Sinclair Lewis

“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross".

2nd!

Fascism is here already - brought to you by the oligarchs in the FED, Goldman Sucks, Bankrupt America, Shittybank and the Plunge Protection Team.

http://www.creativedestruction.us/

Somehow this must all be the fault of illegal immigrant Mexicans. Do they listen to Glen Beck? If so, then definitely kick them all out.

Two lumps on Sarah Palin's chin.

"Ten years ago he was a cringing drunk contemplating suicide."

Odds are that in 10 more, he'll be back there again, Jim.

"what happened to reasonable, rational, educated people of purpose in this country to drive them into such burrow of cowardice that they can't speak the truth, or act decisively, or even defend themselves against such a host of vicious morons in a time of troubles?"

Ask W.B. Yeats about what happens when the best lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity.

The Tea Baggers will self destruct when they cannot deliver. We won't get Sinclair Lewis' feared "Minute Men" in America. We'll get chaos first, even in the land of NASCAR where lots of us Rednecks do not like anyone telling us what to do. And yep, we're well armed and cranky.

The race card???? typical jew

nevermind the LACK of racism and nazi invective coming out of the tea party or Beck.

Just freakin make it up and lie. Get lost; this article is trash.

Beck is certainly a moron and his followers and Palin too are fools, but they are not nazis, and you, JH Kunstler, are a fucking liar

Quote:
My own guess is that he's been informed that the system is so fragile that if he dares to disturb even one teensy-weensy part of it -- for instance, by throwing some executives from Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, et cetera, into federal prison -- that said system will fly to pieces in a fortnight. So Obama's main task for a year and a half has been to desperately apply baling wire and duct tape to the banking system while telling fibs to the public about a wished-for recovery to a prior state.

Jim I couldn't agree more. Throughout the election cycle no candidate talked about the mugging of America, except Ron Paul, kinda sorta. But that's not surprising when elections are tantamount to beauty pageants. What I found far more disturbing was the utter failure of anyone in media to even ask candidate questions about the economy beyond the typical happy talk version presented on teevee every night.

Democracy fled with the establishment of the Theocorporatocracy as the primary funder of the political candidates.
Ask yourself who pulls BO's strings?
Hopey changey was a fantasy. He is merely a stop-gap for Palin.
When so much was 'off the table' including prosecuting the criminals who invaded sovereign countries without cause and murdering its innocent civilians, the game was up.

Thanks for your posts Mr Kunstler. I have found myself seeking them out pretty regularly these days and though your views are a little too err.. dark even for my tastes, I appreciate your style wit and turn of phrase.

Living out here in Oz, we are still not in quite the state you appear to be in over there, thanks mostly to the fact that we are one of China's biggest sources of raw materials, but we're selling the resources (and the farms) at a pretty snappy rate and I see signs of much of what you observe in your posts over here - albeit on a smaller scale and on somewhat of a trailing edge as far as timelines go.

Keep up the excellent work.

S.

Frank Rich over at the New York Times wrote a piece on the same topic which seems to back up JHK on his observations of the political winds blowing in the "Land of the Free":

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/opinion/29rich.html

Scary.

trav777, if only they were all as dopey as you.

You wrote:

"The race card???? typical jew

nevermind the LACK of racism and nazi invective coming out of the tea party or Beck.

Just freakin make it up and lie. Get lost; this article is trash.

Beck is certainly a moron and his followers and Palin too are fools, but they are not nazis, and you, JH Kunstler, are a fucking liar."

Racism is the unspoken, and often spoken, thread running through the Tea Party. As for Nazi invective: you supply it, pal.

14th!

Pathetic article this week. JHK once again oozes his disdain for the South and air conditioning -- WTF do you really think he doesn't use it too? -- and sees Racism because someone said there are dark forces. Typical over-educated Dunce. Sorry to say this 'writing' is highschool at best. JHK whatever happened to your brain?

Why do you despise everyone that at least tries, and gets out on the street? How do you know they're all fighting to preserve a 12ft tall SUV & triple-bypass Big Macs? You don't, and everyone who's read this blog several times now sees you for the tissue-thin intellectual you are.

And of course, if black people show up at Tea Party events they're shills. Right JHK, not a SINGLE black person could EVER agree with the Tea Partyers. Cuz ALL Black People are the same, right? Moron.

JHK's a pussy. He maligns people who are out on the street protesting, while he....writes. What a Tool this Fucking Pussy is. Go to Hell JHK.

Jim, the lack of dissent by responsible American thinkers is because they are just as committed to the myths of Happy Motoring and Home Ownership as everyone else. You often talk about how the Aspen Institute denizens hope to tweak the system with electric or hybrid cars. And yet you are still an optimist, inasmuch as you are confident that there will be an election in 2012; I wish I were.

Speaking of Sinclair Lewis, it may be time to re-read "It Can't Happen Here," his 1935 semi-satirical political novel. The story centers around newspaperman Doremus Jessup's struggle against the fascist regime of President Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip.

Buzz is the typical power-hungry politician, elected on a populist platform, who promises to restore the country to prosperity and greatness, and, more importantly, promising each citizen $5,000 a year. (That's about $77,000 in today's increasingly worthless greenbacks; nice work, if you could get it).

Once in power, Buzz reverts to type, becoming a dictator, outlawing dissent, putting his political enemies in concentration camps, and creating a paramilitary force called the Minute Men who terrorize the citizens. (Today he would just call up the goons squads from Blackwater.)

One of his first actions as President is to change to the Constitution which give him sole power over the country, rendering Congress obsolete. In the book, this is met by protest from the Congress. (Which shows how far off even the usually clear-eyed Lewis could be; no one thinks this Congress would oppose anything.) There are alos outraged citizens, but Windrip declares a state of martial law and, yada, yada, yada.

Most "real" Americans either support Buzz and his Corpo Regime wholeheartedly or reassure themselves that fascism "can't happen" in America. Until, of c(o)urse, it does.

Kool-Aid, anyone?

Jim -

Glad you had some time off. You're back in top form.

Having lived near Palmyra, NY around the time you were in college out that way, I second your comments about Smith and his mythical gold plates. That Hill Cumorah Pageant is a yearly attempt to prove the nostrum; if you repeat a lie long enough...

Now, despite the "zesty" antisemitic remarks above, I agree completely that this is about race. Not ALL about race, but that's a big part of it. Since Obama has been flailing around like a wimpy Harvard prof at a pickup game of stickball, he has allowed this to develop. The Tea Baggers get to use all his failures to cover their deep-seated racism and resentment.

In particular, I love the "prayer" part of Beck's message. It reminds me of that scene in "Ghostbusters" where Harold Ramis says (upon seeing their first real apparition) "Get her!" Bill Murray responds later, "That was your plan? Get her?" Beck's "pray" is the same; a clueless, kneejerk reaction. However, any sentient being should understand what he's really doing, which is setting up a narrative which can't easily be shouted down. After all, praying is good, isn't it? And if you dare take issue with it, you're a bad person, aren't you? And we all know that "mean people suck."

But perhaps the Tea Baggers are on to something, as it appears that, as you mention, no human has the answer. Obama, Congress, Bernanke; the whole lot seem totally incapable of first, articulating the truth and then dealing with it.

Oh. By the way. Pray for us :-)

What we had in Washington DC, standing before The Sham Wow Beck and Palin were 80 plus thousand Sheeple. The Sheeple were attending a rally bought and paid for by the Koch brothers, and POX News' Murdoch, three of the nation's richest elites who would be so happy as to take the Sheeple's Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid away from them leaving them closer to poverty. But appears to be OK with the Kool-Aid drinking Sheeple.

Prayer will fix it for them.

Beck and Palin are both incompetent, and ignorant snake oil hucksters. They are propaganda machines, not unlike what went down in pre-war Germany to sell the blond haired citizens that the Jews had horns under their Yarmulkes.

But instead of the Jews being the devil, it is Obama, progressives, and liberals, while the devil just so happens to be carrying a Fox News and Goldline paycheck.

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

JHK I really think you do yourself and your readers a disservice with the constant mocking of the people in flyover country.

For the most part, we weren't the ones living in sexy enough housing markets to be a part of the proximate cause of the current economic crisis.

And as for the root cause of it- well, let's just say that greed was endemic on both sides of the transaction, but it was the overeducated types in business and government who sold America on the lie that we could have a free lunch by borrowing in the private sector [to maintain the illusion of a growing middle class] while government borrowing would keep the Boomers and poor quiet through various transfer payments.

Did we tragically mismanage the past 50 years? You bet. But blaming the victim is not going to accomplish anything.

Maybe instead of mocking them you could go talk to them and see how much of your message resonates instead of blindly assuming that they are a monolithic group of mouth-breathing racists. I sympathize with the Tea Partiers from the standpoint that they were betrayed by the Replublican Party which has morphed into the right wing of the corporatist party.

I'm sure many progressive feel the same way about Obama who is keeping two wars going while making sure that the Wall Street types keep getting their fat bonuses.

There are plenty of people who you lord over with your pseudo-intellectual arrogance who would be willing to listen to what you have to say without the constant ad hominem attacks- the Tea Party isn't just the slide into "corn pone fascism" that you like to describe: it's an ad hoc group of people who recognize something is seriously wrong with the way the country is organized and run but they don't know what it is.

BTW, Beck is a complete tool. The fact that people are willing to listen to that dipshit says more about the gullibility and politeness of middle America than anything else.

Regarding Glenn Beck's career arc, just last week I watched 1957's "A Face in the Crowd" about a charismatic, homespun jerk whose TV success gives him delusions of being kingmaker. This is an excellent movie that hasn't dated a bit! The character's poisonous attitude inevitably escapes to hang him with his own words, something I look forward to happening with Beck.

Again, I think JHK nailed our problems quite well this week.

I thought the opening paragraph was a little extreme:
===============
"which is tea party code for the otherwise unutterable idea: get that nigger out of the White House!"
=============

But it is PROVABLE that there is a subset of Republicans and "neo-conservatives who are openly, or worse *subconsciously* racist.

They, like the rest of the country, are being played - only with different music.

JHK's readership seems to have a bias toward the left. Now I've argued that that is because reality has a bias to the left.

Nevertheless, it's easy for most of us to see the pure simple wrongness of Beck/Palin et al.

Yet, there are problems with orthodox liberalism that many of us refuse to even acknowledge or consider for compromise.

Unable to compromise or consider reality, We the People of the United States lead our country to free market corporatism and the Planet to its doom.

Cluster Fuck, Indeed!

I'm glad I've got something like a little "lifeboat" ready for me and my family.

Have a great week, CFN!

TwentyFIRST!!

What happens when you cross a Mormon with a Unitarian?

Someone who goes door to door for no apparent reason.

SJMom
Whose ancestors crossed the plains with Brigham Young.

"what happened to reasonable, rational, educated people of purpose in this country to drive them into such burrow of cowardice that they can't speak the truth, or act decisively, or even defend themselves against such a host of vicious morons in a time of troubles?"

1-those people are mostly hard at work, doing their careers, trying to make sure that they have decent retirement funds (due to the delusion that the Florida will be habitable for their retirement), trying to put their kids through college (due to the delusion that an "education" will allow an upper middle class life in the future), and trying to otherwise make day to day ends meet (due to the delusion that they might actually "get ahead."). I.E. they're working their delusions.

2-these people, living lives of quiet desperation, glance up occasionally, see all the bullshit, think about taking a stand, but then turn away and seek solace in cultural or personal distraction as a form of stress management.

When these delusions are broken, when they bump up against the reality of permanent unemployment (both parents and kids alike), complete loss of hope in a better future, loss of all faith in government and other authority, and the loss of any sense of security and stability, that's it; the proverbial shit will hit the fan. There will be a mass psychotic break that will tear the country apart, and yield the world that will eventually, after much bloodshed, lead to the....World Made by Hand.

Jim,
I think I know why you hate Glenn so much. You two are nearly identical. The main differences are that Glenn believes in God, you in...? Glenn sees through the President and detracts him, you see through him and desperately await the "hopey changey" stuff.
Other than that you both are awaiting the apocalypse (you just are awaiting a secular and peak-everything delivered calamity). I read both Glenn's Books and your non-fiction books. I think that both of you are very intelligent and insightful. I just don't understand your insistence on trashing people of faith or, more particularly, conservative people of faith. Faith and intelligence don't have to be mutually exclusive as you seem to believe.
Finally many of us in the Tea Party movement are not on the right. In fact the left-right paradigm is wrong. It should be Tyranny vs. Anarchy, not left vs. right. When you get down to it left and right (commies, fascists,) they are really the same. Stalin & Hiter= Tyrrany. Socialists & Extreme Religions (Radical Islam, Radical Baptists = Tyrrany. George Bush (the patriot act) Obama (Forced health care) =Tyrrany. See these are left and right issues but freedom and tyrrany.
Oh well. I still usually enjoy what you have to say though I disagree so often. Good luck and God Bless

Tip to our Canuck friends - you folks had better get busy building a border fence - a really *long* border fence. Once things really go to hell down here in the US of A and the cornpone nazis take over, there are going to be a lot of us "reasonable, rational, educated people of purpose" who want to get the hell out, and Canada is going to look awfully attractive. Especially as the physical temperature rises along with the political temperature.

Agree with the last post.

The thought occurred that some of what Kunstler has been writing lately is sort of analogous to the stand up act of a comedian who is incredibly talented but insists on throwing in gratuitous expletives at every turn, being apparently unaware that by doing so he is detracting from his work rather than strengthening it.

Apparently that was second to last post rather than last post. I guess "last post" is not a robust referencing mechanism.

The biggest mystery to me is why the public at large simply does not understand that we're in trouble. I've sought out conversations with hundreds of people lately, PhDs, accountants, guys running for political office, you name it. Maybe you can find one person in a hundred who understands peak oil and who realizes that the "recovery" isn't coming and that we need localized economies etc.. I guess you'd expect this from the average redneck, but the horrifying aspect of this is that our supposed intelligentsia appears to be missing in action.

Racism?

I live in a small town in Louisiana.
The whites go to the white bar.
The blacks go to the black bar.
No whites go to the black bar except an occasional
crack whore and every four years a white
politician.
Now and then a black comes in the white bar but
they do not come back.
My white female friend was at the white bar.
We were having a drink and discussing the black
white situation.
She says I am a racist.
I asked her if she wanted to go have a drink
at the black bar, my treat.

She said no.

Actually, wasn't 2nd to last either. I meant to concur with the post by m_barton2k10.

When I read you Jim, I feel like someone has taken the jagged shards of my shattered mind and reassembled them into what I would like to think existed prior to the disillusion and discomfort brought about by realizing I am actually living in a 3rd-world equivalent where are the mirrors have been either broken or unknowingly tilted so as to reflect another's image upon which to heap invective and hatred and "see one's own worst qualities."

Keep talking, reassembling shattered minds,and rearranging mirrors to the "right" angle.

Thanks!

what happened to reasonable, rational, educated people of purpose in this country to drive them into such burrow of cowardice that they can't speak the truth
==

The truth?

The truth is that the US gov is a criminal syndicate. But you won't say that. Why? Is it because you're part of this criminal syndicate? Do you receive checks from them? Why are you protecting these fscks? It's a simple question JHK. I won't hold my breath for your answer.

Rojelio:

"Maybe you can find one person in a hundred who understands peak oil and who realizes that the "recovery" isn't coming and that we need localized economies etc.. I guess you'd expect this from the average redneck, but the horrifying aspect of this is that our supposed intelligentsia appears to be missing in action."

Good point. People probably generally figure I am a right winger because I engage in a lot of ridicule of political progressives for supporting a policy agenda that is utterly irrational and leads to societal ruin.

One might ask why don't I also ridicule right wingers who believe in similarly ludicrous ideas? Mainly because they already get blasted from both the progressives and the hack media, and secondly because progressives tend to have had a higher level of formal education so I feel like they have less excuse for their ignorance.

Excellent assessment of the ride we're about to see madly accelerate.

JHK- "Glenn Beck's sidekick nowadays, Sarah Palin, is exactly the kind of corn pone Hitler that America deserves: a badly-educated, child-like, war-mongering opportunist easily manipulated by backstage extremist billionaires who think they don't have enough money yet. Sarah Palin is going to run for president in 2012. In the process she'll turn the sad remnants of the Republican party into a suicide cult, but she might just get elected and you can kiss the 230-year-long experiment in representative government goodbye for good."

I can't understand why those of authoritarian bent get so creamy-dreamy about Sarah. Is it her fecundity, or perhaps the weaponry? Maybe the referral to handy, sound-byte talking points is the attraction. A smiley/jokey delivery of third-grade reasoning and badly concealed delight in ostracism and punishment of "the other" seems to elicit the cheers of the buffoons as well.
Deep down though, it's "take from THEM and give to US", or, "kill THEM and save US"; a tough thing to reconcile with their Christ. Is that why they're trying to re-invent that figure somehow? (Buddy Christ from "Dogma"?)

...And if Sarah should mount to the throne of the [supposed] highest office in the land, would she find it engaging (or remunerative) enough to keep her there for a full term? I highly doubt it. The bimbo lives for adulation; and the bloom is off the rose rather quickly for presidents. She couldn't take the heat.
"I was hop-een and pray-een that the folks of America would be think-een of me as their Pageant Queen, but I have to go now 'cause I'm not see-een the love I deserve. Besides, I have to go fish-een. Bye now...."

Hopey changey was Pablum for the lefties. B.O. needed 'em to beat Hillary. Oh, had it not been for Mr. Edwards she could be in the Oval office. Gotta be naggin' at her. Even if B.O. is only a 1 termer.

Just be happy Beck & co is not going after all you dual passport carrying Bedouin tribe members,that are responsible for all this Weimar Republic mayhem,and making O look like a circus clown,running our khazar pig infested government managerie.

This blog is losing it. Reading some books, such as Kiyosakis Prophecy (2002), John Talbotts material (2003 to 2010) about RE finance, Peter Schiff, Chalmers Johnson, and a few more among others, and then going to the real truth, which is found at the County, State and Federal courthouses
(which may require some weeks of field trips), some county and city budget meetings and in a few months
one could get a reasonable view of what is really going on locally and nationally.
Considering that books have been written about the US financial demise years ago, what exactly is the commotion about JHK and his views ? These are light books, no complicated derivative formulas in them, and being a spectator at a bankruptcy hearings does not take any great effort. Motions can be read in the internet.
JHK, at the very least starts the knowledge and understanding part. The rest of us can continue
'locally' to fill out the rest.
Sarah Palins lack of international travel (and until recently lack of a passport) in this day and age and in light of her political stature and recent VP candidacy speaks volumes for her capacity to be a VP of the USA.
One needs to keep in mind that the frst 16 American Presidents were slave owners, and this instituional tradition, is alive and well in 2010.
In President Bush's words, "this sucker is going down".

Wow, trav777, you sure are nasty for first thing on a beautiful Monday morning. Have a rough night did you? If you think JHK is such a liar, why do you bother reading him? Just so you can trash what he says?

"what happened to reasonable, rational, educated people of purpose in this country to drive them into such burrow of cowardice that they can't speak the truth, or act decisively, or even defend themselves against such a host of vicious morons in a time of troubles?"

They are too busy posting the order in which they initially sign in to Clusterfuck Nation each week.

SNAFU

Here is what kind of shit Glenn Beck spends his time promoting (quoted from Boston Globe/AP article today 8/30/10):

"A day after his rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Glenn Beck, Fox News’s conservative commentator, yesterday renewed his criticism of Obama, taking aim at the president’s religious beliefs in a appearance on “Fox News Sunday.’’

Beck has said that many Americans don’t think Obama is a Christian because they don’t recognize the faith that he’s practicing, which Beck called a form of “collective salvation’’ rather than the personal salvation some believe is taught in the Bible.

In the Fox interview, Beck said Obama “is a guy who understands the world through liberation theology, which is oppressor and victim.’’

“People aren’t recognizing his version of Christianity . . . and 48 percent of the African-American community doesn’t recognize it either, by the way,’’ he said."

Now that's just ridiculous time-wasting bullshit, and if it isn't a re-direction of attention away from our REAL problems, then I don't know what is.
Who the hell cares what kind of a Christian someone is (or for my part, what freaking relition you are at all)? It's one of the most ridiculous things I've read lately, and that's saying a lot. And the same article stated that only 38% of Americans even believe that Obama is a Christian at all!!! Crazy !!!!!!!!

