JAMES KUNSTLER: Desperation

[Tace]

James Kunstler -- Clusterfuck Nation

America commuted back into the unknown country of $3-plus gasoline and $75-plus oil (per barrel) last week, and President Bush revisted the Tomorrowland of hydrogen cars in the absence of any reality-based response to the global energy crunch that will change all the terms of America's "non-negotiable way of life."

Actually, we are negotiating, or bargaining, as Elizabeth Kubler-Ross once put it in describing the sequence of emotional reactions of humans facing certain death:

denial > bargaining > depression > acceptance

Events seem to have dragged us kicking and screaming beyond the sheer denial stage, since this is now the second time in six months that oil and gasoline prices have ratcheted wildly up. Something is happening, Mr. Jones, and now we want to talk our way out of it.

more

http://worldnewstrust.org/modules/AMS/article.php?storyid=3290

[Old and In the Way]

1. It is becoming increasingly clear....

Republicans = Big Oil = Wars without End = Dead End.

What we need is a Democratic contrast

Democrats = Alternative/Renewable Energy = Jobs = A Real American Future.

[cliss]

2. I like your math -

and I agree. The Dems have the answers and it's time they presented them. The world is now ready for what they have to say.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. Here's the part that struck me:

"The right wing still pretends we can still drill our way out of this, if only the nature freaks would allow them to. The "green" folks thinks that we can devote crops to the production of gasoline substitutes, even though a scarcity of fossil fuel-based fertilizers will sharply cut crop yields for human food. Nobody, it seems, can imagine an American life not centered on cars."

The typical American's reaction to the notion of a life without cars reminds me of what 1970s vegetarian cookbook author Anna Thomas said about the typical American's idea of a vegetarian meal was: the typical American meal without the meat, i.e. mashed potatoes and a pile of peas or carrots.

Just as vegetarianism rethinks the whole concept of a meal and relies a lot more on soups, stews, curries, stir fries, and other meals that are not made up of discreet piles of stuff, car-free life is not the typical American suburban lifestyle without a car, which sounds as bad as a meal of instant mashed potatoes and canned vegetables.

Instead, it's a rethinking of one's whole way of life: moving close to stores and services, walking, biking, or taking transit whenever possible, and realizing that you don't need all the crap that's sold in the suburban super stores.