Posted on 11/18/2024 7:02:11 AM PST by MtnClimber
“I don’t know why the Democrats lost. I don’t understand … Prices have come down, the economy is good. I don’t know why they voted against her, against the party.” — William Shatner (Captain Kirk).
Beyond Consequence “I don’t know why the Democrats lost. I don’t understand … Prices have come down, the economy is good. I don’t know why they voted against her, against the party.” — William Shatner (Captain Kirk)
James Howard Kunstler Nov 18, 2024 If you boil down everything the woked-up, psychopathic Democratic Party did the past eight years as it drove the country into a ditch, it all amounted to a Great Pretending. Whatever the party said, they knew it was not so. Whatever they did, they pretended the other side was doing. They lied lavishly, knowingly, and incessantly and now they are pretending to soul-search in a great public display of pretend humility as they await the dreaded reckoning.
Case in point: the interview on PBS between Aspen Institute chief Walter Isaacson and Harvard civics philosophy prof Michael Sandel, “to make sense of Donald Trump’s Presidency.” Listen to them prattle about “the dignity of work,” “credentialist condescension,” and “income disparities.” You know it was way worse than that: censorship, witch hunts, the gestapo FBI, a stupid money-pit war, medical fascism, the wide-open border, race-and gender hustles, state-sponsored riots, lawfare programmatically destroying lives, careers, reputations, and misuse of the news media (including PBS) to lie about all of it. These two pusillanimous pricks, pretending to be genteel, are the poster boys for a diseased polity.
And behind the scenes now, in the C-suites of the big agencies, the faculty lounges of Higher Ed, the Zoom meet-ups of so many crypto-government NGOs, and especially in the Big Media board-rooms, the cries of anxiety and desperation signal a momentous end of something: the punking of America by a gang of vicious, criminal snobs. The aggregate insult alone deserves a world-class beat-down. They know it, and they know they are going to get it, and it will be satisfying to watch them rat each other out as judgment nears.
But even as all that plays out, and justice returns to the scene, Mr. Trump and Company face the enormous task of getting our nation’s house in order. The balance sheet is a catastrophe, we are functionally bankrupt, and “Joe Biden” has been busy destroying the value of our money in the futile attempt to work around all that. All the economic statistics rolled out to benefit Ms. Harris in the election are false. Something is underway that is too big to stop and it will express itself as ruinous inflation and economic depression in some wicked combo of the two. It will surely lead to epic rearrangements in everyday life. I will suggest a few examples.
The people of this land have been deprived of purpose and meaning in an economy organized among giant enterprises and vast distances from wherever you live. To call ourselves “consumers” degrades us. We are citizens who have duties, responsibilities, and obligations to each other. We are economic actors who can make choices and take risks, not passive units to be exploited. The people need an economic role in their locality: employer of neighbors, producer of useful goods and services, all the way down to faithful servants of something and someone.
Monopolies and chain stores killed American towns and all the complex relations in them that furnished purpose, meaning, and livelihoods for the people in a rich ecosystem of production and services. Now it’s the monopolies and chain stores turn to decline and die off — and they will in the course of things, but it would be foolish to try to prop them up. Let them go and let the people rebuild their networks of making-and-doing locally. It’s already happening.
The giant shopping malls that came along in the 1970s have already died, and there was no official campaign to rescue them, nor any official funeral. It just happened quietly in the background. The malls were a pure product of the combo of Boomer household formation and Happy Motoring. That’s ending now. What replaced the malls, strangely, is the new model of Garage Sale Nation. That will continue to evolve and elaborate itself, and integrate into what happens next — which will not be the A-I robot nirvana of endless leisure, but rather an era of tribulation. You can see it coming on all around you. So many things don’t work anymore. Medicine. School. The task of reorganizing them is monumental. It will generate plenty of friction and hardship......SNIP
Maybe the out of touch Canadian Shatner can pretend to be an All-American, Iowa farm-boy, Captain again and send him packing one last time.
LOL, I wanted my son to attend “Harvey Mudd” - part of the Claremont Colleges in California - Mudd was a very wealthy mining engineer and “Harvey Mudd” college specializes in science and engineering.
Turns out the college is very prestigious - but is also very very expensive.
Son attended U of California (for engineering), which was much cheaper at that time. I plan to ask him about “Harry Mudd” when I see him - he’s also a total Star Trek (and Star Wars) nerd.
On a long enough time line, everyone and everything is related.
We may well be stumbling into WW III—Many in power want that to happen. Many Americans have forgotten what world wars are like. We have had wars that were a defeat (Vietnam) a Draw (Korea) and a Victory (Iraq). Lots of little hot spot wars and raids from Serbia to Syria—But none have hit us hard—only 9-11 had a major impact.—in a big war a 9-11 would be a weekly event. The ultimate horror is glossed over in old movies and retelling of the Great Victory in WW II. We must keep us out of a major war at all costs. Our enemies are getting ready—they have formed a powerful block in the New Axis—Russia-China-Iran-North Korea. We are not ready for a war and would be hard pressed to wage one. A defeat would end America as we know her—even a victory would see abrupt change. The only winners would be the nations that are neutral.
“Clueless author.”
Yep, computers and cell phones killed the Malls.
Malls used to be where the kids met.
Urban sprawl, suburbia, the loss of a small-town sense of community, etc., are his ‘thing’:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Geography_of_Nowhere
What do you mean, clueless? He’s absolutely right. Malls were built to give people a place to drive to and most of the families had bunches of kids. The first mall I went to was in 1969, I was 12 years old. Baby boom. Several malls in my area have closed as the anchor stores went out of business and surrounding communities have deteriorated. Still was a phenomenon of baby boom families and happy motoring.
Partied with Shatner at Mara Lago literally a day or two after Spock died.
He had to be “managed” off the stage.
I want Shatner to go out & do his own shopping.
PEOPLE with money don’t care if prices are higher.
THEY NEVER KNEW what the prices were BEFORE, either.
"I don't know why the Democrats lost. I don't understand ... Prices have come down [sic], the economy is good [sic]. I don't know why they voted against her, against the party." — William Shatner (note, "the party" -- there's only one party to entertainment industry twits and other leftists.)
Since democrats were able to shut people up - to control the death of conversations... they were clueless about what hit them.
"To call ourselves “consumers” degrades us. We are citizens who have duties, responsibilities, and obligations to each other. We are economic actors who can make choices and take risks, not passive units to be exploited. "
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