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Page added on March 3, 2014
Kunstler: Let’s You and Him Fight
So, now we are threatening to start World War Three because Russia is trying to control the chaos in a failed state on its border — a state that our own government spooks provoked into failure? The last time I checked, there was a list of countries that the USA had sent troops, armed ships, and aircraft into recently, and for reasons similar to Russia’s in Crimea: the former Yugoslavia, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, none of them even anywhere close to American soil. I don’t remember Russia threatening confrontations with the USA over these adventures.
The phones at the White House and the congressional offices ought to be ringing off the hook with angry US citizens objecting to the posturing of our elected officials. There ought to be crowds with bobbing placards in Farragut Square reminding the occupant of 1400 Pennsylvania Avenue how ridiculous this makes us look.
The saber-rattlers at The New York Times were sounding like the promoters of a World Wrestling Federation stunt Monday morning when they said in a Page One story:
“The Russian occupation of Crimea has challenged Mr. Obama as has no other international crisis, and at its heart, the advice seemed to pose the same question: Is Mr. Obama tough enough to take on the former K.G.B. colonel in the Kremlin?”
Are they out of their chicken-hawk minds over there? It sounds like a ploy out of the old Eric Berne playbook: Let’s You and Him Fight. What the USA and its European factotums ought to do is mind their own business and stop issuing idle threats. They set the scene for the Ukrainian melt-down by trying to tilt the government their way, financing a pro-Euroland revolt, only to see their sponsored proxy dissidents give way to a claque of armed neo-Nazis, whose first official act was to outlaw the use of the Russian language in a country with millions of long-established Russian-speakers. This is apart, of course, from the fact Ukraine had been until very recently a province of Russia’s former Soviet empire.
Secretary of State John Kerry — a haircut in search of a brain — is winging to Kiev tomorrow to pretend that the USA has a direct interest in what happens there. Since US behavior is so patently hypocritical, it raises the pretty basic question: what are our motives? I don’t think they amount to anything more than international grandstanding — based on the delusion that we have the power and the right to control everything on the planet, which is based, in turn, on our current mood of extreme insecurity as our own ongoing spate of bad choices sets the table for a banquet of consequences.
America can’t even manage its own affairs. We ignore our own gathering energy crisis, telling ourselves the fairy tale that shale oil will allow us to keep driving to WalMart forever. We paper over all of our financial degeneracy and wink at financial criminals. Our infrastructure is falling apart. We’re constructing an edifice of surveillance and social control that would make the late Dr. Joseph Goebbels turn green in his grave with envy while we squander our dwindling political capital on stupid gender confusion battles.
The Russians, on the other hand, have every right to protect their interests along their own border, to protect the persons and property of Russian-speaking Ukrainians who, not long ago, were citizens of a greater Russia, to discourage neo-Nazi activity in their back-yard, and most of all to try to stabilize a region that has little history and experience with independence. They also have to contend with the bankruptcy of Ukraine, which may be the principal cause of its current crack-up. Ukraine is deep in hock to Russia, but also to a network of Western banks, and it remains to be seen whether the failure of these linked obligations will lead to contagion throughout the global financial system. It only takes one additional falling snowflake to push a snow-field into criticality.
Welcome to the era of failed states. We’ve already seen plenty of action around the world and we’re going to see more as resource and capital scarcities drive down standards of living and lower the trust horizon. The world is not going in the direction that Tom Friedman and the globalists thought. Anything organized at the giant scale is now in trouble, nation-states in particular. The USA is not immune to this trend, whatever we imagine about ourselves for now.
26 Comments on "Kunstler: Let’s You and Him Fight"
Northwest Resident on Mon, 3rd Mar 2014 9:23 pm
Why the Periphery Is Crumbling: The Spoils System Is Cracking
The vast majority of surpluses outside oil exporting nations have been generated by three factors: cheap energy, rising productivity and the expansion of credit. If we examine periods of rapid expansion and generalized prosperity, we find these three factors were active: cheap energy, rising productivity and ample credit.
