JAMES KUNSTLER: Two Peckerheads

[Tace]

by James Kunstler -- World News Trust

I'm fond of saying that I'm allergic to conspiracy theories. Behind our country's dismaying governance, cluelessness really rules, not plotting or scheming. Take, for example, these astounding remarks made Friday by former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich on NPR's "Marketplace" show:

"As China grows -- at the current rate it's growing, in twenty or thirty years -- and becomes the number one largest economy in the world, I think China may become our nemesis."

One would think that Mr. Reich is a pretty smart guy -- former Rhodes Scholar (same class as Bill Clinton), Harvard faculty, cabinet secretary. Now, why on earth would Mr. Reich believe that China can possibly keep behaving the way it does for another two or three decades? China faces energy starvation along with the rest of the world. China has less oil left than the United States (and the United States would have roughly four years worth of oil if we were deprived of imports -- 26 billion barrels used at the rate of 7 billion a year).

There is no way that China can put another one half percent of its population behind the wheel of a car without sending its army and navy out to seize foreign oil fields -- let alone continue manufacturing toasters and Christmas tree ornaments for Americans. And Americans are not going to have the the cash to buy those things, whether or not we are actively engaged in a war for the world's remaining oil. And all this trouble is going to play out in the next decade, not in "twenty or thirty years." Near the end of the segment, Reich repeated this inanity:

more

http://worldnewstrust.org/modules/AMS/article.php?storyid=2244

[bperci108]

1. I like Robert Reich, but...

Denial is no longer just a river in Egypt, is it Bob? :eyes:

It never ceases to amaze me how usually intelligent people can't see the forest for the trees... :banghead:

[Tace]

4. It's One Of The Strange Things About Life These Days...

that so many people are lost in a dream.

[Dogmudgeon]

5. Who wouldn't be?

Accepting the realities of energy resource depletion, climate change, and a painful political restructuring enforced by Islamist radicalism and American weapons, are not the kinds of things that make anyone hopeful for the future. And Reich's vision would be accurate if none of these downtrokes were impending.

The future we spent half a century dreaming isn't going to happen. Instead, we will face challenges on the order of those that took Rome, Athens, and ancient China down into the dust. Therein lies Robert Reich's denial, and James Kunstler's venom -- and the fears of all of us.

But the future isn't inevitably hopeless. A well-planned change, world-wide in scope, democratically implemented, could take us away from disaster and make what would otherwise be hard times into a period of optimism, reform, and a dramatic reduction in interpersonal alienation.

It would also spell death for the mega-state, the mega-corporation, and everything else that has been supersized at the expense of real, living, human beings. However, there is no market for that kind of thing. So we will continue to sleepwalk right off that cliff.

As the Moon Project marked the end of our era of optimism and innocence, the Mars mission planned for a decade from now will mark the end of the Industrial Age.

OR, we could dream some new dreams. Dreams that are possible to achieve, and that don't require sleepwalking into the future.

--p!

[bperci108]

6. Well said.

:applause:

[JohnyCanuck]

2. Thanks for posting

Kunstler blog entries are also posted here (usually a new post goes up every Monday):

http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/

What I like about reading the blog directly is you can also read the readers' feedback and comments to each Kunstler article, which can be quite informative and/or entertaining at times.

Getting back to this latest Kunstler post, he ends with this:

This is the quality of thinking that we are getting from leaders in politics and opinion in our country now. It could not be more inconsistent with reality. No evil cabal of corporate CEOs is paying off either of this (sic) idiots. They arrive at their opinions by a simple failure to pay attention to what is really happening in the world. Their failure will contribute to a greater failure of authority in this country when we hit the wall of economic pain in the months ahead, and the public wonders why it wasn't informed. That failure of authority, and the angry response to it, will lead a very dangerous politics of grievance and recrimination.

http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/2006/01/two_peckerheads.html

As anyone who hangs out regularly on DU probably knows, there is a Canadian federal election today in Canada. In the runup to this election, in all the TV and radio coverage of the campaign I have heard little about energy issues other than some debate between the parties as to whether we can or can not afford to adhere to the Kyoto protocols to reduce greenhouse gasses. The campaign seems mostly to have been about whether the Conservative Leader, Stephen Harper, will lead us into more of George Bush's overseas wars due to his Bush butt kissing attitude (which he has had to noticeably back away from during the campaign), which party will best be able to maintain Canadians' access to health care, which party can best ensure good paying jobs for Canadians through their tax policies etc., and which party will best be able to ensure Canada and Quebec do not come to a parting of the ways.

In in all the debating and back and forth that went on, I heard nary a word regarding the problem of confronting what are likely to be the very challenging issues surrounding Peak Oil. Our capitalist economies have been built on cheap energy and they continue to grow on the assumption cheap energy will always be available. Ensuring we have adequate energy supplies is fundamental to assuring we also have jobs, affordable housing, adequate diets and health care, but peak oil is such a hot potato it appears few politicians want to touch it.

[Armstead]

3. Kunsler is one of the more depessing writers on the scene

He makes some good points, but he usually gives me a "Why Bother?" feeling about it all.

[Jacobin]

7. This makes no sense

China will flop because of world energy shortages, but the U.S. somehow magically won't? and so China won't overtake the U.S.?

What is wrong with his brain?

[SmokingJacket]

8. The Chinese might not need so much oil...

They're working hard on developing new kinds of cars. And I suspect they'll succeed.

Otherwise, I'm down with Kunstler, for the most part. The Chinese are going to be able to kick our ass in less than a decade.