With a stagnant and faltering economy in the land of hyper-consumerism, contraction throughout the Euro Zone, and signs of shrinking economic activity in China and the Far East, this culture of make-believe (D Jensen) is teetering on the eve of destruction. The mere complexity of their inter-connectedness is unsettling, to say the least. But, as was suggested last week, the sweet siren song of salvation can still be heard in many quarters, as the quest for a technological escape route from shrinking resource availability on this finite planet continues apace. The race to save this culture is accelerating at warp speed: so beam me up, Scotty. The mythic hero’s quest for the Holy Grail begins now in earnest; the battle enjoined. And the promise of technological salvation can be heard deep in the jungles of the Amazon as well as in the black vastnesses of outer space.
Never mind about that silly LIBOR rate-manipulation deal uncovered at HSBC, the minor money laundering business disclosed at Citibank, or the sanctified work carried out by Lloyd Blankfein at Goldman Sachs on behalf of the world’s population, the magical disappearance of a billion-plus dollars in client funds engineered by the Honorable Jon Corzine at MF Global, or Jamie Dimon’s recent “apologia” for JP Morgan’s six billion dollar loss from a “rogue” trader abroad; we are on the way to a new dawn people. Let’s get with the program…err, with the curriculum, shall we? Didn’t you know that the reason these buttoned-down-trickster-criminals get a hall pass is due to the fact they are financing the future of galactic free market capitalism, and hoisting its cover story – liberal Christian democracy and the rule of law – deep into our tropical rain forests and right out there to the gates of the Milky Way. The tyranny of our history continues to haunt our present like a bad ghost of Christmas past, while pointing with disembodied figuration the way to our fateful and fearful future. So, get over it!
Don’t you know it though: Lloyd was speaking for all those fine financiers when he said he was doing god’s work. After all, they must surely be planning to funnel much of the stolen, hidden or misplaced cash into some of these new ventures, betting on the one thing that will give them hope for keeping this party alive and going as long as possible.
We are on the cusp of some exciting new acts of human dominion, my friends; the yet unmolested inner life of nature’s biologic bounty hidden deep in whatever forests remain, and the outer limits of our vast galaxy already tarnished with loads of discarded space hardware. Bio-prospecting – a relatively novel process for discovering and commercializing new “pharmaceutical, agricultural, industrial, or chemical processing end-products” from previously untapped biological resources – is the latest manifestation of capital’s search for the Holy Grail; god, you think maybe those indigenous peoples we slaughtered had some important knowledge they could have passed on? More important to the curriculum, however, is the following: can we successfully commodify and mass market whatever our bio-prospectors are able to unearth (pun intended)? That is the genuine question for any of these serious financial executives. Calling all socially conscious (or even unscrupulous) entrepreneurs! And don’t worry about depleting the earth of newly discovered resources, as we have done wholesale to more readily available ones, like oil, air, and water, because we are also looking to the stars for additional help on our last-minute mission of salvation.
That brings us to the always well-spoken Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Atlantic Airlines fame. He has announced the mission of Virgin Galactic, along with his personal commitment to launch initial commercial (both exploratory as well as passenger) flights into sub-orbital space as early as next year. I imagine exploratory in the hope of finding what new resources we can mine there, as well as how we might redistribute our populations across the stars. In his own words, Sir Richard is committed to “opening up the market to researchers, small businesses and even schools.” Imagine that, we can look for unintelligent life beyond our shrinking globe and teach them something about our twice-wise human intelligence, about the rule of law, and about the non-negotiable way of life that brought us to this precipice.
All in all, perhaps it is just a matter of more toys and distractions for the rich and famous; much like the scene before the Titanic went down.
kulturCritic 
Sandy, you got your financial miscreants mixed up: HSBC is money laundering, Barclay’s is LIBOR while Citi remains one of the godfathers of this appalling mess and like the rest should be dismembered on general principles. Now I’ll get back to enjoying how you express your umbrage… 😉
Warm regards, Gordon
I always can use correction. thanks, sandy
My favorite is James Cameron of the Avatar franchise, working with Page and Schmidt of Google, Diamandis et al, to mine asteroids. When I heard that, I was like, I thought the bad guys in that film were the ones going off-earth to spread civilization by way of rape, pillage and plunder? The irony still hasn’t occurred to the rest of idiot America, the fool lovers of that film who forked over their cash to make it a reality, except, oops, not in favor of the blue people. I wonder too if Sir Dick sacrificed vestal virgins in a formerly hierophantic life? They, et al, might get back to that, if things get bad enough, extolling the Great Hand to revive the predatory accumulation of rich-as-god bookoo wealth.
