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Page added on November 12, 2013
Kunstler: The Turning
In these northern climes, this turning into the year’s final quarter feels written in the blood, or at least into the legacy code of culture. The leaves skitter across the streets in an early twilight, chill winds daunt man and dog, the landscape buttons itself up for the long sleep, and human activity moves indoors — including the arduous festivities around the spooky solstice. We take the comfort that we can in all that. But a strange torpor of event attends this year’s turning. In the year’s final happenings, nothing seems to happen, and what little does happen seems not to matter. The world sits with frayed nerves and hears a distant noise, which is the cosmic screw of history turning.
The nation gets over everything without resolving anything — fiscal cliffs, debt ceilings, health care implosions, domestic spying outrages, taper talk jukes, banking turpitudes, the Syria bluster, the Iran nuke deal fake-out. It’s dangerous to live as though there was no such thing as consequence. Societies have a way of reaching a consensus about something without ever stating it outright. The American public has silently agreed to sit on its hands though one more Christmas and after that things shake loose.
What happens, for instance, in the limbo months of ObamaCare ahead, when people either won’t sign in for health insurance, or can’t because of the stupidity of the website design, and the failure of its work-arounds, and the number rises of people falling seriously ill without insurance, and the ludicrously extortionate hospital bills start rolling in and the machinery of bankruptcy and re-po turns the screws on tens of thousands of families — while the insurance company executives spend their 2013 bonus money on Beemers and McMansion additions? There must be some threshold for criticality there, some breaking point that prompts a swindled population to break out its fabled arsenals. Say, somewhere in America a child tragically dies after being hit by a car and three unsuccessful surgeries to try to fix the damage, and thirty days after the funeral, the uninsured dad gets a bill for $416,000? I doubt a society can withstand many insults like that.
Above all, this big nation has failed to reckon the central quandary of our time: the fatal hypertrophy of finance. This ghastly engine of rackets and swindles is the enlarged heart of a dying body politic, and all we know how to do is feed it more monetary Cheez Doodles. This has been going on far longer than the doctors and the witch doctors thought possible, and there is a foolish hope among the credulous that the larger organism of the economy must therefore be immortal. But the reality-based minority stoically awaits the final congestive infarction.
Everything points to 2014 as the moment the pretending stops and things get real. Nobody believes anymore that the Federal Reserve can replace an economy of authentic transactions with promissory notes. There is only one final thing that can happen with the Fed, and that is losing all control over rising interest rates. Janet Yellen is being set up as one of the epic chumps of history, and proof of her academic fecklessness is the mere fact that she accepted the post as Fed chair. She will preside over a fabulous disappearance of wealth in America. The blame for it will be epic, too, but it will not represent any genuine understanding of what happened.
Much is being made of the loneliness of Barack Obama these days. He also occupies a rather tragic niche in history — or the arc of his story at least points that way these days. Right now, it is very hard to tell whether he has been a hostage or a fool. He could have moved to break up the big banks in January of 2009, and any time since then he could have sent a memo to the Department of Justice instructing the prosecutions of financial crime to begin in earnest (or replaced the Attorney General). Didn’t happen. Was he being blackmailed by the likes of Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein, or did he just not know what was at stake?
The history of Barack Obama will be one long record of omissions to act, not just overt failures. He is the Bartleby the Scrivener of our politics. He “prefers not to….” Hence, the powerful lure of the charismatic figure who is sure to act. Adolf Hitler was very clear about his proposed program in the early 1920s, a decade before he came to power. He spelled it out unmistakably in his speeches and his political testament, Mein Kampf: do away with pain-in-the-ass democracy and destroy the Jews. He couldn’t have put it more plainly. The residual admiration for Hitler among the extreme right-wingers of today derives mainly from the simple fact that the man actually did what he said he would do. You can’t overstate the potential hunger for that sort of thing. The current climate of US politics being Weimar-on-steroids, I’m sure that an American corn-pone Hitler would have huge appeal for a beaten-down citizenry.
The means for such a coup of the zeitgeist are rather frightful now: drone aircraft, computer surveillance, militarized police, a puppet press. It makes thoughtful folks queasy. My bet, though, is that a fascist takeover of the US would end up being as inept and ineffectual as ObamaCare. It is one of the great hidden blessings of our time, actually, that anything organized on the massive scale is doomed to failure. But it is likewise the great mission of our time to prepare to get local and smaller, something we’re not really ready for and certainly not interested in. The intertwining of these dynamics will be the story in the year to come.
21 Comments on "Kunstler: The Turning"
BillT on Tue, 12th Nov 2013 4:52 am
“…
“We need help!” is the sad handwritten sign hanging outside a shuttered church in the _________ town of _________ surrounded by uncollected corpses and canyons of debris. Demand for relief is huge … as “people are roaming around the city, looking for food and water. People are angry. They are going out of their minds … there might be a stampede, … there is nothing left to loot… even if you have money there is no food to buy. There is nothing here.”
