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Page added on May 23, 2016
Kunstler: Lower Away!
I hope you’re enjoying these horse latitudes of the political year, when the seas suddenly turn glassy and the Berning sun begins to roast all the diverse and inclusive hands on Hillary’s deck, who wait in anxiety for the first sign of a fresh breeze to push them toward landfall. Meanwhile, full fathom five below the dead calm waters the leviathan Trump waits in his comfortable darkness, circling forward, circling back, solitary, malevolent, content in his bulking grievances, patiently awaiting his moment to rise and smash his rival.
Things go eerily quiet and still before the California primaries. At this stage, the two major parties have discredited themselves so thoroughly that a necrotic stink wafts around the election of ’16. Who put that road-kill possum in Hillary’s podium? Why does Donald look every week more and more like a lurching Golem? The parties are rudderless. Their leaders range the decks like wailing revenants. It’s as if the mortal remains of Millard Fillmore and James Buchanan have come from the grave to eat the brains of Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Reince Priebus. The rectified essence of every zombie fantasy churned out of Hollywood seeps through the capillaries of the dying political establishment, as it stews and ferments and waits to be loaded on the garbage barge of history.
Hillary threw a “hail Mary” after the Oregon debacle, proposing that husband Bill would become some kind of economic czar in her inevitable “turn” at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. That’s when you knew her crusade was doomed. It raised such a snickering in the media that the sick tropes of HBO’s Veep show looked like press releases from Proctor & Gamble’s PR office in comparison. Bill did such a great job at repealing the Glass-Steagall Act, maybe this dynamic duo of lawyers (“two for the price of one!”) can work on eliminating the anti-trust laws, the First Amendment, and the writ of habeas corpus — and then America can become a fullblown banana republic.
Trump has evidently been working on that smile of his: the slitty eyes, the weird horizontal lip stretch under that baleen of head-gear, the perfect expression of his white whale-hood. The crew from the ghostly GOP Pequod still doesn’t know what the heck to do about him. They rock above the depths in their flimsy dinghies, harpoons drooping, waiting for the sea to boil below them and their boats to splinter.
That will precede a more general splintering to come of the republic, first by demographics, then by territory. The most exceptional thing about the US has been the rapidity of its rise and now fall in the roll-call of empires. We barely had time to put together a coherent culture that historians of the future (enjoying ratatouille with fresh rat by firelight) could identify, and now it’s all percolating into a dreadful maelstrom in which one catches glimpses of the Kardashians, PT Barnum, Betsy Ross, Davey Crockett, and Eleanor Roosevelt amid the detritus of broken Tupperware and flapping pages of the Affordable Care Act. What a goddamned mess we’ve left to posterity.
Something is in the air that tells me Hillary will be dumped by the convention in Philadelphia in favor of Uncle Joe Biden, biding his time practically next door in Wilmington. Speaking of turns, isn’t it Delaware’s turn for a president? He’ll be a respectable place-holder, and he might even get elected, though the party will dissolve before he’s done, just in time for Texas to secede from the Union and set the tone for California, Oregon, and Washington State. Before you know it, the political map will look like 1861 again.
Donald Trump will be forgotten before Thanksgiving. He will leave a bizarre mental imprint on the life of the nation-that-was, something like a bad acid trip. And then the people of North America may actually have to start grappling with the problems induced by a failed banking system, population overshoot, climate instability, and the lost boundaries of social behavior.
30 Comments on "Kunstler: Lower Away!"
Apneaman on Mon, 23rd May 2016 4:28 pm
Dmitry Orlov and Carolyn discuss the end of economic growth, the US election, and the impacts of abrupt climate change. – (and peak oil)
http://drumbaker.podbean.com/e/geo-politics-economic-meltdown-and-the-us-election/
ghung on Mon, 23rd May 2016 5:30 pm
“…We barely had time to put together a coherent culture…”
Coherent? Culture? Gosh,,, I must have missed all that. Maybe I need to get out more.
Anonymous on Mon, 23rd May 2016 6:57 pm
I think the coherent culture thing was a typo.
