Is Main Stream Media's Portrayal of "THE LEFT" in America, simply "LEFT LITE"?

[host]

This past wednesday (May 25 '05) roachboy started a thread titled, <a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=89682"> sydney schanberg on bushworld</a>. In a followup post in his thread, roachboy observed,

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...1&postcount=11
that this apparatus is not coincident with the entirety of the press in the states is obvious--i am not sure what the point is of saying it--that the dominant frame of reference within which most of the american press operates is conservative is also obvious--think about the extent to which all media outlets in the states understand capitalism as an unqualified good, and move from there. very little space for serious critique of the existing order, either at the economic level (globalizing capitalism) or at the political level. that the right media relies on perpetuating the illusion that it is marginal, under attack from its evil fantasy double--you know, this fiction they enjoy called "the Left" in america (which again seems to lump together everyone to the left of paul weyrich)--is another form of projection. nothing else.

that the net provides easy acces to an international press, and thereby to the possibility of gathering and processing information from viewpoints not either directly dominated by the american right or working from a frame of reference significantly shaped by the right, is a fine thing--but at the same time, it reflects the sad state of affairs that obtains domestically that one would have to search out other papers from other countries just to get anything like an idea of what is happening in the world outside the narrow, self-defeating view of the bush administration and its buddies in the conservative press.

maybe the situation would not be so bad if the conservative press provided anything like an accurate picture of what is going on in the world--but it doesnt--think about the iraq war for example. personally, i think conservatives in general are afraid of the world, afraid of dissonance, afraid of information, afraid to think that maybe reality is complex and easy judgements are absurd...........

and I started a thread titled, <a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=89769"> Rumsfeld: Free people are free to do bad things</a>
In my thread starter, I featured a new column by Joe Bageant of Winchester, Va. Bageant's background is:

http://www.energygrid.com/society/ap-bageant.html
The reason that you have probably not heard of him before, is that Bageant is not an ambitious writer, and has been happy to live the life of a low-profile magazine and newspaper editor, although as a senior editor with Primedia Magazine Corp., publishers of over 300 American magazines, he is certainly highly regarded within his profession. All that changed, however, when Bageant discovered the internet earlier this year (2004) and realized that it gave him the perfect platform to freely speak his truth. Writing a string of uniquely perceptive articles during these dark times in America's history have put an end to that relative obscurity, thrusting Bageant and his message of a true and caring democracy squarely into public awareness.

Bageant first came to my notice last year when I read this article that he had written, (an excerpt):

http://www.energygrid.com/society/jb-england.html
Good for you, Lynndie England, you chinless, inbred, runty, androgynous backwoods mutt! When you mimed a crotch-shot at that hooded detainee, you reminded us all of what Imperial service should be like: one long S&M tour of the tropics, where every man, woman and child of the conquered peoples exists solely as an object for your pleasure.
- John Dolan, columnist for the website, "Exile."
* * *
When I saw the above arrogant, piece of witty horseshit, I wanted to go strangle John Dolan myself. Then I came back to the realization that all writing is masturbation, mine included, and that some of us do it with our eyes closed — as John Dolan does. If he had even one eye open he would have seen the pathos and national hypocrisy represented by "the girl with the leash."

Lynndie England never had a chance. Abu Ghraib, or maybe something even worse (an RPG up the shorts, for instance) was always her destiny. Nearly half of the 800 Americans killed in Iraq to date came from small towns like hers, like mine. Forty-six percent of the American dead in Iraq came from towns of less than 40,000. Yet these towns make up only 25% of our population. Most of the young soldiers were fleeing economically depressed places, or dead end jobs like Lynndie had at the chicken processing plant. These so-called volunteers are part of this nation's de facto draft — economic conscription. Money is always the best whip to use on the laboring classes. Thirteen hundred a month, a signing bonus and free room and board sure beats the hell out of yanking guts through a chicken's ass.

And there are those big bucks for college later. Up to $65,000. Lynndie was supposedly going to college after her enlistment to become a "storm chaser," like in the Helen Hunt movie "Twister." Yeah, right. There are millions of openings in the tornado chasing business. And I'm going to be the centerfold in the next Playgirl beefcake issue. I suppose lots of poor kids do go to college on their military benefits. But personally speaking, I can count the number I know who actually did it on one hand. Let's be honest here: graduating from a small town redneck white high school not knowing where Alaska is on a map of the US is not exactly the path to the fountain at Harvard Yard. But I suspect that down inside Lynndie knew her lot in life from the start — she wore combat boots and camo outfits to high school. Swore she loved it. If you are doomed to eat shit, you may as well bring your own fork.

I grew up poor in Winchester, Virginia — about as poor as the pinup girl of Abu Gharaib — in a moreover scabby rundown town about forty miles from Lynndie's ancestral mobile home over there in Fort Ashby, West Virginia. Sometimes I walk the street on which I grew up, across the railroad tracks that have divided the classes here since before the Civil War. And when I look around I see the likes of Lynndie everywhere. girls of the type I dated as a kid. They are all fatter, thanks to the fast food that was unavailable in my youth, but they are the same cigarette-smoking, in-your-face white girls I knew then, the tough daughters of the unwashed. Here in my old neighborhood, over one quarter of adults do not have a high school diploma, and there are lots of yellow ribbons in the windows just like the one on Lynndie England's family trailer, for those serving in Iraq or elsewhere on the far-flung perimeter of our expanding empire of blood and commerce.
Lynndie Rana England was born in 1982. I have a son her age. Like my son, she graduated high school in 2001. Folks in Fort Ashby say she did well in school, which is no great achievement in these places where the academic bar is set so Dmned low it is buried in the ground in hopes that any student who bothers to even attend school will meander across it. Then, true to local form, she got married at age 19. I'm sure she married mostly out of smalltown boredom. I got married that way once, though I've got sense enough now to be positively embarrased to tell you how young I actually was. Anyway, Lynndie is in a "relationship" with a fellow reserve unit member and is now pregnant at 21 and facing a possible prison term. I wonder if she still thinks much about chasing tornadoes like Helen Hunt.


All hail to the flag people!

To talk about Lynndie's class you have to talk about that other class, her betters. The class that would not piss on her if her shirt was on fire — the flag people. The kind who smirk at "the mutt girl." I live among them now, on a street where the American flag hangs from nearly every Antebellum or Georgian or Greek Revival front porch, in the part of town where every man is a business man, solidly "patriotic." All went to college and few if any have been in the armed services. The regional tire distribution kingpin across the street (who is also a Republican city councilman with, they tell me, a contract for the city's vehicles) flies his flag. Next door the local office supply hotwire (former mayor and born-again chairman of the city GOP) flies two flags, one American and on of his alma mater. The bigtime landlord up the street, another steel bottomed Republican, flies her colors. She too is on council and her daughter is state GOP chairman to boot. Next house down is the daughter of a mogul hard-right-wing developer. She has never worked a day in her life; Daddy just bought her a half million dollar home. They are all waving a flag. They are all super GOPers and shitting in the tall cotton.
Waving a flag and making a mint. What the folks on the "good streets" understand but never say is that America's class war is over and they, the business class, won. Now they can sit back and be outraged by the pics of an ignorant girl in the testosterone choked air of an American torture chamber. They won on the backs of the other nine tenths in these non-union towns where the annual wage is less than three-quarters of the national average. And they won because god wants it that way. Their families got here first and stole early. Their daddies stole land from farmers during the Depression and they made millions later selling it to Wal-Mart, the new medical center, and all those low wage non-union factories (after conveniently rezoning it to suit their interests while on city council.) Contrary to common belief, the bedrock of this nation's rip-off by the rich is in the small and medium sized towns, where the so-called "small" business associations have a direct phone line to the state capital, where they can stymie any increase in minimum wage or snuff anything even remotely resembling a fair tax structure. And if Lynndie England wants a piece of their American pie, well, she can start in the Army reserves by posing for mock crotch shots in the belly of Abu Ghraib, then claw her way up from there. Just like their great granddaddies did.

My hometown friend and drinking buddy, Richard, is an heir to an old line real estate fortune in the tens of millions (and is a fourth generation city council member, naturally.) He says there is absolutely nothing wrong with this system. I say there is absolutely nothing right with it. And as long as I keep my proper place in the scheme of things, and he continues to be able to hold his liquor (because I sure as hell can't) I suppose we'll go to our graves remaining fairly civil about what we both know is the injustice of it all. You won't ever see any of his privately schooled kids eating MREs in Iraq. Nor any of mine, if I can possible help it. But for opposing reasons. He's raising his kids to rule in the New Republican World Order and I raised mine to be resistance fighters against that same order.

We've seen the shy and pretty blonde Jessica Lynch exploited as a fake hero rescued from the swarthy hand of the godless Muslim. We've seen the coarse, not-so-pretty Lynndie forced to pose for a bondage torture flick, and then be publicly scourged in the name of some corrupt justice understood only by those powerful men whose fancy was tickled by an unlawful military attack and occupation. I simply do not see how even a morally and philosophically bereft country such as ours can come up with another way to exploit graphic images of women at war.

A bass boat for the angel of Abu Ghraib

Whatever the case, in the end, Lynndie will get some bucks out of all this, if she has not already, from her Today Show appearance, or maybe the book deal or the movie that will come along to feed our national lust for pain made visible. What the lawyers do not take from her, she had better save. But I suspect she will not. What do you want to bet that her alleged future hubby, Charles Graner, won't want a $50, 000 truck and a super bass boat, or that she won't waste enough of it by her very own petite self? I've seen it a thousand times. Hell, I've done it. It's a white trash gene. But things could be worse. She could go to prison if our commander-in-chief has his way (the same commander-in-chief who once called Africa a country and he didn't even go to school in West Virginia). Or worse yet, she could find religion and be West-by-god-Virginia "saved," a sure road to zombie trailer trash hell if ever there was one.

But hold there hoss! The Lynndie England show is by no means over yet. As I write a dozen committees are excavating for the truth about Abu Ghraib. And they remind us that we do not yet know the "full facts." We will not know them until they are done being manufactured by the administration and its stacked committees. And they are stacked. Stacked if for no other reason because the lawyers and politicos doing the judging never received orders to pose for war porn on behalf of a savage, pittiless republic, or faced the prospect of a stomach turning chicken plant as their destiny. They do not understand that here on the wrong side of the tracks, in places like Fort Ashby or Winchester, Virginia, here in the dominion of the whip, a homely girl with a leash is relatively speaking, an angel — albeit the angel of our brutish disregard.

Copyright © 2004 Joe Bageant

http://www.energygrid.com/society/ap-bageant.html
(Andrew P) AP: In a nutshell, what has Bush done for the average American?

Bageant: Given them faith in their own desperate hubris.
AP: If that is the case, and the average American is far worse off under Bush, then why is it that he still has such strong support, often from the very people whose quality of lives is most depreciated by this government?

Bageant: Because we have institutionalised our hubris in the schools and the churches and everywhere else. Because Americans think obesity and belligerence are virtues, and that Jesus Christ and a five piece band came down and made them the new chosen people.

AP: Why is somebody like yourself, who champions the ordinary American, regarded as unpatriotic for opposing a government and its policies that are so clearly destroying the American ideals of democracy and liberty?

Bageant: Because the government has nothing to do with real patriotism. Patriotism is a love of the place and the people who have shaped your heart and mind. not your willingness to die for oil or, as Napoleon said "for those baubles pinned on the chests of dead soldiers."

AP: Coming from the South, your views cannot be very popular with your neighbours. How do you deal with them or protect yourself from them?
Bageant: Well. for a while I was some kind of goddamed anti-Christ around here. All kinds of scary threats, and such. Now I have been laying low like old Bre'r Rabbit (You Brits don't have the slave tales of Bre'r Rabbit do you?). The locals are so consumed with being good Germans amid their neighbours, they do not even think about the internet stuff. They are busy keeping mental lists of which liberals they are going to put on trial when the Republican Reich finally dawns.

AP: In your articles you seem to indicate that it is hopeless trying to convince many of your compatriots that they are actually supporting a government that is not in the interests of the American people or of American ideals. Do you see any way through this?

Bageant: Nope. They gotta find their own way. That's what democracy is about. People finding their own way. Or not finding it.

AP: In "The Covert Kingdom" you illustrate the mentality of the Christian Fundamentalists that the progressive left is up against, a mentality that is only matched by Muslim Fundamentalism. How can we, in a democratic system, keep such destructive segments of society from harming the less vocal majority (assuming that they are not a majority!)?

