Thinking the Unthinkable,By James Howard Kunstler

[Crewleader]

November 2, 2009 7:40 AM

A side-trip to the local mall - where else to buy ammo around here? - evinced an epic struggle for supremacy of the chain stores between the Great Pumpkin and Santa Claus, with both fat-assed icons trying to shove the other out of the primary display sites as if the store aisle were a WWF ring in some grubby forsaken Palookaville far far from the salons of Washington decision-making, which, I guess, this is. This is the kind of place that a Jimmy Stewart character would have called home in 1946; only today it looks like a place taken over by a certain species of space aliens, slovenly in mind as well as body.

Our gods are not happy. Anyway, that third fat-assed icon, the Thanksgiving Turkey, was nowhere in sight, perhaps due to the recognition that there is far more grievance than gratitude 'out here' in the fly-over zone.

merica still does everything possible except prepare to become a different America, perhaps even a better America than the current release, and this is unfortunate because history is merciless. History doesn't care if the dog peed on your homework... or you had car trouble this morning... or the tattoo on your neck got infected... or (to take this in another direction), you justified robbing scores of billions of dollars out of the mortgage sector because your too-big-to-fail company came down with the financial equivalent of swine flu and the top executives were hallucinating that they lived in a world with no boundaries of law or common decency.

http://kunstler.com/blog/2009/11/thinking-the-unthinkable.html#more

[villager]

1. these would seem to be the key two paragraphs:

"How bad is the situation 'out there' really? In my view, things are veering toward such extreme desperation that the US government might fall under the sway, by extra-electoral means, of an ambitious military officer, or a group of such, sometime in the near future. I'm not promoting a coup d'etat, you understand, but I am raising it as a realistic possibility as elected officials prove utterly unwilling to cope with a mounting crisis of capital and resources. The 'corn-pone Hitler' scenario is still another possibility - Glen Beck and Sarah Palin vying for the hearts and minds of the morons who want 'to keep gubmint out of Medicare!' - but I suspect that there is a growing cadre of concerned officers around the Pentagon who will not brook that fucking nonsense for a Crystal City minute and, what's more, would be very impatient to begin correcting the many fiascos currently blowing the nation apart from within. Remember, today's US military elite is battle-hardened after eight years of war in Asia. No doubt they love their country, as Julius Caesar and Napoleon Bonaparte loved theirs. It may pain them to stand by and watch it dissolve like a castle made of sugar in a winter gale.

"I raise this possibility because no one else has, and I think we ought to be aware that all kinds of strange outcomes are possible in a society under severe stress. History is a harsh mistress. For all his 'star quality' and likable personality, President Obama is increasingly perceived as impotent where the real ongoing disasters of public life are concerned, and he has made the tragic choice to appear to be hostage to the bankers who are systematically draining the life-blood from the middle class. Whatever we are seeing on the S & P ticker these days does not register the agony of ordinary people losing everything they worked for and even believed in. In a leadership vacuum, centers don't hold, things come apart, and rough beasts slouch toward Wall Street..."

[Nederland]

3. LOL

We thought the same thing within seconds of each other...

[Demeter]

5. Impotent? How About Psychotically Detached?

hello? can you hear me now?

[Nederland]

2. Lovely

The end is great:

How bad is the situation 'out there' really? In my view, things are veering toward such extreme desperation that the US government might fall under the sway, by extra-electoral means, of an ambitious military officer, or a group of such, sometime in the near future. I'm not promoting a coup d'etat, you understand, but I am raising it as a realistic possibility as elected officials prove utterly unwilling to cope with a mounting crisis of capital and resources. The 'corn-pone Hitler' scenario is still another possibility - Glen Beck and Sarah Palin vying for the hearts and minds of the morons who want 'to keep gubmint out of Medicare!' - but I suspect that there is a growing cadre of concerned officers around the Pentagon who will not brook that fucking nonsense for a Crystal City minute and, what's more, would be very impatient to begin correcting the many fiascos currently blowing the nation apart from within. Remember, today's US military elite is battle-hardened after eight years of war in Asia. No doubt they love their country, as Julius Caesar and Napoleon Bonaparte loved theirs. It may pain them to stand by and watch it dissolve like a castle made of sugar in a winter gale.