I think he meant to say, Did NOT have time to put together a coherent culture.
That fixes it right up…
makati1 on Mon, 23rd May 2016 7:41 pm
While I disagree with his idea that Trump is going to disappear before the e4lections in favor of limp lump Biden, I do agree with the rest of his ‘story’. Even my 92 year old step-dad said there is no one worth bothering to vote for this time. I agree.
And, as Ghung and Anon. said, there never was a ‘coherent’ culture in America. The ‘melting pot’ never actually got to the smooth, one tribe, mixture. Racism never disappeared. North vs South is still alive. Texans still believe they are better than any other American. Etc.
This empire will be one of the shortest in history and the quickest to die. I’m watching a WW1 video series that would be good for all of you Americans who think you know all about the world today and how it got here. I give it a 10 out of 10.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiIQhElR4y8&list=PLUCeR-HMWgNH4RkhcqTBDURIV8jHhBEXG
Something worthwhile to do on your Memorial Day weekend? You know, the day when you remember all of the people who died protecting corporate greed/capitalism. Not Democracy, although that is the excuse.
JuanP on Mon, 23rd May 2016 7:53 pm
California’s drought likely forever. http://www.wired.com/2016/05/thanks-el-nino-californias-drought-probably-forever
Apneaman on Mon, 23rd May 2016 8:00 pm
Dopamine Dupes – The Automatons Non-Dilemma
“Most citizens are trying to maximize dopamine/opioid returns within the spreading cancer and promote growth figureheads for President while the ecological body continues to weaken and shrink from the assault. “We want more!” is the mantra, but the cancer has already blown through most of its easily accessible black oil glucose and substituting natural gas and coal only adds to the physiological disruptions within the body, producing conditions unfit for life. The human RNA want a higher quality of life within their technological cells. Visions of rewards dominate their brains as they dedicate their prefrontal cortices to the task of planning routes to the numerous opioid levers. “What classes should I take? What college should I attend? Which people should I brown nose to get a step up? How can I use that person to advance my cause?” Little are they aware in their daily musings and metabolic activity that the processes of death have begun to creep into the system -the impairment of technological and biological metabolic activity.”
more
http://megacancer.com/2016/05/23/dopamine-dupes-the-automatons-non-dilemma/
makati1 on Mon, 23rd May 2016 8:01 pm
Signs of the times. Gun deaths down. Drug deaths up in America.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-23/prescription-pain-killers-far-riskier-gun-ownership
I’ll stick with aspirin thank you.
Apneaman on Mon, 23rd May 2016 8:21 pm
Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentration Has Passed the Point of No Return
“Changes that normally occur over a matter of centuries are transpiring over decades.”
“Climate disruption only continues to speed up.
NASA recently released data showing that the planet has just seen seven straight months of not just record-breaking, but record-shattering heat. It is clear, through the space agency’s data, that this year we are already well on track to see what will likely be the largest increase in global temperature a single year has ever seen.
The NASA data also show that April was the hottest April ever recorded, as well as the fact that it crushed the previous April record by the largest margin of increase ever recorded.
That makes it three months in a row that the monthly record has been broken, and easily at that, by the largest margin ever. When record-smashing months started in February, it was then that scientists began talking about a “climate emergency,” and since then our situation has only escalated.”
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/36133-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide-concentration-has-passed-the-point-of-no-return
Bill on Mon, 23rd May 2016 9:00 pm
Donald Trump will prevail as the americans will also. The team led byTrump I’ll cut off the head of the evil click who has enslaven us.
When the still sea conspires an armor
And her sullen and aborted
Currents breed tiny monsters,
True sailing is dead.
Awkward instant
And the first animal is jettisoned,
Legs furiously pumping
Their stiff green gallop,
And heads bob up
Poise
Delicate
Pause
Consent
In mute nostril agony
Carefully refined
And sealed over.
Jim Morrison
Edit LyricsEdit Wiki
Go Speed Racer on Mon, 23rd May 2016 9:09 pm
LIFE’S A BITCH.