Whoops. That would be "religion" rather than "relition."

No, not Palin. She's just a passing joke.
And a delightful entertainer!

But JHK is missing the mark about the Tea
Party. There will be a confusion of parties,
that is the point. It will be like the
1850's again.

The only way out includes a policy of protectionism (tariffs). This is what
the party of Lincoln, who supported
tariffs in this day, should make
paramount on the 2012 platform.

And BTW, how about a prediction for when peak
oil is going to hit, and how? Your fans are
thinking you've been a little vague, JHK.

Will it be ten years, three years, thirty years ... what's your call, JHK?

Saw this Bumper sticker:
"Sarah Palin in 2012 to 2014.5"

It all boils down to people operating on facts (fewer and fewer these days) and those operating on belief systems. Once belief systems take hold, its impossible to overturn these despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. So as a nation we are believing ourselves into this black hole. In that context, the popularity of a Palin or a Beck doesn't seem so surprising. It happened in Germany with Hitler. It can just as easily happen here.

Your comparison of Sarah Palin to Hitler is highly offensive. After all, Hitler had an IQ of 142. If you added up all the IQ scores of the entire Palin nuclear family, I doubt it would total 142.

Tales from the Warpage 2:
"How curious it is, how bizarre, and what a coincidence!"(___Ionesco) Welcome to Theater of the Absurd.

Once the Cold War ended, our dear leadership decided that we didn't have to be a model society anymore. It was no longer important to educate the coming generation and we are seeing the results loud and clear. Our populace doesn't know the difference between socialist, fascist or communist. In their world you can be all three at once, especially if you're a "black foreigner." as these people believe.

We are now are experiencing the Know Nothings movement redux of the 1840's. Nativist in nature and taken advantage of by the rich and powerful who convince these fools to vote against their own best interest! Think Koch brothers and Fox News.

This movement is growing up around the anti-Mexican illegal immigrant sentiment, as did the Know Nothings against the Catholic immigrants in the East who identified with the Democratic Party. (Not that I think that our immigration system isn't entirely broken, mind you.)

From an article I found: "Growing rapidly, the Know-Nothings allied themselves with the group of Whigs who followed Millard Fillmore and almost captured New York state in the 1854 election, while they did sweep the polls in Massachusetts and Delaware and had local successes in other states." This mirrors the Tea Partiers to a T! One can only hope that they will look too crazy to vote for by our citizenry.

Yesterday I wrote: They (Republicans who conflate mixed economies with Godless Communism) tell a hurting population, one that cannot afford their healthcare costs-- that they have a choice between godlessness(public sector) and Christianity. Welcome to the "Theater of Cruelty".

I personally believe that when it becomes clear that the Republicans cannot turn things around, they will go the way of the Whigs, but they will be given one more chance to drive the nail in our coffin. What we come out with is anyone's guess, but it seems clear that our Global full spectrum dominance through unending wars and forcing our fiat currency on the world is going to waste more $trillions to benefit the few.

Nothing will come back to build the Nation State. That is done with. They will also help themselves to our direct payment to the state in the form of Social Security and Medicare etc. which they love to call it "entitlements". They themselves think they are entitled to all the world's resources and wealth and the Corporations will destroy everything their path to get what they need to make quarterly profits continuously. How long do you think they can keep this going?

When Obama was running for office he could have attacked Hillary for taking money from the Colombians to institute CAFTA, but didn't. One can only imagine that he too is as Globalist and Neoliberal as the Clintons and the Bush. I voted for him anyway, given what paltry choices this once great nation has to offer.

What happened to all the intelligent people of purpose and good-will in this country? Many of us are tired of not being listened to when we try to vote for better candidates and policies than those profered by young Mr. Obama. So, we are busily working to provide our own bulwarks against the flood that is coming.

Expending a lot of time and energy trying to right the course of this crazy nation appears futile, so why bother? Many of us are on the 'Net because this is the only free outlet left to commune with other smart folks who can read the writing on the wall.

About the question of why Obama turned into such a weenie -- I think he knows as well as anyone that he would face the same fate as JFK if he made any serious attempt to rock the boat of the plutocrats who really run this country and the world. So he does what he's told. He got elected to take the blame for what is about to happen -- much of which was in the pipeline before he got into office.

Perhaps the powers that be wouldn't mind a race war to take the public's mind off the real culprits for our plight (the "powers that be" and the general public themselves for buying into their lies of "something for nothing" real estate wealth and cakewalk casualty-free wars, etc.).

A good post today, Jim. It gets us all to thinking, except for the knee-jerk racists lurking in the growing darkness.

I put up a blog post on http://www.healthyplanetdiet.com today that points our some related developments that might be of interest. The relationship between declining health and declining availability of food for the masses are going to bring cataclysmic changes in the Long Emergency. Shall we sit and talk about it, or petition our leaders for Change? Or get ready for it?

What happened to all the reasonable, idealistic "good" people? They sold themsevles and the rest of us for a mess of pottage. They refused to protect our borders against illegals - even if it mean the trashing of the environment which they were allegedly for. They refused to cut back on big goverment spending - even if it bankrupts us, social programs must increase. That many of them work for such programs in not insignificant. They refuse to treat people equally, but rather favor the dark skinned over the fair. It makes them feel SO GOOD about themselves - even to the extent of electing an unqualified individual as President. Last but not least, they bought into the idea of never ending growth and prosperity every bit as much as the Republicans and corn pone nazis of JHK's fantasy. And as the previous poster said, with much less cause as they were more educated and prided themselves on being environmentally aware. In short, the Good People are a pack of self righteous, careerist clowns. The Good People aren't.

The book "The Dumbest Generation" is billed
as a book about "... the death of reading
in the young". Its only major defect, so
far as I can tell, is that I'm even seeing
the death of reading in the middle-class
and elderly. The goddamned boob tube is
all!!

Ironically, at some point we may NEED a
dictatorship because our population has
become so stupid that Harry Reid might
actually have a race on his hands against
Sharron Angle who is mocked even by her
own party. In the Nevada assembly, the
vote is often "forty-one to Angle".

She is a certified nutjob with ties to
the Scientology movement which is as
insidious and insane as a "religion" can
get. To me, the emergence of the Angles
and the Palins is a signpost of a sharp
increase in American anti-intellectualism
and the abandonment of common sense.

I can only empathize too strongly with
JHK's pillorying of doofus Beck. Beck
is an inarticulate loon who does, indeed,
have a penchant for crying in public.

Maybe America needs to be taught a lesson
and we need to "experiment" with government
being run by cretins like Palin and Angle.
As H.L. Mencken said in the 1920s ...
"The American public knows what it wants
and we should give it to them good and
hard."

Old H.L. was the last of his breed ... a
reporter who wasn't just a celebrity
lickspittle.

E.

My biggest fear in this asinine mess we call the 21st Century is that it will keep flailing along in its completely pointless way. Just as there is no Eskimo word for 'nuclear grenade' the rich have no concept of Enough. They will continue to strangle this country until the last worthless dollar is theirs.

How wonderful to live and participate in the perfect nightmare. Time to declare the American experiment a failure and try the next thing.

Glenn Beck is not the problem. The problem is people keep electing the same people over and over again, rep and dems alike expecting a different outcome!

[blockquote]what happened to reasonable, rational, educated people of purpose in this country to drive them into such burrow of cowardice that they can't speak the truth, or act decisively[/blockquote]

Well, I was left asking that question when you wrote about your road trip several weeks ago. You did the "easy lifting" describing the fat-slobs, the imbeciles and the other brain-damaged types that seem to populate fast-food nation but couldn't take on the effort to illuminate and articulate the subtle character and nuances of the individuals that populate the "status quo."

It's what I'll label the forty-percent of America who think they are "cool" and cock. It's these forty-percent of the American population living off Wall Street, the Federal Government or some blend of flim-flam doo-dads that either pump sex or drugs int our culture.

Let the fat-slob morons go. They never did know what was going. Its the forty-percent fucking freeloaders that are making the big slide to be much steeper than it has to be.

The next time you see your neighbors, the ones that work for a government, or the ones that make six-figure incomes in some insurance, financial or other make believe racket, realize that these are the true failures, the true enemies of the last empire. They got theirs. Now, go fuck yourself.

JHK- "Glenn Beck's sidekick nowadays, Sarah Palin, is exactly the kind of corn pone Hitler that America deserves: a badly-educated,
child-like,

-war-mongering opportunist easily manipulated by backstage extremist billionaires who think they don't have enough money yet.-

This is a Damn good description of Obama, and Bush also.

They are all YES MEN. The congress is full of
Yes Men. Bought and paid for by the big money.

Congress only listens to the rich who finance their campaigns and the poor whose votes they buy
with free checks. They do not care about the
middle class because they already know what the
middle class will do. 50-50 straight down the
middle - Republican / Democrat.

That is the real function of Glenn Beck, and
O'Reilley, and Anne Coulter, and all their opposites on the 'liberal' side. Keep the middle
class distracted with Liberal/Conservative so that America's real rulers can function behind the scenes.

Pure Machiavelli. Divide and conquer. And some
of our best and smartest keep falling for it.

The public said No Tarp and Congress did it anyway.

The public said No War and Congress did it anyway.

Look like Democracy to you?

Not Public Service.
Public Lip Service.
They do not work for you, you work for them.

The only exceptions to that I see are Ron Paul
and Dennis Kucinich. Any others I am missing?

Having lived in Utah for more than a dozen years, Glenn Beck's performance was strikingly similar to the show Mormons put on during their annual conference - treacly anecdotes, staged sincerity and patriotic bromides. He even made sure that his collar was unbuttoned so the faithful could see he was wearing his Mormon undies and prayed with the characteristic folding of arms. Nothing new here, folks, just a Mormon male acting out his Joseph Smith fantasy on his way to Kolob.

Redou,

Interesting post and you cite an
interesting political anomaly i.e.,
that our least hypocritical politicos
are at the "outcast" ends of our
parties ... Dennis Kucinich for the
Dems and Ron Paul for the Republicans.

