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The US Is Crossing The Frontier Of Criticality
Submitted by James H. Kunstler via Kunstler.com,
Anybody 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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This is a pointless rant!
Your whole life is pointless.
You got a point there anachronism
But if you comb your hair differently, nobody will notice.
Ta ta.
Completely verified...
IT'S A FLIPPING TIPPING POINT !
It is "all good" until we get smacked in the face.
All failing empires face the 'sunk costs dilemma', only this time it's a global empire doomed to failure.
Enjoy good times while you can.
For instance, the voters slapped down virtually every major ballot proposition to invest in light rail and public transit around the country.
Yeah, you know why? Because most light rail and other public transit are FRAUDS.
Anybody truly interested in government, and therefore politics, should be cognizant above all that ours have already entered systemic failure.
In chaos theory there is always a trigger point. I'm kind of leaning toward Japan being the trigger but there are so many fuck ups happening so often that i'll probably be wrong and the black swan will sneak in the back door.
The Fed will bail out Japan, propping up the value of the yen with freshly minted clownbux; and thereby export Japan's hyperinflation onto the world at large via the USD.
When it blows, it'll blow worldwide. It could take fucking years, by which time the police state will be even more police-statey.
Light rail in it's current form might be close to being in a happy motoring position with questionable tenability. Too much technology, and too many resources needed, trying to cover too many bases at once, and too little clearly discernable ROI in the coming 5 years. Railroad travel was efficient in it's basic form 100 or so years ago. The bloat of the rest of society and the current downsqueeze may even make it difficult to transition back to something that was once the best thing since sliced bread. And without it and happy motoring, and a dearth of horses, shoe leather might be the option of reluctant choice.
Don't we already have a dictator?
deleted comment about wife. I forgot that "dictator" is the word often used for US presidents ruling by decree. so strange, this American political vocabulary. I mean, nobody in the US seems to like the presidential system - at least half of the times - but nobody ever asks for a different system. in the EU, we have exactly two presidential republics: France and Romania. all the others refrain from electing so much power on one person. why? well, bad experiences with... dictators
I don't think the founding fathers intended the POTUS to have anything like this amount of power.
His unpopularity matches that of the legislature, and for the same, paradoxical reason: the electorate granted all branches of government more and more power, and then are suprised when that power gets abused.
Not yet but we do have a politboro....
no comment
If I read the comment section of ZH correctly, many here are already at the stage where a dictator would be a relief. A small word of caution: dictators are government, too, and historically not always the best kind. I prefer government types where you can retire the bloke in charge, preferably asap, and "no gov whatsoever" is still an untested premise
I haven't got that from the threads at all.Warning, not longing.
I am expecting some type of attempted military coup d'etat in the very near future.
EKM is not too far off in his musings.The bankers need to remove the MIC, if the SDR is to
go forward.Soon, very soon.
Everything is coming to a head, either just before Xmas, or right after.That timing
has worked for the bankers before.
timing is a end of the summer of 2015
I will stick with my timescale.
Better early, than a day late.Survival depends on it, not just money.
Cruz shall emerge!
I think thats more likley to happen in the EU first. Americans have guns, which gives them quite a bit more leverage in deterring a true dictator.
Americans have plenty of guns, legally. Now, interestingly, Europeans have plenty of guns, too, and more then half of them... illegally. Now tell me which bunch is more dangerous. Or which bunch had more revolutions. Remind me, when was your last one? Violent or not violent?
It's the DRUNK bunch that's way moar dangerous!
And we is them!
our supply of Irish Whiskey, French wine and German beer is bigger. we can be longer dangerous
Yeah but we got a LOT moar TEQUILAAAAAAA!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVKsd8z6scw
Besides, French wine is WAY over rated.
tequila makes you blind or for sure not shoot straight! meanwhile, French wine is not for everybody, I admit, but we have Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and... if we really want to become nasty... Greek wine
Besides, French wine is WAY over rated.
The French make the finest wines on the planet, but you do require a mature and sophisticated (ie, educated) palate to appreciate them. Few people - relatively speaking - have dedicated the time and money to achieve this *hicc*
French wine isn't over rated - it's just over-priced.
