Guest Post by Jim Kunstler
Bruce Jenner’s journey to transgender sainthood was interrupted Saturday on the road to Malibu, and with it perhaps the Kardashian Klan’s hopes and dreams for achieving supremacy of the known universe. All of America was twerking at the news because that is what we do and who we are now. The nation’s attention these blizzardy days would have otherwise gone straight from the Super-bowl halftime hallucination to the stupendous narcissistic grandiosity of the Grammy Awards. America becomes, day upon day, one gigantic act of “performance art” geared to shocking a bourgeoisie that has dwindled so deeply that, curiously, there may be absolutely nobody left to shock.
Of course the Kardashians are a mere metaphor for what has happened to this country, and Bruce Jenner is a metaphor for what has happened to American men. Maybe that’s why they persist in the spotlight. It is a well-known fact that motorists on a highway always slow down to see just what happened at the grisly scene of the accident. We can’t take our eyes off these freaks and geeks.
The Romans, on their journey to decadence, lacked the voltage and the wiring to amplify the anomie overtaking them. We’re bathed and bombarded with the images of exactly how disgusting we are. People of WalMart, throw off your chains of debt, indeed! Imagine trying to govern a land of such vicious dolts. Well, here’s a news flash: no one is really trying — whether from a lack of conviction or courage or intelligence, or out of sheer contempt, it is hard to say.
It is heartening, finally, to see Europe attempt to creep away from the intrigues of our Klown Konfederacy at least in the current matter of Ukraine, that poor perpetually over-trodden land of potato-eaters lately torn asunder by America’s idiotic wish to wrest it away from Russia’s 1000-year sphere of influence. Merkel and Hollande stole over to Moscow last week to confab with Mr. Putin. They evidently omitted to inform the haircut-in-search-of-a-brain, Secretary of State John Kerry. Who would want that mule-faced ninny at the table? The Europeans are beginning to say some sane and arresting things, such as: Russia and Europe are part of the same civilization — note the implication that perhaps America is not so much in that club anymore. Perhaps it should be left twerking out on one of its fabulous lost highways until it is all twerked out.
Europe, of course, has its own problems and they are very grave, and they are hard to understand because they derive from a financial system grown so abstruse and impenetrable that the ancient black magic arts look like a game of Go Fish in comparison. At this late stage, they can only pretend to figure out where all the entwined obligations really lead, and what might happen if someone starts to yank on a thread somewhere. The question for the moment therefore is: can they continue to succeed in pretending? A sickening sense of look-out-below spreads through the sentient ranks. This week will be a doozy.
One thing is clearing up: Europe does not want or need to start a war with Russia at America’s insistence. What America needs is a war with itself, a war against the lazy narcissism that has left it susceptible to armies of grifters and racketeers, because ordinary people were too busy twerking and jerking to pay any real attention to the systematic dismemberment of their culture. Waiting in the wings is a whole category of human endeavor quaintly known as virtue, lately absent in the collective consciousness. What a shock it would be if Americans began to witness acts of fortitude and valor among us.
Note: JHK’s 2015 Forecast is available now at this link: Forecast 2015 — Life in the Breakdown Lane
The new World Made By Hand novel
!! Is now available !!
“Kunstler skewers everything from kitsch to greed, prejudice, bloodshed, and brainwashing in this wily, funny, rip-roaring, and profoundly provocative page- turner, leaving no doubt that the prescriptive yet devilishly satiric A World Made by Hand series will continue.” — Booklist
My local indie booksellers… Battenkill Books (Autographed by the Author) … or Northshire Books…
or Amazon…
What were waiting for is Roosevelt, Mousilini, Hitler, Stalin, Peron, etc….
See any similarities?
Wishful thinking on the behalf of libertarians everywhere that too much government was and is the cause and more government is not the solution. And the dolts will see the light.
Best rant in a long time. We know it but they don’t want to hear. There is no hope.
Yes I do think Europe doesn’t want a war with Russia, and may ask America to get out of their sandbox. You do know were the war will be fought don’t you. It is finally dawning on the Europeans that the Ukraine is not in their sphere of influence, and has been in the Russian sphere of influence for a thousand years. It is time that America find something for NATO to do, like disband and stop saber rattling.
” The nation’s attention these blizzardy days would have otherwise gone straight from the Super-bowl halftime hallucination to the stupendous narcissistic grandiosity of the Grammy Awards. America becomes, day upon day, one gigantic act of “performance art” geared to shocking a bourgeoisie that has dwindled so deeply that, curiously, there may be absolutely nobody left to shock”
Here in Minneapolis we spent $700,000,000 on a Twins Stadium (about 4 years ago). Now we are building a $1,200,000,000 Vikings stadium.
The Twins have lost over 90 games – three years in a row. The Vikings – mostly a bunch of thugs / criminals / child beaters.
What happens is the FSA get’s all the entitlement money, so ‘regular’ folks think they’re entitled to sportz.
Yes, a fine rant, and truer words have not been spoken, that —- “there may be absolutely nobody left to shock”.
As recently as just two or three years ago, certain news stories still had the ability to “shock” me. But, now? Nothing, ever. Stories become more disgusting, more infuriating, but never shocking.
“Merkel aligns Germany with Russia, Tells Amerika to go fuck a duck.”. That would be a shock. Albeit, a most pleasant one.
Exactly. There is no hope. Sometimes nature just gives up trying and wipes a few generations of souls out of existence. Coming to a theatre near you.
Not sure what ‘playing star again’ has to do with this post, but that’s what came to mind. Perhaps it’s the sax. It has a noir kind of mood that is applicable to America. The movie Barfly with the former Miss America also comes to mind (or was that movie, Choose Me?)
He used the word twerk too many times, but one of the best posts he’s had in a while.
…”mule-faced ninny”
lmao!!!
JHK does not disappoint.
Journey to transgender sainthood. The guy has got game today.
And dutch, check the payoffs on those stadiums. I ‘d bet it’s triple the numbers they tell you. Ride em, taxpayer
Welshman said: “You do know were the war will be fought don’t you.”
No, where?
Georgia.
Greetings,
I am of the opinion that we are about to witness just how much actual power our military has here in the USSA. Having witnessed the failure of the military to conquer more than 10% of Afghanistan after the longest war in US history, the military leadership must be terribly nervous that the teleprompter reader in chief might actually start WWIII with a nation that neither Napoleon or Hitler could defeat.
Once the batteries all run down on the high tech wizardry, it will come down to infantry slugging it out and I just cant help but wonder how well our soldiers will do when faced with an enemy that can fight back. We have not been in a fight like that in a very long time. I suspect that our generals are not in a hurry to find out and will remove the empty suit or at least try to should this get any more serious. Perhaps that is why all the executive agencies have been given heavy weapons. Ya got to wonder about that.