doom letter #23

I have just read two posts(?) on the Huffington Post – bleh. But I tend to pick the low-hanging fruit in my pursuit for news these days, and I am just looking for something to link to so that you don’t think I am making this up. The first story is about Obama opening coastlines up to oil exploration. The second story is about how Obama has hiked vehicle fuel efficiency standards. You can read liberal or conservative takes on either move, or you can consume conspiracies about how they work together just about anywhere online. But, what you will not find anywhere but here is my take on this, not because no one else would publish my writing but because I am so awesome I only want to self-publish my insights on a blog that next to no one reads. It is absolute genius if you take my word for it and don’t think about it…

After first encountering both of these stories, I started thinking about what they mean politically. How can there still be any real progressive support for Obama? He made health care a priority and now that he did something with that he is on to other priorities. See how I didn’t get into my opinion on health care right there? That wasn’t easy. But here is a president that rode a wave of popularity into a job at one of the most difficult moments in the history of the presidency. If Obama finishes two terms, I have no doubt that by the end of it Americans will recognize that their standard of living peaked and is in decline. Unfortunately for Obama, he will likely get blamed for it and it is not his fault. There is simply too much shit coming in his direction to overcome given the weakness of his political support within his party – which is justified.

Politically, these decisions will alienate any environmentalist support he had left after going nuclear a couple of months ago. I don’t know how any honest environmentalist can see an ally in this president. If the argument is only “at least he is better than” some alternative, then they are not honest. But this may make him look more reasonable to average dumb-fuck Americans. The question that remains politically is will he be able to win over enough dumb fucks to keep his job for another 8 years? I have no idea because I thought America was way too racist to nominate and elect him in the first place.

With the political part of my brain satisfied, I now wonder how these decisions impact medium/long term energy policies for the country. As a peak oil theorist, I am not crazy about immediately exploiting oil reserves offshore simply to prop up America’s way of life for a very short period. Oil is so under-valued economically and strategically though that it does not surprise me. There are high level members of Obama’s administration that are aware of the ramifications of peak oil, so I am sure he has been advised about peak oil. But he is going about this all wrong because he needs to let America know explicitly that the country’s economy is in permanent decline and we need to retool ourselves in order to even have a hope of surviving the big market squeeze that peak oil will inevitably create with anything resembling our modern culture. We are the problem. We are the consumers of way too much. More than our share, and it is now obvious more than we can actually afford.

The moves still deserve some recognition, even if they are misguided and insufficient in the face of the problem. And it is for this reason that I wonder whether Obama is just another full-o-shit politician that will say what he thinks it takes to get voted in all the while winking knowingly to his corporate sponsors or if he is at least somewhat genuine in his political beliefs but is stuck trying to make people happy that put the scratch together for his campaign? I think he is a sell out, I don’t trust anyone who accepts the sort of nonsense that he has accepted personally and professionally. But I am willing to entertain the idea that he is a pragmatic man trying to figure out how to lead a citizenry with overinflated senses of self-worth.

Time will tell, but at least from a peak oil point of view, something is happening here and now other than business as usual.

boat drinks,

mike mayberry