusterfuck Nation may have big problems, but we're not a bunch of genocidal maniacs as far as I can tell.

Palin as President is the equivalent of waking up one day and finding that banjo boy from Deliverance is your father. If Palin every becomes President I will kill myself.

Harry Reid has some gall to give Barack Obama flak for dissing Las Vegas. Give me a fucking break! Has any other major city besides Phoenix has benefitted from such obscene federal largesse per capita in keeping itself watered, air-conditioned and lit? Without Hoover Dam and all the associated pipes and wires, Las Vegas would be Nevada's Barstow. Also, given the sheer corrosive effect that Las Vegas has had on other parts of the country whose residents respond to its siren call, if the worst thing to befall it is an occasional tangentially negative remark from the president, the city has gotten off scot free.

The metaphor that Obama used is well-established for a good reason: it is extremely apt. Decades ago Las Vegas eclipsed Reno as a gambling center and became synonymous with American gambling, even though there were plenty of other places to gamble in Nevada. Atlantic City never caught up with Vegas, either (incidentally, AC's population is pretty close to Barstow's, and its demography is about as scummy). Basically, Vegas is a byword for American gambling. Therefore, for anyone who has a shred of common sense, it is also an object lesson of how not to waste one's life and money--as in, don't pawn the family jewels for strippers and blackjack, son. No one with a lick of sense believes that Las Vegas' economy is based on anything wholesome or edifying, and the city's advertising aimed at tourists is candid about this.

One of the sadder aspects of this whole mess is that Las Vegas used to be something of a national sideshow. Other states were happy to send their residents to Nevada or Atlantic City to get their legal gambling fix, so that they could return and lead relatively normative lives free of pawn shops and similar rot. Now, every state but Utah has at least one government lottery, and most states are tripping over one another trying to lure casinos, whether of the ill-advised Indian variety or otherwise. The county where I currently live, Humboldt County, CA, has no fewer than three heavily advertised casinos for a population of well under 200,000.

If the states are laboratories of innovation, the virus that is Las Vegas has escaped the facility. It will be to our immense benefit if we kill it.

Paranoia is a self fulfilling prophecy.

I know high school kids who think being a genocidal maniac is cool because they saw it on Schindler's List. Holocaust studies makes people anti-semitic where they would have never thought about Jews one way or the other. Sure, some people become philosemitic fanatics, others become the opposite. Neither is healthy.

Here's a movie made by an Israeli Jew that depicts Israeli children being taught that "the whole world hates them and wants them dead."

http://www.archive.org/details/Hashmatsa

That's state sponsored child abuse, in my opinion.

I don't meet too many Jews in my life, but if I do, and I hear anything about "Nazis" or "Holocaust" I will assure him or her or them that they always have a place in my attic or basement. I'll even share my last pulled-pork sandwich with them.

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I am a Canadian, but also a former U.S. resident. I saw the great division in the U.S. during the Vietnam war, but thought that was over.

It all started up again under Bush II. I hoped Americans could unite under Obama.

It seems to me, as a Canadian looking in, that the U.S. has become a fragmented country, not even so much the old geographic split between the north and the south, but sociologically. Race, income, political leanings and religion have become, for far too many, the first loyalties, ahead of the country.

I even wonder, when the nation's leaders use words like sacrifice, if anybody even believes them, Or if the general public is even willing to really undergo a sacrifice. It seems those in the middle and top end are not willing.

And, its strange in a way, that so many look up to Sarah Palin. What is her loyalty? Sure, she would profess to be an American, even an uber-American, unlike Obama. But you can see that she really enjoys leading people into division and throwing stones, almost for the sheer fun of it.

Just so you know, I believe that the unemployment figures were finally disconnected from any relationship with the economy over Xmas of 2009. Inflation was disconnected with Clinton/Greenspan so as to make Social Security worthless for me and my generation (Gen X, if you must know).

But...here's a report on how things have been going. In Indianapolis they're building a bunch of mid-level to luxurious motels for Stupor Bowl XLVI in 2012 (one reason to embrace the apocalypse, IMHO); meanwhile the motel situation at the westside intersection of I-74 and I-465 (with US 136 included in the bargain) has taken a shocking nosedive. The Motel 6 went for 29.95/day single, 34.95/day for two (before AARP); the Red Roof was 34.95/day for single and the Clarion had an advertisement for a Winter Special of 49.95/day for single. There was another hotel that had a sign advertising 31.95, but it was closed, the dollar inn (no, you don't want to stay there) had a couple of billboards advertising 25.95/day stays. Five motels struggling for people to stay in their rooms!

One wonders whether they would stick people in what WAS the 31.95/day motel, but...you know how things are. It's not need for profit, it's racism and hatred of fellow man. They would make a killing from government-insured profits for those motels, yet they prefer them empty, windows busted and doors left open for the beds to rot.

James, as I posted in my own blog about Granny losing the farm (and me losing my house in the burbs), I was thinking about old photos my Mom recently showed me of a family trip to Opryland when I was a boy. I try to think positive but now I wonder if my clan ever was really middle class. I think I might have permanent chigger bites. Or as an Arkansas preacher once told me, "down here we call them chiggroes." Anyway, I guess in the back of my mind I saw us sliding back into those poor & primitive conditions but I fell short of your colorful description. Thanks for the new anxieties!

Dumb dumb dumb...If you want to know the real answers to your questions about the economy, go to thecomingdepression.blogspot.com ..Here you will find some pretty good info about the masters of the universe and the secret controllers of the fake economy. I challenge anyone with a brain to post here, but be parpared to have your stupid paradigms challenged!!! Tea baggers untie!

Entertaining post JHK, as always.

I had a slightly different take on a few points, however.

The Tea Party bunch is quite a study. Rather than seeing them as the new Nazi party however, I see them as the parody of the real thing. The ridiculous version we expect to see, so that we'll continue to be distracted from the actions of the real thing, which is already - and has been for some time - comfortably ensconced in the seats of power. The Tea Party will no doubt be a source of major drama in the years ahead, but absent their inclusion in the overriding corporate plan (as a puppet regime during a transitional period perhaps?), I can't see them wielding any real power. They simply wouldn't know what to do with it if they had it, and that's ONE thing that corporate America definitely will NOT stand for.

Likewise gambling. Yeah it's totally ridiculous and a moral perversion by those who also call themselves religious, but it's a carbon copy of what goes on on Wall Street everyday, and is therefore about as emblematic of the "American Dream" as anything could be. And just like Wall Street, the major players win every time, since they know and set the odds in advance, while the little guy wins just often enough to foster the illusion that the game's not rigged, and keep him coming back for more.

All the rest of the "corn-pone" characteristics are mere cultural affectations, which, at this point, is probably all most of those people have left. Having been led this far down the road to their bloody slaughter, I'm inclined to give them a break. Yeah, the American masses of the past several generations have really taken their eye off the ball and are about to get their just desserts (no Moon Pies either!) very soon, but really now, who could have expected (or would have been taken seriously if they had) such a massive conspiracy to fuck us in our collective ass, and that it would be so overwhelmingly successful?

