We're Weimar (James Howard Kunstler)

James Howard Kunstler -- World News Trust

Feb. 8, 2010 -- Future historians who try to chart the unraveling of the USA's political tapestry might point to two events of the past week. The obvious first one was the Tea Party convention at Nashville. It was held not accidentally at the ridiculous Opryland Hotel and resort in the city's outer suburban asteroid belt, right next to the circumferential freeway, and next door to the defunct (1997) Opryland USA theme park, an attraction based on the cute idea that Tennessee rubes were too dumb to spell the word opera -- so the symbolism was perfect.

Behind the incoherent cargo of conflicting complaints that makes up Tea Party doctrine -- like "keeping the government's hands off our medicare!" -- stands the more basic dissolution of the Sunbelt's miracle economy, along with the pain and bewilderment of the southern peckerwood political nexus that rose out of the dust after World War II to build the suburban nirvana of universal air-conditioning, happy motoring, Jesus tub-thumping, over-eating, and Friday night football that defined Sunbelt culture. They sense now that history is about to thrust them back into the okra patch, with the hookworms and the chiggers, as the economy whirls down the drain, and the car dealerships close up, and the idle production homebuilders succumb to methedrine addiction, and the price of Reba McEntire tickets exceeds their dwindling resources, and they are none too happy about any of that.

Of course this Sunbelt political culture has tentacles and outposts all over the USA, wherever a few generations of laboring folk enjoyed debt-fueled parabolic rises in living standards during the cheap oil decades, and now find themselves in foreclosure hell, indentured to the very WalMarts that they welcomed with open arms (and allowed to destroy their local businesses) -- and, of course, it's yet another paradox that these are the same folk who will still defend the big box masters to their deaths. The America they stand for is a weird contradictory mish-mash of Confederate nostalgia, hyper-individualism that really owes allegiance to nothing, racial enmity, religious paranoia, and potemkin patriotism -- especially involving anything in the constitution that allows them to wriggle out of obligations to the public interest at the same time that they get to push other groups of people around.

The Tea Party people are the corn-pone Nazis I have been warning you about. They are gathering strength in numbers as President Obama and congress fritter away their remaining legitimacy in a manner of governance that more and more resembles an endless Chinese Fire Drill. The delusional craziness of the Tea Partyists exists in direct proportion to the wimpy deceit of the government, especially in matters of money and statistics reporting. Our political leaders are resorting to wholesale deceit because the truth of our situation -- comprehensive bankruptcy -- is too painful to dwell on and for the most part they are too chicken too state it.

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I was thinking Weimar over the weekend.

...and I usually find him to be a big bummer... but he's generally right about things, if somewhat hyperbolic sometimes. Although, the way he dumps on the ignorant and uneducated among us often causes me to wince. : )

circa 1920. If they form their own stormtroopers, we've arrived.

I hadn't heard of this author before, so I looked him up, and while I don't agree with his 'solutions' I found this article insightful.

I try to post his column Monday morning's, although sometimes I don't get to it until later in the week. Occasionally, I'll skip it for one reason or another. Cheers

After having attended some of these "town halls" as a reporter I am a lot more negative than Kunstler about these people. The depth of their ignorance makes the grand canyon look like a little erosion in the ditch by my yard. Their main ingredient is racism which is of course always coupled with ignorance and illiteracy. When I read Chomsky's article on the subject I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I think he's been in academia too long. These people are few in number, absolutely irredeemable racist pigs. They always referred to page 256 of the health bill, but didn't know if it was a house or senate file. Perfect. They will just say what they are told. The only thing these assholes understand is hate and the only thing they respect is violence. The Snopes family comes to mind.

I am mortified by how many observers (from our side) refuse to see this "movement" for what it is - the shock troops of a new Nazi party. If the typical teabagger were to appear on Are You Smarter than A 5th Grader, the 5th grader would win in a rout. Their ignorance gives ignorance a bad name. And they are protected and insulated by the 24/7 propaganda put forth by the Party Apparatchik in Big Media and Hate Radio.

