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TechnoratiMy Depression -- or Ours?
Among my somewhat over-the-hill crowd -- I'm 64 -- there's one thing friends have said to me repeatedly since the stock market started to tumble, the global economic system began to melt down, and Iceland went from bank haven to bankrupt. They say, "I'm just not looking. I don't want to know." And they're not referring to the world situation, they're talking about their pension plans, or 401(k)s, or IRAs, or whatever they put their money into, so much of which is melting away in plain sight even as Iceland freezes up.
I've said it myself. Think of it as a pragmatic acknowledgement of reality at an extreme moment, but also as a statement of denial and despair. The point is: Why look? The news is going to be worse than you think, and it's way too late anyway. This is what crosses your mind when the ground under you starts to crumble. Don't look, not yet, not when the life you know, the one you took for granted, is vanishing, and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it.
Today, in my world at least, this is the most commonplace of comments. It's just not a line I've seen much when the press and TV bring on the parade of financial experts -- most of whom are there largely because they didn't have the faintest idea that anything like this might happen. Whether they're reporting on, or opining about, the latest market nosedives, panic selling, chaotic bailouts, arcane derivatives, A.I.G. facials, or bank and stock-exchange closures, it still always sounds like someone else's story. I guess that's the nature of the media.
It's professional for reporters and pundits to write or talk about the pain of others, not their own. Normally, you just assume that's the case. So, for instance, when Frank Bruni, in a front page New York Times piece on the second presidential debate, writes, "Now the situation looks gloomier still, with markets in other continents tumbling -- with a world of hurt at hand," it really doesn't cross your mind that he might be including Frank Bruni in that description.
Here's a rock-you-to-your-socks fact I happened to read in a news report the afternoon of the day that Barack Obama and John McCain had their town hall meeting with 80 uncommitted voters and moderator Tom Brokaw. In the last 15 months, according to the Associated Press, Americans lost $2 trillion from their retirement plans. Now, that's a world of hurt and you could feel it the moment Brokaw first called on an audience member. Allen Shaffer rose and asked: "With the economy on the downturn and retired and older citizens and workers losing their incomes, what's the fastest, most positive solution to bail these people out of the economic ruin?" I have no idea what Shaffer's situation is, but I'll tell you this, his didn't sound like a reporter's question. It sounded close to the bone. It sounded like a world of hurt. Not surprisingly, neither presidential candidate actually responded, in part, undoubtedly, because to be close to the truth either would have had to say something like: Hey, how the hell do I know?
At this point, despite the onslaught of news about how bad things are, dotted with portrayals of Americans in trouble, I suspect there's quite a gap between the world as reported and the world as felt by most Americans. Let me give you a simple example. In the news these days, it's common to hear that we are at the edge of a real recession or, as International Monetary Fund managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn put it, "the cusp of a global recession," or even the verge of a "deep recession."
Recently, the word "depression" has finally made it onto the scene. Little wonder, as ever more financial institutions totter, while, for the first time in memory, the initials GM and the word "bankruptcy" repeatedly end up in the same headlines. "Depression" arrived on the media scene, however, in a formulaic way and usually quite carefully hemmed in as part of a comparison: If X does or doesn't happen, this will be "the worst crisis since the Great Depression," or simply that it is "the worst [you fill this in] since the Great Depression."
And yet a recent CNN poll indicates that nearly 60% of Americans think an actual depression, even a great depression -- not a situation bad enough to compare to one -- is "likely." To many of us, it's already starting to feel that way and that's no small thing. When you see a Wall Street Journal headline like last Friday's -- "Market's 7-Day Rout Leaves U.S. Reeling" -- don't you feel like you're in a different world, however the experts care to define it?
The edge of panic in the voice of a friend telling me about the 401(k) she's not looking at catches the story for me. It's visceral and scary and, let's face it, whether this is the half-forgotten past coming back to bite us or the future kneecapping us, it's depressing as hell.
Being Depressed
And speaking of depressions no one is much talking about, let me just say what a journalist can't: I'm depressed.
It crept up on me, but I can date the feeling to the first week of October because a friend emailed me on September 29th this way: "I'm given to gloomy thoughts... You really get the sense that things are on the verge of spinning out of control."
I remember the email I wrote back with a certain embarrassment. I was neither gloomy nor down, I responded. My reigning feeling was one of "awe" -- that you could live your whole life and never experience a moment like this one. At about the same time, I told another friend that I found it staggering to turn a corner, bump into History, and discover that he's unbelievably gargantuan.
Even as I sent that email off, it felt kind of callous to me, but it was what I thought I felt. The media claims to know -- and report on -- "our pain," just as the presidential candidates claim to feel it. How could they? I didn't even know my own. It took a remarkably long time to notice that weird feeling -- as if another body were sagging inside mine -- I identify with depression, and so finally say to myself: Okay, maybe you were awed, maybe you still are, but you also feel gloomy as hell.
Here's the strange thing: I've been running TomDispatch.com these last nearly six years. I've written (or posted) with regularity on how the Bush administration, with its blind, fundamentalist faith in military power, had pushed an imperial America into a precipitous decline. In July 2006, I typically ended one dispatch on the subject, "The Force Is Not With Them," this way:
"Oh, and there's one fundamentalist character I've left out of the mix, someone who definitely bows down to force. Call everything that's happened these last few years Osama's dream. It's hard not to think of William Butler Yeats' poem, 'The Second Coming,' and then wonder: 'And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?'"
I posted a piece at TomDispatch in April of this year in which, to some criticism, Wall Street expert Steve Fraser specifically brought up the "D" word in this passage:
"Nonetheless, the current breakdown of the financial system is portentous. It threatens a general economic implosion more serious than anyone has witnessed for many decades. Depression, if that is what it turns out to be, together with the agonies of a misbegotten and lost war no one believes in any longer, could undermine whatever is left of the threadbare credibility of our Gilded Age elite."
