Why there is no hope, September 12th 2007 Edition

There's a man whose name you need to know: James Howard Kunstler.

Mr. Kunstler writes, and writes very clearly and articulately, about economics, architecture, suburban sprawl and some kind of liberal nonsense called "peak oil" in a blog called "Clusterfuck Nation". (That's clusterfuck as in "very bad turn of events", not as in "group sex".) From the biography on his site:

" James Howard Kunstler says he wrote The Geography of Nowhere, "Because I believe a lot of people share my feelings about the tragic landscape of highway strips, parking lots, housing tracts, mega-malls, junked cities, and ravaged countryside that makes up the everyday environment where most Americans live and work.""

One of Mr. Kunstler's frequently-made points is that we are as a nation headed for what the elder George Bush once referred to as "deep doo-doo". His exquisitely no-nonsense essays on our culture, our politics and especially our economy, delivered at the rate of one every Monday, are all worthwhile reading for anyone who suspects that things are a bit different than what we see on the news and that maybe we just might not be living in the Best of All Possible Worlds®. One in particular, written just two years ago, had a significant impact upon me me, kind of like a two-by-four upside the head. It is this one. Check out this excerpt:

"Americans were once a brave and forward-looking people, willing to face the facts, willing to work hard, to acknowledge the common good and contribute to it, willing to make difficult choices. We've become a nation of overfed clowns and crybabies, afraid of the truth, indifferent to the common good, hardly even a common culture, selfish, belligerent, narcissistic whiners seeking every means possible to live outside a reality-based community.

These are the consequences of a value system that puts comfort, convenience, and leisure above all other considerations. These are not enough to hold a civilization together. We've signed off on all other values since the end of World War Two. Our great victory over manifest evil half a century ago was such a triumph that we have effectively - and incrementally - excused ourselves from all other duties, obligations and responsibilities.

Which is exactly why we have come to refer to ourselves as consumers. That's what we call ourselves on TV, in the newspapers, in the legislatures. Consumers. What a degrading label for people who used to be citizens."

Is this guy on the mark, or full of beans? Why not read the rest of it, and his other essays, and see what you think?

The Very Big Stupid is still on the march!

I was cleaning my room a few days ago when I noticed a book which I’d been looking for for some time sitting underneath my bed. It was Frank Zappa’s autobiography. I opened the book to a place toward the back of it that I’d marked using an old telephone company bill envelope. I’ll let you read the following passage let you decide for yourself whether what Frank wrote back in 1989 is still relevant today.

From THE REAL FRANK ZAPPA BOOK:

"...Here it comes, folks! Watch it grow! One day, the BIG STUPID goes to a PTA meeting, winds through the PTL Club, wends its way to the White House, spreads out from the Oval Office like a cow flop into the judiciary system, dribbles out onto the desks of BIG BUSINESS, and the next thing know we've got THE VERY BIG STUPID.

THE VERY BIG STUPID is a thing which breeds by eating The Future. Have you seen it? It sometimes disguises itself as a good-looking quarterly bottom line, derived by closing the R&D Department.

I can't think of any developing nation with a genuine 'fondness' for America. People in these countries see America as threat to their national security; they see US as an 'Evil Empire'. Everything Reagan said in the early days about Russia is descriptive of our country, viewed by a developing nation.

Because we possess THE VERY BIG STUPID, they know there is always the possibility that we might use it on them - accidentally.

Folks, over the years we have developed a first-strike capability with this hideous weapon, and have already deployed it several times, disguised as Reagan Administration 'foreign policy'.

Some people in the Imaginary Heartland of America. say "Who gives a shit? They ain't going to get us. They ain't coming over here. Why, some of 'em don't even have air-o-planes."

That kind of guy has bought stock in the THE VERY BIG STUPID, and has reaped a philosophical dividend which states on its face that, as a Special Christian Nation, we have the right to stomp all over the other guys (Manifest Destiny). God is on Our Side, and we're supposed to do this, because we're the only creatures sophisticated enough to bring peace and sanity to the rest of the world. Pheeeeeeeeuuuuuuuuwwwwww!"