Mismanaging Contraction (James Howard Kunstler)

[Tace]

James Howard Kunstler -- World News Trust

June 21, 2010 -- Lesson of the Macondo: Blowout preventers don't prevent blowouts. This comes as a shock to people attuned to the on-schedule arrival of techno-miracles. Now, all the acronym-studded invocations of techno-mastery by men wearing interesting hats will not avail to put the schnitz on an epic horror show in the Gulf of Mexico.

President Obama's speech to the nation a week ago was designed as a kind of blowout preventer for the legitimacy of the federal government. It did little to stop the hemorrhaging of confidence in political leadership. A nation foundering in a crippled vessel in the horse latitudes of collective purpose on a sea of red ink looks to its captain - who puffs a few platitudes into the tattered sails and retreats belowdecks to pace and stew. This is a society truly lost at sea, where even the friendly dolphins are turning belly-up and the dying seabirds stare accusingly under their cloaks of crude oil. The feeling grows that we can't do anything right. Will someone please turn off the TV?

In 2008, the voters turned to a lanky newcomer from Illinois to rescue itself from just the sort of technocrat jerkoffs who had run the nation into a ditch with their invocations of "mission accomplished" and "Good job, Brownie." Change was in the air. Alas, consistent with the apparent fact that history rhymes but doesn't repeat, Barack Obama proved to be the reincarnation of Millard Fillmore, not Abe Lincoln. Sometimes history works in free verse and this stanza was off by a few syllables. It turns out that change was exactly the one thing not really in the air. America does not want change, except from the cash register at WalMart.

The last time America faced a convulsion as profound as the present one was the late 1850s. The internal contradiction of slavery was driving the nation crazy. The Whig party had been running things for a couple of decades. The Whigs were the party of Daniel Webster and Henry Clay. They tried everything possible to finesse the expansion of US territory around the inflammatory issue of slavery. Fillmore came along just in time for the Compromise of 1850, which was intended to settle things and did absolutely nothing to settle things. By the time the election of 1852 happened, Both Webster and Clay were old men preparing to meet their maker and the Whig party absolutely fell apart. Scroll forward a few years and we're in the slaughterhouse of The Civil War.

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[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. could we be approaching another (un)civil war?

Three years ago, I would have said no.
Having seen too many Tea Baggers gathering with their silly hats, misspelled signs, and willful, almost criminal ignorance, I have changed my mind. Too many armed, angry, bible beating bastards out there who hate education, intelligence, and all too often, facts.

Sadly, I must admit that another war between the states is possible, especially with cheerleaders like Sarah Palin pushing her followers to the extreme right.

[Demeter]

2. Approaching from Multiple Directions

There is class war, ethnic war, religious war, and sheer personality conflict, and these will combine and explode. Time to get on good terms with your neighbors and your family.

[Bgno64]

3. Are we mismanaging contraction?

How could we not be? Americans don't DO contraction - we do expansion. We believe more, ever more to be our birthright, and woe to anyone who suggests otherwise.

[Demeter]

4. Americans Don't Manage, Either

It's against the religion.