Note that the Tea Party folks started as a bunch of people from various political backgrounds, from Libertarians and people who never vote to Republicans and neocons and reactionary pundits disenchanted with their "soft" leadership.

Something has happened in the meantime.

Seeing that the Republican party has lost lots of credibility with their base, hardcore neocon leadership have jumped ship to assume Tea Party leadership, at both state and national levels. The Tea Party has become a lifeboat of the same unhappy folks disenchanted with things as they are, but the same old suspects from the Republican extremists have hopped in to become captains and tell people which way to row. They have hijacked a movement of the dissatisfied and fearful, originally cheerled and shaped by Fox broadcasting.

And now those same Tea Party folks, instead of just forming a new third party (of the same old neocon ideologues) called the Tea Party, looked around and are in the process of consolidating their gains in a more credible lifeboat known as the Libertarian Party. Thus Ron Paul is facing challenges from neoconRepubTea Party folks to take Libertarian leadership.

Original Libertarianism despised both the Democratic and Republican establishments, which is why it saw itself as an alternative party. Now you watch. Ron Paul will either be shunted aside for someone like Palin, or he will have to morph like McCain did to be Republican presidential candidate, his arm-twisted by the neocon lifeboats into their new prom king.

And thus old neocon wine in a new Libertarian bottle. After all, the U.S. can only have two parties in contention at once, whether it is Whig v. Democrat, Republican v. Democrat, or Libertarian v. Democrat.

Look up the meaning of "moiety" in anthropology.

"The contraction of the sunbelt economy" as well as the continuing collapse of California are due to the same problem: the diminishing federal dollars being pumped into supporting their absurd lifestyles (which the rest of the nation tries as hard as it can to emulate without the success of these places because they lack the federal investment.

This is also why the reactionary politics so popular in both places is such a joke.

In California it's prop 13 which enables a reactionary political minority to dominate the budget process as long as they can muster one more vote than the super majority required for all budget approvals. These forlks conveniently forget the ,assive improvements in ifrastructure and manufacturing associated with WWII that enabled their place to become so pros;perous.

In the Dixie part of the Sunbelt, it's the former segregationist and racist Democrats who have magically transformed themselves into Republicans and by swallowing the Konservative Kool Ade have forgotten that they too benefited from being the domestic third world labor pool for US manufacturers to shift their production to before GATT and NAFTA enabled them to export all of their productive work to the third and fourth world.

So now they are all mad and are looking for someone at which to point their middle finger instead of looking in the mirror at their unrealistic expectations. Weimar indeed! Now all we need now is our very own Hitler. Tancredo, Huckabee, Silly Sarah Palin, or maybe Mormon Mitt Romney? I'm just sayin.

Here's a nice video on what life may be like for us Clusterfuckers
http://www.hulu.com/watch/122505/cinelan-3-minute-stories-belarus-on-the-farm
Buy your 10 acres in the woods now and start building
Deacon John

Agriburbia makes a point that I had not considered, that much
of the southern suburban sprawl is the result of northerners
moving in. -Atlanta is a prime example.

JHK said "I'd like to see him start by using the just-proposed national forum on health care reform as a rope-a-dope moment to expose opponents to reform as the bought-and-sold errand boys they are."

The first dope to rope is the O-man himself!

The first thing he did was take single payer off the table and ignore its advocated. Then he cut the deal with Pharma. Next, the public option came off the table. This was followed by disallowing buy-in to Medicare for 55+. Finally they wanted to tighten drug importation from Canada.

Obama is bought-and-paid for. He is a complete big business hack, with only a dime's bit of difference between him and the republicrats.

Otherwise great column about the tea partiers.

GREAT POST JIM! American neo-fascist pseudo-conservative populism is quite the spectacle.

What's interesting to me is how the Tea Party types are very much for smaller government and government that stays out of business. But what they are NOT in favor of is smaller business! BIG business is the root cause of political corruption and malfeceance. You cannot have Massive Multi-National Corporations without government scaling to match its power and authority. I think what Jim is getting at is that scale is precisely the problem, on both accounts, government and business. You can't just shrink one and hope the other behaves itself.

ow ow ow the cuts to white american southerners continues on unabated! more severe than a panty line cutting through a fat wal-mart shopper in stretch polyester...have i got that right? the portrait of the south as seen by our superiors in here? i could use a handful of scarlett's red clay right about now.

can we all agree that bureaucracies, centralization and globalization are anti-individual? what does it matter if it is dressed in an obama or palin suit? either way, they remain our mortal enemies.

trippticket said it well:

I'm here to talk about opting out. I'm not in the complaining business.

This excellent post highlights shallowness. Mr. Kunstler is gifted at pointing out how our cultural icons represent larger problems. Gambling is a good one. Atlantic City is a thin façade of glittering wealth on the beach. Go two blocks west and you’re in the slums. Teabag rallies are colorful and boisterous and make great news, but there’s no substantive argument of purpose. We spend so much on the fantasy economy that we can no longer tell the carnival from the actual work we have to do. Our slide toward a Weimar-like republic started in earnest a decade ago when the executive branch started breaking constitutional law often and with impunity. We can blame whomever we want but in the end it’s we who fall into our own traps.

"Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself." ---Milton Friedman

Sure, you are writing a treatise that has a decent use of English and some interwoven humor.

But you are pompous, your analysis is superficial and incorrect and you are wrong.

This issue has percolated up with Ross Perot several times before. One might take a look at perotcharts.com before spouting drivel like the above. Yet, as Perot and folks like Ron Paul were laughed at, now not so much. You see, they basically predicted the future with shocking accuracy. The deficits, the spending beyond income even during prosperity, the perpetual wars and the unfunded social entitlement programs that have no hope of working even during good economic times is eclipsing American power.

Some are trying to erect a socialist state like that of say, Sweden. Yet, Sweden is a homogeneous culture, small population ~9 million, good natural borders and before rampant taxation moved a number of prolific businesses away, this country of 9 million made cars, cell phones, jet aircraft, heavy industry equipment, gave rise to Ikea, etc.

The problem is simple. The US is 300+ million with a leaky border. Socialism will break this union faster than can be imagined. One might argue this is the point and a Cloward-Piven strategy, but its probably just ignorance.

The US competes with India and China. Brazil and Russia are also players, but the two main players are India and China. These countries are not dumb, are being lead in a much smarter way, and are not shooting themselves in the foot. These "socialist/communist" countries are nothing of the sort, the entitlements are bare to non existent, they foster business, ruthlessly defend local business against foreign business and are more capitalist than the United States. They have more people in their top 10% of every category than the US has people.

So you smart mealy mouth pseudo educated armchair liberals with mental disability, keep spending, keep expending government and chasing away business and keep trying to turn on the tax spigot (any new taxes for the upper echelons of society will be passed on to the consumer/buyer/renter) and getting less and less revenue over time as you collapse the economy.

