Kunstler on Dreams Die Hard

“… American life will just wind down, no matter what we believe.  It won’t wind down to a complete stop.  Its near-term destination is to lower levels of complexity and scale than what we’ve been used to for a long time.  People will be able to drive fewer cars fewer miles.  The roads will get worse.  They’ll be worse in some places than others. There will be fewer jobs to go to and fewer things sold. People who live in communities scaled to the energy and capital realities of the years ahead are liable to be more comfortable. We’re surely going to have trouble with money. Households will drown in debt and lose all their savings.  Money could be scarce or worthless. Credit will be scarcer.

Both factions of American political life indulge in the fiction of control. History is reality’s big brother.  It is taking us someplace that we don’t want to go, so it will probably have to drag us there kicking and screaming. For starters, both reality and history will probably take us out to some woodshed of the national soul and beat the crap out of us.  That could be a salutary thing, since the crap consists of all the lies we tell ourselves. Once we’re rid of all that, we may rediscover a few things left inside our collective identity that are worth regarding with real self-respect.”