I am looking at my podcast browser and see that James Howard Kunstler has really gone off the deep end with his anti vaccine stuff
I am looking at my podcast browser and see that James Howard Kunstler has really gone off the deep end with his anti vaccine stuff. I don’t like smug liberals and their over the top advocacy of vaccines and muzzles as a lifestyle but some of that conspiracy shit is just so werid.
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It’s true. I have followed Kunstler for years. Back in the day, I really enjoyed his incisive commentaries on the unsustainable nature of our happy-motoring, suburban development model in the United States. I didn’t always agree with him, but he had a lot of thought-provoking things to say about our small town and urban development models, and the future of a society that relied so heavily on diminishing petroleum resources.
That was then. Over the last six years or so, Kunstler has (as you say) gone off the deep end into stolen-election conspiracy theories, “deep state” paranoia, and weirdly bizarre arguments that the COVID vaccines are not only ineffective (WTF?), but that they are some sort of deep state conspiracy to kill people (WTF?) and to exert some control over the masses (What the F*cking F*ck?).
JHK has really gone around the bend. He is bitter, angry, and paranoid, and his webpage has become a hotbed for similarly bitter, angry, and paranoid (mostly) white men.
Meanwhile, one need only take a look at his annual “predictions for the coming year” that he posts on his website. Besides the fact that they document his paranoia, roughly 95% of his “predictions” (usually of the end-is-coming nature) have demonstrably been wrong. You’d think his readers would temper their enthusiasm for his worldview based on his consistently inaccurate predictions. But they don’t. It’s become a weird, cult-like, mutually reinforcing crowd of scary racists and end-timers on his comment page. I feel like I need a shower any time I make the mistake of even GOING there.
So sad to see a man who used to have some worthwhile things to say no longer have anything worthwhile to say.
Yep, I used follow JHK too & I read many of his books, but like Chris Martenson, he went off the deep end. Maybe there is more money to be made catering to this conspiracy crowd? but regardless… he is now a member of bizarro world.
I loved Mr. Kunstler’s takes on architecture, suburbia, and peak oil. I was glad to find a guy with a brain who affirmed my suspicions about the way our petroleum-based culture was going. Then he said a bunch of stuff about African-Americans and Trans people. Well, okay. I don’t have to agree with everything James says. Then he voted for Trump. Well, okay. I don’t have to agree with everything James does. I had several cordial email exchanges with Mr. Kunstler. I didn’t challenge him because If I did, he’s the type of guy who would tell you to F off. Nowadays, James is pandering to the MAGA crowd. He demands a return to decency and propriety. Meanwhile, he calls his blog Clusterf*ck nation and swears like a sailor when it serves him. I get the sense he thinks it’s okay for him, but not for his inferiors — blacks, liberals, leftists, trans people, and probably you and me.
Found your site specifically searching on this topic. It is shocking to see a guy I thought was a fresh thinker 20 years ago, turn into a covid-denying weirdo. I’m middle of the road, not left, and from the middle here I see he’s in the right ditch. I don’t get it; I wish I knew what happened. A lot of times guys go this route after a bad divorce. Wish we could get him back.