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TechnoratiThe Perfect Campaign Storm of 2008
War, Depression, and Turning-Point Elections
Will the presidential election of 2008 mark a turning point in American political history? Will it terminate with extreme prejudice the conservative ascendancy that has dominated the country for the last generation? No matter the haplessness of the Democratic opposition, the answer is yes.
With Richard Nixon's victory in the 1968 presidential election, a new political order first triumphed over New Deal liberalism. It was an historic victory that one-time Republican strategist and now political critic Kevin Phillips memorably anointed the "emerging Republican majority." Now, that Republican "majority" finds itself in a systemic crisis from which there is no escape.
Only at moments of profound shock to the old order of things -- the Great Depression of the 1930s or the coming together of imperial war, racial confrontation, and de-industrialization in the late 1960s and 1970s -- does this kind of upheaval become possible in a political universe renowned for its stability, banality, and extraordinary capacity to duck things that matter. The trauma must be real and it must be perceived by people as traumatic. Both conditions now apply.
War, economic collapse, and the political implosion of the Republican Party will make 2008 a year to remember.
The Politics of Fear in Reverse
Iraq is an albatross that, all by itself, could sink the ship of state. At this point, there's no need to rehearse the polling numbers that register the no-looking-back abandonment of this colossal misadventure by most Americans. No cosmetic fix, like the "surge," can, in the end, make a difference -- because large majorities decided long ago that the invasion was a fiasco, and because the geopolitical and geo-economic objectives of the Bush administration leave no room for a genuine Iraqi nationalism which would be the only way out of this mess.
The fatal impact of the President's adventure in Iraq, however, runs far deeper than that. It has undermined the politics of fear which, above all else, had sustained the Bush administration. According to the latest polls, the Democrats who rate national security a key concern has shrunk to a percentage bordering on the statistically irrelevant. Independents display a similar "been there, done that" attitude. Republicans do express significantly greater levels of alarm, but far lower than a year or two ago.
In fact, the politics of fear may now be operating in reverse. The chronic belligerence of the Bush administration, especially in the last year with respect to Iran, and the cartoonish saber-rattling of Republican presidential candidates (whether genuine or because they believe themselves captives of the Bush legacy) is scary. Its only promise seems to be endless war for purposes few understand or are ready to salute. To paraphrase Franklin Delano Roosevelt, for many people now, the only thing to fear is the politics of fear itself.
And then there is the war on the Constitution. Randolph Bourne, a public intellectual writing around the time of World War I, is remembered today for one trenchant observation: that war is the health of the state. Mobilizing for war invites the cancerous growth of the bureaucratic state apparatus and its power over everyday life. Like some over-ripe fruit this kind of war-borne "healthiness" is today visibly morphing into its opposite -- what we might call the "sickness of the state."
The constitutional transgressions of the executive branch and its abrogation of the powers reserved to the other two branches of government are, by now, reasonably well known. Most of this aggressive over-reaching has been encouraged by the imperial hubris exemplified by the invasion of Iraq. It would be short-sighted to think that this only disturbs the equanimity of a small circle of civil libertarians. There is a long-lived and robust tradition in American political life always resentful of this kind of statism. In part, this helps account for wholesale defections from the Republican Party by those who believe it has been kidnapped by political elites masquerading as down-home, "live free or die" conservatives.
Now, add potential economic collapse to this witches brew. Even the soberest economy watchers, pundits with PhDs -- whose dismal record in predicting anything tempts me not to mention this -- are prophesying dark times ahead. Depression -- or a slump so deep it's not worth quibbling about the difference -- is evidently on the way; indeed is already underway. The economics of militarism have been a mainstay of business stability for more than half century; but now, as in the Vietnam era, deficits incurred to finance invasion only exacerbate a much more embracing dilemma.
