Let's just call it "The Long Emergency"

Kunstler's book "The Long Emergency" is a fascinating read. It is about the effects of oil depletion, but reads with the ease and engagement of a great summer, apocalypse novel. I recommend it because, while he is an alarmist, there are times when alarm is the sane and appropriate response.

That's my preface to saying one of Kunstler's biggest contributions is the title. I've been thinking about what the right name for the current era should be. Great Depression 2, and The Great Recession, don't quite fit. Neither reflect enough anxiety. They imply that this is a retread crisis. Something we lived through before as a nation. It's the 70s or the 30s all over again. I am not at all convinced this is true. I can't pinpoint exactly why. My guess: the advent of the culture of entitlement changes the social dynamic drastically.

This entitlement culture is evident in all social strata, from BofA/Merrill Lynch looting tax payer money to single mothers willy nilly bringing 8 children into the world while on the public dole. The biggest sports story in L.A. for the past 2 weeks has been the multi million dollar negotiations between a baseball player and the Dodgers. It is reported with the seriousness of a city wide crisis. Meanwhile, California itself is effectively insolvent. Entitlement has distorted our thinking and priorities beyond recognition.

We've never been so dependent on a vast infrastructure for our survival- while at the same time being utterly disconnected from it. Does anyone, but a precious few, have the foggiest notion how beef gets to the supermarket? Or gas gets to the station? Or drugs get the pharmacy? Mostly on credit, that's how. If credit is the crisis then we are in for many more shocks in the months and years ahead. In other words, The Long Emergency may be here.

We've come to assume that they ways things are are the way they will always be. At the same moment entitlement has overtaken our national psyche. This is a lethal combination.

I have no way of knowing how the economy plays out (I wish mightily I did).Many of those who, a few years ago, screamed in corners - and were ignored - about the coming debacle have been proven mostly correct. Some of these same folks are now intoning about coming social upheaval. As I do with all secular doomsaying I cut the predictions in half and take that as a possibility.

(Doomers not in the grip of a religious dogma can be just as kooky- if not worse - than the Christian Apocaliptos.

Do you like "Apocaliptos"? I do - and I think I just made it up. I am a bit of an Apocalipto, myself.

Apocalipto: One who has a chronic believe that things are worse than they appear and that the end is near. And is quite possibly hiding under the bed right now. But unlike Luddites and survivalists, an Apocalyptos' pessimism is tempered by whimsy about the whole predicament that is often viewed as cavalier - but is, in fact, a deep, reflexive belief that things work out in the end - even if society collapses, and everyone is reduced to canned Spam, and Bones and South Park no longer exist because TV studios become pasture land...again...)

Major breakdowns in our assumptions are here. Major breakdowns in the social order are a real possibility. We should, at the very least, think current realities through to all possible outcomes. Trust me, some are doing just that. At any rate, entitlement will have to be unlearned.

I believe anxiety will be at the core of our lives for the next few years. Adjusting to this long emergency must begin...yesterday.