I would say that underlying most arguments against "free markets" is the question of how one defines "free" and if the concept of "fair" is also part of the equation.

Looks like somebody forgot the spending of the Bush years. That, and the deregulation of just about everything, starting with Ronald Reagan and continuing through Clinton and of course "W". Couple that with the fact that Corporations now own congress, and the fact that the Supreme Court just gave them permission to bombard the public with political ads, and things aren't looking too good. You can be a liberal or a conservative and it doesn't matter, because corporations live by the bottom line and don't care who they are fucking over as long as they are making money. To argue about conservative vs liberal, is to deflect attention away from the true villains, and allows them to pursue their ruinous policies to the detriment of everyone in this country be they liberal or conservative. Regards to all

JHK, your recent post was pure brilliance. Living in the former Motor City, I am all too aware of the incoherence that fuels movements like The Tea Party. For the last thirty years, at least, there has been one proposal after another to bring mass transit to Detroit. It always begins with a plan to build light-rail, dedicated bus lanes or whatever down Woodward. What's left of Detroit's movers and shakers begin to extol the benefits of mass transit in reviving Detroit's core, how it will bring folks from the outer suburbs downtown and create lots of high-paying jobs etc. Committees are formed, consultants are hired, but nothing ever comes of it. Last night, I watched a two hour documentary on the local PBS affiliate where the movers and shakers once again promised to bring mass transit to the Motor City, only this time they were serious. It's the same with the Tea Party crowd. Once they realize the movement isn't going anywhere, the whole thing will dissolve only to be revived again under a new name.

Okay Jim, you really hit a raw nerve here. These comments are coming from a guy whose first early memories were of picking cotton (by hand) on my father's very large cotton farm. Little kids didn't get a break there. Most everything we did was by hand like the name of your book. We had a tractor but that was it. We didn't even have a car until 1955.

Anway, Tennessee folks can certainly spell the word 'opera' but they can't and never have been able to pronounce it. Until the end of his life my father always referred to Disneyland as 'Dismeyland' and a local community named Cairo went by the Mississippi pronunciation of 'Karo' like the syrup. I could go on and on.

We never suffered from hookworm but I had one of the worst cases of chiggers ever imagined in the summer of '74. We used to live quite happily without air conditioning in the fifties but that's because we didn't know any better because we had lived without it all our lives.

However, I do have to ask you what Jesus tub-thumping is all about. My late brother was a Southern Baptist preacher and my oldest brother served in the same church as the head-honcho deacon. I have seen and been part of some strange things. One time when I was much younger, an older black woman who was coming to pray and visit with my mother grabbed ahold of me and tried to literally wring the asthma out of me. She fancied herself some type of faith healer and both she and her husband were ordained ministers. Anyway, it felt like I was in the clutches of one of those Mississippi Delta gators but I finally escaped. I think she meant well. But as far as the Jesus tub-thumping thing, I have no clue as to what you are talking about. However, my sister-in-law did play the cymbals during my brother's many sermons. Maybe if she had obtained access to a tub, she would have tried to play that too. If you knew my sister-in-law, you would know what I'm talking about.

Walmart is on Target

In the Berm between Target and WalMart,
There my Lover and I did lie.
In the median strip, among the tall weeds,
Our illusions were Cut Away by Teeth.
Who says that good cannot come from Stores?
No Target - no Berm. No Walmart - no Weeds
And no Love.
Ever will I remember that hour of Spledour
in the grass,
And ever do I return to pay homage to the
Berm where my Socialism was Cut Away - By
The Teeth of Truth.

Right on, Jimmie. I'm with ya.

But what's with the jibe at pulled pork sandwiches? They're so tasty!

"Isn't it the only hope for the planet that the industrial collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring that about"? Billionaire Maurice Strong, interview with Jim Johnson for the British Columbia Report 18 May 1992, Vol 3/#37/p.22

And they call us paranoid. Now Trip and Pangolin might welcome this - until they realize that the Bilderbergers, CFR, et al intend to depopulate the countryside and herd people into the cities where they can be controlled. Strong and Co dream of a new feudalism with themselves as the Lords and Ladies living in luxury in their villas and estates surrounded by servants - while the masses work in the high cube farms in the city.

As in the 1800's, an ounce of gold would buy a good suit or a good rifle. Today, nothing has really changed. The same ounce of gold still buys a nice suit or a good rifle. The relationship between gold and manufactured good was historically stable because as gold mining became more efficient, so did manufacturing. The equilibrium has remained constant for over 150 years, which is the whole point of honest money. Prices are information, and a stable monetary yardstick is needed for accurate price information. Ony the fiat currencies devalue. As Milton Friedman said, "Only goverment can take perfectly good paper, cover it with perfectly good ink, and make the combination worthless."

From "Molon Labe" by Boston
T Party

"So you smart mealy mouth pseudo educated armchair liberals with mental disability, keep spending, keep expending government and chasing away business and keep trying to turn on the tax spigot (any new taxes for the upper echelons of society will be passed on to the consumer/buyer/renter) and getting less and less revenue over time as you collapse the economy."

I seem to recall 8 years of conservative misrule leading to where we are today, and now you blame "liberals with mental disability" for all the country's problems. All the conservatives are frantically trying to divert blame to Obama and the Democrats, because their 2 terms were a miserable failure. What a fucking joke!

Collapse the economy? Bush, a self-identified conservative, and his goon squad took the economy into the ground. How can you possibly blame liberals for that? So convenient that you have nothing to say about the people who have actually been in charge the last 10 years but have so many negative opinions about the approximately year-old Obama administration, practically still unpacking their boxes in comparison.

Yeah, India and China...so great. Why don't you move? That isn't a "love it or leave it statement". I simply think you don't have a clue what those societies are actually like. They are far from capitalistic paradises and have serious problems of their own. India has barebones social entitlements? Great! Let's copy India's social entitlement system. We can make Cleveland look like Calcutta in 10 years!

BTW, the "armchair liberal" Bill Clinton was the last president who seemed to think a balanced federal budget was important. That's kind of ironic given what you and your TEA bagger friends are spewing, no?

Cheney said, "Deficits don't matter."

Reagan created the largest federal deficits of all time, which we're still paying down.

Bush cut taxes, accelerated spending, and did not cut programs, even as the deficit continued to increase.

Bill Clinton was the last president who seemed to really give a damn about the government's finances.

And yet, somehow you moronic TEA-bagging mouth-breathers have the gall to blame the "evil liberals" for the government's financial problems.

What a bunch of fucking cards. I'm moving to Canada ASAP.

Jim:
The Weimar Republicans watched the Stupid Bowl, 100 million of them did.
meanwhile the Dows under 10,000 [gasp] while 20%of federal workers make 100k a year or more!
And Planned Parenthood wants schools to teach masturbation to 5 year olds in kindergarten.

"Let's not bash the South while sparing those of us Yanks who were the chief architects and cheerleaders for the fake growth of the past 10 years, or really, the past 30 years. These people are, like Santelli, wealthy, well-educated, and well-connected."