<h4>Bageant: It can't. Until the progressive left gets out there on the street and recruits every ignorant piece of white trash and person of colour it ain't gonna happen. But here in the US, the so-called left is comfortable being in the catering class of college professors, managers, journalists, school teachers and others required to keep the capitalist system humming, they ain't gonna take any risks. They just don't get it that if they do not love their labouring brothers, beer belly, ignorance, crack habit and all, their ass is grass too. It's only a matter of time. But they simply do not believe these people are their brothers, or even human, for that matter. America is a class system first and foremost.</h4>
AP: Tell me some of your views on freedom. Many would accuse you of being left or communist. which can also be totalitarian.

Bageant: I am not a communist. I am a universalist humanist socialist. I would be a commie, but for the fact that communism seems too easily hijacked by despotic thugs. I don't know why, and at this age I do not have the time to find out. I'll run with what I know so far. Stick my spear in the ground and tie my leg to it and do the best I can.

AP: If you were President, what are the first things you would do to move the US away from fascism and back to democracy?

Bageant: I would cut the Pentagon budget in half and spread the dough around to health care and education here and in third world countries, and spend billions on peace studies and the ecology. I'm a simple fucker.

AP: When did you first go on the internet and what is your view of this medium?

Bageant: In April of this year. I loved the Internet from the very beginning as I had decided a while back that I was sick of the paint-by-numbers journalism that has ruined the print world, and was looking for an outlet in which I could say exactly what I wanted to the way I wanted to.The internet may well be the political hope of the world. Maybe someday we will have internet referendums on what to do with the world's wheat supply. Maybe someday the global corporations' knees will be broken and every knee will bow in humble submission to the needs of humanity. Every pharmaceutical company will be distributing AIDS drug to the beating heart of Mother Africa. But first there is going to be a lot of death and destruction. The Twin Towers were just the cartoons before the movie of global revolution.

AP: Are you surprised at your meteoric rise to cult internet writer considering you have only been online such a short time? How do you account for this?

Bageant: Yes, I am. I have always had good response to whatever I put into print. But that stuff was always distributed within defined circulation boundaries such as those of a magazine or a newspaper. If a magazine has 150,000 readers, then that is about all a writer is going to reach through that medium. But the internet can aggregate people of similar opinion and outlook with power and speed that is unimaginable in print.

Working in magazines for so many years, it seems to me that magazine and book publishers still just do not "get" the internet. They still suffer under the illusion that people will not read anything over 1500 words, etc. Yet a reader is a reader. They also get too trapped in "marketing segmentation," demographics, psychographics, and all that crap that was so hot with marketing people ten years ago. The net is an ocean of human beings and you gotta swim among them to understand them and what you need to do to stay afloat. There is no magic marketing plan you can wire into, other than provide what people really want on the sites they go to get it.

Half the nation doesn't read and never will. So they will be looking for small takeaway bites from the net. Fair enough. But people who care about ideas and information will devote just as much time to the net as to a book, and probably buy a book related the internet source too if it further serves their purpose. For example, I began restoring an ancient slave banjo from information on the net. Then later I bought a book by the same author I was reading on the net. That would not have happened if the net had not provided instant access to that luthier's advice. It also happened a lot more quickly than if I had had to research the subject by traditional means........

My opinion is that Joe Bageant and roachboy are saying essentailly the same thing; that capitalism has failed too large a chunk of Americans for it to continue to be portrayed by virtually all of MSM as the "ideal" economic system, to the exclusion of any media coverage of capitalism's "record", much less any opening of dialogue regarding populist alternatives.

Sydney Schanberg goes over well with the Village Voice readers and people who Bageant describes as <b>"the catering class of college professors, managers, journalists, school teachers and others required to keep the capitalist system humming"</b>, but if the initial reaction to Bageant's writing, among the following that he has cultivated on the internet in the past year is any indication, who will have a better chance of filling the lack of coverage of the economic and social realities of people from places like the Appalachian town of Winchester, Va., Schanberg or Bageant. Up until now, the prominent voice for people of western Virginia is Jerry Falwell.

I read many comments in TFP politics that lament the "broken" political system, with "special interests" often pointed to as the culprits. Posters seem to believe that "one party is as bad as the other". Outside of roachboy and strange_famous, I see almost no one willing to engage in serious and informed discussion of alternative economic systems. In an era where we begin to notice and whisper about the unsustainability of a growth obsessed, oil addicted economy, why are we unable to compare ourselves to other western societies who are on different paths? Will a voice from Appalachia, writing on the internet, make us notice capitalism's failings?

[Cynthetiq]

Originally Posted by host

I read many comments in TFP politics that lament the "broken" political system, with "special interests" often pointed to as the culprits. Posters seem to believe that "one party is as bad as the other". Outside of roachboy and strange_famous, I see almost no one willing to engage in serious and informed discussion of alternative economic systems. In an era where we begin to notice and whisper about the unsustainability of a growth obsessed, oil addicted economy, why are we unable to compare ourselves to other western societies who are on different paths? Will a voice from Appalachia, writing on the internet, make us notice capitalism's failings?

maybe people aren't willing to engage in discussions like this because what I have seen is just a DELUGE of links, quotes, screen scrolls to digest.

I tried to read through this, and between getting the back story of roachboys thread to yours... I got bored.

I read a number of posts where the discussion is as follows, "Well here's my evidence," post quote, post link, post quote, post link,"and further more" post quote, post link, post quote, post link, post quote, "and because of those I cannot see why you think the way that you do."

That's not a discussion, that's people talking and holding up books saying, "But it says in here..." IMHO no different than any other preachers albeit religious or governmental agenda pushers.

[Ustwo]

Originally Posted by host

I read many comments in TFP politics that lament the "broken" political system, with "special interests" often pointed to as the culprits. Posters seem to believe that "one party is as bad as the other". Outside of roachboy and strange_famous, I see almost no one willing to engage in serious and informed discussion of alternative economic systems. In an era where we begin to notice and whisper about the unsustainability of a growth obsessed, oil addicted economy, why are we unable to compare ourselves to other western societies who are on different paths? Will a voice from Appalachia, writing on the internet, make us notice capitalism's failings?

Because we are mostly not members of the lunatic fringe. We have problems with various aspects of the government, but as a whole think they system is a good system. Its not perfect, but it has worked better than ANY system to date. People are better off in this system then under any other system in human history. So when people come along and want to throw it all away for unproven dreams which seem contrary to human nature, they are going to be ignored.

You might be dissatisfied but most of us LIKE the current system. Maybe some don’t like the current leaders, maybe some don’t like the opposition, but the system is fine.

And finally all the talk of a ‘real’ left is just armchair revolutionary bullshit. Lets take the logistics here. First off people like me have the numbers, we have the money, we have the education and we have the will. If America ever looked like it was going in such a direction do you think we would allow it? You arn’t going to win a revolution with “ laboring brothers, beer belly, ignorance, crack habit and all,”.

[moosenose]

Originally Posted by host

Outside of roachboy and strange_famous, I see almost no one willing to engage in serious and informed discussion of alternative economic systems. In an era where we begin to notice and whisper about the unsustainability of a growth obsessed, oil addicted economy, why are we unable to compare ourselves to other western societies who are on different paths?

Because somebody has to be the grownup?

What I find amusing/sad is that so many people advocating "alternate political systems" find such a large need to distance themselves from the literal mountains of bodies that people advocating their position produced in the name of "social progress". Well, that, and the fact that they tend to encourage others to commit crimes similar to those they've committed in the past and had to get pardoned for...

BTW, where I live, there's a thing called "conspiracy" and/or "incitement"...That's what it is legally called when a person, ANY person, actively advocates the breaking of the law to others in an attempt to get them to violate the law themselves. Not to threadjack, but are the laws regarding conspiracy and/or incitement different where you are?

[martinguerre]

Originally Posted by moosenose

BTW, where I live, there's a thing called "conspiracy" and/or "incitement"...That's what it is legally called when a person, ANY person, actively advocates the breaking of the law to others in an attempt to get them to violate the law themselves. Not to threadjack, but are the laws regarding conspiracy and/or incitement different where you are?

Why is this relevant?

[filtherton]

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq

maybe people aren't willing to engage in discussions like this because what I have seen is just a DELUGE of links, quotes, screen scrolls to digest.

I tried to read through this, and between getting the back story of roachboys thread to yours... I got bored.

I read a number of posts where the discussion is as follows, "Well here's my evidence," post quote, post link, post quote, post link,"and further more" post quote, post link, post quote, post link, post quote, "and because of those I cannot see why you think the way that you do."

That's not a discussion, that's people talking and holding up books saying, "But it says in here..." IMHO no different than any other preachers albeit religious or governmental agenda pushers.

How is that not a discussion? The problem with discussing things about the real world is that often the discussions have to refer directly to what is going on in said world. We can bullshit about the administrations foreign policy all night, but until somebody actually quotes the adminstration or a record of their actions we're pretty much jerking ourselves off. Maybe you'd prefer it if discussions went more like: Assertion, Request for evidence from opposing side, post quote, post link, post quote, post link, etc..., because that's the way it probably will go in any kind of substantive poiltical discussion, even then it's not much different than the discussions people seem incapable of having.

One problem with the politics board in general is that people seemingly lack the ability to spend any time formulating an opinion, instead choosing to pull everything out of their ass. When they actually are confronted with some kind of information they say, "Fuck that, that shit looks like it might take time to read and digest and interpret, i wonder what american idol is going to be like next year?"

[Elphaba]

Originally Posted by filtherton

One problem with the politics board in general is that people seemingly lack the ability to spend any time formulating an opinion, instead choosing to pull everything out of their ass. When they actually are confronted with some kind of information they say, "Fuck that, that shit looks like it might take time to read and digest and interpret, i wonder what american idol is going to be like next year?"

Amen, Filtherton. I just tried to start a discussion on one particular article and ideologues from both left and right either whined or attacked the article without reading it. That is not adult, political discourse in my opinion. Don't we need to start at a given proposition and debate it's merits with an open mind? Sounds grownup to me.

[powerclown]

Bored here, too.

I am all for Dissent. But if we have to be subject to the same thing over, and over, and over and over and over (and over) again, won't one at least incorporate some creativity and/or variety into one's Dissention? Droning, whining, beseeeeching, metronomic. It's like nails scrreeeeeeching across a blackboard.

What I'm seeing here, lately:

======================================================

Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected.

Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected.

Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected.

Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected.

Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected.

Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected.

When Frighteningly Radical Political Dissidents Go Wild
This Link is in French, So 99.9999% of You Stupid Americans Won't Know What The Hell It Says Anyway
Fox News: Far Right Newssource, or Mouthpiece of the Anti-Christ?!?!
Pacifists For The Beheading of Donald Rumsfeld, Pt. 13, section a.1.33.B.12.666, Heading 7b.45
Mom Refused to Breast Feed Me: LOOK AT ME NOW, BITCH!!!!

DEATH TO INFIDELS!!!!!! ERM, We Mean, In Today's News..., SOURCE: foolishamericans.english.aljazeera.com
Why I Hate My Country, and Every Motherfucker In It!...noamchomsky.com
My Conversations With a Concrete Wall, or, Why I Speak So No One Can Understand Me....by famous greek poet Narcissus
Capitalism, Voodoo & Toenail Fungus: Unholy Incantations of a Post-Bush America
I Spent 45 Minutes on Google, and All I Got Was This Lousy Link!

Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected.

Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected.

Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected.

Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected. Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected.

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Say One Good Thing About Bush, and We Open Fire....democraticunderground.com, May 16, 2005

Why America Sucks, globalfreepress.com, 6th edition, article1a.666-4, pp. 237-655
SOURCE: BUSH=HITLER.COM

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.....

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BUSHSUCKS.COM

Bush sucks. I hate Bush for being re-elected!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Cynthetiq]

Originally Posted by filtherton

One problem with the politics board in general is that people seemingly lack the ability to spend any time formulating an opinion, instead choosing to pull everything out of their ass. When they actually are confronted with some kind of information they say, "Fuck that, that shit looks like it might take time to read and digest and interpret, i wonder what american idol is going to be like next year?"

That's exactly what I'm saying to a point.

The discussion is mired in so much information that for me to have an intelligent discussion on something then requires me to read for 60-90 minutes, digest and reflect on what I read to completely understand the whole for sometime, and then regurgitate it and defend it or else get deluged by yet more links and quotes. Find that I have even more reading to educate myself with and get even more deluged by more information as the thread continues.

It's hard to gain converts if you turn them all off at the beginning and don't even give them an opportunity to grasp a foundation of the platform.

[Elphaba]

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq

That's exactly what I'm saying to a point.

The discussion is mired in so much information that for me to have an intelligent discussion on something then requires me to read for 60-90 minutes, digest and reflect on what I read to completely understand the whole for sometime, and then regurgitate it and defend it or else get deluged by yet more links and quotes. Find that I have even more reading to educate myself with and get even more deluged by more information as the thread continues.