As someone posted already, this isn't going away peacefully. Please be ready for when the sane supermajority has had enough, lest we end up like Weimar Germany.

The Republicans are following the playbook that brought down the Weimars to a T. I find myself wondering why we had no plans to counter that. It was obvious, early on, what their plans were.

Putting some one behind bars or attacking them only makes them stronger. Mein Kampf was written in prison. If you know that you are smarter, then behave accordingly. Work for human rights, not to call attention to those who don't deserve it. What exactly are the tangible rewards for spending time agreeing vociferously with the consensus? After some time, one has to realize that it is selfish. Oh wait! Tell me how afraid you are. So they won, huh? Be strong, you are in a war, not a name calling contest.

The U.S. consumer is an abstraction, created from statistics. No such thing as a consumer exists, except on paper. Consumer protection adds to the myth. As if you can protect pi or the square root of 2. Marketers love consumer protection, it gives the concept of the consumer some credibility. Consumers are not people in the same way that corporations are not people.
Consumerism is slavery. It has to be abolished.
The Right and the Left are acting out respective hissy fits over political power that each side believes they have lost, using populist arguments designed to raise our righteous ire. Until they address the issue of human rights, they are wasting their personal power on trying to gain political power. That alone, delegitimizes the claims made by either side.
In the last decade, the country went through a mass denial. Each side accused the other of being in denial. I find myself siding with the Left because of stylistic differences. I am drawn more to the consistency, humanity and reasoning that can be found on the Left but I am disappointed that the Left is wasting so much energy telling the world how angry they are at the Right. The Right is doing the same but that is not my team, so I only cast a watchful eye their way.
In the end, the slave masters of consumer culture will not care who they victimize.
The Left does not deserve political power if they cannot instill personal power in citizens.
It seems that this decade is going to be wasted by each side telling us how angry they are at the other. There goes another ten years unless the Right gets as pissed off as they did in 1860 because their pride could not withstand the assaults on their integrity by Abolitionists.
If we survive the decade of anger, we will be in store for a decade in the bargaining stage of political mourning. We got a taste of what that might look like when a televised meeting occurred between President Obama and House Republicans recently.
We have already seen the historical precedent of German parties under Kaiser Wilhelm vying for popular support. By the thirties, mass depression set in and the forties brought the acceptance of Nazism. It was the end of Germany's political grief and the beginning of world grief.
It all sounds so familiar, sister Sarah warning everyone about Obama's dictatorship on Saturday. Heil Sarah, save us all from oppression, please save us.
We see personal power when social justice organizations attract people to work together on specific problems. They are conglomerations of people that are from every political, religious and economic stratum. They are there to get a job done and outnumber all political parties, religious organizations and businesses in the country. They are responsible for change that you can believe in.
They are doing what is right, what is necessary and most importantly, they are working together.
I say to my friends on the Left, this is populist grass roots Progressivism and I have not seen any of it written on any Left forum in the six months that I have been reading hundreds of Left blogs and responses. Most of the Left is pissing and moaning about how Obama stole their hope for political power. My hope was abused but was not stolen in 2008, hope is the interconnectedness of humankind. It does not depend on what one politician does. Being taken advantage of and still being able to act is a situation that is being wasted by otherwise bright people. Who among us has not gotten in our own way? Who among us does not regret this and called it by its correct name, stupid?
All of the consumers of the new media opinion makers enslave themselves as surely as a sub prime borrower who lusts after that which is not affordable. They are indulging themselves in their anger just like someone who would rather have back pain than work. The pain or the anger is way out of proportion to the injury.
So is the anger from a perceived slight. One has to learn how to work with pain or anger, not ''tough it out'' which will likely cause more pain or anger as you try to work. Pain or anger can lead to learning something about oneself. Pain or anger is going to go away by naturally, but it is the responsibility of the injured party to not allow a re-injury. If you give yourself permission to wallow in the pain or the anger, you are only slacking off, no matter how eloquent or logical you have persuaded yourself that the pain or anger justifies dwelling on it.
Our children will wonder why we blew the opportunity to free ourselves from our demons and protect them.