I used to be a fan of the writing of James Howard Kunstler. I often shared his pieces on the blog. The writing was witty and amusing, even strangely prophetic, although many of his prognostications never came true back in the day. But that was then. Now it is a different world. A world where US ‘Beauty Parlors are Full of Sailors and the Circus is in Town’ – the title of his latest blog piece. And it is obvious that some of the things he has talked about for so long are actually happening in the real world.
The problem is, he has never lost the intense hatred he has fostered for all that is not ‘American’. But he is what US ‘Americans’ think of as an ‘American’. They can never change. Is ‘hatred’ too strong a word to use in this context? Perhaps, but I can’t think of any more appropriate alternative just now – so I will stick with that. It is more or less ingrained into the US psyche anyway.
So, I will feature that JHK post here. Not because it is true, although some of it is, while other parts are just the warped views on the world so typical of US ‘Americans’. THe link is below and then I will suggest some of the things I am talking about.
‘The Beauty Parlor’s Full of Sailors and the Circus is in Town‘ – James Howard Kunstler – Clusterfuck Nation Blog – April 12, 2024
OK, assuming you have read it, here we go – and I am only going to comment on the warped brain stuff.
First error is the statement “Ukraine is losing because they never had the mojo for the fight,” which I see is almost halfway through the piece. So I had no problem with what came before, but I reckon there would be a whole lot of Ukrainians who would take exception with that sentiment. I know what Kunstler means of course, and that is the majority of Ukrainian people’s heart was never in a war – against anybody. There has only been a conflict for the last two years because of western interference – and their never ending hatred of the Russians – and also as a result of festering Nazi Banderite sentiments, not properly dealt with 80 years ago. Put those two things together and it empowered the mayhem we are now witnessing. The ‘mojo’, sufficient to bring this about and to maintain it to this point, was with the west and the nazis. Of course a considerable part of the general population of Ukraine wanted nothing to do with that, and those that could, left for other destinations. Some fled to the west, many turned to Russia. All of them, I feel confident of saying, knew where it would all end and, those who remained, hoped to hunker down and not be bothered by desperate others, until it did. All of that led to a lacklustre Ukraine army of young and old, male and female, pushed into doing things they did not want to be engaged in. Trust me, when you have no choice in the matter, to accept such a fate requires a form of ‘mojo’ simply to carry on and hope that luck is on your side. The Ukrainians in the trenches, facing the now fully honed Russian war machine advancing on their positions, wherever and whenever they will, may not want to be there but they are not cowards. And many of them, until recently, were not soldiers either. Kunstler was unforgivably flippant as regards their ‘mojo’.
Secondly, Kunstler appears to have read the wrong news about how the Israeli/Hamas conflict began. He says, and the brackets are his too, “(The October 7 Hamas raid was pretty darn harsh, too.)”. Well, no, it was not harch. In fact it was pretty tame, as it happened – but not as it was reported. That is not really surprising because what was initially published was all lies and that was all the west was told. The real story came out later after considered investigation. The Hamas raid had a simple objective. They just wanted a couple hundred hostages to hold as bargaining chips for the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. Of course the trigger happy Israeli army and police, apparently, if there is any difference, panicked (as they are wont to do) and began firing at anything which moved. Which included their own troops and innocent people such as those at a festival of sorts. Hamas did not murder civilians and, as I understand it, had no plans to take on the Israeli military. It was meant to be a quick raid. A prisoner roundup. Well, the Israeli military are paying for their blunder now, with hundreds of them – and their heavy equipment – dead and destroyed. They are losing the contest, which I think is likely to quite rapidly expand and turn Israel into a disaster area – from which it may never recover. An expected Iranian retaliation for a recent and stupid Israeli act may bring an end to the State of Israel. Leaving the Palestinians a sole occupiers of the land as a single State.
The most egregious of Kunstler’s statements appears to me to be in relation to Islam. He says, “Let’s get real on Islam. Its core principle is to exterminate the humans on this planet who are not of Islam”. How dare he say that? In any case it is based on total ignorance as to what Islam is about. I should say here that I am not an islamic person. I hold no religion to be valid, since I believe in no God. But that does not give anyone, religious or not, the right (of which US ‘Americans’ assume far too many are theirs and theirs alone) to spread lies about or wilfully denigrate and accuse religions that are not their own, of that which is plainly untrue. What else does he say on this? He says this (and I am not going to grant its lies the status of a quote)…
“Islam has been pissed-off at Western Civ since the Crusades, its animus renewed in 1683, when Islam’s advance into Europe was halted at the gates of Vienna, and then again in modern times when Islam got pushed around because Western Civ wanted its oil.”
Islam had every right to be ‘pissed-off’ about the western terrorism crusades during the Middle Ages into lands that were quite obviously not their own. A series of encounters which by all accounts may have been the beginning of the west’s long losing streak in such ill-thought-out endeavours that continues into the modern era. The Islamic response to the brutish behaviour of the west was to bring education in the form of reading, writing, mathematics and science to the mainly backward European hordes of savages, in the hope of taming them. It would perhaps have been a better plan to leave them alone. They would still be ‘wild men of the woods’, living primitive lives ’til today. Instead, they were given a ‘leg up’ the ladder of learning which brought about the curse of western imperialism. Ah well. It is easier to see that in hindsight, and Islam has paid the price ever since, for their gracious attempt to benefit the fortunes of undeserving others. A price they are still paying – but not for much longer. The west is in rapid decline while Islam is joining in with likeminded, non-aggressive, others – such as Russia and China, India, and soon Africa and Latin America. There is little hope the crumbling west will enjoy the capability of making a come-back from this decline or wield the kind of power they usurped in recent centuries, ever again.
Gloating over perceived but fading ‘entitlements’ is the sole remaining feature of past glory that ‘Western Civ’ still possesses. Let them write about it. That’s all they’ve got. That Islam ‘wants to wreck us, kill us, and take our stuff’ – is the only kind of fantasy the west can entertain itself with these days. And the ‘Zionist entity’, while I’ve not seen it described as a ‘crypto-insectile space alien’ elsewhere, is living on borrowed time. Its days of being an ‘entity’ of any kind are almost over.
I’m about done here now. Just time to observe that this age, this year, this month, is not a comedy. I’m pretty certain the real word for it is ‘tragedy’. Hope you make it through to the end. What comes next may be far better. I’m thankful that at least it won’t be ‘American’.
Not Something Else 
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