"Scanning the papers every day I find evidence enough for my thesis to fill many columns -- usually in short articles crammed into the middle of the business section and not covered at all on broadcast news. But it's enough to observe how many feel comforted that gas prices have temporarily dipped to the levels of late August -- though in late August, everybody thought gas prices were outrageous. What was outrageous in August is comforting in November.

"That's the behavior of people attempting to acclimate to an ongoing, growing crisis. An emergency that isn't going away. The defining feature of that emergency, at present, is this: We are on our own.

"Emotional push-button issues and ideological obsessions constitute almost the whole of the federal agenda. No attention is being paid to what is necessary. Neither the White House nor Congress gives more than lip service to issues upon which our future depends. Energy, transport, global warming, education, health care, subsidies, scientific research, sustainable agriculture, infrastructure upkeep and modernization, state-of-the-art communication, manufacturing capacity -- at the federal level, you will find almost nothing concrete, nothing useful, nothing that addresses root problems. It is government by, for, and of the lobbyists, as even Peggy Noonan admits. Hurricane Katrina demonstrated, and Iraq every day confirms, that the powers-that-be are dysfunctional. We are on our own."

"A most important fact of our situation was shoved back to page 5 of The New York Times' business section on Oct. 1: 'Since the end of 2000... federal debt is up by $1.1 trillion. American investors, as a group, have lent not one penny of that.' Almost all that money has been lent by foreign entities. This means that the USA no longer owns itself. Not only are we on our own, but as a nation, we are owned.

"When the emergency heightens and we are more helpless, foreign investment will dry up. Our government will have far less money. One can always depend on governmental stupidity: All available monies will pour into the military first, nothing second, everything else third. Education, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and other programs upon which many depend will be crippled or let go. Not in rhetoric, but in practice. For most things, federal regulation and enforcement will exist only on paper. That will be good and bad.

"As we-the-people realize that many laws and regulations can no longer be enforced (because there's no money and therefore no manpower for enforcement), we will dutifully fill out the paperwork and cleverly (or not) make arrangements of our own. On a local level, America will become the Ad-Hoc Nation. The Improvised Nation. Where we-the-people are resourceful that will work very well -- better than now. In other places, not so well. Elsewhere, it will be a disaster. It will all come back to the fact that we're on our own."

Michael Ventura, from his "Letters at 3 AM" for The Austin Chronicle