(sorry, couldn't resist.)

More seriously.  "Worse than a fool" describes our political leader.  "Worse than fools" aptly describes the vast number of American consumers who ought to be citizens, but have no idea of what that might mean.

Impeach Bush?  Sure.  But how do we impeach the entire Republicratic establishment and an electorate that does not know enough to care or care enough to know?

Therein lies the rub.

What I found interesting is that Mr. Rainwater is building a greenhouse and drilling water wells on his farm, near a small town in the Carolinas.  He is also putting in large storage tanks of fuel.  

Rainwater became concerned about Peak Oil after reading Jim Kunstler's last book, "The Long Emergency."   According to the Dallas Morning News, the principal reason that Bush included the "Addicted to oil phrase" in the State of the Union speech was because of the Fortune interview with Rainwater.  So, in a real sense, the "Addicted to Oil" phase was inserted because of Jim Kunstler's work.    (Rainwater arranged for Bush to be a partner in the Texas Rangers, which put him on the road to the Governor's mansion in Texas, then the White House).  

There was an interesting quote in the article.  Rainwater didn't want the world to "Wake up some day and ask how come some doofus billionaire in Texas made all this money and he didn't warn us?"

BTW, Don Evans, a long time friend of Bush--and former Commerce Secretary--has also stated that he believes that we are at or near Peak Oil.

'The people have to accept that they made a mistake. The blind desire to be right is killing this country, and it is killing the planet. Ego must be set aside. This is not the time to be worried about seeming the fool.

The basic premises are:

Reduced population is good.
A healthy environment is good.
Health care is good.
Eating healthy food is good.
A sustainable world is good.

ANY STEP TOWARDS FULFILLMENT OF THESE BASIC PREMISES IS GOOD.'

Such writing tends to make me nervous, shall we say, living as I do in a country that actually hit at least 3 out of 5 of your suggestions in living memory, at least - but then, Nazi Germany is not really the model you are advocating, I am certain. Though you may want to pause and think about the fact that Nazi Germany ranks higher on your scale than today's America.

We can certainly agree that population pressures are a major cause of problems, both socially and environmentally. Where I have my problem is what seems to be an almost constant drumbeat to take care of the problem of population pressure  by reducing the population now.

And this is made worse when combined with the idea behind a 'blind desire to be right' - ever thought that what seems to be your desire, blind or not, essentially equals mass murder?

Again, there is much to debate about peak oil, sustainability, and how certain societies seem to have developed a cancer's approach to the larger world in which they exist, but please, face the reality of your desire to 'reduce' (cull? - to put a word in your mouth) population.

New paradigms are fine, pointing out the flaws on solely relying on technology are fine, even pointing out much of the undoubtedly unavoidable human suffering (climate change being accelerated by coal burning as the oil runs out, for example) is quite acceptable.

Constantly pointing out how the 'die-off' of the 'overshoot' is the only salvation is a very old paradigm, looked at from here. Actually, it is a pretty old paradigm in America, too, except for the mass murder part. Have you ever actually questioned the intellectual company you seem to keep, or are  you just proving you are unconcerned about seeming a fool?

To add another aspect of this debate which also often seems to escape Americans - we will all die, long run or not. For example,  how China managed its population over a generation did not involve mass murder (in most people's eyes, at least), but do these results count in your 'overshoot' projections?

Peak oil is not 'poof' and no oil tomorrow - it is also possible to plan on a scale of decades, or in terms of generations (like the German forests, managed over several centuries since being clear cut). Maybe this is an advantage living in a society and area which has reminders of thousands of years of history in daily life - this too is part of what makes American perspectives seem so provincial when expanded to the wider world.

And no, this is not a technological fix, blind faith in anything, or even looking for a new paradigm - living without oil is normal when looked at from a historical European perspective. Sometimes, I have the feeling that people in America can't grasp the astoundingly simple fact that most of the world's people live in societies which completely pre-date the industrial era.

But growing up as an American in the 70s, I certainly do believe that America is in for a real world of hurt in the next few years. Quite honestly, I don't care that much about the looming disasters concerning a small fraction of humanity in a fairly small part of the world - see how easy it is to be callous about other people? I truly don't care about what happens to you and every single person you know and see and live within 500 miles of (hell, I think Americans have earned just about every bad thing likely to happen to them)- but unlike you it seems, I don't think them all 'dying off' is a good or necessary thing. As a matter of fact, I think trying to have them live in a way that keeps them alive is a worthy goal, involving all sorts of old paradigms - like vaccinating children, to give a trivial example. And you know something intriguing - vaccinations don't require an oil based economy at all. Hmm - old paradigms before the age of oil just might be useful after the age of oil? Unless, of course, you think dying children is a way to make the future brighter. I don't.