There´s not a gun culture in most of Western Europe as there is across the US. There also are not militia type groups, or armed folks (not law enforcement) heading to the border as vigilantes against illegal immigrants. If we look at Europe´s past history it is far more susceptible to totalitarian type regimes.
you mean because we had them we are more keen on having them... back? I don't think so. look, I do not want to sound snappish, but things are happening in America which would not be possible in Europe... even during dictatorships, in certain cases
No i would not use the word "keen", but perhaps "indifference". The EU installs pro-EU technocrat governments without any demcoratic mandate to do so. Really US has its problems and flaws but no way is EU more dmoecratic than US. And i live in Europe, and view myself as European. We have slept walk into a totalitarian nightmare with the EU. It shall end in tears.
You know it's a lost cause when people judge their wellbeing by type of government rather than level of freedom.
I'd rather have a benevolent dictatorship that metastatic democracy.
"No i would not use the word "keen", but perhaps "indifference". The EU installs pro-EU technocrat governments without any demcoratic mandate to do so."
Yes, that's what happened, but that's only half of the story. In the EU, each country leader has been hiding that the EU was behind every local country legislation. If you go to any of our European countries, you'll see that they keep strictly "local" appearances. You have to dig to know that this or that law was not the brainchild of a local MP, or of the President of the country, but an EU mandate the leaders/Parliament have to bow to at all costs. Right these days, a lot of Europeans still haven't understood how much they have been colonized. The medias keep mum about the EU and constanly redirect the attention of their readers to interior politics issues - when there are no more interior politics. The polarization of the political debate into a phony local left-right opposition is very useful in this respect.
I remember I was myself very surprised when I found out the same law was passed in Spain, France, Italy, Portugal, the UK and other European countries at the same time, and no news outlet mentioned that strange "coincidence". It's all been very a sneaky, undemocratic process, but the people are gradually perking up. And those that already have are not liking what they're seeing.
And we all have pitchforks in our cellars. This is going to end in tears.
This is a way more nuanced reproach. I know of "same laws" popping up in the US, do you have an example for europe?
What are you talking about?
Future dictators will have limited options for further socializing the state. There's no money, and the productive aren't going to support a dictator if they are asked to do more so that more people can loaf. That entire scheme is at the root of our problems because of the division it generates. A future dictator will have to focus on TRIAGE, now that the LEFT has created tens of millions of people with ZERO work and social SKILLS. The FEMA camps aren't for taxpayers unless the elites want to squat over a mad max scenario.
If they go underground and leave a harsh military dictatorship on the surface, after we deal with their lackeys we're going to drill down into their bunkers and flood them with ebola diahhrea.
And yet, they seem to rise up against their governments on a far greater frequency than people here in the US do.
Disclaimer: "Past history" is no guarantee of future performance.
There´s not a gun culture in most of Western Europe as there is across the US. There also are not militia type groups, or armed folks (not law enforcement) heading to the border as vigilantes against illegal immigrants. If we look at Europe´s past history it is far more susceptible to totalitarian type regimes.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again - guns aren't Americans' defence against their government becoming tyrannous; guns are Americans' teddy bears, to be held tight while being raped by their Uncle Sam.
Did gun-totin' America rise up against conscription in WWI, Korea, or Viet Nam? Or when the Fed was instituted? Or when FDR nationalised everyone's gold and then devalued their money 40%? Americans are no more likely to defend themselves against their government than anyone else is. Remember Egypt? The fucking Muzzies have more balls than Americans do, and they didn't even have guns.
Any time Kuntsler speaks of Obama, I have to laugh since this chode voted for him twice. I can't take anything he says seriously. How is he a contributor to this site? HOW?
Two words....... Click bait.
Agreed. Kunstler voted for these commies twice and loved it. He has exactly ZERO right to say anything about them now. Sit down and shutup KUNTsler. Don't you have a flight to take to Denmark to give a speech about how we cretins should be burning less fossil fuels or something?
And once someone makes a mistake they're forever more a demon? Didn't Christ have something to say about that?
I became a fan of Wlalter Jones after once wishing to see him run over by a bus. Walter finally had an epiphany that supporting the wars over in Iraq was a huge mistake: Walter was the flag-waver that coined the phrase "Freedom Fries" (of which I'm sure there are people here that gobbled it up, yet won't admit it- casting the first stone and all).
