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Page added on October 10, 2016
Kunstler: Wounded Elephant
Last night’s debate raises some interesting questions, such as: would the Romans have elected Caligula if given the chance to vote? Can the Republican party recover from Donald Trump? If the party poobahs “pull the plug” on Trump, as some are threatening to do (that is, cut off funds to his campaign), will they go down the drain with him anyway? Is the USA a nation or just the world’s biggest comedy club? Where is the Deep State when you really need it?
That odor wafting across the land is the smell of Republicans with their hair on fire. Yet the gloat of astonishment on Hillary’s face as she witnesses the Queeg-like crack-up of her rival will eventually fade as she discerns the wreckage awaiting her in the oval office. Weep for your country!
The only good to come out of this sordid election is the certainty that a lot of political debris will be swept away in the Fourth Turning underway. Out of the miasma of idiocy and posture that is this election campaign, the hard-edged realities of our time will emerge and the TV audience will come to the stark recognition that it is not just another mere entertainment.
The other major nations of the world are not so much ganging up on America, as Hillary would have it, but reasonably attempting to ring-fence the mad bull that the USA has become — as the two candidates vie to start World War Three with China and Russia respectively. The last resort of the scoundrels in today’s version of the “yellow press” is to blame Russia for attempting to meddle in our election. War, children, it’s just a shot away.
It is getting to be too late to sort out all the confusion sown by this horrific campaign. From here on its really more a matter of the dust settling. In background of it all looms the train-wreck of global finance, which will be the true determinant of what the American people will have to do in the years ahead. During the weeks of the election distraction, the European banks struggle to conceal their insolvency while the politicians of Euro-land desperately try to paper over the cracks in these fracturing institutions. Few can tell what is actually happening in China’s banking system, but it’s sending out ominous tremors that are hard to ignore. But be sure it is all daisy-chained right into Wall Street and the US banks. The potential for wrecking markets and currencies around the world is extreme at this moment. It may only be a matter of whether it happens before or after the election.
Then we’ll see what happens when financial institutions can’t trust each other. Trade stops. Economies crumble. Pretenses evaporate. If it gets bad enough, the shelves of the supermarkets go bare in three days and you’re living in a permanent hurricane disaster without the wind and rain. Believe me, that will be bad enough. Hillary, if elected, will not get to play FDR-2. Rather, she’ll be stuck in the role of Hoover, the Return, presiding over a freight elevator of an economy with a broken cable. Expect problems with the US dollar. Expect “emergency” actions. Expect the unintended consequences of those actions.
If there is one outstanding upshot of these “debates” it must be their staggering failure to reassure the American public that they can expect effective leadership through the hardships ahead. There must be many others out there like myself wondering who will emerge from the rubble? I suspect it will be someone we haven’t heard of before, just as Bonaparte was unheard of in France in 1792. This is not entirely a nation of clowns, though it feels like that lately.
65 Comments on "Kunstler: Wounded Elephant"
Cloggie on Thu, 13th Oct 2016 1:43 pm
Greg, perhaps you want to read this to put aside all doubt that Trump is the real deal:
https://twitter.com/RichardBSpencer/status/786634855559770112/photo/1
Alternatively you can read the angry posts written by our resident neo-Bolshevik ghung.
Apneaman on Thu, 13th Oct 2016 2:15 pm
Clogged, because there is a difference between one 1945 “Fat Man” nuclear age starter bomb and the multiple hydrogen bombs they would drop on Moscow and every major Russian city, military installation and port. Same thing coming back the other way except the Russians would bomb Europe as well as N America. Rotterdam and Amsterdam are major ports – can’t be leaving them open for business either. Take care of your Muslim problem though. You grew up in Europe during the cold war and have no idea what MAD is eh?
Ghung on Thu, 13th Oct 2016 2:56 pm
Clog, Just shows how ignorant you are of the US presidential electoral process.
http://www.electoral-vote.com/
Cloggie on Thu, 13th Oct 2016 2:59 pm
Clogged, because there is a difference between one 1945 “Fat Man” nuclear age starter bomb and the multiple hydrogen bombs they would drop on Moscow and every major Russian city
So your message is that the Russians built useless facilities for millions of Muscovites, because they did not consult you first?
You’re getting more fascinating by the day, Friday.
Switzerland built an extensive network of fallout shelters, not only through extra hardening of government buildings such as schools, but also through a building regulation requiring nuclear shelters in residential buildings since the 1960s (the first legal basis in this sense dates from 4 October 1963).[8] Later, the law ensured that all residential building built after 1978 contained a nuclear shelter able to withstand a blast from a 12 megaton explosion at a distance of 700 metres
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_shelter
Apparently it is very well possible to defend yourself against the heaviest hydrogen bombs, provided you dig deep enough.
I know that you think that your presence here on the internet is to ‘enlighten the masses’, or similar self-absorbed lunacy.
