It's becoming horrible obvious to me that America is not in a good state. Here in Britain things are grim but we're holding it together. The new taxes, ration system and immigration laws are harsh, there's been protests but there's nowhere near the level of chaos and violence I've been seeing reported all across America (muggings here in Columbus, armies gathering bases in Maine, the conspiracy-filled bombing in LA, riots in Seattle.)

Some people like rdy2rte and drewkitty are reporting more positive things (drew, I'm amazed at your bravery) but generally I feel totally overwhelmed by the level of chaos we're seeing on the BBC news - and that's from the areas they've got reports from. It's like will without oil is saying: Whilst Brown's new government here quickly made some hard decisions to keep us afloat, the US government still seems to be suffering from the same problems it was before any of this began; corruption, indecision and lobbyist-induced bending of the facts...

It reminds me of this DailyKos post before the crisis, talking about the horrible problems with American democracy in the 00s. The quote that stood out was:

'Seven years ago a Turkish friend of mine said that America would have a civil war within 20 years. I was shocked that she would say this. I tried to convince her that the checks and balances built into our system would prevent that from happening.I could not have been more wrong. Now, it scares me to think how close we came or are to that. Even though it feels like the tide is changing, we're not out of the woods yet.We are in Constitutional Crisis now; the Constitutional Confrontation is yet to come.'

it seems the writer's Turkish friend may have been right - talks of civil war aren't as crazy now, nearly 5 months on from the first oil price increases. With people talking about the alberta oil field conflict and even talks of a potential new COUNTRY called Cascadia, things are getting really weird. It's all muddled what we receive over here but in class a lot of people were talking.

"Have you heard about Cascadia?" one of my new classmates in biology said, "I hear they're trying to break away from the US or something?"

"Don't be silly," another one replied " the government's just going to do what they did in LA and drop another bomb on anyone that gets out of line..."

The conspiracy theories are endless. I was just happy to be back at college (I chose to do Biology, chemistry and *shudder* maths - me and greg sat down and worked out which would be the best for any kind of career. Of course, now I'm back in school looking to learn after all this news and all anyone can talk about is the crisis...

things here are much likeEnglish village has been talking about - lots and lots of police, some dodgy people lurking. Some people are very unhappy - One of the tescos near us has been bought out by its local managers and is now a 'Bristol groceries' Shop. Other big companies like Mcdonalds and HMV are floundering - McDonalds closed weeks ago with various notices about lack of ingredients, whereas most of the music shops are slowly disappearing with the new music downloading system. A lot of people are saying that Movies and Tv might head the same way but it hasn't happened in a big way yet, not like with mp3s. David's beaming all the time because he can download games for much cheaper than they used to be - although I'll bet it's mostly old or simple games they're releasing, I can't see many massive budgets around at the moment.

Greg is also a happy man. Since we moved in with him his alternative power gadget company has been raking in cash - some people are profiting from the crisis. He's actually got a big raise - practically unheard of in this day and age! The company's trying to setup more local co-opted manufacturers as mass producing in china doesn't look so hot anymore. Greg's been assigned a task to find a few handymen in the South West that can build some of these gadgets to distribute locally. He celebrated by spending a fortune on a side of beef - using up most of our restricted item rations in the process. It tasted gorgeous after so many days without meat.

[author note - week 18. That DailyKos post is actually from today. It's worth looking at. There are some very troubling matters in US politics at the moment that might not even need an oil crisis to start a major breakdown.]