entering the age of oil depletion

It's "the end of the cheap oil fiesta."

Not the apocalypse, but "epochal discontinuity" --- that's how author James Howard Kunstler sees our not-too-distant future. In an interview with Salon's Katharine Mieszkowski, he says some drastic changes in lifestyle are going to be this generation's major challenge, and they've already begun.

Because oil is the foundation of the global economy, and oil production will imminently peak, the next couple of decades may bring some changes we really don't want to think about.

Which is why smart politicians don't bring it up. As Kunstler puts it, "Americans will vote for cornpone Nazis before they will give up their entitlements to a McHouse and a McCar."

"The dirty secret of the American economy for more than a decade now is that it is largely based on the continued creation of suburban sprawl and all its accessories and furnishings."

He also expounds on his view of the takedown of Saddam Hussein:

The Iraq war is not hard to understand. It wasn't an attempt to steal Iraq's oil. If that was the case, it would have been a stupid venture because we've spent hundreds of billions of dollars occupying the place, not to mention the lives lost. It was not a matter of stealing the oil; it was a matter of retaining access to it. It was an attempt to stabilize the region of the world that holds two-thirds of the remaining oil, namely, the Middle East.

We opened a police station in the Middle East, and Iraq just happened to be the best candidate for it. They had a troublesome dictator. They were geographically located between Iran and Saudi Arabia. So we went to Iraq to moderate and influence the behavior of the two countries --Iran and Saudi Arabia -- that are so important to us. We desperately wanted the oil supplies to continue coming out of them in a reliable way. So the Iraq venture was all about stabilizing the Middle East.

And that, in my view, is the only factor that makes the Shrub pro-Israel, as well. What we have here is a lovely and secure little oasis that's just perfect for your friendly "neighborhood" U.S. military installations. For the purpose of protecting oil interests, not Jewish interests.

Not that Jews in Israel aren't every bit as interested in maintaining their fossil-fuel-based lifestyle as the ones in America.

In his new book, "The Long Emergency," Kunstler says that "avoiding starvation will replace avoiding boredom as the national pastime" ... and that's the upside. That, and being forced by circumstance to "work closely with other people on things that really matter to us."

He notes that, "New ideas are often greeted in three stages. First, they're ridiculed. Second, they're violently opposed. And finally they're accepted as self-evident."

Not surprising, considering how much in denial we all want to be about this. It may well be felt first in America, but the fleas on that part of the dog will shortly be biting the rest of us too.