It's hard to gain converts if you turn them all off at the beginning and don't even give them an opportunity to grasp a foundation of the platform.

You prefer Powerclowns post? It's quite easy to skim through.

[host]

Originally Posted by powerclown

Bored here, too.

I am all for Dissent. But if we have to be subject to the same thing over, and over, and over and over and over (and over) again, won't one at least incorporate some creativity and/or variety into one's Dissention? Droning, whining, beseeeeching, metronomic. It's like nails scrreeeeeeching across a blackboard.

What I'm seeing here, lately:..............

Maybe this thread can still be steered in the direction that was intended.

Here is an example of a western nation that has a different view than that of mainstream America's, and has taken a different approach. Why do we see things so differently than they do? As far as petroleum resouirces are concerned, both the u.S. and Norway started from a point of domestic abundance of this resource:

http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/apps/p...46/1001/NEWS06
Article published Apr 30, 2005
The $6.66-a-Gallon Solution

By SIMON ROMERO
New York Times

OSLO, April 23 - Car owners in the United States may grumble as the price of gasoline hovers around $2.25 a gallon. Here in Norway, home to perhaps the world's most expensive gasoline, drivers greeted higher pump prices of $6.66 a gallon with little more than a shrug.

Yes, there was a protest from the Norwegian Automobile Association, which said, "Enough is enough. "

And a right-wing party in Parliament, the Progress Party, once again called for a cut in gasoline taxes, which account for about 67 percent of the price.

But "those critics are but voices in the wilderness," said Torgald Sorli, a radio announcer with the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation who often discusses transportation issues. "We Norwegians are resigned to expensive gasoline. There is no political will to change the system."

<h4>Norway, the world's third-largest oil exporter, behind Saudi Arabia and Russia, has been made wealthy by oil. Last year alone, oil export revenue surged 19 percent, to $38 billion.</h4>

But no other major oil exporter has tried to reel in its own fuel consumption with as much zeal as Norway. These policies have resulted in Norwegians consuming much less oil per capita than Americans - 1.9 gallons a day versus almost 3 gallons a day in the United States- and low car ownership rates. On city streets and rural roads, fuel-efficient Volkswagens and Peugeots far outnumber big sport utility vehicles.

[Norway's gasoline policies stand in contrast to those in the United States, where President Bush made cheaper gasoline a priority during his discussion of energy policy at his news conference on Thursday.]

Gasoline, of course, is not the only expensive commodity in Norway, a traditionally frugal and highly taxed nation. At a pub in Oslo, for instance, a pint of beer might cost the equivalent of $12 and an individual frozen pizza $16. But expensive gasoline is rare among large oil-producing countries that often subsidize fuel for their citizens. Gasoline prices in Norway - with a currency, the krone, strong in comparison with the dollar - have climbed 30 percent since 1998, outpacing a 15 percent increase in the consumer price index in that period, the national statistics bureau said.

Having the world's highest gasoline prices is just one strategy to combat greenhouse gases in this redoubt of welfare capitalism and strict environmental laws. Overall energy consumption, especially of electricity, is quite high, however, with Norway blessed with not just oil but ample hydropower resources.

Norway not only taxes its gasoline. Norwegians also pay automobile taxes as high as $395 a year for each vehicle, and in Oslo there is even a "studded-tire" fee of about $160 for vehicles with all-terrain tires that tear up asphalt more quickly in the winter.

Then there are the taxes on new passenger vehicles that can increase the price of imported automobiles. Norway has no auto manufacturing industry aside from an experiment to produce electric cars, and economists have suggested that that has made it easier to limit automobile use in Norway because there is no domestic industry to lobby against such decisions as in neighboring Sweden, home of Saab and Volvo.

Norway designed the duties to make large-engine sport utility vehicles much costlier than compact cars. For instance, a high-end Toyota Land Cruiser that costs $60,000 in the United States might run as much as $100,000 in Norway.

Economists argue that gasoline prices and other auto taxes in Norway are not so expensive when measured against the annual incomes of Norwegians, among the world's highest at about $51,700 a person, or the shorter workweek of about 37.5 hours that is the norm here. (Norwegians also get five weeks of vacation a year.) The government frequently makes such arguments when responding to criticism over high fuel prices.

"We do not want such a system," Per-Kristian Foss, the finance minister, said in a curt response to the calls for lower gasoline taxes this month in Parliament.

Other European countries have also placed high taxes on gasoline, and some like Britain and the Netherlands have gasoline prices that rival or at times surpass Norway's. In Oslo, as in other European capitals, there is ample public transportation, including an express airport train that whisks travelers to the international airport from downtown in 20 minutes. Yet Norway, with a population of just 4.6 million, differs from much of Europe in its breadth, with an extensive network of roads, tunnels and bridges spread over an area slightly larger than New Mexico.

"Rural areas without good public transportation alternatives are hit a little harder," said Knut Sandberg Eriksen, a senior research economist at the Institute of Transport Economics here who estimates the government collects about $2.4 billion in fuel taxes alone each year, or about $519 for every Norwegian. Some of the revenue supports Norway's social benefits.

"Our government has been grateful to use the automobile as a supreme tax object," Mr. Eriksen said. "The car is its milking cow."

Perhaps as a result of such policies, Norway has lower levels of car ownership than other European countries, with 427 cars per 1,000 people in 2003 compared with more than 500 cars per 1,000 people in both France and Germany, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit. The United States has more than 700 cars per 1,000 people.

The average age of a passenger car in Norway is 18 years when it is scrapped, though this might be changing in a strong economy with the lowest interest rates in 50 years. Registrations of new passenger cars last year climbed 29 percent from 2003. But the frugality of some Norwegians, even in rural areas, suggests older cars will remain at many households.

"Personally I have no need for a new vehicle; I'm proud to hold on to my own for as long as I can," said Johannes Rode, 69, a retired art and music teacher and owner of a 29-year-old red Volkswagen Beetle in Ramberg, a coastal town in northern Norway. "To do otherwise would be wasteful and play into the oil industry's hands."

Caution about oil's risks is common in Norway. The government created the Petroleum Fund more than a decade ago as a repository for most of the royalties it receives from oil production. The $165 billion fund, overseen by the central bank, is intended for the day when oil resources in the North Sea start to dry up.

Meanwhile, unlike other large oil producers like Saudi Arabia, Iran or Venezuela, Norway has done little to encourage domestic petroleum consumption. In part because high gasoline prices deter such a luxury, Norway consumes little more than 200,000 barrels a day of oil while exporting nearly its entire production of 3.3 million barrels a day. This confounds some Norwegians.

"Norway is a rich, oil-producing country with no foreign debt," said Egil Otter, a spokesman for the Norwegian Automobile Association, a sister organization to AAA. "We think that Norway, with its enormous and complicated geography and distances, deserves pump prices at an average European level. Motorists find it very difficult to be taxed into these extremes."

Such opinions contrast with the quick defense of high gasoline prices often voiced around Norway, which is celebrating its 100th year of independence from neighboring Sweden and so far has opted out of joining the European Union.

Sverre Lodgaard, director of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, said Norway had a responsibility to manage its oil resources soberly because of its support of worldwide limitations on greenhouse-gas emissions.

"We are engaged on this front," Mr. Lodgaard said. "It is difficult for us to view the example of the United States, which is overconsuming to an incredible extent."

The United States, which uses about a quarter of the world's daily oil consumption, had the cheapest gasoline prices of the 27 industrial countries measured by the International Energy Agency in its most recent analysis of fuel prices. Taxes accounted on average for just 20 percent of the price of gasoline in the United States, the agency said.

Even amid Norway's bluster on gasoline prices, however, environmentalists suggest the nation could do more to achieve greater energy efficiency. One sore point is the consumption of electricity, traditionally generated by hydropower but soon to depend more on a fossil fuel, natural gas.

Producing oil for export in Norway requires large amounts of electricity, and homes in the country, with much of its territory above the Arctic Circle, use electricity for heating, creating much higher electricity consumption levels than elsewhere in Europe. It is not uncommon to drive on well-lighted roads even in remote areas.

"There are areas in which we have done O.K.," said Dag Nagoda, a coordinator in the Oslo office of the WWF, formerly known as the World Wildlife Fund. "And there are areas in which we can do better."

It appears that Norway planned very well for it's current post peak oil production. What practical equivalent has our capitalist economy and our current federal government proposed or initiated to deal with this situation.
IMO, a $650 billion annual trade deficit, annual federal budget deficits nearing $500 billion for the forseeable future, a decline in the dollar vs. the euro from .83 euro to 1.26 euro to dollar exchange in just four years, while our spending for national defense and inteeligence gathering approaches an annual equivalent of the sum of the combined spending of the rest of the world, does not seem to me to be a sustainable setup, in terms of stabilizing the value of the dollar. Norway's example makes the U.S. planning and prospects seem very inadequate and alarming.

http://www.prudentbear.com/archive_c...tent_idx=41380
International Perspective, by Marshall Auerback

The View from the Summit of Hubbert's Peak
March 14, 2005

““Understanding depletion is simple. Think of an Irish pub. The glass starts full and ends empty. There are only so many more drinks to closing time. It’s the same with oil.” – Colin J. Campbell
................UK and Norway North Sea production peaked in 1999/2000. China and Mexico (5th and 6th largest) are both expected to peak soon, if they have not already. Although Russia is now emerging as a swing producer of comparable importance to Saudi Arabia, this is a temporary phenomenon: the government announced recently that it expects production to peak around 2007, which probably explains President Putin’s increasing reluctance to see this strategically vital industry fall under the control of Western interests.

In April, 2003, just weeks after the invasion of Iraq, Vice-President Cheney echoed many Wall Street predictions that by the end of the year Iraq would be able to raise its oil output as much as fifty per cent over prewar levels. Before the war, the Iraqi National Oil Company was pumping about two and a half million barrels a day. Now, with the help of money, personnel, and equipment provided by the American government, it is pumping about 1.8 million barrels a day—at least, on those days when insurgent attacks on pipelines and storage facilities don’t force a cut in production..........................

[Elphaba]

Host, I have to admit that I am perplexed about your topic for discussion with most of your initial posts and titles. Perhaps others are as well. I have greater understanding of your meaning when you finally clarify it. I could happily join in the discussion you wish to start, if you shared upfront what the topic you wish to address is.

Only my 2cents.

[host]

Elphaba, perhaps you overlooked the last sentence in my thread starter:

Originally Posted by host

In an era where we begin to notice and whisper about the unsustainability of a growth obsessed, oil addicted economy, why are we unable to compare ourselves to other western societies who are on different paths? Will a voice from Appalachia, writing on the internet, make us notice capitalism's failings?

Like it or not, earlier reactions to my call for discussion of left leaning alternative economic systems, triggered several hostile responses, including one that possibly accuses me of criminality. I was intrigued by roachboy's unusual, but accurate observation that the MSM omits any coverage of capitalism's shortcomings and of it's failures. No coverage exists to at least examine whether there might be a "better way". I cannot agree that an economic system that leaves 40 million Americans without adequate health insurance coverage, is "fine". I'll leave it to roachboy to revive any possibility for discussion of alternatives to capitalism.

[moosenose]

Originally Posted by powerclown

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Damn, dude, that's the funniest thing I think I've EVER seen on this board!!!

[moosenose]

Originally Posted by martinguerre

Why is this relevant?

Because that's EXACTLY what some have done in the past... They've moved from what is considered "free speech" to what is considered "advocating criminal activity". Just ask the Secret Service...

[alansmithee]

Originally Posted by host

Like it or not, earlier reactions to my call for discussion of left leaning alternative economic systems, triggered several hostile responses, including one that possibly accuses me of criminality. I was intrigued by roachboy's unusual, but accurate observation that the MSM omits any coverage of capitalism's shortcomings and of it's failures. No coverage exists to at least examine whether there might be a "better way".

The reason there isn't any discussion of a so-called better way is because there isn't one. Any attempt at a non-capitalist economic system has left its people far worse off than capitalism ever has. And there is nothing now indicating how it would be any different. Wanting to discuss the viability of a non-capitalist economic system is the same as wanting to discuss the validity of intelligent design in a science class. Both are based on faith with no real evidence supporting either.

Also, we already don't have a pure capitalist/free market system. The government adjusts where need be, for the most part. Some governments adjust more, some less-but all western countries and developed nations are essentially capitalism based. Arguing how the system needs tweeked is reasonable, arguing for it's elimination is irrational and delusional.

Also, the above post by Powerclown is truly brilliant. It should be stickied, or somehow saved.

