In The Long Emergency (2005, Atlantic Monthly Press), I said that we ought to expect the federal government to become increasingly impotent and ineffectual - that this would be a hallmark of the times. In fact, I said that any enterprise organized at the colossal scale would function poorly in years ahead, whether it was a government, a state university, a national chain retail company, or a giant midwestern farm. It is characteristic of the compressive contraction our society faces that giant hypercomplex systems will wobble and fail. We should expect this.
and:
the President and his White House advisors along with his cabinet appointments, are pretending that the historical forces of compressive contraction are not underway. They're flat-out lying about the employment figures issued in the government's name. They're willfully ignoring the comprehensive bankruptcy gripping government at all levels. They refuse to bring the law to bear against "the malefactors of great wealth." They appear to not understand the epochal energy scarcity problem the whole world faces, or its implications for industrial economies. Most of all, they persist in promoting the lie that this economy can return to the prior state of reckless debt accumulation (a.k.a "consumerism") that has made us so ridiculous and unhealthy.
and:
American life will just wind down, no matter what we believe. It won't wind down to a complete stop. Its near-term destination is to lower levels of complexity and scale than what we've been used to for a long time. People will be able to drive fewer cars fewer miles. The roads will get worse. They'll be worse in some places than others. There will be fewer jobs to go to and fewer things sold. People who live in communities scaled to the energy and capital realities of the years ahead are liable to be more comfortable. We're surely going to have trouble with money. Households will drown in debt and lose all their savings. Money could be scarce or worthless. Credit will be scarcer.
Bigness, and the complexity that comes with it, is out of tune with the times. Bigness is an old dinosaur in a new age where dinosaur food is increasingly short in supply.
Meanwhile our "leaders" (read: bankers) persist with their own agenda to hoover up whatever material wealth remains on our devastated planet. They work by their own laws, relying on bribery and undue influence (and increasingly on fear and blackmail as in "too big to fail") to scare our craven and imbecilic politicians into following their commands. Those of the middle classes who have any material wealth left at this time will soon see that disappear in escalating taxation, and imploding pensions and savings, not to mention soaring energy and food costs. Material life has already lost much of the fake sheen it gained in the 80's and 90''s, and our cities are looking increasingly shabby and dilapidated. And the real depression has not even started yet....
It is increasingly clear that the old paradigm power mongers who operate the controls of modern humanity see the rest of us as livestock, to be abused and milked and consumed. They show no sign of compassion, no sign of morality, no virtues, no redeeming features whatsoever.
It is no longer reasonable to mock the conspiracy theorists who claim that these power mongers are not human, but reptilian aliens - there is a cold emotionless quality to their behaviour and there is no sign of humanity... there does indeed seem to be an agenda to microchip and drug us all for maximum control, and to homogenize the world under one world government and one world currency.
The lunatics have taken over the asylum. Luckily for us they are finding that the controls no longer function as expected. Their huge complex infernal machine is out of control and has started destroying itself.
The heydays of control have passed. We have entered a new paradigm of communion - of sharing and cooperation. Those who seek to compete, control, and manipulate for selfish gain will find their grand plans disintegrating into dust. The very ordinary people who have retained human qualities and virtues - who have resisted the ever-more-devilish propaganda, and have thus remained something more than selfish, greedy, consumers - these ordinary people will prosper amid the disintegration of our old paradigm world.
The meek shall inherit the Earth.
No comments:
Post a Comment