Start with the confidence game being run out of Wall Street; after all, the subprime mortgage debacle now occupies newspaper front pages day after outrageous day. Certainly, these tales of greed and financial malfeasance are numbingly familiar. Yet, precisely that sense of déjàvu all over again, of Enron revisited, of an endless cascade of scandalous, irrational behavior affecting the central financial institutions of our world suggests just how dire things have become.
Enronization as Normal Life
Once upon a time, all through the nineteenth century, financial panics -- often precipitating more widespread economic slumps -- were a commonly accepted, if dreaded, part of "normal" economic life. Then the Crash of 1929, followed by the New Deal Keynesian regulatory state called into being to prevent its recurrence, made these cyclical extremes rare.
Beginning with the stock market crash of 1987, however, they have become ever more common again, most notoriously -- until now, that is -- with the dot.com implosion of 2000 and the Enronization that followed. Enron seems like only yesterday because, in fact, it was only yesterday, which strongly suggests that the financial sector is now increasingly out of control. At least three factors lurk behind this new reality.
Thanks to the Reagan counterrevolution, there is precious little left of the regulatory state -- and what remains is effectively run by those who most need to be regulated. (Despite bitter complaints in the business community, the Sarbanes-Oxley bill, passed after the dot.com bubble burst, has proven weak tea indeed when it comes to preventing financial high jinks, as the current financial meltdown indicates.)
More significantly, for at least the last quarter-century, the whole U.S. economic system has lived off the speculations generated by the financial sector -- sometimes given the acronym FIRE for finance, insurance, and real estate). It has grown exponentially while, in the country's industrial heartland in particular, much of the rest of the economy has withered away. FIRE carries enormous weight and the capacity to do great harm. Its growth, moreover, has fed a proliferation of financial activities and assets so complex and arcane that even their designers don't fully understand how they operate.
One might call this the sorcerer's apprentice effect. In such an environment, the likelihood and frequency of financial panics grows, so much so that they become "normal accidents" -- an oxymoron first applied to highly sophisticated technological systems like nuclear power plants by the sociologist Charles Perrow. Such systems are inherently subject to breakdowns for reasons those operating them can't fully anticipate, or correctly respond to, once they're underway. This is so precisely because they never fully understood the labyrinthine intricacies and ramifying effects of the way they worked in the first place.
Likening the current subprime implosion to such a "normal accident" is more than metaphorical. Today's Wall Street fabricators of avant-garde financial instruments are actually called "financial engineers." They got their training in "labs," much like Dr. Frankenstein's, located at Wharton, Princeton, Harvard, and Berkeley. Each time one of their confections goes south, they scratch their heads in bewilderment -- always making sure, of course, that they have financial life-rafts handy, while investors, employees, suppliers, and whole communities go down with the ship.
What makes Wall Street's latest "normal accident" so portentous, however, is the way it is interacting with, and infecting, healthier parts of the economy. When the dot.com bubble burst many innocents were hurt, not just denizens of the Street. Still, its impact turned out to be limited. Now, via the subprime mortgage meltdown, Main Street is under the gun.
It is not only a matter of mass foreclosures. It is not merely a question of collapsing home prices. It is not simply the shutting down of large portions of the construction industry (inspiring some of those doom-and-gloom prognostications). It is not just the born-again skittishness of financial institutions which have, all of sudden, gotten religion, rediscovered the word "prudence," and won't lend to anybody. It is all of this, taken together, which points ominously to a general collapse of the credit structure that has shored up consumer capitalism for decades.
Campaigning Through a Perfect Storm of Economic Disaster
The equity built up during the long housing boom has been the main resource for ordinary people financing their big-ticket-item expenses -- from college educations to consumer durables, from trading-up on the housing market to vacationing abroad. Much of that equity, that consumer wherewithal, has suddenly vanished, and more of it soon will. So, too, the life-lines of credit that allow all sorts of small and medium-sized businesses to function and hire people are drying up fast. Whole communities, industries, and regional economies are in jeopardy.