Not in defense of Kunstler (whom I have issues with), but of LOGIC (and your lack of using it here).
Kuntsler's idiocy is exceeded by his hipocracy. First he says: "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." Then he goes on to lambaste voters for voting down light rail and public transportation. Who does he think is going to implement his pet projects? It's the same Autistic Government that he scorns! He's a typical liberal: He's all for using government to mold society in his own image, but howls when things don't turn out as planned.
government in our time turns out to be Autistic Brother
How accurate. Professor Don Huber of Purdue maintains that Glyphosate in our GMO foods has increased autism rates from 1 or 2 per 100,000 in 1960s and 1970s to 1 in 88 in 2011 and 1 in 50 in 2013 and to be 1 in 2 by 2020 (last 2 minutes of video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx4UVhJcnpo
All in line with the worst human undertaking of all time: the Green Revolution. To be fair, it was either that or come clean that we're NOT going to be able to keep growing in perpetuity. Either accept wars to cull the herd or eat slow poison...
Disclaimer: I don't like GMOs or WAR. Even without these we're still going to die...
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.
Exactly.
The empire will be greeted by thunderous applause. da da..... da da da da.... da
Absolutely nothing wrong with a dictatorship. It's just that it always seems to be the wrong guy getting picked for the job.
But I'm sure this time will be different!
We're not going to have "Big Brother" or "Autistic Brother" -
What we get instead is "Big Creepy Uncle" and a nation of prisons, predator drones and panty-cams -
Crash Clowns.
There was two minutes of my life I'll never get back for bothering to read a whole lot of nothing.
"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."..
Minimal coverage of this on UK MSM TV, except RT.
A nation of selfish lazy bums. When it does snap we are gonna have a real shit-show. Not like back in the thirties.
The entire System is predicated on the impossible (perpetual growth on a finite planet), so the point about "fixing it" is totally moot. Further, Kunstler needs to read Sir John Glubb's writing (to understand that ALL empires collapse and that it has nothinng to do with ideologies):
http://www.friendsofsabbath.org/Further_Research/e-books/TheFateofEmpiresbySirJohnGlubb.pdf
NOTE: Glubb's heirs apparently feel that collecting [paltry] royalties is more important than getting out what is a most urgent message, in which case the doc may disappear from the above link (if it does just google around for "Sir John Glubb" and look for a/the PDF).
+1 Seer ... for the Glubb reference.
...now add in the 'Sunk Costs Dilemma' , and we got a winner.
Syncretic, tolerant, cosmopolitan but very pessimistic about the fruit of human intellect.
I guess he really feels that Aristotle will never talk with the Maker of the Universe to invent a Logic system, Alogorithm that incorporates all of human knowledge, to dialogue with Mother NAture.
So as to get her to regenerate each human from his own biological decadence; inherited from past; based on Energy in Energy out, a bioregenerative process of electromagnetic origin, created by using "good natural energy" (photonic photosynthesis type) to destroy "bad energy", the convoluted creative destruction type generated by Man's own passionate obsessions (endogenous) or by by the creative forces (of electrmagnetic/mass/black hole type) of the Universe (exogenous), to regenerate all bio materials via in-situ spontaneous genetic regeneration fed on net energy input organised by the transmission mechanism (a smart algo fed watch or ring which captures solar energy or ultraviolet component). This could also be used to regenerate all living organisms : his food making and fellow organic species (animal and vegetal).
The life expectancy of each individual would be defined by his OWN free will and by his ACTS to use Nature's "goodwill"; aka to maintain a good energy to bad energy ratio that does not teeter to 1; fatal asymptote; at which point its game over for him.
Thus the algorithm defines human perfect play to maintain each human on the immortal trail, provided he stay "pure" and maintains a high EI/EO ratio. But as most humans are irrational and greedy they would delve in High Noon frivolity and eat up their goodwill and head towards the asymptote.
Such a system would remove past imperfections handed down by ancestors thru their own passions/commissions, which are fault lines of a corrupted genetic trail, aka clean out the slate of each new born human.
Thus each man would have as good a chance as he merits, not that he inherited.