I tend to agree with you. Jim heaps scorn on the Sun Belt, but I don't see much different between them and everyone else in the country, frankly.

"a bore on TV"

I can tell you're a really deep thinker...

"HAS OBAMA TRIPLED THE NATIONAL DEBT?"

I guess you would think that if you watch a lot of Fox News.

Controversy from the land of the 'slow food' movement:
Minister Luca Zaia has argued that McDonald's new McItaly burger — using all Italian beef, Asiago cheese and artichoke spread — will pump (EURO)3.5 million ($4.8 million) more a month into the pockets of Italian farmers grappling with tough economic times.

But for a country that gave birth to the Slow Food movement a quarter-century ago and prides itself on its varied, delicious and healthy cuisine, Zaia's enthusiastic support of McDonald's has been hard to swallow

Asia,

Let me give you a history lesson, because you obviously know jack. Republicans created the deficit by floating gigantic military budgets and cutting taxes. They did this all through Reagan and Bush I, from 1980 to 1992. Then for 8 years Bush did this like it was going out of style. Now Obama has inherited this financial shit storm created by Republicans.

How can you possibly heap all this scorn and blame on Obama with a straight face? I'm not even an active Obama supporter, and I think its ridiculous to blame him for over 20 years of misrule by another political party. Seriously, you and your deranged TEA-bagger friends have the historical awareness of a bunch of guppies.

abbey,

Let's not get too abstract here. The current government budget deficits can clearly be traced back to Reagan and, before that, Nixon. Both parties share blame, because the Democrats also held some Congressional power during periods of Republican rule. My main point was that blaming the current leadership for the US government's financial problems that go back at least 30 years is ridiculous and just plain ill-informed.

"Abbey, don't feel like you have to take anyone else down with your defeated attitude."

The populations of living species rise and fall in a natural pattern of cycles. Humans are not fundamentally different, and the human population changes in concert with the state of the environment. In fact, we may be MORE animal-like and basically stupid than most other mammals when it comes down to it, because I don't see bears or wolves destroying their life support systems to make cheap whoopee cushions and blenders for each other.

Anyone who thinks their mushy positive attitude will overcome fundamental problems with the way our entire civilization works has their head in the clouds or perhaps someplace a bit darker and smellier.

Shucks JHK, there's room in Mayberry for you too. You'all don't have to go on and talk poorly of those who see God and Country in cars and guns.

A gentle reminder, there simply aren't any US citizens living a life on "energy par" with most of the third world. In other words - by our very existence we've been fucking the rest of the world over for many, many years.

I really wish we'd get back to the task at hand. We need do discuss how to disconnect the world's population away from the notion of single-person-mode petroleum-powered passenger vehicles.

If we can simply discuss this singular, all-encompassing cause of petroleum consumption the world over - we wouldn't need your colorful, yet cliche-driven stereo-typical descriptions of all those "other people" you need for your superiority complex.

Now of course, this doesn't mean I'm right, or your wrong about anything. It's just that this supposed to be the place to discuss PO and why there are better and worse ways to experience it.

Could the next 50 posts mention gasoline?

I have met dozens of Northeastern JHK's who love to bash the South. Some friends who have the Ivy pedigree who think if they go past Northern Virginia they are in danger of hearing banjo music ,and being hogtied by Gomer and Bubba.
What has come out of Up State New York lately or
anytime ever? Larry, Larry and my other brother Larry. Crappy food, music, long boring winters?
A Southern Man don't need you around anyhow!

james, once again, I must say that your anger is spot-on with the Teabaggers, and the likes of the dried bone of a man--Harry Reid. The hypocrisy surround the numbskulls paying close to $600 to listen the Sarah the palm reader, and other nitwits creating a hubbub over their so-called efforts, which they want to call populism. Funny, funny.

Listen James, I hate to remind you, and I am sure this thought has floated through your brain many of time, nothing is going to change until the entire thing goes up in smoke. When Obama decided, and CONgress, too, that Bernanke is the best guy to re-ignite the debt asset financial Bubble called homebuyer debt, as well as small business lending so consumers can only contemplate if they want to buy the stuff the manufacturer, or distributor is hoping to sell.

Nothing is about to change. Nothing worth really talking about. Until we end the wars, and stop that spending, and end the huge domestic spying and culling programs, and end the corporation as human reality shows, nothing will change.

http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com

Hi Turkle, I agree with you all the way. I'm not an Obama supporter either, nor do I think that he's gonna solve our problems. Jesus Christ couldn't solve the mess that we're in, and to blame Obama for the present state of affairs is nonsense. When you cut taxes on corporations and increase spending, what can you expect to happen? Regards to You

To JHK: I had to re-read this week's essay to see why so many readers felt that you made statements derogatory of the South. I decided there were a few not-so-subtle references which, combined with your past derision of Southern culture, conveyed an impression of unfair criticism of the South. I have to tell you that I enjoy your sharp social criticism, but I definitely do NOT enjoy your occasional bigoted and stereotypical characterizations of whole swaths of people. I'm a Northerner, but I was offended by your unfair and sweeping generalizations about the people of the South. Many of the faults you attributed to the South are equally true of the rest of the country.
Bigotry toward the Southerners is as pathetic as bigotry toward any other group of people, and you should be sensitive to that, perhaps a little more than most folks. You can do better, Kunstler. I don't suppose you'll apologize, perhaps you feel you're too big to fail (in your judgement). I hope you'll give some consideration to this comment and attempt to avoid stereotyping of any kind, it undermines your credibility as a serious social critic. P.S. Same with your occasional derisions of some Christians -- how is that different from the derisions of Jews, Italians, Blacks, Poles, Gays,etc. that you'd find objectionable?

Jim, if you knew how much Social Security check money went into slot machines, I bet you would really be pissed off. Get ready for means testing for SS recipients in a few years. I can hear it now, "Do people who can afford to gamble really need a SS check?"
Maybe we could do a national gambling tax to recycle some of it back into the Social Security System.
Can we get the Tea Party convention down in New Orleans next time? We have an abandoned theme park too, Six Flooded Flags. Photographs can be seen on the terrastories.com website, right there with those of one of your favorite parks, Michael Jackson's Neverland. Actually, the night photos are very good. Check out the Pacific Bell roof shots if you tour the Bearings blog. Good work.

I think that corn-pone fascism has already taken over our system of government. Worse, it is a fascist form of government no matter which figureheads of the War Party have the reins of the executive and legislative branches. At issue is whether will we slide deeper into a new worse phase or find our way out of it through active self-governance.

I honestly don't know who or what the Tea Party movement is right now. I do know that there appear to be factions that are trying to co-opt the intellectual work of the classical liberals who truly care about our economic well being and our individual and social liberties.

I think that leftist/liberal statists have some fundamental contradictions in their ideology that they need to address. If they don't get honest very quick and rid themselves of this notion of dividing the world between their ineffective leaders like Pelosi, Reid and Obama and the evil Tea Partiers all lumped into one, they will deserve a lot of the blame for the next phase of our devolution into fascism. Namely, the stage of fascism where life in the, "Homeland", is lived along a spectrum of marshall law - where minorities, (ethnic and dissident/anti-state intellectuals), get blamed as the elites need to deflect blame for the crisis they created and keep making worse.

Ron Paul has recently discussed, in statesmen's terms, how smarmy politicians like Michelle Bachmann are co-opting the language of the anti-fascist pro-freedom movement. Anybody who is intellectually honest, will understand and acknowledge that split between the integral intellectual movement represented by the Campaign For Liberty, and the right wing of the fascist war party, the GOP.

I used to be a liberal. Modern American left/liberalism/progressivism has a fundamental problem that liberals must solve idealogically before they can solve anything politically. That is namely, that the warfare state is also the welfare state. They continue to compromise with the imperialists, in order to get the largesse of the state for social welfare programs even in the face of decades of evidence that the social welfare programs are not only ineffective they are counterproductive.

On the day Obama announced his dog-and-pony 2011 budget freeze, Robert Gates had all of the major defense contractors over for reassurances that their spot at the public trough is sacrosanct. What is missing from Kunstler's narrative is that the big slide is a big push - the imperial class will push productive society off of a cliff replacing the gold in our pockets with stones before they do. Last week's events are proof of the stage of imperialism that we are in.

I think liberals need to come home to their roots. The roots are classical-liberalism as defined most closely by the main intellectuals of the Campaign For Liberty. Those roots espouse a deep distrust of power concentrated in too few hands - especially the state. Ron Paul has, at least since 2007, offered welfare-state liberals a place at the table as we acknowledge our bankruptcy, and move to address it. He has offered to lead dismantling the empire, by far our biggest wealth destruction engine, and agreed to put aside the issue of the social welfare state in order to take on the imperial Leviathan first.

I think the liberals ought to move quickly to take that compromise. Palin, Bachmann, Gingrich, Obama, Pelosi ... ... will never offer it. If welfare-state leftists do not take that offering soon, the warfare state will dismantle the social welfare state in bankruptcy long before adherents of classical liberalism could ever, if ever, hope to. It is happening right before our eyes.

The disenfranchised left ignores this partnership at its peril. If it chooses to lump in the intellectual libertarians with the right-wing statists all together as Tea Partiers/Baggers, all bets are off. You will get more and more virulent strains corn-pone fascism. With any luck you'll at least come knocking under cover of night to discuss that partnership.

In case you feel compelled to procrastinate, carefully consider that just because today certain entangling foreign alliances are sacrosanct, doesn't mean they will be once they are no longer politically expedient. God forbid they become expedient as a means to scapegoat innocent but easily associated ethnic minorities here in the, "Homeland."

Dismissing everyone who is not a traditional Democrat Party supporting liberal, or who genuinely believes in liberty and economic morality as a Tea Partying fascist is dishonest and counterproductive. It is also, at this point in our history a very dangerous thing to do. The answers are out there. Adhering to the libertarian ideals as embodied by Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell, Tom Woods and other Austrians is the best way to realize Kunstler's vision of a simpler, more honest, equal, fair, moral, productive, localized, sustainable economy and society.

It is also the best way to redistribute wealth for you liberals who believe in that principle. The bankrupt would go bankrupt - that would include Goldmann Sachs, Wall St. and the rest of the debt-sucking paper selling parasite machines. The prudent would stand above them at the curb hearing the voice of Martin Luther King in their ear; "True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring."

It is time to cast off old identities and start adhering to ideals, unafraid of what tent somebody who shares and ardently upholds those ideals did or does reside in. That takes integrity and a lot of courage. Courage is what we need. Not that two-side coin of Hope and Fear they keep tossing every couple of years.

A conjecture,
Since patriotism is now characterized as corn pone regionalism from tooth challenged, withering gene nondiversity and a certain penchant for "clutching their bibles and guns" I suppose a blatant disregard for the constitution and hatred of country is the new easy and enlightened realm of the spiritually bereft and those of a certain otiose hebitude. Looking down on those of us with high dudgeon time stranded in a existential desert of PC dishonesty and power broker agendas of sky falling lies and cooked data..we yearn for the simple honesty of 1950 even with it's pimples of ethnic injustice.
How did we stray so far from decency? When did it start? What did the "angry young men" of the 60's have to pout about as their pampered asses set about poking a stick in the establisment's eye? What began as parental disrespect evolved into bomb making and sit ins and worst. We lost the hard won knowledge of the blighted 30's. Those lean scruffy looking heroes worn down but not surrendered not looking for handouts or plethora of government subsidies. They worked when they could find it and saved and denied themselves so their progeny might have the chance circumstances had denied them. When did "fuck" become fashionable and "Jesus" become profanity? Perhaps we have put too much faith in our collegiate mind factories.. our red leaning professors isolated in their ivory towers with onion shaped domes. Perhaps we spared the rod too much. Perhaps our young were deprived of the chance to experience failure or to go without something. Why did we smother them with material things while erasing their childhood's humanity in a flurry of achievement oriented games and career posturing. When did we become so suicidal as to confer citizen's rights to terrorists avowed to destroy us? To Mirandize enemy combatants. I fear we suffer from a desperate disturbed isolation, even in the midst of a maelstrom of communication assets. A screaming lonliness of faith in nothing, of no one on the other side of the mirror. We have begun to be ugly. The kids tattoed and pierced and lumped and surgically demonized are perhaps honest enough to see and physically demonstrate what is a spiritual withering unto death. Maybe that's what Obama meant to say,corpsemen.Hey,by the way how's that "hope" and "change" working out for you?

NEWS ITEM: "Community banks and CUs teaming up to pass, 65-0, a milestone bill in the New Mexico House.

The bill enables a possible switch of $2-5 billion of state funds into CUs and small banks."

Qshtik bet the State of New Mexico would not move its money from the Big Banks to credit unions and small community banks.

It appears Qshtik is on the verge of losing another gentleman's bet. 65-0 is a pretty strong vote against the Big Banks.

http://www.moveyourmoney.info

We are not the Weimar Republic.

INFLATION IN WEIMAR 1923
under Gustav Stresemann:
Million-fold inflation, that's 1,000,000% inflation

INFLATION IN USA, 2009
under Barack Obama:
Zero inflation... that's 0% inflation

The only hyperinflation we have today is of rhetoric.

And not just today. For some time now:

1967
Lyndon Johnson users in Weimar USA with gimmicked accounting standards and unified budget reporting
http://www.vinesbranch.com/view/?pageID=59503

1987
Volcker's stagflation ushers in Weimar USA
http://mises.org/daily/642

1990
George H. W. Bush ushers in Weimar USA
http://www.seek4truth.com/George-Bush.html

1997
The economic policies of Greenspan and Camdessus ushers in Weimar USA
http://www.larouchepub.com/lar/1997/wells.html

2008
"Global bankers" are ushering in Weimar USA
http://it.getalyric.com/ascoltare/N5F97jgSLfI/glenn_beck_highlights_threat_of_martial_law

There have been people saying Weimar is right around the corner for decades. There have always been conspiracy theorists engaged in scapegoat hunts (Jews, bankers, unions, etc).