All of that might be considered enough, but there's more. Oil, of course. Here, the connection to Iraq is clear; but, arguably, the wild escalation of petroleum prices might have happened anyway. Certainly, the energy price explosion exacerbates the general economic crisis, in part by raising the costs of production all across the economy, and so abetting the forces of economic contraction. In the same way, each increase in the price of oil further contributes to what most now agree is a nearly insupportable level in the U.S. balance of payments deficit. That, in turn, is contributing to the steady withering away of the value of the dollar, a devaluation which then further ratchets up the price of oil (partially to compensate holders of those petrodollars who find themselves in possession of an increasingly worthless currency). As strategic countries in the Middle East and Asia grow increasingly more comfortable converting their holdings into euros or other more reliable -- which is to say, more profitable -- currencies, a speculative run on the dollar becomes a real, if scary, possibility for everyone.
Finally, it is vital to recall that this tsunami of bad business is about to wash over an already very sick economy. While the old regime, the Reagan-Bush counterrevolution, has lived off the heady vapors of the FIRE sector, it has left in its wake a de-industrialized nation, full of super-exploited immigrants and millions of families whose earnings have suffered steady erosion. Two wage-earners, working longer hours, are now needed to (barely) sustain a standard of living once earned by one. And that doesn't count the melting away of health insurance, pensions, and other forms of protection against the vicissitudes of the free market or natural calamities. This, too, is the enduring hallmark of a political economy about to go belly-up.
This perfect storm will be upon us just as the election season heats up. It will inevitably hasten the already well-advanced implosion of the Republican Party, which is the definitive reason 2008 will indeed qualify as a turning-point election. Reports of defections from the conservative ascendancy have been emerging from all points on the political compass. The Congressional elections of 2006 registered the first seismic shock of this change. Since then, independents and moderate Republicans continue to indicate, in growing numbers in the polls, that they are leaving the Grand Old Party. The Wall Street Journal reports on a growing loss of faith among important circles of business and finance. Hard core religious right-wingers are airing their doubts in public. Libertarians delight in the apostate candidacy of Ron Paul. Conservative populist resentment of immigration runs head on into corporate elite determination to enlarge a sizeable pool of cheap labor, while Hispanics head back to the Democratic Party in droves. Even the Republican Party's own elected officials are engaged in a mass movement to retire.
All signs are ominous. The credibility and legitimacy of the old order operate now at a steep discount. Most telling and fatal perhaps is the paralysis spreading into the inner councils at the top. Faced with dire predicaments both at home and abroad, they essentially do nothing except rattle those sabers, captives of their own now-bankrupt ideology. Anything, many will decide, is better than this.
Or will they? What if the opposition is vacillating, incoherent, and weak-willed -- labels critics have reasonably pinned on the Democrats? Bad as that undoubtedly is, I don't think it will matter, not in the short run at least.
Take the presidential campaign of 1932 as an instructive example. The crisis of the Great Depression was systemic, but the response of the Democratic Party and its candidate Franklin Delano Roosevelt -- though few remember this now -- was hardly daring. In many ways, it was not very different from that of Republican President Herbert Hoover; nor was there a great deal of militant opposition in the streets, not in 1932 anyway, hardly more than the woeful degree of organized mass resistance we see today despite all the Bush administration's provocations.
Yet the New Deal followed. And not only the New Deal, but an era of social protest, including labor, racial, and farmer insurgencies, without which there would have been no New Deal or Great Society. May something analogous happen in the years ahead? No one can know. But a door is about to open.
Steve Fraser is a writer and editor, as well as the co-founder of the American Empire Project. He is the author of Every Man a Speculator: A History of Wall Street in American Life. His latest book, Wall Street: America's Dream Palace, will be published by Yale University Press in March 2008.
46 Comments so far
Show AllWishful thinking?
Nothing will change anyway, and even if someone good got in like Kucinich, they would just assasinate him anyway. Sorry but the patient is too far gone....
good luck,
Voting is a very insignificant act, though it is trumped up as the be all and end all off political participation. Most people, if they do vote, go home and think their work is done.
The obsessive focus on the national election is a distraction from genuine grassroots work, where the real action can happen. Sitting at home and watching the MSM promote corporate lackey candidates for president, for nearly two years, then voting, is, as TheLorax says "like throwing a wrench at a junked car expecting to magically restore it."
i am amazed and a bit suspicious that the author does not point out the relationship between wall street rapacity and the u.s. occupation of the ME.
kucinich
THE LORAX
OK, if you don't feel it matters to vote then stay home it is the easiest thing in the world for a person to do is give up and be a quitter. Now is the time for people to use the greatest tool demorcracy gave us, the right to vote. Even if you feel it isn't 100% above board giving up is not an option.
I learn just as much, if not more, from reading the comments than I do from the actual article! Anyway, I would argue that the most potent weapon in the oligarchy's arsenal for perpetual subjugation is actually a myth, that of "I'll be rich some day". I liken the American people(especially ones between the ages of 18-29..you know, that age when you thought you were smarter than you actually are!) to Wile E. Coyote, convinced of their own "genius" while, at the same time, foolishly finding themselves falling off cliffs and having anvils drop on their head, all in the illusive quest to capture the Road Runner! Meanwhile, the only one who seemingly benefits from the Coyote's lunacy is the ACME Corporation(He must have purchased on credit, since he spent all his time chasing the bird!)For there to be change there has to be a way to convince the Wile E. Coyotes that there are more meaningful paths to life than chasing the Road Runner and purchasing every little new gadget ACME puts out!I hated using a corporate cartoon for the analogy (and I'm probably indicting my own IQ ,which ain't too high to begin with), but hey, who didn't like Wile E. and the Road Runner as a kid?Call me a pessimist, but, along with many of you, I just don't see this happening and I truely believe that it is too late for this country!That's all Folks!
JFK, RFK, MLK, DJK...the beat goes on.
"Thanks to the Reagan counterrevolution, there is precious little left of the regulatory state — and what remains is effectively run by those who most need to be regulated."
And therein lay the rub. Regulation is an honest admition that We the People need protection from economic predators who define people by their market value not thier human value. The subprime fiasco is the perfect illustration of the type of short term gain, predatory practice that requires government intervention.
One problem: There isn't any FDR anywhere.
You know, a government for the people.
No signs the author understands why the price of oil is going up, no mention of peak oil...
Check out http://www.theoildrum.com/
With the incredibly weak Republican field, and with the large numbers of Republicans retiring from Congress, it seems the masters of the corporate oligarchy are intentionally giving control to the fascist-lite party, the Democrats, so they will be blamed for the inevitable economic catastrophes of the coming years. The public will then be easily convinced that the problem was "not enough fascism," as surely the US under the fascist Reagan was in its golden years, yes?
For me the telling fact is the lack of concern of the corporate oligarchy for the failure of boys in school, and the estimates that in 10 years two-thirds of US college graduates will be female. That means in the coming decades there will be millions of frustrated and angry young men who could cause great social/political upheaval, but who could also be quite useful as soldiers or enforcers of a militaristic totalitarian fascist state.
If the Democrats put Impeachment on the table; then it would be seen that Dennis Kucinich has been right all along. And they would rather have the constitution put through a shredder and the entire Middle East blown up.
Yes, the door is open and we need Kucinich to walk through it..into the Oval Office.
Remember, the New Deal was the liberal answer to the 'era of social protest' in the Depression. The idea was to give the people just enough reforms such that they wouldn't revolt. And in the end, it was the old standby, a war economy, that pulled the economy out of the dumps. That's one reason why they've never turned off 'the war economy' ever since.
An overwhelming majority of Americans just don't care about what's happening to their country. the comfort level and entertainment is all that matters, so a depression or fascism with camps for anyone that dissents or gets out of line, is a well deserved punishment. Vote republican and finish the job the corporate criminals started. Or Democrat whats the difference.
Of course there'll be an election.
Not having one might wake the sheeple up. And why not have the elections when the Democrats do such a wonderful job of protecting Republicans and pushing Republican policies. There's nothing that this last Congress has done that would scare the big money. And big money knows they got both Obama and Hillary in their pockets. So why wouldn't there be an election?
That's both the good news and the bad news. There will be an election. But unless we the people do something to build another political force in this country, the only choices on the ballot will be pro-war, pro-corporate Democrats against pro-war, pro-corporate Republicans.
quousque December 9th, 2007 9:13 pm ...First of all, I'm obviously not a "rightist"...if you had been following my posts. Never owned a rifle, although I was in the USMC as a draftee..l965-1967. My original post about the M-60 was facetious.I actually don't even know what your "SOB" is...some kind of rifle? I did fire an M-60 in the USMC and have no intention of ever using one again. But, do not doubt that if DHS comes to get myself or a family member, I WILL DEFEND MYSELF! Your reaction was interesting.
IF there's a 2008 election, the candidate will be exactly what the powers that be decide. If you actually believe that your vote will matter or count, you are fooling yourself. The political process is broken. Your vote is like throwing a wrench at a junked car expecting to magically restore it.
Until the process is repaired, you are playing a rigged game expecting to win.
Please read sign and circulate: http://www.PetitionOnline.com/2021456/petition.html
well when you get such low percent of Americans voting it makes the fraud sqaud job real easy. If you say you are defeated before you even vote then more people stay home and that is what the neo right want. How about people put down the protest sign and pick up a ballot sheet and vote. Last time I looked it is legal.
I have a bet, watch just a few weeks/days before the 08 election and all the neo controled media will have stories about voting fraud. Just enough to keep the should I vote or not what's the use, voters to stay home. What was the percent of all the eligible voters in the USA that voted for gb/neo/co? Was it about 25%? So there is about 50% of the country not voting?
What?? No God, guns, gays, or abortion?? Is the author so out of touch that he has no insight into US political issues?
Who gives a damn about the trivia mentioned in this screed. The rapture is coming!
A corrupt system expunges anything good from it's body. A corrupt country expunges anything good from it's body as well. Now we can enjoy corruption in HDTV 24/7. The good is mostly already gone.
I'm with you, yakpsyche - - we need more to join in to the reality of the power-mongers in the administration: what they have already done plus what treacherous chicanery they are capable of devising. This but a part of the reason that it is imperative to begin impeachment proceeding to bear ASAP, beginning with Cheney first, then his little puppet.
I like this column, but I'm still unlikely to vote Democratic, especially after today's revalation about Pelosi. I don't like to throw away a vote on a hopeless fringe party--the Greens in this case--but it's the only way I'll be able to vote next year without vomiting.
Here's a Randolph Bourne quote:
"One keeps healthy in wartime not by a series of religious and political consolations that something good is coming out of it all, but by a vigorous assertion of values in which war has no part."
geoff29----I am with you, my man, but these dark days, it is increasingly difficult to keep one's proverbial chin up. I do hope your analysis is correct. People are yearning for a real message---to be inspired, and I do think they are even willing to sacrifice if necessary to recover a sense of connection to each other and to the rest of the world. If there is apathy, it is a mask for a profound sense of powerlessness, and who hasn't felt impotent as we watch what passes for news these days?
That capacity for surprise is what keeps me going---that and a break now and then to create something beautiful. I encourage you to do the same, my friend! Good to see your post---have been missing you.
During the 1930's we had a president who saw the need to put men to work. He chartered work programs to restore the men's dignity because he understood that this was most important, despite criticism concerning their efficiency. He had the insight to see the need for the USA to reverse its isolation and intervene in the war against the of the axis powers because he knew that their success in world domination would lead to our demise.
Conditions are very different now. We have a clandestine administration that shows little or no understanding of history or consequences of its actions. Instead they act in concert with the special interests and manufacture issues to justify their actions. Meanwhile they defame the characters of those who question their policies, or lack thereof.
Our legislature has defaulted their duties by allowing this president to pursue his horrific policies concerning the environment, world affairs, an ill conceived and misguided war, and the list goes on.
Nonetheless, blame falls mainly on the apathetic and uninformed voters who helped the five Supreme Court justices plant this unfit zealot in office; and the citizenry for tolerating such unprecedented abuses.
I hope so. But the deep doo doo may fall on the next guys watch. The media will attack an progressive tendencies of the next president and sing glorious praises of Reagan's good old days that never existed. The new president will have to attack problems, corporations, the media, the opposition and 25% of the American public who still support Bu$h the inferior. None of the apparent front runners appear to have the guts, skill, and progressive chops to do the job.
There could be a fascist backlash that makes things even worse. There is a lot of risk of bad outcome.
Who could argue with your logic? BUT, there is one larger issue at play and the Repug spinmeisters have had that sector all to themselves as American polical time has progressed. This is why I have concern over next year's election. What could be more boring for the American people to be confronted with the prospect of Hillary vs. any Republican following Super Tuesday? For nine whole months!
She only knows how to triangulate; that is the chief factor in her high negativity rating. The Repug spinmeisters can make gold out of hay over this. We need something epic: a ticket which pairs a Black American and a Southern White Boy (either which way). The prospect of such a ticket in the face of the history of race in this country would make for likely the most exciting race of the 20th/21st Century(s). Let us cross our fingers.
willybillÂ
"SOB……no one needs one for anything sane"….and your point is….lol!
QED
No constitutional right has ever been defended by a personal firearm, and it is not likely any ever will be. If a scenario came to pass that your machine gun was in use, then how can we be sure that you are not more the enemy of our freedoms than those you aim at?
Between you rightie gun nuts and this theo-fascist government gone nutso, it's a real toss-up who's worse ......... or if they are really much different?
The American people are starting to see that the government serves the interests of the corporations, not the people; that the corporations are run by people who used to hold high positions in the military and the government, making it easier to get government contracts and to avoid any effective government oversight (government policy is dictated by corporate strategies); that many of these corporations make their profits from war and homeland security, and so need external wars and greater internal surveillance and control of Americans to keep the profits rolling in (e.g. Boeing's virtual border fence--it's not sane immigration policy driving the fence, it's Boeing and its government contacts). There are no doubt some politicians still trying to fight for the people, to stand on morality or principle, but their efforts are not strong enough in the face of the government/corporate nexus. Even if someone elected president WANTED to change the system, could they? Could an FDR (someone like Kucinich) start the New Deal today?
The conservatives, neocons or whatever you want to call them have already foreseen "an era of social protest" coming. That is why Haliburton has been contracted to build detention camps. Those camps will be used regardless of which party is in power. Hillary is just as capable of declaring martial law as a Republican. Yes, most assuredly 'a door is about to open'. But does that door lead to the inside of a detention facility?
This entire phase reminds me of the waning years of the spanish empire, when they extracted the gold and silver of conquest to pawn to the dutch money-lenders in order to continue their endless wars and excess. Their apparent dominance, their conquistadors and their inquisition did not save them from inevitable decline to become the sick man of europe for two centuries.
Neither will the deranged ideology of this regime have any effect on the economic realities that bear down upon us. And the rest of the world will soon throw over our consumer market, dollar based oil trading, and military bases to salvage their own economic stability.
Stock up on provisions.
Willybill, I understand your frustration but until you revamp the economic system the political system will aways subvert true democracy. These can be done simultaneously by developing an economic system which makes decisions based on a democratic process. Think IWW.
Willybill 3:35 PM..Apologies..the last part of the ballot was omitted...
