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Page added on June 7, 2016
Kunstler: Nausea Rising
Considering that the 2016 election looks like a Dark Age puppet show — Pantalone and La Signora smacking each other with dildos — we forget this spectacle is serious. Rather large matters are at stake, such as the continuity of governance, the legitimacy of the two major political parties, the credibility of our financial arrangements, perhaps even the durability of the nation as a united polity.
Most of the deliberate comedy comes from Donald Trump, whose super-long dangling necktie looks like it was designed for laughs by the Commedia dell’Arte prop department, not to mention the hair, which I have maintained for many years is actually a wolverine living on top of Trump’s head. Trump certainly represents a large and valid strain of sentiment in the zeitgeist — the frustration of many ordinary citizens at government-sponsored racketeering that is shoving them into pauperdom. But his utterances against all that are so childish and disordered that he de-legitimates his own mission every time he opens his mouth.
Hillary delivers her laughs mostly deadpan, for instance her Sunday morning ABC interview with the old 1992 Clinton “War Room” hand George Stephanopoulos, who grilled the Flying Reptile rather mercilessly over the recent report from the State Department Inspector General that said she was “not allowed” to use the private email server no, ifs, ands, or buts. As she struggled to deflect the question, the “uh”s started to stipple her vapid evasions like holes punched in a life raft. It was fun watching her sink, uh, uh, uh, gurgle gurgle — though surely that was not the effect she was going for.
Bernie, of course, is not so funny. He’s as serious as a heart attack, which suggests that a pretty sizeable portion of the public is sick of being diverted with slapstick comedy. The old bastard is determined to give the Democratic Party poobahs some schooling in ethical procedure. I admire the heck out of that — also, his record as a demonstrably non-griftable public servant, and his stance against the racketeering-as-usual status quo — though I’m not persuaded he would be an effective president (if such a thing is even theoretically conceivable) given his nanny government disposition. But the bigshots of the DNC still have a lot of ‘splainin’ to do, and it looks like ole Bernie is going to beat it out of them at Philadelphia in July. What I wonder: is he strong enough to hold Debbie Wasserman-Schultz on his lap while he applies the rod.
The people of the United States have real grievances with the way this country is being run. Last Friday’s job’s report was a humdinger: only 38,000 new jobs created in a country of over 300 million, with a whole new crop of job-seeking college grads just churned out of the diploma mills. I guess the national shortage of waiters and bartenders has finally come to an end.
What’s required, of course, is a pretty stout restructuring of the US economy. And that should be understood to be a matter of national survival. We need to step way back on every kind of giantism currently afflicting us: giant agri-biz, giant commerce (Wal Mart etc.), giant banking, giant war-making, and giant government — this last item being so larded with incompetence on top of institutional entropy that it is literally a menace to American society.
The trend on future resources and capital availability is manifestly downward, and the obvious conclusion is the need to make this economy smaller and finer. The finer part of the deal means many more distributed tasks among the population, especially in farming and commerce operations that must be done at a local level. This means more Americans working on smaller farms and more Americans working in reconstructed Main Street business, both wholesale and retail. This would also necessarily lead to a shift out of the suburban clusterfuck and the rebuilding of ten thousand forsaken American towns and smaller cities.
For the moment, many demoralized Americans may feel more comfortable playing video games, eating on SNAP cards, and watching Trump fulminate on TV, but the horizon on that is limited too. Sooner or later they will have to become un-demoralized and do something else with their lives.
The main reason I am so against the Hillary and Trump, and so ambivalent on Bernie is their inability to comprehend the scope of action actually required to avoid sheer cultural collapse.
22 Comments on "Kunstler: Nausea Rising"
Stuifzand on Tue, 7th Jun 2016 12:54 pm
“The main reason I am so against the Hillary and Trump, and so ambivalent on Bernie is their inability to comprehend the scope of action actually required to avoid sheer cultural collapse.”
Kunstler is highly unfair against Trump.
Trump is the candidate who very well understands the possibility of collapse, cultural, financial or ethnic.
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/trump-woodward-post-financial/2016/04/02/id/722006/
Trump is honest about the state of America and the need for a great overhaul.
Trump is the only candidate who is credible anti-war and has enough of antagonizing Russia or more mis-adventures in the ME.
Trump is in favor of closing the border and stop further increase of ethnic tensions, the results of which we have seen in Ferguson, Baltimore or San Jose.
Trump may be blind for all matters concerning environment or resource depletion, but that’s what they all are.