Last January, I even posted an essay by Chalmers Johnson, bluntly entitled "Going Bankrupt," suggesting that we were fast heading the way of Argentina 2001. I've certainly long been convinced that we were spinning out of control, that this was madness, and that we were, in some fashion, heading down.
But a near global financial collapse and crash in a matter of weeks? I can't claim that such a possibility even crossed my mind. And anyway, who can ever claim that learned and lived history bear much relation to each other any more than do the experiences of reporting and being reported upon.
That was a thought, a construct. This is my life. That was so much writing on the page. This is the world I'm sending my children into (which depresses me more than anything). I find I have no particular faith that, in the worst of times, the best of things will happen.
Now, at least, the media is talking about the Great Depression and, of course, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, fireside chats, and the like. Even Barack Obama did so the other day in an interview with ABC's Charlie Gibson. But, of course, the Great Depression brought Hitler as well as Roosevelt to power. And if people are disturbed by the anger, the threats, the rage exhibited recently at McCain/Palin rallies, then hold your hats as things turn truly grim. So I sit here and worry. And I know I'm not alone.
In these last days, I've thought some about my parents, about their whole generation which lived through the Great Depression, those fathers and mothers who had a "depression mentality" for which we, the young growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, had no patience, and about which we had next to no curiosity whatsoever. I sure didn't anyway. That was so past. Despite the good times, they feared otherwise.
It's unnerving when history becomes yours, when no one can tell you where the bottom is, or what life will be like after that bottom is reached. It's one of those moments when you discover why overused phrases -- I think here, for instance, of "through a glass darkly" -- were overused in the first place.
What a grim Alice-in-Wonderland feeling this turns out to be -- in which the world simultaneously seems to shrink to you and expand to take in everything. Maybe this was what it felt like in parts of Asia as the great meltdown of 1997 began, or in Argentina as national bankruptcy hit in 2001. I wouldn't know. Those were distant tsunamis to which we were immune. It was Washington then that dispatched the International Monetary Fund to other countries in such crises to "impose discipline." Now, ominously, the IMF (and the World Bank) are imposingly back in Washington -- and not for a night on the town either.
The Invisible Ruins
I'm a New Yorker and, soon after September 11, 2001, my daughter and I took the subway downtown to see the damage for ourselves. The jets had been screaming overhead the preceding days, and that acrid smell from the collapse of the towers had drifted up the island. But walking in that area, which wasn't yet known as Ground Zero, glimpsing down blocked-off side streets those humongous shards of the World Trade Center, that was staggering. The indescribable scale of destruction was something the small screen simply couldn't transmit. Within a few minutes, still blocks away, our throats were already raw and we were hacking and coughing.
As for so many people then, life brought films to my mind. In my case, those giant shards conjured up, as I've written elsewhere, the final scene of the original Planet of the Apes -- that unforgettable shot of the Statue of Liberty atilt and half-buried in the sands of time as the two humans escape down the beach on horseback.
And yet in September 2001, the real damage was largely confined to a number of square blocks of downtown Manhattan, including the shut-down Stock Exchange on Wall Street, as well as part of a single building in Washington DC and a field in Pennsylvania. This, we were told, was "the Pearl Harbor of the twenty-first century." And soon enough, with a helping hand from the Bush administration, Americans from Akron to El Paso were officially -- and mistakenly -- terrified for their lives and for their country. In the next seven years, the Bush administration managed to turn that misplaced fear into something like prophecy and bring down the house.
Today, on a visit to lower Manhattan, there would be no smoldering fires, no smoke, no raw throats, no gaping holes, no smashed buildings, no ruins, and yet, as you walked those streets, you would almost certainly be strolling among the ruins, amid the shards of American financial, political, and even military superpowerdom. Think of it as Bush's hubris and bin Laden's revenge. You would be facing the results, however unseen, of the real 9/11, which is still taking place in relative slow motion seven years later. It should scare us all.
Hey, I'm depressed, aren't you?
68 Comments so far
Show AllThink about it. The masters of money don't want people to collect social security. They don't want people pulling out their retirement funds. They'd prefer to see those funds, well, some place other than in the hands to which they belong. So then, the solution for them is: the funds disappear. I retired at the age of 57 (2 years ago) because it made sense to me to no longer work for "da man" at a time when just driving to work was getting too expensive. For years I started scaling back on what my family could live on and paying off debt. We chopped up our credit cards a decade ago and if we buy something we pay for it. If we don't have the money we don't buy it. Today, this is "un-American". But freedom is having no debt.
Ah, but jozef, you do have debt. Your family owes about $32,000 - borrowed money used to kill hope around the world, along with killing millions of people.
Americans have lived well while others suffered, and now its our turn to be IMFed.
(I know that people above have told about hard times, but that is relative. In Iraq 1,000,000 million people have been killed and 4,000,000 have been driven from their homes. The rest face daily oppression and misery. Even homeless people here frequently have cars to live in, and the trash in America is full of perfectly good food.) I am predicting much worse times here in the good 'ol USA.
Vote for Nader to honor the idea of Democracy and keep the idea alive, but at the same time remember what Jefferson said, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
When you got nothing you got nothing to lose.
When hope is lost there is still revenge.
Remember the Lincoln Brigade.
Nothing exists.
And you people believe that Obama will turn this mess around? He is a corporate candidate like McCain.
Open your eyes, wake up.
All you have to do is stop fearing and vote for Nader. He is smart. He has fought the corporate structure all his life and won. He has honesty, ethics, and a strong moral compass.
Vote for any candidates other than the Demo's and Repub's. What do you have to loose but your chains?
