Guest Post by Jim Kunstler
Historians of the future, roasting rat kabobs over their campfires, will look back at the year 2016 and marvel at the death throes of the zombie republic that died eating its own brains. This grotesque Deep State lumbers from one misadventure of governance to the next consuming its prospects for a plausible future in a fugue of autophagy, inducing the great nausea that now settles over the land.
President Trump — really? We would be lucky of it only resulted in a revolt of the generals, and there goes 200-plus years of institutional heritage. Yet it cannot be denied that the Deep State needs to be kicked to the curb, stomped, water-boarded, and hung out to dry. The sad part is that the job might have been done by men of character, but incredibly the long-vaunted baby boomer generation did not manage to produce any, nor the so-called Gen-X now coming into its own power. And if such hypothetical figures do exist, why are they hiding in the thickets of public life?
Well, there is Bernie, after all. Credit must be given to this lone crusader for at least opposing the avatar of the Deep State, she whose “turn” must not be denied in the rotating management of rackets-and-grift that our politics have sunk to. He thrashed her roundly in the three primary contests over the weekend — so badly in the vote count that she may be suffering an existential hangover as I write. The fabled Democratic Party super-delegates may also be going through a dark night of the soul as they study the intractable anti-charisma of Hillary. Much as I admire Bernie’s chutzpah, his particular Old Left theories of wealth redistribution do not convince me — though the management of our dwindling capital surely lies at the heart of our problems. His nomination would go down in the Ripley’s Believe-It-Or-Not annals of the world’s greatest improbabilities.
Otherwise, the latest meme spreading across the web wires is how deeply the voters divide by sex: men flocking around Trump (or Machine Gun Ted Cruz), and the ladies standing at each mighty column of Hillary’s azure pant-suit. Yes, a national war of the sexes. Just what we need with all our shit falling apart. This sorry diversion results not from the triumph of feminism, as widely believed, but actually from the failure of American manhood. Proof of that, of course, is the ascendance of Trump, this punch-line of a political leader with all the gravitas of a hood ornament. History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce — thank you, Karl Marx, O peevish mischief-maker squirming upon your fabled boils!
Finally, what will take the Deep State down is not some lance-wielding armored savior on a white horse but the awful undertow of financial implosion that awaits as the seasons of 2016 turn. When faith in our money and the instruments represented in it goes, look out below. There are so many rifts in the international banking system that the vista begins to look like the spring ice break-up on the Lake of Nations. When the grifters can’t cash their checks — or move their pixels into the accounts receivable column — they will be immobilized. Of course, if that happens, so will everything else, including your ability to buy anymore frozen pizzas.
Trump, Cruz, Hillary, and Bernie are signs that this poor paralyzed country needs to go through a convulsion to flush out all the toxic idiocy of this historical moment. Trigger warning: it may be the messiest revolution in history when it finally comes, there is so much dross to clear out of the system. Trump and Hillary are like two giant fistulas obstructing the national bowel. Of course, a lot of sentient Americans do not want their nation dying on the toilet like Elvis. The indignity of it! In the name of the founding fathers, please, someone, fetch the enema bag.
Events still lie hidden like bear traps on the path to “Decision 2016” as they like to say on the cable networks. Somewhere in London, Singapore, Shanghai, or New York, a 25-year-old coked-out Forex trader is going to tap the untoward keystroke that brings down a derivatives avalanche… or two brothers of Allah in some Berlin row-house will go forth one bright morning in vests of Semtex… and finally enough will be enough.
Whether you agree with Kunstler or not, he has some of the funniest fucking lines ever. At least three sentences made me laugh out loud.
…and then there’s this.
“The so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution has found its first victims: blue-collar workers and the poor.”
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-wright-robots-jobs-data-mining-20160328-story.html
What are the tsunami of immigrants going to do in the EU and US? Aren’t they largely poor and untrained/uneducated, which tends towards blue-collar employment under the best of circumstances? Can you say social and cultural breakdown, and subsequent mass civil unrest. This is not a joke and it appears to be unstoppable. Collapse is bearing down on the entire globe, but we in the West will feel it’s effects to a much greater degree!
(I’d like to submit a curated article and comment from time to time for posting consideration. Can someone tell me whether it’s possible and who to contact about it? Thank you!)
“Well, there is Bernie, after all. Credit must be given to this lone crusader for at least opposing the avatar of the Deep State…”
I laughed until I cried.
The Establishment seems to be getting somewhat hopeless as well as hysterically frightened.
corvus corax
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“Whether you agree with Kunstler or not, he has some of the funniest fucking lines ever. At least three sentences made me laugh out loud.”
It really was funny and laugh out loud funny!!
Ha! A typo: 2nd paragraph, first sentence…he wrote of rather than if….
Hereafter, one typo/comment shall be excused and attributed to quick wit.
Today’s Kunstler Word: fistula
Even after I looked it up, I still don’t know how it applies to Trump/Hillary
Unskilled , untrained and unemployable immigrants are being sent here to sabotage our election process . To undermine our financial ,educational and social systems. To intentionally
Cause a collapse. No other explanation is needed.
As a computer scientist I have worked on big systems, and big problems.
The bottom line is that no matter how redundant the system, there are small, unknown choke points, and one little deviation from procedures or system error – causes the system to ‘crash’ or produce erroneous results.
This is what is going to happen to the ‘Deep State’. Some small, insignificant, item, will bring it down.