Just look at Europe and the U.S. in the 1950s and 60s, Japan in the 1960s and 70s, and China in the 1980s and 90s for examples.
Any reversal in these factors reduces surplus and the spoils being distributed. Sharply higher energy costs crimp profits and cause recessions, stagnating productivity leads to near-zero growth and institutional/state sclerosis and credit contraction leads to recession and the destruction of malinvestments.
Why is the periphery crumbling? It’s simple: the conditions that enabled rising national surpluses and the distribution of spoils is breaking down for three reasons:
1. Energy is no longer cheap (compared to past prices)
2. The low-hanging fruit of higher productivity has all been plucked
3. The free-money flood of cheap, limitless credit is drying up
http://www.oftwominds.com/blogfeb14/spoils2-14.html
James on Mon, 3rd Mar 2014 9:47 pm
As the war accelerates between the Ukraine and Russia, the cost of gasoline will skyrocket if Europe and the U.S. get involved. They will need the fuel to power their war machines. Russia on the other hand has her own petroleum sources which she owns outright or can be nationalized. Europe has no real sources of petroleum, the U.S. says it is a major exporter now that they can frack their way into having surpluses. The fuel from fracking won’t be able to provide the necessary energy needs of a military engaged in a long drawn out war, and satisfy the needs of its citizenry.
Davy, Hermann, MO on Mon, 3rd Mar 2014 10:00 pm
Kunstler hit the nail on the head with the idiocy of the US in picking a fight with Russia in the Ukraine. I am not talking a real war but an economic war. That is just what our fragile global economy needs at the moment. I think O’dumba is pissed about Syria and multiple other Russian interference in the past. If he was smart he would sit back and watch the Russian python try to swallow parts of the Ukraine. It may be more than the Russians can stomach with all their other far flung obligations and embroilments. There are limits to what any nation can take on. Russian rightly has a reason to be there but it will be a big price to pay when all is said and done.
Plantagenet on Mon, 3rd Mar 2014 10:33 pm
Putin has served up a dish of chicken Kiev for Obama, and Obama should just be gracious and admit that he has been outfoxed by Putin once again.
Davy, Hermann, MO on Mon, 3rd Mar 2014 10:42 pm
Plantagenet. I think it is more like they both screwed themselves. I see no winners here at all in this event. Foxes have a poor tendency to get caught in traps. O’dumba looks plain impotent.
Northwest Resident on Mon, 3rd Mar 2014 10:58 pm
Putin is doing exactly what Obama, European leaders and basically everybody except the neocon agitators want Putin to do — crack down on Ukraine trouble-makers, do it with minimal bloodshed, pay lip-service to human rights and national rights of self-determination — but above all, just get the situation under control.
But don’t forget, Ukraine is just another example of the periphery cracking due to lack of “spoils” to distribute. In Ukraine, with pensions and subsidies and all kinds of government help, life was tolerable for a long time. These days, Russia and Ukraine can’t afford to keep those subsidies (spoils) flowing. The same situation is playing out in Egypt, Syria, Venezuela and soon in many other places too. There just isn’t enough surplus to hand out loaves of bread to the peasants anymore, and not even enough to keep the mid-level henchmen bought off in many cases. In other words, the edges are crumbling, and the cracks we see forming at the center is where those crumbling edges will be soon enough.
J-Gav on Mon, 3rd Mar 2014 11:45 pm
Vintage Kunstler here. Obviously, if Colombia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, etc are in the ‘American sphere of influence,’ Ukraine is even more certainly in the Russian sphere. It’s only because Khrushchev stupidly turned Crimea over to the Ukraine Republic (i.e. out of the Russian Republic)in 1954, that we find things where they are today. He was of course of Ukrainian origin. Just as Stalin, a Georgian, had stupidly set the precedent over there.
Whatever the background, re-playing cold war politics at this point in history makes U.S. foreign policy look not only idiotic but dangerous.