Please copy, paste and send to ignotzle@windstream.net
Steve Fraser writes of hope for the future as though people are really going to see what a disaster our country has become, and I sincerely hope he is right, but have my doubts. The American people seem to have become numbed by the happenings of the last few years and resemble a herd of livestock kept in a pen by small wires or boards they could easily break through, but are convinced they cannot, so they just put up with whatever they have provided for them. However, if just one gets the idea they want out bad enough, the fence is down and they are all gone to freedom. If only our citizens could see that it is time to break down the fence of lies, greed, evil power, needless war, militarism, self serving policies, and get freedom again!!
Good article.
there are of course similarities between different eras of history, and there are also differences.
It seems to me, though there is much griping to the contrary, that the populace has for the most part veered completely out of control of the political body, and so have various political entities to the populace.
In the late 30s, in this country, I think it's safe to say that the majority was of a similar state of mind, sympathetic to the government. Willing to go to war for revenge and so forth. necessary or not is irrelevant. these days, almost everyone has a differing opinion. It's almost a cacophony.
Personally, as a people I think we've made some headway. Ideally, there should be a relationship of truth between the rulers and the people, because neither an individual, nor a body of individuals will submit indefinitely to living under a delusion. That's an intolerable human predicament in the long or short term depending on one's fear or lack of fear in facing the truth or when the truth catches up to the time.
Many of us seem to have been uniformly educated by a concise an reasoned argument that we have been hoodwinked for centuries - and are beginning to see through this in ever growing numbers.
This of course would be an obvious threat to the enablers of wealth and power who would naturally seek to maintain their advantage and control by any means available. Being ever convinced to take what seems to them an easier route than dealing with the people in a straight forward fashion for the benefit of all.
You can rave against the ignorance of Americans all you want, but the fact that only a minority of the populace supports the ruling party speaks millions.
additionally, though I would not be able to say who in this world is ultimately right or wrong, there is an unease among almost everyone I know that this country has become the enemy it once fought.
I would anticipate something which we have not seen before, a renewal of that history they would like for us to think has ended. Even though we might find similarities and connections with what preceded it.
The capacity for surprise, for good or ill, remains a constant.
quoueque...".wherejagetdat"...no comments
"SOB......no one needs one for anything sane"....and your point is....lol!
WE HAVE NO FDR!!!!!!!
Instead we will get a coporate paid for whore like HRC. This turning point will only be in the media. On main street the failed economy will continue to cause pain. Oversees, continued militarism will kill many more brown skinned people. Listen up folks, the USA is TOAST. Get out now while you still can.
We thought the same thing in 2004 but guess what, another election was stolen. Expect the same thing in '08.
What I don't understand is why there is so little effort being devoted to holding Bush, Cheney, and their hatchet wielders responsible for the disasters we are experiencing from the Iraq war, bellicosity everywhere, packing the judiciary, callous environmental policies, ineptitude everywhere. etc. Bush pardons Libby, but impeachment is "off the table" and Halliburton and other crony firms are bloated with war profits. It's as thought we all recognize that the war was a criminal blunder, but we don't want to affix blame.
To Steve Fraser:
You state, : "War, economic collapse, and the political implosion of the Republican Party will make 2008 a year to remember."
It's odd to me. With the political undoings of key Democrats and the "going along to get along with Bush" mentality of the Democrats (just think Feinstein/Mukasey...Harman "Homegrown Terrorism Act"/waterboarding champion...Pelosi/never met a Republican fascist she didn't love), and how can you possibly think that only the Republican Party will implode??! The "Democrats" will be our saviors?? Please.
Seems to me the whole kit and kaboodle needs to go.
Every time you think, or write or say the word, "ELECTION", remember this little hearing in Congress about election fraud:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=gocC_456PzI
Regardless of who the final candidates are, the public had better plan on being in on the count in 2008. What do ya think Steve?