You're depressed! Give yourself a lift by considering bringing back the pillory. We should you know. There are plenty of folks in banks and financial institutions and in White Houses who deserve to be jeered at and pelted with rotten fruit.
Follow the discussion on this remedial tool at:
www.dangerouscreation.com
Does anyone see a pattern here? I have read on and on , and posted some.
If we want a just society, these people CANNOT fall thorugh the cracks! We must demand it!! If you care, DEMAND IT!
I will NOT abandon my fellow USAn's, we just cant. Especially when someone is old, ill, poor,---what kid of people do we want to be?!@
This CAN be fixed..they just want to you to think it cant be. Its BULLSHI!!
If they can take $800 bilion for the rich--what can we not fucking fix!!
We have to demand it!! The stories here, the situations posed here--are what make the rest of the world wonder where our morality went, if we have any.
I am NOT content with this--and neither are most of you.. this country is whqat WE choose. We CAN save people--we can ave ourselves in the process. Demand better thant the duopoly, please.Doesnt some of it break your heart?? Thats a good sign--you have one!!
It is whatever we want it to be, peoples.
The threat of sickness is Washington & Wall Street's strongest leverage over the People.
Keeps us working hard and scared to death in order to secure our healthcare.
In the meantime, they live like gods--invading other lands, taking their stuff, destroying their families and cultures and keep us at bay by focusing us on just trying to stay alive.
The United Socialist States of America: Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the rest.
This is one of the best threads I have read on CD in a long time. I'm 61 and too sick to work anymore, appealing my first denial of a Social Security Disability claim. Revenge Girl expressed it best, the way the system treats you like a loser and a liar when you're in too much pain to walk to the mailbox. And the doctors from whom you would expect compassion give only bitterness and anger, as if you're stealing a miserable $800.00 a month from their fat wallets. After working for more than 40 years, you think that nothing could be worse than the daily humiliation and repression one experiences in the American workplace. Then you confront the impassive monster of the Social Security system and the mind reels in disbelief. I too have been expecting this crash for several years thanks to the work of people like James Kunstler, Robert Heinberg, Noriel Roubini, Matthew Simmons, Etc. However, now that it's finally here, it is more frightening than I imagined.
Don't forget to read all your medical records!
If you have a lawyer - they probably won't recommend that because they don't have the time for clients going ballistic over whey they find.
There are Republicans everywhere and they lie - especially doctors!
Believe me I know I've seen it first hand.
Thats typical. They deny every first time claim they get. But you will get it and remember its retroactive to the time you applied so you will get a lump sum figured from that original date when it is approved.
Not much comfort now I know....
You are not alone (well, I'm quite a bit younger). But, I get less $$--they took my retirement pension (what I had paid into it), when my COBRA ran out, so I could get Medicaid.
Dosnt Medicaiduck? I wish I thought the "change in govt" would help us.
My dr. recommmends a surgery, and I might be abel to work again----most people have no idea how horrible it is--they think you like doing almost nothing--we know that thatis not true.
I would pray for you , if I was a believer. I'll just wish you peace, we can never give up on trying to change this system
Well, I keep thinking how ironic it is that as the world situation gets worse and worse--the current economic crunch being the least of it--I'm NOT depressed. No doubt it's because I'm in the best relationship I've ever had, it's been 4 years now so I can count on it, and we're building a house on ridgetop land with beautiful Appalachian woods around. I don't worry much about the economy because I have no investments. I do feel an urgency to complete the same kind of preparations Stone was talking about--like getting the solar electric system at least ordered. I'm 52 and have great doubt that Social Security will exist by the time I'm eligible--but by then if all goes well I'll have a farm operation running smoothly. Someone pointed out that the best secure set-up can be stolen by a desperate family man with a gun--this does worry me, but there's no use dwelling on it.
There are enormous threats facing us all: climate change is likely to do more than just make some places a bit less comfortable--it's likely to reduce the carrying capacity of the Earth from its current perhaps 2 billion to something much lower. Stupid governmental reactions to oil depletion may exacerbate that problem (ie tar sands oil development, ethanol, nukes, coal liquefaction) and others (more Middle Eastern wars, Great Depression II). And there are still thousands of nuclear weapons in the hands of countries with unstable, reckless leaders, like Russia and the US. If Palin gets into the White House I think we may be in extreme danger, as she appears to be a Christofascist eager for Armageddon. Not having a cushy retirement is rather far down on the list, and an economic collapse might just save us from one of the worse scenarios.
This thread is interesting - The people who once believed in America sound more depressed than the ones who gave that idea up years ago.
I think it's great Karma that the country is running out of money just in time for Televisions to become more expensive. I killed my TV years ago so I do't care. But without the money to upgrade all the TV's in America -
Maybe there will finally be rioting in the streets after all!
The digital TV thing IS funny.
This could be devastating for local broadcasters. Good. They've paid NOTHING for using our radio spectrum. Been nothing (and still are) absolute whores for Washington and Wall Street. They offer us NO debate on anything (thank you Anheuser-Busch, one of the primary sponsors of the "Presidential Debates" for years--and one of the biggest spenders on ad time.)
Let me say I believe in America, that the thieves that have been running rampant have depressed me and I have no doubt that we will come back.
No rioting in the streets, sorry.
What will we do when no "rioting" is necessary for them to shoot or arrest us?
Blackwater shot people for taking bread and pop from Wal-=Mart in New Orleans--they were DYING!!! And Congress has allowed Bush, in a signing statement (FISA--thanks Dems), to overturn Posse Comitatus Act, and there is a brigade already stationed here.
Bush says shoot them--you. What say you?
We have les than 2 weeks until an election, one that is pretty well sewn up. We have a right to demand answers to this kind of stuff. The "Kill Obama !" and "protestors are traitors" crowds are already screaming redneck revolution. We need to get answers.
