The Spiral Downward...

"You can't cheat an honest man"---W.C. Fields

This fine feature, courtesy of the Washington Post, is an excellent example of both the path downwards that a huge chunk of the US public is about to experience, and a cultural snapshot of the values that have gotten the Empire to the exact place that it now finds itself. It's tragic and pathetic how people who have really no economic understanding of any kind are suddenly hoisted on their own petards by their innumeracy when large forces almost outside their comprehension intrude into their lives (translation: no safety net). Come to think of it, this is an approximation of the economic debacle generally, except that the worst excesses were caused by the largest, most powerful, and smartest (hah!) players. At any rate, in order to preserve the insights for posterity, here it is in its entirety...click on the original link as well, because there is a revealing slideshow which simply must be watched.

For Many Americans, Nowhere to Go but Down

MIDDLEBURY, Ind. -- He sinks into the couch, foot jiggling, his gaze traveling from his wife to the television to the darkness outside, broken now and then by the distant glow of passing headlights.

His mind settles into another round of "What if?"

As in: What if we don't have cash to buy milk, eggs, bread or diapers? What if our unemployment benefits run out? What if we never find jobs?

And then Scott Nichols thinks of the words he doesn't want to say, what for him, a 39-year-old husband and father of two, is the option he has hoped to avoid since being laid off nine months earlier.

They already took free food from a church pantry, cardboard boxes filled with Corn Flakes and bologna and saltines, his wife, Kelly, walking in, head down, while he stayed in the car, ashen. They pawned his wedding ring, sold part of her Silver Eagle coin collection and had help from the Salvation Army paying their electric bill.

Now another cliff approaches: the loss of the home they rent.

"Looks like we'll have to go to your mom's," Scott Nichols says to Kelly, 33, who is in a beige recliner, staring ahead.

Moving to her mother's would mean returning to the rundown industrial town where they grew up, a place that makes him feel dirty, inside and out. They would sleep in her basement jammed with forgotten furniture, a few steps from a pair of cat litter boxes and below three narrow windows blocked by insulation.

Twenty months after it began, what has the American recession come to?

There are signs that the bottom has been reached. The stock market is on its way back up. Retail sales are improving. The overall sense of desperation, so widespread at the beginning of the year, has eased.

Every day come new reports suggesting some improvement.

But underneath all of the reports is this living room.

"Okay," Kelly says.

The people who have just agreed that they are out of options sit in silence, wondering the way out.

"It needs to be paid," she insists. The $40 installment on their Kmart layaway plan is nearly a week late.

"That doesn't leave a whole lot of money," he says. If they pay the $40, they will have $31 for themselves, their 2-year-old daughter and his 17-year-old son until their next unemployment checks arrive in five days.

"This is why we have no money," she says, irritated, fatigued.

These are the conversations that pervade Scott and Kelly Nichols's days.

How did they get here? How did their every other exchange evolve into a riddle that includes the refrain "How much?" followed by "How much do we have left?" How did their horizon become a basement in southern Michigan?

Nearly four years ago, in search of better pay, Scott Nichols took his older brother's advice and followed him to where he had moved years before: northern Indiana and the flatlands of Elkhart County, the country's largest manufacturer of recreational vehicles.

"The RV Capital of the World," as Elkhart's leaders say.

Scott got a job on a paint crew at an RV plant, and by the end of 2007 his income had climbed to $53,000, more than he had ever earned. After work he was the man at the bar with the thick roll of bills, the man he had always wanted to be, buying round after round for himself and his friends. The man with "the full pocket," as he liked to say. He took his son on a fishing trip. He took his family out to eat and told them to order whatever they wanted.

Then gas prices soared, the economy unraveled and demand for RVs plummeted. Over the course of a year, Elkhart County's unemployment rate rose from less than 5 percent to more than 18 percent. Thousands of workers lost their jobs, the casualties including Scott, and Kelly, who worked in accounts payable at another RV company. The crisis in Elkhart drew the attention of President Obama, who traveled there within weeks of taking office. Obama plans another trip to the county on Wednesday to further focus on the economy.

When he lost his job, Scott had no savings, his primary objective always having been to earn enough to cover the rent, eat an occasional steak, feed and clothe their children, ride his dirt bike, fish, golf, play poker, buy lottery tickets, and drink Bud Light.

For two decades, a robust U.S. economy had allowed Scott a paycheck-to-paycheck life, one in which he was always confident that the next payday was ahead. Lose one job, and soon enough there was another. He flipped burgers at a diner. He was an apprentice at an auto body shop. He drove a delivery truck, was a gofer for an elevator mechanic, mopped floors at a burrito plant, worked as a forge operator, and sanded and buffed and painted truck caps and RVs.

But this time, as weeks stretched into months, Scott found himself not only with no job opportunities but also with nowhere to turn for help. His parents, a retired machinist and truck-stop waitress, still live in the same cramped mobile home in which he grew up. His brother, the one who persuaded him to move to Indiana, has been behind on his own bills since his RV company cut his hours. And Kelly's mother, a retired public school teacher, can offer only her basement.

At the kitchen table, Scott opens the newspaper.

"Movie Extras Needed Now -- 45 bucks to register, earn $100 to $300 a day," he says, reading aloud.

A company needs "employees to assemble products at home, $500 weekly, no experience necessary."

Another is looking for people to "earn $3,800 a week working from home, selling information packs."

"Here's that one we got burned on," he says.

Part-Time Inside Phone Sales. Data Entry From Home. Bodyguards Wanted.

He folds the paper and tosses it across the table.

" 'Bee Movie?' " asks Hailey, the 2-year-old, climbing into Scott's lap. He loves his children. He tries to be a good father. He dotes on them.

"I don't want to watch the 'Bee Movie' right now," he says, rubbing his eyes. He pours cough medicine into a spoon and takes it to her. "I know it doesn't taste good," he says.

Five weeks before they will have to move unless they find jobs, every day is a slow-motion version of the one before, the soundtrack a mix of sighs and yawns, whatever is on TV, Hailey's laughter, Hailey's crying, Hailey's whining, discussions about which bills to pay, and infrequent, inconsequential chatter.

"That new Camaro is freakin' ugly."

"Didn't see it."

"It's right across from the library. How could you miss it?"

They always sit in the same spots, as they do today, a Wednesday, Kelly in the recliner, tattered at the edges. Scott is on his end of the couch, clutching a jug of Pepsi that he refills when it empties.

A photograph from their wedding day sits on a wooden shelf in the corner, "Kelly and Scott, July 10, 2004" in script on the frame. Her smile is wide, her dress bright white. He's in a black tux, grinning, his hair a buzz cut, his goatee neat, the mustache pencil thin.

Now, sitting on the couch, 11 months after being laid off, his hair is thick and uncombed, and his mustache full. He has gained 40 pounds since his last day on the job. He needs a refill on his antidepressant but doesn't want to spend money to see a doctor.

"C'mon, Karma," he says to the dog, a docile Labrador and Rottweiler mix. "Let's go get the garbage can. Quick trip. Like the wind."

Scott walks to the end of the driveway, 87 paces, from where he pushes the bin back to the house, a gray mobile home with a finished basement and a garage on three flat acres. He falls back onto the couch, glancing up at a framed print of three wolves, then at Kelly, then at Hailey. His toes wiggle inside his white socks. He yawns.

In the months since his layoff, he has walked into this place or that place looking for work, unannounced visits that resulted in nothing. He went to a factory that makes ambulances. Nothing. To another that sells truck caps. Nothing. Another that produces tops for aerosol cans. Nothing. He heard about an RV plant that might be hiring, but decided he needs more information before he'll get in his car anymore. He refuses to waste gas chasing rumors.

Driving anywhere alone is an expense that needs justification. Driving anywhere as a family is nearly impossible, because their two-door Cougar is too cramped and too sagging to accommodate their collective weight. Their second car, an old sport-utility vehicle, is stranded in a mechanic's back yard, needing repairs that Scott says he can't afford. So they stay home, which is another way to avoid spending money.

There is time to think: about the laundry he needs to wash. Or maybe he'll save it until tomorrow so he has something to do. He imagines the taunting he's sure he'll hear from his other brother -- the brother who has remained in Michigan -- if he moves back there and into the basement: "So you thought you were gonna go down there and make a ton of money . . . "

He thinks about his son, Cody, with his C's and D's and no direction or ambition. What will Cody do in a year when he graduates from high school? He thinks about taking classes to learn how to use a computer, aware that a new skill could help him find a job. The idea infuriates him. He has a blue folder filled with certificates: "Scott Nichols has satisfactorily completed the Advanced Auto Body Course." And: Scott Nichols "has completed 460 hours of training in auto glass installation." And: "Scott Nichols successfully completed 1,020 hours of training in auto painting."

Why should he have to start all over?

"Did you eat all the doughnuts?" Kelly asks.

"What do you think I was eating last night?" he answers.

She studies Hailey, who is on the floor, gaping at the TV.

"She's kind of sedentary," she says.

"Why?"

"I don't know."

"Why?"

"I don't know."

Scott smiles. "Why?"

She rolls her eyes. "I'm going to smack you."

For dinner, they eat breakfast -- pancakes and sausages, which is what Scott had scheduled for this night when he mapped out a month's worth of meals to save money. The handwritten menu hangs on the refrigerator. Another night was soup and sandwiches. Another night was Chicken Helper and cottage cheese. Another night was leftovers. This night, Cody washes the dishes, his shoulder-length brown hair concealing his face as he leans over the sink.

"Homework?" Scott asks.

"No."

"Imagine that. If I get another call from school."

"You won't."

"What'd you do, tell them I don't have a phone?"

Cody disappears into his room to play Xbox. The TV is still on, the "King of Queens" fading into "Family Guy," "Two and a Half Men," "The New Old Christine," "Gary Unmarried," and "Seinfeld." As the sky turns black, no one switches on the lights. Kelly and Scott are in their usual places, the living room consumed by the blue glow of the television and an unceasing laugh track.

Monday is the day Scott dresses and leaves the house with a purpose that reminds him of the way he felt when he went to work. Only now he's off to collect their unemployment benefits, electronically delivered to their bank accounts by the state of Indiana: $268 for Kelly, $390 for him.

"Payday," he says, driving to an ATM.

He withdraws $700, which he tucks into a front pocket of his jeans. He buys a Pepsi, four packs of Marlboro Lights and $20 in gas. He pays the electric bill, buys brake pads and a $66 money order for the kids' health insurance, and hoses down the Cougar at a car wash. At the bank, he deposits $500 toward rent.

"Five, 10, 12 dollars," he says, counting his remaining cash.

