Comments in some of the most recent Belmont Club posts have been haunted by what Scott Johnson and Victor Davis Hanson have called depression. No longer do people put forward solutions as much as despair of solutions until the prevailing conditions change or the national mood shifts. Afghanistan? Well it’s no good discussing it until someone serious is in office. The economy? We’re all doomed so let’s just measure the rate of our decline. Dr. Hanson attributes the gloom to the loss of the old certainties. The world has been turned upside down by recent crises, and things no longer work in predictable ways. The present only seems to confirm the worst suspicions of some and they await the rest of the sentence with a kind of masochistic glee. In contrast to VDH’s focus on zeitgeist as the source of passivity, Scott Johnson puts his personal source of malaise down to one thing: Barack Obama. “I feel utterly powerless to do anything about the fellow in the Oval Office who combines infantile leftism and adolescent grandiosity in roughly equal measures. It seems to me that every day he is responsible for assaults on the freedom and well being of the American people. I can’t keep up and I can’t stand to pay attention.”
He can’t bear to watch. In a depressive mood we watch things fall apart, helpless to affect the outcome. Depression, whatever its source, has the same enervating effect. There’s a loss of interest in rational policy debate. We no longer feel we can stop the train and just want to know where it goes; we just want it to get to Yuma. Glenn Reynolds observes that even liberals are starting to feel their gizzards churn as they look down into the vertigenous depths, but in their case it is perhaps with a kind of recognition, a sense that it was always going to end this way. The Left has finally gotten its gal, even though deep down they knew she was poison. The true mark of a real femme fatale is that she offers corruption and the doomed hero takes it. The dialogue in a dark drama is mostly falsehood; you have to listen hard for the truth. The progressive version of depression is knowing that it’s all “infantile leftism and adolescent grandiosity”, but with the lights low in the hotel corridor they can’t help leaning forward for a kiss, despite hearing the old noir dialogue in their heads.
“If you’re thinking of anyone else, don’t.
It wouldn’t work.
You’re no good for anyone but me.
You’re no good and neither am I.
That’s why we deserve each other.”
Or if something more lyrical is desired, you can put it this way.
They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
Love and desire and hate;
I think they have no portion in us after
We pass the gate.They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream.
What probably keeps the world from being hijacked by the melancholy of intellectuals are its ordinary people. The world’s sanity is upheld by people who haven’t watched the movies and haven’t attended Harvard. The BBC reported a survey showed that Nigerians were the happiest people in the world. Mexico, Venezuela and El Salvador are not far behind. The New York Times recently described the rapturous mood in Angola as Pope Benedict completed his visit through it. One crippled old man walked miles for a glimpse of the Pope. That was all he wanted, and it was enough.
Manuel Domingos Bento, a 62-year-old farmer with a paralyzed right leg, had journeyed 50 miles to the outskirts of Angola’s capital and slept here under the stars beneath a thin blanket. A faithful Catholic, he did not want to be late for Mass on Sunday. Pope Benedict XVI was going to lead the service on the last full day of his first trip to Africa.
Even with the help of a crutch, Mr. Bento was too unsteady to venture into the mammoth crowd that had gathered along the expansive dirt of a vacant lot near a cement factory. When the pope finally arrived, the farmer was 200 yards away, able to see only the top part of the “popemobile,” a sparkle of glass under the harsh glint of a powerful sun.
Still, his eyes welled up with emotion. “This is the greatest moment of my life,” he said, awed by the pope’s presence, no matter how distant.
Maybe the NYT thinks it’s all superstitious mumbo-jumbo and maybe it is; but they should never forget the one role that hope and optimism plays in Third World countries. The one reason why the poorest countries in the world are the happiest: the knowledge that if you lost optimism, if you succumbed to depression; if you abandoned faith; if you sought from the shrink what you could otherwise gain by laughing and drinking with your friends then you would be truly lost. Natural selection militates against the gloomy Guses of the world. A winner never quits and a quitter never wins.
Whoever is in the White House and whatever happens, believe this even if it isn’t true: we will survive.
Update:
Paul Krugman has joined the growing ranks of the depressed. Even though it’s Bush’s fault (of course), he now believes that the Geithner plan will lead to catastrophe. Krugman argues in a NYT article called “Financial Policy Despair” that America will get one shot at fixing the crisis, and that by all indications, Obama’s shot will miss by a country mile.
If the reports are correct, Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary, has persuaded President Obama to recycle Bush administration policy — specifically, the “cash for trash” plan proposed, then abandoned, six months ago by then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. …
It’s as if the president were determined to confirm the growing perception that he and his economic team are out of touch, that their economic vision is clouded by excessively close ties to Wall Street. And by the time Mr. Obama realizes that he needs to change course, his political capital may be gone. …
But the fact is that financial executives literally bet their banks on the belief that there was no housing bubble, and the related belief that unprecedented levels of household debt were no problem. They lost that bet. And no amount of financial hocus-pocus — for that is what the Geithner plan amounts to — will change that fact. …You might say, why not try the plan and see what happens? One answer is that time is wasting: every month that we fail to come to grips with the economic crisis another 600,000 jobs are lost.
Even more important, however, is the way Mr. Obama is squandering his credibility. If this plan fails — as it almost surely will — it’s unlikely that he’ll be able to persuade Congress to come up with more funds to do what he should have done in the first place.
All is not lost: the public wants Mr. Obama to succeed, which means that he can still rescue his bank rescue plan. But time is running out.
Whether or not you believe Krugman it’s undeniable that there has been little, if any, attempt to rigorously identify the problems with the system — what I’ve called the processes which corrupted its information store — before restarting it. I’ve compared this to bringing a database online before fixing the problems which caused it to crash. Now Krugman says they haven’t addressed the housing bubble. Well why not get Barney Frank, Christopher Dodd and Rahm Emmanuel to do it? Why not get Barack Obama to critique “affordable housing”? Because it isn’t going to happen. The foxes run the henhouse. Krugman is asking himself all the right questions in all the wrong ways. Now “despair” is not quite the same as depression. Technically it is worse. “Dante passes through the gate of hell, which bears an inscription, the ninth (and final) line of which is the famous phrase “Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate”, or “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here” Before entering Hell completely, Dante and his guide see the Opportunists, souls of people who in life did nothing, neither for good nor evil.” And doing nothing had its cost.
You’ve got me clicking my heels…
I want to go home.
It’s said the poor are blessed, they being closer to God, and having nothing in this world, they are more open to whatever else might be.
My mentality: just try to survive the next four years and hope that we move these fools out of power in stages in 2010 and 2012. Pray that it does not all break before 2012. Work in whatever ways I can to get people to see the utter folly of their decision in 2008 (and for many that decision was made well before The Surge strategy put us over the hump in Iraq). Am I depressed? At times, yes. Nothing I can do about it.
And yes, I am one of those people trying to find ammunition in the stores and web sites to purchase and stock up on.
Want to know what has taken over the country? In the midst of that terrible incident out in Oakland today, a crowd of animals were around the fallen police officers and taunting them, mocking their deaths. When I read about that my blood froze, and then boiled afterwards.
It’s the riffraff, the parasites, the feckless, the ill-educated, and the credulous who are running the show now. The ACORN mob has gathered outside the palace and are celebrating their victory.
Then H will bless meny…
That whole ‘eye of the needle’ thing will be no problem after Timmy gets through.
Day of the living brain-dead?
5 dead because a nut case was paroled….
Words fail me.
Depression is anger directed inward.
Some great failure of our “betters” to fulfill their end of the social contract bargain is going to trigger a redirection of all that anger, to the great discomfort of those upon whom the Wrath of the People falls.
It won’t be pretty.
“Between two types of men who seek to create inconsistent kinds of worlds, I see no alternative but force. It seems that all societies rest on the death of men.”
– Francis Bacon
I’m glad to see Wretch pick up Scott Johnson’s piece over at Powerline.
I read it earlier today; I doubt I’ll ever read another piece that so fully encapsulates what I’m thinking and feeling at this very moment.
Watching this unspeakable horror unfold before my powerless eyes and hands presents quite a challenge when it comes to remaining optimistic – resignation and depression are even now attempting to batter their way through the door – may I continue to find the strength to stand before them and shout “BEGONE!”
…And smile to myself as I do so.
The President today outlined his strategy for gracefully ending the black mood of depression his presidency has plunged the country into without admitting he had anything to do with it. “It’s like we do in Chicago,” Rahm Emanuel said. “Money cures everything, and it will cure this. When things look darkest, that is when we in Chicago look our best, for in the dark is when we are most graceful. The President has informed the Treasury that the printing presses will melt if need be, for he is determined to see everyone in this country has a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage.” Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, at an informal press conference with several radical Muslim groups, laughed at the suggestion that the United States was abandoning its principles. “This Administration,” Mr. Gibbs quipped, “will never abandon its principals. Get it? Principals. With an “a”. Or its teachers, either. What’s with you guys? I know you’re laughing, I can see your beards move.”
fred:
http://www.ammoengine.com/
HOPE is the oxygen of joy, but discussion of hope inevitably turn my mind to two men, separated by a hundred years. One quite famous, the other not usually remembered by name but by his great baseball poem.
Benjamin Franklin, the first man said of hope:
“He that lives upon Hope, dies farting.”
-Benjamin Franklin
Poor Richard’s Almanac
The second gentleman,Ernest Lawrence Thayer finished his famous poem with these lines:
“Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright,
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and little children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville — mighty Casey has struck out.”
Staring at an increasingly complex world and it’s only major power building toward 10 trillion dollars in debt, hope has certainly met a stout foe in the form of an Administration that is clueless on every topic it has addressed so far and adheres to economic theories that have historically lead to very large wars as privation through inflation force hope out and invite despiration into the room.
Don’t worry, be happy.
I think my two young teenage daughters would be more responsible and sound in principles than that Big Mack Daddy in the White House and his merry band of tax cheats and lobbyist connections.
Thank you, Cannoneer No. 4 for the link. Slowly, I am gathering in places that do have it available. And I only want it mainly for range practice right now with my 9mm pistol. My best friend has an AR-15 and last year bought a thousand rounds of 223 ammo. I can’t afford an assault rifle as I have other expenses related to family life and responsibilities. I do have a Savage 270 with an excellent scope, which I bought mainly for deer hunting.
The thing about what happened out in Oakland today… I know how Eric Holder is going to approach this. Infuriates me because 99.9% of legal gun owners in this country, some of whom own assault rifles, are law-abiding and can be trusted as solid citizens. I sense that they’ll go to the playbook that Gen. Thomas Gage came to Boston with back in 1773. I predict that, as then, it will also fail today.
Depression is anger directed inward.
There is another theory (usually associated with Martin Seligman at Penn) that considers depression the outcome of learned helplessness– that is, that clinical depression results from a person’s perceived lack of control over the outcome of a situation. In terms of humans, although a group of people may experience the same negative event, how each person privately interprets or explains the event will affect their likelihood of acquiring learned helplessness and subsequent depression. People who tend to blame themselves for the situation [in this case, that they either voted for Obama or didn't try hard enough to persuade others not to]; who regard the situation as permanent [in this case, believing that leftward trends or political changes are irreversible or inevitable]; or who believe that their entire life will now be meaningless [in this case, they have no religious faith or other larger positive cause that claims their loyalty] are more likely to develop learned helplessness than those who can remain optimistic.
In terms of Wretchard’s observation that “The world’s sanity is upheld by people who haven’t watched the movies and haven’t attended Harvard,” perhaps the term learned helplessness can also be understood as the helplessness of the learned.
Good observations and comments, PA Cat. Perhaps a better way to describe what many of us are feeling right now is a kind of helpless resignation. I sometimes experience that. Overall, I have to believe that more people will wake up and, in the 2010 and 2012 elections, move these idiots out. But I think what most stuns us are the numbers being put out there by the President and the CBO. The numbers have more zeroes going out X many years that I just cannot relate to. And I’m the investments/finance field! It is staggering.
Heck, you don’t know real depression, unless it’s killed you or turned you into an incurable optimist. It’s in the real darkness, when it seems nothing new is possible, that the human freedom that is the fruit of necessity shows itself. The yet unimaginable doesn’t emerge from lightness and ease. There is thus something to be said for the Jewish attitude, since it has survived millennia, often of woe. Kafka’s aphorisms always help me remember that depression is the door of possibility, and hence that there is a need for a very patient faith. A favorite: “The Messiah will come only when he is no longer necessary; he will come only on the day after his arrival; he will come, not on the last day, but on the very last day.” The truth of that need not await the arrival (or return, if you like) of the Messiah: its wisdom is already proven by those who survive the darkness of history. Be a survivor.
“No longer do people put forward solutions as much as despair…” –Wretchard
I think we all know the solution. Obama and his cronies must be dislodged from Office as quickly as possible.
Now, as how to do it – I don’t have a clue. There must be some legal mechanism to dislodge Obama and his gang.
As the Obama acronym goes:
O ne
B ig
A ss
M istake
A mericia
What is being felt today is somewhat akin to the general mood of the populace in the hours, days and weeks immediately following December 7, 1941 – particularly as it became clearer and clearer how badly destroyed our pacific navy and military capability had become. Oh, there was anger – and we have that today – and muttering – need I say more? – but there was also an extended period of hopelessness and depression.
I lived through it then and believe there are enough of us left with the strength to live through this period, too. So we should use Cannoneer #4′s link and prepare ourselves to survive until the nation either comes to its sense or collapses – because one or the other outcome is almost certain before this is over.
Buck up, people! Is this the fortitude that built an entire nation from scratch, out of the effin’ wilderness, and rose to become the world’s sole superpower in just over 200 years?
And now you’re going to wilt and crawl away to your dens because a two-bit con man from Chicago is in the White House? Puh-leeeeze. Yes, he’s got an IQ hovering around room temperature. Yes, his very election is a sign that we let the Quislings take over the academy and the organs of public opinion. BIG mistake.
Time to roll up our sleeves and stand to, folks. Show a little of the intestinal fortitude of our ancestors! My first American ancestor came over to Jamestown in 1607, when there was NOTHING here but a vast wilderness. Back then, it was like volunteering to colonize Mars. And they did it, damn it. Half of them died, but they still came on.
Our ancestors built a nation like no one had ever seen: based on great Enlightenment principles, rooted in the magnificent precepts of British common law, and standing firmly on the ideals of Protestant Christianity. Above all, we are a nation of Ideals: of liberty and equality before God and man.
If this fargin’ weasel in the White House can so “unman” us, then by God, we don’t deserve to keep our republic.
Here is my attempt at positive thinking for today:
Ref Afghanistan, after all these years we still don’t seem to hear anyone in authority with an actual plan about the poppy crop ?
Maybe the logistics are now turning any plans into poppycock, but might we not still try buying the poppy crop up and either:
burning the crop after purchase so that the farmers would have their money, but the
drug traffickers would not have their product?
or
trying to generate interest in making sustainable use of the crop within Afghanistan, as cooking oil, cattle-feed, fertilizer, varnishes, soaps, and bio-fuel ?
US National Guard units include farmers, college professors and engineers, men who could devise and implement ?
Right now, poppy cultivation is contributing to food shortages, but it could be developed so at to make Afghanistan less vulnerable to
famine, and thus more stable ?
The Taliban will not like this, but if farmers and small businessmen like it, and poor folk feel they have greater food security, then the Taliban’s moral position will be weakened when they oppose it?
Wretch counsels Hope and Change? Things will “work out” because we’re Americans…right? Well, yes. Things do “work out” but the cost is sometimes extraordinary. In the 12 yrs it took to “work out” the rise of Nazi Germany, 60 million people died and Europe was in ruin. It did “work out” in historical terms, but the process isn’t as clean as implied in merely hoping. We need an action plan. Individually hoarding bullets and survival gardening is a plan, but not a sufficient one. There’s no leadership empowered to change, and that’s depressing. Dying farting sounds like the alternative.
Three weeks ago my friend’s grandfather died. Last Saturday her grandmother died. I suggested she read Psalms and her response was “???”. If you have no fixed point outside of yourself, if you believe that everyone who preceded you was ignorant or naive or unscientific, this rolling depression is no surprise, it should be expected. In a sense what allows for this despair to so easily overcome an increasing number of people is what created the Obama presidency. Easy fixes desired with least possible input required.
A couple of Liberals rather straightforward with their complaints, best Rich I’ve read (out of very few):
Geithner’s Last Stand
The indignation over AIG will serve a useful purpose if it focuses public attention on the much larger issue — the failure of the entire approach that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and White House economic czar Larry Summers are using to rescue the banking system.
It would be hard to find two administrations more different than Bush and Obama. Yet, when it comes to bailing out financial firms, Geithner’s approach is a seamless continuation of his predecessor, Hank Paulson’s. It makes you wonder who is the permanent government. Perhaps Wall Street?
Even the players are the same Goldman-Citigroup crowd. The well named Neel Kashkari, the Citigroup executive brought in by Paulson to run the TARP program, is still in place. Geithner’s top assistant, Mark Patterson, is from Goldman. And most of the concepts are coming from the same Wall Street crew.
So far, the policy has been an abject failure. The latest idea is to use some of the remaining Treasury funds from the TARP program approved by Congress last October to anchor several trillion more in loans and loan guarantees by the Federal Reserve and FDIC. For weeks, Geithner has announced only vague principles of his next move
Doug-
Followed your link. Given Kuttner’s political proclivities, my analysis is that Geithner will be sacrificed and assigned 100% of the blame for AIG and any other economic missteps of the administration so that the Messiah can go on untarnished. Places like Huffpost are the setup mechanisms for this to happen.
Lucy-
Whiskey had a post on a thread last week in which he commented that Gramscian Marxism had literally nothing to do with single women abandoning Western civilization while simultaneously becoming anti-natal. I almost responded, but did not.
While I think his analysis of the breakdown of the family and the role of perpetually single and adolescent women in eroding the West is largely spot on, I think your comment today illustrates the role that the long march through the institutions has had in creating the fertile ground in which the seed of the changes Whiskey describes can grow. Gramscianism is not the direct mechanism for the changes to the distaff side of our population, but it is the means by which a place is created where those changes can thrive best.
As to your comment on the desirability of easy fixes, I would also add that when generations of a society have been taught that the easiest way is necessarily the best way, the denizens of said society will have to struggle to find the means to solve problems requiring heavy lifting.
Good post.
A great post Wretch – I was thining the same last week as I’d written my third or forth post about the strategic trap our enemies are trying to lay for us. Fortunately, I finally realized “well so? what are we going to *do* about it?” I think maybe the sentiment is just a function of the slowness of strategic time. Obama has only been in office for 2 months, after all, and prior to his inauguration he was giving of nothing but signs of surprising centrism, particularly in his likely cabinet appointment and general deference to Bush’s policies (with some exceptions, of course). Now, however, even those of us who were skeptical have had their fears confirmed more than we expected they would. At least I can speak for myself here.
But you know what? You show us the way, Wretch. Now, at least, with Bush out of office and therefore The Great Distraction out from the view of the liberals and Leninists among us – *now* is the time that those people who never wanted to hear a world about the real Islam, the real Syria and Iran and Russia, and the *real* United States of America will be much more likely to hear. At least I hope – so that is my hope. I bet we win in the end, since our enemies are going to get greedy.
“The public wants Mr. Obama to succeed,” no we do not want Mr. Obama to succeed in permanently securing a socialist United States. I do not want a representative of Acorn interviewing me for the census. We do not want government supervised health care. We do not want a mandatory green environment and premature deconstruction of proven energy sources. We do not want our ancestors burdened with your mistakes of financial misconduct. I am too P.Oed to continue.
Beverly is right.
MAN UP!
“Want to know what has taken over the country? In the midst of that terrible incident out in Oakland today, a crowd of animals were around the fallen police officers and taunting them, mocking their deaths. When I read about that my blood froze, and then boiled afterwards.”
Sorry to say this, but for America to recover, we’re going to have to do some pruning.
Or we can take the high road and let the gyre work its will. Maybe India will take on the burden of civilization that the UK and US have shouldered.
#6,#29:
Is this about surrounding the dead officers reliable information? Where did you get that?
I think, that personally, I do not want to wreck the institutions of this country to “fix” things. We are stuck with Barack Obama and his Administration until 2012, at least. And that is what depresses me.
There is no guarantee that he will not be re-elected then. Who can project or know what the conditions will be in three years?
There is no guarantee that the Republican party can organize and put together enough good candidates to take enough seats in the House and Senate to slow down (and I’m not talking about even a majority) the Obama Express.
To repeat the Talking Heads song: “We’re on the Road to Nowhere.”
Although I make a habit of writing “we’re doomed” all over the web, I believe that we will get through this. The current madness might demonstrate to a new generation the idiocy of the Left.
On a happier note, consider this quote:”The wheels of government are clogged and…we are descending into the vale of confusion and darkness”. That was George Washington referencing the fiat money crisis in 1786. They got out of that with sound (commodity based) money.
Don’t forget to breathe
Buck up Bullwinkles! There is Hope unlooked for. Obama is a uniter after all. That giant sucking sound is all the libs reaching for their inhalers. Not to mention the jingle jangle of the scales falling from their eyes. It’s the end of the sixties and who’d a thunk it? (I feel fine.)
You can’t always get what you want, but when you do, you realize its not what you wanted after all; or as Tears Eliot said “hope is hope for the wrong thing”
Apologies to the author of Brother can you spare a dime?
It was only a paper boom,
Overselling a cardboard mall,
But it isn’t what we believe
If we believe at all.
I think it is only natural to be depressed at what is going on in the USA at this point in time. How could you not be? We see obvious solutions to difficult problems, but they are not even being considered. The actions that are being taken only compound the problem.
This depression will pass, is passing, into anger and action. The tea parties are a small yet important part of this. (Even small groups let others know they are not alone.) I hope this anger and action grows. We will now in 2010 how bad or good things truly are. If the republicans can possibly get their act even a bit together, the people will have a chance to make another choice. If they stick with the democrats in 2010 after all that is being done, then I think our future is bleak. If the democrats suffer a large defeat, there is real hope for the USA.
I am not afraid to admit I am a bit afraid. I look at my young kids and wonder what their future will be like.
An alternate universe exists for you pleasure:
Humbolt
(for an hour and a half)
…the setting is 100% authentic, has been since the 60′s!
But now the cartels are moving in, so it says in the movie.
I’m with Beverly… not quite so heartily cheerful, but grimly confident that we can endure the term of the affirmative action president and his unsavory coterie of Chicago operators. We can, we have endured and survived worse – consider the Civil War, when it looked as if we would tear ourselves apart over slavery and states rights? Our own soldiers killed each other in horrific battles, fallen in windrows, as if some horrific reaper had just passed a scythe blade along the ranks.
I think I had a sense of something dreadful coming, about three years ago – when I began to write historical novels about the 19th century frontier. I kept feeling that we had to go back and remember, remember where we came from and what we had endured, how we had built our country, how very rare and unique an accomplishment it was. There was something bad coming, a dreadful darkness and we would need that historical knowledge as a talisman, an inspiration and a comfort.
(The books are “To Truckee’s Trail” and “The Adelsverein Trilogy”, BTW.)
And there is something else, too – I used to call it “Sgt. Moms’ Theory of Learning By Screwing Up” or “Falling on the Sword.” There are some lessons that are learned best, and retained most effectively by having screwed up spectacularly. If someone wants to do something deeply stupid, sometimes the only thing to be done is stand back and let them do it. Then you can step in, help them up, wipe away the blood and explain why it was so stupid to start with. If those who wanted Obama in the White House so desperately (that portion of the electorate, the media and the intellectual elite)that they chose to ignore all warning and advice – well, maybe it most salutary just to step back and allow them to screw up every which way possible. Let it all out in the open, let the chips fall, let everyone learn that a mellifluous speaking voice, an attractive manner and some grandiose plans do not, in fact, make a good President.
Hell, It’s simple for anyone who lived during the Vietnam war era. The same folks are in charge and the same agenda is on their minds like it’s 1975 all over again.
Obama has no plan not for iraq and certainly not for Afganistan.
The Republican’s are just going along hoping he screws up enough to get elected in four years meanwhile the cancer that is Islam continues to grow.
we the people of the United States Of America are governed by clowns.
FRED: A good Winchester M-94 in pistol caliber is as good as any AR-15 when it comes to assault rifle performance and it’s not anywhere as scary lookin’ as an AR 15 too.
The price is even affordable.
Interesting thread. I’m a long time reader and occasional commenter. I was thinking just this weekend how depressing it has become to read many of the comments here – voices who appear to be seasoned, serious adults stocking up on guns and ammo and discussing hyper-inflation.
One wonders what to actually do. I’ve bought a few TIPS, reduced some recurring expenses (cancelled the local newpaper – finally!), reduced the energy needs in my house (spending todays dolalrs in anticipation of long term inflation in energy costs), restocked and upgraded my 72-hour kit, upped my exercise program. I’ll probably buy a little silver this week.
None of this will matter much if we get real financial collapse or more than sporadic civil disorder. What it would take to really prepare for TEOTWAWKI… and to live in the aftermath … is really depressing.
I can imagine – but frankly not quite believe – the level of civil disorder that would make it necessary to carry a gun. But I’m starting to wonder, and window shop.
I think one of the best counter to depression is action taken toward a goal.
I’d be interested in suggestions from the crew here for things that one could do, assuming a scenario a little less disasterous than TEOTWAWKI. What are some things that you folks have done over the last year, or are doing today?
My view is simple (for as often told, I am a simple man):
Over half the voters in the United States chose to give almost(perhaps complete?) limitless power to the current administration, an administration that openly disregards legal restraints, casting aside long held constitutionally grounded safeguards.
programmer pauses, takes deep calming breath.
A difficult time lies ahead. Firm, ethical leadership is required. Those of like mind must be strengthened and supported. Networks need to be formed or joined.
programmer’s simple advice for winning:
Be nice! For one thing, it is easy for conservatives and it confuses the heck out of liberals.
Present facts. Work from agreed truth to proposed solutions.
Make opportunities to win friends and influence people (Thanks to Dale Carnegie for the phrase).
Write letters to the editors (and comment on other blogs). Be nice, concise and factual.
Don’t preach fire and brimstone. That is God’s domain. He alone will judge. We should provide examples of how to live well.
Most of you are better at this than I, so I am now going back to my tea and zazen.
How can people react to disaster? Particularly how can people react to an anticipated disaster?
We do have some cultural training in gallows humor. The Cold War did us some good in this. Bomb shelter drills, Dr Strangelove and campus End of the World parties ritualized and normalized our expectation of the apocalypse. Some will undoubtedly turn inward in Depression, like a dog seeking a corner to die in. Some will react with a show of bluster and egoism, trying to grab the best table in the empty dining room on the Titanic as the ship tilts. Others, and I suspect they will prove to be the healthiest, will focus on personal humanity. The adolescent slogan was, the world is about to end, let’s have sex. Their instincts are not bad. Here is the kicker in my thesis, that reaction is not only healthy, it is the basis of Red State values. It would not surprise me if there turned out to be an increase in pet adoptions and marriages in the coming year. People will need security and acceptance and an assurance that “The fundamental things apply, as time goes by.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY62QByUYJQ
Blast from the Past 3-8-07
(My nephew made millions with a HS Ed @ New Century.
…when they went bust, he went fishing for three months, then became a VP @ Goldman.
Last I heard, he’s been fishing again.
Apparently had a large enough stash to retire @ 50,
…unless the Paulson/Obama Dollar makes that worthless.)
—
Hey, Rufus:
If you were a VP in this company, what do you figure you’d be facing, besides looking for work?
(odds on things like prison time, and etc)
Just Curious!
New Century
Old Guy – about preparing for TEOTWAWKI? Umm, stockpiling lots of dried beans and canned goods. Bought a used bread-machine, and now make homemade bread rather than buy. Planting lots of tomatoes, peppers, squash and other edibles in the yard. I’d seriously look at keeping chickens for eggs if the yard were big enough.
Taking on a lot of work that I can do at home, rather than drive. Oddly enough, I don’t think where I live will go all critical overnight – lots of people here have guns anyway. Just my two cents.
pope Benedict isn’t Churchill, hor he is a great communicator, pope Jean Paul2 has more of the latter stuffs.
DON’T MISS Sgt. Mom’s link above!
I’m not depressed at all.
I read of historical situations; the lead up to WWI, the euphoria of the prewar industrial age, the despair of the Titanic. The raging 20′s, the fall and depression of the 30′s that stewed the vile ideologies until they took over the world in destruction.
I yearn for the taste of those times. How did my father feel learning aircraft identification in school in 1943? Or my grandfather, a man broken by the trenches and gas, seeing it all fester again as his life drained away? Or my great grandfather, losing his fortune in the crash of 1914, then losing his lands to the tax collector?
Oddly enough, I can see, feel and taste all those things. What thoughts and feelings move vast mobs of people to fall as suckers for hope mongerers? How can seemingly rational men one decision at a time destroy and plunder everything that has taken generations to build? How can educated men, leaders in their field miss the obvious in front of their eyes? What pathological thinking patterns occur in those instances?
We are seeing the answers every day. I never was depressed reading the accounts in history books, why would I be depressed in seeing it happen before my eyes?
Derek
Nearly all depressions are temporary and maybe useful as a disengage, retreat and regroup maneuver. Let’s put the ammo away and really use our minds. We have work to do. 2010 is just around the corner and approaching fast. This election will start early and push Congress in a more sensible direction. It is plain that the Democratic majority is badly overplaying their hand. They have two options: back off or lose a lot of seats.