[host]

Originally Posted by moosenose

Because that's EXACTLY what some have done in the past... They've moved from what is considered "free speech" to what is considered "advocating criminal activity". Just ask the Secret Service...

You project an extraordinary defense of a flawed status quo, since it is clear that it is unsustainable fiscally, and from it's need for ever increasing quantities of petroleum that can be extracted, refined, and replaced with newly discovered and recoverable reserves. Clearly, the new discoveries are not coming close to replacing the anual draw down rate of (365 X 84 million) 30.6 billion bbls. No new technology that is practical in terms of ramp up rate, energy efficiency, economic viability, or adaptive to the current designs of motor vehicles, or refineries has been planned or implemented. Potential wealth that could be diverted into government assisted "crash programs" are instead spent on military budgets and on the rising cost of buying foreign petroleum and manufactured goods in order to maintain the status quo. Until now, the solution has been to print more paper money. That option will end, probably sooner than anyone anticipates, and probably more abruptly than the four year, 40 percent dollar vs. euro decline. The numbers no longer add up to make a case for the sustained growth of an economy financed by printing U.S. fiat script to pay for 12.5 million bbls of foreign oil per day, (12.5 X $50 X 365= $228 billion) plus $425 billion in foreign goods each year. The federal spending deficits and the collosal military budget, all paid for with the same fiat, hastens the coming currency collapse.

There were no major new petroleum discoveries in 2003. The market will adjust when oil production peaks. That is the mid-point. Each barrel pumped from the ground after "peak oil", will be regarded as irreplaceable, and priced accordingly. The U.S. is not paying for it's current imports, at current low prices. What will prevent lower consumption and resultant slower growth and a declining U.S. GDP, as trade and budget deficits become more difficult to finance as they accumulate?

In the past, this has also transpired,

http://www.willitsnews.com/Stories/0...891502,00.html
Article Last Updated: Friday, May 27, 2005 - 11:01:14 AM PST

The neurobiology of mass delusion

Perceiving the realities of a changing environment

By Jason Bradford

......So when wondering why so many people just "don't get it," (oil depletion, overshoot etc.) whether they are your local politician or great aunt, realize there is a physiological mechanism that may preclude having a rational discussion on certain topics. The truth can only be pushed so far before rebellion occurs, hence the phrase, "To kill the messenger." Before many folks can learn and incorporate the lessons of ecology, most could use the services of a good shrink. Someone to call them on their bull and get them to face their faulty, contradictory, and destructive thought patterns.

I fear the world has neither enough shrinks nor enough time to wait for the long process of psychotherapy to work. Furthermore, enshrined institutions embody dangerous mental models within their various charters, goals and mission statements. If anyone happens to have a crisis of confidence, these institutions work to reassimilate the disenchanted, quietly dismiss them, or destroy their reputations. Of course these are the worst possible responses. As Jared Diamond explains in his book Collapse, <b>history is replete with societies that failed to question their own assumptions and create new paradigms. Instead of making life possible in a changed environment, they are part of archeology's trash heap.</b>

Those who know about "peak oil," monetary debts, climate change, militarism, overpopulation, corporatism, soil loss, aquifer depletion, persistent organic pollutants, deforestation, etc., realize we are at a major historical juncture now. Since we know it is past time to change our culture, the question we have is whether most people will bother to listen and create the necessary transition in a rational, nonviolent manner................

[roachboy]

before anything else, i have to doff my excessively large hat to powerclown--very funny, totally misguided post.

there is a curious trend here--the one that involves people complaining about having to read too much--the complaints--always from conservative or conservative-leaning folk, about information overload: it seems to come to this:

i am inundated 24/7 and so when i come to a politics forum, i expect to not to be bothered with too much...keep it short, keep it more or less punchy and for gods sake dont give too many options for interpretation. lead me around, do it in a punchy manner.

i am really not sure that i see the motive in this type of complaining about post form.

whatever problem you folk might have with too much information should be mitigated if you actually think about the conservative know-nothing inverse of it---ustwo is the shining spokesman for this position:

And finally all the talk of a ?real? left is just armchair revolutionary bullshit. Lets take the logistics here. First off people like me have the numbers, we have the money, we have the education and we have the will. If America ever looked like it was going in such a direction do you think we would allow it?

so let me understand this Important Insight:
people like ustwo benefit materially from the existing order.
these folk only think beyond their immediate social and economic context because they can imagine that everywhere, always, is a legion of ustwos--you duplicate ustwo enough times and the result is america...the "real" america, no less.

this could provide a kind of interesting psychological insight, i think. were ustwo to be a 3-d friend of and i were to find myself trying to work out how his beliefs concerning the world are possible.

this is a general "understanding" of capitalism. it gets tiresome trying to debate conservatives about the nature of capitalism because too often they see their world in ways that are not far from the ustwo model. its all good--its me millions of times.

but if i follow the argument about post length correctly, this kind of nonsense would be a more compelling position than what, say, host or myself might post simply because it is shorter. punchier. less demanding of the reader because--well, figure it out.

folk like this probably live in areas that exemplify to perfection the way american class stratification works--spatial separation. because folk like ustwo have no interest in thinking beyond the limitations imposed by their presuambly plush surroundings, it follows that there can be no problems with class stratification in the states--the wealthy have more opportunities culturally, educationally, etc. because their inward superiority makes it thus. the lives of their children should be worth more than the lives of the children of the poor (as a function of access to health insurance) because god wills it thus. and i am sure that when you look around your immediate environment (you know, the world) you see no class stratification. and they dont mention it on tv. so it must not exist. qed.

on we go thorugh his thicket of empty assertions---on to "we have the education"--which would have been, had powerclown not intervened, the funniest thing on this thread. the absolute height of petit bourgeois arrogance--so i do not look at the world, at the system within which i live, at anything, really, beyond the limits of my nuclear family and the house that enframes them, say, i do not look too hard at problems generated by that system, i do not think about alternatives, i do not think about history----i am nonetheless persuaded that this position reflects a kind of thoughtful relation to my surroundings, which i demonstrate by pointing to formal educational qualifications--so it follows that whatever i do, as possessor of educational qualification, is necessarily the best possible use of that education--the best you can hope for, it seems, in the land of ustwo, is a kind of self-enclosed, self-affirming sumgness---

and then you get the threat section--"we have the will"---which comes down to threaten my shit and we'll take to the streets, myself and my golf-shirted shotgun-toting petit bourgeois replicants, thousands of them, all wearing virile teddy roosevelts masks. "we" will never allow "you" to threaten our shit.

that's all there is to it.
but it *is* short.

so i dont know what is preferable: longer posts that try to make arguments and situate them in the context of data about how things operate that fall outside of the american tv paradigm--which requires some length because it has to present data, argument and context together--and which might require looking at nonenglish news sources (sorry powerclown, but its about that, not "you stupid americans") or this short, punchy flintstone nonsense that may be empty, may be dangerous if taken seriously, but does not demand much attention to write, to read, or to dismiss.

as for thinking about alternatives, maybe i am thinking about this, but more in terms of messageboard to participate in at the moment than about alternatives to the present form of capitalist barbarism that folk like ustwo will inevitably support, no matter what the costs, because those costs are always bourne by other people (but note in other threads how representatives of this same kind of politics will whine about being taxed)

i do not see how the worldview outlined by ustwo--who really is the best expression of everything i find horrific about contemporary conservative ideology available in tfp-land--is defensable at any level--but what i am not sure about is the relation between complaints about length and density of posts and the defense of this kind of know-nothing politics.

[Lebell]

The Politics board will be cleaned up.

If this thread doesn't stop wallowing in some undefined mudhole and get some direction, it will be closed.

If posters start turning it personal, bitching about TFP'er X or TFP'er Y, they will be warned and potentially banned.

[Ustwo]

EDIT: I have removed this post for vetting

I have decided to make sure I'm not part of the problem

[roachboy]

well, let's sum up so far: host posts an interesting enough question--why is it that so little goes on in the way of thinking about problems that attend capitalism, and of alternatives to the existing capitalist order that mioght address them. a pretty important question, really---i think it is at least.

it was linked to the conservative tic of constructing a hallucinated double of itself in "the left" and then giving content to that hallucination as a function of whatever the apparatus happens to be doing at a given time.

ok..then the responses came in: initially from the right--across the board, this was reducable to "there is nothing better, so shut up" and/or "if you think something could be better, you are obviously not amongst the adult population" and that kind of thing.
no complaints.

then powerclown does his thing--which was funny, you know, but was also a sustained ad hominem designed to completely discredit anything anyone says who writes in the style he chose to parody. "this is what things look like when i refuse to read" kind of thing--what roland barthes called deaf and dumb criticism--i dont get it therefore you are an idiot.
it was not thought out, not constructive, kinda malicious, really--but no matter.
the point seemed to be "lah lah lah i'm not listening and its your fault"


exchange exchange exchange

then i post something that wonders about what is going on in this thread--complaints about "information overload" and "long posts" are directed against host and probably against myself as well---so i wonder aloud (in print) what the implications are of this complaining about long posts, and decided to use ustwo's opening salvo as a jump-off point for basically posing another question: is this complaining about "information overload" working as a de facto selection mechanism, one that privileges types of analysis that requires less in the way of set-up because they rely more on television-land types of terms for their frame?

and this was understood as an ad hominem, judging from the post that followed it.

great.

and then the "we are going to clean up dodge" thing comes in.

maybe i am paranoid, but i find the timing of that bizarre.
is the complaining about "information overload"---which to my mind is simply laughable--linked to the various avowals concerning "cleaning up dodge"?

or are they unrelated, brought together simply by curious timing features?

someone care to explain?

[host]

The direction of the thread has not changed, because unless those who attempt to sabotage this discussion have their way and succeed in getting it closed, I refuse to permit it to be misdirected.

alansmithee....if there isn't a better alternative, how about "fine tuning" this one. Is the Norwegian example worse than sitting here consuming twenty five percent of the world's oil, with no conservation or tax policy in place, until we no longer can afford to do so, and growth stops?

What are the influences in place that keep up the current status quo, posssibly discouraging an effort to examine alternatives in America?

A link to the background of an interesting book,
Economics as Religion by Robert H. Nelson

http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/0-271-02284-1.html
"Nelson does not regard 'theology' as a cuss word, and so his detailed study of the theology underlying Samuelsonian and Chicagoan economics is not a put-down. It's a way of seeing the rhetoric of fundamental belief—what has been called vision. Nelson . . . speaks with authority from within the field. . . . His grasp of modern economics is broad and firm. And so in theology, too. It's an important, even an amazing book: Luther meets Smith." —Deirdre McCloskey, University of Illinois at Chicago

Don't let the following link "put you off". It is cited because I found forwards to Nelson's book there:

http://dieoff.org/page235.htm
.......Nelson’s book insists on giving the stuffed parrot back to the pet store. Nelson is what is known in the trade as a “policy analyst.” Though trained in economics, he uses the economics for practicalities. He therefore knows a dead bird when he sees one. Though trained technically like the rest of us, he is not concerned primarily with matters of pure theory, that is, what can be drawn out of the hat if you assume you have one filled with birds.

Economics and theology are opposites, right? Wrong, says Nelson, leaning against the European presumption since Goethe and Coleridge. Economics and theology look to modern eyes like strange partners. Nelson makes it work, showing in detail that theology has always had its economic double. Like Thorstein Veblen long ago he takes seriously a favorite turn of the newspaper columnist, that economics is mere religion. Voodoo economics. He takes it seriously by going further, knocking the “mere” out from the front end of the expression. Religion, he notes, is not mere. It is what we make of life. Economics, according to Nelson, is the religion of the ordinary.

Nelson detects two traditions in religion, which he calls the Roman (in both the ancient and the Catholic sense) and the Protestant (in both the Calvinist and the rebellious sense). The issue between them has always been the perfectibility of humankind. Moderation, prudence, courage, and justice, the four natural virtues, are especially admired by Romans. By their works ye shall know them. On the other hand the three theological virtues, faith, hope, and charity, are especially Prot*estant. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. On Sunday even Catholic Americans partake of this Protestant spirit. But the rest of the week, surprisingly, we Americans are Roman citizens. As Nelson puts it, “Of all nations, the United States exhibits a characteristic national outlook that matches most closely the Roman tradition. Americans typically believe that reason guides the world, showing a deep faith in progress.” An American soldier in the Gulf, when asked whether he hated the Iraqi enemy, said, “No, of course not. I reckon I’m here to do a job and so is he.” A centurion standing uneasily between Jesus and the Pharisees could not have better ex*pressed the attitude of Rome.

