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Towards A State Of Near Chaos...
Submitted by James H. Kunstler via Kunstler.com,
Yes, there is such a thing as “the public,” a term that derives from the ancient Latin, populous (the people), via publicus (of the people), via old French, public — pertaining generally to the mass of adults dwelling in a polity, a society under (political) governance. In the USA, government is vested as a republic, also from the Latin, res publica, meaning the public thing, the vessel that contains the public.
I present these terms to clarify how our society is cracking up. The American public, we the people, lately swoon into a morass of multi-dimensional failure: failure to control their economic lives, to regulate their appetites and their bodies, to understand what is happening to them, to fend off the propaganda and distractions that disable them, and to properly express and direct their wrath at those elements of the polity who deserve it.
True, their awful, epic failures at this moment in history are largely engineered and aggravated by those who have captured the polity and turned it into a looting and racketeering engine. The net result, though, is a self-reinforcing circle of degradation that rots the collective ethos of the public while it destroys the vessel of the republic that contains it.
Societies that act as though they are hostage to these forces of degradation are able to pretend that they are helpless in the face of them; that the public bears no responsibility for its own choices or for the disintegration of the polity they live under. Hence, the current condition of the American public and its disgraceful government.
It’s not difficult to understand how Donald Trump becomes the instrument for the public’s wrath. Whatever his checkered career in land development amounts to, he is at least a freely-functioning and unfettered actor in the political arena. The public enjoys most of all his assertion of independence from the tremendous engine of grift that the republic has become. His arrant contempt for his rivals, and for the disgusting political process erected for the election contest, also thrills a big wad of the public. So far, his actual ideas for governing lack coherence, except for the rather general notion that uncontrolled immigration, and all the mendacious fakery associated with it, is a bad thing for the republic. Beyond that he offers only blustering claims that he is “very smart,” an “artist of deal-making,” a “patriot.”
Almost nothing so far can knock him down or take him out. Fox News tried in last week’s “debate” — which was not a debate at all, really, but a half-assed interrogation — by trying to set the female half of the public against him for his nasty remarks about women over the years. Of course, the dirty secret of both politics and the media is that the common backstage chatter among pols and TV news producers is every bit as vulgar and hateful as anything Trump said. In case you haven’t noticed, all of America has turned into a verbal sewer, especially the virtual public realm of television. I don’t remember anyone complaining about the comportment of the characters in Tony Soprano’s Badda-Bing Lounge. In fact, awards were heaped on the depiction of that behavior. That’s who we are now.
The rise and persistence of Trump raises a more pertinent question: why are all the other candidates such obvious shills for the implacable engine of grift that is destroying the Republic? Why has nobody with the possible exception of Bernie Sanders, called bullshit on the basic operations of the machine? Why have no other persons of real stature stepped forward to challenge the suicidal dynamic of the age?
There are many cycles in history, politics, and economics. One in particular afflicts the American public today: we’re at a cycle low for comprehending what is happening to us. Sometimes societies know very well what is going on and communicate it superbly. Such was the case in the late 1700s when American leaders filed divorce from Great Britain. Can you imagine any of the clowns onstage for the Fox News “debate” playing a role in writing the Federalist Papers? Obviously, the public and its putative representatives today don’t have a clue what is happening. And then, necessarily, they don’t have a clue what to do about it.
The foregoing assumes that they are honorable persons, though, which may not be the case. This is the chief gripe against Hillary Clinton, of course: that she is an unprincipled monster of ambition and little more. That would be my take on her, for instance. Among the Republicans (as in party) only Rand Paul stands out as not appearing to be some kind of puppet shilling for the grift machine. After all, the party is the very embodiment of that machine. And by trying to play nicely in its arena, Rand Paul may lack the fortitude to attack it.
I’m with those who think that the 2016 election campaign is going to be a wild spectacle beyond the current imaginings of news media. I’m serenely convinced that, among other things, the banking system is going to implode so hard and fast well before the nominating conventions that the nation will be in a state of near chaos. What’s out there now is just a tired dumb-show replaying the shopworn themes of an era that is about to slam to a close.
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Historically, we have gridlock when the President is from a different Party than the congressional majority. Fewer laws get passed, so the economy does better due to less government stupidity and interference. However, due to ever-increasing corruption, that mechansim is less effective now. An arrogant SOB like Trump might work (in this limited sense). Although, I'm in California -- what do I know.
Your point about Executive Orders is valid. We need a solution to that flavor of Abuse-of-Power.
Given the depth of our financial mess and its underlying corruption, the only thing that can offer stability is a constipated government, unable to shit upon us further.
+1 My point exactly. However, you're far more eloquent.
