Peak Oil Liberals

It would seem that as things currently stand, the leading "radical" voices in the Peak Oil community, e.g. Kunstler, Heinlein, Ruppert, Savinar, Orlov, still cannot bring themselves to the conclusion that the institutional breakdown they recognize and advocate includes the social institution of the industrial nation-state. There is a serious philosophical, ideological, political, and I would say, U.S.A.-centric, blind-spot at work here. The most ludicrous fringe of this philosophical non-position is, of course, that Papa Obama will fix all and mom, apple pie and baseball will be painlessly back on the agenda before we know it. Such pedestrian finger-painting is even evident amongst secessionists who have not yet worked through the paradox and political schizophrenia of attempting to be a "patriotic secessionist."

If the average person on the street is stopped and questioned as to from where stems his/her sense of nationalism, one might well be informed that it is a genetic pre-condition. That is, of course, nonsense. Nationalism is learnt behaviour, it is Pavlovian conditioning to the max.

Until such time as the disintegration of the industrial nation-state (in our case, the United States and Canada) is legitimately incorporated into the Peak Oil dialogue, then the Peak Oil movement remains a political skeleton, a sham and hoax, of what it could and must be.

You can't have it both ways. Massive and cheap energy flow-through over the last 150 years, with the guidance of capital, created the industrial nation-state. The lack and negation of same translates into the demise of said nation-state. To keep heads stuck in the sand around this eventuality merely chases the best of intentions into the herd of denial, but with oh such radical and progressive differentiations.