Dire Straits
It's just a flesh wound [said the Black Knight, after his appendages had been lopped off]
--Monty Python and the Holy Grail
__________
An addendum to our disdain with all of the political front runners voiced in the previous Hobson's Choice:
It is the false banner flown by all of the rightness of democratizing the (heathen) world, albeit not spoken that directly, while ours melts before us. Their willingness to ride in the bandwagon of a meaningless war. Oh, they'll shift tactics and maneuver elements here and there, but none of the frontrunners have challenged the essentialness or constitutionality of the entire fiasco.
One example, in the memory of Perry Kucinich: In 2004, the Vice Presidential debates were held in Cleveland, Ohio, Ranger's hometown and a blighted city if ever there was one. What transpired among those bright talking heads? A debate that did not address the distress surrounding them.
Ohio was the key state in GWB's reelection, but the Democratic Party lacked the political savvy to drive through municipal Cleveland and show the degradation of a principal American city.
Cleveland's needs have primacy over and precede the needs of Kabul or Baghdad, yet both parties ignore this reality. Is it so derelict that it seems easier to tote materials across an ocean and a continent to build a shining city elsewhere? Add any of the Rust Belt American cities and you have a dire problem on your hands.
It is a problem which exceeds the results ever to be returned on the $2 Trillion+ Phony War on Terror (PWOT©). And it perdures.
As it was in 2004, so it is in 2008. Some in the MSM have noted this odd exclusion -- "Americans don’t need more denial" (The Economy and the New Year.) America's economic woes do not follow the maxim on the plaque at my dentist's office ("Ignore them and they'll go away.") The dollars will, but not the lacunae left behind by their absence.
Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) has accused Bush of complacency (Bush Upbeat About Economy):
"You have got a major financial crisis. You have got a major mortgage and home-value crisis. You have rising energy and health-care costs. And, for the first time since the Depression, a negative savings rate," Emmanuel said. "Outside of that, [Bush] wants to tell you everything is okay."
The WaPo article continues, "(T)he president has been careful to voice empathy for the average worker. 'I'm concerned about the fact that Americans see their costs going up,' Bush said yesterday." What does he do with that "concern"? Perhaps he just counts his blessings that he need not feel the pinch.
We understand what has happened to the public, to a degree. The Bush presidency, following demoniacal Rovian guidelines, has effectively blinded the electorate to their own better interests in favor of grand ideas which benefit them not a whit, but which are executed behind their aegis.
"I like the one that used to be the motto on the unit coin of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, the Blackhorse: “Be prepared! Find the bastards. And pile on!”
He applied this approach to the American people themselves. Rove was highly prepared with a charismatic agenda, he found a base (= "the bastards"), and piled it on.
It is a winning strategy, until you've got no more to pile on, that is.
--Jim and Lisa
Labels: cleveland blight, problems with democrats
posted by Lisa at 10:31 PM
3 Comments:
there is blight all over this country. cleveland is a prime example. the folks in urban ohio have been ravaged and destroyed as certainly and as effectively as the folks in new orleans. too many of us still blame the devastation in new orleans on katrina. the storm had a hand to be sure, but the real devastation, the real destruction, and the real evisceration and dismantling of a major american city was done by human beings. it was done by a government that didn't care about people who weren't white and didn't have a history of voting for the folks in power at the moment. it was done by a government that saw a chance to make some bucks for their cronies. it was done by people who didn't care whether or not the contractors going in would do anything except cash the checks. along with new orleans and cleveland we can see the death march happening in detroit (where they used to actually build shit), pittsburgh (where the only steel workers left play football), even mighty st. louis is no longer a center of commerce.
we have already been sold down the river by shameless and rapacious bastards. i'm long on anger and disappointment and very short on any kind of hope.
There's one thing to think about here: the current juggling game can't stay going forever. There's too many balls up in the air, and sooner or later the whole mess is just going to come crashing down into a disaster that even the average sheeple will not be able to ignore. What then? That's a good question. We can go the way of Italy and Germany during the 1930s -- turn to some charismatic strongman -- or we can rediscover how to live as a free people in a democracy. Which one will happen? I suspect we all will make some difference in making what happens happen. Keep your guns well-oiled and your ammo loaded, my friends.
- Badtux the Apocalyptic Penguin
Apocalyptic penguin,
Living as a free people in a democracy is not achieved by shooting, though I am no enemy of the 2nd Amendment.
It is achieved by sensible, sustainable living. Jared Diamond had a good piece on the matter in the NYT this past week. With the ascendancy of China and India, we simply cannot continue consuming at the current levels. Everyone cannot waste as much as the U.S. does.
That is where the change must occur--with each one of us. Al Gore was onto something.
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