Kunstler's First Chapter

I started The Long Emergency last night and made it through the first chapter. He's frustrating because he has some good points, but also has a few passages that are so outlandish they are scoffable.

On the first page, he writes, "It is my view, for instance, that in the decades to come the national government wil prove to be so impotent and ineffective in managing the enormous
vicissitudes we face that the United States may not survive as a nation in any meaningful sense but rather will devolve into a set of autonomous regions."

Uh huh.

Then there is this great bit on page 8: "How long might the Long Emergency last? A generation? Ten generations? A millennium? Ten millennia? Take your choice. Of course, after awhile, an emergency becomes the norm and is no longer an emergency."

SayWA? Ten millennia? So we'll still be wrestling with all this in 12008? We only have 5,000 years or so of recorded history, so suggesting we know anything about what we might face twice that length into the future is pretty funny. Even the single millennium guess is funny when you think about it.

As I said there are some good parts in here, but his more fanciful passages make it hard to take.