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Can Anyone Fix This?
Submitted by Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,
The legacy mainstream media has a collective brain like a dog’s - it exists in an eternal present, so that whatever’s happening right now is all there is. Thus, Hillary’s performance in the first Democratic debate, being as bad but not worse than her competitors’, means she has a lock on the nomination for president. The better part of a year lies between now and the convention, and time would be on the side of whatever force or figure rises to oppose the woman whose “turn” in power rides a myth of inevitability.
What perhaps ought to be more alarming is the way that the two major parties are lining up to be a men’s party and a woman’s party, a perfect acting-out of psychological archetypes in a society churning out millions of lost souls year-by-year. The American people apparently want a Daddy to fix all the broken systems and they want a Mommy to reassure them that everything will be all right. Hillary, of course, wants to be both, but her problem is that a lot of voters won’t accept her as either.
Her record doesn’t suggest she’s much good at fixing anything. That’s why the Benghazi affair is such a good stick to beat on her with. That was a moment when America needed a Daddy with a toilet plunger or a screw gun and all they got were cables from the home office saying everything was going to be all right. Mommy couldn’t save the Ambassador to Libya and three other Americans slaughtered there. The big pretense, of course, is the idea that congress holds hearings “so something like this will never happen again.”
It’s an interesting neurosis we’ve developed since the heyday of the assassinations in the late 1960s, this continuing promise to abolish the unforeseeable. Of course new atrocities happen all the time despite these ritual committee inquiries — these days, the mass murder of strangers is more in fashion than targeted political slayings — and there’s always another incident, and it ought to be obvious by now that we’re not so good at making sure that bad things don’t happen.
But that’s the Republican-controlled Benghazi Committee’s mission: to demonstrate that Mommy can’t fix stuff. It will be easily left to Hillary herself to prove that she’s not much good in the Mommy role either — reassuring the multitudes that everything’s going to be all right. Instead, Hillary falls back on an obsessive-compulsive pander tic, kind of an incessant hash-tag jabber of promises to the familiar cast of supplicants. Give it twelve months and see how sick of it the voters will get.
To see how much the Democrats have become the woman’s party, just consider the men candidates up on the debate stage: all pitiful archetypes. Bernie Sanders plays the meshugganah grandpa role reserved, on the screen, for Larry David or Alan Arkin. He’s always worked up about something that nobody else can really get worked up about, always raising his voice and stabbing his finger in the air in imitation of Yahweh. There’s Jim Webb, a bobblehead rattling off long legalistic disquisitions that never get to whether he can fix something or not. There’s Martin O’Malley, known primarily for his “six-pack” and “guns,” but with the persona of a frightened seven-year-old who doesn’t want to rile the teacher. And Lincoln Chaffee, a dizzy neighbor like Kramer in Seinfeld, butting in with cockamamie schemes that demonstrate he can’t fix anything.
Is it not amazing that the Democratic Party could not grudge up one figure really worth taking seriously? To me, this is truly symptomatic of how bereft of significance the party is? I’m not so sure the party will survive this election cycle.
But the disorder across the gradient is equally impressive. The large Republican field of professional politician candidates is held in such bad odor as far as being able to fix anything, that the sinister clown Trump is able to put over his idiotic act of being a Daddy who can fix everything and anything, just by blustering. I suspect he’ll wear out his welcome — but if he doesn’t the Grand Old Party is showing serious signs of a serious crack-up.
Whoever get elected in 2016 is going to face a crisis every bit as terrible as the crisis of 1860, only this time when the country blows it could come from a dozen different directions and be a lot harder to fix than the secession of Dixieland.
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Meanwhile, the US media isn't exactly doing its job by burying this story either:
Chicago's own Guantanamo
I have read most, if not all of his books. The Geography of Nowhere is the best, in my opinion.
Does anyone else ever wonder if Kunstler is a moral relativist?
Apart from sidewalks and park benches, what does this guy value?
Where do his beliefs and actions match up with his morals?
What really matters is that his beliefs come no where close to matching reality. He might as well be writing about Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy as his views are exactly that childish.
Hillary turns to the experts instead of BEING the expert, but is'nt it time for a women president?
“harder to fix than the secession of Dixieland.”