You forgot about Bernie Sanders who,
sanely, wanted to AUDIT the Federal
Reserve ... a piece of legislation he
sponsored with Ron Paul and which
NEITHER party wanted any piece of.

Jefferson warned us about the "monied
interests" taking over the country but
we've overruled him by making government
purchasable by multi-national corporations
and men-in-black plutocrats.

How the Supreme Court could ever vote that
a corporation, originally conceived of as
a PUBLIC TRUST, has the rights of an
INDIVIDUAL is beyond my ken. That one
decision was a dagger in the heart of
our Republic because it legalized the
buying of government.

E.

>>reasonable, rational, educated people of purpose in this country

From time-to-time I've gotten involved in my local government. What I discovered, to my dismay,was that "think globally, act locally" rings hollow.

The level of utter stupidity amongst this small subset of our government is staggering. They are mostly a group of second-generation townies, who are baffled by the future, make no effort to educate themselves and never want to listen to anyone who might know more than they do.

In other words, they are a mirror image of politicians at much higher levels -- only they are not quite as glib or telegenic. It is a very depressing situation.

And I do believe that this foments a sense of ennui, which is easily tapped into by Beck and Palin whomever has the next national "platform" to address the masses from. People are utterly disgusted with government, which, in the past decade, has proven to be massively incompetent.
Perhaps, with the 5th anniversary of Katrina as a backdrop we can see how people would ask; "How the hell could this happen here? And how could my government by so utterly incompetent?"

The questions aren't wrong, but Beck and Palin are clearly not the answers.

Some interesting news outside the Fox Corporate Circus distractions:

1)US birthrate had a major decline since the Great
Recession
Although overpopulation is not the sole cause of our running the world out of resources while dumping our various toxins into it, it is certainly good news to slow population growth!

2)The epic traffic jam in China!

http://blogs.wsj.com/drivers-seat/2010/08/26/china-traffic-jam-eases-but-experts-say-it-could-happen-again/

Due to China's move emulating US auto addiction and truck dependency a major highway has been stuck for days and weeks.
Amazingly enough, a Chinese official I read in I believe the NYTimes said the traffic jam would not be really fixed until 2012!!
The fix?
Completing major rail lines...

Will we wake up in this country to the price of our auto addiction?

I look forward to this blog every Monday, here in Australia our situation is beginning to emerge and it will draw comparisons with the US within 12 months, our economy is one trick and that is China buys minerals from us and we do F@##$ all else. China is buying dirt in bulk for future expansion, this plan will backfire when the US defaults and takes what ever is left of Europe's fast depleting balloon with it, when world demand for China's plastic trinkets tank guess what direction Australia is going to take? Our ratio of mortgage to income is 6:1 yours was only 3:1 it doesn't take a genius to see what happens next.

We're as dumb as dogshit down under!

Those who say the underlying message is "get that nigger out of the white house" are naive. People say it directly to me all the time even though they know I'm a democrat, but of course this is bar-room conversation, but alcohol loosens the tongue...
Usually they call him B.O. and feel so cutesy clever to have thought that one up, and they call him "that FUKIN nigger in the white house".

I was at a dinner party Saturday night in a hillside California coastal town and the political talk was an incoherent mash of various talking points, all derivative in nature, which I thought reflected the general sense of bewilderment about our national plight. One of the things that happens when a people finds itself in an insoluble predicament brought about by systemic cumulative mistakes, is they feel lost and bewildered. Anyone who appears to offer a way out makes their ears perk up. I recently watched "Triumph of the will" with its interesting themes of deliverance and national rebirth. Sophisticated propaganda for its time.

@Debtor Loser

The first sixteen presidents owned slaves? Really?

Lincoln? John Adams? John Quincy Adams? Fillmore?

Got some supporting references to substantiate the claim?

JHK, I have followed your column, read, purchased, and distributed (at some cost, financially and personally) your books to friends and family for many years now. I enjoy both your perspective and your fiction. After reading todays comments I am growing increasingly uneasy with your vitrolic hatred, racism, and personnel attacks. Your rage spew and intolerance reminds me of some all time crazies like ummm Hitler. That's becoming increasingly scary, and I would encourage you to seek help for anger mgmt. I am worried about your mental health and would ask you to at least take a few minutes to honestly evaluate this. Yes I too find times to vent and spew. Later I feel some remorse but I fear your are decontructing at time with this.
As far as your supposed hatred for the Tea Party and its ilk, I understand they are more right leaning than you would like and subject to less than perfect direction in their goals. In another breath you utter where are the supposedly intelligent protesters. They are still for the most part playing it safe and trying to build a margin of cushion around their existence. They are trying to buy a learning curve with their time and resources. Not as noble as hitting the street in protest and maybe fruitless in attaining that but that's what a lot of them are doing. At least the ones that are engaged.
Yes we lack a leader that can gain and manage a salient perspective with an inclusive message that brings momentum and purpose. That you could have been a person of that talent is constantly burdened with the hate speak, imperfections, and intolerant rants that you so readily accuse others of. If you are unwilling to maintain a standard of decency and decorum why do expect others to?
I leave todays JHK message with even more pessimism that the swirl towards the drain is increasing and questioning why people of good faith would try to find purpose in reaching beyond their families and friends to address the needs beyond that circle. When anything beyond perfection in purpose is labeled and BBQ'd by as evil bunk by men such as you.

Wow, what a bunch of lefty, horseshit drivel today Jim! No sense in going through all your points and how they are just about all completely wrong. Once again, lefty claims of "violent" tea party people is a pure lie, with no evidence to back it up. You want inciters to violence, talk about the black panthers on the National Gepgraphic special wanting to kill all whites, babies and all, or how about your ELF buddies who blow shit up left and right. Yes, the rally where MLK's niece spoke was anti-black? WTF are you talking about?!?! As far as putting Goldman Sachs executives, etc in jail, why would he? THEY ARE ALL DEMOCRATIC DONORS FOR THE MOST PART! GOLDMAN HAS HISTORICALLY BEEN A HUGE DEM SUPPORTER! BP donated more to Obama than anyone in 20+ years. Really Jim, pull your head out of your lefty asshole and face reality. Your articles on what has, and what is, happening to this country are often right on and I enjoy reading, but the "Old Woodstock hippie" in you still clouds your brain to the reality that it isn't the"right" that has ruined it all. Both sides have claimed a part and the left, especially these morons in there now, have REALLY fucked it up!

I have a fear that Sarah Palin will get elected President in 2012, there will be a terrorist attack in February 2013, and President Palin will respond by deporting all foreigners living in America and refusing to allow any Americans to leave the country. Americans already living abroad will be rounded up and forced to return home. Anyone caught sneaking into Canada will be shot . . . from a helicopter.

Great question...what indeed will it take. My current research is related to self-censorship so this is truly a fascinating topic for me and startlingly frustrating as a citizen. And furthermore why are we so damn receptive to propaganda and don't understand where the money is coming from to fund these morons and their distorted messages?

Anyway, I too would love to find answers to the question of why people don't speak up. Please feel free to check out my plea for your stories...

The Localizer Blog>Free speech stories

Wow, Desert Dawg, are you still stuck in Saigon....errrr....Baghdad? After 8 years of Bush and his clan destroying this country, you are so stupid as to put the blame on BO? Unbelievable. Where do you dolts come from?

Jim, I am really surprised by this article on Glen Beck. It's not like he is evil as you have would have me believe. So, what if he is a recovering addict, over half of the population is on some kind of drug, addicted and not doing anything about it. My only beef with GB is the infusion of God angle, into politics. He obviously has not read Ayn Rand on objectivism, and why we are in such a mess.
He is wrong only on one account and that is the rights are granted by nature on some unseen entity.
I applaud him for his stance on what he believes in Just as you are Jim on yours. Hate is a double edge sword, mostly hurting the user.

On the spiritual ways of Pennsylvania Dutch hunters who bonded with the Lenni Lenape Indians: “Secret knowledge hides even more deeply in bad times. …This is the type of knowledge ‘the Grid’ always suppresses. We live under an institutional machine that wants all power in their hands. It has spent centuries hunting down old pockets of knowledge and attempting to wipe them out. The fight goes on today…-Dennis Boyer

It's sad to see someone of intelligence sink as low as this hate filled diatribe that projects evil and racism on anyone who displays dissatisfaction with America's untenable situation. Beck is a well meaning fool. Simplistic demonizations such as "nazi" and "n-word haters" for Beck and his followers do nothing but magnify your contempt and disdain for most of humanity. Every week you go to great lengths to demonstrate you are not subject to the same human foibles as the rest of us, and end up pridefully demonstrating , with accusation, invective and vitriol, that you are exactly like the rest of us failed humans.

BECK ON BECK (excerpt from FoxNews Sunday interview, Aug. 29, 2010)

Wallace: "Do you regret having called [Obama] a racist and saying he had a deep seated hatred for white people?"

Beck: "Of course I do. I don't want to retract the, um ... I want to amend that I think it is much more of a theological question, that he is a guy who understands the world through liberation theology, which is oppressor-and-victim. 'Racist,' first of all, it shouldn't have been said. It was poorly said. I have a big fat mouth sometimes and I say things. That's just not the way people should behave. And it was not accurate. It is liberation theology that has shaped his world view."

First, Beck said, in no uncertain terms, that Obama is racist.

Now Beck says his comment was "not accurate."

What will Beck's "position" be next week?

Should the comments of a clown matter?

Talk about reaching a tipping point- today's blog really got the debate moving. That's a good thing in that it gives people a chance to discuss their competing perceptions of the Tea Party movement.

There's one point [maybe more] that I'd like to get out there: despite the personalization and demonization of politics both political parties [and the TPM] are steered by events beyond their control with a consistent internal logic that goes beyond good and evil.

Politics has been described as the art of the possible- well, in the early 70s the US got a wake up call in the form of oil shocks and instead of pursuing a different path we decided that there was too much invested in the consumerist/suburban organizing principle to just walk away from it.

The consequences that are bearing fruit now: the perversion of the petrodollar regime into an asset stripping game though ponzi finance, endless wars in the Middle East and the consolidation of power into fewer hands centered around first access to oil and money.

Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats were interested in stopping this because the lesson from the 1980 election was clear: we want consumerism and we want suburbia. The electorate made that choice, so let's get past the name calling. Both parties know where their bread's buttered.

