The Fate of the Turtle

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Published : November 10th, 2014
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( 21 votes, 3.6/5 ) , 5 commentaries
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A nybody truly interested in government, and therefore politics, should be cognizant above all that ours have already entered systemic failure. The management of societal affairs is on an arc to become more inept and ineffectual, no matter how either of the current major parties pretends to control things. Instead of Big Brother, government in our time turns out to be Autistic Brother. It makes weird noises and flaps its appendages, but can barely tie its own shoelaces.

The one thing it does exceedingly well is drain the remaining capital from endeavors that might contribute to the greater good. This includes intellectual capital, by the way, which, under better circumstances, might gird the political will to reform the sub-systems that civilized life depends on. These include: food production (industrial agri-business), commerce (the WalMart model), transportation (Happy Motoring), school (a matrix of rackets), medicine (ditto with the patient as hostage), and banking (a matrix of fraud and swindling).

All of these systems have something in common: they’ve exceeded their fragility threshold and crossed into the frontier of criticality. They have nowhere to go except failure. It would be nice if we could construct leaner and more local systems to replace these monsters, but there is too much vested interest in them. For instance, the voters slapped down virtually every major ballot proposition to invest in light rail and public transit around the country. The likely explanation is that they’ve bought the story that shale oil will allow them to drive to WalMart forever.

That story is false, by the way. The politicos put it over because they believe the Wall Street fraudsters who are pimping a junk finance racket in shale oil for short-term, high-yield returns. The politicos want desperately to believe the story because the background reality is too difficult to contemplate: an American living arrangement with no future.

The public, of course, is eager to believe the same story for the same reasons, but at some point they’ll flip and blame the story-tellers, and their wrath could truly wreck what remains of this polity. When it is really too late to fix any of these things, they’ll beg someone to tell them what to do, and the job-description for that position is dictator.

It’s certainly remarkable that the years since the troubles of 2008 have been so seemingly placid and uneventful, at least here in the USA — not so much if you live in the Middle East or Ukraine, or in the decaying economies of southern Euroland, or the septic failed states of Africa. The many formerly-middle-class Americans living in economic ruin apparently blame themselves when, for instance, they’re billed tens of thousands of dollars for some routine surgery performed “out of network” by a bureaucratic happenstance. They must be punch-drunk with cable news, or over-medicated. Don’t expect this national mood of paralysis and surrender to last indefinitely.

What troubles me at the moment is that when that mood snaps, it will be for a bad reason in the wrong way. Ferguson, Mo., is still sitting there like an unattended back-pack on the courthouse steps. Before Christmas, some kind of grand jury decision is going to come down. All the reality-based chatter points to the probable exoneration of Darren Wilson, the policeman who shot teenager Michael Brown. I expect the trouble arising out of that to be a lot worse than most people currently suppose, and then we’ll literally be off to the races. If that happens, it will be a huge and tragic diversion from the things that really matter to keep the project of civilized life going. In a way, it will be the true beginning of the end. The end of what? Of pretending that the people in authority know what they are doing.

If you think that President Obama is lonely and bereft now, just wait. Some excuse will be found to try an impeach him and then the nation will spend another two years conducting a three-ring circus while the shale oil “miracle” crashes and burns and the banking system melts away to nothing. It’s been fun watching Mitch McConnell get ready to preside over all of this. History could not have found a less sympathetic patsy.

 

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James Howard Kunstler has worked as a reporter and feature writer for a number of newspapers, and finally as a staff writer for Rolling Stone Magazine. In 1975, he dropped out to write books on a full-time basis. His nonfiction book, "The Long Emergency," describes the changes that American society faces in the 21st century. Discerning an imminent future of protracted socioeconomic crisis, Kunstler foresees the progressive dilapidation of subdivisions and strip malls, the depopulation of the American Southwest, and, amid a world at war over oil, military invasions of the West Coast; when the convulsion subsides, Americans will live in smaller places and eat locally grown food.
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Kuntler quote: " It’s been fun watching Mitch McConnell get ready to preside over all of this. History could not have found a less sympathetic patsy." This clown is pathetic... how much fun has it been to watch BathHouse Barry Soetero and his acolytes take the country to the very edge of collapse? How about watching Roid Reid destroy the 3 party system of government by putting the Senate in lock-down mode and doing the nuclear option? And is anyone less sympathetic than those two sewer roaches... and their jester Nancy Piglosi and the congressional black liars club???
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James, now that the Republican Party is back in Power; with their overwhelming majorities in both houses of Congress, we'll get to see The Great Comedy Massacre played one more time ! ! The last time this Comedy (Part One) played out was back when the People on the Street, the Republican People, were insisting and demanding that Judge Roberts be put on the Supreme Court. They saw him as Their Great Messiah, the one who would FINALLY put the final nail in the ObamaCare coffin by declaring it Unconstitutional. I remember the look on their faces when Their Chosen One turned on them. It was priceless ! !

Now we'll get to witness Part Two. A couple of years from now, after the Republicans on the streets realize Their Great & Powerful Majorities are actually Smoke & Mirror Spooks, Phantoms and Liars, we'll get to see "the look" ~ that shame-faced-eyes-to-the-ground look ~ one more time ! ! Some things are worth waiting for . . . . .
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Are you actually PROUD of your Lord Obongo, harry "Roid" Reid and the rest of you craven, lying, corrupt democrappers? FOOL!
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A Z Facts: I see you mistake my animosity toward Straight Line Republicans as an endorsement of Straight Line Democrats. I hold both parties in equal contemp. Once every few years there's a GLARING example of Twisted Belief that really deserves to be pointed out by SOMEONE. There are already hundreds of pundits pointing out the Twisted Belief's of the Democratic Party, so there's no need for me to echo their lines.
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Kunstler, commenting on the government he helped vote into power, says about that government: "The one thing it does exceedingly well is drain the remaining capital from endeavors that might contribute to the greater good." Despite the socialist Obama has been, apparently he has not enacted enough social legislation to satisfy Kunstler. And the people of America as well have disappointed him. He says, "For instance, the voters slapped down virtually every major ballot proposition to invest in light rail and public transit around the country."

You see Kunstler has been and is against individuals living their lives as they see fit. For him it is the "greater good" that matters, and who is to determine that good? Why people like Kunstler of course, who, for beginners, would crowd Americans into inefficient and crime ridden mass transit. Gov Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown of California, for instance, wants to bankrupt an already depleted state, by spending trillions on a rail system connecting San Francisco to Los Angeles. A system that, like all other government run mass transit systems, will require subsidies and therefore tax increases forever.

Beneath this article you can sense Kunstler's desperation. You see, for years, he's been predicting the end of oil -- and, as a result, the end of western civilization and a return to the woods, to catching rabbits, and enjoying the idyllic life of prehistoric man. But, surprise, surprise, oil production is not peaking -- it's expanding at an almost exponential rate. So, aside from the Democratic socialists now in power, America may prosper in spite of them --- and prosperity, with it's attendant power to the individual, is the thing Kunstler most hates.
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A Z Facts: I see you mistake my animosity toward Straight Line Republicans as an endorsement of Straight Line Democrats. I hold both parties in equal contemp. Once every few years there's a GLARING example of Twisted Belief that really deserves to be p  Read more
Gypsy - 11/11/2014 at 9:33 PM GMT
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