BTW---not the people I just spoke of, but, most of the people in these areas would be on progresives folks sides if we just head a natl leader to back up our positions. We need to tell Obama to do that. Or, to , at least, do what he was promising in the Primary.
"And Congress has allowed Bush, in a signing statement (FISA--thanks Dems), to overturn Posse Comitatus Act, and there is a brigade already stationed here."
He does not have that authority. Signing statements can be used for some things. I don't think those troops officers would obey what they know to be illegal orders. There is a bit more thinking in the military than some admit.
I never heard of any "blackwater" people in New Orleans, nor the shootings you describe.
As to the right wing idiots at McCains elections, they are a vocal minority just as you have surely heard vocal leftists say the same about Bush and Cheney. I know you've seen much of that posted here.
Its just a bunch of fanatics that don't count for much in the long run. At least thats my take.
Thomas, I will get you some links.
http://www.inteldaily.com/?c=117&a=1431
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/95-964.pdf
http://www.infowars.net/articles/november2007/161107terror_hell.htm
See, especially, the pdf whch is from the govt./
I thought that Blackwater in NO was common knowledge by now. See "Blackwater" by Jeremy Scahill, p.400--actually, I put a quote here for you--but my old machine keeps hitting a key that erases it. So, this is a shortened verion of what I wanted.
Ask the La. Natl Guard--they had to take orders from them. I cant believe that people dont know this.
Posse Comitatus was overturned in a bill written up by Warner, Levin and Kennedy. See a link above.
See also, the article at AlterNet by Naomi Klein.
Here is enough to make your skin crawl/:
"Blackwater" by Jeremy Scahill...pp400:
"For Blackwater, Katrina was a mometous occasion--its first official deployment on US soil...whie it raked in a hefty sum for the domestic disaster operations...breaking into a new, lucrative market for its mercenary services..."
Toxic Asset Relief Program (TARP)
Well it’s Arm a greed on time again
so mark up the meltdown
If we don’t pitch in
the street will soon be dead
and turpitude will be left homeless
without the TARP
all alone out in the dark
to howl at the moon
for it’s Arm a greed on time again
so push my buttons
I’am as lonely as an expired ATM
please let me sign my tab for much much later
and I’ll howl my howl
at the rising harvest moon
Say it’s Arm a greed on time again
please feed my bottom line
to save my inner tycoon mushroom from itself
Liven up my howl with stories of pre predator gloom
and Homo economicus
and I’ll howl at the harvest moon
for it’s Arm a greed on time again
just another cycle
to color code the bounty high harvest orange
please leave the hunter for the folklore
and raise your snouts together and sing the howl
the harvest moon howl
for it’s Arm a greed on time again
so count on meltdown
The Neo Con's New American Century is getting very close to the
1932 musical New Americana. Brother, Can you spare a dime?
"In the next seven years (after 911), the Bush administration managed to turn that misplaced fear into something like prophecy and bring down the house."
I've always thought of 911 as a single, protracted psycho-physical event of the Jungian variety, having more to do with Osama's revenge than any contribution from our stooge-in-chief, who never comprehended any of it. The end of the civilization of the plains Indians was characterized by mystics like Crazy Horse who lamented the breaking of the Great Hoop and the end of everything familiar. Ours too, it seems. We're talking about an underlying Zeitgeist here, so religious language has a better handle on it than political or historical narrative. The word hayba popped up, I think in the New Yorker Magazine, to describe something in the mind of every Muslim in the world after 911. It means dread - the dread which fills men when the shadow of God falls upon the earth. The idea is inaccessible to the pragmatic brain. The unholy ghost that steps out of the whirlwind and erases Mammon, every skyscraper, every dime of the colossal unreality of money and its devotees, leaving the sky over New York full of air and your 401K statement full of zeros. I worked for three years to save the amount of money that vanished from my retirement savings last month alone. Hayba.
To those of you who are not worried, I submit that we have not yet come to the painful part of this. It has been like finding yourself weightless in an elevator. Cable must have snapped. But hey, so far it's not so bad.
vox
Anyone would have to be an idiot not to be worried.
"I submit that we have not yet come to the painful part of this. It has been like finding yourself weightless in an elevator. Cable must have snapped. But hey, so far it's not so bad."
But I really could have done without that analogy! (laughing as I walk thru the graveyard sleeping tonight)
I'm a bit younger than Wilmoor and Ruth K, recenly retired myself, but we won't have a depression and thats good news.
The threat to retirement funds is certainly real enough. We worry about it a bit, but I do feel we will work this out. It may even turn out to be the turning point our country needed. It may produce a better system for everybody before its over.
I certainly hope so. And I think many people are going to find out that their neighbors will help them if they are in trouble, not just the "back to the landers."
Its sort of like electing a Down Syndrome girl Homecoming Queen as recently happened here in Texas near us. People are a lot better and more caring than some like to believe.
I've been at depressed at times since January 21, 1981, with symptoms getting mich worse on January 21, 2001. Then GAD (with frequent annoying bouts of IBS) on September 11, 2001.
and off topic, but I hope you are referring to the original Planet of the Apes and not that awful 2001 remake that most young people only know about...
I'm not depressed yet. I just heard Howard Zinn on the radio last night and just read his article in the Nation, on the front page of the Nation website. I sort of feel like I'm watching it unroll. I don't listen to mainstream media on it because I know they are spinning it (confirmed by articles on CD). I have social security as a senior citizen and a working spouse, who can't afford to retire. We'll see.
I cant stand market reports.
The stock market is like a god-and everyone is fed into it as if they can be part of the get rich quick set. Numbers up, numbers down.
If people stopped to think they would see what lunacy it is.