Regarding middle America/the South I offer this: the Republican party grabbed hold of these groups partly because of the Nixon's racist Southern Strategy but there's more to it than that. The division between left and right in this country is far deeper than the mere political labels have you believe. There is an urban/rural divide in this nation that has been unresolved since before the Civil War and the GOP has cleverly marketed itself to the rural mythology even though they don't believe in it themselves.

That mythology starts with the idea that people are largely capable of taking care of themselves and when that's not possible, family steps into fill the gaps.

From there the mythology moves to ideas of small business and entrepreneurship serving as the cornerstones of an economy that serves the consumer and the producer. When you consider that agriculture is the basis of a lot of the Red States' economies this makes sense: farmers are killed by the low agricultural prices that city dwellers demand so they can afford living in the city and the luxury goods they have access to.

TPM is about limited, local government: because it's far easier to control the excesses of people in Topeka, Denver or Montgomery than it is people in Washington.

That's the appeal of people like Beck and Palin to flyover country. They can tune into the ideas of self-sufficiency and community and make it seem like the Republican Party shares those values when in fact they do not.

For people who live in cities surrounded by strangers it sounds like a bunch of nonsense because the city isn't a place where you get food from working the soil, family is not a source of economic strength and the neighbor down the street isn't there to help you fix a hole in your roof.

The urban logic is built around maintaining a sense of order because there are far more details to contend with as opposed to a rural community. The fact that liberals are willing to at least pay lip service to helping out the people at the bottom of the food ladder is compassionate in an urban context but it's a completely foreign compassion to rural dwellers who see compassion as action, not money- especially money extracted under the threat of prison time.

These competing mythologies run deep. I know why the urban left finds the rural mythology hokey and completely unhinged from reality but it is as real and valid to them as the urban mythology is to the city dwellers.

In my mind, the Long Emergency is about the recociliation of these opposing conceptions of what it means to be an American and we'd do well to at least make an attempt to understand the world from each other's viewpoints instead of resorting to cliches, name calling and the rest of the nonsense that passes for debate these days.

Paul Kemp,

We have no leaders.

We are adrift and going down.

So I am getting ready, as best I can.

JHK, you really outdid yourself this time; I didn't realize that the English language had so many adjectives. Anyway, keep up the good work, and let us all pray for Glenn's hemorrhoids. Most of us love you.

JHK, your column this week was an enjoyable read.

Thank you for speaking your truth.

Myrtlemay said, "Sarah doesn't need us praying for her."

Why is that? Because she thinks she's the chosen one, as Tea Partiers would have her believe?

ROFL

I am for the most part a big fan of JHK. I enjoy the Kunstlercast regularly and I have read nearly all his works. I am frequently confused, however, by his writings in CFN. In his other works, Jim frequently sings the praises of small towns and the small town,rural way of life, but his weekly CFN columns are frequently devoted towards painting the sort of people who make up small town and rural America in the crudest and ugliest caricature.

@ m_barton -

Thanks for such a well-reasoned post.

I agree, mostly. At one time, I was deeply involved in political consulting -- at arms length. What I saw in places like Arkansas and Louisiana and other rural parts of the nation was just the sort of disconnect you mention.

In particular, I remember Oklahoma, where we had to record "locals" who were in support of our right-wing candidate. They ACTUALLY BELIEVED that he was a "good, god-fearing man." Unprompted, this came up repeatedly. To my Eastern, big city ears, it sounded like something from another time, but these folks weren't afraid to make such a statement.

The sad part, of course, is that they buy into this narrative and elect candidates who are fully aware of just how easy it is to use this mythology to manipulate them. They never really "know" these politicians and have no real idea if they are "god fearing Christians" or not.

But as you note, perhaps the naivete goes both ways. Liberals wanted to believe in "change." My Okie friends wanted to believe in "no change."
And none of use really know "the truth."

Pilt

I read a good quote the other day...

"We are in a moving car heading straight towards a brick wall, and everyone is arguing about where they will sit."

All I hear coming out of the Tea Party is hate. Hatred of illegal immigrants, so-called liberals (whatever that word even means anymore), gays, the government, other races, and on-and-on. Not all the Tea Partiers hate the same things, but they are united in that smug feeling of hating something. Doesn't it make you feel good?

What is doubly ironic in this whole situation is that many of the Tea Partiers come from states that receive more money back from the Fed than any of the big blue states like California, Illinois, or New York. Alabama and Florida get back, what, like $2 for every $1 in taxes? My uncle is a proto-bagger, and guess what, he retired early and gets Social Security. It is so funny.

welles, you're way off base. The Tea Party is funded by Fox News and a few conservative billionaires just like JHK says in his article. About 10 minutes of research will pull up that fact. And, indeed, the agenda of these organizations is to trash the remaining social safety net, so they can cash in on it. The whole movement resembles a pack of lemmings.

And, you know, any movement that wraps itself in the flag AND simultaneously claims to be a Christian movement is disgusting to my political sensibilities. It would have been to all the Founding Fathers, too. Wouldn't it be interesting to see what Jefferson and Ben Franklin had to say about Beck?

Just want to let "y'all" know,if you plan on moving to canada there will be IQ tests performed at the border ,this is the reason why http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seYUbVa7L7w

It just keeps getting weirder and weider...

"Last week on “Fox and Friends,” the Bush administration flacks Dan Senor and Dana Perino attacked a supposedly terrorism-tainted Saudi prince whose foundation might contribute to the Islamic center. But as “The Daily Show” keeps pointing out, these Fox bloviators never acknowledge that the evil prince they’re bashing, Walid bin Talal, is not only the biggest non-Murdoch shareholder in Fox News’s parent company (he owns 7 percent of News Corporation) and the recipient of Murdoch mammoth investments in Saudi Arabia but also the subject of lionization elsewhere on Fox."

Hi, welles.

My uncle didn't work that much. He'll get far more back than he paid in if he lives to a ripe old age. Plus he retired early. I'm sure he'll be loving the Medicaid, too. Point is not that those programs are bad. It is that railing against taxes and the government while you line up for handouts is kind of an odd political position.

The pulse of the whole Tea Party thing is hate, welles. Maybe you can't see that from afar. I see it over here in the US from the way Fox News conduct themselves 24/7 to the torrent of pure hate launched at Obama via the internet. The Tea Parties are mostly not grass roots movements. They are constructs of the far right fed by constant attention on Fox News. It may look spontaneous from afar, but it isn't.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/opinion/29rich.html?_r=1

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer

To me, the issue is the coupling of all these conservative "principles" with the basic idea of fiscal reform of the government. In other words, there is no need to tie together love of Jesus and guns with wanting the government to control spending. I respect those on all sides who bring a reasoned, common-sense approach to these issues and disentangle their personal politics from issues like fiscal prudence.

If you want to put your finger on the wild side, just look at the shout-filled NYC Mosque protests fueled by pure hate and speculation by Fox News. Or the wild, hate-filled rants about illegal immigration that fill the internet blogs and comments sections in your newspaper. This is not a reasoned political movement. This is a pack of dogs that want someone or something to blame for the way things have gone. And they are out for blood.

JHK,

No offense, but how in hell do you know that the financial and health care reform bills will not change anything? They are long and complicated, because laws in these areas are baroque and voluminous. So reform bills had to cover a lot. If you're so confused and don't know what those two bills actually do, how can you possibly say that they won't do any good? It is okay to say you don't know. But claiming you understand the bills when you don't is disingenuous.

Also, what's with blaming the POTUS for the legislation passed by the Congress? The Congress makes the laws in this great land, not the Executive Branch. The POTUS has the option to veto, but Obama uses it sparingly. Because Congress is with him politically, and the laws they pass reflect the majority view, more or less. Are you mad Obama hasn't vetoed these bills? Why would he? How do you know the finance and health bills were not good ones?

Democracy is about compromise, which few of you on this blog seem to understand. Laws and viewpoints will never align 100% with whatever specific brand of right/left politics you have chosen. If you are looking for politicians or parties that agree with you 100%, well, good luck. You'll never find it. That's just the nature of the game. No need to get all mad about it and join a Tea Party.

welles,

Answering one of your points (I think):

I don't know any Tea Partiers personally, because I am not in Bagger territory. I have seen and read plenty from various news sources about and from them (they get a lot of media attention here in the States), including tv news, major newspaper stories, blogs, and many internet comments.

So am I allowed to draw some conclusions from these dozens of different media sources that I've seen over the last few years, or do I need to go out and meet these people in person?

Because I simply don't want to, nor do I feel that I need to.

My post did not present the actual situation 100%. The Tea Partiers and similar groups are actually a big grab bag of different ideologies, political viewpoints, and prejudices. You have the anti-illegal immigrant crowd, the tax haters, the social conservatives, those who hate Obama, etc. That's why you rarely see much of a positive agenda coming out of that movement, because in reality it is not a very coherent political movement.

What I object to is the shoe horning in of more "conservative" Republicans, when it is this exact crew of dingbats that backed Bush in his disastrous conservative agenda of 2000-2008. Why do people want these apes back in office again?

Say what you will about Democrats. That party has its issues. But acting like Republicans are the answer is a joke. They caused or exacerbated many of the problems we are dealing with in Obama's administration. Conservatives are angry about where we're at due to....the policies of the last conservative administration. Makes a whole lot of sense, doesn't it?

What was your other point?

Greetings,

I thought that having only two bought and paid for candidates in the last election was somewhat abhorrent so I worked gathering signatures to put Nader on the ballot in Arizona. This futile exercise taught me quite a bit about American politics.

First, people screamed at me, threatened me with physical violence and threw things at me when I asked them to allow Nader on the ballot. I explained to the people that they didn't have to vote for Nader but should allow him to run since this is America and all that jazz.

I talked to hundreds of people and all I could manage was 14 signatures - it was pathetic.

Now we will reap what we have sown.

welles,

No need to get your titties in a bunch. I answered both your questions with a few different comments.

Neither of your "points" was really very substantial, however.

To review:

Uncle retired very early and will likely live a long time. Uncle will definitely get back more than he paid in from SS. Uncle is a typical conservative, with no shame. The idea of personal hypocrisy in all this doesn't even enter his mind. I'm sure he'll be all over Medicaid when that's available to him. My point was not that government programs are bad. It was to point out that we need to have a rational discussion about this, not subscribe to idiotic mantras like "government bad, free market good."