Here’s a good example – Hope you have the 2 minutes to read it:
Early 90’s Master Card had a problem, there were a lot of statements that had the interest doubly aged and compounded. Most people didn’t notice – so MC didn’t know until weeks after the statements were mailed. To add to the problem – this is illegal – to charge more than the stated APR. A Federal Offense.
So how could this happen to a system that had performed flawlessly for years?
Well the MC program is so big, it’s broken in pieces (called job steps) Each step generates internal transactions, that are passed to the next step – in the 90’s this was on 9-track magnetic tape.
One of the job steps failed. When the step was executed a message to the operator said “Do not rerun this step if it ends with errors or has an abnormal end.”
So the job steps blows up. The operator reruns it, and somehow, the output tape is read as input, and the balances get aged, as though you didn’t make a payment for two month. And it runs normally! So they go to the next step, that updates all this account info.
This was a cluster fuck. There was no way to back it out. I believe MC settled with groups of cardholders.
This almost brought them down.
Oh yes, and all true except they apparently don’t use Semtex.
Looks like the group ANONYMOUS is going to torpedo the Cruz ship.
Yes, Kunstler is a great wordsmith, but like all Collectivists he is unable to admit culpability to the consequences of Amerika’s cluster having admittedly voted for Obama, not once, but twice.
Martin Armstrong has some notes of interest to follow Kunstler.
Kunstler is one of the best. He is borderline insane half the time, but I’m always happy when I see one of his articles. Never boring, always acidic. Keep them coming.
“Historians of the future, roasting rat kabobs over their campfires” if that ain’t a fugue of autophagy, I don’t know what is
Kunstler has one thing way wrong, but it’s a trope I keep hearing repeated by many, and that’s that there is a Gender War, with the women supporting Clinton/Sanders and the men, Trump or Cruz.
Bullshit. Women are turning away from the Dems in droves, including many who were ardent supporters previously. Most women don’t and never have had any love for Clinton, and consider her to be a greedy, dishonest, Wall Street-owned influence peddler who will say whatever the crowd she’s pitching to, wants to hear. Bernie, meanwhile, strikes most men AND women as childish and unrealistic.
The major issues with most women, as with most men, is the steady rise in the cost of living and the equally steady loss of jobs to offshore locations. They also do not like the idea of allowing hundreds of thousands of people from an alien culture well-known to be very hostile to women, into the country. The only “women’s issue” most women care about is reproductive rights, and the Donald is well-known not to be a religious nut.
It looks to me, at this point at least, like Trump will carry easily.
Turn off the tube and suspend reality. It’s nausea alright and there is not enough pepto bismo to make any difference whatsoever. It is going to be uglier than ever imagined, keep girding your loins!
The GOP think they are going to pull a rabbit out of their hat during the convention, with Paul Ryan the deep state choice, using some Machiavellian plan to destroy Trump in the media. They will let Cruz and Trump destroy each other, so that a hero can emerge from out of nowhere to save the party.
I know some Hitlery supporters and they’re middle-age and older Women who’ve been beaten up by Male-dominated business. They won’t listen to anything negative about her; blind to all her neocon affiliations, and dumb to the mess she would make if brought to the power of Potus.
So yes indeed, there IS a gender war, but it’s not going to be enough to steal the nomination for her.
Bernie Sanders is our only true hope of fixing this mess. I don’t agree with his stance on immigration, but as for the “redistribution of wealth” meme, how is it that people are okay with stealing from the Middle Class to enrich the 1/10 of 1%? Yes, I’m against welfare for slobs, but what about the subsidies paid to oil companies? Why hasn’t Exxon/Mobil paid any Federal taxes in years? Why is Pfizer being allowed to avoid BILLIONS in taxes held offshore by moving to Ireland? Why are we still holding to the horrendous bill shepherded by Billy Tauzin to prohibit Medicare from negotiating drug prices at a cost to taxpayers of $50 Billion a year? And then Billy Tauzin quits CON-gress to take a job with Phrma at $2 mil a year, taking 14 staffers with him?
Any answers from the peanut gallery would be appreciated.
Westcoaster: The gov’t is owned by corporations. ANYTHING attempted towards wealth redistribution (which is impossible anyways in a system where the very definition of what has worth is completely perverted) will mean wealth taken from us, the productive commoners, and given to their pets, either of the ghetto or corporate variety. Bernie can promise until the cows come home, but it means NOTHING in a captured system. They will simply use him and his plans to further rape us. Legislation written with Exxon in mind will be used to hurt Main Street instead, that is how the game works. You should know that by now. Hope springs eternal, I know, but at some point you have to let past performance guide future expectations. Expecting any sort of reasonable practicality or meaningful reform out of DC is as realistic as expecting a loving long term relationship with Ted Bundy.
What affects us now is a disease. Like any other disease, it has to run its course. It will reach a fever, the fever will reach a crisis, and eventually it will break (or kill us). Health can’t be restored at this time, the patient is already too far gone with the illness. All that remains is to see if recovery is possible or if death is inevitable, and that can’t be determined until a complete crisis is reached.
In other words, we need to crash it to see if we can save it. The only sane thing to do is withdraw as much as possible and try to avoid the fallout.
The machine will keep running. When faced with having to do without the machine, the slave/servant/citizens will sacrifice anything and anyone to keep the machine running. It will be ugly, but the machine will keep running.
There is not going to be a stop in the game, just a change of seats at the poker table. Hillary will oversee a re distribution of the poker chips, and will deal the marked cards in the stacked deck that her masters give her. Paul Ryan will get everyone drinks, and Bernie Sanders will go back to Vermont.
This will last for a surprisingly long time. The machine will keep running, as it is considered to be too big to fail.