An interesting post found on the Peak Oil News site describes one observers view of  the early stages of cultural contraction and petro-collapse on American culture. Barring some amazing, rapidly scalable liquid fuel solution, our energy intensive, wasteful society is basically shitting the bed.

 Stick a fork in it --- America's addiction to waste and imported dead dinosaur piss is bringing our society to it's knees. Our standard of living is now ranked 11th in the world, and falling fast. The only thing the United States is No.1 at these days is torture, incarceration, green house gas production and military throw weight. Drilling down through mounds of human flesh in other lands,the bodies of non-combatant women and children piled high, our addiction has made us into a culture of cruelty, where the Geneva Conventions and international law have lost all meaning. Bush and Cheney have revived Nazi dreams of world domination, and painted them red, white and blue. USA, USA, USA !!!! And,  after delivering us to the Gates of Hell, we can only say, " Nice job, assholes", as we scurry, in a hurry, to hoard food and fuel for the  "Long Emergency ".

Good luck with all that.



"Well, here it is folks --- the great unraveling so many of us have been forecasting during the last five years as we've read the tea leaves and researched the unprecedented convergence of myriad natural, political, economic, and environmental realities. As most of you know, I'm traveling, yes on the road, across this country. I was going to wait until arriving at my final destination before writing about my experience, but with oil rapidly heading for $ 200 a barrel, it feels important to do so sooner rather than later because our lives have just changed more dramatically than we can imagine, and we will only be able to comprehend to what extent as the repercussions of the end of the age of oil reverberate through what is left of industrial civilization.

In my travels, I've seen exactly one RV on the road, a few SUV's and vans, a number of small cars and motorcycles, and lots of eighteen- wheelers going 55 mph. Motels have a record low number of guests, and few people are eating in restaurants. I thought about writing an article entitled " Ghost Town USA : Echo Across America ", but that was before oil reached a record $135 yesterday. The speed of collapse is taking even a seasoned collapse -watcher like me by somewhat of a surprise, and I feel compelled to talk about it as it unfolds in this moment.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of what we are witnessing - and there are oh so many, is the ubiquitousness of blame. Attending almost every report of skyrocketing gas prices is the question : " So whose fault is it ? " I certainly am not surprised by this, but I find it unsettling to say the least. Because Americans in particular have been absolutely recalcitrant and incapable of looking at collapse, they are being and will continue to be increasingly blindsided by it. Sadly, when human beings are traumatized, their functioning becomes progressively more primal and animal-like, and their capacity for taking in and assimilating new information is markedly reduced. "

 ... Atlantic Free Press, May 24, posted by Leanan


The last passage perfectly describes the typical McCain voter, clinging desperately to outmoded attitudes and racial identity politics. " Gee, Grandpa McCain sure looks like me, and he's telling us that we can drill our way to the future. "

 Sure, tell us some more fairy stories, Gramps, about how we are the shining city on the hill, admired by all, a chosen people without fault, unbound by any limits. McCain is just an angry faced, old warmonger, his tired old ideas the last low hanging, rotten fruit of " conservatism", his candidacy a sure sign that American petro-culture has entered a terminal stage of collapse, identified by a lack of new thinking and meaningful, timely responses to the massive crisis now engulfing us all.

This is what you get when you let two oil men run the country for seven years : your abdomen strapped to an oil barrel, while porcine oil executives ream your colon with a splintered broom handle and piss on your naked backside.

So it goes.