I'm just surprised, and disappointed, that JHK has joined the conspiracy theorists by parroting conspiracy nuts like Lyndon LaRouche, the messianic believers, and the Glenn Becks of the world.

P. S.
The Weimar Republic survived its hyperinflation crisis. Germany is strong today.

The USA, which does not have a million-fold inflation rate, will also survive.

Chill out, people.

Vlad, there is a massive moral difference between a first-trimester abortion and "killing your baby". A fetus is on its way to becoming a human being, but it is not yet one.

The human race has to be weeded out- either before birth or after. Women, who have the responsibility for the quality of the species, know the importance of managing fecundity so that a baby is born at the right time, in the right circumstances. This is harder to manage than you might think. The human body is fecund in all seasons and extremely refractory to birth control- we don't have the "self regulation" that wild animals have, that limits their fertility in unfavorable circumstances. A woman might be able to use modern methods of birth control successfully, but some cannot, for a variety of reasons.

Our prisons and slums are full of people who wish like hell their mothers hadn't given birth to them. If abortion is the only way to reduce births to poor teen mothers, to the mentally challenged, or to people who just can't cope, well, then let it be.

We are not the Weimar Republic.

INFLATION IN WEIMAR 1923
under Gustav Stresemann:
Million-fold inflation, that's 1,000,000% inflation

INFLATION IN USA, 2009
under Barack Obama:
Zero inflation... that's 0% inflation

The only hyperinflation we have today is of rhetoric.

1967
Lyndon Johnson users in Weimar USA with gimmicked accounting standards and unified budget reporting
http://www.vinesbranch.com/view/?pageID=59503

1987
Volcker's stagflation ushers in Weimar USA
http://mises.org/daily/642

1990
George H. W. Bush ushers in Weimar USA
http://www.seek4truth.com/George-Bush.html

1997
The economic policies of Greenspan and Camdessus ushers in Weimar USA
http://www.larouchepub.com/lar/1997/wells.html

2008
"Global bankers" are ushering in Weimar USA
http://it.getalyric.com/ascoltare/N5F97jgSLfI/glenn_beck_highlights_threat_of_martial_law

There have been people saying Weimar is right around the corner for decades. There have always been conspiracy theorists engaged in scapegoat hunts (Jews, bankers, unions, etc).

1967
Lyndon Johnson users in Weimar USA with gimmicked accounting standards and unified budget reporting
http://www.vinesbranch.com/view/?pageID=59503

1987
Volcker's stagflation ushers in Weimar USA
http://mises.org/daily/642

1990
George H. W. Bush ushers in Weimar USA
http://www.seek4truth.com/George-Bush.html

1997
The economic policies of Greenspan and Camdessus ushers in Weimar USA
http://www.larouchepub.com/lar/1997/wells.html

Every year people are saying Weimar is just around the corner because the times are so bad.

2008
"Global bankers" are ushering in Weimar USA
http://it.getalyric.com/ascoltare/N5F97jgSLfI/glenn_beck_highlights_threat_of_martial_law

Weimar Republic is here, they always say, and there have always been conspiracy theorists engaged in scapegoat hunts for the guilty (Jews, bankers, unions, etc).

I'm just surprised, and disappointed, that JHK has joined the conspiracy theorists by parroting conspiracy nuts like Lyndon LaRouche, the messianic believers, and the Glenn Becks of the world.

P. S.
The Weimar Republic survived its hyperinflation crisis. Germany is strong today.

The USA, which does not have a million-fold inflation rate, will also survive.

Chill out, people.

"The whole "sumptin' fer nutin'" e-con-omy really got its start under Ronnie Raygun."
Ahhh, Ronald Reagan...the first completely phony president we ever had.

Fascists obviously make up part of the Tea Party movement, but not all of it. There is a sizeable libertarian element and a non-fascist conservative element, too. These factions have diametrically opposed beliefs about civil rights, civil liberties and the proper role of government, but they've joined the same coalition because politics makes strange bedfellows. Non-fascists joined the Tea Party movement for the same reason that many of them voted for George W. Bush: they consider the alternatives worse and are willing to put up with odious fascist saber-rattling as a compromise.

The fascists in the Tea Party are winning over non-fascists in much the same way as George W. Bush did in 2004. John Kerry effectively conceded Florida, Ohio, Iowa and Missouri when he dissembled about his position on abortion. It was a minor miracle that he won Michigan and Pennsylvania after being so condescending and shifty. The upshot was that George W. Bush won the votes of millions of abortion opponents who were none too pleased with his warmongering, support for the death penalty and/or civil liberties record. Likewise, today's Tea Parties contain people who are not looking to blow up Iran, resurrect Jim Crow or torture prisoners. What they are looking to do is reestablish fiscal discipline and put brakes on what they consider a rash, rushed attempt at health care reform. The only reason that they're allying with jingoists, bigots and sadists is that they're desperate for some kind of support.

My great hope is that some combination of libertarians and sane Republicans will either drum the crazies and creeps out of the Tea Parties or establish a parallel movement to organize those seeking a civilized opposition to the Democratic majority. In either scenario, two important things could be achieved. First, the dangerous wingnuts could be exiled to the margins of public discourse, where they belong. Second, the Democratic majority could be forced to engage in a civilized, adult debate on health care and fiscal policy, a debate much more worthy of our democratic traditions than the sorry excuses for discourse that have become the norm in Washington.

Demagogues such as Sarah Palin and Pat Robertson aren't afraid to aggressively engage the Republican base. What this nation needs is for conservatives who aren't beyond the pale, people like Jeb Hensarling and Mike Huckabee, to do the same.

There is no way to organize a society for the narcissist unless it involves polishing the mirror that enhances her reflection - and by "her" let us include both the labial and mammary-pneumatic self-admirer as well as the vein-pulsing, artfully tattooed faux-threatening baldy. We are a society of craven and venal women and pseudowomen, male and female alike, where brains and balls are measured in fractions, not integers.

-drl

Yes, Vlad, some women are too damned stupid or substance-addled to use contraception, and I do NOT want these women giving birth to children who will grow up to continue the misery. Consider that about half the population is to the left of the I.Q. divide, and consider how many misbegotten children we are supporting on the welfare rolls now.

I see these women,Vlad, and I see their children. I am reeling with nasua at the sight of pregnant thirteen-year-olds who can barely read at a third-grade level, and 20-year-old mothers of five who are pregnant once more and are so substance-addled they can't remember how many men they've slept with in the past month. I was cast into a funk for a week when I met a 10-year-old girl on the train who was carrying the smallest baby I have ever seen- and it was HER baby! The baby was three months old and was less expressive and responsive than any newborn I have ever seen. What future does such a baby, born into such circumstances, have? And how on Earth could a humane society let a ten-year-old girl who really appeared to be more like eight in size and mental development, give birth?