I thought they fixed it all when they pulled the Stars and Bars down from the South Carolina Statehouse. ??
Hillary's second biggest problem (after trying to stay out of jail):
Hundreds of Obama bundlers missing from Clinton fundraising ranks...
JHK, whole lotta words, yet not really saying much. Enjoy the fall foliage in Saratoga Springs amongst the white people. Tell us again how many times you voted for your savior Obama?
Lol
"Mommy couldn’t save the Ambassador to Libya and three other Americans slaughtered there."
Mommy "couldn't" save them? Or "Wouldn't" save them. I think it was the latter. It was all about politics. She'd let her own daughter die, if it meant she got to be president.
Turning to the experts is how we got here, remember?
https://thinkpatriot.wordpress.com/2015/10/02/warning-ideas-are-dangerous/
https://thinkpatriot.wordpress.com/2015/09/28/important-things-are-not-f...
Kunstler is a Statist Marxist shill, and an unabashed hypocrite like all libtards. Even while complaining about Democrats, the undertone of it's all Reagans and the Rupublicans fault comes through (i hate Republicans, most are brainwashed war mongers and can't figure out the MIC is just corporate welfare...but thats another matter).
He loves the state and all the Zionist principles....as i've written before, he has no problem with the STATE, he has a problem with the State not enforcing his delusional marxist view of the world on everyone...
His moral "superiority" is nauseating....flowery language masking your hypocritical world view not withstanding
Whatever to this clown. He's no different than any other democrat. Whining about global warming while he jaunts all over the world to speak, burning up zillions of gallons of jet fuel in the process. Just like his political brethren who claim that walls don't work and guns should be banned for law abiding citizens all the while hiding in 7 figure compounds behind - you guessed it - walls protected by armed guards. The hypocrisy makes me want to gag my last 3 meals up. Quite frankly I think I speak for the American people when I say we have all had quite enough of all of them.
jesus I did not know that. Thanks for posting.
Voters get sick of something?
Nope. Well, they get angry and get to toss someone out every 4 years or so.
If voters get sick of something you know what happens?
They become non-voters and start to question the actual legitimacy of the governement's rule.
And please don't give me any of that jive about cancelled elections so the HNIC can stay IC.
Voting is to make you believe that you have a say in the matter and keep producing for those who own the government.
pods
It's election day on my farm. Not a fucking chance. Now, if it was to determine which one hangs, I'd camp out. Pitchfork day. Can you imagine all the beaurocratic pant-filling? Might turn things around.
All mankind will be better off if some things are never fixed.
And the US federal government is one of those things.
It is not worth fixing as is.
Red, White & Blue, baseball and apple pie...Those days are never coming back.
There is a little place called the State of Maine, concealed carry, no permit necessary.
Can we please get this fucking clown off of this site? He is so clueless as to be embarrassing.
This time around, secession is the solution.
Too bad every single state is fully dependent upon fedgov handouts.
By design, of course.
So...
You're saying that when your spouse collects your salary, and then gives SOME of it back, that constitutes dependence, right?
State governments earn nothing. They are really good at borrowing in your name though. For example, most states owe millions to Uncle Sugar for all of the unemployment benefits, and many of them currently do not even pay interest, let alone any of the principal of this debt.
Then there's always leverage attached to any "free money" coming from Uncle Sugar in the form of grants, so the idea that any state government could successfully unwind these entanglements while keeping the voters happy is but a dream.
I understand your point, but it is moot when discussing the mafia d.b.a. government.
Closest you can get is the State of North Dakota and that is only because they have a State owned bank.
Couldn't we just banish Washington D.C., and anyone who has ever been there?
They would be welcome in Israel. Wouldn't they?
Now that people are figuring out that we're arming head choppers who were previously Boogie Man No 1, they will start to get an idea of just how corrupt our government really is.
Kunt phones it in again.
There will be at least 3 false flags before the election; one of which may lead to martial law to postpone elections.
How many innocents will be killed or maimed for the neocon agenda?
Elections will never be postponed as they are the biggest part of the "peaceful handover of power" that protects the oligarchy.
All that would do is to piss off the rubes that are otherwise very well trained to protect their masters.
