Kunstler: We're Weimar

[Karmadillo]

http://kunstler.com/blog/2010/02/were-weimar.html#more

We're Weimar
By James Howard Kunstler
on February 8, 2010 6:35 AM

Future historians who try to chart the unraveling of the USA's political tapestry might point to two events of the past week. The obvious first one was the Tea Party convention at Nashville. It was held not accidentally at the ridiculous Opryland Hotel and resort in the city's outer suburban asteroid belt, right next to the circumferential freeway, and next door to the defunct (1997) Opryland USA theme park, an attraction based on the cute idea that Tennessee rubes were too dumb to spell the word opera -- so the symbolism was perfect.

Behind the incoherent cargo of conflicting complaints that makes up Tea Party doctrine -- like "keeping the government's hands off our medicare!" -- stands the more basic dissolution of the Sunbelt's miracle economy, along with the pain and bewilderment of the southern peckerwood political nexus that rose out of the dust after World War Two to build the suburban nirvana of universal air-conditioning, happy motoring, Jesus tub-thumping, over-eating, and Friday night football that defined Sunbelt culture. They sense now that history is about to thrust them back into the okra patch, with the hookworms and the chiggers, as the economy whirls down the drain, and the car dealerships close up, and the idle production homebuilders succumb to methedrine addiction, and the price of Reba McEntire tickets exceeds their dwindling resources, and they are none too happy about any of that.

Of course this Sunbelt political culture has tentacles and outposts all over the USA, wherever a few generations of laboring folk enjoyed debt-fueled parabolic rises in living standards during the cheap oil decades, and now find themselves in foreclosure hell, indentured to the very WalMarts that they welcomed with open arms (and allowed to destroy their local businesses) -- and, of course, it's yet another paradox that these are the same folk who will still defend the big box masters to their deaths. The America they stand for is a weird contradictory mish-mash of Confederate nostalgia, hyper-individualism that really owes allegiance to nothing, racial enmity, religious paranoia, and potemkin patriotism -- especially involving anything in the constitution that allows them to wriggle out of obligations to the public interest at the same time that they get to push other groups of people around.

The Tea Party people are the corn-pone Nazis I have been warning you about. They are gathering strength in numbers as President Obama and congress fritter away their remaining legitimacy in a manner of governance that more and more resembles an endless Chinese Fire Drill. The delusional craziness of the Tea Partyists exists in direct proportion to the wimpy deceit of the government, especially in matters of money and statistics reporting. Our political leaders are resorting to wholesale deceit because the truth of our situation -- comprehensive bankruptcy -- is too painful to dwell on and for the most part they are too chicken too state it.

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[enid602]

1. funny

Very humorous, but a bit elitist.

[Zoeisright]

3. Did you forget the sarcasm tag?

Talking about how stupid some stupid people are is hardly elitist. It's just pointing out the facts: that teabaggers are a bunch of incoherent bigots who have no idea what they are talking about.

[Robb]

4. It's actually quite offensive.

I'm not from the South myself, but I don't think I'd care for "corn pone" and the other slams in there were I from Tennessee.

[Fumesucker]

8. I'm from and still live further south than Tennessee..

I don't find it at all offensive, indeed I thought it was hilarious.

Potemkin patriotism is particularly apt for a group that waves the flag like no one else and yet still wants to secede..

[CBGLuthier]

2. The Grand Ole Opry is where the name Opryland comes from

Kind of makes him look stupid criticizing the name of the place. Otherwise I can agree with him but really, has the man never heard of The Grand Ole Opry?

[Hassin Bin Sober]

6. It's still misspelled in the original..

:shrug:

[CBGLuthier]

13. No, it is not misspelled.

It is a play on words, not a misspelling.

[Kolesar]

16. How is Opry a play on words?

Note that there were "opera houses" in towns in Ohio and Pennsylvania. I think the venue was "a big opera house".

[Hassin Bin Sober]

17. It's a play on hick vernacular - which was his point.

[Lance_Boyle]

7. And the Opry got its name from... the inside joke that folks in TN

were ignorant rubes who couldn't spell "opera."

What's the beef?

[CBGLuthier]

11. he said the attraction got its name from that

The attraction Opryland got its name from The Grand Ole Opry. He sounds like a condescending ass is what is wrong with that. No one has ever claimed that Tennesseans can not spell Opera. He is projecting his own elitist ideas on something he knows shit all about.

[Lance_Boyle]

21. Do you know how the Opry got its name? n/t

[A HERETIC I AM]

12. Considering that James Howard Kunstler majored in Theater in college, one would think he knew that..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Howard_Kunstler#Background

The guy is a moron, but he is held in high esteem by many DU'rs.

In my opinion, nothing this idiot writes is worth reading, much less taking seriously.