PracticalMaina on Tue, 7th Jun 2016 1:29 pm
Bernie is better than Trump in every conceivable way except for one, if TPTB kill Trump, the armed response from his supporters would be more significant than if they killed Bernie. Bernie voted against the war in Iraq, if Trump is such a bringer of peace, why did he not say anything against the war before hand, the one public comment people can find is him telling Howard Stern,
Sept. 11, 2002: Howard Stern asks Trump if he supports invading Iraq. Trump answers hesitantly. “Yeah, I guess so. You know, I wish it was, I wish the first time it was done correctly.”
http://www.factcheck.org/2016/02/donald-trump-and-the-iraq-war/
He went on Fox news after to discuss what a success it was, and how it would be good for the stock market. Why are both of our choices for president being litigated/
PracticalMaina on Tue, 7th Jun 2016 1:42 pm
Trump loves Putin because the guy screens his prospective wives for him, they probably have a black market “wife” import business together, who knows what goes on in the back of those casinos.
penury on Tue, 7th Jun 2016 1:47 pm
The U.S enjoys the distinction of being one of the most corrupt government ever.The justice system has morphed into a employment agency for Prison Indus Inc for4 the economically and racially challenged and a joke for the connected. Wheres John Corzine? I will not go into the politicos because I don’t have the time to list the hundreds of people on that list.
Stuifzand on Tue, 7th Jun 2016 2:03 pm
“Trump loves Putin because the guy screens his prospective wives for him, they probably have a black market “wife” import business together, who knows what goes on in the back of those casinos.”
No proof necessary, right? Demonizing: just pilling up unfounded accusations.
Seriously: Putin and Trump are allies because they fight the same enemy: the US deep state that wants global empire in the hand of the… err… banksters.
GregT on Tue, 7th Jun 2016 2:18 pm
“Seriously: Putin and Trump are allies because they fight the same enemy: the US deep state that wants global empire in the hand of the… err… banksters”
I’d like to believe that Stui, but that same deep state also controls the media. How do you explain “The Apprentice” without some rather ‘deep’ connections?
I still see The Donald™ as a divisive distraction, aimed solely at the installation of HC.
Stuifzand on Tue, 7th Jun 2016 2:19 pm
Ian Bremmer:
https://twitter.com/ianbremmer/status/673864204923879428
Gideon Rachman:
https://twitter.com/ft/status/673824671058542592
The absolute nightmare for folks like Ian Bremmer and Gideon Rachman: 2017 with presidents Putin, Trump and Marine le Pen.
I would open my best wine, WW3 would be called off.
GregT on Tue, 7th Jun 2016 2:24 pm
OTOH, maybe division is exactly what they want. The oldest strategy in the book. What better, or faster way, to bring America to her knees. Massive civil unrest is always a good play.
PracticalMaina on Tue, 7th Jun 2016 2:27 pm
It was a joke, I dont need to make anything up to make Trump look like shit, with all of his millions and power, what has he ever done? Made some suits and ties in China, swindled people out of money for their education? Employed a lot of foreign labor on his domestic resorts, made some tacky ass buildings. Wow, Solomon will probably come back to learn from him. He was given a silver spoon and only bankrupt how many companies? Sounds like Bush all over….AHHHHH!
BTW, I at least respect Putin, cant say the same about Trump.
Notice how they look like they are getting ready for a crusade….. let Russia deal with the quagmire we left in the middle East, just as we did with the Soviets in Afghanistan.
The deep state hates the Drumpf HA!
PracticalMaina on Tue, 7th Jun 2016 2:30 pm
Trump gave the illusion of being anti establishment by saying 1 thing against the war in Iraq, which he lied about being a vocal opponent of… Everyone knows it was a mistake! People getting fat checks at Blackwater and Haliburton know it was a mistake!! When you have to use Rumsfeld as a scapegoat, while still in office, you screwed up..Why is this a shock to people?
Stuifzand on Tue, 7th Jun 2016 2:31 pm
“I’d like to believe that Stui, but that same deep state also controls the media.”
They don’t control the internet. And Trump caught them by surprise, just like Putin. He is a political outsider. Before Putin became shiny neo-czar he was a shabby commie first but he understood the “winds of change”.
“How do you explain “The Apprentice” without some rather ‘deep’ connections?”
I am too distant for that to judge. Trump is somebody who sensed the amount of discontent under the European-American population. He was an entrepreneur, he now is a political entrepreneur.
1988, 42 years old, flirting with running, already protectionist tendencies surfacing, entirely against the inclinations of the globalist elite:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEPs17_AkTI
[1:25] he clearly doesn’t like the way the country is developing –> anti-establishment
As you now from your own experience, for an intelligent (university IQ) person it takes roughly until ca. 50 years until you begin to see the Grand Conspiracy.
Trump is for real, just like Putin.
PracticalMaina on Tue, 7th Jun 2016 2:37 pm
He would not even have acknowledged that, IMHO if it were not for Jeb being such a threat early on.
PracticalMaina on Tue, 7th Jun 2016 2:42 pm
protectionist tendency’s but he was a fan of Bill Clinton, and by extension NAFTA, Free trade. He was a hypocrite back then….shocking… the man is not an entrepreneur, he is a spoiled shithead who employs cheaper non US citizen labor whenever possible.
Sensed the discontent, more like he sensed fear and ignorance. (because it fills his head as well)
PracticalMaina on Tue, 7th Jun 2016 2:47 pm
You want to see how Trump would be, look at my states governor, Paul Lepage. Says ignorant shit on a daily basis, his battles with the legislature have costed the state huge money, he has refused to take free federal money for the healthcare of citizens of Maine for political reasons. Is extremely hostile to solar power-any conservation effort. On and on, but the state is still fine, because people who are not just there to line their pockets like he is, have dug in their heals and fought harder for what they see as right. We just look bad for electing him, but Toronto had a coke addicted walrus for a mayor so, at least we have company.
