Reality Bites Again

    The feeble American response to Russia's assertion of power in the Caucasus of Central Asia was appropriate, since our claims of influence in that part of the world are laughable. The US had taken advantage of temporary confusion in Russia, during the ten-year-long post-Soviet-collapse interval, and set up a client government in Georgia, complete with military advisors, sales of weapons, and even the promise of club membership in the western alliance known as NATO. These blandishments were all in the service of the Baku-to-Ceyhan oil pipeline, which was designed specifically to drain the oil region around the Caspian Basin with an outlet on the Mediterranean, avoiding unfriendly nations all along the way.
     At the time this gambit was first set up, in the early 1990s, there was some notion (or wish, really) among the so-called western powers that the Caspian would provide an end-run around OPEC and the Arabs, as well as the Persians, and deliver all the oil that the US and Europe would ever need -- a foolish wish and a dumb gambit, as things have turned out.
     For one thing, the latterly explorations of this very old oil region -- first opened to drilling in the 19th century -- proved somewhat disappointing. US officials had been touting it as like unto "another Saudi Arabia" but the oil actually produced from the new drilling areas of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and the other Stans turned out to be preponderantly heavy-and-sour crudes, in smaller quantities than previously dreamed-of, and harder to transport across the extremely challenging terrain to even get to the pipeline head in Baku.
     Meanwhile, Russia got its house in order under the non-senile, non-alcoholic Vladimir Putin, and woke up along about 2007 to find itself the leading oil and natural gas producer in the world. Among the various consequences of this was Russia's reemergence as a new kind of world power -- an energy resource power, with the energy destiny of Europe pretty much in its hands. Also, meanwhile, the USA had set up other client states in the ring of former Soviet republics along Russia's southern underbelly, complete with US military bases, while fighting active engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, if this wasn't the dumbest, vainest move in modern geopolitical history!
     It's one thing that US foreign policy wonks imagined that Russia would remain in a coma forever, but the idea that we could encircle Russia strategically with defensible bases in landlocked mountainous countries halfway around the world...? You have to ask what were they smoking over at the Pentagon and the CIA and the NSC?
      So, this asinine policy has now come to grief. Not only does Russia stand to gain control over the Baku-to-Ceyhan pipeline, but we now have every indication that they will bring the states on its southern flank back into an active sphere of influence, and there is really not a damn thing that the US can pretend to do about it.
     We could have spent the past ten years getting our own house in order -- waking up to the obsolescence of our suburban life-style, scaling back on the Happy Motoring, reconnecting our cities with world-class passenger rail, creating wealth by producing things of value (instead of resorting to financial racketeering), protecting our borders, and taking the necessary measures to defend and update our own industries. Instead, we pissed our time and resources away. Nations do make tragic errors of the collective will. The cluelessness of George Bush is nothing less than a perfect metaphor for the failure of a whole generation. The Boomers will be identified as the generation that wrecked America.
     So, as the vacation season winds down, this country greets a new reality. We miscalculated in Western and Central Asia. Russia still "owns" that part of the world. Are we going to extend our current land wars there into the even more distant and landlocked Stan-nations? At some point, as we face financial and military exhaustion, we have to ask ourselves if we can even successfully evacuate our personnel from the far-flung bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
      This must be an equally sobering moment for Europe, and an additional reason for the recent plunge in the relative value of the Euro, for Europe is now at the mercy of Russia in terms of staying warm in the winter, running their kitchen stoves, and keeping the lights on. Russia also exerts substantial financial leverage over the US in all the dollars and securitized US debt paper it holds. In effect, Russia can shake the US banking system at will now by threatening to dump its dollar holdings.
     The American banking system may not need a shove from Russia to fall on its face. It's effectively dead now, just lurching around zombie-like from one loan "window" to the next pretending to "borrow" capital -- while handing over shreds of its moldy clothing as "collateral" to the Federal Reserve. The entire US, beyond the banks, is becoming a land of the walking dead. Business is dying, home-ownership has become a death dance, whole regions are turning into wastelands of "for sale" signs, empty parking lots, vacant buildings, and dashed hopes. And all this beats a path directly to a failure of collective national imagination. We really don't know what's going on.
      The fantasy that we can sustain our influence nine thousand miles away, when we can't even get our act together in Ohio is just a dark joke. One might state categorically that it would be a salubrious thing for America to knock off all its vaunted "dreaming" and just wake the fuck up.