When the collapse comes, you can fill in the name of your town and country. This is the Philippines today and the town is Tacloban. There is aid, butt the services have been over whelmed by the numbers. Had this storm hit New Orleans instead of Katrina, this would be the US today.
RICHARD RALPH ROEHL on Tue, 12th Nov 2013 6:52 am
Alas! To sadly sigh and reluctantly remark:
I call upon the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon to send 25-50 thousand heavily armed Marines to $ewertown (Washington D.C.) and arrest the entire civilian apparatus in all three corp-rat owned branches of the government… including all the K-$treet lobbyists… and all the $ociopathic boobs in the Federal Zionist Reserve Banking $ystem. Put them in camps to await trial and execution.
The time has come for the military to step in and rescue the Amerikan people from the corp-rat $ociopaths and their enforcement bureaucracies… and also assist the Department of the Treasury to recapture control of the U.S currency from the banksters.
It will take 5-10 years of military rule to reinstitute a revised Constitution. Enough is enough! And… I am not the only one seriously thinking this.
Norm on Tue, 12th Nov 2013 6:58 am
i like when he writes about Cheez Doodles. Hey run the cars on them. We have no shortage of cheese flavored snacks.
Arthur on Tue, 12th Nov 2013 9:12 am
“But it is likewise the great mission of our time to prepare to get local and smaller”
Hear, hear.
J-Gav on Tue, 12th Nov 2013 9:22 am
RRR – Be careful what you wish for – you might get it.
BillT – And that’s just Tacloban. There must be other places equally devastated that we, at least here in the West, know nothing about yet. The horror!
stilgar wilcox on Tue, 12th Nov 2013 9:35 am
Yes, cheese has found it’s way into as many products as probably conceivable, including the part people hold when they eat a pizza. They even have an ad where some guy picks up a slice of pizza, turns it 180 and starts eating the cheese filled doughy border.
There should be a warning sign on products with cheese that reads:
“This product is heavily laden with cultured milk products that have a high percentage of saturated fat, that will damage your artery walls (the endophelum), attaching placque, reducing it’s flexibility, increasing blood pressure and building up over time causing heart disease and strokes.”
Your Dr. will never inform you of this information, i.e. about diet. I know because my wife had a stroke and a Cardiologist wanted to put her under, meaning out cold, and when inspecting her arteries with a cathoter he would make the decision as to how many stents to put in and or a pace maker, and she would find out what he did when she awoke. She was 58 at the time. She researched it on the net and went vegan (and so did I as a preventative measure). Two years later the reduction in blood flow is gone, her blood pressure is better than normal and she no longer has chest pains. No more strokes or medication. We just went kayaking today and watched dolphins in the wild on the big island of Hawaii. A victory for ‘The People’.
Take back your power. Don’t let them take your money and stick stuff in you, before you just change your diet. The body heals very fast if given the right food.
J-Gav on Tue, 12th Nov 2013 10:12 am
Although I share the same creepy feeling Kunstler talks about, I’d hesitate to put a date on it. Kunstler says 2014. Thom Hartmann, for example, has just come out with a book called “The Collapse of 2016.” Who’s right? I don’t know. It’s probably not very far off though.
Arthur on Tue, 12th Nov 2013 10:47 am
@Philippines – it is noteworthy that due to the isolated location of the many islands there is only vague ideas of how bad it really is. And since the grid broke down, we do not even get smart phone pictures, let alone videos posted on the internet. Many ferries just sunk or were thrown on the beaches. Only sporadic western planes make it to isolated places, provided they can land, giving priority to aid workers over journalists. Unfortunately it could very well happen that a lot of additional people will perish in the aftermath of the catastrophe due lack of healthcare, interrupted food supply, looting, killing, even cannibalism.
mike on Tue, 12th Nov 2013 11:20 am
The collapse has been ongoing since the early 2000s , there is no date off in the distance where the “Collapse” will happen, it is happening, very slowly and right before your eyes. Only when you awaken yourself to this slow insidious thought can you start to work towards negating it.
Cloud9 on Tue, 12th Nov 2013 12:27 pm
Kunstler hates conservatives and Crackers so he would immediately assume that the furer will come from the right. He could just as easily come from the left. The real truth is there is no solution. A money system and a political system built on the premise of exponential growth inevitably collapses. We have been in collapse since the early seventies. The real miracle is the fact that the charade has worked so remarkably well for so long. The moon was our Hadrian ’s Wall.
I think that success is driven by our collective hope that it will work out. For many unfortunately hope will prevent them from assessing their true circumstance. I suspect that some poor souls did not lose hope until the moment the door slammed and the gas pellets dropped.
While we may all yearn for a father figure or mother figure that can fix this, all we are going to get is another artisan of platitudes that can fix nothing. We are not beginning this. We are ending this. We are in the final stages of collapse.
mike on Tue, 12th Nov 2013 12:44 pm
The new furher is actually more likely to come from the crazy free shit armies of the left than the gun toting god fearing nut jobs of the right mainly because everyone is expecting it to come from the right. The left and right are both utterly terrifying in their own ways. The right because they have Guns and God and think they are the good guys, the left because they think distribution of wealth and atheism are good ideas and that they are actually the enlightened good guys.
dsula on Tue, 12th Nov 2013 1:31 pm
“”everything points to 2014″” Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Kunstler. Each year it’s the next year for sure, since 1990. Hahahaha.
