Jim Kunstler's Neocon Despair -- energybulletin.net

This article highlights some of the grave misgivings I came to have about Kunstler's work following the reading of his most recent book, The Long Emergency....

Jim Kunstler's Despair
by Andrew Nimelman

A reading of Kunstler’s new book The Long Emergency, as well as various posts at his blog Clusterf**k Nation, convinces me that Kunstler actually buys into the basic neo-con world view, but that, unlike them, he has no faith in the possibility that the actions the neo-cons take in pursuit of those beliefs can, in fact, succeed. To make this point, I’ll focus on a recent essay Kunstler posted at his blog, entitled “Iraqi Freedom.” This brief essay is, in my view, an excellent representation of the geostrategic attitudes and beliefs that underlie The Long Emergency and other Kunstler writing.

Kunstler’s work is permeated by a blanket faith in the good intentions of the U.S. in its actions in the world. The U.S., taken as a whole, could, in his view, never engage in criminal, rapacious conduct as a matter of policy. The gulf between "us" (perhaps including our brethren in Western Europe, and, maybe even those in, say, Japan) and all of the various rogues of this world is total. THEY can and do act in a criminal and rapacious fashion. WE never do; we can't, in fact. It's against our nature.

The worst that WE can do, in Kunstler’s worldview, is to be naive, which is to say stupid. This stupidity consists of believing that we have the power to impose our (by definition) good intentions on THEM - - people who, through their criminality, depravity or backwardness - - or that of their leaders - - are manifestly unwilling or unable to conform to "civilized" norms.

Thus, Kunstler’s narrative of the Iraq war is as follows: The oil we need to fuel our (admittedly wasteful and frivolous) lifestyle just happens, in nearly all cases, to be under the ground of countries led by barbaric criminal rogues who, in addition to being criminal rogues, are for some reason united in their vehement dislike of us. The reason for this unanimity cannot possibly be the fact that U.S. elites sit at the summit of a world political/economic structure characterized by a drive to extract every last drop of every "resource" (that is to say, every bit of wealth) from everywhere in the entire world. No, for Kunstler, that would be a "conspiracy theory", to which he is “allergic,” as he seemingly never tires of reminding us.

So, the oil we need is under their ground. We'd never just go in and take it (that would be roguish and criminal, and that's impossible for us). All we want to do is to insure that a nice, rational, orderly market for oil is maintained, to which we have access like everybody else. (Oh, and, for some reason, we're also pretty insistent that this market had better price oil exclusively in U.S. Dollars, or else.) THAT'S the reason for our setting up more than a dozen military bases in Iraq. (I'm assuming that this is what Kunstler means by his statements to the effect that - - I paraphrase here - - "We're trying to put up a Fort Apache in a really tough neighborhood.")

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enlightening. I agree with their view that the economic policies of the current rulers will result in great hardship in the near future. This does not mean I agree with their politics overall.

Yes, Kunstler may not have a problem with the neocon vision. But I think it is just as likely that he is just taking a 'conventional wisdom' (neutral) approach to current geopolitical events to prevent his writings regarding the coming crises being classified as either Left or Right, liberal or conservative.

I don't agree with everything he says, but he has some good insights. I have read 3 of this books and am a weekly visitor to his blog and website. This is what I think Kunstler is thinking and not necessarily what I believe.

I think Kunstler is a moderate. He has said some good things about Democrats and some bad things, and same goes with the Republicans. One of his entries on his blog was called the "Hooverization of Bush."

Kunstler has seen the upcoming Long Emergency for some time now. He sat back, thinking politiicans would see it too and start to do something. He waited and they did nothing. Now finally, Bu$h is doing something about the oil supply. It might not be the best solution, but at least it is something. The Democrats on the other hand are running around like chickens with their heads got off failing to provide any coherant message.

I think from Kunstler's point of view, doing something, even if it is the wrong thing, is better than doing nothing at all.

you think "doing something" is better than nothing. If you are such Kunstler fan then it ought to be clear that wasting the energy it takes for war and space shuttles is the exact opposite of what Kunstler was suggesting. Wasting the money is even more criminal. We ought to be putting everything into R&D.

I was just trying to justify why Kuntler has this Neocon view of the current Geopolitical scene and that was the only answer that I could come up with. The Democrats had their change to put their plan in place in the 90's and did not do a thing about Peak Oil. Not is the Republicans turn and at least they are doing something. I don't think Kunstler thinks we will be successful over in the middle east, but it might help in the short run and the Democratic Party might wake up. I remember reading him saying "all it would take is a donkey and some explosives to take out an oil pipline."

Jared Diamond's "Collapse", one that spelled out my feelings quite well.

When everyone started talking about Kunstler, I went to his website and was disappointed by his hilariously myopic view on race and gender relations (blacks are all racial nationalists, as are Mexicans, and women are PC-copping, emotionally raving ninnies who have kept the world away from important issues, including keeping people away from buying his damn books). The icing on the cake was his support for the Iraq war, and his Hobbseian view of anyone but himself.

Moreover, his support for the much vaunted, but grand disaster of "New Urbanism" is ridiculous, especially when he asserts how it is "necessary" to save America, by somehow becoming an idyllic town that never existed (and maintained its own existence off the cheap and easy labor of others). All the examples of so called "New Urbanism" are nothing but the equivalent of Marie Antoinette's "Peasant Village" outside of Versailles, and are not sustainable just because the people in them can walk to the city center. Moreover, there guilty of gentrification and pushing minorities and the underprivileged out, per usual. Considering Kunstler's views on the working class and minorities, thats not surprising.

Moreover, I just have no business with yuppie-tastic End is Nigh signholders, and despite Kunstler's attempts in the beginning of the book to somehow claim he is not a part of those narcicisstic signholders, the evidence is clear in the rest of his writings. Just because you say it, doesn't make it so. Moreover his wanna be curmudgeon status is ill suited for him, when being a curmudgeon is genrally reserved for those who made great works in their early life (Tawin, Chesterson, Dickinson etc) and tended to be quite vociferous in their later years. Kunstler has no such work of the sort, and his criticisms show more as signs of senility than highly barbed wisdom.

with a small 'c' since it is obvious from his writings that he has a romantic yearning for a simpler and more sustainable forms of small town urban society that he identifies with America's past. This view of history is clearly naive but it provided him with a basis for some fairly entertaining attacks on the follies of modern consumerism. For example, his article 'Cargo Karma' comparing contemporary American shopping habits to the cargo cults of Melanesia neatly skewers some of the delusional beliefs of many of the inhabitants of the western world. Kunstlers problem is that he is essentially an author of cultural and social polemics. When he strays from this area to attempt an analysis of complex global issues as he does in the 'Long Emergency' then the yawning gaps in his knowledge become all too obvious. The result is that his thinking is revealed as simplistic and reactionary. I do not think that Kunstler can truely be described as a neoconservative because his localised world view is never going to be compatible with their dreams of global domination. Nonetheless, he may fall into the category of 'useful fool' whose ideas could be manipulated to support their agenda.