He has $100 more coming, his reward for winning the NASCAR betting pool at his bar, a dark, smoky joint called the Winners Circle. He walks in just before noon, hoping to find someone, anyone, who might know something about a job. The place is almost empty. The bartender, gray-haired, gravelly-voiced Valerie, delivers his winnings and a $2 draft. He rarely drinks at home or in front of his kids. He never drank at work. But sometimes he drinks here, beer after beer after beer.

"I don't want to end up in a bell tower with a high-powered rifle," he likes to say. "I need to let loose in some way. I'm not going to give up everything."

At 1:10 p.m. he orders his fourth Bud. At 1:44 he orders a fifth, then a sixth. His cellphone rings. He knows it's Kelly before he answers. There's that question again: How much does he have left?

"We're still fine," he says. "Promise! No I'm not! . . . I've only had six. . . . I'm good. . . . This is it."

He downs a seventh beer, then an eighth at 3:04. He drives home slowly. The last thing he needs is a cop pulling him over. He passes Coachmen RV on his left, a plant where he applied for a job six weeks earlier. He passes Evergreen on the right, another RV maker, the sign at the entrance to the long driveway announcing, "Not accepting any applications."

In the kitchen, Scott gives Kelly the rest of the money in his pocket, $70, which needs to last until next week's unemployment money arrives. He hands Hailey his loose change for her piggy bank before falling into a chair and losing himself in a game of solitaire.

"Mmm."

Kelly is the one out of the house now, closing her eyes as she sits in a Subway, savoring a foot-long sandwich.

Her thoughts shift to a phone conversation she had that morning with their landlord, when she gave notice that she and Scott would be moving out in a month unless they found work. The prospect of leaving Elkhart makes her think about the place she wishes they were going, a house that exists in her imagination.

"A Victorian," she says. "Four bedrooms, two-and-a-half baths, a family room, a living room, a sunroom, what I would call a sewing room, a kitchen, a dining room and a wraparound porch. That's what drew me to it, the wraparound."

She takes another bite and wanders around the first floor.

"The family room was going to be where I kept my plants," she says. "It was going to be soft green. . . . And the sunroom, that was going to be yellow and it was going to have golden wicker to decorate it. . . . And then upstairs, the master bedroom was going to be mostly white with some blue. . . . And the master bath was going to be purple and white and I was going to have a stained-glass window."

She's ashamed that she and Scott have no money. She's embarrassed that they can't find jobs. She didn't grow up this way. In high school, she had a 3.9 grade-point average. She keeps a few old papers in a box, a teacher's "A -- Well Written" scrawled on one, "Very Good!" on another. She got a scholarship to a community college, then lost it after she started partying and stopped going to class. She held a series of forgettable jobs at forgettable places: a bank, a photo lab, a Burger King. She went back to school, finished her two-year degree and continued to work at forgettable places.

She thinks about her mother, a divorcée, raising two daughters on her own and taking them on trips to New York and Washington, D.C., and Europe. She and Scott have never taken a family vacation. They were together for eight years before getting married, mainly because Kelly wanted to save up for a catered wedding reception. Scott would have been happy flying to Vegas and mixing in some gambling. He doesn't need a tux. Or a Victorian.

"And the first bedroom was going to be Hailey's bedroom," she says. "Soft green with a big Oriental rug with a big rose in the middle. And a big canopy bed. . . . "

She takes a last bite of her sandwich.

"I know it'll never happen," she says. "But you can still dream. Wish. Imagine."

She wipes her mouth with a napkin.

"If I made $60,000 and Scott made $60,000, we could probably do it in three or four years."

Her voice trails off.

"Someday."

She tosses her trash in the garbage. The tour is over.

An e-mail pops up on Kelly's BlackBerry, which she got when she was working and has kept because of the cost of breaking the contract. The message is from a chiropractor needing a bookkeeper, a job she thought was filled because she had applied two months earlier and got no response. Now the doctor wants her to take what he calls a "personality survey."

She drives to the public library to use a computer, because she and Scott don't own one. The survey requires that she rate how a series of 80 statements describes her, "4" being "most like you" and "1" being "least." Next to "I am a winner in most situations," she checks 1.

A few minutes after clicking the send button, their landlord calls, asking permission to drop by the next day to see what in the house needs to be fixed. The landlord, also an RV worker, is carrying two mortgages and must rent or sell the place as soon as possible.

Kelly hangs up and listens to her voicemail. A message from the chiropractor's assistant: The doctor wants her to come in for an interview, the first callback she has received in more than two months.

"Astonishing!" she says, driving toward home. "I wish I could stop and pick some lilacs. Look at all those pretty flowers!"

Hailey is sitting on Scott's lap, and Cody in the recliner, when Kelly walks in the house. They're watching "Bee Movie." Kelly tells Scott about the landlord's call.

"They want to do a walk-through tomorrow, put an ad in the paper."

"When tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow afternoon."

She mentions the call from the chiropractor.

"You're getting a job interview?" Cody asks.

"Yeah."

Scott coughs. He's fighting a cold. His mind drifts to cleaning up the house and packing. Kelly wonders whether they should trim the hedges.

"For God's sakes! That's just pitiful!" he shouts. "The things you worry about!"

"It just bugs me, okay?"

"Don't get snappy with me!"

They're silent for a few moments, his thoughts swinging back to the landlord.

"Didn't know she was going to market it that damn quick," he says.

The next morning, as she prepares to leave for her interview, Kelly gives Hailey a children's book to take to Scott, saying, "Ask Daddy to read it to you one more time."

The book is called "What Dads Can't Do," which Kelly discovered when she took Hailey to story time at the library. She hoped its message might lift her husband's spirits.