Arthur on Tue, 12th Nov 2013 1:39 pm
A broken clock is right twice a day.
J-Gav on Tue, 12th Nov 2013 1:59 pm
Clarification on my previous post above: When I say ‘It’ referring to collapse, that comes from a general view of it which is close to what Mike said in his comment on the subject. So, what I’m talking about is not ‘the end of civilization’ on some specific date (though Kunstler and Orlov may believe something more along those lines), but rather the next ‘big jolt’ in an ongoing decline. After each stepwise drop, we could well resettle for a time (at a lower standard of living), then the next jolt will bring us down another notch. In other words, I don’t think it will be either a smooth, even decline nor a precipitous off-the-cliff collapse of everything. More like a jagged demise with some jolts being nastier than others.
Arthur on Tue, 12th Nov 2013 2:10 pm
The word ‘collapse’ is (over)used in a dramatic sense. It suggests a terminal state after which there is no recovery possible. Basically like death. What is coming is a collapse/death of modernity, initiated by a collapse of the global financial system as constructed in Bretton Woods after WW2. And with it a collapse of globalism and globalist ideals. But we are not going to witness an end to history. Instead the geopolitical cards are going to be dealt anew. And the world is going to be very big again.
action on Tue, 12th Nov 2013 2:44 pm
If we generally assume that petro-society began in 1900, and that it peaked, again generally, in 2000, then this will all be over before 2100, with great possibility of it happening well before 2100 due to supply and growth requirements, and the quick nature of collapse versus build up. There’s no way we’ll double what we’ve constructed up to this point, and that includes population as well.
Indeed, so many have already been through terrible collapse, from the holocaust, to famine and war, to natural disasters like Katrina and Haiyan currently.
What gives me peace is belief in a higher, completely non-worldly purpose, and surrendering completely to death with genuine love for it’s release. I sold my guns and weapons and I don’t worry about others doing harm to me, for if they kill me, then they set me free. Being completely non-violent is the way to true freedom, and when death is seen as your friend, then there is truly nothing to fear.
To all the people offended by this mindset, who ask then why not commit suicide, my answer is this – because it would hurt the feelings of those who love you. And if the urge to commit suicide is overwhelming, then I say there’s no harm in doing it, go into death without worry and be at peace.
gordianus on Tue, 12th Nov 2013 6:17 pm
Kunstler seems rather frustrated that nothing much has happened yet. Maybe he should find something else to occupy his time until it does.
He tells us “The nation gets over everything without resolving anything”. That’s right, and it will probably carry on doing so again and again until it breaks. Who knows when … maybe 2014, maybe 2034.
BTW, hasn’t this guy been on the internet long enough to know that when you invoke Hitler, you automatically lose the argument 🙂
J-Gav on Tue, 12th Nov 2013 6:20 pm
Wow, Action, looks like you’ve undergone some major changes in your mindset and cosmic outlook. I ain’t gonna argue with that … Just stay away from charlatan gurus and peddlers of any kind of dogma.
Even some sharp minds with reputations of being “ultra-rationalist,” like Sam Harris, recognize the potential of personal spiritual experiences – as long as it’s not based on any specific religious/institutional underpinnings. Just a better understanding inside your head of who you are. That said, belief in “a higher, non-worldly purpose” seems a little vague to me (perhaps ‘intelligent design’ inspired?), but this is clearly not the place to get involved in that discussion.
Northwest Resident on Tue, 12th Nov 2013 7:47 pm
Whether the collapse happens in 2014 or 2034 or any time in-between, if you’re smart, you’re preparing for 2014. If you’re driving an old jalopy with cheap thread-bare retreads at 100 mph down a potted road, you know you’re going to suffer catastrophic failure at anytime, and you better be ready. Who seriously believes that we can continue pumping a trillion dollars per year into the economy for another twenty years without the whole system exploding? And yes, we have lots of oil and coal — huge volumes of dirty, filthy, polluting energy — but if we keep burning through it for another twenty years, the human race will be committing suicide. Let’s keep tabs on this Christmas shopping season. If Christmas sales are far below par — and there is a very good chance of that — armies of retailers will go belly-up, bankruptcies will skyrocket, employees will lose their jobs. If that happens, 2014 looks about right. Maybe it will be 2015 or later — but you better be ready for 2014.
action on Wed, 13th Nov 2013 12:04 am
I meant it to be vague, it’s a mindset, not a religion. Much of our current predicament involves faith and obsession with things that over and over again make things worse. Take oil for instance, or not getting past wanting to have babies. And in the end is all this that we’ve created any better or more meaningful than say someone 50,000 years ago who lived in a makeshift hut? There’s a lot of pride and intelligence, and not enough wisdom. Same mistakes generation after generation.
action on Wed, 13th Nov 2013 12:20 am
And I am the guru, if you haven’t noticed : )