Hope you don’t mind that I prefer to rely on the judgment of real experts.
Apneaman on Thu, 13th Oct 2016 4:07 pm
Real experts? Like SCREAMING ALEX JONES you stupid little dutch cocksucker?
Did they build fallout shelters for food growing for a few hundred years too?
I guess those 1978 swiss became experts from their experience from the last global thermonuclear war huh?
The Trouble With Experts
“We all count on experts, but should we trust them? Turns out, the more certain their pronouncements, the more likely they are to be wrong.
The Trouble with Experts, reminds us, we are all addicted to experts. They tell us what to eat, how to vote, raise our kids, fix our homes, buy our wines, interpret political events and, until recently, choose the right stocks. They’re all over the media telling us what to think, because there’s just too much information for us to sort out ourselves. So we often cede our own opinions to “them” because, well … they’re experts, so they know better than us. Or do they?
In the recent stock meltdown, we discovered that some of our most important experts – our financial gurus – didn’t know much at all. So what about all the other experts out there? Does having expertise actually mean you make better decisions than regular people? Or are they just part of a new cult of expertise, an ever-growing “expert industry” that’s become our latest new religion?
“We all want wise men to give us the secret truth, the real low-down, the inside dope about things – someone who knows more than we mere mortals know,” says writer/director Josh Freed.” But the reality is that many so-called experts don’t know any more than you or me. In fact, a 20-year study of experts shows they’re only right about half the time.”
There are similar findings from other “experts on experts” we meet in the film, like Berkeley Psychology Professor Phillip Tetlock, Christopher Cerf (co-founder of the Institute of Expertology) and New Yorker science writer David Freedman (who’s authored a new book called “WRONG”) . Among their findings – the more famous the forecaster, the more overblown the forecasts, the more wrong they are.
The documentary features some astonishing stories of experts in the wrong. We meet Dutch artist John Myatt who used house paint and KY jelly to forge the works of Great Masters. He managed to fool top art critics and museums for 8 years before he was finally caught. Then there are the wine experts who can’t even distinguish white wine from red and political experts whose predictions were only a tiny bit better than random guesses – the equivalent of a chimpanzee throwing darts at a board.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt46P1Zcwto
Apneaman on Thu, 13th Oct 2016 4:19 pm
old dutch, relying on what cherry picked “experts” “tell you” to make your lame fantasy arguments is called argument from authority. “I don’t need facts or logic because an expert told me so” It’s for the stupid and lazy like you who have no time or ability for real learning.
Go clean my bathroom bitch.
http://www.porcelainsigns.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/signs_n-s_082-580×730.png
Cloggie on Thu, 13th Oct 2016 5:18 pm
Even Jill Stein tentatively endorses… Donald Trump!
https://truthkings.com/jill-stein-donald-trump-better-hillary/#
Jill Stein took to C-Span today and declared the Donald Trump’s foreign policy with Russia is simply better.
Ghung on Thu, 13th Oct 2016 5:40 pm
Another Cloggie lie: “Even Jill Stein tentatively endorses… Donald Trump!”
No, she didn’t you lying asshole. From your link:
“WE HAVE ANOTHER CHOICE OTHER THAN THESE TWO CANDIDATES WHO ARE BOTH PROMOTING LEGAL POLICIES.” …. talking about the Green And Libertarian parties.
Sound like an endorsement? Just because she’s afraid of Clinton’s foreign policies?
Cloggie on Thu, 13th Oct 2016 5:43 pm
Our resident car parts salesman Friday, with an uncontrollable urge to give his country away to foreigners and now unemployed and in touching expectation of some great catastrophe in the future that won’t happen in his lifetime, other than perhaps war, is rejecting the opinion of experts, so he can create space for himself to inject his random opinions to give some meaning to his dull life in Hongcouver, in his own words “to enlighten the internet masses”, I am not making this up.
According to Wikipedia, Switzerland has laws that prescribe that shelters should be available that can withstand gigantic blasts of no less than 12 megaton in 700 m distance. That Swiss law wouldn’t exist if this would require to build shelters at say 10 km depth.
Nobody says that Moscow will be livable after a blast; the point is that the citizens of Moscow can survive the first blow and after a couple of days/weeks can be rapidly evacuated, away from the contaminated area.
Our pathological nihilistic NWO friend and porn addict starts to ramble about Alex Jones, the unreliability of experts, Dutch artists, in short the usual incoherent ramblings of a lunatic, for whom it is impossible to converse in a tone other than he used to communicate with his tatoed jailbird palls.
Nevertheless, if Friday wouldn’t exist he should be invented. He represents precisely the group of saboteurs that ruins our civilization. He whines about collapse and sensationalist stories that the end is nigh, but will offer zero solutions for anything. He represents the nihilistic desire for total doom and doesn’t want anything else.