Most of all, a society that wants to survive as an advanced civilization will do everything possible to keep children from having children. A society of 14-year-old parents, and a society that encourages its weakest and dumbest to breed, will not survive.

Abortions have saved many marriages, and many families from destitution. A wise woman, confronted with a surprise late-life pregnancy, say, after raising a houseful of kids, will do the right thing by her husband, her kids and herself, and do it quietly without burdening her husband with it. Do you tell your wife everything you do by way of making a living for your family?

I'd rather have contraception and sterilization than abortion, which is a last resort. But our distaste does not make it murder. A 12-week-old embryo is NOT human yet even though it is on its way to being so.

"Cuddletuffy, your post is the most intelligent and well-reasoned comment I have ever read on this site, in five years of following CFN."

I agree. Ron Paul was once called a fool in my presence, by a co-worker. I was so shocked I couldn't speak. Never again.

Before this Ron Paul adulation goes much further I'd just like to say great danger lies ahead, if Ron Paul runs for president again. Here are Ron Paul's stands on some of the issues of the day:

Abortion: Ron Paul's "libertarianism" famously does not extend to the right of a woman to control her body. He introduced H.R. 1094, "to provide that human life shall be deemed to exist from conception." He voted against overriding Bush's veto of the stem cell bill.

The Environment: Ron Paul may be a Republican, but he's certainly not a Republican for Environmental Protection. That fine organization gave Paul a shameful 17 percent rating on its most recent Congressional Scorecard.

He doesn't fare much better in the eyes of the American Wilderness Coalition or the League of Conservation Voters.

Paul's abysmal record on the environment is driven in large measure by his love of sweet, sweet oil: in the 109th Congress alone, he voted to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, to shield oil companies from MTBE contamination lawsuits, against increasing gas mileage standards, to allow new offshore drilling, and to stop making oil companies pay royalties to the government for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

Par for the course for a man who called the Kyoto accords "bad science, bad economics and bad domestic policy" and "anti-Americanism masquerading as environmentalism."

Immigration: Paul marches in lock-step with the xenophobic right wing on immigration., calling a compromise immigration bill "a compromise of our laws, a compromise of our sovereignty, and a compromise of the Second Amendment."

Yet even the hardcore nativists in the immigration debate have been hesitant to support repealing birthright citizenship as enshrined in the Fourteenth Amendment, as Paul has done.

His proposed Constitutional amendment, introduced as H. J. Res 46 on April 28, 2005, reads: "Any person born after the date of the ratification of this article to a mother and father, neither of whom is a citizen of the United States nor a person who owes permanent allegiance to the United States, shall not be a citizen of the United States or of any State solely by reason of birth in the United States." Only four other Representatives, all Republicans, were willing to cosponsor this proposed amendment.

Civil Rights: Paul doesn't much care for ensuring your right to vote. Like when he voted with just 32 other members of Congress against reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Or when he voted for the bogus "Federal Election Integrity Act" voter suppression bill.

But at least Ron Paul knows who's responsible for racism in America: you are. "By encouraging Americans to adopt a group mentality," he writes, "the advocates of so-called 'diversity' actually perpetuate racism. Their intense focus on race is inherently racist, because it views individuals only as members of racial groups."

So now you know. (Apparently, saying that "if you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be" is not racist, as long as it's said with a proper appreciation for free-market economics.)

Gay Rights: Paul's rigid, uncompromising libertarianism leads him to take a number of positions that liberals find objectionable or even reprehensible but which should not in themselves be taken as ipso facto evidence of bigotry.

His reflexive opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, for example, is consistent with libertarian positions on federalism and the right of the individual to be free from government "coercion," even if that means limiting the ability of minorities to seek employment and housing free from discrimination.

Still, libertarian orthodoxy can't fully explain Paul's hostility to gay rights, and indeed to gay people in general.

The Libertarian Party, which nominated Paul as its presidential candidate in 1988, has strongly opposed the so-called Defense of Marriage Act from the beginning; Paul supports it.

While he opposed the "Federal Marriage Amendment" that would have outlawed gay marriage everywhere, he actually cosponsored the odious "Marriage Protection Act," which would nonsensically bar federal courts from considering challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act, which is a federal law.

"The definition of marriage--a union between a man and a woman--can be found in any dictionary," he writes condescendingly. Despite Paul's disingenuous claims that he is a "strict constitutionalist," most legal scholars agree that the so-called Marriage Protection Act would be unconstitutional.

You also will not find Paul listed among the 124 co-sponsors of the Military Readiness Enhancement Act of 2007, which would repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" policy barring gays and lesbians from serving in the military. Maybe he's worried that they'll take their "gay agenda" to far-flung corners of the world. He also doesn't want gay people adopting children while they're not serving in the military, either.

On a personal level, we have this 1993 quote wherein Paul equates homosexuality with "sexual deviance." And let's not forget his wink-wink characterization of Hillary Clinton as "a far leftist with very close female friends".

Church-State Separation: From keeping "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance to co-sponsoring the school prayer amendment to keeping the Ten Commandments on a courthouse lawn, this "strict constitutionalist" isn't a big fan of the Constitutionally-mandated separation of church and state.

And just in case the dirty liberals in the federal court system might take it into their heads to enforce the Establishment Clause, Mr. Strict Constitutionalist introduced a bill to bar the federal courts from hearing any such cases. No wonder James Dobson's Family Research Council gave Paul a 75 percent rating on their 2005 scorecard.

International Relations: Like crackpot paleoconservatives everywhere, Paul wants us out of the United Nations, which is just a bunch of un-American non-Americans out to destroy America.

Darfur is also filled with non-Americans, so you certainly won't find Ron Paul lifting a finger to stop the genocide, or even acknowledge that genocide is taking place. I guess that's why he's one of only four members of Congress to receive an "F" rating on Darfur from the Genocide Intervention Network.

Peace and Military Issues: While Paul may oppose the Iraq war, he doesn't seem to have much use for the men and women who have to fight it. Paul received an "F" rating from the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. It's not easy to get an F from the IAVA; Paul shares this distinction with only six other members of the House. Even Asoka loves the veterans more than Ron Paul does.

Taxes: Do we even need to go into this one? If you audaciously believe that we need a progressive system of taxation in this country, here's what Ron Paul thinks of you:

Worker rights: Voted to defund OSHA's ergonomics rules. Voted against increasing mine safety standards. Hates unions.

Campaign finance reform: Opposes.

Social Security and Medicare: Repeats the Republicans' lies about the programs' solvency.

Consumer protection: Voted for the bankruptcy bill. Voted to make it harder to file class-action lawsuits.

Universal health care: don't make me laugh.

Privatizing everything: the Internets are not large enough to hold all the citations.

