Paul Krugman’s March 14th NY Times essay “Betting the Bank“, should be a wake up call that the old American Fantasy of no limits & no consequences is not only an impossibly false proposition, for one it ignores the laws of thermodynamics, but it is also at the very heart of our imploding economy.

It strikes me that the only possibly way to find a reliable way out of the consequences of dysfunction in our core problem areas — economic, environmental, cultural, international, etc — is simply to begin to start telling ourselves the truth about where we are and how we got here.

For example, rampant, no limits, no consequences, free market extremism has gotten us into the extremely dangerous position we now find ourselves in. Just as surely, it simply can not be the solutions to the problems it has created. So what now?

Clearly, Dick Cheney to the contrary not with standing, “The American Way of Life” is not written in granite by lightening. It turns out to be fatally based upon the false premise that we could ignore the natural world which was, incredibly, assumed to be infinite. Thus the “American Dream”, more accurately “The American Fantasy”, is completely vulnerable to disruption, as we will surely find out soon enough. Unfortunately, the Corporatist party, which is now in power in Washington, DC, has no plan B. They only know and understand an American Fanatsy totally locked to cheap fossil energy. They offer no meaningful alternative visions. The alternative and affirmative visions are out there, but they get little exposure in the main stream media, MSM, or politics. They are too radical perhaps, but surely not as radical as global climate disruption.

Here are some simple steps with which we might begin the process of true and meaningful change today:

1. The recognition that we are now leaving behind the American Fantasy of a world of no limits and no consequences. That is, we need a NEW American Dream that fully accounts for limits, consequences, entropy, as well as the moral and ethical issues of distribution of benefits and consequences. The sad thing is that our current crop of presidential candidates in unwilling to tell this truth to us. “The American way of life is non-negotiable” is merely a reflection of the old guard’s desperate attempts to hold onto the fading fantasy at any cost.

2. The development of a NEW economics that fully incorporates entropy — as per the work of Georgescu-Roegen, the 1972 Club of Rome Limits to Growth, Jeremy Rifkin’s 1980 “Entropy: a New World View“, and Tom Wessels’ 2006 The Myth of Progress, etc.

3. Establish a goal for all of our activities to minimize entropy. I note that this more or less rules out liquid biofuels as currently produced.

4. Recognize the essential role that demand management has in any future that successfully addresses global climate disruption.

5. Spread the the meme that it is DISRUPTION and not change. Thus the proper name is Global Climate Disruption.

6. Question the assumption that “growth”, always based on entropy, is the only legitimate goal, metric, for economic, political or cultural activity. In 1972, The Club of Rome’s ‘Limits to Growth” was severely trashed because it dared to assert that there are limits to growth. This was too radical, too unorthodox, for the dominate Western meme historically locked to an absolute and unquestionable faith in growth. What other goals and metrics might an honest American Dream be based upon given what we inescapablely now know?

The simple fact is that, as I wrote above, “The American Way of Life” is not written in granite by lightening. It is utterly negotiable and it is completely vulnerable to disruption.

I am looking, therefore, for fresh political leadership that will dare to help us choose a new American Dream. I am looking for real leadership that will help us choose and embrace the time and place of real change, and its pain — the only way to reach our new dream.

We can no longer afford backwards looking political leadership, the rear view mirror sort, that only wants to help us keep our heads buried in the sands as if nothing was ever going to happen. Go Shopping. Be happy. This is all the choice the Corportists can offer us today. But wait until Disruption is done to you, if you believe the Corporatist line. This way lies folly.

On the other hand, we do have a choice. It will be far better to choose to tell ourselves the truth, accept the consequences, and engage pro-activley in our destiny. This way lies hope and opportunity with a possibility of redemption for the folly of our past ways.

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