“Palestine is not Ukraine. If America intervenes directly, all American locations in the region will become legitimate targets of the resistance axis and will face our attacks. And on this day there will be no red line left.” - Hezbollah Official Statement

By James Howard Kunstler - October 9, 2023

You know, of course, that the CIA’s job is to detect sinister doings in other countries, especially as they might affect our own country. Looks like they missed something lately in the spook-filled space between Iran and Israel. Do you suppose they’re too busy running Facebook? And their domestic companion, the FBI, has been working overtime for years now, between their mighty labors concocting RussiaGate and the current program to root out election deniers and other seditious riffraff — while millions of sketchy mutts from here, there, and everywhere in the world scuttle over our border with Mexico and decant across our fruited plains — with assistance, you understand, from our own border officials — and, yet, no questions asked. Here’s a free phone and an auto-refilling debit card. Have a nice day in Skokie, Plattsburgh, or wherever! And don’t forget to send in your court appearance forms by the 2030 deadline!

So, it came as a big surprise when southern Israel was overrun by Hamas dudes in tricked-out pickup trucks and para-gliders on Saturday, who carried home hundreds of nubile young women to have sport with, after slaughtering hundreds more people of all ages, like rampaging bronze age Philistines. That fresh enormity is, shall we say, quite a ways from resolution at this time. I’ll tell you what will be an even bigger surprise, though: when some organized unit of those aforesaid mutts of unknown origin who snuck across our border sets off something like a dirty bomb in New York, Los Angeles, or Washington DC. Or takes over a nuclear power station. Or… well, I wouldn’t want to put any ideas in a bad actor’s head. But you get the picture, I’m sure.

So, we’re in something that smells like uncharted territory this autumn Monday, and events are galloping faster than anyone can process. The scene looks a little bit like World War Three. At least any child of twelve could game it out that way in three easy steps. Say, the chief mullah in Teheran issues some crude remark about how Israel had it coming, yadda yadda … and the IDF forthwith fires a cruise missile up his qabaa… and next thing you know, so many mushroom clouds rise over the Levant that it looks like a shitake farm.

All this while the USA struggles to restore its political mental health after years of domestic abuse at the hands of our own government. A big question here is what kind of correction will it require to straighten out that abusive government… or can anything at all avail before having to shred the whole goshdarn operation and start over? Quien sabe? (As they say in Plattsburgh nowadays.)

I’m confident that Congress will sort out this new Speaker business in short order, now that the world appears to light up. But what of its current projects? For instance, the inquiry into the darkish business ventures of the Biden Family, Inc., and what to do about it? That look-see is tending toward a picture that shows an appalling connection between the Bidens’ lustful chasing of global main chances and the horrifying demolition of Ukraine currently ongoing. If it’s not already obvious to a majority of USA adults that “Joe Biden,” the cats-paw in the White House, must go, it will be in a matter of weeks as the bank records step into the spotlight and speak for themselves.

Are you ready for President Kamala and government-by-word-salad? E.g.: “It’s very important, as you’ve heard from so many incredible leaders, for us at every moment in time, and certainly this one, to seize the moment of time in which we exist, in our present, and be able to contextualize it, understand where we exist in history and in the moment as it relates not only to the past but the future,” she said. Doctoral dissertations will be penned explicating that mouthful for years to come (where and whenever those years might be located on time’s mystifying spectrum).

As for Congress and its grim duties, there is also the matter of the current laughable budget resolution running out again just before Thanksgiving. Work to do! The USA is in such a desperate debt and bond issuance dilemma that it’s like a trapped wild animal faced with having to chew off its own leg to escape death. And the cause of that dilemma is our legislature’s failure to control the nation’s spending. As America’s Venerable Bede, Sen. Everett Dirksen (d. 1969) used to say: “A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you’re talking about real money.” Well, that game is drawing to a close. Reality is finally asserting its rugged old self to say that our country is as broke as broke can be and there has to be a painful adjustment. It will be presented as a Hobson’s choice: you can have no money… or you can have plenty of money that’s worthless. What’s it gonna be?

I’d guess that . . .

[SNIP]