What I find terribly sad is that probably most Americans think of Soviet Communism as something that Marx thought up, when nothing could be further from the truth, just as some fanatics today have twisted the writings of Mohammed into the hate-filled corrupt dictatorships that would be anathema to the founder of Islam. In other words, Marx was not a Marxist (nor was Freud a Freudian nor Keynes a Keynesian). I wonder if there is some sort of historical law that says the ideas of great thinkers will be inverted and distorted 180 degrees by the worst people in the world. If not, I hereby sate it as Sailorman's Conjecture.

 Like all crafty prognosticators, Marx did not predict the exact time of the fall. He did suggest that human society would be so wracked by the pain associated with the dissolution of the capitalist mode of production that capitalism would be rejected and some other form of social organization would be established in its place.

 What is interesting is that Hubbert, in his introduction to his essay on Peak Oil, speaks of the contradictions between a science and fact based petroleum extraction system and the capitalist consumption system which operates in parallel.

We are not all one tribe.

It was the Tofflers' contraction of producer and consumer and part of their prediction that the old lines of production and consumption would break down.

As we "prosume" news here on the blogs it's pretty easy to see how that played out ... but for a long time "prosumer" got a "huh?" or derision from the unwired.

The Dems are complicit in the same crimes at home as well, in full knowledge of what they are doing, as they are paid by the same people as the Republicans.

Is the Republicrat political monopoly unassailable?  Very likely, especially as the Dems repeat the blatant lie that Nader is to blame for the outcome of 2000 presidential election.  Gore lost far more votes to Bush than to Nader.  The outcome in Florida was rigged, the Supreme court selected the candidate of choice for the oligarchy, and so forth.  Read Palast's "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" for an example of analysis that the US press refused to acknowledge.

The Democrats are all about using fear to keep the sheeple in the Republicratic pen, and so we are stuck with politcal theatrics in Hi-Def, big screen format with plenty of special effects -- all signifying absolutely nothing.

But we all digress!

The change we need will not come about through the political process, nor will any enlightened capitalist billionaires or corporatist re-insurance companies save us from resource depletion and global climate change.  Not even the military-industrial establishment, with eco-friendly, energy efficient, new-and-improved war machines launching mini-nukes like clowns throwing candy to children at a "Get Your War On" parade.

I think Pat Murphy at Community Solutions has hit the nail on the head once again, folks!

"Post-peak -- The Change starts With Us" is available here:

http://www.energybulletin.net/14143.html

I will ride to my first job of the day on my cargo trike, which I've been determinedly riding for the last 6 or 7 years as one way being the change we need to see in the world. I will work suing the least toxic processes I can.  I scrape by financially but believe that my work as a "micro-eco-entrepreneur" is one of the most significant things I can do.

What concerns me the most is that issues of the day are too-often discussed by an elite and effete group of people who expect the political system )which is enslaved to the so-called "Free Market" superstition and melded with the American Civic Religion of Christo-fascism) to bring about meaningful change.  It will not happen.

We need to be the change and make the change by how we live.  The political system will be challenged and may be transformed by this.  More likely, the political system will bring us more war and repression and a near-collapse of the eco-system as it fights to maintain the status quo while posturing as the progessive agent of change with a capital C.  (C is for Capitalism, Christo-fascism, Corporatism, Corruption, and Collapse.)

We must simply be the change we want to see.  We cannot ensure our own survival.  We are all absolutely vulnerable, and can do nothing about that.  I will try to live as best I can according to what seems right, and leave the outcomes to the Creative-evolutionary process.

Or something like that.  Gotta go!  Gotta keep the kiddos fed!

Howard Dean came close to upsetting that rite of passage with his internet fund-raising in '04 though. Instead of a few rich people, many average people donated.

Perhaps in the next three years, a really good candidate could raise enough money that way to bypass the old system and take the nomination this time.

And they continue to fail.

The NYT put its Peak Oil story behind a pay wall. It never made it to newsprint in general circulation.

The truth is: without the internet and places like TOD, no one would know anything about it. That doesn't suggest social denial to me. Denial would be if the issue was covered and rejected.