Guest Post by Jim Kunstler
The wonder is that more Americans are not ticked off about the state of our country than whatever is happening ten thousand miles away. For instance, how come the US Department of Justice is not as avid to prosecute the pervasive racketeering in the US economy as the State Department is for provoking unnecessary wars in foreign lands on the other side of the planet, over matters that have little bearing on life here? This racketeering, by the way, amounts to a war against American citizens.
I’m speaking especially of the US military racket, the banking and finance rackets, the health care racket and the US college loan racket, all of which have evolved insidiously and elegantly to swindle the public in order to support a claque of American oligarchs. In other civilized lands, health care and college are considered the highest priority public goods (i.e. responsibilities of government), and national resources are applied to support them under the theory that bankrupting people for an appendectomy or a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering is not in the public interest. In our land, that would be considered “socialism.” Instead, we “socialize” the costs of supporting Too Big To Fail banks — so their employees can drive Beemers to their Hamptons summer house parties — and a military machine that goes around the world wrecking one country after another to support a parasitical class of contractors, lobbyists, and bought-off politicians in their northern Virginia McMansions.
Hence, the laughable conceit pinging through the news media lately that some dynastic grifter like Jeb Bush or Hillary Clinton will slide into the White House in 2016 as easily as a watermelon seed popped into a shot glass. I don’t think it’s going to work out that way. The US political system needs to be turned upside down and inside out, and I expect that it will be. Either it happens within the bounds of electoral politics, or you’ll see it playing out in the streets and the windswept plains.
Just a glance around the USA these days ought to nauseate the casual observer. We have an infrastructure for everyday life that is failing in every way imaginable. Are you disturbed by the asteroid belts of vacant strip malls outside your town? Or the empty store fronts along your Main Streets? What do you suppose these places will be like in ten years when the mirage of shale oil dissolves in a mist of disappointment and political grievance? How are Americans going to feel, do you suppose, when gasoline just isn’t there at a price they can pay, and they are marooned in delaminating strand-board-and-vinyl houses 23 miles away from anything? Does the sheer immersive ugliness of the human imprint on the American landscape not give you the shivers?
Look at the pathetic and disgusting appearance of our cities, which for the most part look like demolition derby arenas or war zones — except the strongholds of the red-white-and-blue oligarchs: Washington, San Francisco, and especially New York, Financialization Central.
What happens at the “magic moment” when Facebook stops being a narcissistic virtual playground for “selfies” and becomes a bulletin board for political revolution? Think that can’t happen here? And what if that revolution is a kind that doesn’t appeal to you — say, a revolution of race hatred, or fascist zealotry, or Marxist gangsterism of the type that took Russia hostage for 70 years?
All this is happening, incidentally, because the supposed best minds in our nation are paying no attention whatsoever to the most important story of our lifetime: the winding down of the techno-industrial global economy. It doesn’t really matter anymore why they don’t get it. Hubris. Greed. Distraction. Denial. All that matters is that they can’t be depended on and when that happens authority loses legitimacy. And when it comes to that, all bets are off.
The disintegration of Ukraine would be best understood by Americans as a mirror of ourselves and our sclerotic republic, poised to sink into poverty and disorder. Everything we do and say rings hollow now. What used to be called The Establishment has run out of ways to even pretend to save itself. We have no idea what’s next, but it’s not going to be more of what’s been.
The only way to keep us unconcerned about the drain America is slowly going down is to keep us concerned about shit we don’t need to be concerned about.
Turn on Yahoo news this morning, #1 item?
“WASHINGTON, April 20 (UPI) — The White House was forced to respond to calls for the administration to deport Justin Bieber back to Canada, when a “Deport Justin Bieber” petition reached the necessary 100,000 signatures on WhiteHouse.gov last January.”
Really?????
“The US political system needs to be turned upside down and inside out, and I expect that it will be. Either it happens within the bounds of electoral politics, or you’ll see it playing out in the streets and the windswept plains.”
As long as the FSA and the government drones (also free shitters) keep getting theirs, this will never happen.
“What happens at the “magic moment” when Facebook stops being a narcissistic virtual playground for “selfies” and becomes a bulletin board for political revolution?”
This will also never happen, anyone who steps across the line will simply have their account turned off.
Agree that the revolution will not be televised, er, facebooked. The internet and smart phone kill switches will disrupt any initial attempt to organize a resistance. Perhaps FRS radios or marine band VHF radios will end up being tools that will be used, but not the internet because although it seems like the ultimate tool to connect people and share ideas, it relies exclusively on the very same giant corporations who will be part of the other side when the time comes. If I had to guess, I would say there will be some major rioting/looting in several larger cities that will be put down by force and then the rest of the population will just obediently follow along with whatever they are told to do.
Agree with Kunstler that the “The US political system needs to be turned upside down and inside out…”, but I don’t expect that it will be. At least not as part of the 2016 election cycle. The people will still perform their role and elect whomever they are led to elect.
