We're Going to be in Another Country...

[katty]

continued at:
http://www.kunstler.com/mags_diary15.html

The Clusterfuck Nation Chronicle
Commentary on the Flux of Events

by Jim Kunstler

or, for previous chronicles click on
Clusterfuck Nation Archives

September 19, 2005
Take a good look at America around you now, because when we emerge from the winter of 2005 - 6,
we're going to be another country. The reality-oblivious nation of mall hounds, bargain shoppers, happy motorists, Nascar fans, Red State war hawks, and born-again Krispy Kremers is headed into a werewolf-like transformation that will reveal to all the tragic monster we have become.
What we will leave behind is the certainty that we have made the right choices. Was it a good thing to buy a 3,600 square foot house 32 miles outside Minneapolis with an interest-only adjustable rate mortgage -- with natural gas for home heating running at $12 a unit and gasoline over $3 a gallon? Was it the right choice to run three credit cards up to their $5000 limit? Was I chump to think my pension from Acme Airlines would really be there for me? Do I really owe the Middletown Hospital $17,678 for a gall bladder operation that took forty-five minutes? And why did they charge me $238 for a plastic catheter?
All kinds of assumptions about the okay-ness of our recent collective behavior are headed out the window. This naturally beats a straight path to politics, since that is the theater in which our collective choices are dramatized. It really won't take another jolting event like a major hurricane or a terror incident or an H4N5 flu outbreak to take things over the edge -- though it is very likely that something else will happen. George W. Bush, and the party he represents, are headed into full Hooverization mode. After Katrina, nobody will take claims of governmental competence seriously.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

1. I am very grateful

that I don't fit your scenario at all. No credit cards, tiny house, don't drive.

That lifestyle seems impossible to maintain.

[Mikimouse]

2. I'm with you, Grannie...

I have credit cards, but zero balances on all of them (pay off any charges every month). Do not own a home (been there, done that, got the t-shirt and then lost it in the ensuing divorce), and drive a 13 year old car that still gets 33 mpg. Otherwise, I am relatively healthy and can walk to work from my home in under 15 minutes if need be.

[Paranoid Pessimist]

11. Me too ... No credit card balance, haven't owned a car in ...

... 20 years (you can get away with that in certain US cities, and I live in one of them). But unfortunately, the life people like me have lived will not protect us from the consequences of the big shitstorm that's coming. We're all in the same boat and those of us who drilled fewer holes will sink just as rapidly as those who poked away.

[melody]

3. Thank god for my Scots-Irish grandparents who taught me thrift n/t

[louis-t]

4. One thing he forgot to mention:

The percentage of homeowners who have taken all of the equity out of their homes on a second mortgage that is tied to the prime rate which Greenspan is now jacking up based on a phony inflation excuse, effectively imprisoning people in their homes and trapping them in a debt-for-life scenario. Sorry about the run-on sentence.

[Nay]

5. I love the Clusterfuck Chronicles, because he really nails it.

It's just maddening to watch all this stuff happen, and watch NO ONE IN POWER who has a clue. In NO, we have an irreplaceable opportunity to create the actual city of the future -- with light rail, bike and moped paths, buildings with incredible earth-friendly features -- and you know, you KNOW it is just not going to happen.

[peacetalksforall]

7. Nay. We know more about the reality of our situation then our Dem

leaders do so I assume you mean them when you say NO ONE IN POWER. When I think about them, I think of their antiquated nicey nice diplomacy towards their right wing seat partners in a style that should be out of fashion because of the vileness of right wing sneaky, tricky dicky, juvenile, un-American plots against the people.

I think of our leaders non-existent energy for the fights that mean a lot to me is quite evident. Perhaps I'm coming down too hard - I know it's rough to be in the minority. But our minority position is BECAUSE OF THEFT and, collectively, they DO NOTHING to take preventive action against further thefts (with the exception of a few of our leaders for whom I am grateful).

I have never heard any one of our Dem leaders say -

No Republican owned voting machines, software, or technicians.

Have you heard any of them speak to the one-sidedness of our plight?

No Republican corporate networks contracting with exit pollsters for their own purposes and manipulations. No Republican corporate networks calling the vote?

Have you ever heard them speak about the people hiring our own pollsters and coming up with our own method of calling the vote.

They are very complicit plotters. They think nothing of voting for the same lobbyist as their right wing seat partner.

We have a very sick and crippled country.

BOO to the DLC and DNC and all those representatives of the people who have those high body counts - i.e., votes parallel to the right wing that equate to deaths of all kinds.

[cornermouse]

6. The reality.

Not everyone can live within walking or bike riding (even if they were inclined to risk life and limb on the streets) distance of work, the grocery store, and Wal-Mart.

Do highrise apartments not have heat?

My credit cards are not run up to their limits.

Would you rather have Middletown Hospital perform cut-rate surgery on you next time? Perhaps they can cut a few steps out of the operation. Do you really need anesthesia? And would you prefer that they scrounge up a 10 cent plastic catheter just for you?

[pstans]

8. the point is that we need walkable communities

"Not everyone can live within walking or bike riding (even if they were inclined to risk life and limb on the streets) distance of work, the grocery store, and Wal-Mart."

That is the problem. There is no reason that people can't live within walking distance from where they work, where their kids go to school, and where they shop. The post WWII Sprawl nation that developed made that very difficult. Zoning laws don't help either.