His voice is a monotone as he reads.

"There are so many things that dads can't do, it's a wonder they make it through life at all. But dads can't give up. No matter how tired a dad gets or how hard life gets, a dad never quits."

He closes the book and hands it to Hailey, who brings it to Kelly, who walks out the door, saying, "All right, wish me good things."

Scott is silent as the door shuts and asks no questions when she returns.

"Want me to tell you what happened?"

"Uh-huh."

He doesn't look up from the wall he's touching up with white paint. The landlord is due soon.

"It's 28 hours, eight bucks an hour," she says. No benefits, she adds.

"You say, 'Thank you, but -- '?"

"Yup," she says. "I make more on unemployment."

They sweep and vacuum. As he wipes down the stove, the sink and the counters, Scott thinks about a guy from his home town he loves to tease. He's over 30, has three kids and still lives at home with his mother. What a loser.

"I can't make that joke anymore," he says.

The landlord arrives with his wife, saying how sorry he is to see them go.

"Tell you the truth, I'm broke," Scott says. While Kelly follows them through the house, he wanders the back yard with Hailey and Karma.

An hour later, over lasagna, Scott asks Cody if his girlfriend is still trying to persuade him to stay with her instead of moving to Michigan.

"I'd rather stay down here," the boy says.

"You understand that life happens?" Scott says. "We've got to do something?"

Cody nods.

Scott goes into the garage, mounts his dirt bike, gunning the engine and standing on the pedals as he speeds across the field behind the house, his face slick with grimy sweat. For the first time all day, for the first time in a long while, he seems happy.

"Look at Daddy go!" Kelly says, holding Hailey's hand.

The bike hits a bump and Scott tumbles forward, over the handlebars, falling hard on the grass. His shoulder throbs. No job, no health insurance. He can't risk hurting himself any more. He pushes his bike to the garage and heads back to the couch.

Twenty-two days to go.

A couple of hours north, inside a small yellow house in Jackson, Mich., Kelly's mother walks down 11 dark steps into the basement. She's surrounded by stacks of boxes and milk crates, old chairs shoved against tables and shelves. The ceiling is low enough to touch.

Hailey will sleep upstairs, in a toddler bed already occupied by Winnie the Pooh and Mickey Mouse.

And Cody?

"I don't know what they're going to do," says Diane Lawrence.

She shakes her head and walks up to the living room, settling into an easy chair. Her walls are decorated with antique clocks, a painting of a lighthouse and her mother's 70-year-old wedding dress, enshrined in a frame.

Lawrence leans back. She has no answers, none that she is sure of, anyway. Only questions.

How will three adults, a teenager and a child share a single bathroom?

How long will they stay?

Jackson is about 80 miles west of Detroit, its only recent distinction being that it made Forbes magazine's list of the country's 10 worst small cities for finding jobs. Elkhart was named, too. It was sixth worst. Jackson? Number one.

"There's just nothing available for anyone in this part of the country," she says.

Her friend warned her not to take them in. They're adults, let them figure it out. Lawrence scoffs at the idea. Of course they'll live with her. They're her family.

"It's not their fault the economy fell through the floor," she says. "It's just too bad it happened."

Six days until they have to leave.

"You know what he grossed this year?" a woman asks at Scott and Kelly's barbecue, referring to her husband, an RV worker, who grins as he toes the ground. "Under $10,000."

"We're three months behind on our mortgage payments," she says.

"After I pay all my monthly bills, I've got $40 in my pocket," says a boyish man, a single parent who works two jobs and fixes cars on the side.

"Haven't seen it this bad here in 21 years," says another man, in a baseball cap and bowling shirt, leaning against his pickup, gripping a can of beer. "We've all had to make adjustments."

No one more so than Scott, the host at his own farewell party, who is grilling burgers and hotdogs and hugging friends. He smiles when he sees Richard Oiler, his buddy, who recently got a job painting RVs after being laid off for 15 months.

Soon after he started, Oiler called Scott and told him to get over to the plant to fill out an application. Scott drove over once, then again, but never got a call. Maybe it's worth one last-ditch try before they go, he decides now. He moves closer to Oiler. He says he's going to stop by the plant on Monday to put in another application, and asks if he can deliver it to Oiler. Maybe Oiler could hand it to the bosses.

"See if you can?" he asks. He raises his eyebrows. "See what I'm saying?"

"Right," Oiler says.

Scott wanders away. Oiler sips his beer. He considers himself fortunate to have found a job. But he makes $15 an hour, without the regular bonuses that he and Scott could count on during fatter times. "Made more in high school," he says. Every day, he has to stop himself from talking back to his bosses.

"You keep your mouth shut!" his wife snaps.

Inside the house, Cody and his girlfriend, Brandy, lie on his bed watching cartoons. He wears a black T-shirt emblazoned with the Grim Reaper's hooded face. Thick black liner circles her hazel eyes.

"I have atrocious grades and no money," Cody says, which leaves one option, as far as he can see: the military, although boot camp is not something he'd relish.

"I'm not exactly in shape."

"You could lose weight," Brandy says.

"I'll diet then and if I can't get past that, well guess what? They'll send me home."

"No, they won't, Cody."

He doesn't want to leave their house, his school, Brandy. He envisions the three of them sleeping in that basement -- Kelly, Scott and himself, no walls between them.

"I'm sorry," Cody says, "but this is wrong."