Even the idea that the economies of the world could collapse because of numbers up, numbers down. Who can ruin themselves like humans can?
I am more depressed about the abandoned cat than i am about columnists who lose money in investments.
We could ditch the all-out rat race of unregtulated capitalism for a social democracy. Every other civiized country has, or, is trying to.
I watched soem of the Canadian elections last night--their 5 parties. I noticed taht Conservatibvse did gain some ground (the Canadians wil still never give up on entire social safety net as we have). But, even their most Conservative parliamentarians would seem like Bill Clinton to us!!
This Protestent sink or swim may be have seemed to make sense when most people lived off of the land. Now, theyve taken it from us, never gave the "40 acres" to blacks, etc. WE HAVE A RIGHT to say what is done with the Commonweatlh. nay, a responsibility.
Whose country is this, anyway? More money from China and Saudi Arabia for a tax cut? Does it belong to people like Bush and his ilk, who never fought for it, worked for it, bled for it? Now , with so many peopel staring "down the dumpster"--would be the time. If not us, who. If not now, when
Welcome to George Bush's Amerika.
Depressed? Who could depressed in these marvelously chaotic times?
We are living in a period where change can happen and end the rule of the Ruling Elite, the end of capitalism and a new society being born based on equality for all to heal all harm done by milennia of Ruling Elite harm.
The more the old tries to hold onto their power and impose more order onto us in doing so the more chaos will increase and as the old finally finishes itself of and disappears the new will be born where all men and women will be equal and humanity will work together to better itself...
Only those who still cling to believing that what we have now is all that it can be will get depressed, those who think outside the box and embrace the coming change can only be happy.
We have the power to change the reality we live in we just have to believe in ourselves and make the change happen.
peace and love
all is illusion...there is no government
“Depressed? Who could depressed in these marvelously chaotic times?”
There is a Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times. Boy, do we have that in spades!
Hey people!! I would be what some in the media would portray as an "anarchist" or a "feral crusty". My affinity group, or "tribe" have not been shut out of the economy, we never even got in. And we are NOT depressed!!! We are TRIUMPHANT!!! Check out Youtube under "Protesters getting gassed" thats me right there getting hammered by riot police. For what? FOR FIGHTING TOOTH AND NAIL for YOUR CONSTITUTION. YOUR rights, YOUR priveledges..
You soft, safe, smug suburban sellouts have driven up rents with your houseflipping, puffed up your 401's and eliminated affordable housing and small business with your NIMBY values..
So be depressed, BE MISERABLE!! But you have another option, GET INTO ACTION!!!!
Or are you just too tired from working to earn all that money that just dissappeared??
Find the energy kids! Or perish.
No Tom, I'm not depressed, I'm joyful. It was no secret that America was on a serious downhill decline. Those of us who were not in denial began making plans for these times many years ago. At first I reasoned that I had a responsibility to others to alert them and I did. There were no ears for it. So I simply began planning for the worst. Now I am reasonably well prepared. I'm losing nothing in the stock market or the banks. I have food and water etc. stored. I have the necessities to grow my own food, and do. I expect the economy to continue to decline. My circle of friends believe in cooperation, helping one another. I have land to hunt on if I need to. I have plenty of oak forest and a woodburning stove that will heat my home if necessary. I have no New York banker or Washington politician to crush my future because I knew they were crooked. Although I will continue to feel badly for those who were unprepared I will not carry their burden. It is theirs to carry alone. I welcome them into the new lifeways absent their twentieth century economic beliefs. This new society will be built upon the ashes of the old. Transition is always difficult and the sooner people face reality, change themselves, and buy into the new green vision of life, the quicker we all rise to a better plane of existence. Most people seem capable of changing only when boiled in the cauldren. Unfortunate!
I have the necessities to grow my own food, and do...I have land to hunt on if I need to. I have plenty of oak forest and a woodburning stove that will heat my home if necessary...Although I will continue to feel badly for those who were unprepared I will not carry their burden. It is theirs to carry alone.
You have your land until inflation taxes you out of it. Its good to know that you will continue to enjoy cutting, splitting and storing firewood well into your 90's (I wish you a long, long life). However, don't expect me to help as it will be your burden to carry alone. You have friends to help out now, but what happens when they are taxed out of their homes due to inflation or they become to ill to help out? I guess its every man for himself, eh? More power to you.
-- EKATON --
Stone:there's millions of folks living in cities. You sound like it's too bad on us. Is that what you mean?
No. I too live near a city but not in one. There are many city people who have also prepared by buying into local food farm co-ops. They too have stored food, water, and other necessities. I have friends there who are a part of my circle. They have escape plans and places to go. They have planned. They have reduced their lifestyles to conform with realities and have taken their funds from stocks and the banks and placed them in more local investments like part ownership in a co-op farm. They have gold and silver coins, medicines, hand driven food processors, food dryers, simple farm tools and a host of other important items. They live as locavores and are co-dependent with all levels of important skills represented. The government has bought you some time, use it well. It takes time and effort to get all of this together especially when purchasing used items, which most of our are. We are not rich people, we seldom eat out or go to sports or entertainment events. We have cut back our consumption, avoided fashion, wear used clothing, drive older well maintained and paid for vehicles, but have all we need to live a happy and healthy lifestyle. This took hard work and a substantial change of attitude over time to achieve. I believe it is where America is headed anyway so why not get prepared. No we are not abandoning people and no we cannot take care of many outside our group. We will do what we can, however, people must suffer the consequences of their own choices. Their burdens are theirs to bear until they connect in a useful way with a community of people living in the new reality. Washington and the election is the last thing on my mind right now. I am currently selling things that I have that are unneeded to raise funds for future needs. We also fit in and are indistinguishable from the average American. We keep a low profile. We are prepared for the worst but hope for the best.
