Is Obama Gorbachev? - Clusterf#ck Nation

[rndmprsn]

http://kunstler.com/blog/2009/07/is-obama-gorbachev.html

By James Howard Kunstler
on July 20, 2009 6:47 AM

...The US economy is now dying a slow and painful death because it had become based on activities that had nothing to do with producing real wealth. Instead, it became dependent on rackets, that is, behavior geared to getting something for nothing. These rackets are often summarized under the acronym FIRE (for finance, insurance and real estate), a system set up to strip-mine profits from the wish commonly labeled "the American Dream" -- itself largely a product of televised advertising and propaganda. The end product of all that was the doomed economy of suburban sprawl, an infrastructure for daily life with no future in a world defined by fossil fuel scarcity. The unraveling of debt at every level now is directly related to the mis-investments made in that way of life....

...As another blogger put it so nicely last week on the web (sorry, but I forget who or where), this isn't a "recession," it's a collapse. The excellent DMITRY ORLOV has outlined the process very nicely in his book "Reinventing Collapse" about the parallels between the demise of the Soviet Union and the prospects for demise of the US as currently constituted. Mikhail Gorbachev presided over the Soviet collapse. He must have been a leader of very subtle abilities. Not only did he survive to enjoy a busy second act of life with a Nobel Prize in his pocket, but he accomplished a nearly bloodless transition in a society long-conditioned to bloodletting as the primary political act.

Here in the USA, where we have had over two hundred years experience with peaceful power transitions -- even during the convulsions of 1860-65 -- the outcome this time might not be so appetizing. It would be one of the supreme ironies of history if it turned out that the US was incapable of ending its most self-destructive rackets peacefully and bloodlessly, while the Russians shucked off its Soviet racket like an old sweater. The way I see it, Mr. Obama just doesn't have much time before his authority and legitimacy slough off and he is left with only his genial smile. The "hope" vested in him will end up in a Museum of Lost Hopes, along with the integrity of TV news and the rectitude of the medical profession. And funding for that museum will be cut by President Sarah Palin, representing Naziism US style -- i.e. Naziism without the brains.

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i get where he's coming from...ugh

[rndmprsn]

1. heh heh...too many words

[Karmadillo]

2. Thanks for posting this.

nt