[Dreamer Tatum]

5. So an event attended by fewer than 1000 yahoos signals an unraveling?

Um, yeah.

:eyes:

[dmallind]

9. That's actually one of the more rational of Kunstler's fantasies. NT

[JackRiddler]

20. Hitler was member No. 7 of the NSDAP.

The Bolsheviks started out as about 15 out of a meeting of 27 Russian Social Democrats.

Of course, the teabaggers' relatively greater size (still a small minority of the population) is not in itself an indicator that they are a threat to seize control of the state and start detaining their designated enemies and traitors. But they do see everyone who isn't with them as traitors, and they accept in principle that any means of dealing with traitors may be necessary and acceptable.

More importantly for the moment, every fart they release is being blasted everywhere. Even when treated critically, they are being given legitimacy as the current political opposition by the machinery of the corporate media (with Murdoch's "Attack on America" providing unlimited direct financing). Their popularity may have peaked for now, but their extremism has only begun to find expression.

Listen to Palin barking about the ignominy of having a constitutional lawyer in the White House, instead of a "commander in chief" with the will to wage (more) war. She's playing John the Baptist for a modern American nazi movement. (I am not among those who fear she will run for president, but rather that she and her cohorts will find the right Man on Horseback to rally behind.)

There's nothing inevitable about history, but to say the fire is currently limited is a rather short-sighted response.

[nimvg]

10. I Can Assure You...

...that making fun of southerners is NOT the way to political success. Our political center of gravity was in the south and midwest before the rise of Obama and everything we're seeing indicates it's going back there.

I wonder what the Clintons are thinking right now.

[sufrommich]

14. Stupid commentary. I expect the right to use degrading

stereotypes, not the left.

[dixiegrrrrl]

15. "corn-pone Nazis"

He does turn a phrase.

[MilesColtrane]

18. pretty fucking weak

According to Kunstler, the end of the world should have happened ten years ago.

[Peace Patriot]

19. He misses the point that the "tea baggers" are maybe 2% of the population,

but given a BIG TRUMPET by the corpo-fascist media, way, way out of proportion to their numbers. We would better spend our time busting the 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines, basically run by ONE GUY, the initial funder and major investor in ES&S, which just bought out Diebold thus gaining a 70% monopoly of these highly riggable voting systems spread like a plague across the land during the 2002 to 2004 period--name of Howard Ahmanson, reclusive, far, far, rightwing billionaire, who also gave one million dollars to the extremist 'christian' Chalcedon foundation, which touts the death penalty for homosexuals.

THAT'S something to worry about--not a media phantasm like the "tea baggers."

He has a point about the Weimar--the progressive center-left government that fell apart under Hitler's onslought--the Reichstag fire, internal "divide and conquer," brownshirts stuffing ballot boxes and beating up voters, masterful propaganda and a decimated economy.

I've worried about that one, myself--parallels to Germany, early 1930s.

I'd say Weimar/Hitler could well be the plan of evildoers like Ahmanson & brethren. Bear in mind that a "plan" is one thing; reality is another. I think the "tea bagger" crapola may be part of the 'narrative' they will use (are using)--as they have used other false narratives--to maintain the form of democracy while the great majority are out-'voted' and rendered powerless and furthermore depressed. It would be way more difficult to nazify this vast, multi-cultural country, with its strong democratic traditions, than Germany 1930s, so more attention has to be paid to creating illusions. The "tea baggers" fit that description--the illusion of a peoples' movement, the illusion of a promise of change, but in truth just a tiny group whose complaints and aspirations mean absolutely nothing to those who are touting them. They could be used as part of a larger false narrative with ES&S rigging enough voting systems to put Sarah Palin in the White House (another dumbass puppet, like Junior). Half the voting systems in the country have no audit/recount controls AT ALL. The other half are also riggable, cuz they don't count 99% of the ballots against the machine totals. (1% audit is miserably inadequate.) Overall, the system is easily--EASILY!--riggable. And it just got worse--much worse--with ES&S/Ahmanson's buyout of Diebold.

Depression economy. Hardship, fear. The center-left fumbling around. Narrative of its failure. Banksters and war profiteers lurking over all, with their vulture talons. Civil unrest. Then, boom, a rigged election, with the new government inheriting draconian powers of repression.

Could be the plan. Will it work? Hard to say. But the answer is not to worry about the 'tea baggers' and give them yet more cache in blogs. The answer is to organize the real grass roots, and, priority no. 1 should be to get rid of these voting machines and restore vote counting that everyone can see and understand. We have far less chance of defeating such plots if we can't, and don't, verify the vote--and we have no chance at meaningful reform until we do.

It's still possible. Power over voting systems still resides at the state/local level, where ordinary people still have potential influence. The election reform movement just lost the fight in New York--the last holdout. Not good. But this is a long term battle that the people of this country MUST win, or our democracy is truly over.