Voilà my GLIB response to Glubb's despondency and historical synthesis (which I enjoyed reading!)
Whether we like it or not, we are heading in the direction I have described in my "Michael Angelo's" origins of Life rant, that is on that papal ceiling.
Who will invent this new source of a logic based "perpetual living regenerative model" that Michael Angelo and Raphael hinted at when they gave us the School of Athens and the Birth of Adam, to resuscitate the true Trinity of the human race : Socrates, Plato and Aristotle (Not that other obscurantist Trinity which was but a cut and paste job invented by those GREEK clerics of Nicaea done to convert an idealistic jewish heretic into godlike incarnation to please an Emperor. These clerics were all formed in the schools of Athenian logic , aka the sons of the original trinity painted on those Papal walls by Raphael. (I apologise to the true believers in Christ's legend as I love it as a tale for all the ages, not as a political doctrine that negates this life to glorify the after-life).
Only the sons of science and logic can do such a new miracle in the future provided they have not forgotten the lessons of Ethics and simple human compassion.
We need a Renaissance of similar magnitude, given our conundrum in western civilization.
Spot on, but first we will have to go through fascism v2.0 (neo feudal). And all the shit it will bring us. The issues are not about capitalism or socialism or any other "Ism". They are about civilisation.
Hegel's "Problem - Reaction - Solution"
They use their power to steal and destroy the economy and the society built upon it, and then seize more power as a solution.
The solution is eliminating the power and the criminals excising it.
An American, not US subject.
Anyone intrigued by the above article should read Hayek's "Road to Serfdom." It is like a road map to the descending totalitarian state.
light rail bills didnt fail for "faith in the shale"
they failed becasue they represent tax increases. and any tax increase is fought hard.
understandably. gov is so incapable of anything beyond its basic extortion tactics and role, there is no reason to allow any tax increase. its the misallocation that destroys.
Yes, heavy agenda on the author's part. And moreover, the whole dictator thing is bogus. Why appoint a dictator when the spoils are so easily spread among the oligarchy? Before a dictator would come oligarchy families murdering one another. We have a long way to go.
Storm the Bastille!
Hey, remember these guys?:
http://historymartinez.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/hitler-mussolini.jpg
We could add Stalin and F.D.R. to the list as well. History repeating.
FDR? lol!
Executive 6102, and his fellow Democrats passing the two-term legislation after his death.
Yes, F.D.R., promoted as a "hero" but a socio-fascist nonetheless.
This is stupid:
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
I think that people seeing the high-speed rail cluster-fuck in Cali, and the filthy unsafe public transit systems in most areas around the country, (Do you know what MARTA Stands for LOLZ) RIGHTLY rejected all public transport and high-speed rail proposition. Of course Kunstlert would not know this, being in his Ivory Tower somewhere.
A couple of nights ago, I watched a TV show about Japan and its train system. It was Amagasaki, 106 dead and over 500 injured. Apparently the driver was trying to make up a few seconds of time, and was going much too fast.
Almost all the people interviewed seemed to HATE the whole rush-rush-everywhere thing.
Maybe we don't need high-speed rail. Maybe we all need to just slow the fuck DOWN!
If we had not spent 7-8 trillion dollars on the War in Afghanistan,the War in Iraq, the War on Terror, and the War on Bankers Losing Money, we could have built plenty of efficient public transportation. We could have invested those funds in research into new productive technology. We could have funded research into more efficient cars including electric cars.
I suppose this is considered socialism so we must not do these things. Instead we spend the money on useful, capitalistic ventures like armed drones, metal detectors at ballparks, and bailouts for Goldman Sachs.
Go ahead and impeach Obama. I think he deserves it. But please don't stop there. Keep going and nail Pelosi. Then move on to Bush, Cheney, Paulson, Gonzales, and Rumsfeld. In fact, I am pretty sure we should arrest and try every national elected official who has held office since 9/11. Let's try them in Texas where we can apply the death penalty for treason.
Oh, to dream.
Seriously, can it get much worse? I suspect it can. Certainly the new Republican Congress will try hard to make it worse. And then we can get another member of the royal family on the throne, Jeb. And then the fun really begins. We might even get Sarah Palin back! Wheee!
