Belief System-Jim Kunstler-April 28, 2008

[bronxiteforever]

This has been a pretty remarkable month, actually, with all the problems of "The Long Emergency" accelerating impressively. Oil is now testing the $120 mark, the airline industry is imploding (largely over fuel costs), the housing scene has reached a degree of collapse unseen since the 1930s, food shortages have strayed out of the Third World and begun to affect Japan and the USA, bats are dying of a mysterious disease in the Northeast, and the Arctic sea ice is shrinking away to nothing.

We're in a strange collective psychic bubble. We'd like to forget about all these troubling rumors of hardship and bad weather and just get on with the daily task of making a living and paying for stuff and enjoying our customary entertainments. The comforting ceremonies of everyday life seem to continue. The freeways are still full of cars. Nancy Grace comes on TV dependably at 8 p.m. and is there deploring the latest pervert arrest. The baseball season has ramped up and the teams are criss-crossing the nation in their chartered airplanes. The stock market is actually going up -- what's wrong with that?

But there's an equally eerie vibe out there that things are seriously out-of-whack. We're on the edge of something. We're at the entrance of a dark passage where some of the ceremonies of daily life meet resistance. You go to the WalMart and five of your six credit cards are refused. Uh oh. It begins to dawn on you that you're spending a quarter of your take-home pay filling up the gas-tank every week. There's no dial tone when you pick up the telephone. How could all the supermarkets in town be out of rice? The local hospital just declared bankruptcy. The neighbors down the street auctioned off all their furniture in the driveway last week.

rest of article here

http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/

[BeyondGeography]

1. Clusterfuck rules

K&R

[bronxiteforever]

2. It does!

[Mojorabbit]

4. yes it does

he has been sounding the horn for a long time.

[lapfog_1]

3. Yeah, I was just thinking today...

while GDP was imploding over the Wright Stuff(tm)...

who the fuck WANTS to be President, if this is the end of things...

We had 30 years advance notice for all this coming to pass now, and we did nothing.

Don't get me wrong, I want the best hand at the helm of the ship of state, just in case we can steer a course that lets us get through this relatively intact. But what sort of person would WANT the constant 3am calls, knowing that fixing the underlying problem (energy/population) is likely beyond anyone's abilities. That person won't be a popular President. Not when he or she has to explain that we just became a third world nation, not able to afford the lifestyles of our parents, grandparents, and possibly, great-grandparents.

But, of the three, I think Obama would be the best person to be the captain... I only hope that his crew is some of our very best and brightest.

[rdenney]

5. The next president will be likened to another Herbert Hoover, IMO...

even though it was * that ignited the fire in the first place.