I wonder if any of us older folk here remember beefalo?

Beefalo was a product of the Permanent Meat Shortage.

“HUH,” everyone replies.

Yes, Virginia, there was during one of the decades since the 1960s a Meat Crisis. One of the solutions to this Crisis, which absolutely everyone at the time was talking about, was a cross between buffalo and domestic cattle. As I understand it, the resulting beefalo produced good meat, but without the extreme coddling and special feeding required by our highly bred domestic cattle.

To me, the important thing about the Meat Crisis has nothing whatever to do with cattle, buffalo or meat in general. To me, it is the classic example.

The Permanent Meat Crisis is a perfect example because absolutely nobody remembers it.

Except me. During its year of media alarm, the Permanent Meat Crisis was known about by absolutely everybody. Now it is not merely forgotten. When I talk about it I can hear the Twilight Zone music playing in the background. Everybody who was there looks at me as if I am speaking Algonquin.

Except that more people can understand Algonquin than can remember the Permanent Meat Crisis.

Compared to the Permanent Meat Crisis, the Energy Crisis is not entirely forgotten by the hundred million Americans who heard about it throughout the 1970s. Dozens of them remember THAT crisis.

The Energy Crisis was entirely different from our present Peak Oil discussion, and the simple fact that our oil must eventually run out. No, the Energy Crisis of the 70s began with the OPEC boycott after the US supported Israel about 1972.

The next three elections featured The Oil Crisis. Then when Reagan went in, the Oil Crisis disappeared.

If you asked anyone what happened to it they won’t remember The Oil Crisis. If they do, they have no idea what happened to it.

As I say, this Oil Crisis was not like the depletion of the world’s oil which has been the subject of frantic discussion since the 1920s. This, like the Permanent Meat Shortage, was a “right now“ thing, because under the system as it then existed, there was an actual danger of economic collapse if OPEC turned the screw, not in decades but next week.

My point is that the Permanent Meat Shortage was the perfect example of the kind of thing a professional political advisor recognizes immediately. He puts out a press release for whoever wants it and then gets back to grown-up stuff.