Cheer up. We’re not done yet.
d.
Amazing stuff, Derek.
The cash for trash program looks similiar to the S&L bailout plan of the 1990′s. In that plan the feds recouped most of their money. The total payout was something like 70 billion. How much the feds recoup this time will depend on how much they pay for the assets and how much they get for them when they sell them.
In the end what they will spend will not be anything like the 1 trillion initial investment.
Even if they successfully address this problem they have not touched the labeling problem. The big banks deal in numbers not in people. For them to operate their numbers have to real & not bogus. Triple AAA rated mortgages have to be Triple AAA rated mortgages otherwise their calculations are meaningless.
“What thoughts and feelings move vast mobs of people to fall as suckers for hope mongers?”
That’s easy. Per Chesterton, more or less, “It’s not that people who don’t believe in God believe in nothing. It’s that they’ll believe in anything.”
We are reaping the harvest of a couple of centuries of increasing materialist faith in the garb of science as a world view. This has induced an upside-down cosmology.
As a result, we’ve become like the intellectuals in Gulliver’s Travels who spent their days going through shit looking for answers to the great questions because men did their best thinking on the toilet.
The “depressive position” actually refers to a developmental advance that involves the capacity to grieve the loss of cherished illusions. Many boomers — and now the children we raised — remain ensconced in romanticism, in a regressed longing for the fantasy that mommy or daddy or Timothy Leary or holding hands and singing “Imagine” will make it all better.
Paul Johnson, in “Modern Times”, calls his chapter on the 1960′s “America’s Suicide Attempt.” So, one way to look at this is that the Boomers are at it again. But suicide is usually more about rage than depression.
The depression is, in this instance, the stepping stone to the next level, the place where those fantasy-based solutions — fantasies like an unending cornucopia of scientific advance and associated wealth — are appropriately grieved and left behind.
The next level will have to be the proper reorientation of our cosmology, with God and absolute morals and tried-and-true traditions reestablished as the bedrock of our culture.
I wouldn’t expect the liberals and the folks who thought the campaign was an episode of American Idol to help with the heavy lifting. Many of them will, in fact, get in the way.
“The Campaign was an Episode of American Idol”
—
It wasn’t?
I thought if I voted for the black guy, I’d establish my credentials forevermore.
ledger@17
I think we all know the solution. Obama and his cronies must be dislodged from Office as quickly as possible.
Now, as how to do it – I don’t have a clue. There must be some legal mechanism to dislodge Obama and his gang.
I too ponder the peaceful path. At this stage of the battle, I think “pickets” are critical. Real pickets. Virtual pickets. Avatars with a message. The Web is part of the arsenal available, still.
I think we need to unleash our own corps, online and off (10 people/shifts), committed to incessantly intercepting each and every elected official at their local and WDC offices, during business hours. Ask to speak to the elected official, and/or a spokesperson, if officials aren’t available. Everyday. Different pointed questions. We’ll need an archive of their responses, for later.
Use questions like: About half of the electorate thinks what you are facilitating is financial rape, and that you are criminal in your support of it. How do you respond to that charge? Capture the response on your handicam or cell phone.
This activity will become the most important topic of conversation, whichever way it goes.
Web videos at eleven. Nationwide. Document and distribute hundreds of clips of peaceful civil unrest; overwhelming the coverage of the MSM (even if they decide to cover the incidents). Sign verbage needs to convey clearly how serious we believe the situation to be. A teabag may be too anachronistic a symbol, as we may have passed by a time when dumping tea expresses the extent of our anger.
The frequency of congress-critters and their staffs making themselves available to answer pointed questions from average angry and organized citizens will inform us. I type while reloading.
Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today…
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace…
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world…
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one
Al_Batross@20
Or, we could process all that poppy juice – opium – heroin into cheaper painkillers for our wounded in the fight, and for the elderly everywhere.
That’s its most useful application, no?
Things move fast – a couple weeks ago – Krugman was offering a mea culpa – realizing that O was on his way to being the “tansformative” liberal pres he’d long desired. (K was WAY late on that front – not a big Obama man during the primries.) 15 minutes after his “despair” he blogged that Orzag (sp> was right-on re the controversy about budget vs. CBO projections…See below…
Just a quick note on the new, pessimistic CBO budget projections:
1. These projections have no bearing on the case for a large stimulus now — none. Adding, say, another $600 billion to stimulus spending would, on net, add around $400 billion to debt a decade from now (net is less than gross because the stimulus expands GDP, which leads to higher revenues that partly offset the initial outlay.) This would make essentially no difference to the outlook. Peter Orszag has this exactly right.
2. What the projections suggest is that Obama’s longer-term agenda, or a progressive agenda in general, needs more revenue; that’s probably true, although there’s huge uncertainty about any long-term projection. That revenue might come from environmental policies: I’ve been hearing that realistic projections of the revenue from cap and trade might be much higher than assumed in the budget. In any case, however, it’s really a political question: are we willing, ultimately, to pay the modest costs of a better society.
Back to Wretch – Nice to see him making the case for the happy poor and for the Franklin’s right to his raincoat. But maybe we can do better…Of course that would require someone with a vision of a “better society.” And we all know the notion of a commonwealth is verboten to Wretch – It’s all about self (and the home “ownership society”)… That lonely guy heroically resisting the femme fatale (and buying that raincoat instead?)…
Just read an interesting chapter in a book by Jed Purdy (author of “For Common Things”) – Explains how the idea of politics got squeezed in America. Amazing to read what LBJ envisioned for the country. Makes the young Marx on the “realm of freedom” sound like a Puritan. ANyway – Reagan said goodbye to all that (until the Big O). But the turn against the Social sensibility actually dates back to Nixon. He was the one who turned away from – ask not what your country can do for you – to “Ask what you can do for yourself!” – Carter was similarly “modest” about the the prospects for common things…
sgt. Mom,
Sure, we can stand back and let this crew do whatever and fail…however, those same historical incidents you example were always resolved by blood, many times spilling lots. We’ve seen that outcome before. I’m worried about on-the-way-to-there.
Tax revolts and labor rebellions ( organized national ‘holidays’) are one way to wake up Congress.
There’s no way to re-set H for overcharging us.
On present trends in unemployment and destruction of the dollar…
We’ll have civil disorder, perhaps even food riots. ( Food costs figure to explode if rumors from farm country are true. )
I now doubt that America can even wait until 2010 to turn the economy around.
BTW, the Timmy plan is a set-up to oligarchy. Gross, Soros, Buffett and the Sandlers are on the invite list — not you.
The tactics used are practically identical to the way the capital of the Soviet Union moved into very few hands indeed: closed ‘auctions.’
The Chinese have been holding down the value of the Yuan in order to make Chinese goods cheaper than US goods.
massively expansionist US monetary and fiscal force the Chinese to either fund the expansion for next to nothing or see the value of the Yuan increase against the dollar.
What will they do?
Judging by the fear evidenced by the Chinese prime minister for the dollar–they don’t have a great appetite for more US bonds.
Therefor the Yuan will likely appreciate against the dollar–thereby making American products more competitive against the Yuan.
That will take away a great part of the government enabled competitive advantage that the Chinese enjoy with the US.
Fiscal policy will be slower to affect US oil imports.
What you hear constantly is that the Fed is fighting deflation by trying to ignite inflation. The economy is still deflating. What you hear is that real estate has to decline by half–and we may be only half way there. The flip side of that is that commentators say that Bernake has to be very very agile because somewhere out there he will succeed in sparking inflation. But before that happens he has to see it coming and begin daining capital from the system. If he waits too long there will be a massive surge in inflation as all banks start to lend at the same time– and the velocity of money increases significantly.
Depression? Yeah occasionally. I try to keep it to grim resignation though. I have been involved in politics and military affairs deeply and long enough to see how badly screwed up things are, probably better than most people [not necessarily those here at BC, because the very fact that we are involved in something like this means that we are more informed than the vast majority of the population.] do. I am enough of a historian to realize with certainty that all civilizations end, all dynasties fall, and that what follows them is usually a period of barbarian rule. The bad guys end up winning, usually because the good guys lack the balls to fight back directly and/or lose demographically because they don’t have enough faith in the future to breed. Sound familiar?
What is perhaps most disconcerting is that even in the face of the collapse of our Constitutional and legal order, those who are of the “opposition” are unable to find a leader or leadership group that will actually, well, OPPOSE. The mantle of opposition falls as a first order default to the Republicans. They have shown, with few exceptions, that all they seek is equal access to the public trough as individuals alongside the Nomenklatura. Thus, those who would hope to fight back know that they are perforce fighting the entire political spectrum, with the power of the almighty State backing that spectrum of thieves.
We have already watched the electoral system corrupted sufficiently with false registrations and absentee ballots, aided and abetted openly by Hussein Pasha and his party,and his party’s elected officials; so that no reasonable person can have any real faith that the results of any election as posted the day after reflect anything like the actual ballots cast. In the Intergenerational Theft Bill; ACORN, the procurer of the suborned ballots, has been given $4 Billion [several multiples of what was spent by both sides in the last election] to ensure that all further elections will be won by the Democrats. To paraphrase Stalin, it is not how many people vote that is important; but rather who counts the votes [q.v. Minnesota today].
Are there grounds for optimism? Not bloody likely. While I would love to see an electoral pushback in 2010 and 2012; we now have no assurance that there will even be elections in those years, or if there are, that the votes will be honestly counted. Combine that with having a significant portion of the Republican “opposition” being the political devotees of Cthulu [they will eagerly sacrifice their own to the maw of the beast in hopes of being eaten last]; and electoral success is an appallingly thin reed to lean on. I will work electorally, if we are permitted to do so by the regime, but with no great hope that I am doing more than going through the motions for the sake of form before other means prevail.
Resort to Ultima Ratio Regis is always a throw of the dice, and the game is not honest. Besides the distinct possibility that we could lose, there is the problem of what results if we win. Look around you. Do you see any political figure on the horizon whose loyalty to a Constitutional form of government can be trusted?
It says much when the primary hopes for preserving Liberty in our poor country are either having the regime over-reach and/or screw up so blatantly to the point that people pick up arms, or that our armed forces remember the Oath and act to defend it.
Grounds for depression? Plentiful. Hope for the future? Limited and fading away with every act by this government and our manifold enemies overseas.
For myself, for several weeks after November 4, I was probably depressed; as the realization that the American experiment could be in its final days sunk in.
I agree with Robert E. Lee; “Duty is the sublimest word in the English language.”. I am old enough to realize that I will probably not survive the coming storm; whether it ends with us free or slave. All I hope is that before the end comes; I will have done my duty to the Constitution, my country, and my family.
…Blow, wind! come, wrack! At least we’ll die with harness on our back.
Subotai Bahadur
Biden jokes about Obama’s birth certificate at dinner
For some of us the depression comes from the realization that the train wreck is coming and that there is little that can be done about it. Millions of pounds of metal and flesh are hurtling down the tracks, and even if one of us could magically leap into the cab of the locomotive and haul on the brakes, it would be too late. Is this just giving up? Perhaps. Or it may just be a normal reaction to being in a situation where you have absolutely no control.
The time for talking our way out of this is past. Those on the Left aren’t going to listen to reason. And part of the reason for the coming wreck is the falacious idea that we can just talk our way out of any situation. That didn’t work too well when we were kids on the playground, and it isn’t working now. As yet there is no leadership on the Right. Some of us may step forward, but now we’re in that span of time between recognizing that the train wreck is going to happen and the impact itself. Some of us may “eat, drink, and be merry”, but a more normal reaction is to feel fear and depression. It doesn’t mean that we’ve given up or that we’re not going to do anything if we survive the crash. And it doesn’t necessarily mean we’re whiners, cowards, or do-nothings.
Our society has become so corrupted that probably only a major catastrophe can purge the disease. Wretchard is perhaps right to see the comments of some like me as whining and giving up and only seeing the negative. But I think it is a fantasy to imagine that we can talk our way of this or that suddenly everyone on the Left will wake up and see the light. Perhaps as some imagine we’ll “throw all the bums out” in the next set of elections. But that alone will not correct the years of propaganda, misinformation, ignorance, and lack of values that has infected our country. At best we will turn the clock back a few years and merely be at the same situation where we’re a divided country tottering down the same road to socialism.
So like many others I’m stocking up on food and ammo. And am I depressed at the thought of having to fight for my life at the age of 66 when I should be enjoying my retirement? You bet.
What Beverly said!
The way ahead is not through revolution — we have too much dignity for that — but through the same means that have always worked before. Fashion a compelling narrative — one that that tells the voters who we are, what we stand for, and why their future will be brighter if they follow our advice — and put forth a compelling set of candidates to make that case. It’s that simple, and that hard.
geoffgo@58,
The reason I did not mention the medical application is that getting Big Pharma involved would only spell trouble, imho.
Big Pharma wants to synthesise drugs rather than use natural products which require a minimum of processing.
If something could be done to process the poppy crop for medicinal purposes within Afghanistan, using resources and expertise already in-country, then that could be good, but it would need to managed properly so that the product did not get diverted for criminal/Taliban purposes.
Turning it into cooking oil, cattle-feed, fertilizer, varnishes, soaps, or bio-fuel would make mis-use it more difficult…?
L.O.L. for Benj… “realistic projections of the revenue from cap and trade.”
What a great way to depersonalize the massive confiscatory tax about to leveled at U.S. industry and business on the basis of an imagined threat posed by carbon. It almost seems cheery! Who wouldn’t want to collect revenue from that? Hell, that greedy ol’ Capandtrade is just sitting there with all that cash stuffed in its pockets, polluting out that poisonous carbon into our beautiful carbon-free world.
Kudos on the mastery of Doublespeak.
The Afghan village farmer is pimped into opium cultivation.
The drug lord buys the crop in advance and if you don’t deliver then it’s your head.
The grower participates as a sharecropper.
And very much in the style of whaling ships in days gone by; the farm hands are paid a slice of the crop.
This structure aligns everyones economic interest.
Defaulting on the advance money is resolved by execution and expropriation of assets.
The classic default would be giving the crop over to a rival drug lord.
These agri-pimps keep a watchful eye on their franchise. A hostile take-over can happen with little notice so maintaining the tough-guy brand is upper most in every lord’s mind.
Which brings us to the difficulty of getting the sharecropper out from under contract. That’s the problem.
First of all, we don’t yet know how bad it will get. The coming bad times will be worse for some than others. Unfortunately some very productive people in the private sector could be severely hurt. But we don’t know yet if Obama can overide our constitutional rights, we don’t yet how socialist the economy will become, we don’t know if Universal Health Care will pass and in what form, or Card Check either. We don’t know deep unemployment will be or will the financial system collapse. We don’t know how severe or how many future terrorist attacks there will be.
It is best to be prepared for the worst, but there are still causes for optimism.