EDIT: From this POV, when the press attacks Trump based on character flaws, it doesn't matter if it's a hatchet job. In one case the PTB are scared of someone they can't control (yay), in the other case Trump simply IS arrogant (which fits my model).
Muricans are idolaters par excellance. Soon it will be football season,world series etc.
Men are incompetent from drunkeness, pornography and a host of other social degradations that prior generations of men either were in control of, or repudiated out right [ the acceptence of homosexuality]
Forget about blaming jews or the bankers- your feet walk you to the corner bar where you scramble your brains- and your hands turn on the T.V. that pours propaganda into the family home.
YOU GIVE THEM THE BULLETS TO SHOOT YOU WITH.
I agree with you on most your points about Muricans except one. Homosexuality. I don't care who anyone sleeps with or falls in love with. Hell some of our greatest are gay. (Tennessee Williams, James Baldwin, Truman Capote,Rock Hudson,Oscar Wilde,Jim Nabors for gods sake)
says a lot to think that our entertainers are our greatest Americans...
Suddenly hungry for government cheese...
Anyone know when the circus comes to town???
there are some writers there dummy and I was only fckn with you about Gomer Pyle but yes it's true. Same with Dr. Kildare. look at the list below you might want to read one of them someday. it'll expand your outlook
OH! Please Pinky, not Gomer Pyle, I learned to lovr the U.S. Army watching Gomer's zanie antics, it can't be true the Army didn't support that behavior then!
yup Gomer is a gay guy. hate to break it to you but its true.
So now our greatest Americans are gay writers and entertainers? LOL!
You forgot to mention Caitlyn Jenner, but she's unsure of her sexual orientation at this point...
Bwhaaaahhhhahahahaha I didn't say just gay entertainers were the greatest and no one else. I didn't say Dylan did I? He's the greatest and he isn't gay. how about Hemingway he was straight. FScott Fitz-straight so you got it wrong.btw reality stars like Caitlyn Jenner-don't lower your standards by even mentioning that person. I'm talking on another level here.
Here's more gay artists who helped change the world for the better by creating works of great beauty and insight to make this world a much better place to live in..
Herman Melville
Oscar Wilde
Tennessee Williams
Virginia Woolf
Walt Whitman
E. M. Forster
Emily Dickinson
Dorothy Allison
James Baldwin
T. S. Eliot
William Carlos Williams
Michael Cunningham
Truman CapoteI
Marcel Proust
Mary Renault
David Sedaris
Evelyn Waugh
Langston Hughes
Allen Ginsberg
Gore Vidal
W. Somerset Maugham
Edward Albee
Plato
Michaelangelo
D. H. Lawrence
Alice Walker
Patricia Highsmith
David Hockney
Armistead Maupin
Chuck Palahniuk
W. H. Auden
Willa Cather
Gertrude Stein
Federico García Lorca
E. Annie Proulx
Thomas Mann
Christopher Isherwood
John Cheever
Noël Coward
I hear what you are saying, but on the other side of the coin, the bankers planned this probably a century ago and have used social engineering in a clever and slow manner so that most could not notice. I agree with you, but I still say its the bankers.. I mean satan even deceived adam and eve into slavery and death. Even if a person doesnt believe in that story, you get my point.
another financial collapse is already in the making...Its a drip drip scenary and the drips are starting to get bigger...Sept/October it will start flowing more than drips...The economy will take a big hit...Then a false flag to blame the economic problems on. Then is when the global reset and etc....Doesnt matter who is president in 2016. It will take that person 2 years to even begin to change anything. Thats 3 years away....Do you think this economy can last another three years?
But if you're right that it's hopeless (or nearly so), we should vote based on potential entertainment value. Wouldn't that still be Trump?
We have 535 persons in DC who think of themselves as exalted beings. Their two functions are to kneel before the Israeli Knesset and make sure EBT funds are available...and you wonder why things are messed up....
We have 535 persons in DC who think of themselves as exalted beings. Their two functions are to kneel before the Israeli Knesset and make sure EBT funds are available...and you wonder why things are messed up....
Has everyone so soon lost their (short and long term) memory to what "Hope & Change" was going to deliver in 2008 and that mysterious magical event that took place in Miami in June of that year where "Hope & Change" accepted the nomination on the condition that Israel's capitol would always be Jerusalem and that the U.S. would always do what is necessary and obey the almighty "Talmud" to the last man, woman and child in North America if he was told to do so?...
And let me be on record for telling the author of this shit paper of a read that 'The Donald" will abide by his paymasters in Manhattan the ones who always got his real estate business deal(s) done for he and dear old Dad no matter what it cost the taxpayer… And now he will bend at the knee as the subservient handmaiden to Washington the home of the only bank that matters should he be given the nod for the tiara to win the beauty pageant. Something he’s intimately good at from experience himself but with much smaller stakes involved!