DON’T ELECT ONE.
Apneaman on Mon, 23rd May 2016 9:10 pm
Thanks El Niño, But California’s Drought Is Probably Forever
http://www.wired.com/2016/05/thanks-el-nino-californias-drought-probably-forever/
They can drop the probably.
makati1 on Mon, 23rd May 2016 9:18 pm
America’s bread basket is turning to dust. The reservoirs are at record lows. Snow-pack is almost negligible. Not good for America’s food security.
JuanP on Mon, 23rd May 2016 9:26 pm
“We barely had time to put together a coherent culture …”
My wife and I were listening to Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong in “Ella & Louis for Lovers” a couple of nights ago during dinner, and I told her “I think that is the closer Americans ever got to having a culture”.
makati1 on Mon, 23rd May 2016 9:56 pm
JuanP, and it is almost lost in the Babylon that exists now. I still love to listen to “Green Onions” by Booker T & the M Gs. There used to be talent in America. It was traded in for what will sell to dumbed down minds. Trash mostly.
JuanP on Mon, 23rd May 2016 10:56 pm
How Trump is killing the Rep party by Matt Taibi over at Rolling Stone. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/r-i-p-gop-how-trump-is-killing-the-republican-party-20160518
theedrich on Tue, 24th May 2016 2:16 am
Kunstler seems to be oddly nostalgic for portions of an America which existed in the decade or so after WW II. Many of us were once seduced by that dream — a mirage often called “conservatism.” However, conservatism has been dead for half a century, and only the fading memory remains. Today “our” government grants monopolies to drug and other companies based on the pretext that such monopolies are necessary for “creativity.” The Jewish media present video clips from comedy shows such as Saturday Night Live as “news” — which favors their lefty bribe-ocrats. Behind a pretence of objectivity, the Yid mind-molders subtly promote the hag from holy hell as the prime choice for president. Sorry, Mr. Kunstler, but Joe Biden is not going to succeed the Negro in the White House.
There remain only three possibilities: the bitch of Benghazi; Bernie the Stalinist; and Trump the media mixmaster, just possibly the equal of the Zionissimos behind the curtain.
The FBI has yet to deliver the results of its investigations into the banshee’s exposure of government e-mails to Russian and Chinese hackers (among others). If James Comey suggests to the Justice Department’s Negroid Attorney General (currently political hack Loretta Lynch) that Ms. “My Turn” be indicted, the Negress will blow it all off as unimportant or as some politically inspired attack on the Demonic Party. Given the well-established habit of Demonic voters have of voting for criminals, she has the strongest chance of mounting the throne. Especially if the delusionary “never-Trump” Repubs stay home or vote for a third party.
The increasing number of clueless youth who long for a renewal of the Soviet gulag prefer Bernie. They could actually turn the Demonic National Convention (July 25–28, 2016, in Philadelphia) into a media bonanza redolent of 1968. The TV moguls would be conflicted: lots of eyeballs bringing in big bucks, versus Joe and Jane Viewer becoming disaffected by it all and staying home on Tuesday, November 8, 2016. Oi vay! In any case, Boinie does not appear to have the superdelegate votes to make it across the finish line to presidential candidacy. The fix is in.
Donald J. Trump is the first candidate to prove a match to the media hypnotists. As the White portion of the electorate (the part still free of drugs, that is) becomes increasingly aware of the bottomless corruption of the American government, that portion may actually awaken. There is a slim possibility that the billion or so dollars that the vixen and her armies are pouring into attack ads may not prove as effective as her donors (including the foreign ones) expect. There is an ominous sense of impending doom spreading throughout the land, an uneasy feeling that an evil miasma is slowly invading America, that something has gone horribly wrong, even if one is unable to name it. It’s verbal expression is the “economy,” but it is actually much deeper than that. It is a sense that death itself is seeping in through the pores of the nation. And the only possible antidote to this deadly corrosion, here referred to as BAU, is Trump.
rockman on Tue, 24th May 2016 6:16 am
So southern CA may have drought conditions for ever. Almost sounds like the definition of a desert or at least a semi-arid region. Oh how I’ll miss the rain forests of Bakersfield and San Diego. LOL.
Might help to look at some of the very old photos of the region before they started stealing water from the Sea of Cortez and completely destroying that habitat.
JuanP on Tue, 24th May 2016 9:51 am
Theedrich “There is an ominous sense of impending doom spreading throughout the land, an uneasy feeling that an evil miasma is slowly invading America, that something has gone horribly wrong, even if one is unable to name it.”
That was very well put, thee.
Davy on Tue, 24th May 2016 10:42 am
Tesla Compared To Enron, Ponzi Scheme In Scathing New Research Report
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-24/tesla-compared-enron-ponzi-scheme-scathing-new-research-report
Anonymous on Tue, 24th May 2016 3:59 pm
amerikans cant even do their fake elections efficiently. They just drag on…and on…and on…. And endless waste of time space and money to ‘decide’ who, among a collection of mostly fat,white jews, will get to be spokesman for the PhewNited states of Exxon-Monsanto. Americas faux-democracy puppets in the rest of anglo zionist-sphere get their equally fraudulent ‘elections’ over in record time by comparison. The rest of anglo sphere decides who they will send to kiss ass in washingdum and tel aviv with remarkable speed and efficiency.
Endless phony debates(just what DO uSpols debate about anyhow?), vote rigging, dark money, and media manipulation on a grand scale characterize uS ‘elections’. There is no ‘democracy’ to see here. Move along now…
peakyeast on Tue, 24th May 2016 4:26 pm
@Davy: The pyramid scheme will go on as long as the government subsidies are high enough to quell Musks greed.
@JuanP: How can you kill something that is already long dead? – It’s only the worms wriggling that makes it seem alive. And that goes for the Democrats too.
Sissyfuss on Tue, 24th May 2016 4:57 pm
Peakyeast, that is one happy testicle you got there!
Apneaman on Tue, 24th May 2016 6:41 pm
rockman, you got any evidence of any scientific paper claiming there were rain forests in California? No cause you just made that shit up. Gonna try and muddy the waters right till the end huh? Fucking cock-a-roach. Is that kind of lame rationalization and bad humor what y’all oil boys and texass high end suburbanites think is funny? Were y’all yucking it up last month when you got 17″ of rain in one night thanks to that new AGW jacked hydrologic system? I’m guessing y’all told yourselves that it’s rained before so it doesn’t count. Why not post some old photos of the worlds glaciers then and now?
This is why I laugh my ass off when cancer centers like shit hole Houston get nailed by these bigger and bigger AGW jacked record breaking deluges. AGW is gonna tear your world apart and destroy your daughters future lol that dad. Everyone’s future. Keep up the the bad work O ye brave knight of Cancer.
rockman your kind won – more oil every year and this year is a record for merica. You cunts have won every year since the climate “debate” started, yet won’t STFU. I’ve come across plenty of sore losers in my years, but white, male, merican, fossil fuel obsessed, conservative are the only sore winners I’ve ever encountered. Very peculiar. Why is that, ole rocky racoon? Are you mad because y’all had to spend so much of your hard earned blood money on denial PR, buying politicians and regulators, gag payoffs and personal time on sites like this spreading your lies? It wasn’t easy enough eh? Well let me tell you, you did not win fuck all and if you live another 10 years you’ll know exactly what I mean. Truth is your lot are a bunch of fucking suicidal losers. Now go get back to the cancer little cog.
Apneaman on Tue, 24th May 2016 6:42 pm
Earliest Snowmelt on Record Observed in Arctic
https://www.wunderground.com/news/arctic-circle-earliest-snowmelt-ever
Apneaman on Tue, 24th May 2016 6:44 pm
Air pollution exposure may raise heart disease risk
Study found exposure linked to poorer blood sugar, cholesterol measures
“Cardiovascular and lipid disorders are the leading cause of death in the United States, according to the Society’s Endocrine Facts and Figures Report. As of 2011, the total cost of cardiovascular disease nationwide was $320.1 billion. The total includes direct costs of treatment as well as indirect costs such as lost productivity.”
