[R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Poverty of Imagination

[gregory meyerson]

I don't know.  He is a zionist shitbag.


He's a rank anti communist anti marxist too.


but even these people have some insights.



On Feb 10, 2009, at 12:11 AM, Macdonald Stainsby wrote:

> Kunstler is a rank, dyed in the wool Zionist. Anyone who has shown such
> a paucity of being able to read or comprehend basic facts-- never mind
> humanity-- deserves to never be read again.
>
> This creepy racist shitbag is not worth our time.
>
>
> Bill Totten wrote:
>> Clusterfuck Nation
>>
>> by Jim Kunstler
>>
>> Comment on current events by the author of
>> The Long Emergency (2005)
>>
>> www.kunstler.com (February 09 2009)
>>
>>
>> Venturing out each day into this land of strip malls, freeways, office
>> parks, and McHousing pods, one can't help but be impressed at how
>> America looks the same as it did a few years ago, while seemingly
>> overnight we have become another country. All the old mechanisms that
>> enabled our way of life are broken, especially endless revolving  
>> credit,
>> at every level, from household to business to the banks to the US  
>> Treasury.
>>
>> Peak energy has combined with the diminishing returns of
>> over-investments in complexity to pull the "kill switch" on our  
>> vaunted
>> "way of life" - the set of arrangements that we won't apologize for or
>> negotiate. So, the big question before the nation is: do we try to
>> re-start the whole smoking, creaking hopeless, futureless machine? Or  
>> do
>> we start behaving differently?
>>
>> The attempted re-start of revolving debt consumerism is an exercise in
>> futility. We've reached the limit of being able to create additional
>> debt at any level without causing further damage, additional
>> distortions, and new perversities of economy (and of society, too). We
>> can't raise credit card ceilings for people with no ability make  
>> monthly
>> payments. We can't promote more mortgages for people with no income.  
>> We
>> can't crank up a home-building industry with our massive inventory of
>> unsold, and over-priced houses built in the wrong places. We can't  
>> ramp
>> back up the blue light special shopping fiesta. We can't return to the
>> heyday of Happy Motoring, no matter how many bridges we fix or how  
>> many
>> additional ring highways we build around our already-overblown and
>> over-sprawled metroplexes. Mostly, we can't return to the now-complete
>> "growth" cycle of "economic expansion". We're done with all that.
>> History is done with our doing that, for now.
>>
>> So far - after two weeks in office - the Obama team seems bent on a
>> campaign to sustain the unsustainable at all costs, to attempt to do  
>> all
>> the impossible things listed above. Mr Obama is not the only one, of
>> course, who is invoking the quest for renewed "growth". This is a  
>> tragic
>> error in collective thinking. What we really face is a comprehensive
>> contraction in our activities, especially the scale of our activities,
>> and the pressing need to readjust the systems of everyday life to a
>> level of decreased complexity.
>>
>> For instance, the myth that we can become "energy independent" and yet
>> remain car-dependent is absurd. In terms of liquid fuels, we're simply
>> trapped. We import two-thirds of the oil we use and there is  
>> absolutely
>> no chance that drill-drill-drilling (or any other scheme) will change
>> that. The public and our leaders can not face the reality of this. The
>> great wish for "alternative" liquid fuels (bio fuels, algae excreta)
>> will never be anything more than a wish at the scales required, and  
>> the
>> parallel wish to keep all our cars running by other means - hydrogen
>> fuel cells, electric motors - is equally idle and foolish. We cannot
>> face the mandate of reality, which is to do everything possible to  
>> make
>> our living places walkable, and connect them with public transit. The
>> stimulus bills in congress clearly illustrate our failure to  
>> understand
>> the situation.
>>
>> The attempt to restart "consumerism" will be equally disappointing. It
>> was a manifestation of the short peak energy decades of history, and  
>> now
>> that we're past peak energy, it's over. That seventy percent of the
>> economy is over, especially the part that allowed people to buy stuff
>> with no money. From now on people will have to buy stuff with money  
>> they
>> earn and save, and they will be buying a lot less stuff. For a while,  
>> a
>> lot of stuff will circulate through the yard sales and Craigslist, and
>> some resourceful people will get busy fixing broken stuff that still  