Rome under the Republic had a civic religion, consisting of the reading of entrails and other sensible precautions. The civic religion of the modern world is social engineering, which depends on similar techniques of divination. The religion promises material salvation, restoring the Garden of Eden and yielding, as Nelson points out, a spiritual salvation. For better or worse, economics is the theology of the modern religion.

Though Nelson does not hold much with social engineering, he by no means disdains religions, spiritual or secular. Religion is not some*thing that can be dispensed with. Nelson does not believe that religion is past. The popular notion is that modernization has overthrown religion. The notion is mistaken, though secular intellectuals from Voltaire to the average reader of the New York Times have believed it fervently. “Modernization theory” is among the less substantial achievements of the social sciences, claiming on no good grounds that medieval peasants were very different from you and me. We need religion just as much as our ancestors did. The most modern of nations -- I mean America -- is among the most religious, draping the exercise of national power in religious symbolism, going to worship on the Lord’s day in numbers that would appall the average Frenchman. We moderns continue to need a religion of the Judeo-Christian sort, with its progress and its salvation. “The twentieth century has seen a revival of the wars of religion,” says Nelson. Yes, and we fight under the banners of economic theologians.

Nelson believes that our civic religion needs renewal, and finds the renewal in a combination of left and right, the environmentalists and the libertarians. Both are suspicious of the established church. Nelson recommends a Protestant variety of churches in our secular religions. The variety would give people a free choice of economic regime. Unfashionably, he preaches “tolerance of diverse economic theolo*gies.

Robert H. Nelson writing in the Preface:

[ p. xix-xx ] Some years ago, I began writing about the advisory role of economists in government. I concluded, as a number of others have, that econo*mists do not do in practice what they preach. Economists are not neutral technicians who provide a tool for implementing values and basic beliefs supplied by others. They do not keep themselves separate from politics, confining their efforts to matters that can pass a strict scientific test. To observe these rules would be extremely confining, precluding economic inputs in many areas where economists actively and routinely participate in current social debate.

Instead, as many others also have, I concluded that economists are actually strong advocates for a particular way of thinking about the world. Without some lens or filter, the events of the world would seem mere chaos and confusion. Economics provides a way of ordering, interpreting, and giving meaning to events. Moreover, economists do not offer their perspective from a disinterested and passive stance. Rather, many of the most accomplished are firmly convinced and seek to persuade the rest of the world that the economic way of thinking is the best way. Economists over the past 30 years have in fact had considerable success in this regard, introducing the use of economic analysis into many new areas of government such as national defense, education, health, and the environment.

As economists have made contributions in areas such as these, they have often been surprised by a critical reception. Many of the fiercest policy debates have concerned matters not of economic detail -- where disagreements had been expected -- but of the basic acceptability of the economic view of the world. The influence of economics has been opposed by proponents of other outlooks who resist the invasion of the market, of efficiency, and of economic tests into particular areas of social concern. These opponents find that the way of thinking of economists violates beliefs that are dear to them.

This resistance raises a practical question for an economist: How might it be said that the economic understanding of the world is actually better than some other understanding? The old orthodox answer of the economics profession would be to deny the validity of the question, asserting that economics makes no such claims and limits itself to technical and value free matters. However, if this answer is rejected as both inaccurate in practice and flawed in principle (as I am far from alone in doing), the matter must be pursued further. A second answer might be that economics is a true science and that the scientific method -- if perhaps reflecting certain values -- has already amply proved its merits. Yet, aside from the question of whether science is value-free or not, the scientific accomplishments of econom*ics to date must be rated as modest -- certainly a disappointment in comparison to the expectations of the past. There is today not only widespread public skepticism concerning the scientific claims of eco*nomics, but many doubters among economists as well.

Yet, if the scientific claims of economics are in question, why should society today regard with favor the strong conviction of many econo*mists that they have a better way of thinking about and understanding the world? If economics is not so much a matter of providing practical answers to well-defined problems, and instead seeks to provide the very framework for social thought, why should society pay close attention -- as it often does -- to the advice of economists? From where or what does economics derive its legitimacy in social policy debate? These questions formed the starting point for this book.

Bottomline: Our current U.S. economic system has led us to at least the threshhold of a period when it is probable that we reach the mid point of the availability of oil. This will put heretofore unexperienced pricing pressure on oil. We in the U.S. have no national policy to deal with this in a hurry, or it seems, at all. We are not keeping up with paying the current costs of our oil use and other imports, or of the costs of funding our own military program.
Our dollar shows the strain; a euro bought only .82 dollars just 4 years ago, and now buys 1.26 dollars. An ounce of gold cost $250 in summer 2001, and now costs $420. Our soon to exceed $8 trillion national debt, currently financed with tragically short sighted short term, low interest paper (T-Bonds), with service of interest costs, even at current low rates, impacting a $500 billion annual federal deficit, will contribute a mightily greater strain on the deficit as interest rates rise to slow the dollar's decline.

We are dependent to foreigners, especially China and Japan to finance our debt. Our current system renders 40 million of us with no health insurance coverage. Without any rapid adjustments in the policy of energy consumption or in the form of our economy how will we avoid the direction that our economy is trending towards? They seem to be aimultaneously more expensive oil,aggravated by progressively diminished dollar buying power. We are living the early stages of this now.

[raveneye]

I think it's worth considering an increase in our ridiculously low gas tax, with the revenues redirected to income tax relief.

The value of increasing the gas tax would be to create more incentive to perfecting the hydrogen fuel cell, which is the only practical alternative to our current love affair with the internal combustion engine. Hydrogen, unlike oil, is unlimited, has no geography, and can't be held hostage by terrorists.

Bush could call it the Patriot Tax or something to that effect.

[Ustwo]

Roach - Your post was condescending and inflammatory, hence the warning. I have a long reply for you, but am holding off a bit.

[Elphaba]

Thank you, Host, for pointing me back to your original premise. I read it, but obviously did not absorb it. I read with great interest on how Norway manages it's oil economy. While they have many policies to discourage the waste of that resource, we have policies that encourage it for the lucrative gain of some corporations. Do we really need more SUV's and Hummers on the road? I can easily imagine that a forward thinking energy policy could incorporate Norway's policies within our capitalist structure.

The problem that I keep coming back to is that the chance of that happening is slim as long as our politicians continue to be on the money teat of those very same corporations.

[StanT]

Originally Posted by Elphaba

I read with great interest on how Norway manages it's oil economy. While they have many policies to discourage the waste of that resource, we have policies that encourage it for the lucrative gain of some corporations. Do we really need more SUV's and Hummers on the road? I can easily imagine that a forward thinking energy policy could incorporate Norway's policies within our capitalist structure.

Just a suggestion, but a summation as concise as the one above would go a long way toward making up my mind about whether this is an issue I wish to pursue. There are political topics that I care about and ones that I do not. Giving me a short paragraph describing the issue before delving into your evidence would go a long way into grabbing my interest.

[Ustwo]

Originally Posted by Elphaba

Thank you, Host, for pointing me back to your original premise. I read it, but obviously did not absorb it. I read with great interest on how Norway manages it's oil economy. While they have many policies to discourage the waste of that resource, we have policies that encourage it for the lucrative gain of some corporations. Do we really need more SUV's and Hummers on the road? I can easily imagine that a forward thinking energy policy could incorporate Norway's policies within our capitalist structure.

The problem that I keep coming back to is that the chance of that happening is slim as long as our politicians continue to be on the money teat of those very same corporations.

I drive a chevy Tahoe. It’s a gas guzzler. I have no 'need' for a giant SUV, except for once a year, for one week. The other 51 weeks I have no good reason for driving it, except for one reason. I LIKE it. I'm willing to pay $60 a fill up because I can. Its not a evil corporate plan that forces me to drive it, its just me, and if they make more money off me thats ok because I allow it. Economic freedom is as important, and in some ways more important then any other kind of freedom. People whine about freedom of speech, or drug laws yet want the government to mandate what kind of car you drive?

I used to have a good number of friends from Norway. Thanks to the 'controled' economy they drive to Sweden to buy food because its cheaper. Think about that, Sweden, not exactly a low rent nation, was cheaper to buy food. Controlled economies are just that, controlled, devoid of freedom, and punitive.

My Tahoe lease is up in October. I was looking at what sort of vehicle to get and was interested in a hybrid car. Guess what? A hybrid runs 10k more than a regular car of the same make.

So lets pretend a hybrid car used NO gas for ease of calculation. It would take me over FIVE years of filling my tahoe (fill up about every 1.5 weeks), and thats only if the hybrid had magic free gas, so in reality it would take me close to a decade to break even.

There is little incentive for fuel efficiency, but instead of punishing people, limiting freedom, limiting goods transportation, and hurting the economy with punitive measures like Norway, why not give us a break instead. Give me a 1k tax credit for only driving a hybrid a year and things will even out a bit.

[Elphaba]

There is a tax credit for buying a hybrid.

[Ustwo]

Originally Posted by Elphaba

There is a tax credit for buying a hybrid.

Its a one time $2000 deduction, its 500 in 2006 and 0 in 2007+.

While its not offsetting it does help, but like all of the Bush tax cuts it needs to be reupped. Hopefull the 'oil man' gets it as the new plan is a 4k credit. If it is a 4k credit (and it works with a lease) I'll be there.

[host]

Originally Posted by raveneye

I think it's worth considering an increase in our ridiculously low gas tax, with the revenues redirected to income tax relief.

The value of increasing the gas tax would be to create more incentive to perfecting the hydrogen fuel cell, which is the only practical alternative to our current love affair with the internal combustion engine. Hydrogen, unlike oil, is unlimited, has no geography, and can't be held hostage by terrorists.

Bush could call it the Patriot Tax or something to that effect.

I doubt that there is time for this technology to attract enough investment interest, let alone mature, to appreciably lessen the impact of peak oil. Here is the government's info on it's investment in hydrogen energy technology:

http://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/presi...nitiative.html
President Bush's Budget Provides Strong Support for the President's Hydrogen Fuel Initiative:

* The FY 2004 appropriation for hydrogen and fuel cell research and development through the Hydrogen Fuel Initiative is $159 million.
* The President's FY 2005 budget request for hydrogen and fuel cell activities in support of the Hydrogen Fuel Initiative is $227 million.

Why Hydrogen and Fuel Cells?
America's Energy Security Is Threatened by Our Dependence on Foreign Oil:

* America currently imports 55 percent of the oil it consumes; that is expected to grow to 68 percent by 2025..............
http://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/presi...nitiative.html

There are no reliable figures regarding the current, proven reserves of the world's largest oil exporting country:

http://www.iags.org/n0331043.htm
March 31, 2004
New study raises doubts about Saudi oil reserves

With over 260 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, a quarter of the world's total, Saudi Arabia is not only the top foreign supplier to the United States - the world's largest energy consumer - but also essentially the sole source of liquidity in the oil market. According to the Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration (EIA), the world will become more dependent on Arabian oil in the next two decades. To meet global demand for oil, Saudi Arabia will need to produce 13.6 million barrels a day (mbd) by 2010 and 19.5 mbd by 2020. Both the International Energy Agency and EIA assume Saudi oil output will double over the next 15 to 20 years. In a new study soon to be released, Matthew R. Simmons, president of Simmons and Company International, a specialized energy investment banking firm, contends that this is not likely to happen. He argues that Saudi Arabia's oil fields now are in decline, that the country will not be able to satisfy the world's thirst for oil in coming years and that its capacity will not climb much higher than its current capacity of 10mbd. Considering the growth in demand, this could easily spark a global energy crisis.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/24/business/24OIL.html
February 24, 2004, Tuesday

Forecast of Rising Oil Demand Challenges Tired Saudi Fields

By JEFF GERTH (NYT) 2105 words
Late Edition - Final , Section A , Page 1 , Column 3

ABSTRACT - Saudi Arabia's vast oil fields, pumped for more than half-century, are in decline, raising serious questions about whether kingdom will be able to satisfy world's thirst for oil in coming years; energy forecasts call for almost doubling Saudi output in next decade and after, but capacity will likely stall near current levels, potentially creating significant gap in global energy supply; outsiders have not had access to Saudi Aramco data for more than 20 years but Saudi experts suggest looming problems; map; charts; Saudi Arabia is not running out oil, but it is becoming more difficult or expensive to extract; country now produces about eight million barrels daily, about one-tenth of world's needs, and is top supplier to US; average decline rate in mature fields is about eight percent a year.......

And there is this interesting forecast of the possible consequences of more expensive gasoline in the U.S. We have built a way of life that makes a policy that mirrors the one Norway lives by, nearly impossible to implement:

http://www.austinchronicle.com/issue...s_ventura.html
HOME: APRIL 29, 2005: COLUMNS AND FEATURES: LETTERS AT 3AM
$4 a gallon
BY MICHAEL VENTURA

America is over. America is like Wile E. Coyote after he's run out a few paces past the edge of the cliff – he'll take a few more steps in midair before he looks down. Then, when he sees that there's nothing under him, he'll fall. Many Americans suspect that they're running on thin air, but they haven't looked down yet. When they do ...

Former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker, a pillar of the Establishment with access to economic information beyond our reach, wrote recently: "Circumstances seem to me as dangerous and intractable as any I can remember. ... What really concerns me is that there seems to be so little willingness or capacity to do anything about it" (quoted in The Economist, April 16, p.12). Volcker chooses words carefully: "dangerous and intractable," "willingness or capacity." He's saying: The situation is probably beyond our powers to remedy.

Gas prices can only go up. Oil production is at or near peak capacity. The U.S. must compete for oil with China, the fastest-growing colossus in history. But the U.S. also must borrow $2 billion a day to remain solvent, nearly half of that from China and her neighbors, while they supply most of our manufacturing ("Benson's Economic and Market Trends," quoted in Asia Times Online) – so we have no cards to play with China, even militarily. (You can't war with the bankers who finance your army and the factories that supply your stores.) China now determines oil demand, and the U.S. has no long-term way to influence prices. That means $4 a gallon by next spring, and rising – $5, then $6, probably $10 by 2010 or thereabouts. Their economy can afford it; ours can't. We may hobble along with more or less the same way of life for the next dollar or so of hikes, but at around $4 America changes. Drastically.

The "exburbs" and the rural poor will feel it first and hardest. Exburbians moved to the farthest reaches of suburbia for cheap real estate, willing to drive at least an hour each way to work. Many live marginally now. What happens when their commute becomes prohibitively expensive, just as interest rates and inflation rise, while their property values plummet? Urban real estate will go up, so they won't be able to live near their jobs – and there's nowhere else to go. In addition, thanks to Congress' recent shameless activity, bankruptcy is no longer an option for many. What happens to these people? Exburb refugees. A modern Dust Bowl.

For the rural poor it's even worse. They are the poorest among us, with no assets and few skills; they earn the lowest nonimmigrant wages in America, and they must drive. When gas hits $4, their already below-the-margin life will be unsustainable. They'll have no choice but to be refugees and join in the modern Dust Bowl migration. So, too, will people who live where people were never intended to live in such numbers – places like Phoenix and Vegas, unlivable without air conditioning and water transport (energy prices will rise across the board, regular brownouts, blackouts, and faucet-drips will be "the new normal" everywhere). In the desert cities, real estate will plunge, thousands will be ruined, most will leave – while all over the country folks will have to get used to "hot" and "cold" again.

But where will the new refugees go, and what will they do when they get there? They will migrate to the more livable cities, where rents are already unreasonable and social services are already strained, and where the new refugees will compete with immigrants for the lowest-level housing and jobs. Immigration issues will intensify to hysteria. Native-born Americans will clamor for work that only legal and illegal aliens do now. In a culture as prone to violence as ours, that will probably get ugly.

Meanwhile, suburbs and cities will be in various states of chaos, depending on their infrastructure. As inflation and interest rates rise, and the real estate bubble bursts, millions will see their assets plunge precipitously. In five years, many who are now well-off will live as the marginal live today, while the marginal will sink into poverty. With gas at $4-plus a gallon, real estate values will depend on nearness to working centers and access to transportation. As has already happened in Manhattan, the well-off will head for what are now slums, and the slum-dwellers will go God-knows-where. Places with decent rail service will be prime. Places without rail service will be in deep trouble......

.........Railroads are key, but the question is: how to finance them?

There's only one section of our economy that has that kind of money: the military budget. The U.S. now spends more on its military than all other nations combined. A sane transit to a post-automobile America will require a massive shift from military to infrastructure spending. That shift would be supported by our bankers in China and Europe (that is, they would continue to finance our debt) because it's in their interests that we regain economic viability. What's not in their interests is that we remain a military superpower.

And that's where things get really interesting. The question becomes:

Can America face reality? If the government responds to the coming changes by attempting to remain a superpower no matter what, there is no way to underestimate the harm. The numbers speak for themselves. Soon we'll no longer have the resources to remain a military superpower and sustain a livable society that is anything like what we know today. It happened to England; it happened to Russia; it's about to happen to us. England sustained the transformation more or less gracefully; it lost its dominance while retaining its essential character. Russia is still in a period of transformation, but has remained a player thanks to its oil reserves. Europe in general – France, Germany, Italy, and Spain (all world powers in the fairly recent past) – is creating a post-national society, the most experimental form of governance since America's revolution. We have no appreciable oil, and we no longer have a manufacturing base. So what will the United States do? Sanely recognize its declining status and act accordingly, or make one last ignoble stab to retain its position by force?.............

[stevo]

I don't understand why norway is used as an example for what America could do better? Who wants to pay $12 for a beer or $16 for a frozen pizza. $6.66 for a gallon of gas! when I read that article I wondered how much norwegians are taxed, and a guess is that it is at least 50% if not higher. The other thing I thought was I'm glad I don't live in norway where I have to pay $12 for a pint or $6.66 for a gallon of gas or $16 for a frozen pizza. In no way is norway a poster child for anything relating to do with the free market.

Capitalisim is the best system we have. It is the most fairest, equitable system on earth. I know some of you may laugh when I say this, but its true. Think about the evolution of capitalisim since the early 1800's. The slave trade was big in america, american companies went overseas, bought peoples land and told them to get off or work for the company. But thats not how it works anymore. Capitalisim has evolved, we have better regulations and human rights laws that keep those kinds of things from happening. Now you can turn on the TV and see blacks, P-diddy, 50-cent, Jesse Jackson, whoever. 150 years ago their ancestors were probably in chains, nothing but property. but through the process of our capitalisit society, through the generations, freedom has spread as well as wealth.

Capitalisim gives everyone the opportunity to make it for themselves. It provides incentives to work hard and think smart in order to make money so you can look out for you and your own. because thats inherent in human nature - the desire to take care of one's self and one's family. As we progress into this next century capitalisim will continue to evolve and what injustices may be present today (even though they pale in comparisson to those of centuries past) will be corrected through the spread of capitalism, freedom, and free economies across the world. As capitalisim as a whole progresses, states that begin to adopt capitalist economies will also evolve. It just takes time, generations and generations.

Its nice to think of a "fair" and "equal" society based on socialist ideals, but sadly those ideals go against human nature. Socialisim would only work if there is a paradigm shift in human nature, and ending capitalisim isn't going to cause that shift. Its not going to happen overnight. I think as capitalism progresses and evolves over the next few centuries lives and the standards of those lives will get better for people as a whole and that give mankind its greatest opportunity for a "fair" and "equal" society for all.

[filtherton]

Probably one last ignoble stab to retain position by force. Maybe some charismatic politico can harvest our collective nationalist insecurity and lead us into world war three.

This article appeared in a local weekly paper. It doesn't paint a very optimistic picture of the future. Enjoy your suv while you can.

http://pulsetc.com/article.php?sid=1853

James Howard Kunstler on The Long Emergency

by Brian Kaller

James Howard Kunstler is AmericaÆs version of an Old Testament prophet, a stinging social critic who warns of dark days ahead if we do not change the way we live. The former journalist emerged as a trenchant observer of modern life with his 1994 book ôThe Geography of Nowhere,ö which traces the past and future of suburban sprawl. He followed this up with 1998Æs ôHome from Nowhere,ö which offered solutions to the problem of sprawl, and 2002Æs ôThe City in Mind: Notes on the Urban Condition,ö a broad look at what makes cities thrive or decay.

His latest book, ôThe Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century,ö describes what may happen when the flood of cheap oil, which has sustained our society for a hundred years, begins to peter outùas experts predict it will in the coming decade.

The end of oil will mean more than the loss of gasoline, which would be devastating enough in a suburban society built entirely around the automobile. It will also mean the end to the plastics of which so many of our surroundings are made, and a shortage of the food we now grow with oil-based fertilizer.

Articles about the end of oil are now trickling into the mainstream, but Kunstler, more than anyone, considers the geopolitical ripples that an oil shortage would create. What happens if the last oil is owned by the brutal dictatorships of the Middle East? How will China, with 20 percent of the worldÆs population and skyrocketing oil needs, react when others have the oil they need? How will rural America, with its recent resurgence of violent and apocalyptic beliefs, react to a crisis? Schools, corporations, citiesùnothing, he believes, will stay the same in the Long Emergency to come.
Pulse of the Twin Cities interviewed Kunstler last week.

PULSE: How did you come to focus on peak oil?
á
KUNSTLER: It was a natural outgrowth of my investigations into the fiasco of suburbia.áAlso, as a young newspaper reporter 30-odd years ago, I was very impressed by the effects of the 1973 OPEC oil embargo. I was convinced it was a ôpreview of coming attractions,ö and indeed it wasùin the sense that the embargo occurred precisely because U.S. production had peaked and pricing power had shifted from America to OPEC.á

These things were barely understood even by the experts back then, but theyáresolved over the decades, and by the mid-1990s it was pretty clear that we were approaching a similar global production peak, and that it would change everything.áWe are now heading into the event.
á
PULSE: Why has this issue been so universally ignored?á

KUNSTLER: à The American public has been poorly prepared for this period I call The Long Emergency, when we will be compelled to change the way we live and do things.áThe dirty secret of the U.S. economy for a couple of decades now is that it is mostly driven by the creation of suburban sprawl and all its accessories and furnishingsùthe subdivisions, the highway strips, the big box stores, the fried food shacks, et cetera.áSubtract that, and the financial/real estate activity associated with it, and there isnÆt a whole lot left in the economy besides open-heart surgery.á

Our political and business leaders canÆt come to grips with the unhappy reality of this.áThey canÆt militate against the very car-dependency and oil addiction that our so-called economy depends on.áIÆll go further to state that I donÆt even regard George W. Bush and other establishment figures as necessarily ôevil,ö but they have been very misguided, and the final result will be a pretty sobering period of hardship for the United States.
á
PULSE: You strongly criticize the American suburbs, which you say cannot continue once oil becomes precious. But I wonder if the suburbanites might not be in a good positionùclose enough to neighbors for mutual support, but with room to grow their own food.

KUNSTLER: Suburbia represents the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world.áIt is theoretically true that suburbanites might grow some vegetables on what are now their lawns, but they are not going to raise beef cattle or winter wheat on them.áAnyway, the liabilities of suburbia are so extreme otherwise that I think it will fail as a human habitat.áIts failure will entail the evaporation of trillions of dollars in hallucinated wealth, as well as a lot of social disorder and political mischief.
á
PULSE: I was surprised at how much of our food is grown with oil. How will that change affect us?

KUNSTLER: WeÆre eating oil.áThereÆs no question that weÆre going to have to grow more food locally with more human labor, and probably with working animals, too.áBut there are a lot of questions about how that will reorganize itself.áFor instance, the subdivision practices of the past 50 years have been very destructive to the rural landscapeùto our ability to reorganize land back into farms.á

Also, we canÆt predict what the social relations will be between the greater number of people who will have to work in agriculture when oil and gas are scarcer and the people who own the land. In other times and places, this has been a recipe for unrest and even revolution.
á
PULSE: As oil begins to get expensive, whatÆs to stop people from turning to sustainable architecture, recycling and clean energy? WeÆve done it before, and the transition wouldnÆt have to happen overnight.

KUNSTLER: ThatÆs laughable.áWe have no à idea what sustainable architecture even is. WeÆre going to be a far less affluent nation anyway.áItÆs not like weÆre going to replace 27 million McHouses with an equal number of new ôsustainableö ones. Plus, thereÆs a lot of wishful thinking about ôrenewables.ö They will not make up for what we are using now or even a substantial fraction of it.áA lot of people are going to freeze, be too hot, and go hungry.
á
PULSE: Some people have dismissed the idea of an energy crunch, saying that we will come up with something like fusion. On the other hand, IÆm not sure I want to see what a fusion-powered chainsaw can do. If we could continue our lifestyle through some other means, do you think we should? What would be your ideal scenario?
á
KUNSTLER: WeÆre not going to continue our lifestyle by other means.áForget it.áNo combination of alternative fuels will allow us to run the interstate highway system, Walt Disney World and Archer Daniels Midland.áWeÆre going to have to downscale, rescale and resize all our activities, and live more locally, whether we like it or not.á

We have acquired two very pernicious habits of thinking in recent decades.áOne I call the ôJiminy Cricket syndrome,ö the idea that when you wish upon a star your dreams come true.áThatÆs what the Spielberg movies and Nike commercials tell us.áGuess what: itÆs a childish delusion. The second mental obstruction weÆve taken on is the ôLas Vegas-ization of the American Mind,ö namely the idea that itÆs possible to get something for nothing.áThis one-two combo of delusions defeats all honest and earnest efforts to really do something about the predicament we face.

PULSE: I know evangelicals who live in the countryside but donÆt have an environmental perspective, and environmentalists with lots of theoretical knowledge but who live in city apartments. I canÆt help but think of what they could do if they learned from each other. What groups do you think are best prepared for the Long Emergency, and what alliances could we see in the coming years?á

KUNSTLER: Look, my friends are political ôprogressivesö who drive their SUVs to the peace rallies.áI think the entire U.S. public is poorly prepared.áThe Amish alone have a head start on where we are headed, but their way also includes a lot of religious baggage. Frankly, I think the answer is that the Long Emergency will produce a lot of economic losers and we will be living in a very turbulent society.
á
PULSE: People I talk to often think in either/or terms, either commuting 40 miles from a McMansion or being Amish. But IÆm sure a lot of people would like to ease into a different world as much as possible. What are some basic things weùmostly city-dwellersùneed to start doing to prepare for the Long Emergency?á

KUNSTLER: What weÆre facing is a sharp discontinuity, not a smooth transition. ThatÆs why I call this period the Long Emergency. People donÆt necessarily get what they want or what they expect.

In my opinion, the big cities are going to become very disorderly placesùanyway many of AmericaÆs big cities are already in an advanced state of contractionùDetroit, St. Louis, Baltimore, Philadelphia à the list is very long.áNew York and Chicago are overburdened with mega-structures and skyscrapers. They will probably not be usable in a scarce energy economy.áThese cities will contract and the process will be painful. Phoenix will dry up and blow away.áIn Las Vegas, the excitementáwill be over. The action is going to shift to the smaller towns and cities, the places proximate to viable agriculture.
á
PULSE: Most of the people I know who are interested in the energy crunch are also against the governmentÆs invasion of Iraq ùbut you seem to think that, in purely Machiavellian terms, BushÆs invasion was a smart move. What do you think we should do in the Middle East?

KUNSTLER: I didnÆt say it was a smart move à I said itÆs what we did. Yeah, all my friends were against the Iraq invasion and nothing has stopped them from commuting sixty miles a day or driving Ford Expeditions to the farmersÆ market. I view the Iraq invasion strictly for what it was: a clumsy attempt to stabilize the region of the world where two-thirds of the remaining oil is, and to incidentally modify and influence the behavior of IraqÆs two troublesome neighbors, Iran and Saudi Arabia.á
ThereÆs a lady who lives near me with a sign in her yard that says ôWar is Not The Answerö and two SUVs parked in the driveway.áWhat sanctimonious crap. I want to grab her by the collar and yell, ôGuess what, war is the answer as long as you want to live this way. Get used to it.ö
á
PULSE: What are the biggest signs of hope you see right now?
á
KUNSTLER: ThereÆs some idea that if you donÆt leave the public with ôhope,ö with the chance of a happy ending, that you have failed in your task as a journalist.áThis is also fallacious. And childish. This is not a Bruce Willis movie, this is America in the 20th century, stuck with the consequences of its behavior.

People will either adapt or perish in the Long Emergency. WeÆve already made a whole lot of bad choices, collectively, including our decision to build a drive-in, easy-motoring utopia.áLetÆs not continue to make bad choices, okay?áLetÆs not mount a stupid and futile campaign to prop up the fading ôentitlementsö of suburbia.áLetÆs prepare to downscale and live locally.áLetÆs rebuild the U.S. passenger railroad systemùthatÆs something we already know how to do, and it is a symptom of our obdurate cluelessness and lack of seriousnessáthat we refuse to do it.

Life is tragic.áHistory doesnÆt care if we fail as a civilization.áOthers have gone before us.áWe have to take responsibility for what we are facing and quit expecting to be rescued by wishes, dreams, and miracles. ||

...see excerpt of Kunstler's latest book, The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century.

To paraphrase for the reading disinclined: Oil will soon no longer be a viable solution to our country's energy needs. We are not prepared. We won't be prepared. Say goodbye to driving and plastics. Say hello to turmoil as the new american way of life.

Stevo, i think most of the changes you cited were fought kicking and screaming by capitalists. Capitalism is the religion of the dollar. It requires poverty to function. Capitalism as it is practiced is in no way fair or equitable. If it were you wouldn't see statistics reflecting the fact that children born to those in poverty are much less likely to escape poverty. If it weren't for the inherent inequality of our system none of us would know who george w. bush even is. He was born into a wealthy family, slacked off in the ivy league schools, and failed at every business venture his family hooked him up with. Despite all this he is our president. This is how the system works. Intelligence and effort mean a whole lot less than wealth and connections. That's our capitalism. Our capitalism is the one where ceos make roughly 400 times the wage of their lowest paid worker. How is that equitable?

I think there will come a point when it is time to ask ourselves whether our current economic system is as efficient as it could be in terms of actually providing for the "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" of the average american citizen.

[Lebell]

The post is back on track and that's great.

No one person is being singled out, so yes, it's paranoia.

And things will not be hashed out here. If you have a question regarding moderating, TAKE IT TO PM's.

ALL the mods have had it with bitching in threads about the moderation.

[roachboy]

a more social-democratic form of capitalism is still capitalism--but it is one shaped by concernsz about factors like the uneven distribution of wealth--or full employment---
the idea is usually that extending the benefits of capitalism to a wider circle than would enjoy them without redistribution of wealth makes for a better and more stable social system. of course, you can expect nothing but myopia from the present neoliberalism on this. they would prefer you imagine capitalism to be some hardwired human tendency, equal to all of trade for all of time--they would prefer it be understood as a natural formation--what they do not want is that folk understand it as a historical regime that human beings make and that can--and will--be altered.

on this, filtherton is right--any changes to the system holders of capital and their political affiliates have made in favor of the wider population have the wrenched from the system, usually as a result of fear of conflict, real or symbolic, from the left.

without significant political pressure from organized groups of citizens, capitalists do not and cannot respond coherently to the effects of their own economic activities. these are simple facts of the matter--the present american system will find out about version of this, sooner or later, whether the american right can admit of the possibility or not.

left to itself, contemporary/globalizing capitalism seems to be evolving in such a way as to limit the few remaining rights of citizens to bring political pressure to bear on the institutional framework within which markets operate. but then again, capitalists have always been afraid of politics, and have done everything possible to limit the purview of politics--if the accumulation of wealth is a private affair, and there are inequalities, who are you going to complain to? the american right carries water for the least responsive type of capitalism possible, one that has never worked for any period of time, and will not work this time out either.

this is all pretty straightforward is you actually take the time to look at the history of capitalism as it has unfolded in actual history, rather than relying on fictions about markets drawn from hayek.

on the other question at hand, concerning the enframing of the political left by the right: redbaiting is a fine old tradition of american conservatives. the way the left is characterized in conservative discourse is nothing more, less or different. it's what made mccarthy famous--and we know what folk like ann coulter think of mccarthy.redbaiting: its fun, its exciting, and it doesnt require an actual empirical correlate. its never about the actual left anyway, whatever that might be: its about helping conservatives draw a line between the inside and outside their ideological world.

[Cynthetiq]

my statements are not complaints, they are just facts. I cannot digest it any faster as there are other things that compete for my eyeballs and braintime.

The long posts are just what they are, there's lots of information there, but it's not easily digested without spending good time pondering and not fair to myself or the OP to just take it on it's first pass.

[stevo]

Originally Posted by filtherton

Stevo, i think most of the changes you cited were fought kicking and screaming by capitalists. Capitalism is the religion of the dollar. It requires poverty to function. Capitalism as it is practiced is in no way fair or equitable. If it were you wouldn't see statistics reflecting the fact that children born to those in poverty are much less likely to escape poverty. If it weren't for the inherent inequality of our system none of us would know who george w. bush even is. He was born into a wealthy family, slacked off in the ivy league schools, and failed at every business venture his family hooked him up with. Despite all this he is our president. This is how the system works. Intelligence and effort mean a whole lot less than wealth and connections. That's our capitalism. Our capitalism is the one where ceos make roughly 400 times the wage of their lowest paid worker. How is that equitable?

I think there will come a point when it is time to ask ourselves whether our current economic system is as efficient as it could be in terms of actually providing for the "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" of the average american citizen.

Wealth shifts don't normally occur over a few years or decades. It takes generations. Although it is possible in this country for someone born into poverty to become wealthy, it is the grandchildren of those in poverty now who have a better chance at wealth than grandchildren born to those in poverty now in any un-capitalistic state.

You might not see it as fair that ceos make 400x that of the lowest wage worker, but how fair is it for everyone to get paid the same amount of money no matter how much or how little they work, or even if what they produce and contribute is even worthwhile.

The changes that capitalisim has seen over the past few centuries may have been met with cries and fists, but the changes came none the less. There will always be someone complaining, someone wanting to keep the status quo, wouldn't you if you were making 400x your lowest wage worker? But there is still no other system on this planet that is as fair as capitalisim.

Life is not fair. Shit happens all the time to people that don't deserve it. Some people work hard their whole life and then get shit on in the end. Thats how it is and thats how its always been. As long as there are people on this planet shit will be unfair to everyone. Socialisim is not the answer though. Human nature is in direct conflict with the tennants of socialisim. Capitalisim at least a complement to human nature that has allowed this country to become the strongest and most influential country of our time. Even the poorest people in america are still better off than the poorest people in other countries.

About oil: I'm not worried, I don't think most people are. I have complete faith in our market system and believe that when the time is right, and the price incentives are right we will develop methods to replace what we use now. We are a country that has flourished because of the market system we have in place that rewards innovation and invention. Someone will come up with something whether it is a more efficient use of petroleum or void of petrol all together.

There is no sense in whining about how we're all doomed and the country is going to the shitter because we are so dependent on oil. Whiners should get off ther ass and do something about it if it worries them so much. And the ones who do will be handsomely rewarded for it, while those that complain that something needs to change won't get sqat and will complain after about how everything is so unfair.

Look at your computer, look at your house, where you live, what you eat. What you drive, wear, and sleep on. Look at your tv and dvd player. Regardless of the size of your bank account you have nothing to complain about. Through capitalisim you got what you have, and you have it pretty well, unless of course you live in cuba and you visit TFP via your castro-cable modem and gov't issued laptop.

[host]

It isn't "whining", stevo. Avoidance of an examination and discussion of the sources and stability of our country's economic "lifeblood", needs to come to an end, even if it is too late to do much about it, aside from preparing for a rapidly accelerating deterioration in our standard of living and quality of life. How many knew that Norway was the third largest exporter of petroleum in the world? The U.S. consumes 25 percent of daily world oil production. U.S. daily imports are 12.5 million bbls. China's domestic production appears to have peaked, just as it's demand for oil begins to rapidly rise. In contemporary times, there has never been more downward pressure on the value of the dollar. Ford, GM, and most airlines, including the U.S. third largest, Delta, teeter on the edge of bankruptcy, although escalation of oil prices are still at an early stage

I offer the following to back my point that a crises is looming, and that there is nothing to fall back on to ease it's effects? What do you offer besides your own confident opinion?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/featu...464050,00.html
The end of oil is closer than you think

Oil production could peak next year, reports John Vidal. Just kiss your lifestyle goodbye

Thursday April 21, 2005
The Guardian

The one thing that international bankers don't want to hear is that the second Great Depression may be round the corner. But last week, a group of ultra-conservative Swiss financiers asked a retired English petroleum geologist living in Ireland to tell them about the beginning of the end of the oil age.

They called Colin Campbell, who helped to found the London-based Oil Depletion Analysis Centre because he is an industry man through and through, has no financial agenda and has spent most of a lifetime on the front line of oil exploration on three continents. He was chief geologist for Amoco, a vice-president of Fina, and has worked for BP, Texaco, Shell, ChevronTexaco and Exxon in a dozen different countries.

"Don't worry about oil running out; it won't for very many years," the Oxford PhD told the bankers in a message that he will repeat to businessmen, academics and investment analysts at a conference in Edinburgh next week. "The issue is the long downward slope that opens on the other side of peak production. Oil and gas dominate our lives, and their decline will change the world in radical and unpredictable ways," he says.

Campbell reckons global peak production of conventional oil - the kind associated with gushing oil wells - is approaching fast, perhaps even next year. His calculations are based on historical and present production data, published reserves and discoveries of companies and governments, estimates of reserves lodged with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, speeches by oil chiefs and a deep knowledge of how the industry works.