Comments

[Dave]

i wonder why there is such toxic metals buildup in the sewage, and what treatment may reduce these.

in industrial, as opposed to simply urban, areas, metals, dioxins, solvents, surfactants and all sorts of goodies are available in decent concentrations. metals aren't usually too much of a problem in the absence in industy. one of the real problems in treating urban waste water is that, from day to day, you're never really sure who is dumping what into the system.

one of best ways to treat for metals, that i'm aware of, is, ironically, to allow them to be taken up by various plants. some plants, like certain cattails and rushes do a decent job of this. of course, now you're left with a bunch of plant residue with high metals. what do you do with that?

it's smoke and mirrors.

[Dave]

if you can catch metals at the industrial source they're relatively easy to percipitate. they're relatively insoluable. so, to make a complex issue simple as possible, it's just a matter of adjusting pH. then you can collect and reuse.

[Dave]

of course all this takes time and money. it's not very efficient(god i hate that word, that and "productive". the 2 most harmfull and hatefull words in the english language, any language). so why bother?

let's just shut down industry and get it over with. the only problem will be that we can't make skateboards any more. that will suck.

[Dave]

http://www.leadpoison.net/general/history.htm

lead gets everywhere, just about. some say, while i don't exactly buy it, that lead poisoning was one of the causes of roman decline, eh.

anyhoo, to all you lead acid battery freaks out there, bon appetite.

[Dave]

http://www.chemcut.net/products/waste-treatment/

they wouldn't be so stupid as to use something like this in, let's say, india. they're much to efficient and productive there. not sure, but in think that the hm metal of choice in PVP production is Cd, i think.

[Dave]

then, of course there's the hm residues that result from the production of the treatment system, eh.

[Dave]

wonder what the extraction curve for Cd looks likes like these days. hope it's nose diving to the right.

[Dave]

unless Cd is vital for skateboard production. then we need to find more.

[Bunn Bunn]

"it's not very efficient(god i hate that word, that and "productive". the 2 most harmfull and hatefull words in the english language, any language)." -- dave

Thank you saying that. That and what Nicholas said about feeling like dysfunctional slime, while making different points, share the quality of recounting an epiphanous moments of great awareness.

I always suspected that those leaded crystal scotch decanters might be trouble. That, my friends, is why I drink from a ceramic crock.

[DanaJ]

Unfortunately, I feel now abut the same as I did when Kerry was running in '04, Obama is gong to loose. Choosing Hillary might have made a difference.
McSame will win, but by such a small margin that people will finally realize that a Nader vote is really a vote for the REpublican candidtate.
Then we will once again get the president we deserve, but not the one we need. The next few years are just going to get worse & worse. McSame will do the same thing to Alt Energy as Regan did to Carters solar panels, he'll junk it. He'll GIVE away offshore drilling rights to the oil companies. In a Privatized country, any ol' body thats gots the dough will be able to build a nuke power plant, and the US Gov'mt will indemnify them. "Say, John, ya know that little nuke we built in San Fran? Heh-heh... well, we had a little melt-down...."
And next Iran? Come on, we all heard him: "Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran..." ah-ha-ha-ha... oh so funny! Silly old funny man! 'Cept he wasn't fucking kidding! I bet that inside 6 months of his taking office we will be at war with Iran.
This country, Democracy, and the American people are finished.

[LaughingAsRomeWasBurningDown]

> Unfortunately, I feel now abut the same as I did when Kerry was running in '04, Obama is gong to loose.

Sadly, I feel the same way but for different reasons. I'm still amazed that the polls are so close, and even the diehard Repubs I know here are pretty fed up after the last 3 years. I can only assume with the polls being so close, we are being setup for another Diebold-decided election, with McCain "winning" by a narrow margin, as the polls predicted.

[Bunn Bunn]

What I'm saying Nicholas is that you sound like you’d prefer to be a lover rather than a fighter engaging in confrontations that are largely pointless. What sane monkey wouldn't?

Yeah, this non-profit stuff definitely isn't for everybody as you aptly point out. If a person can't or won't suffer leftists, egotists, know-it-alls and know nothings, why put yourself in boredom's way? (You might want to approach such experiences as maniacal subcultural studies, and along the way collect a few phone numbers of lady monkeys who want sweeping change on a societal level, or maybe just to increase their efficiency and productivity (you know, the lone rebels within the group discovering that you’re not alone after all... the beauty of it is that you will be naturally drawn to each other… yeah that does sound kinda superfacial… whatever).

[Dr.Doom]

Dave, probably the best way to reuse waste sewagee is just to keep the industrials away from those lines. And, really sock it to anyone caught illegally dumping bad stuff into the "sanitary sewers". I mean line them up against a wall and invite all grannies over the age of 80 to stone them to death, de dispicables (using lots of spittle sayin that word, Bunn).

It's true the richer romans had lots of Pb in their bones from ingesting acidic wine and foods on peuter gobblets and dishes, which were the fashion among the roman elite. It may have made them suffer learning disabilities, memory loss, etc., you know, like our current crop of leaders in the USA. No worries.

[asoka]

Latest NBC poll of 18-34 year olds:

Obama leads McCain by 18 points

[Dr.Doom]

FWIW (BTW, one of my fav CSN&Y songs/albums), that's spelled pewter, not pueter. It's mostly tin, with lead and other metals alloyed to make it strong and shiney (the old formula). If so, then I also wonder about the tin. We still use tri-butal tin as a potent antifoulant in marine research.

The romans would have been better off if they didn't clean the gobbets/plates too well. It would have bulit up an oxide patena, and/or some organic coatings. That's one of the reasons were not all dead or crazy from those mercury almagum fillings in our teeth.

But, the slaves probably kept the gobblets and plates, etc. really clean and shiney for their elite masters.

[Dave]

http://www.ceramicstoday.com/articles/lead.htm

[Dave]

Dave, probably the best way to reuse waste sewagee is just to keep the industrials away from those lines.

well, as you know, i've always advocated getting rid of the sewers and shitting in bucket instead. that's for areas of high population density.

for normal populations, just take a step off the path and shit. unless someone you don't like is following right behind you, then shit in the middle of the path.

[Patrizia]

Once again, Mr. Kunstler, if I could vote your oratory skills I would give you five stars.
You are very good indeed in explaining reality, but I cannot share your catastrophism.
And not because I am such an optimistic person, on the contrary, I tend to be quite realistic.
And reality shows that we are on this planet for whatever reason we don’t know, but we are here to stay.
The survival instinct will make us face whatever future is there for us.
What I see is a change on WHO is going to be there.
Wars, natural catastrophes, financial turmoil’s, all are there too and were always there.
It is the survival of the strong and the death of the week.
Let's see reality as it is.
Europe, America, they have ruled for long, may be too long, so long that they have overruled themselves.
We are like very old people who do not see death approaching, because we do not want to.
There is a smell of death all over, which we cover with the best perfumes, there are signs that we are unable to recognize.
Earth doesn't need us anymore; we are used to work less, to think less, to enjoy more.
Life prefers people who have enthusiasm for the future, who have new ideas and good muscles to build them.
Future is built on the past, but with the new generations.
May be Europe and America are the past, may be the new is somebody else.

[Online Pharmacy]

Diabetes mellitus is a condition in which the pancreas no longer produces enough insulin or when cells stop responding to the insulin that is produced, so that glucose in the blood cannot be absorbed into the cells of the body. http://www.8pills.com/