No, I haven't met any Tea Baggers in person. So what? They constantly troll the internet with brainless comments about Obama being a Muslim and a Communist, and that's more than enough contact for me. I don't need to meet these people in person to decide that they're full of it.

Jim's best writing in years. The whining in the comments is out of control as well as the Internet-Tough-Guy, right wing baggage.

A lot of you need to get your own blogs and find out how little what you have to say means to others.

What do you do when the haters decry hatred with an awesome display of hatery? This page has become the saddest place.

Excellent column today, JHK. I've been waiting to read something useful about Beck's rally in Washington (not much coverage here in Canada) and this was it, along with a lot of food for thought.

The poster who talked about the urban/rural split is quite correct in assigning that significant importance. I'm watching a tv series now about the history of the Appalachin mountains and its people, and today's struggle would appear to be an updated version of what the rich city people did to the unsophisticated land owners there, stealing their land through trickery and then using them as virtual slaves in their coal mines.

I understand why the Tea Partiers are angry, and why they are so vulnerable to the likes of Palin and Beck. I guess a bad solution is better than none at all. Their ability to think for themselves, if they ever had it, has been wiped away by the blandishments of popular non-culture, with the strings being pulled by those too smart by half Eastern advertising shamans who tell them what to think and what to love and hate.

But to those of you who think Canada is a haven from all that, I'm very sorry to tell you we have a government and a leader who think they are republicans and George W. Bush respectively. Not noticing that those clowns were voted out, our brave boys are busy erasing civil rights, building more and bigger prisons to house all the victims of their war on crime and war on drugs (sound familiar?) and they are certainly waging war against women, immigrants, and our native population.

Most significantly, they have developed a handbook for their government Members to disrupt and derail bipartisan committees so nothing gets done. Just like the republicans you have who just say NO to everything so nothing gets done.

I'm not a big conspiracy theorist, but it's hard not to believe that your republicans and our conservatives are not collaborating to destroy the very foundation of our democracies.

We may not have a Tea Party here yet officially, but the government sponsored boosting of fundamentalist Christain beliefs suggests the seed has been planted.

I'm afraid we're too close to you to avoid the same fate. Only difference is we still have plenty of undeveloped land left. The soil may not be the best, and it will be cold in the winter, but it's still there for the brave souls ready for a challenge.

wow I don't know who's a bigger asshole...Beck, Palin, or KUNSTLER!!!

I seem to remember seeing JHK being on the Beck show a few years ago. (Shortly after "the Long Emergency." Might have been on the CNN show before Beck moved to Fox.) JHK was being interviewed as an expert on Peak Oil. Oddly, I don't remember any name calling by either side. As I recall, Beck was sympathetic to JHK, and this was after JHK had already called Beck a nitwit or something on this site.

Was JHK on the show because he was then sympathetic to Beck, or wanted to use any medium to advance the Peak Oil story, or just selling out in order to sell books?

I'd say you're right for the most part, but essentially the tea party's core motives are sound. It would be too presumptuous to call them racist or completely unaware of the government's incompentency to resolve the country's crisis. Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck are not exactly economic and social saviors, but they're better than the trainwreck administration that treats keynesian politics like an over eager 16 year old driving a new car.

And one more thing. People on this site like to bitch about the corporatocracy, inept government, and the slow slide of this country down the tubes.

Yet the Tea Partiers are actually doing something about it.

Maybe folks here ought to quit justifying their own biased views by cherry-picking the inevitable racists that take advantage every movement (including the left) and see if a bottom-up, populist uprising isn't just what the doctor ordered.

Bread and Circuses!

At this late date, how many don't understand that Glenn, Sarah, Barack, Bush, McCain et al are just clowns in a Circus bought and paid for by the financial pirates that own and run USA?? They seem to be doing an effective job of keeping sheeple distracted while the bosses keep ratcheting up the percentage they extract from those not collecting the "bread".

To be a bit more blunt, executives from Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch are never going to federal prison, because job one of goverment minions (and every president since Kennedy except Carter is included) is to keep them safe.

The Tea Party is a bit of a problem though, (can't have an independent voice for truth and reform) so the democlowns have orders to defame and detract; the republiclowns have orders to infiltrate, consolidate and co-opt; effective work there as well.

I have no interest in who will be next captain of the Titanic. The USA economic system is built on fraud and extortion, and is getting long in the tooth. The bosses are trying to set up some (world) replacement in the shadows before it collapses. I am not sure whether to hope it collapses before they are ready or hope it lasts longer to help me prepare for the inevitable.

While a potential problem, I am no longer worried about peak oil. I think that peak food, peak debt, peak climate or peak government will hit us first, if not pre-empted by a massive solar storm that knocks out the grid and the internet.

Lastly, JHK, relative to speaking the truth. It is obvious that you know more than i about what is happening. Why don't you put it out there in nice simple terms? Afraid of being found floating in a swimming pool, like Matt Simmons?

That's a pretty strong brew you've prepared for us this week, Jim. A bit too bitter for my tastes, but most everything coming out of the kitchens of our intellectuals these days is

over-cooked, or under-done, or simply lacking some important ingredient. Like compassion, for instance.

These people whom you collectively dismiss as "Nazis" (and not just "Nazis", but worse, corn-pone "Nazis", which comes across as sneering Yankee condescension mixed with elitist

bile) are no doubt a crazy quilt of middle American angst and frustration. But these folk have been driven by neglect and indifference into the arms of wealthy manipulators and scheming politicians, because the educated liberals in this country have become far too smart and discriminating for their own mother's home cooking, and now sup exclusively in the dining rooms of privilege, where the walls echo with a noisy analysis of haute cuisine and organic farming.

Beck and Palin are surely the deranged minions of corporate capitalism, but to accuse the frightened people gathering around their podium of genocidal tendencies is really to bluster into the same hyperbolic rhetorical style as used by Limbaugh and Hannity and, yes, Beck and Palin.

I'm sure you do it out of the same reflexive disgust most of us feel when we see or hear idiots lecturing the common folk with poisonous advice.

But this ranting of yours goes well beyond curmudgeonly indigestion and has become the acid reflux of a man with an Archie Bunker-like belly full of self-consuming ulcers. Which is truly the most predictable of all transformations, where youthful meathead bleeding heart liberal becomes an aging hateful ulcerative reactionary.

I think it's probably a good idea to ditch the name calling and condescension and look for ways to re-establish real communication with our cousins who live outside the city limits. It won't be easy, because they have become understandably distrustful of the slick Harvard dialect that could not conceal its disgust for the common vernacular. But it must be done, because reconciliation is the only way out of this mess. The next civil war will certainly destroy a nation that is already so fractured and split it may never recover.

A prayer for healing is one prayer I have absolutely no trouble saying, even in the presence of my own agnosticism.

People in Mississippi are so angry at the government...

http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/266.html

That they get back $2.02 for every $1 they pay out.

And it seems that all the liberal states with the exception of Texas get back less than they pay in.

Talk all you want about hate. The bottom line is that the Tea Partiers subscribe to a version of recent history that is flat out false.

They blame liberals for all that is wrong with America. When, in fact, the conservative Bush administration caused many of the issues they complain about.

Clinton left office with a balanced budget and 60-something approval rating (even after the circus of an impeachment hearing). Clinton was more like a middle-of-the-road Republican than a liberal Democrat. He certainly was a fiscal conservative.

Then Bush got in office and proceeded to extend massive tax cuts to everyone, especially to his rich friends. This decreased the tax base and put the US back into the red. Then, following 9/11, the US government underwent its largest expansion since the New Deal. So Bush was not, in fact, any kind of conservative, except for perhaps a social conservative. He and his crew were really plutocratic statists and crypto-fascists hiding behind the label of conservatism.

Enter 2008. Obama comes into office. There is no money left. Finances are in shambles. The very office of the president has been left a wreck from eight years of Bush.

Queue the now out-of-power Republicans. They start sinking their money into Tea Party organizations, and a supposedly grass roots movement is born.

So now we are to believe that in order to fix the results from eight years of conservative government is more conservatives. Oh, except this time it will be "true" conservatism, not the Bush kind. In other words, sorry about wrecking things. We'll get it right this time. Honest.

Color me skeptical.

People posting on message boards they supposedly hate is like going to vacation places that they already know they don't like and then complaining about it. Just don't go there already. ;)

Mr. Kunstler,

This is the first entry of yours I have read. Interesting stuff. I have a couple friends who have sent me your way. I too am concerned about the "let's pray about it" mentality you mentioned - it can veer towards denial. However, there are many traditions that have deep roots in meditative prayer and silence. In my little part of the world, and coming from a heavily Christian evangelical background, I have been advocating for this sort of prayer for a few years. There are a few of us who are "activist" types that are practicing silence and stillness as a form of prayer, and it's something that incidentally is informing our active lives. We happen to be Christians, and I'm happy to say that many if not all of the religious traditions have similar practices that could also serve to support their activism. The fruit of this is quite often compassion which, I hope, transcends political lines and emerges with practical, radical, and long-term effects. I personally hope that the intentions I draw upon out of the silence direct me to climb out of the boulder of oil dependence I'm currently under along with most of the rest of my companions.

"restoring honor," which is tea party code for the otherwise unutterable idea: get that nigger out of the White House!

There is no question that a significant part of our population has a problem with this. It was carefully taught and drummed in their dear little ears.

...what happened to reasonable, rational, educated people of purpose in this country to drive them into such burrow of cowardice that they can't speak the truth, or act decisively, or even defend themselves against such a host of vicious morons in a time of troubles?

Here's my take...

We got too cool. Capable of seeing all points of view we can't get too invested in any particular point of view. We stumble over words like evil - have trouble with good and bad. No longer sure about God, we sound phony - to ourselves and others - when we try to use moral language. We have lost our language. We sputter and ramble. In seeking authenticity and self we lost both.

Dying on the floor of the Democratic Convention in the dark heart of 1968, Kurtz did not whisper, "the horror, the horror."

He grinned, "the irony, the irony."

You know,folks I am getting a little tired of Saint Adolph being quoted and black balled.I am sure he never killed a single Zionist,just like Bush and Obama never killed an Iraqi or an Afghan.