In just past few days, several notable lefties, Frank Rich, Mo Dowd, Paul Kriugman, and Tom Friedman , as well as notable Rino’s partial to O like Peggy Noonan, Nicole Wallace and Kathleen Parker have all written stinging rebukes of the Bama performance so far, and those all were before O’s Chuckles the Clown act on Sixty Minutes. We may be seeing the wheels coming off the Bama Bandwagon.
It does no one any good to wallow in the negativity of it all. It is best to work for a better day for America. Focus on the work at hand, not your declining fortunes. Many of us tend to get wrapped up in the expectations, the status, the social pressures and the comforts of modern life. Those most wrapped up in the comforts and expectations of what was will be those most likely to be depressed. Remember, except for those unfortunate victims of violence, no matter how bad it gets, most Americans will still be vastly better off than most people living today in the world, after all this is over, and it will be over someday. Be grateful and thank God for your opportunities to sill live a better life here in America. America can still survive as the beacon of freedom and liberty, if we fight for it.
The wheels have already come off of Card Check…
It can’t get necessary votes in the Senate.
Imagine that.
Cap and Trade Tax is dead for the same reason.
Actually, imho if Krugman goes negative–that’s a sign that the program has some chance of success. I read the writing below on another board. It shows the mechanics of the cash for trash program announced today.
…………………..
I think ALL the smart institutional investors will participate in this program
because their profit potential is huge and their risk is low.
And taxpayers will do just as well as the institutions do.
Pimco and Blackrock have already said they will participate.
For example;
Pimco puts in $1 of equity and is matched by $1 from the treasury. They can
they leverage the equity 6:1 with non-recourse debt from FDIC.
So the money manager has $14 — $1 Pimco equity, $1 treasury equity and $12 of
FDIC debt.
They can bid $.35 for a dollar of toxic assets in each of forty transactions
(investment of $14)
If the assets gain 10% in value of their holding period, the assets are now
worth $.385, total value of $15.40.
So the profit on the transaction is $1.40 on an equity investment of $2 or 70%
return — half goes to Pimco, half to the treasury.
And since the FDIC debt is non-recourse, the risk is limited to the $2 of
equity.
So even if they have to hold the toxic assets five years in order to see their
value increase by 10%, the ROI is still double-digits.
Looks like a pretty good risk/reward to me.
Here is the answer to the AIG problem:
/////////////////////////////
Underlying many of the financial problems are 62 trillion of credit default
swaps, many written by AIG.
In effect they are insurance that a bond will be money-good because the writer
of the credit default swap has assumed the risk that the entity issuing the bond
would default.
So a CDS acts as a hedge if bought by the owner of the bond.
However that accounts for only about 25% of the 62T of CDS. The other 75%
represent speculative bets that the issuer would go bankrupt.
In effect they are no longer insurance but rather a vehicle for speculation.
Why not pass a law saying that CDS only apply where the buyer of the CDS owns
the underlying bond and therefore wants to hedge their position (25% of the
CDS). In the other 75% of the cases, the CDS is abrogated because the owner has
no “insurable interest” and past premiums are returned.
That would get rid of tens of trillions of dollars of toxic waste for little
payment.
The only ones hurt would be the owner of the speculative bet who wouldn’t lose
any actual money but rather would lose the opportunity to make a killing in the
future. So some hedge funds and others would have less rosy futures, but no
current losses.
Without the crippling Cap and Trade Tax H’s budget falls apart.
So now there’s a bipartisan revulsion at the epic deficits detailed by the CBO.
More spending has to be cut.
Charles…
The real story is that these are not free market auction prices.
Further, they permit oligarchic financial profits for the few like Gross. The idea that Pimco et. al. are going to make modest positive returns is absurd. They’ll make an absolute killing.
Many RMBS are very likely to be redeemed at or near par. These are the ones backed by mortgages in the 45 state with normal values. Picking them up for 30 points is theft against the taxpayer.
Timmy is so screwing us you can’t wrap your mind around it.
The market is rallying on ignorance and a flight of the shorts.
This rigged auction scheme is a crime. The fox is managing the hen house.
Geoffgo – “I’m worried about on-the-way-to-there.”
So am I. I know how bad it might get, and how bloody it got sometimes in the past.
But I have skills, I can write, I can tell a story – a compelling narrative, as one of the other commenters put it in another sense. I can tell a story that helps us claim back our history, that it might serve as a light in darkness, our very own little flask of starlight from Erandil. That is my strength, and what I can see as my duty to do, to remind of us of where we came from, how much hard work that real democracy, by and for the people really is. I believe that we can survive, endure, fight back… and take back our nation from the rent-seekers and their friends and clients, all lining up feed out of the trough.
Nothing is quite as inspiring as knowing that you absolutely must succeed.
Pimco, Blackstone and Goldman Sachs are the exact same players that the government has working out the valuation models.
This is crony capitalism in the extreme.
If there is anyone who should be prohibited from bidding on any of these assets its these guys who are being paid by the government to manage things.
Timmy didn’t come up with this ‘plan’ Gross did.
I glad to see that my depression about not being able to see any consequences for this congressional and executive stupidilty is felt by people knowing more than me.
I’m immensely cheered that Obama’s wheels appear to be coming off, also — that he’s no longer calm and measured but is being asked on national TV whether or not he’s punch drunk because he can’t quit giggling.
If he is, indeed, punch drunk with his own failure that tells me that he’s *not* a Manchurian president, that he recognizes his personal failure, and that he’s not leading us into disaster as the behest of some overseas oil tick.
I wonder if Dubya would come back if we could figure out how to depose O.
43. What am I doing to prepare for something less than TEOTWAWKI?
Today I bought a Mosberg 500 Home Defender.
We need a turnaround artist like Mitt.
#67 Clioman
Believe me, other than electoral means is not a choice willingly undertaken. If it comes, it will be one of the few alternatives left other than submission.
“The same means that have always worked before” were in a far different political environment. Long ago when the world was new [OK, as late as the 1980's] politics were retail. Individuals working in campaigns had greater effect. Now, all politics are run on mass media. Guess which side the media has thrown its lot in without reservation. Being an organ of the State is not a bad gig if you are a reporter or editor, compared to dealing with those nasty people out there.
Building a nationwide opposition party in the face of BOTH major parties in the less than a year that we have before the 2010 campaign begins in earnest is beyond possibility. Then we have to find candidates and money. The alternative of taking over the Republican party is a chimera. They have just had their asses handed to them on a platter; carved, garnished, and with a bowl of sour sauce on the side for two elections running. The keynotes of both losing Republican campaigns has been a deliberate contempt for the party’s base and principles, said contempt being openly and vociferously expressed. The strongest Republican voices coming from DC now consist of those who want us to be more like the Democrats.
Between time/money pressures and the weakness of the Republican party as a vessel for anything but collaboration, there is not much hope.
Finally, there is the matter of who counts the votes. Aside from Minnesota. Aside from Wisconsin and Illinois where there are frequently more Democrat votes counted than there are people. Aside from California where 1/4 to 1/3 of the registered voters are illegal aliens voting Democrat. Aside from scores if similar scenarios nationwide, there is the matter of Missouri where the Democrat Attorney General deliberately inserted hundreds of thousands of known false ACORN registrations into the system in violation of Federal law. And was backed by the courts who decided that there is no one in the country who has standing to ask that Federal election law be enforced against Democrats. Democrats can tamper with elections with absolute legal immunity. They have just used our tax dollars to fund a permanent majority by vote fraud.
Yes, we will fight in 2010 if there are elections [not a sure bet]. I will work for a miracle in that maybe there will be a vote-the-bums-out tidal wave after things collapse in the country; but it will take another simultaneous miracle of having your Diety of choice striking every single ACORN member down with lightning and removing them from the political equation permanently for there to be a real hope of victory. And even if we win, how much faith do you have in the RINO party to stand up to Hussein Pasha instead of running for the pork and PC buffet?
It is not a matter of desire, I assure you. I and many others would like to be able to live out our lives in peace with the knowledge that our children will remain free and have a chance for prosperity. But there is a recognition that when only one side feels itself bound by the law and the Constitution, that side will lose in any electoral contest against a side that has contempt for both. And at that point there is a stark choice to be made.
Politics in any society is an agreed framework of processes for resolving differences and allocating power and resources in such a way that it can be accomplished within what that society considers an acceptable level of violence. That level varies from society, but once the agreement has been breached irrevocably by one side, the default is a return to a “state of nature” where there is no limit to the violence applied by each side.
In our society, in theory the only legal force that can be used is the coercive power of the State; under the strict limits of the Constitution, the laws, and the consent of the governed as freely and honestly expressed by their votes. If the laws and Constitution are treated with contempt by the State, and the legitimacy of the vote is placed in doubt; have we not returned to that state of nature where only brute force is the determinant of what happens to the individual?
Actually, there will be 4 options: Submit to tyranny, die, fight, or flight. All of these will be constrained by the interlocking web of obligations and loyalties amongst individuals. But in the absence of what the proverbial reasonable man would consider a chance to resolve things within the political system; the four options are all that are left at that point.
Subotai Bahadur
Hope is a good thing, but never forget it is but an emotion, not a strategy, nor policy. We must take out Iran, now.
WSJ in part today:
Make no mistake: The Middle East may be on the verge of a nuclear arms race triggered by the inability of the West to stop Iran’s quest for a bomb. Since Tehran’s nuclear ambitions hit the headlines five years ago, 25 countries — 10 of them in the greater Middle East — have announced plans to build nuclear power plants for the first time.
The six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates [UAE] and Oman) set up a nuclear exploratory commission in 2007 to prepare a “strategic report” for submission to the alliance’s summit later this year. But Saudi Arabia is not waiting for the report. It opened negotiations with the U.S. in 2008 to obtain “a nuclear capacity,” ostensibly for “peaceful purposes.”
Egypt also signed a nuclear cooperation agreement, with France, last year. Egyptian leaders make no secret of the fact that the decision to invest in a costly nuclear industry was prompted by fears of Iran. “A nuclear armed Iran with hegemonic ambitions is the greatest threat to Arab nations today,” President Hosni Mubarak told the Arab summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia two weeks ago.
http://tinyurl.com/dzq9t7
76. bert
I don’t know. This looks like they want to handle the problem in a way that’s similiar to the way the S&L crises was resolved in the early 90′s. So was the S&L solution ill formed or unethical?
Beats me.
Here’s a report on the S&L crises of the late 80′s-early 90′s:
The combined closings by both agencies of 1,043
institutions holding $519 billion in assets contributed
to a massive restructuring of the number of firms in
the industry. From January 1, 1986, through year-end
1995, the number of federally insured thrift institutions
in the United States declined from 3,234 to
1,645, or by approximately 50 percent.5
As of December 31, 1999, total direct costs attributable
to the closing of insolvent thrift institutions over
the 1986–1995 period amounted to $145.7 billion.
Indirect costs due to the loss of Treasury revenue
because of the tax benefits that accrued to acquirers of
failed institutions under past FSLIC resolutions
amounted to $6.3 billion.23 An additional $1.0 billion
of indirect costs was incurred because interest expens-
es were higher with the use of REFCORP bonds than
with Treasury financing.24 Thus, the combined total
for all direct and indirect losses of FSLIC and RTC
resolutions was an estimated $152.9 billion. Of this
amount, U.S. taxpayer losses amounted to $123.8 billion,
or 81 percent of the total costs. The thrift industry
losses amounted to $29.1 billion, or 19 percent of
the total.
*
IGNORANCE IS BLISS.
If the Third World is so happy, let them stop coming here to spread their “Third World bliss” around like so much sh*t. I’ll take my informed mind, my reason and enlightenment over their “blissfull ignorance” any day.
For some of us the depression comes from the realization that the train wreck is coming and that there is little that can be done about it.
Yes, this is the problem. The 2008 election was our fellow countrymen jamming the throttle full speed ahead. It was bad enough that the choice was between a Socialist and a “Conservative” who was more interested in bipartisanship than anything else. The fact that the Socailist won (largely by duping people) and was given a solid majority in Congress, says that the voters are too damn stupid to be relied upon. That’s a very depressing thought for someone who lives in democratic society. It means we need to reconsider our election laws. Dangerous stuff, that.
So we are commited to a crash, and the best we can hope for is to rebuild something good from the pieces. Well, that’s better than nothing. An optimist thinks we can avoid the crash. A pessimist thinks we’re doomed. A realist says it’s time to plan for how we recover. The first step is jamming on the brakes in 2010 by getting Pelosi, Reid, Frank, Dodd, et al out of power. It won’t avoid the crash – too late for that – but it will mean lower speed and less damage. 2010 is critical. Don’t get distracted, we need to remove as many Democrats from power as possible. Even if we replace them with squishy Republcians like an Olympia Snowe, it’s better than leaving a Democrat in there. Get that thought in your head. If the best shot at beating a Democrat in 2010 is a pro-abortion log cabin Republican, so long as that Republican will vote against Obama’s bankruptcy budgets, it’s a positive step. Take it.
The time for talking our way out of this is past. Those on the Left aren’t going to listen to reason… As yet there is no leadership on the Right…
Correct on both counts. Call this the McCain Clause. John McCain always thought talking to the Left, working with them, was a good and noble thing. Nope, they’re bad people. Look at the current lineup of Democratic leaders and point to one who could genuine be called a good person. They are uniformly venal, corrupt, arrogant and contemptuous of the people they are supposed to represent. Republicans have spent far too much time trying to work with these vermin instead of destroying them. So most of the Republican leadership is compromised, corrupt themselves, or simply ineffective. Not willing to fight. We need to clear out that layer and look deeper in the lineup for someone who will fight. They exist, like U.S. Grant. We just need to be done with the McClelland’s so we can find them.
Our society has become so corrupted that probably only a major catastrophe can purge the disease.
Well, we’re going to have the major catastrophe, so let’s work to make sure we at least get some good out of it by purging the disease.
Subotai Bahadur,
Compliments on your writing, thoughts, and knowledge.
That places you, in my mind with Buddy Larsen, a wit, a great writer , and a fellow I’m sure we’d all enjoy sharing a beer with.
Good on ‘ya mate.
Mark Steyn is sitting in for Rush Limbaugh today. Here is a quote from him:
“Our children will not be living the American Dream. They will be living the Belgium Dream. And why does that not sound quite right? Because there is no Belgium Dream.”
I think that sums it up quite well. There will be no Dream. There will just be an endless stream of Latest Government Programs trying the fix the problems the Previous Government Programs created.
I have worked for the government in the DC area. Those people cannot manage their own daily schedules, least long the entire country, in fine detail.
The whole country will take on the aspects of McNamera’s F-111 program – not quite right,despite endless tinkering, but not to fear, we will get it fixed Any Day Now. Until one day they just give up and let the guys working on it try to patch things up.