Boat on Tue, 7th Jun 2016 2:48 pm
Trump is an idiot. He is going to bring back Coal jobs and roll back fracking laws so nat gas can kill coal jobs faster. He thinks we produce more oil if fracking were allowed to pollute more. He hasn’t figured out most of the world can produce oil cheaper.
PracticalMaina on Tue, 7th Jun 2016 2:54 pm
Ha, well said Boat. Instead of charging 1 dollar a ton for coal on federal land, and coal companys still losing money, maybe we can pay them to take the coal! Take the coal, wreck our air,and the land, don’t fulfill your pension responsibility’s, don’t keep enough capitol to clean up your spent mines, is there anything else we can do for you?
PracticalMaina on Tue, 7th Jun 2016 2:56 pm
and the unemployed worker 9 times out of 10 will believe the Koch brothers propaganda that it was the democrats on a vendetta. No its the execs like the Koch brothers who will automate and mechanize everything for increased profits, and fracking.
Stuifzand on Tue, 7th Jun 2016 3:21 pm
“protectionist tendency’s but he was a fan of Bill Clinton, and by extension NAFTA, Free trade.”
That can be explained out of entrepreneurial opportunism; connections in high places greatly helps “striking deals”. And the nineties were not exactly 2016. Clinton was one of the very few presidents who ran surpluses. China was still nowhere to be seen en Russia as good as dead. The world belonged to America. And Japan, seen as dangerous around 1985 (“Fifth Generation Computer”, a total flop), was already declining.
I remember those early Clinton years when we in Holland began to receive CNN and everything was still impressive about America. I remember seeing an upbeat anchor man Lou Dobbs proudly announcing that the economic crisis was over. With a shock I sensed that the man was right. The nineties were very benevolent for me, until the dot com crash in 2001.
In 1995 I spent a week in Normandy during the 1945 50 year victory commemorations and made a quick jump across the Channel to visit the war time tunnels in Dover. Read biographies of Churchill and the rest. I was still a believer in the official WW2 narrative.
In 2001 came 9/11 and I believed the media tales about bin Laden. Meanwhile the Muslim invasion in the Netherlands began to scare me. Stopped being a money-making liberal yuppie. Spend an entire year writing at least 10,000 posts on Pim Fortuyn forums. The rise of Fortuyn would have been impossible without the (false) 9/11 narrative. What a shock the murder of Fortuyn was; total desperation in the Netherlands.
By 2005 I was a 9/11-truther, began to read American right-wingers, listen to podcasts.
At the same time I began to reorient myself on energy-matters, a topic I had abandoned since I left university, reading Richard Heinberg (also closet 9/11-truther), etc. By that time I was what they ten years later in the US began to call “alt-right”, green alt-right.
Was a Putin adept very early on. Loved the Iraq stance by Putin-Schroeder-Chirac in 2003 and began to see the possibility of a Paris-Berlin-Moscow confederation in line with the vision of my old hero Charles de Gaulle.
The very early “endorsement” of Trump by Putin is alone proof enough that Trump is for real. Than came the appearance in front of the JRC.
And than this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikwvqdkn3vI
Trump calling Kristol a “loser”, unthinkable in American context.
I mean, how much more proof do you need?
GregT on Tue, 7th Jun 2016 3:56 pm
You’ve certainly done your homework Stui, I’ll give you that.
“it takes roughly until ca. 50 years until you begin to see the Grand Conspiracy.”
Roughly. 9/11 was the hinge-pin for me. Once I really started digging in there was no turning back. I finally got it about 5 years later, at 46, with much help from a good friend of mine, a history professor at UBC.
Out of curiosity Stui, what is your background? You appear rather well versed in history and geopolitics.
Practicalmaina on Tue, 7th Jun 2016 5:21 pm
Clinton road the dot Com boom, and y2k buildup, along with a hands off imperialistic tendencies. Using stealth bombers and smart bombs to punish saddam made impressive news footage. I was much younger than 50 when I noticed the towers fell the same way as trumps casinos.
MSN Fanboy on Tue, 7th Jun 2016 7:22 pm
You don’t need to be circa 50 plus
I am 23 and have read into and understood peak oil, our corrupt ‘system’ and even more despairingly, our collective nature.
I started when i was 14… I asked my science teacher what would happen if we ever ran out of oil.. he replied “were fucked”
The guy had/has a doctorate and everything too.
Combine that with the clear lies about Iraqi and here i am.
Sissyfuss on Tue, 7th Jun 2016 10:16 pm
Stuzid, how can you even begin to conciliate T-Rumps’ views on the environment and our collective future? GW is a Chinese hoax and there is no drought in Cali, they just need to stop shoving the water into the ocean! They say he reads at a 5th grade level and that seems consonant with his world view. He is an ultra egoist and from your mini biography you shared I can see where your veneration might come from. Maybe you should try commenting on “Narcissist’s Weekly”. You find more fellow travelers there.