And speaking of the Republican Presidential candidates "saber-rattling" I would remind you of Sen. Barack "All military options including nuclear weapons are on the table against Iran" Obama. Hillary, Biden, Dodd, Richardson are all right up there with him.
Only Kucinich has put impeachment ON the table and sabers off.
yakpsyche:Â
"All this presumes there will be an election 2008."
It is indeed difficult to believe that these sickos will surrender the reins of power. If they can't steal another election, then they will nullify it somehow ......... so as Randi says, make your plans.
willybill:Â
"If they can get past my M-60..."
Wheredjagetdat?
SOB was my assigned weapon in 1968, and nobody needs one for anything sane.
First off, I thought this was a very well written piece- it certainly held my attention!
I would certainly hope that given all this country has had to endure the last few years that there will be a great (and much needed) sea change.
BUT...
Can we really count on the Democrats for that? *Coughs* NO!
I think the author was obviously alluding to that when he said that the FDR Democrats' plans were not all that dissimilar from the Republicans but that in that climate of the 1930's there were some significant populist/progressive movements that happened as a result of the severe inequalities that existed in the system.
The inequalities today are obviously just as vulgar, and perhaps more so the need for systemic change is paramount...although I am slightly more pessimistic that the "politics of fear" are over.
Let's say there was another "...Pearl Harbor type event" (to quote the Project for a New American Century) wouldn't people come back to the fear mongering GOP or fear mongering Democrats for that matter? No one can predict the future (except Karl Rove of course!) but I don't think its a stretch to say there still seems to be a LONG way to go down before this ship hits the bottom. Let's hope I'm wrong!
Would that it becomes true. Let's hope the writers strike continues for another year to make it easier for TV dependent voters to tune out.
Democrats please keep holding up the war funding, (that just might make the hogs at the Pentagon trough dip into some of the extravagent lard they manage to lose or waste every hour of every day).
If the adjustable mortgages can keep bankrupting people at the present rate through 08 and the grossly overvalued stock market lose about 5000 points of its closing average and please, President Bush keep flapping your big stupid mouth so we can have something to remind us of our own stupidity as a people for having allowed you to be elected twice, then maybe we can find it in our hearts to look for answers instead of fashion statements.
Vote DK in 08!
All this presumes there will be an election 2008.
If the commander in chief of the armed forces of the USA and his buddy the VP decide that there is a national emergency, they are legally entitled, based on a National Security Directive signed last May, to take full control of the USA with no oversight whatsoever, including that they can suspend elections, so as not to upset the stability of their rule, which is necessary for maintenance of national security in the face of this dire emergency.
Gee, all we need are a few more airplanes to "cause" a couple more skyscrapers to collapse. Then we not only get the psychological force of a resurrection of the attitude of fear but also a PERFECTLY LEGAL excuse to totally overthrow the entire constitutional structure that everyone has worked at building in the last 200 years.
You didn't think those foxes would leave the henhouse unguarded did you?
IF there is an election, it wont matter, as both the GOP and Dems answer to the same master, the global corporate elites who do not care about nations, only their own personal wealth. They will continue to feed and stip the bones of the USA bare like a vulture on a carcass, then move on to the next victim/country.
Your time is up USA...bu-bye
Iraq is really the thing that's sealed the coffin for the "repub revolution." The fatal error they made is not recognizing that americans never really bought into it in the first place. It's like having a boss that comes into a meeting and insists on doing X, which makes no real sense to anyone, but since he's your boss, he must know something... Anyway it seemed pretty harmless, let the boys roll their tanks over some brown people. But now it's all gone terribly awry, it's no longer fun for anyone, it being Christmas and all. Not even good T.V.
Like it or not many Americans share complicity in this fiasco -- all except for me, I was against it from the start. ;-) I only rejoice that the fiasco that is all our fault will be pinned on the repulsive republicans; it couldn't happen to better group of miscreants. That makes my Christmas very very merry. Ho Ho Ho.