Outside, as the sun fades and a bonfire begins to glow, Kelly keeps an eye on Hailey while Scott wanders from friend to friend, bantering as he tilts his head back and chugs another beer. If anyone says anything approaching sentimental, he obliges with a hug and a promise to return. Then he moves on, laughing as he goes.

After 12 months of trying to fix his life, there is no more fixing to be done. Scott Nichols accepts that he is a man standing in a back yard of a house that soon won't be his own. He's a man with no way out. He's the man with no option but surrender.

Monday: Four days left. He does not go to see Richard Oiler. He does not fill out an application.

Tuesday: Kelly packs up some of her things. A clarinet she hasn't played since high school. A Louis Armstrong CD. Two photographs she took at some other point in her life, one of a rose, one of lilacs. A Shakespeare anthology. She shows Scott a wooden keepsake box. "You can yard-sale that," he says, "along with all the damn candles you got."

Wednesday: They run a few errands in the sagging Cougar.

Thursday: They rent a U-Haul and begin loading, father and son, silent. First the TV, then the couches, their dressers, their beds, the kitchen table, the washer and dryer, his two hunting rifles, then box after box after box, until the house is empty and the truck is full.

They arrive in Jackson by late afternoon the next day, Kelly's mother leading them down those 11 dark steps, apologizing not once but twice for the putrid smell of cat urine.

Kelly sits on a desk and Cody slumps in a chair. Scott is on the bed, arms folded, his eyes lost in the shadows. Kelly's mother offers to ask the cable company about running another line downstairs for their television.

Not necessary, Scott assures her.

"I don't plan on being here for long," he promises. He stands and unfolds his arms. The man with no options wonders what to do next, but there is nothing left to do other than trudge upstairs, unload the truck, and come back down to the basement.

The Political Discourse: Stupidity Works!

Paul Krugman, op-ed writer in nations paper of record, bemoans the stupidity of the political discourse in the Empire today. Being just a tad one-sided (Krugman might be accurately labeled a "flaming liberal"), he excoriates the Republican Party for appealing to the lowest common denominator (the current "drill drill drill" mantra) in the energy "debate." Krugman, of course, doesn't mention that the other side's positions are equally devoid of reason, but the primary reason for our attention to this item is what Krugman cannot say: the reason such silly positions are likely to work is that the American public is stupid. So the title of the column should be "Know-Nothing Public" rather than "Know-Nothing Politics."

American Stupidity...

You may have noticed that Chaos, in the extensive reading and writing that composes the underpinnings of this blog, has reached a two-headed conclusion of sorts: that the looming reality-based issues which confront the Empire, and the rest of humanity, are largely technically solvable, albeit with a great deal of time, effort, expense and (some) inconvenience, along with one other thing: a full awareness of the actual extent of the said issues. That such a consciousness is lacking, more in the Empire than anywhere else, now, later and at all times in the future, is the second observation. Ironic it is, in Chaos' eyes, that problems with physical, geological, climatological, and scientific components depend upon sociological factors. To the point then, the lack of awareness of the US public is the primary focus of this continuing study, made the more difficult by the lack of candid appraisal in the "Matrix" that comprises the mainstream media. This brings us to the value of the current column in the most esteemed anti-war website, TomDispatch, written by one Rick Shenkman, investigative reporter and associate professor at George Mason University, entitled, "How Ignorant Are We?" As noted, this is not a new subject discussed here, but it bears repeating, because you aren't likely to hear it in many places elsewhere: the infantile, delusional, and (dare we say it) stupid US public does not possess the mental acuity to effectively perceive, much less confront, the multiple emerging catastrophes now presenting themselves on the world stage. A bit of Shenkman's virtuosity, for readers benefit: the five varieties of stupidity...

"First, is sheer ignorance: Ignorance of critical facts about important events in the news, and ignorance of how our government functions and who's in charge. Second, is negligence: The disinclination to seek reliable sources of information about important news events. Third, is wooden-headedness, as the historian Barbara Tuchman defined it: The inclination to believe what we want to believe regardless of the facts. Fourth, is shortsightedness: The support of public policies that are mutually contradictory, or contrary to the country's long-term interests. Fifth, and finally, is a broad category I call bone-headedness, for want of a better name: The susceptibility to meaningless phrases, stereotypes, irrational biases, and simplistic diagnoses and solutions that play on our hopes and fears."

Highly interesting, in Chaos' view. Also, kindly note that this author has written a book on the same subject, which of course Chaos intends to peruse at the earliest opportunity. Interested readers can find more at the author's blog here.

For further viewing: Idiocracy

A Monday Morning Rant

From the mayor of Salt Lake City, Utah, of all places (you'd better believe this is truly a voice in the wilderness...), comes this very fine rant on the current political situation. It covers all the bases, in Chaos' opinion, starting with the screaming disaster that the current administration has wreaked upon the nation and the world, but also mentions a topic near and dear to Chaos' heart, that the politicians elected in a semi-free country are an accurate reflection of the public who "elected" them. Thus, George W. Bush is truly owned by the American public. (If not, of course, he'd not remain in office: there are mechanisms to accomplish this...). Chaos can simulaneously hold two somewhat opposing positions at the same time: that the current US president is perhaps the worst in history, and that a change in leadership would not change the current situation in significant ways. On the subject of rants, please consider our friend James Howard Kunstler's weekly one at his blogsite....you might disagree, but the man always has something to say, and in proper rabble-rousing fashion.