Taxes: Do we even need to go into this one? If you audaciously believe that we need a progressive system of taxation in this country, here's what Ron Paul thinks of you:

"We have exactly the kind of steeply progressive tax system championed by Karl Marx."

Asoka, from every post I've ever seen on here, doesn't do much thinking of his/her own. I hope that is the problem as it is far more encouraging than other alternative explanations of his/her posts. Allow me to elaborate:

It is standard to claim that Ron Paul is a racist, against the environment and the other litany of charges this article proclaims. These articles amount to slander. We know what slander is. It is a sign of fear that actually taking on the ideas through intellectually honest and rigorous discipline would cause you to lose the argument.

I would believe all that stuff if I had never listened to interviews with him, read his books, read the books of the people who inspire his ideas ... ...

His ideas and the ideas of libertarianism are quite consistent with supporting civil rights.

Let's take just a couple of issues - major issues. The first is the War On Drugs. It is well-established that this government campaign of tyranny is extremely racist. If white America were as decimated by this campaign of tyranny as black America has been, it would not have lasted two years much less 4 decades and counting.

Ron Paul openly and ardently opposes the War On Drugs. He doesn't do so on the grounds of racism, but rather on the grounds that all men are created equal with certain inalienable rights, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The War On Drugs violently violates those natural rights of men equally for all victims of its tyranny.

Let us take the welfare state. Would Asoka or any liberal go and live in a housing project? Would they feel safe if they were African American living in Compton just because there is civil rights legislation? The welfare system, (the joint system of social welfare, imperial militarism, central bank induced inflation), that Ron Paul has always opposed has demonstrably made the poor poorer. Worst of all, it hasn't made people free. People who are dependent are not free. The welfare state has failed because it has made too many people dependent. The goal is independence, self-sufficiency. Not only that, but the imperial welfare state hasn't only helped to keep the poor poor, but it has robbed the wealth of countless generations and destroyed the middle class. Don't believe me? Who really thinks they will see all of their Social Security benefits? Who will see their government pension in real terms? Whose 401K's are tied up in the paper money system of over-inflated asset values that ultimately will be properly valued, downward significantly, by the market? Whose dollar denominated savings have been wiped out by the compounding inflation since 1913?

Ron Paul is telling us that the real root of poverty that absolutely kills the poor and the greatest destroyer of the middle and merchant class is inflation that is directly caused by the central banks.

I could go on about abortion, gay marriage and other issues of civil liberty. But this isn't the forum for it. It is up to Asoka to be honest and actually listen to what Ron Paul has to say about these issues and how and who should address them. I don't personally agree with his personal views on these matters, but I can't argue with his ideas for how they should be addressed in society.

I am not a Ron Paul partisan. But he makes a great example of how we can't allow slander to stop us from listening to ideas that have integrity and are thought out with a thorough understanding of economics and human nature. Who else on the political landscape is doing this? Who else isn't a hypocrite? Maybe Kucinich and Gravel. But I don't think their economic ideology fits the reality of our financial state of insolvency.

Asoka fears a Ron Paul presidency. It seems then that what Asoka fears is that the War On Drugs would end today, all of our foreign military bases would close, our foreign wars would end tomorrow, our military budget would be slashed in half at a minimum, the imperial executive would be renounced and ended, the CIA would be significantly reduced if not abolished, the Department of Homeland Security would close tomorrow, we would be able to determine the real value of money, property and assets, we would begin to pay down our debts, the debt saturated lenders and borrowers would have to be the sole recipients of the consequences of their irresponsible behavior and we would begin to ween ourselves off of dependency on a violent central state. I suspect that he would even try to recoup some of the money stolen by the military industrial complex from Social Security ... by using the fraud laws to prosecute the theft of those funds to gift to the MIC over the decades. There must be a clear paper trail the prosecution could use.

It is terribly sad that this is the future that Asoka fears. It says a lot.

Excellent post Mr.K, I agree with every word.

The "slippery slope" argument has been used often, but there is really no logical progression from a trimester to a late term, let alone to infanticide.

By the middle of the second term, when the embryo has become a human baby and is capable of surviving outside a woman's womb, it is mostly easier on the mother to deliver the baby than it is to abort it, as you must go through something resembling a normal delivery to abort. There is no sense in it, and it is almost never better for the mother. Most people are properly appalled at the thought of late term abortions, and they are only done if they are medically necessary, such as when a baby has a condition such as the lack of a brainstem, in which case it would die the moment it is born, or the baby is so defective in other respects (no heart, no lungs, or other conditions too bizarre and deforming to describe), that it has no chance at life at all.

Abortion is only done at the point of birth when the choice must be made between saving the life of the mother or saving that of the baby. In that case, the mother's is usually priority. Nobody wants to have to make this choice but sometimes it must be made.

Lastly, there is never justification for infanticide. The baby is absolutely an independent being outside of his mother's body. There is never a medical justification for infanticide, even though, unfortunately, there may be, in a future of limited medical care and shrinking resources, "triage" of all people whose prognosis is so poor that scarce resources cannot be spared to extend their lives, but must be allocated to those who have the best prospects. In the past, there certainly was, especially in the days before medical practitioners were required to document and justify every single procedure and decision.

In a future severely constrained by the lack of resources, that can only support half the current population, I suspect that more and more people, from old age down to infancy, will be "triaged" as not having enough of a chance at life and/or health to justify the allocation of scarce resources to saving and rehabilitating them. This is a very scary thought. I do not like it and I believe we should make every effort to save each human life, and do everything possible to help those who want to live, stay alive. But it might not be possible. There might not any longer be things like a half-dozen blood transfusions to extend the life of a 78-year-old who has been comatose for 2 months, or for a lovely 5-year old who is afflicted with, say, terminal leukemia. And as the poverty rate increases, there will be less and less medical care available to the poor- they will be the first "triaged" through the inability to pay.

In other words, the human race will be culled brutally and randomly in the event that our resources shrink drastically. It will be very random and very brutal, and take place on a mass scale. And we will have no control over it. Would it be better to do it before birth, according to the desires of the parents who bear the responsibility, and who know their own capabilities, or after, by the usual devices- disease, crime, war, starvation, exposure, lack of medical care? Might it be better to let individual women select themselves out of the process, relatively painlessly, or is it better to let nature take its course, and let nature do the selecting the painful way?

Babies aren't killed at birth, Vlad. I don't know where you get that.

It is estimated that 30% of fertilized eggs are spontaneously aborted, you know, where "God" does it.

I invite you to pick through the products of conception, as even the craziest right wing Christian doctors call them, and find the "baby".

I know two women who were anti-abortion enough to give babies up for adoption. Both aborted the next pregnancies. One, who was forced at age 16 by her mother to carry to term and give it up, was driven to the clinic by her mother to have the abortion the next time.

You think it's easy to give a child up for adoption? That just shows how you don't live in the real world.

The most abusive of parents keep and raise their children. They will tell you how much they love them over the child's dead body. And I mean literally dead body.

Love is not enough. This society does not support child rearing in anyway.