There are many people in this coutnry who made NO choice.
If you have no money, it takes alot more than time to put back necessities.
You just cant do it. There are no food co-ops in this part of the city. I didnt choose this part of the city--I chose where I couod afford.
It seems that alot of people assume that everyone in the uS is in a suburban house, has a big screen tv and cable, drives a big SUV, etc. Eats meat, has bought clothes in 10 yrs, or been to a movie or restauarnt.
I am not trying to be confrontational, but, it does sortve seem that the only reason to post somethig like this o a site is to seem self-righteous.
In general, I like your posts. But it is NOT always just peoples' CHOICES and all their fault.
And, hoarding gold and silver doesnt exactly sound like the "new paradigm". Or, maybe it is. Social darwinism.
Yah I know that there are some people who have no choices at all and that is really rough. These people are the most vulnerable. They are suffering greatly right now.
I know these people well. They are the ones who visit construction sites looking for scrap wood to burn to keep warm. They are the ones who pick up the beer and soda cans for scrap to buy food. They dress in rag tag clothes and old beat up shoes. They pick through trash cans for items that will help them live. They squat in old abandoned houses because they have nowhere else to go. They are hopeless people living from day to day. Yes I know them and have helped them for many years. The loss of hope is a very deep hole to be in. One cannot fill it with temporary or sporadic charity or assistance. You just know that you cannot say no to them when you encounter them face to face, so you do what you can in the moment hoping that in some small way you have eased their burden. Yet they remind us that we are connected to them and that we could be them with a little misfortune. No, these are not the people I was speaking of. I was speaking of the the well healed, arrogant, and disrespectful kind of people when I say, they are on their own.
I would not call for "charity" to temporaraily do anything--it just relieves the rest of them/us or their/our responsibility. While someone of the people here may not be to the state you describe YET!---they soon could be. I worked with Homeless Vets for years, so I have seen it all too. I have also been homeless , myself.
But, what I will not concede is this "the poor will always be among us" stuff. I would call for SYSTEMIC change--to put a permanent end to the type of povery you are speaking of .There is absdolutely NO reason for anyone to live , as you describe, or to spend their waning days, begging for food or medicine. We have some of the wealthiest people in the world in this country. They need to be taxed. They need to participate in sacrifice, in the "war" they make so much money off of.
To the rich, I say, same as you! But, they wil not need you anyway.
I do not see how, with record wealth at the top, we can stand by and see our fellow citizens, many whom have worked all their lives (and cannot amy more), or bled in our stupid Imperialistic wars that we seem to be too busy to stop, --just say, "Well, what can we do??". Well, if everyone is so set on Obama--he has a big enough lead now--cant he be confronted with what he wil do about the POOR?? How his health csre will not cover 25 million people? On how we NEED revenue--and taxes will have to be raised, especialy on the rich? ( He has talked of it taking 10 yrs to "undo" the tax cuts for the wealthy--this is nonsense)
I have an idea---how much do some of you really need that $1000 Obama is promising (alot dont make enough to receive it). Ask his canmpaign to forego this gimmick and use ti as a fund for medical clinics, fixing up peoples homes damaged by the global warming storms we refuse to control, etc. Child care, clothes and skills for job interviews. A ROOM AND A BATH!!
This is what I say---what say you??
So true.
I am tiring of these back-to-the-land-hippie types (who in reality are usually rich landowners with larger carbon footprints than any city dweller) who seem to saying to all us that we can go to hell. They are infected with that sick form of Ayn Randian individualism that is the root of the US economic illness to begin with.
You completely misunderstand and misstate the reality USAn.
my vision of the future has many poor people living hand to mouth...interesting how many folks want to look at the things they have now (stockpiled food\water\weapons\ammo, land for farming\hunting\firewood) and think that, after it all falls apart, they'll still have it...brother, what you'll actually own will be whatever you can carry\defend from those who would have it instead, who may greatly outnumber you...looking at the current situation and projecting forward is as insane as predicting the market based on past performance, or a candidate's performance based on their statements...there are no rules...the only reality is the continuing destruction of our planet based on personal lifestyle choices...from that perspective, of course, de-industrializing is a necessity...
Anyone remember the TV movie "The Day After", from the early 80s? Wasn't there a scene in it when someone holds up a can of food and says that is the new currency? In my darker moments, I see that type of scene playing out as America drags the rest of the world down with it into ever bigger and bigger war. I don't have many light moments. I've been suffering from debilitating depression since I was a child, even been hospitalized for it a few times. I've been to many therapists (currently seeing one now and hope to continue as long as the Medicaid holds out) and one of them told me that depression is anger turned inward. This is what is happening to the world and getting out of that is incredibly difficult. On a personal level, one has to see an opportunity to turn that anger around and use its energy to do something constructive. I suspect the same will be with our global community. But, the question that torments me is, "Will we do so in time?" Again the personal, I'm forty and trying to start life anew and I wonder for myself if I have enough time and sometimes is it even worth trying?
Revenge Girl:
I really sympathize with your plight. I suspect you were writing of your actual experiences. But even if your situation wasn't that exactly, I know that there must be people whose experiences are just that. I have a hard enough time picking up my own pieces, so I can imagine just how difficult it is for you and others who have started their own long downward spiral with devastating medical problems. Hope you pull through.
Thanks for the kind words. The only thing worse than a serious injury - is being lead to the abyss and looking into the black hole that is the "Health" "Care" system. You wouldn't believe the pack of liars and crooks I've met.
My mother was a healthcare professional and I used to work in her office when I was kid. One day in 1973, a representative from an Insurance Company stopped by her office and began telling her how to treat patients if she wanted to be included on the Corporation's list of providers they would refer. She threw him out of her office and said - "This is the beginning of the end of medical ethics." I never forgot that. But when I was injured I foolishly trusted some of these creeps at first. Now I realize how right my mother was in 1973.