It all smells a lot like the last six months of aggressive peak oil refutation, in the MSM; the hyper-denial just before the fall.
well, actually, we’ll have to wait for the sequel to find out how the Na’vi fare, but not to worry, Eywa has heard you, Doonkin.
Eywa? Let’s hope, D-eric.
the contradiction of cameron’s ventures did not escape me, most people probably didn’t bat an eye, but then the whole point of avatar was supposed to be some kind of pro-ecological fable wasn’t it? this is akin to people flying on jet airplanes to the earth summit. always the supposed efficiency, as in executives flying around to do business, even though business used to be conducted by correspondence, or people would travel by rail. but that’s the way it is.
personally, i think you have to look at american/world society as would a battered spouse, or a soldier with ptsd, almost clinically, a sort of mass stockholm syndrome. a dysfunctional society. how much of what we experience is natural, how much is induced? who knows? are people the way they are naturally? where does the individual end and society effects begin? is there a demarcation line?
sure, we see the wreck of our collective zeitgeist, unconscious, whatever psyche term you want to use, we think we could adjust this or that, but do we want to throw the baby out with the bathwater?
any how, yeah, i have all sorts of issues, trauma based they tell me, what a surprise. it sucks, my approach is just to keep hanging in here, try to think, try to apply practical methods to everyday life. i see myself as an average joe, i’l bet there’s lots of people just like me out there, i just happen to have been inculcated with quite the martyr complex at quite an early age.
but enough about me, what about me? i went to your page and i felt it would be fair to share a bit as you have.
now, we are faced with the teetering wreck it appears our world has become, perhaps the primitive buddhist approach to alleviating suffering is in order, hell if i know, doesn’t mean i’m not gonna grill some chicken or some brats tonight. yummy! yummy!
type of background i come from the parents hope for one child to have a vocation, vows and such clap-trap, perhaps it was so, just not how they thought. so funny. shaking it up here boss, i’m a shakin’ it, i’m a shakin’ it………………….
Whoa, derek, from Avatar to Cool Hand Luke in one post. Pretty impressive! 😉 There’s some dark truth to the battered spouse analogy: A reality is created through unpredictable and disturbing methods of control. The sole source of information, of support (i.e., house, food, etc.) comes from the abuser. To break out the this bond requires either a great deal of courage or desperation, often at substantial personal risk. When the abuse (insert social conditioning, if you will) has gone on for a long time, as with children, the individuals don’t even know that other ways of being are possible, for this is their normal. Extrapolate that thought to a grand scale and one questioning the system is hard-pressed to find examples that other ways exist.
LOL
that signpost up ahead? the twilight zone. god forbid we should shrink, that would mean we were spent, couldn’t get it up, and everybody knows that great big arrow of linearity points to infinity and beyond!!!! it’s not called the universal product code for nothing.
ah yes, the old “liberal Christian democracy and the rule of law” scam, tell me it’s not true. we all know it’s a death cult, the trade is the sacrament, the synthetic financial instrument the host which is magically transformed into cash, the temple is wall street, the sacrifice is our lives. world w/o end, amen.
but why stop there? objectify, commodify, and die. inside out/outside in, the important thing is to keep moving forward. inner space/outer space, what’s the difference?
now sir richard? and the beautiful people? it all depends on the size of your steeple, and it looks as if there are some with some really big equipment.
Yes, very BIG!
😉 A wink and a smile. Entertaining, Sandy. That one lil ole word, “salvation” brought this on?
I’ve spent the past two days in Manhattan, and although there’s something kinda neat about spending a night and two days in the shadow of the Empire State Building, I was most impressed by the cafe at which I ate lunch both days.
What I found impressive was the amount of hydrocarbon use that had to have been performed for the glut of fruit, veggies, fungi, eggs, meats (to include fish and shellfish) and breads (not to mention beverages, yogurts, cooked and raw dishes, and condiments) that appeared on the serving tables. Then consider the energy expended in making the contained and trays that were used to hold said culinary delights. All quite impressive when it comes to an imperial show in the de facto capital of USA capitalism.
