David. This stuff is only thought-provoking if you enjoy pseudo-intellectual fantasy masturbation about living like cavemen. Every few sentences Orlov says something that is either completely wrong, utterly unfounded, or off the wall fantasy.

And yet, we see his nonsense strewn across supposedly intelligent liberal-lefty blogs. It's pure apocalyptic/deathwish shit, and if it was done by Glenn Beck - whose equally well-founded work is done for the Right - you'd be going ape on it. It's the same emotional impulse - people with a longing for collapse/death/starting over. You're Mr Genius Cultural Commentator, and yet you can't even see this? If some Baptist idiot babbled this sort of nonsense, you'd be all over it, looking for Murdoch's fingerprints or somesuch.

Try this from your Orlov selection: 

"It is rather unusual for democracy (of the legalistic Western kind) to succeed where stomachs are empty. One normally expects a beer putsch or two, a Kristallnacht and perhaps a Reichstag on fire."

Really? Is that what one expects? A KRISTALLNACHT? I donno, lemme check the last, Ohhhh 235 years or so of Western democracy, and see how many of those we've had.

It's an asinine Beckian kindof statement, and he's got nothing under it. 

And then he says this, "Just this slight Libyan kerfuffle has pushed oil prices over the threshold which the International Energy Agency has recently defined as the threshold beyond which Western economies crumble, which is when oil expenditure consumes over 5% of GDP." Really? Is that what they say? Crumble? When they crumble, do they crumble into dust, or just small bits of gravel? Or is Orlov talking out his ass? And do they say 5%? Or 3%? Or what is it? and are prices really up over that crumbling mark? And is there nothing else we can do, at all, to manage our energy use - or is it just rocks and berries from here on out? 

I swear to God, this shit has invaded lefty sites and it's like arguing with children. They throw one ill-informed factoid after another at you, piling them up into a huge stinking apocalyptic heap,m and they seem to have no idea that their stuff is a perfect parallel to what the nutbar Christian Right is saying on all its shows. AND HAS SAID SINCE 1969.

To me, when people start in on this, it's like watching them reveal the most embarrassing emotional incapacity. "I can't deal with life, and so.... the world must be ending." It's exactly the sort of shit we hurl insults at the Fundamentalists for. 

I love Orlov's fabulous conclusions as well. Watch how he works this stuff. "This crumbling process will redirect all remaining energies (physical as well as mental) inward, to prevent or contain internal revolt, with precious little to spare for Libya or any other foreign adventure. For a little while yet we will get to watch the world burn on a variety of fashionably small electronic devices. But sooner than you might think the tweets and the video feeds will cease and the screen will go dark, as it already has in Libya."

So.... there we are. ALL our remaining energies go to managing internal revolt. (Not just 98% - but "all.") The world burns. (Is the world actually burnable? What if it crumbled to gravel instead of dust? Cause dust can burn, but gravel, I donno.) Screens go dark. (Well, at least there's some relief from having to read shitty blogs.) And why is all this happening that again David? Because oil prices rose to $100? And what was the math on that all again? You know, the % of GDP?

Drivel. People should stop showing us their diapers and keep this shit off our screens. Or should I start bringing the Beck show in for viewings daily. 

Don't answer that David. I'm sure you'd be happy if we all spent our days playing with our poo.