James H Kuntsler

James H Kuntsler wrote a book called "The Long Emergency", among others, in which he lays out the rather grim future before us if we don't get our act together. He also pretty well predicted the current financial fiasco we find ourselves in. I really like his no bullshit approach. He doesn't waste time promoting half measures but lays out the depth of change necessary to stave off the worst effects of the calamities coming down the pike. In this article over at Organic Consumers Association he offers a typically hard hitting analysis of the current corporate scam called the bailout.

"...we are witnessing the two stages of a tsunami. The current disappearance of wealth in the form of debts repudiated, bets welshed on, contracts cancelled, and Lehman Brothers-style sob stories played out is like the withdrawal of the sea. The poor curious little monkey-humans stand on the beach transfixed by the strangeness of the event as the water recedes and the sea floor is exposed and all kinds of exotic creatures are seen thrashing in the mud, while the skeletons of historic wrecks are exposed to view, and a great stench of organic decay wafts toward the strand. Then comes the second stage, the tidal wave itself -- which in this case will be horrific monetary inflation -- roaring back over the mud flats toward the land mass, crashing over the beach, and ripping apart all the hotels and houses and infrastructure there while it drowns the poor curious monkey-humans who were too enthralled by the weird spectacle to make for higher ground. The killer tidal wave washes away all the things they have labored to build for decades, all their poignant little effects and chattels, and the survivors are left keening amidst the wreckage as the sea once again returns to normal in its eternal cradle."

Whenever I need some no nonsense take no prisoners analysis of our current survival experiment I turn to either Mr. Kuntsler or Alex Smith over at Radio Ecoshock.