I raise this possibility because no one else has, and I think we ought to be aware that all kinds of strange outcomes are possible in a society under severe stress. History is a harsh mistress. For all his 'star quality' and likable personality, President Obama is increasingly perceived as impotent where the real ongoing disasters of public life are concerned, and he has made the tragic choice to appear to be hostage to the bankers who are systematically draining the life-blood from the middle class. Whatever we are seeing on the S & P ticker these days does not register the agony of ordinary people losing everything they worked for and even believed in. In a leadership vacuum, centers don't hold, things come apart, and rough beasts slouch toward Wall Street.


When right wing radio hosts talk about coup d'etat, we are all outraged. What will the response be to this?

[villager]

4. Indeed we did!

And as you ask, how much of this "coup" talk will we keep ignoring/taking "politely?"

[ProleNoMore]

6. Personally, I Enjoy Kunstler's Polemics

Many on the left have voiced a similar fear of revolution.

Kunstler is ratifying that fear in his inimitable style.

[eridani]

11. The difference is that we would prefer it not to happen n/t

[dixiegrrrrl]

7. I am surprised this does not have more recs...

:kick:

[grasswire]

8. the comments are fascinating....

...if you can ignore the software glitch allowing dupes

[westerebus]

9. When in Rome....

They killed Patton because he had thoughts of political ambition and was considered uncontrollable.

Eisenhower shocked the hell out of them when he warned of what this country would become.

Kennedy was assassinated for many reasons. He wasn't with the program. That made him uncontrollable.

LBJ quit in disgust when he saw where we were headed.

Nixon was Nixon. He knew ten years earlier were we were headed.

Carter was set up to fail.

Regan was hired to play the greatest part in any actors life time.

Bush One went along for the ride. He only drove at night.

Clinton was a gift to the right. That keeps on giving.

Bush 2 was the fifth horseman of the Apocalypse.

Is there a trend here?

Is it going to be different this time?

Is that a fiddle's bow in your hand Mr. President?

Why its' a baton.

Guess who's leading the band?

[TheWraith]

10. The day when Kunstler gets something right will be his first.

Everybody forgets he was one of the loudest voices proclaiming that Y2K would be the end of human civilization.

[eridani]

12. Maybe he understands Peak Oil better than he understands software? n/t

[A HERETIC I AM]

16. One should always keep in mind that Kunstler majored in Theater in college

Taking his advice on financial matters is like taking a Bricklayers advice on a surgical procedure.

[IrateCitizen]

13. Kunstler's columns could write themselves nowadays.

At least that's basically what one of the comments said -- and I would have to agree. He's increasingly going off the polemic deep end. I used to enjoy his writings when he discussed peak oil and the overgrowth of the suburban landscape. I still think that Home from Nowhere and The Geography of Nowhere are two of the better anti-suburbia works out there, but much of his attempt to broaden his focus into domestic and foreign politics has made his writing seem increasingly shrill and uninformed.

As Max Keiser pointed out recently, when looking at the website of the "Promise Keepers," you don't come across a single mention of Goldman Sachs. Rather, their rage is directed at "libruls" and "illegal immigrants". If there is a flare-up of violence, it will be directed far away from the friendly confines of 85 Broad Street.

Furthermore, a good reading of Andrew Bacevich would demonstrate how there will not be a coup d'etat by the military -- because general officers no longer are encouraged (or allowed, really) to think in terms of the political anymore. Their emphasis is 100% on operational planning and execution now.

Although there has always been a polemic quality to Kunstler's writing, at least before it had a certain kind of reason backing it up. Increasingly, however, it seems to be more polemic and less reasonable.

[Delphinus]

14. I don't necessarily agree with

a lot of what he's saying in this one, ESPECIALLY about the military coup, but his ending is quite right: Whatever we are seeing on the S & P ticker these days does not register the agony of ordinary people losing everything they worked for and even believed in.

[sendero]

15. I don't share Kuntzler's concern..

... about a military coup. I do think, however, that the country could EASILY unravel slowly.

It's a lot worse out there than you are hearing on the news. The anger that a lot of folks are feeling about this situation is just made worse by Obama's seeming total inability to get it, or his powerlessness to do anything about it other than throw more of our money at the assholes who took us to this place.

If it weren't for the general complacency of the American public, shit would already be happening. Contented, fed and housed people can get complacent, but starving people are not.