I doubt martial law will be used to postpone elections. It would be so much easier to use martial law to make sure voting goes as planned, if they even care who gets elected. Obama is not in charge. He cannot remain president longer than two terms unless the elite want him to. And why should they want that? One puppet is no better than the next puppet. All candidates for president will be certified as puppets prior to being allowed to run. Martial law will be declared when they want to negate what little is left of our freedoms.
Voting will go as planned because they already own the voting base, count the votes, and run the Electoral College. All this talk about a need for false flags and martial law in order to capture the system is completely irrational, IT'S ALREADY BEEN DONE........!
There will be mandatory voting long before it's ever outlawed.
Doesn't the Kim family in NK get like 99.99% of the vote in NK? Mandatory voting, and everyone votes for the master, so they don't get whipped.
Martial law and voting... lol. They will just have the SCOTUS appoint a new president. That precedent has already been set.
Why do so many keep operating under the assumption that anyone in 'leadership' roles is trying to fix it? The only 'fixing' these fuckers do is 'fix' it for themselves at the risk and expense of everyone else.....
I think that depends on what the definition of "fix" is. If he is talking about keeping the US whole, then yeah, whether we blow up this decade or next, it will be very difficult to "fix."
Definitions are indeed everything, which is nearly impossible to determine in a world (especially America) where words have no meaning or value.....
Funny that you mention words have lost their meanings. It seems only the regular working stiffs noticed that.
Precisely. I have a short list of words I really can't use anymore. Liberal, Conservative, Progressive, Fascist, Marxist, Socialist, Communist, Free-Market, Capitalist, Accountability, Responsibility, Terrorist/Terrorism, Freedom are among them.
Seriously, if these words, used all day every day, don't mean what they're supposed to mean, we can't communicate.
This is not accidental.
Inflation must have a few pages of BS deffinitions by now. Fraud is another interesting one. How many names does it go by these days 20 maybe 30?
Maybe some smart folks would be so kind as to pull the plug.
ROFL. This aptly named author cracks me up. He's a moron, but an amusing one at least.
Jim Webb as a bubblehead? This is so funny, but spot on. I actually liked him since he first became a senator and I saw his rebuttal to G Bush State of the Union Address. He would make a great President in my opinion.
Trump has brought this up in a few interviews already in reference to the Fed refusing to raise rates. We can agree or disagree with Trump's analysis of the Fed's motives, but again, he's the only candidate looking ahead at the storm clouds forming on the horizon while the rest of the pack continue to blow smoke up our collective asses.
With the lead-in referring to 1860, and the mention of secession, I thought we were going to address the kneegrow situation?
"Whoever get elected in 2016 is going to face a crisis every bit as terrible as the crisis of 1860, only this time when the country blows it could come from a dozen different directions and be a lot harder to fix than the secession of Dixieland."
The secession of Dixieland wasn't terrible, nor a crisis, save for the Control Freaks of the era who spoke out one side of their forked tongues about 'unity', but wished to (and did) lay waste to founding principles on the other.
What if we don't want it to fix itself anymore? What if we actually want the system to implode on itself? Any zealots who continue to profess rationale of the endless suckling of the government tit and continuing the circle jerk are dead to me already. I'm tired of telling people not to inspect the dynamite shed with a match anymore: Let the 'geniuses' blow themselves to smithereens.
That's why I'm not voting for POTUS in 2016, not wasting my time on any of these sad political clowns, who advertise free candy from the back of a creepy van.
Whoever "runs" FOR this job and wins deserves everything they get.
Sure,
I can fix it.
Revalue precious metals upward such that they can extinguish government debt, and the debt-based-currency created from it, with a realistic reserve ratio.
It is that simple.
For the US...presuming it has the Gold it says it has, or that it can get it in a realistic period as leases expire... that means a Gold price of between $17K/oz and $60K/oz at a 40% reserve ratio. The wide variance is due to uncertainty about how much virtual money the Gold Dollar would be replacing. Resumption of U3 publication would be helpful in making that determination.
Simple.
Not EASY.
But simple, yes.
P.S. Other nations' mileage may vary...but by all accounts the European ones would need a price rather on the high end of that, if not more.
I like to visualize a graph where the Y-axis is "Simple" on one end and "Complicated" on the other, and the X-axis is "Easy" and "Hard." Therefore a thing like lifting a heavy object can be simple but hard, and putting together a jigsaw puzzle can be easy but complicated.