Straight Talk About Gambling: James Howard Kunstler

This man, author of The Long Emergency (a fine and chilling introduction to a few of the issues discussed here), has a weekly blogpost/commentary on the passing scene. His latest is exceptional and not the sort of stuff you're likely to hear in the happy-talk media. Excerpt:

"The current mania to expand legalized gambling around the country is a clear symptom of how desperate and crazy this society has become. In a culture where anything goes and nothing matters, it is perhaps hard for the public to understand what's wrong with it. The gambling "industry" itself has very successfully masked its pernicious nature by putting across the idea that it is just another form of innocent "entertainment," on a par with pro sports, theme parkery, and Hollywood. In fact, gambling, or "gaming," as it cynically calls itself, has hijacked elements of all these other activities to conceal its main business, which is the systematic hosing of those who can least afford to be hosed.
What's wrong with state-sponsored gambling is simple: it promotes the idea -- inconsistent with the realities of the universe -- that it's possible to get something for nothing. It is unhealthy to an extreme for a society to make this idea normal because it defeats another idea that a society absolutely depends on for survival -- namely that earnest effort matters. It conditions the public to magical thinking -- a characteristic of children-- and disables their ability to function as adults. The expansion of gambling is especially tragic at a time when this society faces epochal economic problems that threaten its existence, and by this I mean the permanent global energy crisis that will require us to reorganize virtually all the crucial activities of daily life. This is a time when the nation can least afford to disable adult thinking and earnest effort." (emphasis Chaos')
Chaos has often thought that the nature of the issues rapidly approaching demands the absolute best thinking, and most assuredly not the dysfunctional business as usual approach. Corrollary: irrational, magical thinking crowds out rational responses. In light of these premises, now view the culture of the US as it really is: celebrity-obsessed, crazily religious, media-saturated, and optimistic without basis. Shiver, readers.

New York Times Columnists Are Fed UP!!

Seems that some of our newspaper brethren have gotten a little disenchanted with the somnolent American public, since, well, nothing seems to really wake them up (wonder why?). A few weeks ago, Tom Friedman exclaimed, in relation to the obdurate refusal of anyone in the country to do anything in response to the problems of crumbling infrastructure, ridiculous visa entry restrictions and aging technology: "9/11 has made us stupid...we can't afford to keep being this stupid!" (Actually, we've been this stupid for quite some time, Tom.) Last week, Bob Herbert described the process that elected George W. Bush over Al Gore thusly: "In the race for the highest office in the land, we showed the collective maturity of 3-year-olds."(And not just in the last couple of presidential elections, either, Bob). Then today, Frank Rich decides that the American public is as complicit in the continuing torture/slaughter that is Iraq as the German public during the Nazi era (a little hyperbolic, yes, but that would also assume anyone here is paying attention to the Empire's little outsourcing dilemmas, wouldn't it, Frank?) Chaos sympathizes, but wonders why it took these gents so long--Chaos figured it out long ago. Look, guys, there's a reason why things are done a certain way here in the Empire; figure it out, can't you? Here's a hint: take a glance outside the borders of the nation every so often and wonder why other nations seem not to have trouble facing the looming problems of energy dependence, global warming, environmental destruction, and the like. Most of them have a rational healthcare policy, and quite a few of them don't actually start unprovoked wars or torture people as a matter of national policy. Think about it.

Taking A Stroll Through A Dumbed-Down Nation

Ever wonder why so much stupidity exists here in the Empire? This somewhat long, but nicely entertaining article ("Greetings From Idiot America") should more than suffice. Money quote:
"The rise of Idiot America is essentially a war on expertise. It's not so much antimodernism or the distrust of intellectual elites that Richard Hofstadter deftly teased out of the national DNA forty years ago. Both of those things are part of it. However, the rise of Idiot America today represents--for profit mainly, but also, and more cynically, for political advantage and in the pursuit of power--the breakdown of a consensus that the pursuit of knowledge is a good. It also represents the ascendancy of the notion that the people whom we should trust the least are the people who best know what they're talking about. In the new media age, everybody is a historian, or a preacher, or a scientist, or a sage. And if everyone is an expert, then nobody is, and the worst thing you can be in a society where everybody is an expert is, well, an actual expert."
Read the rest of it; like a bracing slap of Aqua-Velva, it will shock and refresh you at the same time.

Revenge of the Bicyclists: Critical Mass Hits the Road

This article (registration required) is for anyone who's ever taken their lives in their own hands and ridden a bicycle in today's vicious traffic, encountering the "motor vehicle first" attitudes of one's fellow citizens. Critical Mass, a monthly ride which originated some years ago in (where else?) San Francisco, from whence it spread to 300 or so other cities. Of course, the original is the still, apparently, the biggest and most radical, and herein lies the value of the article: the differing perspective of those who don't believe that bicycles should have to yield to cars. Happy riding, readers.

Why Is The US So Backward?

Here is a nice discussion on why the Empire has no coherent energy policy, especially when compared to most other Western nations. (Hint: the citizenry is stupid, politics are corrupt and favor existing big players, and the nation is just too big and unwieldy to accomplish anything like a united response). Not hopeful for those who plan to live out their years as residents of this slowly collapsing Empire...

A Couple of Bracing Antidotes

Here is a fine example of the kind of thinking we need more of these days...the first is from The Oil Drum poster ResponsibleAccountable, posted on perhaps the premier liberal blog DailyKos. Chaos will reproduce it in its entirety, but the full post (with comments) can be found here.

"Stop blaming the Republicans for the War in Iraq. Just stop it.

