The USA has lost its mind

SUBHEAD: Techno optimism reigns among the wealthy and prepper paranoia rages among the disenfranchised.

By Juan Wilson on 17 December 2015 for Island Breath -
(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-usa-has-lost-its-mind.html)


Image above: Illustration of a painting in video game Bioshock Infinite. From (http://voyagesextraordinaires.blogspot.com/2014/04/bioshock-infinite-and-american.html).

Trump's Fascist Egomania
It's not just Donald Trump playing to the lowest and basest instincts of the fearful minded urging fascist responses to false enemies. He's got more than just the Tea Party nut jobs listening to him now. Check out this from Zero Hedge:
Following his annual press conference in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a qualified endorsement of Donald Trump’s candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday, saying he hoped Trump’s election could improve Moscow’s relations with the United States...
“He’s a really brilliant and talented person, without any doubt. It’s not our job to judge his qualities, that’s a job for American voters, but he’s the absolute leader in the presidential race,” Putin said after his annual press conference in Moscow, according to the Interfax news wire.

“He says he wants to move on to a new, more substantial relationship, a deeper relationship with Russia, how can we not welcome that? Of course we welcome that,” Putin added.
On the xenophobic front; Trump has promised an impenetrable wall along the US-Mexican border, a closing of US borders to Moslims who are not American citizens, a cleansing of millions of "illegal aliens" from the country.

At a rally yesterday in Las Vegas, the Donald was heckled by a Black Lives Matter protester. The response by a Trump supporter was to yell out "Light the motherfucker on fire!"  while wild-eyed Trump supporters spewed abuse and calls to violence. "Kick his ass!" yelled one. "Shoot him!" shouted another. Other attendees yelled, "Sieg heil!" and, "He's a Muslim!"

Echos of Germany in the early 1930's. But its not only Trump.

Obama's Imperial Triumphalism
Obama has been a greater disappointment than I could have imagined. In retrospect George H. W. Bush (Dubya's father) seems a model of military constraint as our forty-first President when he prosecuted the first Iraq War to free Kuwait from Saddam Hussein's clutches.

Keep in mind, we gave Saddam some false signals on the availability of Kuwait -but none the less, in correcting the blunder, Bush41 refused to invade Baghdad to topple Saddam after "freeing" Kuwait.

Bush the Elder had been head of the CIA and understood enough about the world chess board not to fall for a strategic "Kinder Mate" ("Kinder" is German for "Children" - like "kindergarten" or "child's garden". A "Kinder Mate" is a chess opening that leads to a checkmate that only a fool or child will fall for.).

Obama, on the other hand has played the international fool. He has put his snoot into every nation in the Middle East and Eastern Europe and overturned every thing he could find looking for more places to seem imperial. He has overturned governments, bombed civilians, started insurrections, etc.

Besides Ukraine, Poland, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Syria, and the South China Sea how many other places is America looking to kick off World War IV? Say! How's that Nobel Peace Prize workin' for ya?

Obama's commitment to destroy ISIS, after promoting it, is a kind of standard operating procedure for America these days. That particular pattern was set in 1980's when Bush41 was Reagan's veep and supported arming the Mujahedeen (and Osama Bin Laden) to oust the Soviets from Afghanistan.

It's all about the oil and our pals the Saudis along with their arch rivals the Israelis. What a trio we are. Crazy bastards in total denial!

American Exceptionalism
Our sense of privilege is obscene.  What once might have been conceived as an exception  formation of government almost 250 years ago has run its course. It was an attempt. however, for those in power to deal with each other equitably.  It just to happens that they were white, property owning males from Europe.

To make a nation we had to obliterate the indigenous Americans, bring in African slaves and keep the women in their place. It kind of worked - and we have adjusted to a degree to accommodate those we had to crush along the way.

We are no longer a nation of gentlemen farmers sustaining ourselves on our own land. Were we ever?

We have become vane lazy, bloated, selfish sedated consumers that require most of the Earth's resources to "support our way of life". That means all the commodities needed for a throw away culture and the oil and coal and gas and nuclear plants to power it.

If Americans lived in a fossil fuel free environment, powered by the sun, wind and moving water it would be not unlike the energy economy of the 18th century in rural America.

For work and transportation you'd be lucky to have two sons two horses and an ox. That's a grand total of less than five horse-power of motive capability. This Christmas imagine trying to getting from Buffalo to Cleveland to visit family in a just few hours on I-90 with five horse-power available.

It won't happen.

Or imagine flying Hawaiian Air from Kauai to Oahu for some last minute shopping a Bloomingdale's at the Ala Muana Shopping Center. many people will. Hawiian Air's Boeing 717 with Rolls-Royce BR700 turbo-jet engine is rated about 10,000 horsepower, or about 100hp per passenger. Could you get to Oahu with 5hp. Maybe in a outrigger canoe, if you could navigate the Kauai Channel in winter.

It won't happen.

Americans won't we voluntarily brought to a sustainable model. To mask this underlying truth we have become insensate to the effects of our consumption. Self denial fills the airwaves. Techno optimism reigns among the wealthy, on one hand, and prepper paranoia rages among the disenfranchised.

Saving Mother Nature
If, as a species, we want to continue living on Earth then we will have to do it with a partner - Mother Nature. Our divorce from her has led us to depressants and stimulants:
A) eating take-out Jack in the Box at 3:00am watching Reruns of Big Bang Theory on cable TV in the Lazyboy after washing three Ambien down with a margarita for that insomnia that's been plaguing you.

B) Driving to Vegas to gamble with that cashed in home equity loan after a Big Breakfast at McDonalds where you chased down three Requip with some hot coffee for that restless leg syndrome you've experienced.  
Who needs illegal drugs.

Mother Nature won't for us patiently much longer. We need to awake from the reactionary stupor that we are in and get to work on the roof and in the backyard. PV panels and raised beds for the masses.


Image above: Still frame TV ad for Ambien brand of Zolpedem sleep aid. Side effects include Common side effects of Ambien CR include drowsiness, sleeplessness, hallucinations, anxiety, depression and condfusion. The pharmaceutical company won't allow YouTube to provide embedding code. From (https://youtu.be/NG1hdWb8yBM).


Video above: TV ad for Requip brand of Ropinirole. A prescription medicine for Restless Leg Syndrome.Note - side effects include impulse control disorders included pathological gambling and hypersexuality, increased libido, amnesia, impaired concentration, confusion, amnesia, anxiety, abnormal dreaming, nervousness, hallucinations, delirium, delusions, paranoia. From (https://youtu.be/HtKNiUD-vo4).

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