by Jerky » Thu Sep 15, 2005 3:19 pm
In The Long Emergency, his chilling meditation on the complex of crises that lies in wait for us on the other side of the Peak Oil divide, author James Howard Kunstler wrote the following:<br><br>"I'm not optimistic about the Southeast... I think it will be subject to substantial levels of violence as the grievances of the formerly middle class boil over and collide with the delusions of Pentecostal Christian extremism. The latent encoded behavior of Southern culture includes an outsized notion of individualism and the belief that firearms ought to be used in the defense of it. This is a poor recipe for civic cohesion."<br><br>It has been said that any civilization, no matter how advanced, is only three meals away from anarchy, and part of me is just paranoid enough to harbor the niggling suspicion that the Bush administration's delayed response to Hurricane Katrina might constitute an experiment of sorts. Perhaps that which resembles mismanagement is actually purposeful agency, disguised as blunder and implemented by sacrificial goats. <br><br>Perhaps the Powers That Be let the world historic city of New Orleans be transformed into an overflowing, corpse-clogged toilet because they needed a proving ground to test their latest theories, or to see if Kunstler was on to something. <br><br>Perhaps they're working out the kinks in their social control mechanisms in anticipation of the day they finally begin their long-planned dismantling of the socio-historical aberration that is the American middle class, from whose ashes will rise a new civil society, wherein the typical citizen/subject will have far less access to information and not a whole lot of free time to waste worrying about things that don't directly concern him. Because, after all, is there not truth in cliché? Information is power. And power in the wrong hands is dangerous. And idle hands do the Devil's work.<br><br>Or perhaps they really are that bad at their jobs. At this point, it's hard to say which scenario is more troubling.<br><br>In any case, one thing is certain: we desperately need a new word to describe the Bush administration's cluelessness, incompetence, malevolence and negligence in the weeks since Mother Nature tore the Gulf states a new asshole, because when Celine Dion starts making sense, it's time to revise the vocabulary. "Tragicomic" isn't cutting it anymore. "Catastrofarcical" might work, or maybe "Apocalyptarded".<br><br>So much has happened in these last few weeks, and so much smoke and chaff have been blown into our collective national media view-screen that getting a handle on the reality of the situation seems almost impossible. <br><br>In the last two days, I've been inundated with scores of mass-forwarded e-mails, all attempting to absolve the Bush administration of blame, and each more bullshit-laden than the last. <br><br>Uncharacteristically, Time and Newsweek have both weighed in with none-too-reassuring glimpses into a deeply dysfunctional, absolutely disconnected White House, where a "Chinese phone line" of panicking yes-men draw straws to decide who gets to interrupt the Preznit's nap to break bad news to him. <br><br>Interesting times, no doubt about it. <p></p><i></i>