Upon reflection, i wonder what my 5 year old grandson is thinking. What was I thinking 65 years ago? My mother constantly checking those coupons and haggling with the butcher. My older sisters total immersion into that USO place downtown. Where and Why did that magnificent Blimp keep going each morning toward the Gulf of Mexico. Why did my next door neighbor have that little flag with the gold star on it, and why wasn’t Carl coming home, he made such great model airplanes. The Plymouth sat in the backyard, up on blocks, like a beached whale. That phone call very early in the morning alerting my brother, the paperboy, there was a Extra on the way. VE day, we won, never a doubt. I hope his thoughts turn out as good as mine.
No Mo — it is not simply women who are eternally adolescent. It’s the men too in response to women’s selection. Can you imagine a Captain Ed Winters of the 101st Airborne Today?
In fact, there are few like him, in Iraq and Afghanistan, but only a few. In his day, there were many like him.
And that’s the problem. The Captain Ed Winters men were produced by a system that was mostly middle/working class, where they were indeed important, and had value. Where men and women became adults quickly.
Now, amidst great wealth and endless status competition (mostly among women, look at HGTV for an example of this) as part of the endless mating game, guys like Captain Ed Winters, are just irrelevant or non-adaptive to the environment of constant status.
Krugman and others are depressed because an entire way of life, from say 1968 onwards, the revolt of the Yuppies in favor of endless singleton status competition, has come to an end. No more money. Too many outside threats. Inward demographic collapse.
We ARE at the end of an era. It WILL be different: no more granite countertops for status-obsessed women, no more Jimmy Choos or Manolo Blahniks at a “fabulous” shopping spree. No more endless status competition, adolescence into the late thirties, constant churning partners and life according to E! Network.
Grimmer, tougher, rougher. With sheer survival economically the key. Joe the Plumber vs. a former Wall Street Master of the Universe, now irrelevant or relocated to London or Zurich. Punctuated by sheer terror dealing with Bombay-style attacks or worse, with daily crime out of control.
#87 Habu
Thanks. And in the case that the “Good on ‘ya mate.” indicates that you are Australian, allow me to apologise in advance for whatever slight that Hussein Pasha is about to commit against your soon to visit PM. Please believe me, most Americans are quite fond of Aussies. I’m sure that there are Aussies that are a pain in the tuchas somewhere, but I have yet to meet one. We are kindred spirits, and there are no better people to have stand at your side or cover your back in a tight situation. I remember both your reaction to 9/11 and your CVBG off ‘Gonzo Station’. We owe you.
Subotai Bahadur
Subotai Bahadur #82 – “But there is a recognition that when only one side feels itself bound by the law and the Constitution, that side will lose in any electoral contest against a side that has contempt for both.”
Thank you for putting that thought into words. Our side is hobbling itself with the Marquis of Queensbury rules while the other side knows it is a down and dirty street fight. The dilemma is how to stay true to the Constitution while trying to defeat the enemy. I am not so eager to give the benefit of the doubt to my fellow countrymen anymore.
# 93 jjmurphy
Actually, one of the corollaries to the choices left to us is whether we still consider them to be our countrymen.
Subotai Bahadur
to help settle my fears of an uncertain future I got myself another hound dog to complete a breeding pair. (obviously, i don’t live in a city).
I’ve got perimeter security, winter warmth, dish washing, entertainment and affection covered, even if the grid goes down. And game getting potential if the grocery truck doesn’t come on time.
live stock may be better investments at the moment (for me) than paper stocks. at least you can eat them if they’re worthless…
In the Barton Biggs book Wealth, War, and Wisdom he concluded that at times of massive wealth destruction real riches were found in simple things; a place in the country away from turmoil, warm clothes in winter, and food to eat.
I think I’ll weather this storm. But I’m pretty sure I don’t want to get caught out in it.
Wretchard quoted:
“Scott Johnson puts his personal source of malaise down to one thing: Barack Obama. “I feel utterly powerless to do anything about the fellow in the Oval Office who combines infantile leftism and adolescent grandiosity in roughly equal measures.”
That sums it up very nicely. Most of us at Belmont Club saw this coming.
John Work said:
“For some of us the depression comes from the realization that the train wreck is coming and that there is little that can be done about it. Millions of pounds of metal and flesh are hurtling down the tracks, and even if one of us could magically leap into the cab of the locomotive and haul on the brakes, it would be too late.”
Yup! Ditto that! We’re screwed.
I guess my attitude is:
Let the economy hit bottom, endure the trick from the Islamic fascists that’s certain to come…
—and then and ONLY then—
begin the process of rebuilding the system.
“Rebuilding the system” will involve many aspects (a few high points):
1) Get the crookedness out of our economic system Reeducate people to be honest, i.e. send thieves to jail rather than give them high salaries.
2)Get the socialism out of our political system, e.g. Medicare, Social Security and any socialist garbage that Obama sets up will have to go away.
3) Cleanse academia of moonbats (this is the root of many of our Gramscian related troubles).
4) Get the Gramscian garbage out of our entertainment industry. Socialism and pacifism are NOT the cures to all of mankinds ills.
5) Restructure the MSM so it provides news rather than propaganda (prohibit the propaganda method of repeating lies endlessly).
Quite frankly, I have no clue how we can do all of this and NOT go through a civil war. Maybe this is why nations have civil wars.
Sorry Wretchared, but no optimism for me. I Obama and congress have just effectively threatened the abolition of the right to have private property in this country. (See NR online).
Afte all, if they can pass specia taxes of 90% to target bonuses they think are unfair, even though they just authorized those very same bonuses in their spending bill, then they can do anything they like to anyone’s property at any time. House too big for you? Well, congress can pass a law that will force you and only you to sell it? More money in your bank account than ACORN thinks is fair? We can just tax that right away from you.
What will happen, of course, is that a lot of people will start hiding their income as much as possible, and economic growth and investment in this country will come crashing down. Inevitably, the people who voted for Obama will suffer, and that is exactly as it should be!
Subotai Bahadur
Good deduction but a might off the mark. Born USA. Been to Australia approximately 60 times, and spent almost a full year near Alice Springs, so sometimes their vernacular just fits in rather well. USMC,CIA backgound in Office of Special Projects.
Retired, homes in Florida and Montana.
But you are right about the Aussies. I recently read where they are the only nation that has supported us in all major and minor action since forever..great folks.
Best to you.
93. jjmurphy
Excellent question,”staying true to the Constitution”
I would answer that you look toward the Declaration of Independence for that guidance, and the writings of Thomas Paine and the Federalist and Anti-Federalist. It becomes very clear the intent of the Constitution when one puts them all together. The intent we have seen since FDR is a gross bastardization of our basic tenets. I wish us all good luck.
It was Dick Winters.
Major Richard Winters, 506th PIR, 101st Airborne.
I take inspiration from his words, and we should renew our optimism in his faith in his fellow men he served with, “a company of heroes”.
Can we do less?
Habu
I posted this last night on the previous thread, not realizing it was 2a.m., so you probably didn’t see it. I enjoy your comments. Incidentally, Medinet habu in ancient Hattian (the Hittites) meant Temple of the Gods. Just thought I’d throw that in. And I agree that Buddy Larsen is a guy I’d like to have a beer with.
“In the Barton Biggs book Wealth, War, and Wisdom he concluded that at times of massive wealth destruction real riches were found in simple things; a place in the country away from turmoil, warm clothes in winter, and food to eat.”
Something I’ve been turning over in my head for a while now… if indeed we do experience a bit of a societal collapse, and it falls to each man to look after his own, what are the chances that inhabitants of our major cities will wise up and stream into the countryside like a plague of locusts? Or is the NOLA Katrina aftermath instructive in that regard?
Maybe it’s time to relocate about 50 miles…
The difference between an optimist and a pessimist ……. experience. And we’re getting a real spanking in how a bad election outcome can teach one grand new experiences. Ugh
101. Walt:
I picked up my moniker from years of working with the SR-71 which the Okinawans called Habu ,after a snake that inhabits that island.
Well there is at least ONE positive trend: the old guard media is being bankrupted right before our eyes.
This means that an entire generation, or two, of Gramscian wind-ups is hitting the bricks.
I regard this as a critical step towards reclaiming truth.
Another lucky break was Madoff. He made off with the pot of lucre that was funding an endless catalog of Leftist Party Organs and Fronts.
Another lucky break is that this debacle is almost certainly going to destroy Putin & Co. The WSJ notes today that a Russian government owned enterprise has defaulted on its paper; a measly $ 250,000,000 and they couldn’t pay the coupon!
Now you can see just how empty the till is!
China and Russia are happy to flash their foreign reserves… but not so quick to show their liabilities which are vast.
And Venezuela is so broke she’s not paying her drilling crews.
And Iran is toast financially. The S-300 deal is almost certainly stalled over cash flow. Putin wants cleared funds before shipment. Iran doesn’t want to empty the till. Iran’s economy is already crashing and burning.
We may yet be the last man standing.
A severe disruption to our food exports and the Arabs will literally starve.
Nice to see you again Habu – are you volunteering to host the 1st Meeting of the Belmonteer Wine, Spirits, & Constitutional Republic Restoration Society (Club) ? I’m thinking there are lots of us here who, when the time comes, will be ready to roll up our sleeves and get about the business of correcting this mess… count me in.
E. Nigma said:
“Major Richard Winters, 506th PIR, 101st Airborne.”
Richard Winters is also one of my heros. Here’s an interesting bit of trivia. The Brécourt Manor Assault that Winters commanded as a 1st Lieutenant happened on D-day, 6 June 1944. Winters was born on 21 January 1918. He has 26 years old when he led that assault! It’s amazing that a 26 year old kid could acheive such distinction as a commanding officer (On D-day, Eisenhower was 54 years old and George S. Patton was 59).
As an antidote to depression, you cite an article in the NY Times as an example of the good sense of “ordinary people” who remain admirably “happy” in the worst of circumstances. You find encouragement from “the rapturous mood in Angola as Pope Benedict completed his visit through it.” I’m astonished that you can find encouragement in the mindless ecstasy described in the NY Times article as people are trampled to death by fellow religious fanatics trying to get merely a glimpse of the pope, who dispenses “hope” in the form of fantasies of rewards in heaven awaiting people who stoically, even “happily” accept their fate in African Kleptocracies. Trampled to death? Not to worry. “We entrust them to Jesus so that he may receive them in his kingdom.” No matter how badly things turned out here on earth, things are gonna be just great in heaven. Don’t worry! Be Happy! The solution to the plight of the poor and those who are effectively enslaved by their governments will only found if they become a little less “happy” and “optimistic.” Only after they look to the rule of laws derived from reason for their salvation rather than bizarre and preposterous myths about resurrection, pearly gates, streets of gold, milk and honey, and latent “divine justice.” As long as conservatism continues to embrace mysticism rather than reason, we are lost.
Re: RWE and Mark Steyn’s mention of the Belgian dream (#89), Mr. Steyn (along with some others) has been saying for some time now that Obama is going to bring us a European-style Social Democracy. I don’t think that’s right. I think that, before these guys are finished, we are going to wish we could GET a European-style Social Democracy. Why do you think people are stockpiling food, water, and ammo? Not because they’re afraid bureaucrats are going to snuff out the American Dream. No sir. It’s because they’re fomenting a revolution up there in Washington, and if you think the animus ginned up against the AGI people was impressive–even including bus tours so the outraged could see where their homes are–you ain’t seen NOTHIN’ yet. I hope I’m wrong, I really really do.
102.
“what are the chances that inhabitants of our major cities will wise up and stream into the countryside like a plague of locusts? Or is the NOLA Katrina aftermath instructive in that regard?”
Expect both scenarios.
I would anticipate a national riot something like what happened in 1873.
No way will the Army be a factor: events will move too fast.
Having ACORN finger those hapless AIG kingpins is just the tip of the spear.
Revolution always moves too fast for the old guard to react. Just ask the Soviets.
Being the opposition has its advantages. It may be easier to press for a better and more logistically sound strategy in Afghanistan from the opposition than from the “backbenches”. After all, the problem the Obama administration faces with implementing all the defeatist policies many of his supporters ardently demand is that he and his followers will face the consequences of their policies. Obama may try to be as conciliatory toward his enemies as he can possibly get away with, but he is probably more interested in power than falling on his sword merely because readers of the Nation want him to. The key is to ensure that political gravity falls in the direction of a strong and intelligent military strategy against our enemies rather than in the direction of groveling toward our enemies.
We may not be in a position to force Barack Obama to do the right thing, but we are in a position to ensure that he faces serious political consequences if he does the wrong thing. In the long run, ensuring that political gravity flows in the right direction may be more important than putting one’s faith in one person or another in the position of the Presidency of the United States. The more Barack Obama grovels toward our enemies and even appears to betray our friends, the greater the political cost that can be levied against him in 2010 and 2012.
A more legitimate antidote to depression was posted in the comments to the Victor Davis Hanson article referenced above by cfbleachers [comment 10], which I will take the liberty of re-posting here, along with thanks to cfbleachers:
“In the name of the best within you, do not sacrifice this world to those who are its worst. In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not let your vision of man be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those who have never achieved his title. Do not lose your knowledge that man’s proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind and a step that travels unlimited roads. Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it’s yours.”
Ayn Rand
As some others have stated, I think the depression comes in the inevitably ugliness we are going to face, in one form or the other, before things get better. No matter what, I think we are going to be shocked and appalled at what transpires before this is over.
Too many people are completely delusional about how the way the world works, and no amount of reason will persuade them. Even the bumps and shudders ever threatening rattles of the train as it gains speed and heads to the dead end won’t persuade them. If fact, they will press down the accelerator even harder, believing that what is around the corner is not a cliff or stone wall, but the utopia they so much desire, they one they were promised. The place where everyone gets everything just for being alive, and all disagreements and differences can be resolved with anyone, if you just talk to them like human beings.
The depression comes from the fact that in the end we may have only two choices:
1) Allow the train to fly off the tracks or hit the wall, make sure we are not on it on within the blast radius, and pick up the pieces.
2) Fight to get their hands off the controls. And that does not mean talking vigorously.
What I am saying is that those running the show, those in positions of power in government, education, media, are NOT going to have their eyes opened until something catastrophic happens; either disaster or outright violence.
I think the depression comes from the fact that as much as one would not want to see the violence or the disaster come, come it will, and more despairingly, come it must.
I have a real bad feeling…
lucy and 102 asked the question:
“what are the chances that inhabitants of our major cities will wise up and stream into the countryside like a plague of locusts?”
Modern farms are vastly more efficient than 19th century family farms but are also much more energy intensive because of synthetic fertilizer, pesticides and farming machinery. Due to Peak Oil, I think it is possible that we could revert back to a 19th century farming economy. That sort of economy is stable but to get there, the world’s population would have to reduce significantly and then go into zero growth mode (agrarian fascism?), i.e. we can’t get there without first killing off several billion people. Also, once we revert back to that economic mode there would be no turning back to an energy intensive, high population density urban based economy. The high population density economic mode requires either an abundance of nonrenewal energy or a major new energy source, e.g. nuclear fusion, etc. However the research and development infrasturcture necessary to develope totally new energy sources would no longer exist if a population collapse had occurred followed by the economy going back to pure agrarian. This is a classis example of “hysteresis”.
