Now get this: we are sleepwalking into a transportation crisis. As I already said, the airline industry is dying. The price of petroleum-based aviation fuel is killing it. And forget the fantasies about running it on bio-diesel or used french-fry oil. Driving cars will not be an adequate substitute, either. It’s imperative that this country gets serious about restoring the passenger rail system. We can’t not talk about it for another year.
Once again, Mr. Kunstler is dead on correct. The airlines are dying, strangling on the reality of post-cheap-oil. Unfortunately, we live in a very large country and are addicted to travel. If you’re in your late 40s (as I am), you may just barely remember a time when air travel was something special, when passengers dressed up and the atmosphere at the airport was a relaxed, comfortable and almost festive one. Flying somewhere was a special event.
Not so anymore, the only place you’ll find shabbier-dressed people in public are at church, if you happen to be (as again, I am) Catholic (but that’s the subject of another post). It’s rush, rush, stand in line for security, rush to put your shoes back on and re-bag your laptop, rush to the gate then stand and wait to board and finally sit and wait to takeoff. It’s seldom a pleasant experience. Why? Because we’re addicted to travel, or more accurately, we’re addicted to cheap and (what we think is) fast transportation.
As Kunstler says in his most recent “Clusterf***k Nation,” date April 21, 2008* (see below), we’re in serious trouble because none of the political candidates are addressing the need for passenger rail service.
I guess my answer to that, is Kunstler’s right everytime he notes that Americans are asleep, and stumbling toward transportation, economic and societal crisis. Our way of life is getting ready to change in a big way, and the end of the cheap petroleum era is the reason.
One way we could protect ourselves, is establishing a crash passenger rail development program, and yes. Normally, I paren a quip after the word “crash,” but in this case, the pun is intended. A crash is coming. A serious, and well-conceived passenger rail development program could dramatically soften the blow to our economy and American life.
* – Unfortunately, Kunstler’s webmaster didn’t design in the ability for Jim to permalink his content, so from here, after next Monday, you’ll have to search a bit to find the article “Blind Spot”, but it’s worth the effort. – ed.
I read with much head-nodding this morning, Jim Kunstler’s “Clusterf**k Nation Chronicle” posting “Slip of the Tongue,” about Barack Obama’s comments in Pennsylvania. Listening to news reports about Obama’s comments, I couldn’t help but agree with him. What about small-town Pennsylvanians who “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them” isn’t true? The only thing I could add to guns, religion and antipathy to people not like them, is Nascar. Kunstler agrees with that as well, and he’s right.
According to the GlobalEurope Anticipation Bulletin, a crash of our global economy is expected this fall, in September of 2008. The report cites the progression of the collapse of our economy, including the housing bubble and most recently, municipal bonds. It also lays out the process of “decoupling” taking place around the world, designed to protect other regions and economies from being taken down by our crash.
What humans tend to understand very little about, is the cyclical nature of civilization, and more specifically, society. Apparently, evolution of our species has built into it the assumption that things will either a)stay the same pretty much forever, or failing that, b) improve a little or a lot (depending on just how grand your sense of optimism is).
But that’s sadly, a misreading of how it all works. Everything in our world and universe, for that matter, works through the machine of cycles. It’s built into the source code of our existence, and to deny it, is just self-delusion. We see it and teach it in our educational institutions, study it in our labs and think-tanks and even applaud it in our entertainment (Think The Lion King’s ‘Circle of Life’. But when it comes to life in the U.S. and the Western World, we think it can only get better, bigger and faster, forever and forever.
One of the things that always surprises me when we travel to the UK to visit family, is how we use so much more stuff in the U.S. than everywhere else. I first realized this years ago, when I first travelled there. A large portion of my family lives in the U.K. and when we go there, we live, not in hotels, but in our family home. Which means, for the most part, that we live like natives. In the particular town (a village on the West Coast of Scotland, actually) that means we transport our trash and garbage to the dump ourselves. At first, I was amazed at how little of that we generated while living natively.
As the votes are tallied up in New Hampshire, and Granite State Republicans and Democrats state their preferances for the November elections, this is clear.
Whether it’s McCain, Obama, Romney or Clinton as the 44th President of the United States, we’re in trouble. The New Year barely begun, and we have another bad day on Wall Street, and the price of Gold is knocking on $900′s door. No, things are not good.
The funny, interesting or pathetic (take your pick) thing about this primary season is that “CHANGE” is the watchword, the phrase everyone from candidate to media pundit is saying every few minutes. But look at those four names. 3 are currently serving Senators and Romney a Repblican fave-boy with the Million Dollar smile. What possible change can either of these people make?
I make no bones about the fact that Ron Paul is our only chance for real change. The rest are political insiders who promise more of the same. We’ll continue down the same road to fiscal and military destruction we’re on now. A little heartening is that over 8% of New Hampshire Republican voters voted for Dr. Paul.
Make no mistake about this. Among the candidates we see in the media every day, Ron Paul is our nation’s only hope for financial repair and security. Fortunately, more and more people around the country are waking up to this fact, but will we number enough?
Once again, MSNBC’s brillian Keith Olbermann is on the attack against the President. But then again, does the attack ever stop?
Carefully laying out the obvious deviousness the White House used in talking about the nuclear ambitions of Iran, Olbermann shows once again that the Bush/Cheney administration doesn’t deserve its position and control of the Government.
Olbermann’s commentary is powerful stuff, and an extremely important view of our current situation.
Once again, Mr. Kunstler is dead on correct. The airlines are dying, strangling on the reality of post-cheap-oil. Unfortunately, we live in a very large country and are addicted to travel. If you’re in your late 40s (as I am), you may just barely remember a time when air travel was something special, when passengers dressed up and the atmosphere at the airport was a relaxed, comfortable and almost festive one. Flying somewhere was a special event.