Arthur on Tue, 4th Mar 2014 12:14 am
So, now we are threatening to start World War Three because Russia is trying to control the chaos in a failed state on its border — a state that our own government spooks provoked into failure? The last time I checked, there was a list of countries that the USA had sent troops, armed ships, and aircraft into recently, and for reasons similar to Russia’s in Crimea: the former Yugoslavia, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, none of them even anywhere close to American soil. I don’t remember Russia threatening confrontations with the USA over these adventures… What the USA and its European factotums ought to do is mind their own business and stop issuing idle threats.
Kudos for Kunstler, 100% correct.
Secretary of State John Kerry — a haircut in search of a brain
lol.Good characterization of the hulk.
The Russians, on the other hand, have every right to protect their interests along their own border, to protect the persons and property of Russian-speaking Ukrainians who… The world is not going in the direction that Tom Friedman and the globalists thought.
Did you hear that, Nony?
Davy, Hermann, MO on Tue, 4th Mar 2014 12:15 am
Yea Gav, curious to see a circle fit into a square hole. That is what a cold war event is in the new normal of our interconnected global world. These days a cold war style event is just plain bad for business for everyone at minimum at maximum it is a tipping point into a correction/contraction and or collapse.
rollin on Tue, 4th Mar 2014 12:54 am
I just came to an amazing conclusion.
Kunstler is one of the old guys from the Muppet show. I wonder where the other one ended up.
Makati1 on Tue, 4th Mar 2014 1:03 am
The world we knew is crumbling faster and faster. Russia is not going to let NATO/US get any closer to their borders,even if they have to turn the Ukraine into slag. Not likely that will be needed as the Ukraine is being destroyed by the banksters any way they turn and Russia will be the ‘savior’. Or at least the savior of the Eastern part and the Crimea. Europe can have the destitute Western section as it too will be just one more beggar at the German taxpayer’s door.
Yep, this could be the year it all happens. Russian spy ships in Cuba’s harbor. China flexing their yuan depreciation muscle, Japan floundering along with the EU to keep their banks open and their citizens from rioting. Food prices skyrocketing around the world as Mother Nature removes large swaths of farmland from production due to erratic weather and changing climate. We live in interesting times.
paulo1 on Tue, 4th Mar 2014 3:00 am
And why did US invade Grenada? Russia in the Crimea I can see, but Grenada? Afghanistan? Iraq? The installation of dictators and their subsequent support? Go pound sand, Obama. It’s all you’re good for. I can hardly wait for his next speech where he sticks his jaw and chin out and then says, “make no mistake, blah blah blah”.
Paulo
Papasmurf on Tue, 4th Mar 2014 10:38 am
Since when is the architecture critic qualified to weigh in on global events?
bobinget on Tue, 4th Mar 2014 2:43 pm
Twenty four hours later and Americans are ready to go back to more serious matters like same sex basketball.
When FOX has only appetite for bashing the president and calling Putin a ‘great, forceful and decisive leader
I knew the US would never get closer than harsh language directed at Russia.
Reminder, when GW Bush was president Russia, also under Putin, invaded Georgia. Bush did what he could but still received plenty of criticism for not ‘doing more’. (no one ever stipulates what more is)
Does the ‘Glass House Rule’ apply here? After all the US invaded Iraq for no better reason than to bump off
Saddam and bring democracy (and increased oil production to Iraq) I say “Mission Accomplished”.
action on Tue, 4th Mar 2014 3:02 pm
@Davy
A circle does fit in a square hole
Davy, Hermann, MO on Tue, 4th Mar 2014 3:07 pm
Yea Bobinget, won’t be long and Putin will make a visit to somewhere in Crimea bristling with Russian equipment and soldiers and say “missiya vypolnena”, much like Dubya, with a loud cheer from the troops. Then the soldiers will return to their posts for a round of vodka and song!
Davy, Hermann, MO on Tue, 4th Mar 2014 3:13 pm
OK Action, yeap, I was talking out of my ass as usual I meant the square in a circle hole.