"We could have invested those funds in research into new productive technology. We could have funded research into more efficient cars including electric cars."
That money was still pushed out there, the defense sector gobbled it up, recirculating lots of to suppliers and workers.
Technology doesn't CREATE anything other than process/ideas. When the REAL issue has to do with a lack of supporting PHYSICAL stuff, not to mention that most individuals are overly in debt (and wouldn't be able to actually "consume" all that goodness), it's (technology) not going anywhere.
When diesel tractors prove themselves I'll look to make the switch. In the meantime I'll stick with my diesels... (sorry all you EV fans [don't get me wrong, EVs can be cool, but "cool" isn't a key ingredient for survival]- I've got WORK to do)
Yep, the Great Dictator comes to mind.
Spot on.
So, am I to understand that voters rejecting light rail projects, is the surest sign of impending apocalypse? Here's an alternative theory - suburban voters are tired of dumping dollars into corrupt urban political machines.
I railed against light rail years ago based on the nonsense of it all. The "need" for it was based on evading road traffic. Folks would pay more taxes so that they could commute farther away in order to make more money to pay yet more taxes so that they could increase the speed(?) with which they could travel farther away... My "solution" (and I don't regularly offer up "solutions," was to reduce road taxes, cut new road construction and return most of the cuts in the form of tax breaks for local hires (small businesses tend to get more local people anyway, so it's a win there; bigger businesses would also likely benefit, if, that is, they made a bit more effort); this would result in not expanding a failing infrastructure, and a expansion of more locally-centered businesses. Sounded good (and I thought that it had the ability to transcend political boundaries, though likely would face opposition from the developer types [road construction and such]).
It's not so much corruption as it is in a failed paradigm (I thought that Kunstler has been harping on this very point for quite some time).
Born in San Francisco in the mid 50s and raised there. I still remember, when crossing the GG Bridge when I was a kid, dad would sometimes mention, once the Bridge is paid for it would be free to cross it.
What is it now, $7, or seventeen...?
God bless those stupid jack asses who live and pay taxes there.
Nick Jihad Sorry to be dense, but I live in a "collar counties" Chicago suburb. How does light rail not dump dollars into corrupt political machines (in their suburbs)? The buses have only one human aboard, the drivers!
Another expert who thinks that our handlers don't know what they are doing.
Exactly.
Nobody's going to impeach Obama. Who? The Republicans? Give me a break.
They're not Republicans anymore. Just like the Democrats aren't Democrats anymore. It's one of the lingering lies that persist for reasons unknown that people cling to.
Yawn. The older I get the more tired of these worthless discussion are: EVERY fucking time and administration changes the "opposition" rails for this. No one is going to impeach. WTF even bring this shit up anymore? Oh yeah, because Party Pussies just can't STFU.
Anybody care to make the case for a positive, upbeat, harmonious and productive future for 2 to 10 years down the road?
Ok, here it is.
the little people know they don't matter. game is to fuck the system at every turn. and just about everybody is doing it
It seems as if the plan has been to make Obama so bad that we would welcome a dictator.
In my opinion, this is a very good effort by Kunstler. The most important point is the fracking/junk bond boondoggle which could well become the tipping point for a new financial collapse. Did the State Department check with the frackers before they encouraged the Saudis to depress the price of petroleum? Apparently, the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing.
Mr. Kunstler has a lot of good points, but they are exaggerated. People will be driving cars and tolerating the police state much longer than he thinks.
We are already living in full blown totalitarianism and when SHTF there will be no more dictators because chaos is not something one controls.
But don't you think, Mr. Kunstler, that a good old fashioned world war would be the tried and true method of extrication from the dangerous domestic situation you so accurately (in my opinion) describe?
After all, nothing brings human together quite like a "common enemy".
What's with the Left's sociopathic obsession against oil? And make no mistake this guy Kunstler is a hard Leftist. I like being able to drive where I want to go and when. Governments hate people to have freedom of mobility so of course socialist nations rely on filthy, expensive "light rail" so they can control your movements. Plus it provides union jobs, that is until they strike which paralyzes the whole country (see France).
At what price of gasoline will you reconsider your view that: "I like being able to drive where I want to go and when?"