Say what you like about Palin, she is a handsome woman.

The US Open is sold out. The rich are back with style. The country is not going down. It is going up! We will all ride the coat tails of the rich to the land of prosperity! Or not... it's hard to say at this juncture.
Aimlow Joe was here.
http://www.aimlow.com

Palin/Beck in 2012.

If we make it that far.

After 2012, I'm not sure what happens. But I'm glad Palin and Beck and their toadies will be holding the bag when the monsters are let loose. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.

the left always invokes the idea of racism or hate in their criticism of right wingers, tea party or anyone else who disagrees with them. however, there must be a good reason we evolved the emotion of hatred back in the cave man days. it had to have some evolutionary advantage to survival. perhaps to help in identifying and fighting an enemy or perceived threat. believe me, there is hatred from the right, but the holier than thou left hates just as much. they are just too dishonest to admit it.

Part of the reason we needed to have a CFN is the Koch brothers.
The world they've created for us includes

The John Birch Society (humorous folk music)
Chad Mitchell Trio 1962

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pG6taS9R1KM

I really hate JHK, he always gets my BP up and I have this raging need to go TELL SOMEBODY OFF!

As to the appeal of Sarah Palin, as autoerotic as the whole "cornpone Hitler" meme is, with it's suggestion of SS Regalia, riding crops, boots and pistols, I rather think it is something else.

She looks like Tina Fey. And Tina is smart, funny, good looking in a crooked smile off kilter kind of way, and relatively decent in the fun bag area.

So I can definitely say I would like to hit that, or that, for that matter.

Actually, I lied. I really like JHK's writing.
It would be funny, if the reality wasen't so sad.

Vinz Klortho

Jim, This is one of your best pieces. Of course, current events are providing great material for ironic works these days. You are the featured editorial over at Max Keiser's blog today with this editorial. They certainly liked it. The people coming in over there only read parts of it, you can tell, by their comments. They're Americans, they'll read a little bit and then go off on their own pet rant(s). That's unfortunate, because this is really hitting the nail on the head, and they should digest it all..

Anyway, great work..

Regards,
Mark Lytle,
Houston Texas

Hey turkle, you're wrong as far as saying Fox funds the tea party. You want to see who funds movements, just follow Soro's money and you'll see every horsehit progressive cause. Fox jumped on the tea party bandwagon, they didn't fund or start shit! It was really hatched in Ron Paul's candidacy, and fox was certainly not for him, so you don't know what the fuck you're talking about, like most, no correct that, ALL, head up your ass liberal hacks!

If it weren't for your weekly missals, I'd be unable to translate the "brave, new shorthand" that's bandied about so recklessly.

Take this notion of "restoring honor." I've asked about that one: What does it mean? Whose honor? How was that honor lost? Who lost it? What do we do to get it back?

Of course your column clearly translated the obfuscation, e.g. "get the nigger out of the White House!"

Thanks, Jim!

Desert Dawg has Fox News rabies.

Liberal hacks...as opposed to the conservative hacks that ruined the country.

James Kunstler may be surprised to learn that he has more than a few fans in the state of Utah and among the Mormons -- whose "religion" (as he puts it) is guilty by association with crackpot neo-fascist Beck.

Let us remember that it was Mormons who, in 19th century Utah, pioneered low-impact and sustainable communitarianism in a grand social experiment called the "United Order." (Anyone interested in the history of intentional community in American should read up on it.) Yep, it failed, but it's purpose was to de-link Utah from crass Yankee commercialism and market consumerism. There is still more than a streak of this left in comtemporary Mormonism, just beneath the surface.

Jim, please don't paint all Mormonism with the same brush you just dipped in the bile spewing from Glenn Beck. And don't forget that you have friends in Utah. Give us the credit we deserve for finding you in the first place, and for sticking with you. We are, or should be, allies, and if you ever pay a visit to the Beehive state, I'll be happy to show you why.

P.S. Fawn Brodie's book on Joseph Smith is excellent, but out-dated. Take a look at Richard Bushman's "Rough Stone Rolling."

Regards,
Charles W. Nuckolls
UTAH VALLEY COMMONS (cohousing community)
Provo, UT

I'm pretty sure Sarah is in it for the $$ and the bright lights. Running for President won't make her any more rich or famous so I doubt she does it. Now, letting people speculate about whether you might run keeps your name in play which is good for business.

Koch Brother fund the tea party, but so what, the reality is that in spite of some hyperbolic worrying about Sara Paln, who is in it for the cash, and not running for anything but the bank, And as regards Glenn Beck he is and actor playing a part, Beck is the WWE of the talk shows.

But Obama is on the verge of failure, he is on the precipice and if he does not act, and soon his administration will be replaced by who ever the GOP puts forward, that is if Mrs Clinton does not take him on in the primaries. But as she is a part of the Administration she will be tarnished by a failed Obama Presidency.

Now that we are past peak oil the lack of cheap energy will collar the economy and as we in the US keep borrowing to run this show then it is only a matter of time till the printing press money catches up with us and our Ponzi scheme falls apart, Chaos will reign, transition towns are a nice idea but unless the whole country goes that way or a large part of it, well the hungry masses will be a eaten what is stored or grown by those who have prepared.

I leave you guys alone for a couple weeks...

Desert Dawg, I suggest you post on Youtube, Huffingtonpost or Fox News.

Your talking points are rather stale for this site. Come back when you have something new and/or original -- from the left or right -- to contribute.

Yes, we all know that George Soros is destroying America, libruls suck, climate change science is a conspiracy to turn Exxon's profits over to Al Gore, the law of evolution is a lie and welfare mothers -- not unregulated markets and Wall Street bonuses -- are sucking our Treasury dry.

We've heard it all before.

That's "theyoungturks."

"I belief that everybody BUT the government is responsible for the welfare and safety of the individual."

I belief you are a fucking idiot. The US Constitution says so...

"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

How does it feel to be so fucking stupid?

Hmmm. That was an excellent article this week Jim.

Speaking from an Australian perspective, where labor unions whilst weakened, are still credible inasmuch as they fund one of the two major political parties, I would suggest that one power bloc still able to make a difference in the USA is the labor movement such as it is.

While most thinking liberals here and in the USA share an understandable suspicion of the mischief that can be wrought by irresponsible union bosses, it is no great stretch to presume that, with care, they and their members could be harnessed in opposition to predatory oligarchies, as has been done successfully in the past.

If you know of any good works done by right-minded unionists in your country, please do write of it.

Regards.

Alex Fiedler
South Australia

Reasonable, rational educated people know there's no point trying to change the course of history. At this point, there are no solutions. There are only strategies for survival, some of which will prove successful.

So yes, we are living in the boonies with our animals and vegetable gardens (and guns) and creating a different lifestyle for ourselves. Will that work? Probably better than staying in LA...maybe less well than moving to New Zealand.

There's a hurricane coming - Earl hovers in the Atlantic, deciding whether it will aim towards the Carolinas or meander up the Atlantic coast, through Washington, DC, New York and possibly end up bowling into Nova Scotia on the way out. Perhaps it will be kind and scoot back out into the mid-Atlantic as the high over the East Coast shifts East, but I don't think so - in it's short life thus far it seems to be gaining a reputation for unpredictability.

I have a bad feeling about this - we're teetering on the edge right now, the signal to noise ratio now hovering near zero. Should New York or Washington flood (shades of Kim Stanley Robinson), will global markets take this as an excuse to collapse, tearing away the band-aid over the suppurating wound we call the economy? Or will some other event come along like a hurricane playing dice? Ultimately, it is not the black swan that brings about the collapse - it is that the black swans can flock in the first place.

Jim, you repeat many of your themes and observations.
Nothing deserves repeating more each week than your final question

"what happened to reasonable, rational, educated people of purpose in this country to drive them into such burrow of cowardice that they can't speak the truth, or act decisively, or even defend themselves against such a host of vicious morons in a time of troubles?"

Do you think we could get some hidden video dedicated to our political, business and community leaders admitting they know better but are too cowardly and opportunistic to admit it?

The Deceptive, Dismissive nature of this ego tripping cowardly Dunce in the White House, is causing more Dissension in not only America but throughout the world. Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin pale in significance when compared to this dressed up shoe shine boy who would do a dance for a chance at gaining a tip, like some little con man money monkey on a rounders leash. all that's missing are the balloons. He jumped at the opportunity to accept the Nobel Peace Prize as undeserving as it was, only to provide for himself a stamp of some form of official recognition in his created world of lies, as if Fantasyland had all of a sudden turned into real, when in all reality from the fiscal mess he's making, his dream doesn't even measure up to being on the same level of a Disneyland. Even this fraud in the Oval Office knows Disneyland is making a profit and America isn't, or maybe he doesn't?

JHK sez: "Beck himself just seems to be following a career arc more than really answering "a call." The emptiness of his platitudes and the confusion of his ideas shows that he is just flexing his demagogic muscles in a moment when weepy bluster passes for heroism."

Ah yes. As for that "career arc", we have a fine study entitled: "Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance". Yes friends, it's the American Way [of opportunistic bull-shittery].
Here's a link for those who enjoy yanking back the curtains of idolatry. Watch the interview; most revealing.

http://www.booktv.org/Program/11680/Common+Nonsense+Glenn+Beck+and+the+Triumph+of+Ignorance.aspx

Now aside from all that are you ready for another season of football ? Are they giving odds in Vegas on when the oil spill will be cleaned up ?
Is the empire in trouble ?

Beck is certainly a media clown, and he would be well-advised to stay out of politics, but I don't think the "Nazi" label is appropriate. Let's not forget that the National Socialists were not advocating limited government. To the contrary, after coming into power the National Socialist took total control over every aspect of society (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleichschaltung) including the media, labor unions, schools, universities, corporations, banks, health care, churches, etc. Other notable accomplishments include outlawing private ownership of firearms, home schooling and mandatory discrimination based on racial criteria. Thankfully nobody in America today is promoting crazy ideas like these. After all we are all kind and gentle people who have nothing but the deepest respect for our fellow citizen and their inalienable, God-given rights.