He and everyone in that White House sold out after November 22, 1963.
He’ll obey for sure. They all of have since Lyndon Johnson and he will be no different than the rest of them…
Too scared of losing his chosen life and all the trappings that have come with it you see!!!
You don't overly criticize the machine that you want to be elected to run. You emphasize the positive.
And don't overestimate how much the common man, in any age, really understands the issues. People understand enough to judge between well-intentioned, intelligent candidates. Once the candidates become universally corrupt and stupid, 98% of the voters won't know the difference, and of course it hardly matters anymore at that point.
I more than agree with this article - Trump is really just the "none of the above" vote, nobody is really taking anything seriously that comes out of his mouth.
This makes him Karl Rove's worst nightmare, btw, Rove has been telling his RINO sycophants to SHUT UP for the last two years, thinking that was the only way to power. Then along comes Trump, subtle as a foghorn, and soaks up all the oxygen. Buh-bye, Karl.
Great post! I despise KR -- and I don't say that lightly.
EDIT: What would happen if he and Anne Coulter had a child? Would that be the Anti-Christ?
I believe it would be mistaken for a turd and flushed.
Carville and Matalin
Disturbingly Quiet/
good riddance to bad trash!
The people that produce will get by. The shitbags that skim off of actual productivity will be sucking ball-sac.
As it should be.
Whatever, complain about Trump all you want, you and ur ilk slavishly supported and bow down to obozo the imbecile commumity organizer and think of him as a messiah just because he's quasi black.
Good luck in the delusional utopian progressive shithole dreamworld....this is the end game of all ur idiotic ideas and policies, stew in ur own filth.
>>>Almost nothing so far can knock him down or take him out. Fox News tried in last week’s “debate” — which was not a debate at all, really, but a half-assed interrogation — by trying to set the female half of the public against him for his nasty remarks about women over the years.
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re: Megayn... Whaaaa!?!? a liberal Femnazi working at FAUX?!
Ambition raises up and it also destroys those whom it raises.
Clearly she covets the seat of dear old Dan Rather and is auditioning for the job.
Geeze if it came down to Bush vs Hillary......i would vote to re-elect Oblama-or The Three Stooges
I think I have the answer for why no one but Sanders and Trump have stepped forward to call "bullshit " to the system....THEY'RE ALL IN ON IT!
Just look at what Jerry Brown just did to us in CA; no more state use of the word "alien".
http://www.latimes.com/local/political/la-me-pc-gov-jerry-brown-signs-bi...
I guess that's one way to ignore the problem; pretend it isn't there!
And, build a bullet train to nowhere that uses part of the existing rail system in the metropolitan areas. Pure genius. Don't forget he signed the legislation (or whatever the lunatics in Sacramento call it) to make the terms "husband and wife" ILLEGAL.
Um Tyler? Why are you posting crap from a guy like this? Didn't you read this guy's biography? " He is a regular contributor to the New York Times Sunday Magazine and Op-Ed page, where he has written on environmental and economic issues.
Mr. Kunstler was born in New York City in 1948. He moved to the Long Island suburbs in 1954 and returned to the city in 1957 where he spent most of his childhood. He graduated from the State University of New York, Brockport campus, worked as a reporter and feature writer for a number of newspapers, and finally as a staff writer forRolling Stone Magazine. In 1975, he dropped out to write books on a full-time basis. He has no formal training in architecture or the related design fields.
He has lectured at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Dartmouth, Cornell, MIT, RPI, the University of Virginia and many other colleges, and he has appeared before many professional organizations such as the AIA , the APA., and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
He lives in Saratoga Springs in upstate New York. " This does not sound like the typical ZH'ers background to me! This sounds like a Northeastern rump-swab's CV. Why do you have to let a git like this have airtime on ZH?
Stopped reading at the shamless plug for the clueless socialist Bernie Sanders.
as far as clueless goes, nah not sanders.at the very least a well meaning decent human being who's doing the best he can and that's pretty freaking good. the 20,000 or so who showed up in Seattle and Portland the other day felt he's doing even better than that. The biggest crowds by any candidate.
Though I am certainly not a fan of his, Jimmy Carter recently said in an interview that America is "an oligarchy, with unlimited political bribery". Just want to point out the statement in the article, that nobody of any stature had called bullshit, was factually wrong.
America is a frightening place.
The statue of liberty is ashamed & hidden her face
Becuz HomObamaHasSodomizedHer ButOnlyAfterTheCabalbankstersTurn