Cloggie on Thu, 13th Oct 2016 5:53 pm
Sound like an endorsement?
I said *tentatively* endorsement. Of course she doesn’t fully endorse Trump, she is a candidate herself, you dummy.
Fascinating to see how our two enemies of Western civilization are roaring of anger, because they are not so certain as they pretend they are of a victory of their warmongering heroin.
And slowly our NWO lefties ghung and Friday are being pushed to the sideline, not in the least because of their anger in full display. Cornered animals.
makati1 on Thu, 13th Oct 2016 7:03 pm
Expert: A drip under pressure. Worth about zero for info or advice. They ALL have an agenda to sell. Overblown egos and a narrow vision of the world. Theirs.
Apneaman on Thu, 13th Oct 2016 9:53 pm
Old dutch welfare recipient, how flattering you think my desires are so important and powerful. You must think the humans can wish their desires into existence. They can’t and there are no solutions – just talk. Talk talk talk of future techno fixes from the senile euro-coward hiding in his house while the muslims run roughshod over holland assaulting your women. Meanwhile, I am just simply documenting the ever growing disasters on the way to the final disaster – giving everyone a chance to get straight on it. With their god or whoever. Enlightenment. You offer fantasy, I show the reality and I don’t need to wish for it since it’s being done as fast as possible regardless of if I was here or not. You just can’t stand me holding up the mirror is all – same as others. Where is your solution for the most recent dead and homeless in Haiti, Florida and North Carolina? All the others this year? My predictions have been much more dire than the semi muzzled scientific community, but they have been coming true in spades. Daily death and destruction there for everyone to see. No solutions only more of the same from the one trick pony monkey people, more chasing dopamine hits – then consequences and denial.
I don’t know anyone more nihilistic than you and the other minority raging white entitled warmongers drooling like dogs to see the blood spilled (while hiding inside). The bitter old men are always so eager to see war.
Your civilization? Fuck you, your time is almost up old man and your government cheques/lifeline could end any day. Useless eaters like you should shut the fuck up and be grateful your unproductive ass is not euthanized. You had your chance and look at the big fucking mess y’all left. You just can’t get enough war talk eh? Methinks your tired old ass would love to see it – revenge on the empire you have spent all your waking moments hating. Love to see them go down before you do eh? Nazi collaborator daddy never let you hear the end of it I bet. A lifetime of neo reactionary bitterness while living in the most liberal country in the world. Baha.
Apneaman on Thu, 13th Oct 2016 9:56 pm
Brian Cox SHOCK CLAIM: We haven’t met aliens because they’re DEAD – and humans are NEXT
http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/719863/Brian-Cox-aliens-DEAD-wonders-of-the-universe
makati1 on Thu, 13th Oct 2016 10:31 pm
Ap, you hit the nail on the head, but I felt some of the blow-back. lol
To set the record straight, I do NOT want war anymore than you or any sane person. I am only pointing out the steps leading in that direction just as you point out the steps leading to our destruction through climate change.
I do not hate the US either, just point out its failing to those who try to deny them or hide from them. I am just sad to see the destruction of freedoms there and, also, the economy, by those old farts that are playing a game with the governments of the world today. Soros, Brzezinski, Clinton, Greenspan, etc. Their old hates are killing all of us.
I DO blame Americans for not getting out of their couches and doing something about it before it is too late. For becoming selfish, greedy pigs willing to turn their head and allow their government to plunder the world and kill millions in the name of corporatocracy. I am too old to do anything except try to educate the foolish deniers.
I will continue to do so as long as I can and watch the world disintegrate in my lifetime. I hope to have 20 more years to see what happens and the results. Since I do not believe in a god or afterlife, I do not fear death. I will not know it happened.
Cloggie on Fri, 14th Oct 2016 2:54 am
Old dutch welfare recipient
Friday, I never received a single dime of government money in my entire life, you just make it up as you go.
I show the reality
In reality you are a disaster tourist, who considers humans a “cancer” and that it all needs to come down. Calamity junkie’s like you are longing for the moment that the bombs will fly and in order for that to happen you literally said that Trump supporters need to be shot. You want to drag us with you into the abyss of your depression and nihilism, using the crudest jailbird language on this board. For you collapse is an escape from the burden of civilization that is way too heavy for you. You are probably writing from mum’s basement and on her purse and in the (recent?) past you sold car parts. How great is that? Many of the others here at least give an example of how to escape from the system and set up a new mode of living, more modest, producing their own food and energy.
Yes the old order is about to disintegrate. Not because of “immanent peak fossil” or “immanent climate change”, but because of a dying old empire that refuses to back down and wants it all and will get nothing. And Hillary supporting clowns like you and ghung are the core of that rotten empire and war machine, regardless of how much you both deny that to be the case, as you have to on this board.
We’ll address peak oil and climate change after the empire has been dismantled and North-America partitioned.
One problem at a time.