In Full Flight
Flying at higher platitudes in the thin upper air of his own mind
last week, Republican candidate Mitt Romney remarked apropos of
airplane travel: "[T]he windows don't open. I don't know why they don't
do that. It's a real problem. So it's very dangerous."
It turned out that Mitt meant the remark as a gag. But it sheds some
light on the hazard of trying to be funny by saying the opposite of
what you mean, and also on the essential character of Mr. Romney who,
to put it as plainly and directly as possible, is the sort of person
commonly described as "an asshole." Hence, the thought that must be
flashing through many people's minds these days when Romney's
off-kilter, square-jawed, grinning visage floats over the nearest
flat-screen: Who would vote for that asshole...? Being given to
more baroque taxonomy, myself, I would be satisfied in calling Mr.
Romney an empty vessel in a vacant room in an abandoned property in a
forsaken land, and leave it at that.
It happens
that his opponent, Mr. Obama, is a genial fellow with whom almost
anyone might like to have a beer. Despite his winning smile, though,
the president has managed to cripple due process of law, make war on
the nation's own citizens, let Wall Street criminals run amok, and sell
out the electoral process to a corrupt corporate oligarchy. I wouldn't
vote for him again if he water-boarded me in a Jacuzzi full of
Schorschbräu's Schorschbock 57 beer ($275 a bottle). But he's welcome
to come over to my house and watch the baseball playoffs if he brings
his own six-pack and a bag of Cheetos.
And so it goes on
the backstretch of the emptiest election contest in memory. The nation
simply can't contend with the existential problems it faces and doesn't
want to hear about them. As far as I can tell, nobody is paying
attention to the campaigns, not even the reporters, certainly not the
bloggers, who have their eyes on the riots and other kinetic
unravelings related to the money crisis in Europe. Here, where anything
goes and nothing matters, everybody just goes through the motions of
electoral politics. It all has the odor of a ritual that nobody
remembers the original purpose of - namely, to govern, i.e. to manage
society's collective affairs. These days, nobody believes that our
affairs are manageable, and their perception is probably correct,
especially when it comes to paying for it all, since accounting fraud
is now the basis of all financial operations.
But I
don't mean to just deplore the situation. It is what it is, and we are
at a certain juncture of history because of the choices we have made,
and we'll have to see how the consequences roll out. Here's how I see
some of them.
The Romney election fiasco will destroy
the Republican Party, just as the Whig party fell apart in the last
days of Millard Fillmore. The religious nuts and Dixieland ignoranti
will demand the expulsion of all non-extremists and Karl Rove will be
left at the Nascar track with Honey Boo Boo on his lap and a dwindling
"base" of shrieking microcephalics awaiting the second coming of Adolf
Hitler in a green satin Mountain Dew race-day jumpsuit. Respectable
conservatives (they exist) will have to take their pleadings elsewhere,
the venue or party yet-to-be determined, perhaps off-shore somewhere
where the downtrodden sew blue jeans and counterfeit Louis Vuitton
handbags.
Meanwhile, genial Barack Obama glides to
victory and then presides over four more years of implacable
contraction that will make the Great Depression look like an episode of
Cake Boss. The contraction is upon us because peak oil is for
real and shale-gas / shale oil is what used to be known as "a bill
o'goods" which one is sold by underhanded means and, boy, was this
country sold. BP, Chevron, Exxon-Mobil and the gang carpet-bombed the
cable news networks all year with shale propaganda and now everybody
and his mother thinks we're going to run Walmart indefinitely on the
rectified rock-farts of North Dakota. The sharpies over at Spin Central
haven't figured out yet that true "energy independence" means living
without the oil you need to run your stuff.
In reality,
the roughly 300-year fiesta of an expanding fossil fuel energy supply
is over, and that model of an economy with it. We'll also soon discover
the hard way that technology is not a substitute for energy. No matter
how many apps you can cram into a little pocket-sized box you still
need juice to run it. In any case, the folks who elected Mr. Obama will
be furious when they learn the truth of our predicament. The Democratic
Party may not blow up quite like the Republicans, but it could become
the front organization for the imperial return of Bill and Hillary
Clinton. I've maintained for over decade that Bill Clinton will get
back into power despite the 22nd amendment because the nostalgia for
the 1990s will be so overwhelming and irresistible in a harsh age. The
only thing I wonder about is whether Bill or Hillary will succeed in
getting the other bumped off. Otherwise the regime could develop into
something like the brief joint Roman emperorship of Pupienus and
Balbinus (238 AD). Eventually, I expect bankruptcy, political
paralysis, and social disorder to become so extreme that a Pentagon
general will stride into the White House and put an end to the freak
show. A Navy Seal team spirits away Bill and Hillary to a dumpster in
the ruins of Opryland... and it's on to the new dark age.