As is practically always the case you hit the nail on the head:Beck looks half-mad and sounds totally unhinged, and to think, millions listen to him and more millions will vote for that well-coiffed ninny with Nazi potential(Palin, if anyone was wondering...). Hang on for dear life, comrades.....

....the whole being greater than the sum of its' parts.

(That's more betterer, or is it more betterest?)

Americans just want someone to tell them the TRUTH. It's a shame that Glen Beck is one of the few who does...

A lot of the Founding Fathers would NOT
be celebrated by Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin,
and so on today. They'd be lambasted as
"income redistributionist Commies".

Back in those days, the idea of the
"commonweal" existed and under that idea
corporations were allowed to exist as
OUR "bitch" ... they were public trusts.

It seems that nowadays when the "common
good" is asserted in any way at all, the
alleged "conservatives" in the Republican
party pulled out the "class warfare" card.

Hey, you fake "conservatives" out there
(meaning about 80-90% of American Republicans),
the "redistribution" is necessary because
the banksters and multi-national CEOs stole
it in the first place and WE WANT IT BACK
in the form of living wages for even the
lowliest jobs.

I should think that even stodgy Republicans
aren't so venal and sociopathic as to want
their neighbors to have to live 3 families
to a household because they wanted to appease
shareholders by offshoring so many good jobs.

They could make up for this scurrilous behavior
(usually done under the rubric of "shareholder
value") by giving people a basic dignity of
life. Even those "Commies" ... our Founders ...
wanted THAT.

E.

Can you imagine the free entertainment coming out of Washington with Sarah Palin as President? I'm laughing already.

Qshtik

Last week you mentioned that in your neck of the woods you couldn't find a KFC. If memory serves you live in a fairly densely populated area not far from Ground Zero as the crow flies.

Not being able to find a KFC sounds pretty trivial but I'm with you on this, I don't think it is. EVERYBODY (OK maybe not everybody) likes KFC. Or at least that's how it seems to me. So I wonder what the deal is. Is it competition killing it, changes in eating habits (ie everybody is going for Mexican instead of fried chicken) or is it really a shitty economy? Maybe KFC is another canary in the coal mine.

KFC is not exactly fine dining. When things head south it's not places like KFC that suffer first. So I wonder if incomes and employment are so terribly squeezed where you are? I don't know your area but, on the surface, I wouldn't have thought it it's another Detroit or Cleveland.

Mean Dovey wrote:

"I used to come to this place thinking most everyone here was in agreement that TLE was coming. what i hoped to read and discuss is what readers here are doing to prepare themselves for it. There has been some great commentary in this respect, but lately the conversation has become as banal as an endless repetitive loop of cable news network."

Yes, it's become very tiresome.

I think in the future I'll just read Mr. K's blog and leave it at that.

James, you nailed it. Unfortunately this is the dark side of democracy, "low information" (read stupid) voters swayed by whoever spends the most on propaganda, or who don't vote at all, leaving elections to the insiders and party hacks. A mob that doesn't understand that the "freedom" Beck and his ilk are pitching is the freedom of the theo-corp-neocon complex to export jobs and foreclose homes, to wage stupid wars, and to float away from the chaos they cause on a golden parachute. And who believe the God-myth that if they suffer now, they will get their reward in the next life (where the ruling elite don't have to pay for it.)

Great reading your stuff. Proud that you're a fellow grad of New York's HS of Music & Art, as am I.

For those who believe that the right wingers are grass-roots, down-home, salt-of-the-earth types who spontaneously developed their prostrated-to-the-corporations philosophy, Jane Mayer had an article in the New Yorker showing the big bucks it takes to make ordinary people so very stupid.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer

The more-than-usual number of people slamming Jim's excellent entry this week just proves to me how degraded our people are becomming. So many can't handle the truth. Kunstler is our current "Vox Clamantis in Deserto". We would be wise to listen, but widom seems to be a rare commodity in this clusterfucked nation.

Reason to puke number one on this beautiful summer day. The home page proudly announces Bristol Palin will be on the next season of "Dancing With the Stars". The stars of what? The unwed mothers of Anchorage?

Q.
Off topic, but maybe you'll find it informative.
Some of it is a bit "fudged", but I think they've got the general trend correct (that matches your bets).
I dunno, some of it makes my head hurt, but take a peek if you've got some time. (Aug. 29 edition)

http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/

conservations ... hahaha

Here’s an interesting Cornucopian article suggesting that Civilisation can be run on Thorium for thousands of years, its cheap, clean and does not need a huge reactor.

“Obama could kill fossil fuels overnight with a nuclear dash for thorium”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/7970619/Obama-could-kill-fossil-fuels-overnight-with-a-nuclear-dash-for-thorium.html#disqus_thread

But it does not address the coming crisis in agriculture and the world’s population. So no shortage of electricity, just nothing to cook.

Global Empire and the International Banking Cartel (part 2)
- http://bit.ly/9Q3NYs

Ahhhhh

The IRONY when atheist start paraphrasing Sinclair Lewis. No one making these comments watched the rally or have clue what Beck or Palin are about. Too bad, the rest of America is waking up.

I believe Glenn Beck does a pretty decent job, everything considered. He competes against the mainstream media, and they spend most of their time cheer leading for wars, cheer leading for non existent economic recoveries, worrying about missing teenyboppers, and obsessing over reality show 'celebrities'. It isn't like he's up against Edward R Murrow.

I like Sarah Palin, up to a point, again she's about as qualified to be president as Barack Obama was, and he doesn't seem to be able to do or say anything without a teleprompter.

After looking at Harry Reed, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, and Nancy Pelosi for the last three years, I'm not sure why anybody would freak out over Sarah Palin being incompetent.

Re Brazil:

This is an excerpt from The 5 Minute Forecast:

“I am an avid traveler over most of Latin South America,” a reader writes, responding to Brazil’s sudden threat of nationalizing farmland. “A few years ago, I traveled to Brazil and came home to a group of farmers eager to invest in its land for cotton and corn production. I was received with open arms by the Brazilian people, but I always have my suspicions about foreign countries, especially Latin countries.

“Latin American people are very resourceful and highly intelligent, waiting for the next opportunity. After I read Dilma Rousseff was running for president and all the tariffs were placed against American producers, I have grown very sour with Brazil and offer a simple warning: Stay away! You will be the next victim of a scam. Research of Dilma Rousseff will reveal she has a very dark past and is fully aligned with none other than Hugo Chavez. The future of Brazil is bleak if this lady (scoundrel) is elected.”

The 5: “I think Brazil's announcement is a big deal,” Chris Mayer responds. “We may not feel the effects immediately, but Brazil's hostile turn toward foreign investment helps plant the seed for another food crisis.

“All of which makes our agricultural companies more valuable. BHP's bid of $130 per share for PotashCorp seems especially inadequate against this backdrop.

“It also makes me wonder about investing in Brazil at all. There is all that hype over Brazil's offshore oil discoveries, for instance. Yet what will the return on investment be there? Won't the government also look for a hearty slice of any profits? I wonder if this ill wind is a one-off event or a harbinger of a larger storm down the road.

“We'll see. But Brazil forgets there is a larger world out there. The money will just go elsewhere. Brazil will be the poorer for it.”

Maybe Bill Hicks was right -- when a new President is elected a group of bankers, Wall Street tycoons, and oil company execs take him into a small room and show him a video of a previous President taking a ride in a convertible in Dallas.

Barack Obama conclusively outed as a CIA creation
- http://goo.gl/ZWmf

As I understand it, all the trouble with corporations replacing government harks back to a Supreme Court decision in the early 1800s.They awarded the status of personhood to corporations relating to the Fourteenth Amendment.

Ever after, corporations have enjoyed all the benefits of citizens (maybe more) while pursuing their only objective — making money.

To paraphrase Animal Farm, All citizens are created equal but corporations are MORE equal.

Great post. Beck is too commercial and no amount of propaganda can hide the fact he is motivated by the same evils that he states beset his opponents.

Perhaps we are on a brink and it is just a matter of time. What will come will come and I believe it is too late for these forces to be reversed.

The post WWII consumerist boom was a fluke in history. A dream for those who were able to partake of the good things it had to offer. It is done. But a dream!

We are not moving toward a totalitarian state. We are one. The banks, corporations and nonprofits ultimately call the shots.

We live many lies under false ideologues. It is just a matter of time and the unveiling of circumstances that will return us to what life is really about.

It will be interesting to see how many people will be able to survive the new world?

Message to Tenth Jager, if you are still reading:

Years ago you said that USA troops would not withdraw from the cities in Iraq. You were wrong.

You said the war in Iraq would continue forever because of oil. You were wrong.

As of today there are no more combat missions ongoing in Iraq.

There are thousands of troops in Germany, in Korea, in Iraq, but there are no ongoing combat missions in those places.

Wars do end.

According to a recent Gallup poll, 50% of Americans now have a favorable view of Republicans as opposed to 40% for the Democrats.

Yes, you read that right.

Half of the country has a favorable view of the party that wrecked the Bill of Rights, started two foreign wars, destroyed the finances of the government, broke down the wall separating church and state, filled every government agency with partisan hacks or corporate moles, created the housing crisis, created the financial crisis, and so forth.

Is this like inviting your alcoholic uncle Rico to live with you again after he has already molested your daughter?

I can only suppose that years of being force fed Fox News and high fructose corn syrup has disintegrated the long term memory centers of many Americans' brains. Because, fudge me, I cannot figure out why we would want to go back to the abuser like some kind of meek housewife.

People are even dumber than I give them credit for, and I think people are pretty dumb. They will believe ANYTHING you show them on the television and have the attention span and long term memory of gnats.

Have we learned nothing?

We've learned nothing.

Everyone, see the 1950's film "A Face in the Crowd," starring Andy Griffith as a self-made television pundit who rises to unprecedented power using TV as the medium. This early version of 'Network' is well worth your time to view.

Beck, an ex-rock and roll, 'morning zoo' DJ, is the latest statement of how intellectually bankrupt America is, and how totally lame and uneducated Americans are. That this man could rise to prominence is stunning. But, see the movie "Face in the Crowd," and you will get it. We love to be lied to and scammed---it must be in the American DNA is all I can say. This time though, we're being slaughtered just as our leaders killed off native peoples, and we too will end up diminished, poor beyond belief, with paltry government stipends to live on. Get ready, it is really happening.