Stilgar Wilcox on Tue, 4th Mar 2014 3:35 pm
Just a few days ago the idea of reducing defense spending was floated, and now at the first inkling of trouble somewhere else in the world a war of words begins.
If the US cannot restrain itself from acting like the righteous beholder of what is right and wrong, and with that attitude, the implicit right to invade or interfere with other countries while passing judgment on other super powers that play the same game, then defense budgets will need to be kept at current or higher amounts.
Arthur on Tue, 4th Mar 2014 9:57 pm
Kunstler says: The last time I checked, there was a list of countries that the USA had sent troops, armed ships, and aircraft into recently, and for reasons similar to Russia’s in Crimea: the former Yugoslavia, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, none of them even anywhere close to American soil.
http://tinyurl.com/lhsfod6
RICHARD RALPH ROEHL on Wed, 5th Mar 2014 2:42 pm
Amerikan foreign policy is delusional, violent and criminally insane. In fact… the United States of Perpetual War Profiteering is insane in other areas as well.
Davy, Hermann, MO on Wed, 5th Mar 2014 3:17 pm
Richard, I presume Russia, China, and many others are better per your proclamation. No Continent has taught us more about war than Europe. We live in glass houses should we throw rocks without acknowledging all who sin.
Arthur on Sun, 9th Mar 2014 2:22 pm
Davy, that was then, now is now. And you seem to forget that the US played a decisive role in the outcome of WW1 and an instigating role in WW2.
Davy, Hermann, MO on Sun, 9th Mar 2014 2:41 pm
Wow Arthur now that is a statement!! “Instigating role in WW2” The US wanted to be insular and protectionist from the great depression onward. The vast majority of the population and most of the politicians wanted nothing to do with foreign adventures. If any instigation came it was after elements in Europe influenced the US into the European black hole of doom and destruction. Europe invented Hitler and Europe instigated WW2. Plain and simple!!
Arthur on Mon, 10th Mar 2014 8:27 am
Davey, switch off the telly, escape from the media matrix and read some books:
December 27th, 1945 (Forrestal played golf with Kennedy)
I asked him [Kennedy] about his conversations with Roosevelt and Neville Chamberlain from 1938 on. He said Chamberlain’s position in 1938 was that England had nothing with which to fight and that she could not risk going to war with Hitler. Kennedy’s view: that Hitler would have fought Russia without any later conflict with England if it had not been for Bullitt’s [William C. Bullitt, then ambassador to France] urging Roosevelt in the summer of 1939 that the Germans must be faced down about Poland; neither the French nor the British would have made Poland a case of war if it had not been for the constant needling from Washington. Bullitt, he said, kept telling Roosevelt that the Germans wouldn’t fight, Kennedy that they would, and that they would overrun Europe. Chamberlain, he says, stated that America and world Jews had forced England into the war. In his telephone conversation with Roosevelt in the summer of 1939 the President kept telling him to put some iron up Chamberlain’s backside.
Source: Time-Life magazine, 1951, that published the Forrestal diaries. Easy to google up the source.
Davy, Hermann, MO on Mon, 10th Mar 2014 11:27 am
Arthur said – Davey, switch off the telly, escape from the media matrix and read some books:
Arthur your problem is you read too many books and too many “off the wall books” this is warping your mind into delusional thinking. This is especially true when you project these ideas into the current reality which is generally a “NO NO” with most social scientist. Calm down and chill Arthur everything is not a rabid conspiracy of the Evil American Empire. I don’t watch the “telly” BTW Arthur. I only check into MSM to see what the latest garbage is being force fed to the GP. I should just let you rant and rave. Others here don’t bother responding to your propaganda spew. I guess I respond because you, Makati, and DC insult me as an American on a regular basis. I make my thoughts know that greed, corruption, and market manipulation has taken over the top leadership in politics, industry, and intelligentsia in America. Yet, this is true globally.
Arthur on Wed, 12th Mar 2014 12:31 pm
Hermann, are you seriously ‘insulted as an American’, because of a Chamberlain quote?!
You’re kidding, right?