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America will end up like a third world country, with only a lucky few being able maintain an acceptable standard of living?  

I think the goal is not to stop there, but to go all the way back to feudalism. But in a way it's even more devious, as a surprising number of people in the system still believe it to be democratic and fair.

Wll things need to get a lot worse before they get better?

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Wed Apr 4th, 2007 at 04:09:04 PM EST
they just aren't smart enough to see that far down the chessboard.  Not to mention, in feudalism, the lords had to actually do the fighting since they were shit scared for the serfs to have weapons.
by HiD on Wed Apr 4th, 2007 at 05:36:24 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Truly, I don't think that most of those supporting this activity see their way down this path.

And, in any event, they feel themselves above it all ('can't happen to me') and that this will never to happen to anyone they care about.  

First they came for the Circuit City workers ...

Blogging regularly at Get Energy Smart. NOW!!!

by a siegel (siegeadATgmailIGNORETHISdotPLEASEcom) on Wed Apr 4th, 2007 at 10:32:48 PM EST
[ Parent ]
That's certainly true of the Bushies. They are feverishly trying to undo every achievement of modernity other than technology and an economy that is differentiated from the rest of society: the regulating welfare state, government subject to law and an autonomous legal system, autonomous science, religion a personal matter, sex is not subject to religious norms, autonomous art, universal education, Kantian perpetual peace as exemplified by the EU.

I wonder if I've left anything out.

A bomb, H bomb, Minuteman / The names get more attractive / The decisions are made by NATO / The press call it British opinion -- The Three Johns

by Alexander on Wed Apr 4th, 2007 at 06:23:22 PM EST
[ Parent ]
The elites will be killed long before this place becomes a 3rd world country. Propaganda doesn't work very well on people that have nothing left and little to lose.

I think after the next severe recession the elites will come back to the relatively more stable views of elites like Warren Buffet who understand how far the public can be pushed and that you need a healthy, happy workforce if you want to keep profits up.

you are the media you consume.

by MillMan (millguy at gmail) on Thu Apr 5th, 2007 at 04:09:27 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Like someone said:

I will be alright as I am invested in oil&gas. At least until the soccer moms riot outside the gates of the mansions of the energy investors.


Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
by Starvid on Thu Apr 5th, 2007 at 04:30:53 PM EST
[ Parent ]
The elites are either to stupid or too insulated to understand the forces they are letting loose in American society.

I'm an Edwards man myself, because I believe that change if not forthcoming as reform results in revolution.  And Edwards is a reformer, and someone who can direct that anger and rage into socially useful projects to change the United States.  

As opposed to the Republican who channel all that anger and dissapointment into resentment of people who are a different color or culture.

And when donor classes attacks the people who have turned hurt to hate, failing to recognize that much of the source of that anger and hate is not moral defect but understandable resentment at being economically dislocated, then the donor classes just serve to reinforce the belief that the culture war is class war.

America needs a strong leader who is willing to attack the fundamental economic ideas that the Republican party has used to undermine the post war social contract.

There's a strain of thought in political science that holds that ideas are antecedent to institutions.  So although we perceive stability in seeing the physical manifestations of state and corporate power in militaries and large companies, those are ephermereal.  

What is real is that they rest upon the asquiscience of the masses.  Piss off the peasants, and suddenely rapid and perhaps frightening change is possible.

The existing ideational paradigm is punctuated, and suddenly something has to fill that vaccum.  For the neoliberals, that puntuation was the oil shocks of the 1970's, which allowed them to attack the American post war social model.  The twin deficits will eventually strike at America, and then the existing paradigm will be punctuated.

And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg

by ManfromMiddletown (manfrommiddletown at lycos dot com) on Thu Apr 5th, 2007 at 05:45:55 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Is it just me, or did your mind also scream "feudalism!" the first time you read about Paris Hilton?

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
by Starvid on Thu Apr 5th, 2007 at 04:32:26 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Sorry...
No...
More like:
Uh la la la...

Rutherfordian ------------------------------ RDRutherford
by Ronald Rutherford (rdrradio1 -at- msn -dot- com) on Thu Apr 5th, 2007 at 05:38:10 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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