I have "been on both sides of the 'couch'" (therapist/client). You are not alone in your pain.
I agree with your therapiat taht depression can be anger turned inward. It can also be a perfectly rational reaction to an inasane set of circumstances.. I hope Medicaid holds out, too. I'm not sure where you live, but it is not in my state, as , there are no therapiasts on our HMO.
Depression and anger can also bring great strength. Yes, you can use it outwardly.
I certainly dont think that individualiatic survivalism is the route of mankind. It is clear that you want to be part of mankind, or you would not reach out. Never stop doing that, no matter what somene might tell you. Most people are NOT "wrapped as tight" as they would like you to believe.
Our fortunes rise and fall together more than most know.
If it is, I might rather go in the first "bunch"--rather than fighting with the second to last person over the last potato. This survivialist lone wolf stuff got us where we are. We need to work as communities, yes, but, we need to makes communites out of our country--reaching out to one another. No one shoudl be trampled underfoot because they had circumstandces that made them "fail to prepare". Its just a bunch of selfish "me-ism", and, "good old Merkin individualism"---look where it gets us.
KDelphi, being prepared and being a part of a caring and sharing community is not lone wolf survivalism, in fact, it is the opposite. Participating in the new evolving culture in thoughtful ways strengthens all who participate. Getting prepared for the worst that is clearly on our doorstep, is in my view, a good lifeway.
As painful as it is to think about, it is time to step into the future by being aware and prepared as best we can. We owe it to ourselves and to others to do our part. My view....
I do have a vision of hardship but not your vision of destruction.
I've been depressed since sometime in mid-September. Then last week someone on TV commented that big retirement funds like CalPERS and another - don't recall the name, could be in big trouble. First time I actually felt involved in what's happening. I'm 71 and for the past ten years I've lived close to the bone because I have a very small retirement and Social Security income. My only "frivolous" spending is for basic cable so I can watch a few shows, and my internet connect - total cost between them is $40 a month. I don't go anywhere except the grocery store for a few things a couple of times a month, and medical appointments, so until gas went to $4, I could put $10 a month in the car and keep it filled. At $4, I simply stopped going anywhere even more.
Now I'm looking at trying to live on less than $600 a month if my retirement is wiped out, and thanks to good old government, $96 of that'll be taken out for Medicare whether I want it or not. Lots of times the thought creeps into my mind that maybe I've lived long enough. The future doesn't look too promising. Then I think of what I might come back to. Guess I'll just do what so many are doing - turn of the tv, shut down the computer, and look out my back window. I can tell myself, "See, all's right with the world - the hummingbirds are still coming to the feeders, the sun shines just as brightly as ever, beautiful fall flowers fill the garden, and the lawn needs mowing again.
wilmoor, one thing that may make you feel a little better is called (or used to be called) ssi (supplemental security income). the federal government supplements your social security check to a minimum somewhere in the mid 600's per month. i don't know how that relates to what you live on now. i'm in a similar but slightly better off position living on disability social security payments. when those shift to retirement, the future becomes a scary question mark.
for peace and sustainability
wilmoor:we'll have to wait and see. (See my earlier comment.) I'm a few years younger than you. Are you old enough to remember anything about the Depression? I'm not.
I'm 72, a year older than you. I understand how you feel. I feed the birds and the cat that was abandoned along with a nearby house. There are still a few flowers but they'll probably be gone next week when it gets a bit colder.
I've worked all my life, paid my bills, saved a bit, and lived simply. Since I'm worried about climate change, I recycle everything I can, take my canvas totes to the store, and drive my small old car. I'm very depressed about everything. Maybe I took a wrong turn. Should I have selfishly grabbed up everything I could. That may have worked better than trying to be a decent person.
Financially, I'm better off than you. I paid into social security for 46 years so I get quite a bit now. But what happens to the money I carefully saved? Will SS or the savings be around much longer? Will inflation eat through them?
I't is amazing how much beauty there is in nature if we take the time to look.
When it comes to depression - Turning off the TV really helps.
If the men of this country stand and fight, and they will, your social security will be safe.
If Blackwater and other contractors shoot first, it wont matter.
Ruth K:we have to take it as it comes. I never made a lot as an artist, so my checks are small from social security. My spouse can't afford to retire, but so far he likes his work and still can.
I find it fascinating that there are so many stories in the media lately about the "despair, devastation and depression" caused by this bursting housing bubble and stock market crash. I would like to suggest: People who had stock to begin with, don't know the meaning of devastation, despair or depression.
Real despair is having a disabling illness or injury and no health insurance.
Losing your job. Then having to wait three years for disability. Having to sell your home to pay debt. Seeing your car reposessed. Buying groceries on credit cards. Bankruptcy. Getting evicted by a landlord and having to move your family to the homeless shelter. (However, once you've lost everything and your on social services, the only thing the system will do for you is pay pharmacuitical companies for lots of antidepressants.) Meanwhile you observe some of your neighbors have inherited homes or as much as a million dollars and paid no tax.
Many Americans have been devastated by the inequties of this corrupt system for years. The one thing that we have in common with the Depression of the 1930's is that people are still fascinated with stories about the rich.
RG:disabling illness is bad whatever, and add another couple of years to getting SSD. There are a lot of horror stories in our society. I get uncomfortable when we are pitted against one another, which is what the power structure loves. I love your last line. It is so "American" how folks still identify with the rich. Some of it is due to the rich spending a lot of money on propaganda: for ex., the family who owns Wal-Mart spent something like a hundred million dollars for public relations that invented "the death tax" terminology.
That "death tax" propaganda was a coup! Somehow people didn't see through it.