What’s currently happening during our generation’s watch might be the worst thing that has ever happened in human history.
believe this even if it isn’t true
A “Second Hand Lions” fan?
I read and comment on Seeking Alpha, one of the more prolific writers there Felix Salmon told us the story of his house in CA. He said it was their dream house and bought it for $600,000 with a 50% down. He says he is currently underwater on the house and put it out to us whether he should just walk away.
He gave no indication he could not afford his payments and it appears he can continue making his payments, still he think it makes no sense for him to keep paying and should just send a jingle letter.
Interestingly enough, the feelings among commentors was probably 60-40 that he should walk out. Most of the 60 justified their deal saying it is all just contracts and it is all planned for. A number of us rubes noted the house is primarily a domicile and secondarily an investment.
Our society has certainly survived difficult times before. There is a significant difference between then and now however. Today there are large numbers of our population that lack even minimal survival skills and the barest hint of personal responsibility. (Think post Katrina NOLA.) It won’t require a significant triggering event before things get rather ugly I’m afraid.
I’m not at the depression stage just yet. Our political class – particularly Congress taken as a group – has usually been quite feckless, even at times of great peril. Just one example:
In July 1942, Time Magazine published an editorial excoriating Congress for postponing critical legislation that would have permitted the drafting of 18-year olds. It seems that the folks in Congress couldn’t decide whether the country was in a total war or not and didn’t want to jeopardize their reelection chances by drafting ‘children’. Now let’s consider the country’s situation in July 1942.
It’s seven months after Pearl Harbor. It’s weeks after the Bataan death march. German submarines are slaughtering our shipping up and down the east coast and decimating convoys in the North Atlantic. The Japanese advance in the central and south Pacific has been stopped – barely – at Coral Sea and Midway. After foot-dragging and delays, the blackout has finally been enforced on the coasts (an interesting story in itself). Britain and Russia – our allies – have their backs to the wall. One month from the date of this editorial, the U.S. will be forced to commit shoestring forces to Guadalcanal, thereby beginning six months of attrition during which our navy will suffer one humiliating defeat after another at the hands of the more experienced Japanese.
And the Congress can’t decide that the country’s in a total war. President Roosevelt didn’t sign the draft bill until November 23, 1942 – after the election and nearly ONE YEAR after Pearl Harbor.
Speaking of the 1942 Congressional elections, consider these prize packages chosen in the middle of the war by an electorate supposedly more noble than today:
Congressman Hamilton Fish of New York. Known as the ‘Nation’s No. 1 isolationist’ and a Jew-baiter who distributed copies of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion from his Congressional office). In 1939 he believed Germany’s claims were ‘just’. In 1941 he was mixed up in the scandal surrounding Nazi Agent George Sylvester Viereck.
Congressman Harold Knutson of Minnesota. In 1935 he backed the aforementioned Rep. Fish for President (“I know of no other . . . better”). He once said, “Hitler is displaying a forbearance that might well be emulated by statesmen of other nations.”
Congressman Clare E. Hoffman of Michigan. He scoffed at President Roosevelt’s “absurd” assertion that there were U-boats off U.S. shores. In 1940 he said: “Roosevelt has . . . seized most of the dictatorial powers exercised by Hitler, but he lacks Hitler’s efficiency.”
Conclusion: there never was a time when ‘all the brothers were valiant’. But there does come a time (like now) when hard-working adults must stand up and administer a collective smack to the political classes. I don’t believe in helplessness.
Let’s get the game face on.
Agreed. The sadness and unease amongst us libertarian/conservatives is worry that this monstrous thing we are bearing witness to is going to collapse under its own weight eventually, and then things will be unpleasant.
Most of us don’t see a real solution for this mess. Any such real solution could only be demanded by massive public outcry for reform. However, in order to develop and apply a cure, there must be a consensus as to the cause of the illness. Half of the country believes these problems can be solely blamed on Bush and the fat cats on Wall Street. Class warfare is their answer, stirred up by politicians and media figures trying to cover their own tracks.
Just like Hitler, Castro, and every two bit dictator since time immemorial, Obama is telling us the expansion of the State is necessary to save us from these problems. But don’t worry: Obama will make sure civil liberties and the American Dream endure and prosper, IF ONLY the public will concede a few more rights, a few more tax dollars. Many scared Americans will believe him.
I have for the most part lost a lot of interest in political activism a trend that started a couple of years ago.
President Obama is pre-empting American Idol and my wife is going to watch and tch-tches me when I tell I have zero interest, I then go onto to note in the last couple of years I stopped watching W’s speeches and appearances too. One kinda gets sick of hearing solely “X and the inevitable NOT-X”.
My view of President Obama has swung back & forth. I recognized him for the lefty he was prior the election, during transition he made a lot of feints like he was not going to be so bad, but now he is in office his leftiness is worse than my greatest pre-election fears.
Wretchard, your analogy to a software system with a bug in it is great. One can often find a quick work-around, most common edit input and let it fly, but the problem always comes back.
My father tells a story of an online system (CICS) that crashed at the same time every week. It crashed like this for years. Eventually, they called my father in to look at this and he found the bug and they were able to correct it. In this case we know what the bug is, but we appear to be attempting to restart the system anyway. We have no problems letting Wall St. bubbles deflate why not this one?
I don’t think “mindless happiness” is the proper response to real problems. Though I thought it clear from the post, “happiness” is a response to very difficult circumstances. Optimism is a survival mechanism. This can be observed in shipwreck situations, long voyages and in societies in wartime. They fantasize about what they’re going to do when everything is over.
Of course nobody ever really expected this to literally happen in a rational sense. But in an emotional sense, there was an acknowledged need for a finish line. The Day. VE Day. The Day of Redemption, etc. Obama uses this meme, but in a huckster’s way. Elect me and the oceans will fall, etc. Winston Churchill was wise enough to keep this vision shimmering, but glowing independent of his actions. All he could promise his people was blood, toil, sweat and tears. But beyond that lay the vision. And there’s no denying that this goal, nebulous as it was, sustained so many in the darkest hour, which he had the brilliance to rebrand as the “finest hour”. He didn’t say, as BHO says, we must find an “exit strategy”; he didn’t say as many do now, that “we’re doomed”. He said, I don’t know how, or when, but will win. We will bear the Ring, though we do not know the way. It’s effective because it blends realism with idealism; it turns despair into hope. And he once explained, it was necessary, to be upborne, to stand-to, “because everyone realised how near death and ruin we stood. Not only individual death which is the universal experience, but incomparably more commanding the life of Britain, her message and her glory.” It is fascinating to examine how he blended the stern call to duty with optimism in his most famous speech because “without victory there is no survival.”
“without victory there is no survival.”
Also vice versa, without survival, there is no victory.
So, one has to plan for both as if they were integral to each other and inseparable, because they are,
Let’s Face the Music, and Dance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnfKmNRfLYU
Sgt. Mom@77
I implore you to use your story telling skills with vigor; compelling naratives will surely be needed if we are to prevail.
However, stopping this runaway train is merely Step One in solving the problem. It’s about sabotaged engines, driven by corrupt engineers over rapidly deteriorating track systems at acceleraing speed, along with all of US, the fare-paying passengers.
I see the larger problem as the “unwinding” that must take place to repair the engines, fire every one of the corrupt drivers – replacing them with newly trained drivers, and then starting to reroute new track.
Anything less does not a safe railroad make.
So, what’s the measured, civil and compelling dialogue that describes exactly what we conservatives must become and what we’ll do in victory. If we can’t tell that story, truthfully and with conmviction, we cannot win. From now on, it will be like this…..
If we can’t agree upfront to the price the Left MUST pay politically for their constant attack on liberty, should they lose and we regain the majority, then we won’t be able muster enough patriotic support, or make the effort to win appear worthwhile. The Left must be made to physically tremble at the possibilities, 24/7/365 in their protected cocoons.
We must worry them with our concepts of justice and mercy. The innocent man seeks justice – the guilty man seeks mercy. Morality does not require mercy, justice will suffice.
Benj #59- I’m no economist, but how does the stimulus increase GDP? When does printing bad money and selling generations of debt to China become a “product”? Just wondering.
Blert #78 Is there really a financial services company called Pimco? May I suggest the proper spelling is Pimpco and they love the Playah-in Chief.
I am not depressed nor do I feel despair. What is my secret? I just whistle. Whistle? Yes, whistle.
Just whistle while you walk
Do-dee do, do, do, do, do!
Just whistle while you walk
Past the graveyard.
(Past the graveyard)
If you find you’re feeling blue
’cause work no longer needs you!
After you’re laid off
Just whistle as you walk
Past the graveyard.
(Past the graveyard)
If you were a Nigerian
You’d be happy just to own a hen.
And when the militias came
if you weren’t the ball in some game.
So whistle! Just whistle.
Past the graveyard.
If there’s a planetary war
And you’re terrified to the core.
Just put on your boots and do skidoot
And whistle! Past the graveyard!
They say VX is a gas
And it will really kill you fast.
But don’t despair just spit out your cares
And whistle!
Yes whistle.
Past the graveyard.
Do-dee Doo-doo do!
That should be sung to the tune of, well, I don’t know, ah, Stairway to Heaven.
Another silver lining: college endowments are devastated — un-tenured Gramscian wind-ups are hitting the bricks.
CRA Policy has been impeached by the marketplace.
It seems inevitable that truly hard times will affect the dependent Left the most. Atlas is very likely to Shrug.
The ACORN scam is a dagger at the heart of the Constitution. It’s incredible that it was funded by a Republican Congress and President!
And what ever happened to the Common Law? Barratry on the part of ACORN goes unchallenged… Bills of Attainder pass the House!… Crony Capitalism of Russian scale…
The politicalization of science leading to its corruption of truth. Science by vote? How can that work?
It is apparent that the more data we manipulate the more the Center ( Washington ) feels it can macro-manage the economy.
Our current system state should disabuse anyone of that conceit. Unfortunately, H & Co are off in the aristocratic bubble scheming up Plan 9 From Outer Space. They’ll only get one take — but figure to get it wrong.
Subotai@83
First: Rallys – Chanting pickets at every Congressional office – Workday Strikes – Overwhelming civil disobedience, like stopping traffic at 8AM nationwide, every Monday, every highway, every bridge, every toll booth, for 5 minutes. Delayed tax payments. We must employ these peaceful tactics first, en masse. Then quickly to arms.
Thanks, Geoffgo – and I am telling our stories with vigor and passion! One of the reviewers for the Adelsverein Trilogy said that he hoped it would do for the Texas Hill Country what Gone With the Wind did for the old South. I hope that I wasn’t too terribly subtle in some of my story, for much of it is how people form a community, and do for themselves, agreeing and disagreeing on some matters.
As for a political penalty that the rent-seekers and the parasites must pay… my feeling is that it is to be voted overwhelmingly out of office the next time around – never mind the efforts of ACORN and our American ‘rotten buroughs’. Boycott the crummy leftist movies and television shows, the useless universities and their classes which teach students nothing but a sense of entitlement, write about the matters that the MSM refuses to cover on our blogs and websites, remind our elected officials whose employees they actually are.
They work for us, remember- our elected officials. We hire them, and they serve at our pleasure, not the other bloody way around. So, demand an accounting from them, loudly and passionately. We have a republic… if we can keep it. And we must keep it, because the alternative is unacceptable. We are citizens… not subjects.
The guys at Powerline link to a video of the St. Crispin’s Day speech from Henry V:
(scroll down; there are jokes and other videos to lift spirits there too)
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/03/023141.php
Enjoy!
Habu, you were the first to at least imply just how far down the bottom is of the abyss of which the United States (and of course the rest of the West, including the UK which I’m afraid concerns me more) is standing on the lip.
You have an empty suit and a crypto-Muslim in the White House. Your country voted for him, and you will get what that implies; unfortunately, so will all the rest of us. What happens when the empty suit is forced to face a real crisis – such as Manhattan Island going up in radioactive smoke, with the threat of more hits and with a resurgent Russia not prepared to give him a free hand?
What might happen is that the monster that the entire civilised world has been trying to keep on a leash for sixty years is released, and the mushrooms of agony and vengeance grow upon the land of the enemy, and in response more of them grow upon the soil of America, and the world is changed and not for the better. A class V nuclear winter will spare none on Earth.
There is still hope, for a little while longer – a very little while. I am somewhat heartened by a speech from a fictional character, but one that must have been in the heart of the writer:
“My brothers. I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of Men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields when the Age of Men comes crashing down, but it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand, Men of the West!”
We need more of that. A lot more.
#129 geoffgo
Agreed, as a starting tactic. I note that the Tea Parties have the most effect when targeted directly at the local offices of Their Lordships. Indeed, it should be a truism that for a member of Congress to show up at any sort of forum, it means that he/she will be met with a group of irate constituents who will indeed get in their face in front of the press.
But I have to remind everyone that we are dealing with a government that does not pay all that much attention to the law. Any such encounters have the potential for a violent counteraction. Remember, the civilians on the Odessa Staircase in 1905 did not expect to be fired upon.
#125 geoffgo
Justice indeed. One of the problems now is that the Left has no fear of any payback for anything that they have done, ever, or ever will do. And probably redundently, neither does the government at any level fear a reaction from citizens for anything that they do to us. Obviously, there is an imbalance here. I suspect the re-establishment of balance will be more than passing untidy.
Subotai Bahadur
@ 132. Fletcher Christian
Irony… that moonbat who recited these lines had no idea what he was saying.
twobyfour, can you explain that please? I don’t know what Viggo’s politics are, but…
Habu, I just realised that I have made an unjustified assumption; that you are American. If the assumption is wrong I apologise.
And now, a few words of optimism…
1. If the President demonstrates (in the coming years) that his actual capacities are as low as they currently appear, then perhaps the cult of personality that the 2d half of the 20th century built around the Office of the President will diminish. This would be a good thing.
2. A weak President enhances the relative power of the legislature, and carries with it the potential of a replacement of the eternal adolescents in the Congress with adults. This would be a good thing.
3. The continued demonstration of an incompetent federal government may spark the minds of the citizenry to realize that their state governments may be a better avenue for building their common future. This would be a good thing.
4. Humanity’s rapidly improving mastery of quanta of matter and energy carries with it the potential for an economy that does not rely upon economies of scale. This decentralizing of economies can carry within it the intellectual foundation for a decentralizing of political power. This, too, would be a good thing.
These four propositions are not inevitable, but they are supportable by history and reason.
So, do not lose hope. Those who wield Orwell as a blueprint for the future wield long knives, but they need not be victorious in the battles to come.
Liberty is our birthright, and we need not sell it for a bowl of stew.