I am so very tired of it. I hear it day-in day-out. And I am sick of it. Stop blaming Bush. Stop blaming Cheney. Stop blaming the lot of them.

The fault lies entirely with you.

It is your fault. All of you. The American people. You refuse to change your habits, you refuse to do anything about the unsustainable lifestyles you are leading. You sack any political leader that dares challenge you to do so.

Yet you refuse to really bother to understand the world as it is, and not as you wish it were, or as your wasted hours in front of the TV surrounded by your trinkets have hypnotized you into fantasizing it is.

What do I mean by how it really is? Well, for one, our food production is entirely based on petrochemical based fertilizers and pesticides and massive supplies of oil to power machinery.

The so-called Green Revolution - that's all it was... pumping oil into our food supply. Pouring massive supplies of stored sunlight onto our crops. Turning millions of energy-slaves onto our farms - a barrel of oil has 25,000 man-hours of work in it. For every barrel you consume you have the equivalent of a dozen men working for you 8 hours a day, all year long.

Without the oil inputs the food supply would collapse... ignoring all other consequences a moment - think about that. The food supply would collapse. Pause and remember what collapse really means.

And world oil production peaked in 2005 and has not been as high again since. Now, it isn't the planet running out of oil that causes us problems - there is still as much left in the ground as we've used to date...

No, it is the fact that the rate at which we can get it out has peaked and from now one we will get an ever decreasing amount of oil out every year. Less oil will be available this year than last. Less next year than this.

Even as demand grows, the supply is declining frighteningly. Mexico - the second largest exporter of oil to the US, after Canada and ahead of Saudi Arabia - Mexico's oil production is crashing. It is falling at more than 10% per year. Almost every single major oil producer in the world is in terminal decline. There is increasingly less and less oil in the world being chased by more and more people. We in America have 5% of the world's population and consume 25% of its oil. That leaves a lot of pissed off people in the world. That's why we fight bloody messy wars to secure access to it.

But we'll get back to that in a moment.

So, the oil supply is declining, yet your demand for it is increasing. This leaves an ever widening gap. Which means shortages. Gap between supply and demand. Shortages. Pretty simple.

Even if there might be ways to mitigate some of this we won't be able to do it. Everything about our economy is so dependent on a complex system of oil inputs that any serious shock to that system will cause a catastrophic collapse. People didn't starve in the great depression so much because of lack of food - it was an inability to get that produce to market as the economy collapsed.

And that was food. Essential and straightforward. Imagine how much harder it will be to do complex engineering projects like alternative energy, electrification, public transportation projects... not a chance.

We are talking about nothing less than the end of everything. Remember the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina that shocked you so much when you saw it on TV? Picture that everywhere. Across the nation. All the time. With no cavalry coming over the horizon, however late, to save the day.

Try going hungry for a couple of days. Then on the third day, with the stores empty, no money and no transportation... what are you going to do? Think what are you prepared to do when your child is hungry and you have no money and no food to eat? Now think what others might be prepared to do when they are in that spot.

This is the world we face by continuing to consume at the unsustainable levels we are doing.

But you won't do anything about it. You refuse. None of this is new information. None of this is hidden away in secret files somewhere. You are surrounded by the evidence. You have been told it so often in so many ways. But you won't do anything about it. You refuse.

So we, your elected leaders, we have to go out there and kill thousands - hundreds of thousands - of Arabs to secure future supplies of the thick black lifeblood of our current decaying lifestyles. Not personally I might add - thankfully at least you give us your kids to sacrifice on these military adventures, I'll give you that. I just wish you wouldn't complain about it so much.

Don't complain about the press not telling you that the Administration lied to get you into Iraq? They didn't tell you because no-one with any critical thinking skills, no-one here in Washington, no-one... i mean NO-ONE, believed it to be anything other than what it is. A desperate attempt to secure control of energy resources, while we still had some semblance of military pre-eminence. Some believed it was the wrong strategic move and argued so. But the fact you didn't get it is your fault not theirs.

Don't complain about how the Democrats didn't stand up to the Republicans on the war. You wouldn't let them. You voted repeatedly for scare tactics and faux strength manifested in cliched rhetoric and high-school level macho.

Don't blame the Republicans themselves. They just kept giving them more of what you asked for time and again, election after election - both through your votes and through your sitting on your backsides at home not bothering to come out and vote. (Whichever category best fits you)

When Dick Cheney said that the American way of life is non-negotiable, he wasn't being some stubborn ass, or some evil mastermind. He was stating a fact. The American people will not elect a leadership that will make them change their way of life. It will kick out anyone that tries.

So, instead we do what you demand of us: we will kill over half-a-million Iraqi men women and children. We have done. And we promise to keep doing so. We will kill them in their thousands. Millions if we have to.

And if that doesn't work we'll go out there and start killing Persians. We will slaughter them. We'll drop nuclear weapons on large civilian populations if need be. We will do anything not to have to make you change your way of life. This we promise you. Because that is what you demand.

Of course, we'll leave it for someone else to tell you - when all of this has finally failed - when your insatiable thirst for oil remains unslaked - while you still long to remain the overseer to your fossil-fuel energy-slaves - something shocking will happen.

Well, when I say shocking, it shouldn't be of course. When I sit down this evening, to relax with a beer after talking with you, something natural will occur. As I drink, the amount left in the bottle will decrease. If I speed up my rate of drinking the rate of decrease speeds up too. Eventually... fairly soon if I keep drinking at a rapid pace... eventually my bottle is empty. At that point I realise that a bottle holds only a finite amount of beer. It isn't much of a shock to me.

