Japan and the Apocalypse Fetishist's Dark, Twisted Fantasy

ZOMGOM — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 21:25:17 +0000

Last week’s earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear catastrophe in Japan is a wretched saga of human misery, resulting in an unthinkable loss of life and destruction of material. The Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, the Haiti earthquake, recent quakes in China, Iran and Turkey, and flooding in Pakistan all rank among the deadliest natural disasters of the past twenty years. More than 300,000 people perished in the earthquake that devastated Haiti in 2010, and the 2004 earthquake and tsunami killed more than 200,000 in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand. Not accounting for the far-reaching effects of exposure to nuclear radiation, the death toll in Japan hopefully will not exceed 20,000. To be sure, this is an unfathomable and appalling number, but a far cry from being among the world’s most destructive natural disasters. The difference between the earthquakes in Japan and Haiti, of course, is largely due to infrastructure, building codes, and government services. Haiti was, and still is, among the world’s least developed nations, whereas Japan is perhaps the most technologically advanced. Haiti is mired in the 18^th century, while Japan has helped defined much of the 20^th and 21^st centuries. That a natural disaster could bring such an efficient and developed country to its knees should serve as stark reminder that society, no matter how advanced, is an extremely fragile thing. It’s for this reason that Japan has become the apocalypse fetishist’s dark, twisted fantasy.

No sooner had the quake rocked Japan and caused radiation to spew from the overheating Fukushima plant that American commentators began to wax ecstatic about the potential for a similar disaster to occur in California. Various publications of varying levels of legitimacy produced articles with fun titles like “The Scariest Earthquake Is Yet To Come” that reach dire conclusions:

“All know that the San Andreas Fault is due to rupture one day — it last did so in 1906, and strains have built beneath it to a barely tolerable level. To rupture again, with unimaginable consequences for the millions who live above it, some triggering event has to occur. Now three events have occurred that might all be regarded as triggering events. There are in consequence a lot of thoughtful people in the American West who are very nervous indeed — wondering, as they often must do, whether the consent that permits them to inhabit so pleasant a place might be about to be withdrawn, sooner than they have supposed.”

The article, which originally ran in Newsweek on March 13, also appeared in The Week the next day under the heading: Japan’s Quake: Why California is Next. Now, no one doubts that the San Andreas fault will strike again. The “Big One” is perhaps the most enduring apocalypse story during my tenure on the planet, especially since the threat of nuclear annihilation receded after the Cold War ended. The question is what motivates a major periodical like Newsweek to engage in such blatant fear-mongering. The answer, it seems, is no more complex than the old newspaper adage “if it bleeds, it leads”, except expanded to fit the engorged scope of the 24-hour news cycle. Sensationalism sells. This much is clear. The article in questions sits atop the “Popular on Newsweek” list, which one can assume means it receives more hits than any other article. The top five spots on The Week’s “Most Read” list are worth nothing:

Japan’s Quake: Why California is next
What happens if a Japan-sized earthquake hits California?
Could a ‘Super Moon’ cause climate chaos?
California radiation panic: 6 key questions
Why is there no looting in Japan?

The apocalypse pornographer’s grimy fingerprints are all over this list. Fear, anxiety, chaos, panic, looting – these are the trademarks of the apocalypse fetish industry. The writers, editors, and publishers who publish this kind of work will attempt to justify their actions by claiming to inform the public about an impending threat, but such an argument is nonsense. The motivations of the reading public, an equally guilty party in this macabre dance, are far less clear. One of the primary functions of this blog is to find the answer to that riddle. The goal is to uncover what exactly the American public hopes to accomplish by fetishizing the collapse of civilization and its own demise.

The Much Ballyhooed Municipal Bondpocalyse

ZOMGOM — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 02:17:05 +0000

Municipal bonds are not something I planned to write about, nor is it a topic which I am particularly inclined or qualified to discuss. Not that those criteria ever stopped many so-called experts or doomsayers from offering their two cents, but I feel it necessary to offer this caveat because my lack of interest is the reason I’m writing about it. Municipal bond defaults, or the inability of city governments to repay loans to investors, is perhaps the hottest topic among those looking for the next domino to fall. The latest flurry began when Meredith Whitney, a financial analyst, predicted that between fifty and one hundred municipal governments would default on bonds to the tune of $200 billion and plunge the economy straight back into the dark days of 2008-09. While this issues affects everyone, I am don’t particularly care about the strengths and weakness of the debate or the people participating in it. For the purposes of this blog, I’m concerned with the attention given to it in the media. Mrs. Whitney made her name by trashing Citigroup in a report and becoming a stock price guru – she made a lot of cash in the process. My first, perhaps cynical, thought is that she needs to continue making dire predictions because that’s what made her Google’s top ranked Meredith. You don’t kill the golden goose, even when the eggs are rotten with despair. The market dictates that doom-and-gloom is a good way to sell books and become a star. Everyone would like to be the next Nouriel Roubini or Nassim Taleb, or to have their bank accounts.

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Japan and the Apocalypse Fetishist's Dark, Twisted Fantasy

The Much Ballyhooed Municipal Bondpocalyse