Clusterfuck Nation by Jim Kunstler

[LibertyorDeath]

Another Country

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.

The new assumption will be that when shit happens you are on your own. In this remarkable three weeks since New Orleans was shredded, no Democrat has stepped into the vacuum of leadership, either, with a different vision of what we might do now, and who we might become. This is the kind of medium that political maniacs spawn in. Something is out there right now, feeding on the astonishment and grievance of a whipsawed middle class, and it will have a lot more nourishment in the months ahead.

http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/2005/09/another_country.html

[sarcasmo]

1. Great article, Thanks for the link.

[LibertyorDeath]

4. Yes & thanks for the Rec

[PDittie]

2. .

[CrispyQ]

3. According to a Business Week recent issue,

gun sales are sky-rocketing & the NRA is POd that law officers in NOLA were confiscating guns from people claiming to protect themselves from looters.

It's gonna get ugly, ugly, ugly in this country.

[LibertyorDeath]

5. "gun sales are sky-rocketing"

Dog eat Dog the bush legacy

"law officers in NOLA were confiscating guns"

That is disgraceful not to mention unconstitutional.

[ClintonTyree]

6. And THIS is what pisses me off the most.....

about our own party. "no Democrat has stepped into the vacuum of leadership, either, with a different vision of what we might do now, and who we might become." Where are the DEM leaders? I know, there have been a few speeches blasting bush, but no one that I've heard is offering an alternative to this fascist bullshit we're suffering through.
Will someone PLEASE step forward? Will someone PLEASE give this nation a direction, or are we going to resign ourselves to more of the same ad nauseum?

[CrispyQ]

7. I've almost reached the point where I believe

if the dems do take congress or the white house, it will simply slow down the inevitable down slide our country is taking -- they won't reverse it.

Will they rescind some of the awful legislation that they helped put in place? That piece-of-shit patriot act? The crappy bankruptcy bill? The "1984" real id act? If not, maybe a fast grisly death is better than a slow agonizing one?

I have no answers. I just know that some days I feel my head will explode from the anger & frustration. Arghh!!!

:banghead:

[KittyWampus]

9. Excuse Me, Dems Are Investigating Corruption In Iraq. WHERE ARE YOU?

they are doing their fucking jobs. They are investigating the corruption in Iraq and have begun to look at Katrina.

They've given speeches and written editorials.

What exactly else can they possibly do?

Take over CNN headquaters with automatic weapons for more airtime?

Why haven't YOU focused on teh corruption in Iraq? That's what would take down the GOP in 06. I and other DU'ers have posted about this issue and every single thread drops like a stone while bullshit crap attacking Bush WHO IS NOT UP FOR RE_ELECTION gets 100's of hits.

[LibertyorDeath]

14. I hear ya

Many of the Dem's are part of the problem.

The Shitweasel Lie-berman for one.

[paineinthearse]

8. Is Jim Kunstler any relation to William??

:shrug:

[LibertyorDeath]

15. not sure n\t

[pnorman]

18. He doesn't look to be related.

Here's his bio information: http://kunstler.com/bio.html

This doesn't rule it out, but it'll take a little more Googling to be sure.

pnorman

[enough]

10. "political maniacs"

snip>

This is the kind of medium that political maniacs spawn in. Something is out there right now, feeding on the astonishment and grievance of a whipsawed middle class, and it will have a lot more nourishment in the months ahead.

snip>



I am starting to see this in our local scene. My husband and I have been involved in local politics-government-volunteering for 20 years or so. He is a locally elected official (luckily coming to the end of his last term). There's always been a lot of conflict, but it used to have a sort of homey feel to it.

In the last few months things have changed drastically. Now, when someone is disgruntled, they send you (and the newspapers) a personal hate letter. And I mean HATE. People are willing to say ANYTHING about and to other people whom they know nothing about. And I mean neighbor-to-neighbor, not anonymous.

People seem to be feeling extremely threatened, and they are lashing out. Gone is the basic assumption that we are all in this together, so lets work it out. It's scary.

[donkeyotay]

11. Drunk frat boy drives country into ditch

This administration threw decency, the rule of law, and actual compassion out the window. Now, it feels like the mob is running Washington (well, it is). The chaos and meaness is trickling down because there is no real leadership.

Okay. I just have to get this off my chest. Sen. Byron Dorgan sure seems like a decent, hardworking representative of the people. How come he's not president?

[tocqueville]

12. wait until the petrodollar is replaced by the eurodollar

and the American economy start resembling to Germany's in the thirties...

you are going to regret Bush if a Hitler type raises...

the German's social-democrats compromised with the Nazis at that time... and the communists were waiting for orders from Moscow...
that never came...

the rest is history

[LibertyorDeath]

17. Many people think this is overblown

" wait until the petrodollar is replaced by the eurodollar
and the American economy start resembling to Germany's in the thirties..."

They ain't seen nothing yet.IMO

[LibertyorDeath]

16. HATE that's all they know.

"In the last few months things have changed drastically. Now, when someone is disgruntled, they send you (and the newspapers) a personal hate letter. And I mean HATE."

[milkyway]

13. I'm reading Kunstler's "The Geography of Nowhere." It's one of the best

books I've ever read. Published in 1993, it describes how we arrived at being a country of suburban sprawl and enslaved to automobiles, destroying our small towns and our cities in the process. Although he doesn't use the phrase "peak oil," Kunstler discusses the inherent madness of building our society around an energy source that will soon cease being cheap and abundant. I liked "The Long Emergency" a lot, but I like "The Geography of Nowhere" even more.

Kunstler updates his "Clusterfuck Nation" blog every Sunday night/Monday morning. It's always a highly enjoyable read. He also has a website that contains his blog plus much more of his work at http://kunstler.com/

[Pooka Fey]

19. I never miss "Clusterfuck Nation"

"In this remarkable three weeks since New Orleans was shredded, no Democrat has stepped into the vacuum of leadership, either, with a different vision of what we might do now, and who we might become. This is the kind of medium that political maniacs spawn in. Something is out there right now, feeding on the astonishment and grievance of a whipsawed middle class, and it will have a lot more nourishment in the months ahead."

And this ending statement scared the shit out of me.:scared: