Forecast for 2008
264 ViewsThis is James Kunstler at his very finest, well worth reading and remembering. Forecast for 2008 (link removed).
Now please, go read it again. He’s got some great points presented in there.
I’m not making any new predictions, just going to keep on reinforcing the “old” ones that have been shared here before. (s)Election 2008 is a done deal, so you can start your crying right now if you like. Police State 2008 is right on track too, right on time. The really scary severity of global climate change will be even worse this year then last (duh!). Homeless and landless peasants will be out en masse, as our death spiral to bottom gains momentum. Talking heads and stupid, clueless politicians will become desperate to retain their “followers” by making even more outlandish and totally ridiculous claims, even blaming YOU for the problems they’ve caused.
Drink up and be merry (while you still can), because your next gallon of fuel will be coming from your farmers cornfield, despite the fact that much of the world won’t have enough to eat. Soon, the day dawns when bootleg liquor and corn stills will become more valuable then an oil refinery.
Don’t expect ANY justice for Darth Cheney and that smirking monkey. It’s just us, always has been, always will be. We remain as ever, cast adrift and left to feed off the crumbs from our master’s table. For the poor peasants among us (all of us), we’ll be hit harder and harder, crushed under the triple whammy blows of economic slowdown, grind down and shut down for many of us.
No, 2008 will NOT be fun. It will be more of the same, only worse. I am afraid that this is all anyone can expect for some time now. We’re not at bottom yet, we’ve got a long ways to go and a great many bodies to pile up before that happens.
Meanwhile, if 2007 is any indication at all (it is, I’m just being rhetorical), 2008 will party on like there is no tomorrow (there isn’t) and we’ll get to watch in dumbstruck amazement as our fellow humans continue to pollute and pillage and rape our planet bare. Soon now, I expect there to be violent backlashes against this type of behavior as “deranged individuals” finally have their fill of toxic filled oceans and poisoned soils. But this many-headed Hydra won’t be dissuaded from it’s capitalistic ambitions so easily. We’re going to ride this screaming beast right down into the pits of our man-made hell.
But be of good cheer, for we are still here. This dubious claim isn’t so bad, we at least witnesses to the incredible folly of humankind and the demise of our species into oblivion. The Universe doesn’t care and never did, we are but a blip in history, most likely an accident of nature, but the real joke is on us. We thought we actually owned the place. Haha! Surprise to discover that we don’t and never did!
Our comeuppance is (over) due and 2008 is sure to bring some of that natural retribution this planet is well-known for. Mankind’s feeble and foolish efforts to wrest control and push back all the darkness with his ingenuity will be swiftly cast aside as those mighty and very, very powerful forces of nature smash our efforts to smithereens.
You know what to do (besides bend over and kiss your ass goodbye), if you read any of the material shared here. We’ve got a little time left and it’s just not in our nature to give up anyway. I’m not suggesting anybody do that, I think now is the time for some fierce grit and determination and an unrelenting resolve to bare our teeth into the wind of this insane and crazy mistake we call ‘civilization’. If you’re the type who’s planning on fighting back, well, what in hell are you waiting for? Don’t let this kind of ‘news‘ get you down (it’s not news at all if you’ve been paying attention). Of course your country is dead last! What else can you expect from the belly of the beast?
We can learn to rejoice as one recent writer put it, as collapse puts the skids on the fascist tyranny forever (eventually). But that won’t happen yet, certainly not this year, or next. We’re in the for a hell of a ride as we skirt around the roadblocks and microchips and surveillance cameras. If you think it will help, try to imagine that you’re the hero in an action flick, hunted down and hated by all, maybe that’ll help as you reach your limits of despair and endurance and you find yourself ready to just quit.
Indeed, endurance is what is called for. We’re misunderstood, derided and discarded by most of this throw-away beer can society. Well, so what? Nothing new there. We’re out here on the bleeding edge, recreating something that this world abandoned a long, long time ago. I don’t expect to be understood, most of my fellow humans just don’t have what it takes anymore. They’re too toxified by this culture and the slow poisons they’ve ingested to even notice.
I hold absolutely no illusions that “we the people” will EVER rise up and “make a difference” now. It’s much too late for that now. If we were going to “do something”, that should have occurred about 40 years ago. I care, and I know many of you do, but it’s not going to be enough. Put into motion your plans to survive civilization’s collapse. I really cannot think of anything better to do. This is the time when refusing to prop up the system is the right and best thing to do. Let it die. Please!!! It’s time to walk away.
January 1st, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Admin said: “I don’t expect to be understood, most of my fellow humans just don’t have what it takes anymore.”
More and more I find myself mentally “pigeon-wholing” people I associate with on a regular basis. Two categories: 1) “They’ve got a chance” and 2) “They’re doomed”. I work with a late 40-ish single woman who outsources EVERY aspect of her life. She doesn’t cook (it’s beneath her). She eats out or orders in. Pays to have her house cleaned. Pays other people to do everything, I mean everything, related to her life. She even pays a neighborhood kid to put gas in her car so she never needs to pump her own gas. She’s totally doomed. The hilarious thing to me is she see’s herself as a highly functioning human being. I would love to see some sort of anthropological, psychological, sociological study done that would identify the human traits and experiences that allow some people to become the rugged, self-determining individuals I beleive are in the “They’ve got a chance” crowd.
January 1st, 2008 at 4:20 pm
I would like to point out to those who may not be in the know that Naomi Klein and others have hit upon the edges of a frightening probability: the coming complete fascist overthrow (not that we aren’t close to that already) of the U.S.
The one lesson the elites learned from FDR was that come the next big disaster, real or psychological, they would have in place the apparatus of control ready to swiftly suppress dissent and to solidify the corporate paradigm.
Those elements are in place, funded by a compliant Congress, ignored by a complicit media, and ready to accept prisoners now.
Habeas Corpus
Posse Comitatus
Concentration Camps
In the coming months, perhaps as early as March, you will see the economy collapse. This in and of itself would not be an entirely abnormal thing, it happens, it is the nature of capitalism, but in the context of FascismCampUSA®, it serves as the trigger, the gentle push of the snowball down the mountain.
When the collapse comes, and it will, you will see people, hungry people, angry people, “ordinary” people, i.e. those people who had at one time voted for the Republicunts, protesting, raising hell etc. And what will happen to those people? My guess is they will be arrested and detained as a matter of national security. The administration will be quite open about this and quite brutal. That is their intent. They want you outraged. They want more people to join the protests and make it seem like the emergency is getting bigger. If the crowd does not get crazy enough, they will send in the agent provocateurs. These homeland security agents, dressed in the latest “anarchist” duds, will proceed to turn any civilized protest into a rock throwing, car burning festival. Then the police come in with Blackwater and the army national guard. More people are sent off to camps.
Their methodology will feed upon itself. Fear breeds fear. Once the people are too scared to do anything about their plan, they will commit false flag events periodically in order to fan the fear flames.
I hope I am the stark raving lunatic that many people think I am. I hope I am wrong. I hope that physics does not apply to peak oil and global climate change, but I wouldn’t count on it.
BE PROACTIVE PEOPLE!!!!
January 2nd, 2008 at 6:10 pm
” Let it die. Please!!! It’s time to walk away.”
They won’t let it die - they will print up shiploads of fiat currency to prop up the banks shortfalls. In about 6 or 7 months most of the ARMs will have reset then consolidation can begin. Of course that will cause about 25% real inflation but they will hide most of that and spread it out into ‘09. We can handle 20% real unemployment, and negative growth won’t stop the big players from profiting on where the money is decided it should be. That “upper” middle class strata will disappear and a shitload of the middle class will find themselves “poor”. The foodstamps will continue to pacify the masses. Many will move into Mom and Dad’s house. Hey, even forced three generation households are ultimately a good thing.
It’s kinda like we are on this nice 4 lane limited access highway and all of a sudden there is a huge slowdown from road construction. Bottleneck pain in the ass. The sign says “road construction next 11 months” And in 2009, where the construction zone ends is an unfinished two lane blacktop road quickly followed by a dirt track…
I think many will walk away this year. I believe it will be a big year for truck farmers, and I bet a bunch of new backyard gardens will spring up all over suburbia. Bug killer corporations will profit, and the bees will take another big hit from idiot gardeners bombing everything green with sevin dust. It’s gonna be fun to watch the panic set in this year. I’m sure I’ll hear a lot of “well, you were right”.
January 3rd, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Oil futures crested $100/barrel. With the psycological barrier of that price point broken, many are calling for rapid increases in the near term.
Locally, ethanol has started shown up in our gasoline (10%)….we’re a very long way from the midwest.
On a similar vein, I saw over the weekend that Missouri has become the third such state to pass a law making ethanol MANDATORY in all grades sold in MO (that’s right, your masters have determined that you must burn your food and topsoil in your gas tank), but labeling such as such is not required (since 2002).
Almost no real estate (aka houses) are selling locally. Realtors are quiting and finding actual jobs…mostly at Chinamart and the like.
I was going through my old paid check pile (new year’s cleaning out), and noticed that my weekly grocery bill for the same food products we buy week in and week out is now averaging nearly double what it was in 2005.
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:32 pm
But - don’t ya know that- energy and food are NOT included in the “Cost-of-Living” or “core Inflation” It’s true. Uncle Sam says so. Really !
Yeah?
On what fucking planet?
I just did some rear-view mirror checking of my own.
My personal food and fuel costs (only) are up $170/mo since Jan 06. Same shit, different daze, Food up almost 50% in 2 years, fuel up 50% in two years). At the same time, Veterans “benefits” increased by $49/mo (avg.) (+5.5% in 2 years). Every time gas goes up $1/gal, I (we fixed-income folks) take another 10 to 15% direct hit on alleged income - not including trickle-down /general inflation and not including falling value of US currency on global markets)
Won’t be long now before the vultures swarm over the rotting corpse of ‘civilization’.
January 4th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
The Gov will rework the CPI and add home prices to the index. Hence, inflation will stay ‘tame”.