I agree on all your points, especially that it would be simple and hard.
Your visualization is very close to a Risk Matrix, or Decision Matrix (assuming EASY<->HARD and SIMPLE<->COMPLICATED were your metrics).
Thanks.
However, I do not think this is as hard as everyone believes it to be. Why?
Well... because 'Easy' is a relative term begging the question 'as compared to what?'
On the surface, status quo is EASY, but with increasingly complex decisions required to stay there.
I would argue that the EASE is illusory, and that we will likely discover just how HARD doing nothing in the face of a crisis is. After all, all the difficult consequences of doing nothing - or more of the same - are themselves the consequence of the illusory easy-thing-to-do. The difficulty of doing what I suggest is entirely in consensus, in triggering people to think with their brains rather than with their conditioning.
A War to attempt to maintain the status quo is going to fail, and will not be easy by any measure...but due to familiarity it will seem easier at the outset. Managing an inflationary or deflationary collapse will seem easy so long as it is only in the early stages...because the Fed is in a CONTINUOUS train of interventions and management actions, and they will seem familiar at first.
Easy, often isn't as easy as it seems, but 'hard' dressed like a local. And 'hard' often is 'easy' in unfamiliar clothing.
I would suggest that anyone who thinks the other likely policies for addressing debt encumberment are easier than revaluing precious metals should think their courses of action through to their ultimate end-games, not just through the opening moves but to completion.
Re: " Benghazi affair is such a good stick to beat on [Hitlery] with." Clearly, Kunstler is not the one to be pointing fingers about a short attention span.
Benghazi has been used from the first -- as bad as losing an ambassador was -- to distract attention from an issue that is more important to the continuance of American liberty. That being Obongo's use of the IRS to hammer his political opponents during the 2012 election. If there is any impeachable offense that a president can commit, that would have to be it. It was definitely going to be on Nixon's list of offenses.
The Republi-turds could have pursued both issues had they wanted to. The reason they didn't want to -- and instead used the justified outrage over Benghazi as cover to let the IRS issue fall off the radar -- is not hard to figure out.
They want to be able to use the IRS as a hammer also against their political opponents when they regain the Oval office. Simple as that.
But hey, Kunstler. Don't let the facts get in the way of your spiffy metaphors.
Like the way W used to IRS to bludgeon the environmentalist movement and the Occupy movement?
Oh, sorry, using the IRS for partisan political purposes is bad only when liberals do it. When conservatards do it, it's A-OK!
It is amazing to me that so many articles still focus on the two party system as being a choice, or as any candidate as being a choice. It's a folly. There is no choice as there is no vote. The vote is a pablum sham of immense proportions. The campaign is kabuki theater much like a TSA experience. That a candidate is even a candidate is a sham since crooks vouch for crooks (e.g. Pelosi changing the nominating statement at the last minute for Obama). Voter fraud runs unchecked. The electoral college is selected on false totals steeped in mafioso-like manipulation.
30 million or more non citizens who will vote and then corrupt SoS's who will certify results before the challenges have been exhausted or evidence of fraud is even uncovered.
The manufactured crisis is already knee deep around us. I keep reading about this "coming" crisis. Sad to think how many people are so closed to reality that they refuse to acknowledge it is already here.
The crisis is already here and no one is going to deal with it, no one is going to be "elected" who would deal with it, and it will continue to be manipulated for larger global means until there is no more use for it. THEN the solution (battle) begins.
who will be holding the bag in 2016?
What, no mention of tattoos as being part of the problem!
what's going on here?
And no Cheez Puffs references, either.
hopefully we will be able to channel the rage exclusively towards the zionazis and string them up on every block of every city.
Problem is, we don't all agree on who the problem is. I reserve my anger for the corporations, special interests, foreign governments and crazy billionaires who own my politicians. That includes banksters, the Military Industrial Complex, the Prison Industrial Complex, the Medical Industrial Complex and the list goes on and on. Mentioning certain groups reduces your credibility.
Agree with the article that it might not be a great thing to win the presidency in 2016. But to describe Bernie Sanders as addressing things that are not important to anybody is flat out IGNORANT. (I know he said "worked up").
Anything can be saved. The only problem? Would you willing to sacrifice your life, bloods and sweats for it?