@135. Fletcher Christian:
I don’t know what Viggo’s politics are
Party affiliation: moonbat
Ideology: koolaid leftism
Habu & Triton
Standing up and fixin stuff means “rope burns” all round. Some from the heaving; but most on the heaved.
“Living up to our Constitution” means we’re honorbound to see that justice is served. Doesn’t mean we should be merciful or compassionate as victors; just resolute in our duty.
Separation of church and state, ya know.
Awhile back someone here at BC mentioned Francis Schaeffer which reminded me I’d been wanting for a long time to read him so I went and bought one of his books, How Should We Then Live? At one point Schaeffer mentions Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and its enumeration of “the five attributes that marked Rome at its end: first, a mounting love of show and luxury (that is, affluence); second, a widening gap between the very rich and the very poor (this could be among countries in the family of nations as well as in a single nation); third, an obsession with sex; fourth, freakishness in the arts, masquerading as originality, and enthusiasms pretending to be creativity; fifth, an increased desire to live off the state.” That pretty much sums us up to a tee. One theme of Schaeffer’s book is how the old Judeo-Christian worldview provided us all with the wherewithal to live lives of freedom without chaos. Our postmodern world will give us either freedom with chaos or no freedom at all – which is to say, it will be the latter, because you can’t really have anarchy in any sustainable way.
With disaster looming on every front, how can any thinking person feel optimistic? If we do somehow manage to avoid catastrophe, the one thing you can be sure of is that you have witnessed a miracle.
As for my own course of action, I do what I can where I can and, for the rest, continue to stockpile food as I have done since last July (when I became convinced that the One would win), pray, and fill my mind with the beauty and harmony of music – like Bach’s for instance…
WHEN I LISTEN TO BACH
I go to another place. I don’t mean I go
to my room and shut the door,
to some quiet corner of the world.
I mean, rather, I go to
Another Place…
An angelic place not meant for mortals,
though they glimpse it now and then,
when strings begin to vibrate
and heaven’s window slightly opens.
Notes like slivers of brightest glass
seep through and twinkle in the light,
reflecting perfect order of the universe -
a structured pattern of cosmic tranquility.
War…sickness…hate…
technology and progress,
no structure, everything changes,
6 o’clock news – stop my ears.
And when I can hear no more,
the allegros, prestos and fugues
bear me away on celestial wings of song.
I float in heavenly realms,
sometimes rising and sometimes descending,
my flight suspended in whirling counterpoints,
and I know I can never fall.
I am cradled in the unchanging mathematics of music
where all is certain, like the rhythm of a mothers’s
heartbeat assures the infant in her womb.
And what shall I say of the adagios, the largos,
the incomparable chaconne?
A divine seed is sown in earth’s unholy ground;
beauty rains down from that pure place, and brings
forth its yield to nurture mere flesh and blood.
It cannot be that such things emanate from
catgut, tree resin and horsehair!
The bow is drawn gently across my heartstrings,
and in that moment, I know what it was like
before the Fall.
Pin numbers, 401K’s and the rat race of 9-to-5
dissolve into concertos BWV 1060, 1043, 1052.
A taste of the sublime is placed upon my tongue,
it spreads to soul and spirit, joint and marrow,
and when the last note has ended,
all I can do is be silent.
I fall to earth,
swirling, tumbling, plummeting
downward,
and chaos catches me in her net -
deadlines to meet, PTA meetings, household chores,
commutes on I40, and endless trips to market.
As life moves in a rushing whirl, the clock
strikes eleven, and the network news invades again.
Yet if there’s one saving grace in this base world, bridging
the gulf between here and there,
it’s the case of digital tunes I carry with me always,
the trademark of forbidden fruit etched upon its back.
– Karen Deatherage
I like that poem (written by another Karen) – its portrayal of a quite natural turning away
(to better things) of a displaced person in a postmodern world. Because I worry now that that’s just what we are: displaced persons. To get back to sanity, to be optimistic that we CAN get back to sanity, means reliance on the efforts of just these.
Karen,
You are on to something, re displaced persons. It is not a displacement in place, but in reality, as if we were thrust into an alternate universe. It is not so, the process was slow and incremental, it’s just a majority of us noticed rather recently.
But does it have to be that way? I think not. Despite us being fierce individualists, we know (I think) that we have to find ways to pull together. Or they will pick us apart one by one.
I am putting something together… a ref would be on one of the threads in the next day or so.
Karen, Unfortunately Francis Schaeffer’s son, Frankie pissed on his father’s grave and embraced the secular messiah, Obama.
For a cogent analysis of where we’re headed I suggest: Herbert Schlossberg’s “Idols for Destruction”
Meanwhile, they position their pieces:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hAKpJUFue1MIXryBYlMKMW0HowdwD9740VBO1
@geoffgo
Thanks.
..Crocker, #119 : The first peacetime draft of Americans ( the Burke-Wadsworth Act ) was signed by FDR on 9-16-40. It authorized 900,000 draftee’s, ages 21-30, to serve 12 months. On 8-18-40 the terms of service were extended past 12 months. After pearl Harbor the ages of draftee’s were changed to 18-45 and terms of service changed to the duration of the war + 6 months.
I wanted to thank you Mr. Fernandez for this post full of such gentle wisdom, as so many of your posts are. I have been a lurker here but haven’t posted before as what I have to say is quite inadequate relative to others here. I have felt the despair you speak of. I would feel less so if I saw a viable counterpush to what I consider to be the rape of my country. Perhaps that will come in time. I continue to watch and consider what actions of mine, no matter how small, might bring about a change for the better. I did want you to know that there are those of us who take comfort in your words though we remain silent for now, and that when I see what actions are proper and warrented that I will do so. Since I have no sage counsel to impart on my own I leave with the words of Saint Francis of Assisi, my favorite prayer. Lord grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Habu (Comment #88):
>>>That places you, in my mind with Buddy Larsen, a >>>wit…
You’re half-right, as my father-in-law would say.
(Buddy will know I’m teasing him; I have written him personally a number of times praising his brilliance.)
Jamie Irons
Optimism is its own reward.
As my Dad put it wryly, “The harder I work, the luckier I get.”
So what if everything is going wrong, so what if the forest is burning down around your little bunny self, your job is to survive. The world itself, that’s just the challenge.
You soldier on. Conditions change, the mission doesn’t. Don’t be a “sissy.”
So what if all the world fails you, it doesn’t do you any good be afraid, press on, that’s all you have to do.
Wretchard: Churchill replaced small men. He recognized the situation for what it was, and only promised what it could deliver. And somehow touched a cord in common among the british.
Last week with the AIG mess, it was a time for something like that. I imagined Obama rising up saying that we were forced to buy AIG. We cannot let it collapse lest it brings everything down with it. I imagined him saying that he signed the bill to pay those people because it was in my best judgment to do so.
But no, he blamed, pointed fingers, promised and blathered. AIG will probably lose any ability to maintain the profitable businesses it has, and congress is ready to micromanage it and the country into the ground.
I predicted that it would be the defining moment of his presidency. So far I think I’m right. And the definition isn’t flattering.
Derek
Depressed? Heck yeah, I’m depressed. I was never much of an optimist. The best I can see out of this current situation is that “victory” is not an event, but a process. Victories achieved at little cost are often tantamount to defear. People often have to be convinced that they’ve lost. It was obvious to perceptive Japanese in 1941 that they could not beat America in WWII; those with knowledge of the truth saw the writing on the wall after the Battle of Midway; almost everybody in the Japanese government knew the truth in their hearts after the fall of Saipan; and everybody in Japan knew the truth after the firebombing of Tokyo in March 1945. The last six months of slaughter and cruelty, capped off by the atomic bombs, was all about convincing the Japanese that they had lost. Nothing more than that. World War I ended with the Germans unconvinced that they had lost, and so, in spite of the wasteful slaughter of that war, we had World War II. FDR, for all his faults as a president, wanted the Axis powers convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that they had lost this time around, and millions of innocent dead people later, it happened. But the world wars were not repeated.
And perhaps our current catharsis will do something similar for economics, demonstrating even to the most stupid and brain-damaged collectivist liberal that their philosophies are worse than bankrupt: they are The End of the World. Ideas are pernicious things, and sometimes, you need a huge tragedy to expose that concept and teach even the True Believers that they are wrong. I thought until last year that the fall of the Soviet Union had accomplished that goal, but I was wrong. This reasoning is small comfort for those of us who will have to live through the devastation that Obama is bringng us daily. And it is a terrifying prospect that our children will have to fix it. (I am glad, for the first time in my life, that I don’t have children.) But perhaps even Obama, in his own hideous way, will bring on the atomic bomb that will show everyone in the world the folly of the liberal creed.
That’s as much hope as I can derive from Obama.
135. Fletcher Christian:
American since the late 1700′s.
One of those “half families” during the Civil War. Half fought for the North, half for the South. Me..former USMC during Vietnam then CIA from 72 to ’83, and the one mulligan we all get; former Merrill Lynch…apologies all around. Retired to Montana and Florida.
Admire the level of discourse on this site. An abundance of intelligent ,well informed people. It is my fons et origo of hope.
Semper Fi
&
Don’t tread on me.
…actually Dr. Irons corresponded in order to decline my proposition that he prescribe me sufficient Thorazine to get through the Obama administration. Feh.
…fons et origo, and richie cunningham was SO pissed off, as he’d been saving the origos for a midnight snack with a glass of milk
tony/148; amazing post,man –i think i get it –it’s ”word”. as in, put it in a word and then quit worrying about it –just work with the word.
The depression is, in this instance, the stepping stone to the next level, the place where those fantasy-based solutions — fantasies like an unending cornucopia of scientific advance and associated wealth — are appropriately grieved and left behind.
Why do that? We are on the brink of thousands of new technologies. How about wires made of carbon that are 5X as conductive as copper. And that is just one. For energy I like:
Bussard’s IEC Fusion Technology (Polywell Fusion) Explained
Why hasn’t Polywell Fusion been fully funded by the Obama administration?
==
May I add that psychologists are still learning from Tim Leary.
Wretchard,
Mindless happiness is not any better than the mindless gloominess some push. However, having somewhat successfully reached the early 40s I have seen and remember our economy cycle through a number of ups and downs. I remember seeing my 401K tank and seemingly miraculously reappear as if a phoenix. I have seen the GOP arise from its malaise and gain control of the nation and then lose it again.
Right now prophets of disaster are common and many are eager for doom prophecies. A wise warrior once advised to discount all early reports – in defeat they are way pessimistic and in victory more optimistic than reality. Its called focus and everyone needs to focus on the things that are most dear to them.
I have every confidence we will muddle our way through the current economic crisis — that we’ll cycle through things – home prices will find their level and home buying and building will resume (IIRC home buying jumped by a fairly large percentage in the last reporting period) and that the toxic assets like any toxin will be absorbed and slowly dealt with — that their toxicity will not kill us.
@155. M. Simon
Dude, strained nanotubes with buckyballs are no replacement for spaghetti with meatballs.
It would not be the first time the technology came to naught. Did you know that in Mohenjo Daro and Harrappa they had canalization, and plumbing? Yea effin 1500BC! It took 33 centuries for it to appear again.
Gathered here in this Logos medium at this Therapy topic, someone should mention ‘logotheraphy’ and the man, Dr. Viktor Frankl, who developed the doctrine. I won’t go into his bio –there’s no way to do justice short of long walls of text –and he’s well-covered [search the name] on the net. He passed away in the late 1990s but his books have a following –esp “Man’s Search for Meaning”.
My copy is lent (rede ‘lost’) so i can’t put a hand on it (& had no luck w/ search just now) but the short preface by Gordon Allport is superb on the quiet, humble miracle Dr. Frankl created from what Auschwitz had left him inside himself.
Anyhoo –having a hard time getting to the point of this post (because of digression such as that –and this), DR. FRANKL’s opening question to new patients (come to him in deep depression) was:
“WHY DO YOU NOT COMMIT SUICIDE?”
The patient’s answer, clarified in the rigor of the writing it, became the therapy, as i understand it –and hasten to add, vastly oversimplify it.
The GOP has some serious flaws to correct before they will be able to take back Congress. Those corrections won’t happen by 2010.
I remain concerned about the toxic asset issue because the underlying problem seems to have been swept under the carpet, which means it will rear its ugly head again. Freddie and Fannie underwriting standards have to be upgraded, but there seems to be no recognition of this ticking time bomb.
Much of the brouhaha seems focused on the derivatives’ markets and the investment banks which serve as middlemen for the paper. I see the reason why: we’ve had sand kicked in our faces by the culprits in this whole mess. Plus, so much of the uneducated public remains partisan in its bias and wants to blame “those greedy Republican bankers” for the mess.
I think the market is capable of gradually absorbing and properly pricing the “toxic assets.” There are smart investors who know that ultimately a lot of those assets will perform.
The greatest danger to our economy and our liberty, long term, is the budget being rammed down our throats by Obonga and Pelosi. The only way this madness will be stopped will be after a hoped-for change in president and Congress in 2013. I am convinced we can repudiate much of what Obonga and Pelosi have done, if there is the sufficient will to do so. That’s contingent on the public knowing the damage that it is doing.
Buddy,
I read much by Dr. Viktor Frankl while at UF. His life was “enlightening” in the way Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Armando Vallidares enlighten us. Oh, those so “progressive” countries that our progressives want to emulate
159. stew:
At the “Progressives” current pace the GOP could go into the deep freeze and still come out ahead in 2010. Our citizenry is too well informed on the Socialists now for them to support there programs. Look for enough sand in the “Progressive” gears to break them down. Then in the next cycle, administration change. 0bama..ONE and DONE
@152 buddy larsen (point of clarification)
see also Habu@162
Barrak Obama :
“Rhyyck. Rhyyck. You’ve got to helllp me Rhyyck!”
Richard Ayers:……………………
Buddy, I think it wise if from now on that Mr. Obama
“Ask not for whom the subway tolls…”
Regards
@163 Yes I know its William Ayers but that never would of worked, so in the spirit of progressive truthiness I changed the facts to fit the meme.
Its best I shower now rather than later.
Such irony. The one who was to bring “hope”, produces the absense of hope. Yet ironic only until you realize the hope promised by BHO was false hope. Mere wishful thinking kind of hope. Thinking that change was all that was needed. Whining “I hope it will get better.”
What we need is true hope. Best expressed as a voice heard in the swamp when you are surrounded by gators, and there seems no way out. The distant voice cries: “There is a way out.” You respond: “How do you know?” The answer: “I was where you are and I got out.”
True hope doesn’t promise success.
It doesn’t promise it will be easy.
It doesn’t ignore the very real gators.
It says that if you try, you have a real chance of success. If you don’t try, you will fail.
For us, we must not lose the real hope. If you want to read an interesting book, read John Ringo’s recent book, “The Last Centurian.” Set in our world, only with bird flu killing millions, a democrat president withdrawing our troops from the middle east, and the stock market crashing to 7,000 (written when the market was over 12,000). So some of it was prophetic, although the president is female.
http://www.thelastcenturion.com/
This book is full of hope. If we don’t try we cannot succed.
