Just listened to the WORT stream of A Public Affair…with Nicole Foss, Dmitri Orlov, James Kunstler, Richard Heinberg and Noam Chomsky… what a killer lineup…. what a disappointment…. not so much for what they said or didn't have a chance to say… but more for the inept handling of the discussion…. and that's not a total insult on the MC for having all those "long of tooth" luminaries on an hour show would be a feat for the best host, but his level of preparedness for this interview was appalling… He could just let em dialog… instead he felt compelled to put his 2 cents worth in… even if can out 3 cents short and completely clueless.
What would have been nice were to have let the panel of luminaries discuss the future and simply make sure they all got a chance to talk and the subject kept focus…. ah well at least they did have quality airtime to cover an important subject…
so to address the content… I thought Nicole presented best, followed by Heinberg and Orlov. They verbalized the issues with the most clarity though at times I wondered if they spoke with more density than the listener could retain. Chomsky suffered for not being online for the beginning so his statement was askew from the tangent and he'd likely have pitched it differently were he listening to the first statements. Kunstler came off a bit the pessimistic know-it-all with an attitude. I know he's not, but that was my take-home. His confrontational attitude earned him little airtime. I do think Chomsky had a valid point that if there is 100 years of Oil left for the USA we've got perhaps even bigger problems with hegemony and its consequences than merely Peak Oil.
Imagine the world facing a crisis of scarcity vs the world facing brutal US Hegemony. At least in collective crisis people will rise up to their higher selves…. that's not true if the US just starts killing off entire populations of people to decrease the surplus population and control the dwindling resources.
Chomsky might be onto something… I've long wondered about the thousands of wells that have been capped off with no oversight… if Big Oil wanted to hide substantial oil deposits for safe-keeping, it merely caps off a drill hole and keeps its rights in tact. We've no oversight to determine the wells are actually dry do we?
Back to the rest of the show, it was great to have several like-minded speakers who were all on-point with each other (even if the MC was clueless)… for as heady as their subject matter was (and our MC even commented on the apparent hopelessness) they all presented it in such a way to bring encouragement to the upcoming "truth" rather than pessimism. Thats where my head is at… the facts about collapse can be shellacked-over by those wishing to keep the public on the dark till the collapse, but very soon they're going realize the truth and most will not have a chair when the music stops.
And whether Chomsky was right that the US was holding some aces in their sleeves or not, the world is going to be faced with some apocalyptic challenges… wish they had a second hour to really debate… What say?
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