It is time for local officials to reexamine how their cities develop and create walkable communities.

[ThoughtCriminal]

9. As long as we're rebuilding the Gulf coast...

nope, just look whose in charge of the $.

[melody]

12. We need cities for people - right now they build them for commerce n/t

[cornermouse]

13. That was back before they were busy consolidating every single

school district in this country into bigger and more centralized locations as fast as they could. Now its impossible to live near everything that you need.

Practically speaking, if we all move into town who, if anyone, is going to grow your food out there in the (apparently in your view godforsaken) country?

And finally, not everyone likes being cheek to jowl with strangers peering over the fence at you whenever they feel like it. Some of us prefer, even need, to have a little breathing space...elbow room. Pre WWII and even to some extent afterwards, we had a large rural agricultural "community". A LOT of the population did not live in the city.

[pstans]

15. the large rural agricultural "community" should be our model

Of course, not everyone can live in cities cause some people need to grow the food. But the large rural agricultural communities should be what we are trying to build. Cities should be neighborhoods built next to neighborhoods, each with their own neighborhood center that includes a church, bank, grocery store, barber, etc. It would not be realistic that everyone in a particular neighborhood would go to that church/barber/bank in their neighborhood, but with public transportation they could then travel easily to the venue of their choice. Now zoning laws permit residential areas to be built in one area, commercial in another, and industrial in another.


http://www.newurbanism.org
http://www.todadvocate.com
http://www.smartgrowth.umd.edu

[katty]

20. Eco-Urban Communities w/food grdns,et al(responsible people

working together because... 1) survival (the feds are NEVER going to be there for the 'people', they ARE there for the a certain portion of the monied/powerful elite)
2)promotes sharing/cooperation by default
3)sharing material goods or 'stuff' w/community - Americans don't need most of the stuff they have accumulated.

[cornermouse]

21. I can agree quite a bit with both of these posts.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

10. Nearly everyone did before we allowed the car companies and highway

engineers to take over our urban planning. In most cities, there are neighborhoods where you can still walk or bike most places. (I live in one, and when I moved to Minneapolis, I chose it for that reason instead of buying a house 32 miles out :-) ).

[cornermouse]

14. Its nice that you can live in town.

I hate it. In town, you can't walk out your door without someone knowing it. Its noisy, no peace, no quiet, too many sirens. Its like being in h-ll.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

16. I grew up in a small town

where we walked literally everywhere: school, church, library, downtown, the movies.

I raised my kids in suburbia. You can't walk ANYWHERE in this town. And frankly most of the time you would die in the heat.

However, I have also fought (and lost) weight problems all my life. I blame oreos and suburbia.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

17. I spent my grade school years in a small city where

everyone walked to school AND went home for lunch.

This meant getting an automatic twenty blocks worth of walking five days a week (four five-block trips: to school, home for lunch, back to school, back home).

We also played outside in all weather. When it was cold, we bundled up. When it was hot, we ran inside periodically for a glass of water.

The one overweight kid in the class lived two blocks from school.

[pushycat]

18. Try walking on the sidewalks in Pleasanton, CA (just an example)

Streets in business section are 4 lanes each direction. Intersections are so big a person can't walk across without the light turning green for the other direction. Middle of the intersection has a small square of cement you can stand on until the light turns again, but only 2 people can fit and you feel the wind from the cars going by all around you. Not set up for people, only for lots of cars.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

23. Yes, exactly a case in point

Another pet peeve is bus stops located in places that are dangerous or even impossible to reach on foot.

[TrogL]

19. I guessed right

I moved from the suburbs to a 985 sq. foot house just off downtown. It's older than I am (and I'm no spring chicken) but I've already started to fix it up.

I've got one credit card (they owe me money at the moment) and one store card that I just used to buy a refrigerator (mine broke) that's already half paid off. I've got a mortgage rate locked in for five years.

I've got an older van that is fairly good on gas (especially when I pull the back seats).

I don't have much in the way of cash savings, but I've got a stable, conservative stock portfolio.

Most of the people living around me are doing pretty much the same thing - living small.

[Martin Eden]

22. Living Small

I heartily agree with the concept of "living small" -- modest home, walk or bike instead of drive, and eschewing the materialistic status-seeking consumerism that characterizes American civilization.

Of course, most of our fellow citizens have no desire to embrace the "living small" concept. They'd argue that it's a free country and they have the right to pursue whatever lifestyle pleases them -- and they'd be right.

But at what point does the collective impact of that reckless consumerism -- converting finite resources into pollution -- give society as a whole the right to enact strong disincentives against such overconsumption?

And when, if ever, will a majority of Americans finally realize the insanity of squandering resources and defiling the environment that sustains us?

And when we as a people finally come to that realization, how do we convert our consumer-driven economy into a sustainable and prosperous economic system that continues to reward the entrepreneurship and ingenuity that is indispensible to any civilization?

Maybe it's not that complicated. Maybe as more and more people begin to make wiser choices -- in their lifestyles and with their votes -- a more sustainable economy will evolve.

One way or another, sooner or later, we are going to be living in "Another Country." But I fear it's more likely to be the catastrophe described in Clusterfuck Nation rather than a gradual evolution to something better spurred by the growing wisdom of the American people.