It shouldn't need saying, but perhaps we should repeat it every morning when we wake up: There is only a finite amount of oil on the planet. Once we exhaust fossil fuels they are gone. Forever.

And we just talked about what happens at that point. The picture is a very dark one. A precipitous collapse. A disintegration of everything we know. And a lot of people will die.

Even though we'll have kept killing the Arabs, then the Persians, eventually Venezuelans - heck possibly Canadians too - just as we promised to do.

...well, at least as long as we could keep getting away with it - we may actually be surprised at some point down that road to run into an immovable barrier of world resistance... but that is a whole other topic for another time.

Even with all of the killing you have demanded that we your elected leaders command the troops of our nation to instigate, all we'll have done is put off the collapse, made it later, eliminated any possibility of any mitigation whatsoever, and made the fall oh so very much worse.

So, please. Please. I ask of you one thing - and it isn't: "vote for me for President of the United States of America". I'll do that plenty in the coming months, so let's give that one a miss tonight.

I ask of you one thing: stop blaming psychotic Republicans, or ineffective Democrats, or sinister Cheney, or buffoon Bush, or Machiavellian Rove, or some evil cabal. stop blaming anyone for the war in Iraq, but yourself. It is your fault. And it is time to face up to that.

It's hard. It's painful. But it is time to grow up and see things as they really are. And vote.

Realise you aren't in high-school anymore. It isn't someone else's job to make your decisions for you. Many will step up and offer to do so if you let them - but you won't like those decisions if you do.

Those of you with family, with kids... Do you want any chance of a future whatsoever that doesn't involve losing everyone you know and care about? Then take responsibility. Decide right now to change. Fundamentally. Immediately. If not those children of yours will probably die alarmingly soon. And not well.

Once I am elected President of the United States of America, I will ask one more thing of you. I will put it to a vote.

Quite simply: Do you want us to make the radical changes to every area in public life that will be necessary to completely restructure society to a sustainable model as quickly as possible, to the benefit of the most people possible, and do you want it to start now? Or, do you want us to keep on killing Arabs, then Persians and whoever else we need to in order to buy a couple more years of this unsustainable lifestyle that is making you miserable anyway?

If you choose the former I will do whatever it takes, and pay whatever price necessary, to save what I can of this great nation of ours for the future. If you choose the latter... well I am sure somebody will give you what you ask for...

And that's it really.

Now, no Democrat will say that. I have no interest in a Republican getting nominated, but I reckon if someone like John McCain took a platform like this to try to revive his campaign he'd be a shoo-in. But the R's won't either.

No-one will. But it needs to be said....

...and read The Oil Drum even if you just have time for the daily Drum Beat... I promise you in a few years time you will be very glad you did..."

If that's not enough for you, try this one, courtesy of David Michael Green (author of 36 Signs Your Empire's Crumbling....if you recall). Of course, this person evidently believes that a mere changing of the guard from perhaps the worst president in US history will be sufficient to cure most of the Empire's ills, a position not in accord with Chaos' estimation of the situation. However, some interesting points as to why the US public is simply incapable of democracy at this very moment.

Your Turn To Laugh At The Neaderthals: Ship of Fools

More funny stuff, although actually scary too...reporter for UK's Independent got himself a berth on the National Review's cruise for conservatives. The hijinks are just, well, incredible, as well as the ridiculous attitudes of those in attendance. Think well on this, though, because this is an actual snapshot of perhaps 20% of the US public (Chaos' wild ass guess).

Chart To Silence The Whiny American Public

Of course, Chaos is not naive....no one will be silenced, and the infantile complaining, blaming and fingerpointing will continue as long as gasoline prices continue to "skyrocket." At least this chart (click on it to enlarge) ought to give someone in this benighted country something to think about, to the extent that "thinking" continues to be a viable way of facing tough issues, which is doubtful. Well, then...

Toxic Environment: American Culture

Click on this link to read about Adbusters magazine's feature on the poisonous culture which surrounds those of us in the Empire today. (The magazine, for the previously unaware, focuses on the media as the corrupting agent; Chaos would argue that the media simply reflects the vacuity of the people living in this country--another example of liberals' inability to imagine or say that the vast majority of people are unconscious sheep). Many studies are cited here; for example, rates of depression, anxiety and drug problems among recent Mexican immigrants increased the longer they stayed here. The study's author concludes: "socialization into American culture and society [will] increase susceptibility to psychiatric disorders." Interesting stuff, and not available on CNN.

Another Sign of Peak Oil

Also from the "you just can't make this stuff up" department...subtitled "Scootin on the Strip," seems able-bodied visitors to Las Vegas have taken to using scooters meant for the handicapped to navigate the oh-so-long four mile Strip. Chaos could probably make some remarks about how this reveals the true American character and why the nation will continue its fossil fuels fiesta as long as possible, but why bother? It pretty much speaks for itself, and really isn't all that shocking in the context of the entire ridiculous and wasteful insanity any thinking sentient being can discern just by looking around.

The Cluelessness Of Americans: A Weekend Bon Mot

Have a good laugh over this video, in which the Australian reporter impersonates PM John Howard, asks Americans geography questions, and other silly stuff that no one should be expected to know the answer to. Particularly funny when he travels to Texas and asks the residents about invading Krygystan, which he tells people the president has deemed a security risk to the US.