Judging from how success, khardasians ass shows really is. Currently? The answer is a resounding NO!!
and there’s always another incident, and it ought to be obvious by now that we’re not so good at making sure that bad things don’t happen.
Why did WTC7 fall down?
As cynical as this soundss, Trump is the only candidate with experience on how to survive bankruptcy. And the US is bankrupt.
Dixieland is not presently in a very good mood
Whoever get elected in 2016 is going to face a crisis every bit as terrible as the crisis of 1860, only this time when the country blows it could come from a dozen different directions and be a lot harder to fix than the secession of Dixieland.
We need the same fix as was tried unsuccessfully in 1860. Except this time, the thing needs to split into a dozen parts.
That is unless you are in control. Obviously, what we have experienced doesn't need fixing at all. It is delivering exactly the result the controllers are working to achieve. It is working perfectly. Their wealth and control is unchallenged.
All this election stuff is just theater.
Flag issues aside, anyone want to wager the odds there'll be a Confederate States of America 2.0?
First, Howie Cuntsler is a POS... a loud maggot with a big pie-hole. Next, if there is a SHRED of justice remaining in this collapsing country, the dried booger Hilly-roid will not even make it to the nomination... she has already admitted to enough to have her Secret Clearance yanked... and that disqualifies her. Anything else, including being charged... and imprisoned, is only frosting on a very malignant cake.
The oompa loompas have a song to sing about this.
https://youtu.be/LuIPe6hZT3k
A total US wipeout will at least give the rest of the world some peace and breathing room. Expect none in the US.
Benghazi is used as an example of blundering on the part of Hillary, but perhaps she unwittingly did a good thing.
The late ambassador was up to his eyeballs in the planning and execution of both the murder of Ghadaffi and the complete rape and destruction of the entire nation of Libya. Anything that happened to him was entirely earned, and more likely than not, it did not even begin to repay him for the evil he did. The world is a better place without that cockroach.
For me personally, I'd prefer that I know before I vote for someone that they're bat shit crazy. I figure that's way safer than having them go bat shit crazy while sitting in the Oval Office - that could get messy.
If things are really as bad as everyone says they are then maybe who ever "wins" the election is actually the loser. No?
TRUMP would be the best candidate for chaos since he just doesn't give a shit about any one's opinion and he'll do everything he can to save his fortune which in turn will save all of our "fortunes". Money talks, bullshit walks - and the rest of the Republican field is bullshit.
Trump is a buffoon, Carson is deranged.
Will you idiots slit your wrists when Hillary is inaugurated?
One can only hope.
You mean incarcerated.
I like my net worth too much to vote Democrat -ever!
2016???? THERE AIN'T GUNNA BE A 2016. BY THAT DAY SOME 70 days hence we will be back to counting with stones and grunting when we want food.
Hyperbole sure, but how can our current society continue with a monetary system that doesn't work for 95% of the planet? I think BHO will get the credit for this one...even though he personally can hardly get anything done and blame can honestly be spread thick over the US political machine of the last 50 years. Hell, make that 60 years. From LBJ on it has been spend, spend, spend. Maybe it was just the way 'democracy falls apart.
Barry was behind the wheel when it happened.
It is curious that Kuntsler always uses metaphors and references from the Jewish-American media subculture, as though, entre nous, we all understand the strong influence this group exercises over current manners and morals. If you don't know what a "meshuganah" is, then, well, you are just an outsider in need of indoctrination. This subtle tribalism has become the leading edge of those who would like to be considered "progressive," and serves to marginalize other cultural channels. It will, in turn, become a tendency that will, instead, marginalize its practicioners, to the detriment of possible change.
The only candidate currently in view who can make a claim to true statesmanship is Bernie Sanders. If he were only 20 years younger !!
BS 30 years ago Laverne and Shirley opened with some Yiddish expressions Schlemiel Schlemozle. If you don't have a hundred Yiddish expressions under your belt you ain't living right.
Speaking of which ,if there are Yiddish speakers..How do you say 'smitten down in the prime of life.' It is the punchline of a great joke but it only works if you say the last part in Yiddish.
"smitten down"? who knows, but "in the prime of life" would be "en di hoypt fun leben" or thereabouts.