So is the propaganda that "greedy consumers" caused the housing bubble and "lazy welfare cheats" caused the problem of "big government". The Government caused the problem of big government, and people would rather pay "life tax" (income tax) than pay death tax - go figure! I'd much rather pay taxes after I'm dead than before!
There is a myth in America that "We Americans can do anything if we work hard".
Alot of people who believe this myth have probably worked really hard, but have not had enough disasters to change their thinking. Many people who are broke right now have had some bad luck like a serious injury, or even two people in their family who got sick one after another. You can't really prepare for this. Luck and circumstances play a huge part.
When my family had misfortune I was amazed at the callousness of insurance companies, doctors and other "experts" - because I had worked really hard, but I was treated really badly by people who assumed I hadn't. They made everything worse, and recovery take much longer.
It was only then that I began to truely understand how we are blinded by our assumptions. I used to think that Republicans were merely people who made bad choices. Now I realize that they are my enemy. Hence my moniker, and what I say about "Them". I tell what happened to me, because people would not believe it unless they had bad luck.
Alot of people fall through the cracks and never come back, but I know my luck and circumstances will change. I also realize that if I was not born in the USA, I could be living in Calcutta and not even have enough calories to be able to get up and move around. So I think that we ought to be paying more atttention to the stories of the poor than stories about the rich.
The "death tax" is the inheritance tax on estates greater than two million dollars (four million for couples). The propaganda says that the "death tax" causes the loss of small businesses and small family farms. I have relatives who have small family farms. Their farms are worth only a fraction of what would be needed to pay the "death tax". I would like to hear of even one small family farm that was lost.
Give them bread first, THEN speak to them about self-responsibility! If the majority here were truly thrifty and self-responsible that wouldn't be profitable for the Big Corps. I mean, hey, if we only bought what we could afford, drove more modest vehicles and lived in more humble abodes, what would that do to the markets (especially the credit markets)?? For one, it would force them to adjust to our practices. So if enough people just did that, it would redefine the term 'consumer.' Additionally, if we demanded that physicians displayed their charges up-front, instead of getting sticker shock after using their 'service,' then we could shop around and force down prices.
We behave like deer caught in a headlight when it comes to so-called professionals and experts. Have you ever noticed how most hate to be questioned? This means that they are not used to it! They know and you do not, so do not even dare to question their 'authority.' It is WE who have given away our lives to THEM and the SYSTEM we live under. Essentially, this means we've chosen FEAR as our guide. Think about it.
How to proceed? Rebel against your inward fear FIRST, then meaningful change will follow, but not until.
How true that people behave like deer in the headlights when faced with a "professional" in the healthcare system.
The problem is that the ones they prey upon most are the deer that have been squashed into the pavement!
The question I like asking most of all when a doctor gives me a referal is: "Oh, is he a friend of yours?" They hate that.
An honest doctor says "No, an associate" or something like that. The money grubbing theives who live by using the patient like a parasite on a host become confused and don't answer the question. They assume I'm just naive and unrealistic and don't live in the real world - and the expression on their face is priceless! I also love the doctors that repeatedly ask over and over, appointment after appointment: Have you tried (whatever toxic pharmacuitical)??? Like a snake oil salesman - no matter how many times you've said that you've had an adverse reaction to it.
Few can really fathom the set of circumstances you describe Revenge Girl unless they've been through it.
Twenty years ago I left America to end the depression I was feeling from living in America. Over the years I have watched as America continues to self destruct. More crooked politicians and more greedy businessmen have ruined all the social institutions, and now even the economy. The Constitution is now a business contract between politicians and corporate America. The mechanism for political change is gone. Dylan told us that “the vandals took the handles” and Carlin told us that we are “owned by corporate America”. That would make anyone depressed.
Hoa binh
Amen to that...I left 10 months ago. I watched King George commit the supreme international crime by starting a war of aggression, jail and torture innocent people as "enemy combatants", sit and watch a major American city drown, wiretap Americans, and now rob the treasury. I won't mention the suspicious circumstances of 9/11 and how they planned for "a Pearl Harbor" like event in 2000 in order invade Afghanistan and Iraq. I watched them do it in plain site while 60 million people voted for him in the last election. Even Mugabe couldn't get away with what Bush did PLAIN AS DAY in stealing of the 2000 election. If you are reading this now.....get out while you can. The war criminal King George and all his court (Dems & Reps) did this in full view of all the sheeple. He will get away with it and leave office with out even a charge. They can almost impeach a man for sex with his intern but breaking Nuremberg conventions, Geneva conventions, UN charters, and even lying to the Senate can't even start any serious hearings. I have health care, a job, and I sleep like a baby now....no more stress for me in New Zealand. I love reading the news over the last 10 months....the US people are reaping what they sowed. Wake up people the US is lost and they won't be happy until everyone is on the soup kitchen line. He didn't get away with all this by himself....the whole thing is systemically screwed the hell up and it will get nothing but worse.
Congratulations to you. Best wishes on your new life. It is certainly depressing being an American and having the rest of the world think that you're a Bush supporting asshole.
Unfortunately, New Zealand won't take immigrants over 40.
"Twenty years ago I left America to end the depression I was feeling from living in America."
Amen! To the power of 10!
What an utterly self-inflected and totally avoidable mess. Witness the decline of an Empire. I imagine this is how the average Roman felt around 400 A.D.
, , , and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it.
Yes, there is. The Republicans and Democrats can be electorally destroyed so they never rape anyone again. Then what? Diogenes is still out there with his lamp, looking for an honest man. There are a few around.
Diogenes could wander thru Congress and find only twenty or thirty, forget going over to the White House or visiting most of its appointees.
I suppose I can count myself lucky that I don't have any savings yet anyway...