Why Didn't You Ask?

October 18, 2004
You have to feel sorry for the man who ends up in the Oval Office the next four years. He'll preside over the singular event of the global oil production peak and all the turbulent emanations from it, including the de-stabilization of most of the complex systems that the industrial world depends on: agriculture, finance, trade, transportation, and electric power generation. Oh yes, and peace between nations, which is more a condition than a system.

This, of course, is exactly what the American public is not hearing about from the candidates or, for that matter, what they are not putting to the candidates in any forum of public discussion, whether it is a staged debate or the editorial pages. But over the next four years the public will find out exactly what the War in Iraq has been about -- not a favor for Haliburton by Bush & Cheney, but a natural consequence of the public's own sick dependence on cars.

I was in Dallas two weeks ago, a wilderness of eight-lane freeways and sodium vapor lamps. I had to remind myself that this is how most Americans live. The so-called "city" was a product of the late 20th century cheap oil fiesta. If you live there, driving is mandatory, and lots of it, over heroic distances. It took me half an hour (and forty bucks) to get across just the north side of the sprawling town to the airport at five-thirty in the morning when the traffic was still light. This is exactly the kind of place that is going to be in deep trouble over the next four years. There are scores of places like it all over America. The people who live in them will be full of consternation and gall when their chosen living arrangement begins to fail them. They will blame whoever is sitting in the oval office.

"Why didn't you tell us something awful was going to happen?"
"Why didn't you ask?"

The main pretension of the Presidential campaigns is the idea that the next President will have any ability to control the events that will most determine how we live in this country. The federal government is likely to become more impotent and therefore increasingly irrelevent.

"Why didn't you do something?"
"We didn't want to upset you."

What was the "truth" about the American condition in 2004? The truth was that we had made some bad choices about how we live and that events would soon compel us to change drastically whether we liked it or not. Nobody wanted to hear that, and no political leader dared say it.

John Kerry has made some joking references to the immense wealth he married into, but a few years from now it will not seem very funny to a public with no jobs, steeply declining standards of living, and no way to get around. Nor will George W.Bush's family advantages go unnoticed. Personally, I am allergic to Marxist doctrine, but I believe nonetheless that a few years from now, the American public will want to eat the rich. Some demagogue will arise out of the NASCAR mob and then the real fun will begin.

Comments

[Rick Blaiklock]

Brilliant! As a Canadian (and without intending to preach) I observe what's going on, and can't help but wonder how whomever is elected president can return the US to its position of greatness and respect on the world stage.

Given that next president inherits a country that has gone from a budget surplus to massive deficit position under President Bush, and with both parties preaching no new taxes (other than those making over 200k), it makes you wonder why anyone would want the job.

Basic systems theory illustrates the potential for our interconnected systems to go into a death spiral. Maybe it has already started.

[aj]

As a Canadian, I worry that after Iraq and other Middle-East oil sources become untenable, the US will invade Alberta...[/joke]

I think people are waking up, they are living in a kind of cognitive dissonance that tells them that their absurd state of affairs is "normal."

My cousins from Boston were just up to visit, and even post-Big Dig, it hasn't done much to change the dependence of the entire region on cars. One, an engineer for a major semiconductor maker, makes a 45-minute journey every day from Waltham to Attleboro by car.

Millions of Americans make similar, if not longer, journeys, every day. With the price of oil putting a squeeze on everything - corporate profits and salaries included - how long before workers simply can't afford to go to work?

My cousin had an interesting insight: that as long as cars were deemed necessary for living in America, people would eat the incremental costs rather than pressure their governments to do sensible things like build walkable neighborhoods or real public transit.

So the scary thing is, with no upward political pressure, there is no will to change the status quo. People will keep driving until there are shortages and lineups again, and by then it will be too late.

I think these millions of daily drivers would give up their cars in a shot IF there was a viable, comfortable, practical alternative. But they all think they are alone, powerless, and that "the system" is against them.

If someone were to rally people around those feelings, tell them that there is another way, and that both society and individuals could save money in the long run and even in the short term, they might realize they are not so powerless.

[Tyler]

With all that mess to handle, who wouldn't feel sorry for the next man in Oval Office?