>> has
>> value. But the other infrastructure of shopping is toast, especially  
>> the
>> malls, the strip malls, the real estate investment trusts that own it
>> all, many of the banks that lent money to the REITs, the chain-stores
>> and chain eateries, of course, and, alas, the non-chain mom-and-pop
>> boutiques in these highway-oriented venues.
>>
>> Washington is evidently seized by panic right now. I don't know anyone
>> who works in the White House, but I must suppose that they have  
>> learned
>> in two weeks that these systems are absolutely tanking, that the
>> previous way of life that everybody was so set on not apologizing for
>> has reached the end of the line. We seem to be learning a new and
>> interesting lesson: that even a team that promises change is actually
>> petrified of too much change, especially change that they can't really
>> control.
>>
>> The argument about "change" during the election was sufficiently vague
>> that no one was really challenged to articulate a future that wasn't,
>> materially, more-of-the-same. I suppose the Obama team may have  
>> thought
>> they would only administer it differently than the Bush team - but
>> basically life in the USA would continue being about all those trips  
>> to
>> the mall, and the cubicle jobs to support that, and the family safaris
>> to visit Grandma in Lansing, and the vacations at Sea World, and
>> Skipper's $20,000 college loan, and Dad's yearly junket to Las Vegas,
>> and refinancing the house, and rolling over this loan and that loan  
>> ...
>> and that has all led to a very dead end in a dark place.
>>
>> If this nation wants to survive without an intense political  
>> convulsion,
>> there's a lot we can do, but none of it is being voiced in any corner  
>> of
>> Washington at this time. We have to get off of petro-agriculture and
>> grow our food locally, at a smaller scale, with more people working on
>> it and fewer machines. This is an enormous project, which implies  
>> change
>> in everything from property allocation to farming methods to new  
>> social
>> relations. But if we don't focus on it right away, a lot of Americans
>> will end up starving, and rather soon. We have to rebuild the railroad
>> system in the US, and electrify it, and make it every bit as good as  
>> the
>> system we once had that was the envy of the world. If we don't get
>> started on this right away, we're screwed. We will have tremendous
>> trouble moving people and goods around this continent-sized nation. We
>> have to reactivate our small towns and cities because the metroplexes
>> are going to fail at their current scale of operation. We have to
>> prepare for manufacturing at a much smaller (and local) scale than the
>> scale represented by General Motors.
>>
>> The political theater of the moment in Washington is not focused on  
>> any
>> of this, but on the illusion that we can find new ways of keeping the
>> old ways going. Many observers have noted lately how passive the
>> American public is in the face of their dreadful accelerating losses.
>> It's a tragic mistake to tell them that they can have it all back  
>> again.
>> We'll see a striking illustration of "phase change" as the public mood
>> goes from cow-like incomprehension to grizzly bear-like rage. Not only
>> will they discover the impossibility of getting back to where they  
>> were,
>> but they will see the panicked actions of Washington drive what  
>> remains
>> of our capital resources down a rat hole.
>>
>> A consensus is firming up on each side of the "stimulus" question,
>> largely along party lines - simply those who are for it and those who
>> are against it, mostly by degrees. Nobody in either party - including
>> supposed independents such as Bernie Sanders or John McCain, not to
>> mention President Obama - has a position for directing public  
>> resources
>> and effort at any of the things I mentioned above: future food  
>> security,
>> future travel-and-transport security, or the future security of  
>> livable,
>> walkable dwelling places based on local networks of economic
>> interdependency. This striking poverty of imagination may lead to  
>> change
>> that will tear the nation to pieces.
>>
>> _____
>>
>> My new novel of the post-oil future, World Made By Hand, is available  
>> at
>> all booksellers.
>>
>> http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/2009/02/ 
>> poverty-of-imagination.html
>>
>>
>> TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click
>> on the word "comment" highlighted at the end of the version of this
>> essay posted at http://billtotten.blogspot.com/
>>
>>
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