This is guy is a good example of what’s wrong.He knows all this wicked ,evil ,criminal shit is happening but yet he still voted twice for Obama.He moans and bitches about everything wrong with America and then does the same thing all liberals do ,vote for more liberal shit.It’s like these people live in to different realities.
Agree with bb. Kunstler is the type of liberal, progressive jew who has always delighted in mocking and calling for the destruction of anything remotely middle class American. Well, you got your wish Jimmy. It’s all coming apart, the funny money is running out, and the people you despise can’t even afford to buy a new NASCAR t-shirt at Walmart. You should be walking on air. Mission Accomplished. I guess you can always flee Israel when the cities erupt into violence. The rest of us have no place left to go.
Change will never happen. As a software developer, I can tell why, with 99% certainity:
The US system of government / laws is a perfect example of a large / complex / undocumented software system. I once worked on an accounting system that was so large, a listing of the source code was about 6 feet high. Job step, after job step, generated transactions for the next job step. With systems like this, you can’t remove anything, you just keep adding. There’s ton’s of code that maybe never get executed – but you can’t remove them, in fear of breaking something.
The company eventually went bankrupt. It took too many resources to understand the old system, and to design a new system, and as they tried to redesign the system, new rules and laws came into effect – so they never got done – it was outdated before they started.
Not only did we have to produce a new system, we had to convert the old systems data to the new system, and then test. But us consultants got a pretty good rate 🙂
This is where we are with the US Government. There are so many interlocking rules and laws – mostly for buying votes – nobody is willing to sit down and simplify. Further, elimination of a rule may cause other laws/rules to be null and void – a cascade effect. The system is too complex, illogical, corrupt, and fragile to attempt changes.
So all our government (Executive / Legislative) can do is ‘polish the turd’ – and extract fees / taxes – same way us consultants happliy worked for years on a system we knew would never fly.
We will wheez along until this POS (called the US of A) goes down the toilet.
I’m with you, Dutchman. This crap is going to last a while. I know that’s not a popular point of view, because everyone’s sick of the current system and they just want it to hurry up and fail already so we can put in a new system that doesn’t suck.
But consider how long this has lasted already. We won’t wake up in the morning and suddenly gas will be $8.00 a gallon and people will be stranded. It’ll just go up by nickels and dimes, year after year after year, the same way it has been doing for decades already. People’s standard of living will keep going down and down and down, but there won’t be this “collapse” everyone fantasizes about – just a steady decline that never reverses itself, at least not in my lifetime.
The moral, ethical and spiritual collapse of this country has already happened. What founded this country was a better moral, ethical and spiritual philosophy than existed under British rule. The economics was a by-product of a philosophy where people were rewarded for their own hard work, the government supported those who worked and were free to succeed or fail based on their merits and work ethic, thrift, and intelligence.
That’s all gone now, and is reversed. People that work hard are punished, and those that don’t work are rewarded. Our freedom is being reduced daily, and the taxpayer is being increasingly milked and bled to death. All because we are morally, ethically and spiritually bankrupt, as a nation. The economics will follow, the economic collapse is coming, it always follows a collapse in morality, ethics and spirituality. And these values cannot be restored under the present government or political system. We have documents showing us how to start over, the same ones we used to form this country (the Constitution and bill of rights). The blood of patriots will once again have to be spilled to restore and reclaim this nation. There is no other solution.
@AWD: To further add to your opinion…..
At the time of the founding of the US, we had a huge, virgin continent. Unpopulated, with large amounts of natural resources, east and west boarders protected by oceans. Add to that is there was no burden, no overhead – where as Europe had their cities / armies / slums / etc.
The greatest windfall of all was the timing of the industrial revolution: An independent nation, with natural resources, and able bodied workers.
IMO – that’s what made America sucessful. Now we are just another bloated sham of a country. The ‘overhead’ is eating us alive! Can’t do with nuclear aircraft carriers at $10 BN a piece. Can’t do without SNAP, Medicaid, Section 8, school lunches. The list of ‘necessary’ items continues to grow. The list is only addative.
The “Great Reset” -back to the founding documents will never happen.
Dutch
I disagree. Parts of this country could be “walled off”, like the Israelis do, to keep out the mongrel hordes, and declare independence from the Federal government, aka succession, we could do whatever “the people” wished. Right now we’re slaves, debt serfs, indentured subjects of king Obama and the liberal progressive fascists. It hard to imagine not being terrorized by the IRS and forking over half your money. We declared independence for far less in taxes. It’s not a lost cause, but it sure does seem that way. As long as the Federal government and Federal reserve exist, in the present form, we are doomed, quite literally.
I travel to work on the road and I go in and through a lot of the cities which have become nothing but third world shit holes .I can’t believe how fast this is happening to America and I don’t think most of these people do anything but collect welfare.Drive down any main street in any city in America and see for yourself.See young girls who cannot be 20 years old sometimes with 2 or 3 children doing not but hanging out on the street corners with their babies.It maddening to see this shit because I know I’ll be paying taxes for the rest of my life just feed their fucking babies who will probably end up in jail and cost even more money to feed the son of bitches.I have drink 8 beers and just getting started.I am going to get drunk and forget about this shit for awhile.