State of the Union: ^%$^%ed

It's hard for any president to stand up and say - even'n y'all we're screwed. But not impossible. However is you're going to make that statement you better have a solid plan to roll into. This is made even harder since the GOP is hell bent on disputing your citizenship much less policy ideas. Anyway most people are greatly ignorant of basic economics and science, and too tired and bored to care.

The administration needs to layout peak oil in plain speak. It's not the end of the world it's just going always get more expensive to move things a long distance. This means everything, especially food. So we need a solution to that.

The administration needs to embrace conservation, energy use reduction (Ie how do we not turn it on in the first place, how do we reduce material consumption, not jump it up with useless items!)

But we need jobs. Solving these two things would make tones of jobs. Jobs that can not be off-shored because it uses too much energy. So we need a federal sales tax that taxes items based on the energy that is used to make it.

6 Tektite Serpent
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"That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly" - Thomas Paine
"We never reflect how pleasant it is to ask for nothing" - Seneca

Trying balance proactive measures vs. reactive measures is hard for groups to do, especially if they are not prone to listening to each other.
It was obvious that the housing bust would have far reaching consequences, but they were not felt until 18 months later. In fact for while it was beneficial to some (wood prices and labor become more competitive). So could steps have been taken to stabilize the economy? Maybe, but few understood how much of wall street was tied to these toxic funds, and those that did were ignored (and one made billions betting against wall street) It was outside everyone's paradigm of what could go wrong. I was in the Architecture industry during that time. We were in hotel development, and for a short time people who could developed hotels instead of housing, (ie - the cheaper materials and more competitive labor). We saw the writing on the wall, so we started marketing to different segments of the market (industrial, commercial, laboratory instead of housing, hospitality). It was a good idea, but we couldn't foresee that the following market crash would destroy all of the working capital for development for all segments of the economy. We also couldn't for foresee that almost all lending would stop, dead.

So individual politicians, some cabinet members, some lobbyists, have a good idea of what may happen as the peak oil plays out, but formulating a plan everyone can agree on will not happen until the illusion that we can stretch it out a little longer is shattered.

6 Tektite Serpent
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"That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly" - Thomas Paine
"We never reflect how pleasant it is to ask for nothing" - Seneca

"made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside this evening just thinking about the many people who may be finding out the best way to roast an obese person over an open flame in the near future. Especially those in heavily populated urban areas. over-weight people will have a much harder time than others in outrunning the roving bands of starving rabid cannibal marauders withdrawing from anti-depressants. Get your third eye laser beams ready, we may be in for a bumpy ride."

followed by:

" Just kidding (sort of)"

and ending with:

"love peace and more love"

Which we should assume you are kidding?

Really, mate, seek help.

Most people want to be free to do the things (to explore, etc.) but they are afraid to fail.

The fear of failure is manifested in irresponsibility, and especially in delegating those personal responsibilities to others where success is uncertain or carries possible or created liabilities (law) which the person is not prepared to accept. They want authority (root word - "author"), but they will not accept responsibility or liability. So they hire politicians to face reality for them.

The people hire the politicians so that the people can:

* obtain security without managing it.
* obtain action without thinking about it.
* inflict theft, injury, and death upon others without having to contemplate either life or death.
* avoid responsibility for their own intentions.
* obtain the benefits of reality and science without exerting themselves in the discipline of facing or learning either of these things.

They give the politicians the power to create and manage a war machine to:

* provide for the survival of the nation/womb.
* prevent encroachment of anything upon the nation/womb.
* destroy the enemy who threatens the nation/womb.
* destroy those citizens of their own country who do not conform for the sake of stability of the nation/womb.

Politicians hold many quasi-military jobs, the lowest being the police which are soldiers, the attorneys and C.P.A.s next who are spies and saboteurs (licensed), and the judges who shout orders and run the closed union military shop for whatever the market will bear. The generals are industrialists. The "presidential" level of commander-in-chief is shared by the international bankers. The people know that they have created this farce and financed it with their own taxes (consent), but they would rather knuckle under than be the hypocrite.

Thus, a nation becomes divided into two very distinct parts, a docile sub-nation [great silent majority] and a political sub-nation. The political sub-nation remains attached to the docile sub-nation, tolerates it, and leaches its substance until it grows strong enough to detach itself and then devour its parent.

It behooves us to remember that men can never escape being governed. Either they must govern themselves or they must submit to being governed by others. If from lawlessness or fickleness, from folly or self-indulgence, they refuse to govern themselves, then most assuredly in the end they will have to be governed from the outside. They can prevent the need of government from without only by showing that they possess the power of government from within, a sovereign can not make excuses for his failures; a sovereign must accept the responsibility for the exercise of the power that inheres in him.

The primary reason why the individual citizens of a country create a political structure is a subconscious wish or desire to perpetuate their own dependency relationship of childhood. Simply put, they want a human god to eliminate all risk from their life, pat them on the head, kiss their bruises, put a chicken on every dinner table, clothe their bodies, tuck them into bed at night, and tell them that everything will be alright when they wake up in the morning.

This public demand is incredible, so the human god, the politician, meets incredibility with incredibility by promising the world and delivering nothing. So who is the bigger liar? the public? or the "godfather"?

What are you gonna do? Just hang out here in the United States of Zombieland?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination

"Seek not abroad, turn back into thyself, for in the inner man dwells the truth..."