the unraveling

the center does not hold

So, is anyone else getting a sick feeling in their stomach watching events unfold these days?

I just finished reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s excellent and provocative “The Black Swan”, so I’m not making any specific predictions on where things are heading, but it seems to me that we’re driving towards some seriously mean looking dark clouds.

A very successful friend and mentor once told me, “The truth is, no one knows what they are doing. The problem is that too many people think they do.” He wasn’t excluding himself or the most powerful people in the world from this statement (and he’s known a lot of important people).  I consider this to be a very sharp and profound insight. Viewing the world through this lens has given me a new perspective that often makes me laugh, but usually makes me worry.

Since my daughter was born a few months ago I have not kept up with the news as much, but today seems to be particularly irritating. I see a lot of dots but no one is connecting them.

First off… Obama seems to have gone completely off the rails with a recent statement to Bloomberg about his buddies at JP morgan and Goldman Sachs… essentially that he doesn’t begrudge them their multimillion dollar salaries, given they are both “good businessmen”. Really? Because it seems to me they really fucked up and pretty much took our economy down. I can’t believe that Obama has been so thoroughly corrupted by advice from those assholes Geithner and Summers that he can’t see what a major public relations mistake this statement is. It does not bode well for “change”, or even for keeping us afloat. Seems like we’ve hit an iceberg and most of us are stuck in steerage.

In the meantime, other crises are popping up all over the place.

The tenacious and ever-lucid Elizabeth Warren has just issued a warning that a crash in commercial real estate is coming. I know you’ve all seen the empty buildings… it’s been subliminal but evident for awhile.

And don’t even get me started on the environment. A couple of idiot scientists do something stupid and it gets taken totally off the agenda? You can almost feel the politicians sighing over that one. Seriously though… while the specific outcome of global warming is essentially a Black Swan, we can’t deny that it’s not looking good for human civilization.

So while we all languish in economic hell, dumping our tax money into failing banks, our local cities running out of money, the government pumping the largest share of our budget into the military EVER in the history of our country, while sticking it to us on health care, jobs, and the environment… the guys who helped bring us to our knees are getting a free pass and millions of dollars.

Nice. God bless America.

And…. we’re back

I don’t know if Obama’s numerous cabinet appointees are making anyone else nervous but so far the lustre of “change” is starting to look a little less shiny than it did on November 5th. I’m willing to give the guy the benefit of the doubt - after all he is extremely intelligent, more than qualified, and he hasn’t even taken office yet, but let’s just say I don’t plan on being a cheerleader without cause. So where to begin? There are so many interlocking issues that need addressing. While the term “holistic” tends to conjure images of trendy new age quackery, the idea of a whole approach to our situation seems to be a good one. The economy, the environment, energy, and healthcare are major issues that are all connected, and approaching these problems from a “quality and sustainability of life” perspective would be bold.  I’ve been picking up bits of ideas from various sources on the web and what I find is that no one is really connecting all of the dots here (except for Jim Kunstler, and his prognostications are grim indeed).

So what do we do? Here are a few articles I’ve read recently that may help point the way…

http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/557976http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=588

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/oct/22/climate-change-renewable-energy

http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/2008/12/will_energy_efficiency_stimulu.shtml 

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/26-3

the Reason of Wolves

I just wanted to let everyone know that the new Assassination Project record “the Reason of Wolves” is out now.

You can get it for free from http://www.theassassinationproject.org.

The record was highly influenced by Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” but filtered through events of the 21st century so far… a “what if?” record that took me to some dark corners. Anyway, the demons have been exorcised for the moment and splayed out in 256kbps m4a files.

I also have 4 copies left of the limited run (10 only, numbered) handmade silver embossed CD pack, which are available for $15 including shipping. email me if you are interested (photos available upon request). otherwise… enjoy the music.

war with Iran… the end of US democracy?

Frightening. What troubles me most is that it won’t even necessarily take another crazy war for some of the economic scenarios suggested to become reality. We are on the brink… and there is a reckoning in store. All I can say is hold on…

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080804_a_war_of_self_destruction/

the price of oil

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080707/klare/

a discussion on Oil

I disagree with the fundamentals of this article… Bush’s responsibility for the current Oil situation lie more in his destruction of the value of the dollar than in any saber-rattling foreign policy. However.. you will find some very insightful and informative comment below the article… which is why I am posting it here.

The Shock Doctrine

This is an important book and worth a read… 

I can’t help but see parallels in everything… the bailout of huge Fortune 500 banks while people are getting thrown out of their homes. The world food crisis resulting from the hedged bets of commodities traders and the snake oil biofuel industry…

Believe me, the coming US depression has the vultures drooling.

 The Shock Doctrine @ http://www.naomiklein.org/ 

Clusterfuck Nation

I always enjoy Kunstler… the Long Emergency was a frighteningly good read. Well researched and worth checking out if you have not already.

When historians glance back at 2007 through the haze of their coal-fired stoves, they will mark this year as the onset of the Long Emergency – or whatever they choose to call the unraveling of industrial economies and the complex systems that constituted them.

http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/