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/05/160524144659.htm
Apneaman on Tue, 24th May 2016 6:46 pm
These Before and After Photos Show How Glaciers in the US Are Melting
“Over the past several years, the U.S. Geological Survey has been shooting a “Repeat Photography” project in various locations to show how glacier ice has been retreating over the past century. Using photos from the late 1800s and early 1900s as references, photographers are rephotographing those same scenes to show how things have changed (and are changing).
Locations covered by the project so far include national parks and forests in Alaska and Glacier National Park in Montana. Montana’s park was covered with 150 glaciers back in the 1800s, but today only 25 of them remain.
Here’s a 3-minute feature National Geographic made about the project in Montana:”
http://petapixel.com/2015/10/25/these-before-and-after-photos-show-how-glaciers-in-the-us-are-melting/
Apneaman on Tue, 24th May 2016 6:48 pm
These satellite photos of glaciers then and now are disturbing
“While climate change is affecting every corner of the planet in different ways, the most striking evidence of a warming world is often captured by images of shrinking glaciers and the widespread disappearance of snow and ice.”
http://www.businessinsider.com/before-and-after-pictures-of-glaciers-melting-2014-5?op=1
jjhman on Tue, 24th May 2016 6:55 pm
Wow. Commenters here set a new record in doom and gloom.
I’m a sorta doom&gloomer myself. One of my friends is so optomistic I call him Dr. Pangloss. Here’s his assesment of the current US election paraphrased:
The arrival of Trump and Sanders on the election scene shows that the US population is finally ready for some bit changes. Hillary is just the person to move the economy into a new era of a more equitable economic arena and, as we can see from the social changes introduced by the Obama administration, also a more equitable social environment. Hillary, after all, was always more liberal than Bill (remember “It Takes A Village”?) and she has more knowledge and experience in government than almost anyone qualified to run.
OK, remember I call him Pangloss, but I’m just sittin’ here hoping he’s smarter than me.
Apneaman on Tue, 24th May 2016 7:27 pm
Hey rockman, I just look up this “official” definition for petroleum geologists”. That’s your accreditation?
“A petroleum geologist is an earth scientist who works in the field of petroleum geology, which involves all aspects of oil discovery and production.”
https://www.google.ca/?ion=1&espv=2#q=petroleum%20geologist
So how come, if you are in fact “an earth scientist”, you never argue your position on AGW scientifically? Why do you revert to 14 year old level sarcastic comments, bad rationalizations and lame jokes? Why is the science of geology and chemistry good enough to find oil and make you millions over your career (plus the texass oil hero status), but then when it presents evidence that burning said oil leads to global warming and deadly pollution, science is suddenly a hoax? You use a few hundred years of accumulated scientific knowledge to make your bank, then turn around and use rhetoric to deny the findings of the very same scientific principals that made it possible for your success. Fucking Flip Flopping Forever. Maybe you’re in the wrong field? You would have made a fine texass politician rockboy.
Apneaman on Tue, 24th May 2016 7:43 pm
GOODBYE, EMPTY NEST: MILLENNIALS STAYING LONGER WITH PARENTS
“WASHINGTON (AP) — Many of America’s young adults appear to be in no hurry to move out of their old bedrooms.
For the first time on record, living with parents is now the most common arrangement for people ages 18 to 34, an analysis of census data by the Pew Research Center has found.
And the proportion of older millennials – those ages 25 to 34 – who are living at home has reached its highest point (19 percent) on record, Pew analysts said.”
“Nearly one-third of all millennials live with their parents, slightly more than the proportion who live with a spouse or partner. It’s the first time that living at home has outpaced living with a spouse for this age group since such record-keeping began in 1880.”
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_MILLENNIALS_AT_HOME?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-05-24-10-00-52
But the economy is still awesome.