Shock and Awe

What all this comes down to is the sense of a nation absolutely fooling itself that it can carry on in the way it is used to. I'm hardly an advocate of the US giving up and committing suicide. What I advocate is a broad recognition that reality is compelling us to change our behavior. Reality is trying to tell us that we can't run an economy based on nothing more than investment schemes without directing investment into activities that produce things of value. Reality is telling us to be very worried about living arrangements that can only function with copious imports of oil from people who are disgusted with us. Reality is telling us that we can't divert our food crops into making motor fuels without people becoming unable to afford either fuel or food. Reality is telling us to redirect our culture more toward things-we-do-with-other-people and less toward things-we-do-with-new-things. Reality is telling us to shift from avoidance behavior and denial to engaging with reality in order to lead lives that are consistent with reality. The next several weeks are liable to be a time of great stress as these realities become increasingly undeniable. I imagine the public chatter will become increasingly delusional as the wave crests. When it it finally comes, the shock of recognition that we are a bankrupt nation will present itself at first as a great silence. The public's collective jaw will fall open, but no sound will come out. That will be the true moment of shock and awe.

[more]

So rich he wants to start his own country

Last week I was working with Swiss Public Television doing a documentary on "Joe Bageant's Winchester." During the process I ran into a man from one of the wealthy local families who works in global finance abroad, has some murky US State Department connection with his work, and owns a brokerage in New York. We yakked bit, he agreed that there is a worldwide financial collapse coming, then he asked what I was doing back in town. I explained we were filming my people, the people born on the wrong side of the tracks. The working grunts. "Well when they find out what has been done to them and that it can never be fixed I don't want to be in this country." I thought such a bold faced admission of our condition was pretty bad. But it got worse. He has an escape plan. The guy is so rich he wants to START HIS OWN FUCKING COUNTRY.

[more]