"About 944bn barrels of oil has so far been extracted, some 764bn remains extractable in known fields, or reserves, and a further 142bn of reserves are classed as 'yet-to-find', meaning what oil is expected to be discovered. If this is so, then the overall oil peak arrives next year," he says.

If he is correct, then global oil production can be expected to decline steadily at about 2-3% a year, the cost of everything from travel, heating, agriculture, trade, and anything made of plastic rises. And the scramble to control oil resources intensifies. As one US analyst said this week: "Just kiss your lifestyle goodbye."

But the Campbell analysis is way off the much more optimistic official figures. The US Geological Survey (USGS) states that reserves in 2000 (its latest figures) of recoverable oil were about three trillion barrels and that peak production will not come for about 30 years. The International Energy Agency (IEA) believes that oil will peak between "2013 and 2037" and Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and Iran, four countries with much of the world's known reserves, report little if any depletion of reserves. Meanwhile, the oil companies - which do not make public estimates of their own "peak oil" - say there is no shortage of oil and gas for the long term. "The world holds enough proved reserves for 40 years of supply and at least 60 years of gas supply at current consumption rates," said BP this week.

Indeed, almost every year for 150 years, the oil industry has produced more than it did the year before, and predictions of oil running out or peaking have always been proved wrong. Today, the industry is producing about 83m barrels a day, with big new fields in Azerbaijan, Angola, Algeria, the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere soon expected on stream.

But the business of estimating oil reserves is contentious and political. According to Campbell, companies seldom report their true findings for commercial reasons, and governments - which own 90% of the reserves - often lie. Most official figures, he says, are grossly unreliable: "Estimating reserves is a scientific business. There is a range of uncertainty but it is not impossible to get a good idea of what a field contains. Reporting [reserves], however, is a political act."

According to Campbell and other oil industry sources, the two most widely used estimates of world oil reserves, drawn up by the Oil and Gas Journal and the BP Statistical Review, both rely on reserve estimates provided to them by governments and industry and do not question their accuracy.

Companies, says Campbell, "under-report their new discoveries to comply with strict US stock exchange rules, but then revise them upwards over time", partly to boost their share prices with "good news" results. "I do not think that I ever told the truth about the size of a prospect. That was not the game we were in," he says. "As we were competing for funds with other subsidiaries around the world, we had to exaggerate."...........

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/topworldtables1_2.html
Top 11 oil exporters of 2003 and peak production dates or reserves estimates:

1) Saudi Arabia 8.38 Peak Production Date 2008 http://www.asponews.org/plots.php?plot=Saudi%20Arabia
2) Russia 5.81 Peak Production Date 2010 http://www.asponews.org/plots.php?plot=Russia
3) Norway 3.02 Peak Production Date 1999 http://www.asponews.org/plots.php?plot=Norway
4) Iran 2.48 Peak Production Date 2009 http://www.asponews.org/plots.php?plot=Iran
5) United Arab Emirates 2.29 "probably has 60 billion instead of 98 billion, Campbell said."http://www.energybulletin.net/201.html
6) Venezuela 2.23 Peak Production Date 1995 http://www.asponews.org/plots.php?plot=Venezuela
7) Kuwait 2.00 Peak Production Date 2009 http://www.asponews.org/plots.php?plot=Kuwait
8) Nigeria 1.93 Peak Production Date 2009 http://www.asponews.org/plots.php?plot=Nigeria
9) Mexico 1.74 Peak Production Date 2005 http://www.asponews.org/plots.php?plot=Mexico
10)Algeria 1.64 Peak Production Date 2006 http://www.asponews.org/HTML/Newsletter41.html
11)Libya 1.25 Peak Production Date 1970 http://www.asponews.org/ASPO.newsletter.034.php#252

http://www.nytimes.com/financialtime...tml?oref=login
Top oil groups fail to recoup exploration costs
By James Boxell in London

Published: October 10, 2004

The world's biggest oil companies are failing to get value for money when they explore for new reserves, according to research by Wood Mackenzie, the energy consultant.

The report shows the commercial value of oil and gas discovered over the past three years by the 10 largest listed energy groups is running well below the amount they have spent on exploration.


The findings come at a time when international oil groups are considering how far to boost exploration budgets after years of falling investment. It also comes at a time when oil prices are reaching record highs as a result of soaring demand and limited surplus supplies.

Companies are spending record levels on developing known fields in regions such as the US Gulf of Mexico, west Africa and the Caspian Sea, which should guarantee production growth until 2008.

But Robert Plummer, corporate analyst at Wood Mackenzie, said: "After that they will need more discoveries to maintain growth . . . the problem is exploration has not been generating returns.".........

http://www.energybulletin.net/5074.html
Published on 1 Apr 2005 by ITAR-TASS News Agency. Archived on 3 Apr 2005.
IEA warns against possible acute oil shortage

PARIS, April 1 (Itar-Tass) -- The International Energy Agency (IEA) has come to the conclusion that the world economy is facing a serious threat of acute oil shortage. IEA experts have prepared a special report, due to be published within a few weeks, in which they warn the key oil consuming countries about the need for immediately taking tough energy-saving measures, if the daily oil supply to the world market is reduced by one to two million barrels.

The measures, suggested by IEA, include the reduction of a working week, a ban on using privately owned vehicles, the introduction of a 90-kilometre speed limit, the reduction of public transport fare and the encouragement of staff members to work at home, using Internet.

The conclusions drawn by the IEA experts reflect their growing concern over the macroeconomic dynamics taking shape on the world oil market. According to the information of Itar-Tass, the latest studies show that oil shortage will become more and more acute within the coming few months............

http://www.boston.com/news/world/asi...l_bidding_war/
ChevronTexaco Warns of Global Bidding War

By Deepa Babington | February 15, 2005

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Asia's insatiable appetite for oil coupled with tight supplies has triggered the start of a global bidding war for oil from the Middle East, the head of ChevronTexaco Corp. said on Tuesday.

The rapid growth in energy demand from Asia coupled with difficulties in accessing oil reserves has also resulted in a new energy equation where the days of cheap oil and gas are numbered, Dave O'Reilly, chief executive of ChevronTexaco, told a Cambridge Energy Research Associates conference.

Asian giants like China and India figure prominently in this new energy equation -- a development that should not go unnoticed by the U.S. government, O'Reilly said, without specifying what exactly Uncle Sam should do about it.

"What I see happening is the beginning of alliances forming between Asian entities and Middle East entities for the long term," O'Reilly told reporters. "And I think it's very important that our government recognizes and understands the implications of that."

The remarks come as the emergence of fast-growing nations like India and China on the global energy scene sparks fears that they may outbid Western oil majors in asset deals or in securing access to a shrinking pool of oil reserves.

http://www.peakoil.net/MSC.html
Maximum Sustainable Capacity
Notes by Kjell Aleklett, president of ASPO

At the gas station you might think that the prize of gas is too high. As a producer in the Middle East you might have another opinion. In February last year Saudi Aramco, the largest oil company in the world, started to discuss production using the term “Maximum Sustainable Capacity, MSC”.

If the production capacity is increased with 2 million barrels per day from 10 to 12 million barrels per day Saudi Aramco think that they can have a sustainable capacity in 17 years. Then they need to find new reserves replacement. If the country with the largest reported reserves can have MSC for just 17 years, what about the rest of the world?...........

http://greatchange.org/ov-campbell,outlook.html
Peak Oil: an Outlook on Crude Oil Depletion

by Colin J.Campbell

http://www.oilcrash.com/articles/powr_014.htm
THE 2007 PEAK OIL DATE EXPLAINED
Media Release for Immediate Use
5 October 2004, Wellington

The real point is not so much the exact date of peak but the statement that the First Half of the Oil Age, which was characterised by growing production, is about to be followed by the Second Half when oil production is set to decline along with all that depends upon it.

Colin Campbell, Sept 2004.

.............One of the most influential industry energy statistics report to come out in recent months is BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy. This report served to support a 2007 peak date. Some of the findings are summarised below.

Nine major oil producers have clearly moved beyond peak since 1998 including the UK and Norway (Norway is the 3rd largest OECD producer). Prior to this many other major producers including United States all peaked.

Cumulative depletion amongst this group is now about 1.5 Million barrels per day (Mbpd). Depletion is currently running at 4.91% compounding. In other words declining nations are running out of oil at 4.91% per year.

The remainder of world oil is coalescing around the OPEC nations and the FSU.

Combined production increases in these nations increased over 3.66% in the year 2002-2003. Some nations Iran, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have all increased production over 10%. This level of production increase has been necessary to meet the extraordinary demand, particularly from industrialising nations such as China and India. It is unlikely that these levels of production increase will be maintained even with massive new investment.

Thus, presently we have a situation where the current demand for oil is growing at about 3.5%. We have a combined 3.66% increase in production (we are currently just keeping ahead of demand). The world consumes 82 odd Mbpd. This year supply security has raised it’s head as the issue of the day, unsurprising with such a tight supply demand gap.

The clear conclusion to be drawn from the BP statistics is that depletion is now a significant influence and that rapid production increases are sustainable only in a very limited number of nations with high levels of further investment required.

Based on the best currently available reserves data known the peak production is unlikely to be significantly above 90Mbpd. The International Energy Agency (IEA) as well as the OECD authorities claim that production can exceed 110Mbpd within the next 10-14 years however these claims make the assumption that future discovery will be as significant as it was during the 1960s and that major non-conventional reserves (shale oil, oil sands etc.) can be bought on board very quickly. Furthermore the IEA currently underestimate demand growth by about 1.5%.

It is considered probable by many analysts that increasing depletion in some nations will offset much of the non-conventional oil production and discovery taking into consideration long lead in times and levels of investment required.

Nevertheless there is wide acceptance by industry and analysts that about another 4-8Mbpd of conventional oil is possible based on currently available data. Given current demand growth rates this meets demand for another 2-3 years.

Hence we come to the 2007 peak date based on current demand growth, and expectations of production increases offset by existing depletion statistics................

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exer...E5850FB067.htm
Expert: Saudi oil may have peaked
By Adam Porter in Perpignan, France

Sunday 20 February 2005, 10:58 Makka Time, 7:58 GMT

As oil prices remain above $45 a barrel, a major market mover has cast a worrying future prediction.

Energy investment banker Matthew Simmons, of Simmons & Co International, has been outspoken in his warnings about peak oil before. His new statement is his strongest yet, "we may have already passed peak oil"...........

......Saudi oil peaking?

Speaking exclusively to Aljazeera, Simmons came out with a statement that, if proven true over time, could herald by far the biggest energy crisis mankind has known.

"If Saudi Arabia have damaged their fields, accidentally or not, by overproducing them, then we may have already passed peak oil. Iran has certainly peaked, there is no way on Earth they can ever get back to their production of six million barrels per day (mbpd).".........

[filtherton]

Stevo-

As far as oil is concerned, it isn't enough to sit back and pretend that scientists will figure it out. Favorable market conditions don't necessarily mean a damn thing when it comes to scientific breakthroughs. Ironically, though, i can think of a few things where the interests of the market are decidedly anti-breakthrough. Oil is one of them, another is aids research- i have no doubt that the market would prefer nothing more than to give people expensive drug cocktails for the rest of their lives rather than come up with a cure or a vaccine. That isn't to say that it won't happen, just that the market is better off without such an advancement. The market also ensures that the mass media will continue to use content as a excuse for ad revenue as opposed to using content that is actually meaningful in any way.

I'm interested in your idea generational bootstrap theory. As i've always understood it, most proponents of capitalism claim that everyone has the same opportunity, not every set of genes has the same opportunity.

I realize that life isn't fair, but you must realize that capitalism, as we practice, is far from equitable in terms of benefits and access. There are probably a great many people in this country whose quality of life would dramatically increase if they were relocated to cuba.

[raveneye]

Originally Posted by host

I doubt that there is time for this technology to attract enough investment interest, let alone mature, to appreciably lessen the impact of peak oil. Here is the government's info on it's investment in hydrogen energy technology:

That's probably true, but I don't think that's a reason not to make investment in renewables a major priority right now; I don't really see any other option. When the peak oil hits, we'll be better off for having invested, at least collectively speaking.

On the question of "economic systems" I don't think there is much choice: peak oil is likely to force some fundamental changes whether we want them or not. There isn't much we can do about that than sit and watch it happen.

Some folks are taking personal initiative by moving out of the suburbs and onto farms right now; I sure hope that's an overreaction

[Ustwo]

Originally Posted by filtherton

There are probably a great many people in this country whose quality of life would dramatically increase if they were relocated to cuba.

Who? Who is this subset of people who's quality of life would 'dramatically' increase?

Last time I checked there weren't boats of people heading to cuba from miami.