Monday, February 13, 2012

On The Edge with Max Keiser

As an experiment in unfettered communication, try discussing this interview (or anything else you want) on this Reddit thread. (BTW, Reddit has a happening subreddit: /r/collapse.)

6 comments:

Bukko Boomeranger said...

Good onya for being on Max's Iranian program, Kollapsnik. I love Keiser's and Stacy's thrice-weekly show on RT TV. In my part of Canada, we get the Russian news channel and al-Jazeera on our cable TV system. I don't think there are many places in the "land of the free" south of the border which have that privilege. While there is bias on RT and AJ, I find them to be less slanted than the corporate cheerleader American propaganewsda channels.

Coincidentally, I watched this clip later on a night when my wife and I had hosted a dinner for two high-school foreign exchange students in our neighbourhood. One from Hamburg, Germany, the other from where we used to live in Melbourne, Australia. We enquired whether either of them had plans to go to the United States, just 50 km from here. Neither one particularly cared to. The Aussie girl, a 15-year-old born-Down-Under Caucasian, did mention how she was fingerprinted and had to submit to a "face picture" (i.e. mug shot/retina scan) just because she was changing planes in Los Angeles on the way up here, not even intending to set foot out of the cordon sanitaire of the LAX's international zone. Surveillance state indeed!

I sent a copy of "Reinventing Collapse" that you autographed on your trip to Orcas Island to a left-wing blogger friend in the central part of Massachusetts. Although apparently talented and hard-working, this fellow has been unemployed for more than two years. The prosperity of which you speak does not extend to the hinterlands of your state, Kollapsnik. I fear that this fellow will snap in an angry left-wing way as the converse to how so many right-wingers have. I'm hoping he will take your advice on how to prepare for collapse -- learn how to grow some food, make more friends in the real world rather than just online, etc. It's late in the day, figuratively speaking, but any preparation is better than being blind-sided.

Meanwhile, my wife and I are preparing to re-immigrate to Australia. Canada is little more than an American colony with better health care and more politeness. When the Titanic next door goes down hard, it's going to pull this dinghy down with it.

Jay Denari said...

Hi,Dmitry,

Wish Keiser had let you talk more, but otherwise that was good. Had a few observations from what you said:
1. You're right about Facebook being "a time waster," but it's even more symbolic of our wretched state of affairs in that it's a huge fount of narcissism that plays right into the hands of the corporate marketers (the true beneficiaries of our surveillance apparatus).
2. While wars are indeed a "gigantic money waster," they actually ARE achieving goals, just not one that benefit US. They're enriching the folks who want the wars and facilitating the destruction of alternative ways of doing things.
3. Bay State prosperity is becoming more and more hollow, with high tech/biotech booming, but almost every other sector in tough shape. Likewise, some places THINK they are doing really well, but only maintain that ilusion by ignoring those only a few miles away who are openly hurting. Ironically, the hurting ones who need it most often haven't seen the need to stop playing the economy game and start recreating local food production & other skills, while some of the more "1st World" places (esp. in the Pioneer Valley) are taking steps that way. That's what scares me most about collapse: Most of our towns can't support themselves and will resist seeing reality until it bites HARD. They're totally in love with BAU as they understand it -- an abusive relationship at best.
That leads right to:
4. The "pile-up" of the collapse phases: Yeah, we're seeing that in slow motion, but we can also see some phases hitting in different orders in some places. My town has been in commercial collapse for some time and heavily dependent on state aid, but the local banks are stable and, with only one "major" one, Sovereign [the rest are small MA-only entities, I think], they were largely insulated from the blatant criminality of 2008.
5. You describe the US as "a synthetic entity." 100% right; it's as manufactured as was the Roman Empire, bound together largely by symbols and borrowed ideas, but nothing that really constitutes a culture. Like Rome, I suspect we'll collapse into a bunch of ministates that will develop their own cultures over time (if we avoid nuclear holocaust).

Do you ever do shows for local cable access? Ours is trying to bring in a lot of new stuff, so there's an opportunity to get the word out...

UncommonBusiness said...

You'll probably find this interesting, Dmitry. Poor America (BBC documentary)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ME8XhkOGzOs&feature=youtu.be

sami said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dmitry Orlov said...

There is a way to email me directly. See the Contact section in the right column.

Daro said...

Hello,

I just discovered you thanks to your appearance on Max Keiser. Good. I like your writing and concur almost completely with your analysis. Hope to buy your book soon.