But none of that was as impressive as the bounty in my garden where tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, leaf lettuce, romaine, peppers, beans, peas, lentils, asparagus and potatoes either have or are taking form and making fruit to feed our small family.
Like I said lat week. Think “salvage” rather than salvation. There is no atom reconfigurer that will transport me to Eden in another reach of the Milky Way and then reconstitute me to happily begin my history of rape anew in a different venue. There is only here and my energy that will find a way to build on my rape a new life with a new respect for what remains. The unsalable, but ineffable solidity of life on my planet with my people (all the rest of you.)
I think that what you have been thinking of, perhaps, is the patriarchal pursuits of mining, exploitation without condition or reverence and the unabated and narcissistic drive to expand ego to the limits of the known universe.
Like derekthered said, “we all know it’s a death cult.” It took less than twenty years to transform the compassion of the teacher into a cult of his death. Salvage compassion. I think that in order to do so the Feminine must be reborn in all her strength, beauty and compass. The man-god, sun and death cults of the Masculine have brought us to ruin without the limits of the Feminine.
(Nice essay. I agree.)
“the Feminine must be reborn in all her strength, beauty and compass.”
Yes.
Thank GOD!!! All this uber male bullshit has simply GOT TO stop!
I just could not resist, Nicole!! 😉
😉 O, that’s ok, Sandy. Anyway, resistance is futile. 8)
It does appear that the locusts are determined to strip the trees before their population collapses. Glad you are home safely in the bosom of your family. Hope your friends or family in Denver did not attend movies last night.
Everyone I know is safe… well except for the unfolding collapse. Thanks, mr miller
Hey Sandy,
It appears that you are taking up ol’ Jim Kunstler’s mantle these days regarding “doomer” political commentary. Excellent work! Jim seems to be a little under the weather with vague but persistent health issues lately, and I get the sense from reading his posts that his heart’s maybe a little bit less into it than before as well. Oh well. “The crown weighs heavy…,” and all that bullshit, so maybe Jim’s just tired of carrying the weight.
In other news today, yet another homegrown American madmen decided to spin the wheel of fortune today in Aurora, CO, not far from here. Twelve dead, 59 in various states of disrepair from the latest MSM hyperbole reports. At a “Batman Whatever” almost premier no less. What can you say? Life imitates art perhaps? Who the fuck knows really. Maybe the guy was just bored. In any case, it’ll be old news by Monday. Such is the state of affairs in a society that has SURELY gone mad in the name of money, power, and the illusions generated by same. I’m reminded of Francis McDormand’s character Marge Gunderson’s words in one of the final scenes of Fargo several years back after she had just arrested a co-conspirator caught in the act of feeding his accomplice (Steve Buscemi) through a woodchipper (a CLASSIC satirical comedic scene!):
… And for what? For a little bit of money.
… There’s more to life than money, you know.
… Don’t you know that?… And here ya are, and it’s a beautiful day…
Got to rewatch Fargo. Thanks for the reminder…I need to get my wood chipper in working order for the fall.
The Coen’s social commentary is biting to say the least, genius to say the most; and, of course, woodchippers are nothing, if not practical, in service of either metaphors, woody flora, or the occasional upright fauna.
Ha! It is good to have a multi-purpose tool at hand. Diversification, as they say, is the key.
You never know what the task at hand might entail!
Truly, a great brief exchange in Fargo, DA.
Homegrown in more ways that one, like diabetes, schizophrenia [1], among other psychoses [2], is a Disease of Civilization. Expect more. Way more, as we humans “Crowd into the Behavior Sink.” [3]
My best advice: Move out of the shitty, rid thyself of electronic heroin, eat a lot of peaches, and avoid the “continuous aggression, frustration, interference and conflict as a consequence of an overload of social interaction leading to depleted social relations, personal grief and personality disorders.”
__________
[1] E. Fuller Torrey M.D. (1980) Schizophrenia and Civilization http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=acls;idno=heb02208
[2] E. Fuller Torrey M.D. (2002) The Invisible Plague: The Rise of mental Illness from 1750 to the Present, Rutgers University Press.
[3] Plumbing the ‘Behavioral Sink’: Medical Historian Examines NIMH Experiments in Crowding http://nihrecord.od.nih.gov/newsletters/2008/07_25_2008/story1.htm