F451 writes a poem:
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Most poems rhyme
but this one doesn’t
Re: opium
Which brings us to the difficulty of getting the sharecropper out from under contract. That’s the problem.
Not much of a problem. If the open market price for heroin was the same as the open market price for aspirin (as it once was) the “agri-pimps” would default on their promise to pay the farmers.
Re-legalize.
May I say something about hope? I’m older than most of you and lived through the Great Depression. After that experience, my generation doesn’t scare easily. After that, not even Hitler scared us.
I don’t think it is that we lack hope, and I don’t think any depression we may may be feeling now will last. We’re still grieving over what was, what we are losing, that’s all.
But we are just waiting now, thinking about what to do, which is good. That’s better than rushing off half-cocked, isn’t it? We are getting prepared, doing what we can. And we’re also learning all we can while we wait, about what’s happening and why, and who did it. We will know what we need to, because of really paying attention now. Then when the time comes to act, we will be ready. And we will figure out what to do, and we will do it.
Let go of the past. It’s over. Look to the future. We are going to make the future work out. You will see. Our time will come. I’m sure of it. And when it does, look out! Soon or late, we will win this.
One last comment: the Dims and their myrmidons in the “press” will blame Any And All Coming Disasters on the Evil Conservative Bankers and their leader, President Bush.
They will push this “meme” relentlessly, and it will stick: unless we get as smart about propaganda as they are. And unless we stop reacting to them and defending, and start attacking their sins.
If you let an “invalidator” put you on the defensive, he’s already won. Never defend; always attack. In such a target-rich environment, this should be dead-simple.
Only our ineptness at fighting has let them stay on the catbird seat. Time to go medieval on their ass.
GerryP: That’s the spirit! And thanks for the historical perspective. That’s what I was reaching for in my first comment on this thread: we’ve been through much worse as a nation, especially the war between the states (after which, 1/4 of the Alabama state budget went for prosthetic limbs: think about it).
Chins up, people.
This theme hits home with me. This early offender had a heart attack last October, the 22nd. And yes, I do in part blame obsessive worrying about a bleak future for my grandchildren due to easily avoidable mistakes. (Particularly the One Big Ass . . .)
As a person who invested his own money to become a trained energy economist and now a thirty year practitioner I have always been amazed at people (mostly on the left, but not exclusively) who treat what I have to say about energy policy like a preference for italian over french food. I tell them, you listen to what a doctor tells you about medicine, don’t you? The answer is, not really, not any more. Anyway I end up feeling like Cassandra, watching a clearly viewed and gloomy future coming at me, while Troy parties on. So I get a great relief from the BC with like minded people; Buddy, Doug, Habu, Whiskey, geoffgo, eggplant, LOTM, charles, Nahncee, and the m.c., wretch of course. You are all invaluable.
Joseph Sturkey @103 reprimanded conservatives for mysticism. . . well sir, we honor what is good in life. If you have never had a religious or spiritual experience, too bad. A serious religious person is not out to convert or proselytize you. But if you think that means we will keep our culture of love and life out of the public square and national political life, you are wrong. I loved your Ayn Rand quote too. I think her view of liberty and ethics flows (although without acknowledgment) as much from the Judeo-Christian ethos as the Enlightenment. This segues very nicely for me because I wanted to mention that the sales level of “Atlas Shrugged” is another hopeful sign that America may wise up in time.
Habu – Obviously you are proud of being American and of your service, as you should be. I was, however, making an unjustified assumption.
To everyone else: One thing notable about World War II (World War I happened in a very different world, and so I am not sure any lessons apply) is that in all the free nations we pulled together to get it done. of course, being closer to the front lines, civilians in the UK took more of the pain than those in the US did; but that is an accident of geography and nothing more.
What might be needed is something that has been called a “moral equivalent of war”; something that the USA had for a few decades and no longer has. A place for young men (it was mostly men, at the start) to risk getting killed in; in other words a frontier.
We do indeed have such a place. It’s only a hundred miles away. And people, in their hundreds, are going to get killed there – make no mistake, it will happen. And for those who go, and their descendants, there will be riches beyond imagination and room enough to live in for trillions – at least.
Those who live there might see America as the Americans of the present day see Britain. But only if it’s America that leads.
What should be done? Disband NASA and put its budget into a series of prizes for defined tasks that move us towards the goal. Properly fund alternative energy – and I don’t mean the useless blind alley of wind power; I mean wave power, OTEC, geothermal, cellulosic ethanol, blue-green algae culture, Polywell fusion and pebblebed fission. For a start. Of course, in this scenario the greatest grandaddy of them all is space solar – getting THAT working will unlock the vault of treasure that is the Solar System. All this will of course mean that the education system has to be, somehow, biased towards hard subjects like engineering and science.
I’ve even got a slogan for anyone who wants to make this his platform. I’m sure someone will do better, but anyway here it is:
“We’re going back into the black, and this time to stay!”
@ 94. Subotai Bahadur
Your lament reminded me of a wonderful Revolutionary War quote that seems strangely appropriate after 50% of Americans voted for a Saul Alinsky acolyte and cultural Marxist for Presiden. How can they culturally be considered Americans and vote for someone who so loathes the principles on which this country was founded?
This quote is from Samuel Adams.
“If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
135. Fletcher Christian:
Jeez, Fletcher.
It’s a fair assumption that Habu is a Yank if he was working on an SR-71. That or a spy.
Google is your friend.
A pilot on one trip in an SR-71 after having a quick look at Libya from on high made a memorable comment about coming out of that place at full throttle with a couple of SAM in the air after him and he was going so fast that he cut the engines back to idle over Sicily and still overran his refueling tanker over Gibraltar.
heheheheheh Habu is a Yank.
Quiet Muslim-only town in N.Y. founded by alleged terrorist.
Excerpted from “Sled Driver,” by SR-71/Blackbird pilot Brian Shul:
I’ll always remember a certain radio exchange that occurred one day as Walt and I were screaming across southern California 13 miles high. We were monitoring various radio transmissions from other aircraft as we entered Los Angeles Center’s airspace. Though they didn’t really control us, they did monitor our movement across their scope.
I heard a Cessna ask for a readout of its groundspeed. “90 knots,” Center replied.
Moments later a Twin Beech required the same. “120 knots,” Center answered.
We weren’t the only ones proud of our speed that day, as almost instantly an F-18 smugly transmitted, “Ah, Center, Dusty 52 requests groundspeed readout.” There was a slight pause. “525 knots on the ground, Dusty.”
Another silent pause. As I was thinking to myself how ripe a situation this was, I heard the familiar click of a radio transmission coming from my back-seater. It was at that precise moment I realized Walt and I had become a real crew, for we were both thinking in unison.
“Center, Aspen 20, you got a groundspeed readout for us?” There was a longer-than-normal pause. “Aspen, I show one thousand seven hundred forty-two knots.” No further inquiries were heard on that frequency.
Marcus Aurelius/117; concur, “Seeking Alpha” tremendously valuable wide-ranging financial blog –
Wretchard/122; the ‘finest hour’ speech, Churchill rampant –and thrilling –in defiance. Note that unlike almost every culture would’ve, the Englishmen did not string Chamberlain up on a lampost. Sense of fair play put to quite the test –and passing it colors flying. Please, England, hang onto your island.
Karen Yvonne/139; i think you’re right, the west’s classical music (what the dickens happened to it –did the giants get it all that finally said?) is a tremendous appeal to emotion and intellect both. The sounds lift, and the thought that our now-comprehensively-maligned European forebears had all those fantastical musical instruments trade-craftsman developed and operational way back in the 18th century, and that the wicked old continental system that so irked the progressives of the French Revolution, also found ways to let those music giants emerge and flourish –and give us the body of infinite treasure we call classical music. My own current fave is Beethoven’s most humble and appreciative thank you for being alive, the 6th symphony, which as not only heard but seen here in light of the question “who are we?” answers, even in the first four minutes for the busy or impatient — if they’ll turn it up loud enough to hear the surge of life emerge in the spring season in the countryside (which it was writ to celebrate) –that we are the people who not so long ago in the nature of time, at the break not of 20th & 21st but the nearby 18th and 19th centuries, were pulling wild & crazy stunts like writing the 6th Symphony and the Constitution of the United States.
Sorry to jump to this thread so late. But I have a real problem regrading self-defense (both personal and home protection).
Problem: My significant other ABSOLUTELY has no interest in means of self-defense. Yeah, he knows things will become really bad in the future. But in the forms of preparedness, he refuse to participate in obtaining fire arms/ammos, or the practice/training to use said fire arms.
Like I said before, I am from Taiwan, 5 ft 1 in, slight built. I feel rediculous to have to train up on pistols or shotguns to protect my much larger hubbie. Not that I won’t do it. I just wish he would gladly see this as part of his ‘duty’.
What and how should I approach this?
always right: my worthless armchair analysis is that the first problem is less him and more your own self. The clue is in “I feel ridiculous….”
Advise, embrace feeling ridiculous, it’s almost always good medicine in retrospect. Do drop the notion of pulling him into your point of view –he’ll never have your eyes, he couldn’t if he wanted to, the best you get that way is he pretends he agrees –which puts performance pressure on you both, which will create and nurture resentment.
Just go ahead & perform on your vision. Buy a weapon and get good with it. If he follows, great –if not, you did what you could, for both of you.
And smile. Be always sweet and light and attentive when around the topic. Maybe he will form positive associations, possibly without even realizing why. Give him a big smile and tell him “better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it”. Better yet, rent “Lonesome Dove” –and let him discover that line himself.
ok that’s all i got. send $5
buddy,
Thanks.
Would you mind I spent the $5 towards ammo?
“Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour.”
I’m well into my fifties now and I STILL never read that line without chills going down my back. There is one more paragraph with the same power:
“We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender…”
May God yet again be with us that we may be able to understand and successfully overcome this resurgence of the old evil. I don’t know who will be our Churchill but I have faith there will be one because the cause for which we stand has too many good men supporting it for there to not arise a true champion.
As for me, I’m ready to work, and if need be, fight to stop those who are so anxious to destroy this country. I’m just waiting for our Lexington.
162 Habu,
You underestimate the power of ACORN and the other “community based non profits”, like hungry college students, who are willing to work for power…er, I mean change. I bet all those who voted O in see his agenda in a positive light.
Depressed? Yeah, but that’s been the case for forty years. After the financial mess broke until after the inauguration I was so anxious as to be useless, spending waaaay too much time cruising the internet, grasping at straws and praying the American people would come to their senses. Thank goodness for Mr. Fernandez and the commenters at BC…at least I knew I hadn’t lost my mind as well as being crazy.
I’m kinda dependent upon modern medicine, so I hope things don’t go too far down the road to hell. I lost my job in May so while I look for another I’m working to start a small business. A child in our county needs a service dog and for some reason I’ve gotten myself involved in that effort. Life must go on. I survived the Peanut, and I can survive this one.
always right: You go, girl! Shooting is a wonderful sport for women. Even with partially-handicapped hands and lousy vision I can hold my own against the guys with a handgun, if the caliber doesn’t get too high. For higher calibers I like a carbine, to take the recoil with my shoulder. Go to a range that will rent to you and try various firearms for comfort. Have fun with it. It’s a confidence-booster. Don’t feel ridiculous, feel pride in a neat new skill. Your husband is a bright man (he had the sense to marry you, right?). He’ll probably figure it out, and even if he doesn’t, I’m sure he has skills that can help both of you, too. A bit of advice, if I may? Purchase by casual sale, that is to say, unregistered. Just sayin’.
Folks, FWIW–FYI:
“Collapsitarians”
by Kevin Kelley, 2/19/09
by way of 3/8/09 post on John Robb’s “Global Guerillas” blog:
“QUOTES: Kevin Kelly on Collapsitarians”
http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2009/03/quotes-kevin-kelly.html
Anyone care to weigh-in on these? (Also take note of the extensive discussions occurring below these posts….)
183.
Purchase by casual sale, that is to say, unregistered.
You’ll have to enlighten me a bit on that. I thought all firearms have registeration #?
Okay all you experts out there, please correct anything I say wrong (and kindly, please. We don’t want to scare off a new enthusiast): if you purchase a firearm from a licensed dealer then you must fill out a form for a background check. If you purchase the same firearm from me as a “casual sale” then there is no form and no background check, because I am not a dealer. All perfectly legal. The gummint can’t confiscate that which they do not know you have, if you catch my drift.
When my husband and I were courting I told him he would have to love my cat and get rid of his registered firearms. He wasn’t persuaded of the virtues of either, but humored me. The cat is gone (sniff), the registered guns long since left the house via casual exchange or sale, my shooting and gun-cleaning skills have improved under his tutelage, and the marriage is thriving!
186.
Thanks. Now I get it.
always right: Call around for a gun range that rents guns. They will really appreciate it if you come in on a weekday, because you’re going to take some time. The nice people will unlock every case in the store if necessary to help you find something you can handle comfortably. They will show you the important ratios of trigger length and so forth. Good luck with that; my best match is a Beretta Bobcat (I’m so embarrassed!).
Having found a comfy fit, they will sell you the ammo and range time to try it. Their ammo is going to be “hotter” than you would use for home defense and it will sting your hands more, so just know that going in. If it hurts your elbows, ask someone what you’re doing wrong. Consider paying for a brief “newbie” lesson if you feel uncomfortable. Comfort leads to competence which leads to confidence. Trust me when I tell you that everyone at the range will trip over themselves to help you. Men who like guns really like to help women learn to like guns.
Having selected something suitable, make your casual cash purchase at a gun show (this may take more than one show). Return to the range for practice. Have a big smile on your face as you return home. Let it slip how much fun you’re having. Shortly your husband will want to come see what you’re up to. He has big hands so he won’t like your gun. Repeat steps as needed. It’s healthy for a couple to go to the range together.
Mr. Fernandez, thank you for your indulgence in providing a means to answer always right’s questions.
Done and done on point #1 and 2. (A range and sign up for courses).
Yes. I also really appreciate the learning opportunity, and really nice suggestions from BC (from other threads), too.
but blert said:
–Well there is at least ONE positive trend: the old guard media is being bankrupted right before our eyes.
This means that an entire generation, or two, of Gramscian wind-ups is hitting the bricks.
I regard this as a critical step towards reclaiming truth.
But it isn’t. they are going to be BAILED OUT BY THE USG.
The bill submitted to congress doesn’t ask that their names be changed to Pravda, but it does say that in exchange for becoming TAX EXEMPT “non profit” charities, they would not make “political endorsements.”
Even when we think we win, we lose. Because the level of corruption now is France’s 4th Republic.
The worst thought? The only way out of depression other than printing money is war. War is, as you know, shovel ready. Do you think China will figure that out before we do?