Free-falling in the autumn

Friday, October 10, 2008

Free-falling in the autumn

Things are too grim for us to spend much time on the ham-handed attempts by John McCain, his medicine cabinet-rifling wife and his braying running mate to fear monger us out of electing Barack Obama. Frustrated by the growing likelihood that they can't beat Obama at the polls, the McCain posse has put a new twist on the term "go down swinging" by verbally lynching the Democratic nominee at Republican rallies.

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Normally such deplorable behavior late in a presidential campaign would draw my full focus and ire. God knows I'd enjoy chronicling the political demise of a comedic team made up of the dim demagogue from Arizona and Alaska Governor Josephine McCarthy. Unfortunately, with a worldwide depression looming, I'm needed for other duties. The planetary economy is collapsing and no one in this country is so much as suggesting that we follow the economic demise to its source: the USA's desperate use of force to maintain its failing empire (shall we count the historical precedents in Roman numerals?) Beyond that, no one is getting to the heart of the immediate matter here in the United States-- if we are going to print money to help people, we shouldn't be doing it to guarantee the maintenance of some obscenely excess wealth of a very narrow slice (one percent) of our society.  Twinkling in the midst of this horror is the last faint hope of the McCain campaign because as the bottom falls out, people will grow more desperate and angry and crazy politicians screaming for vengeance will offer the kind of irrational leadership rabid lemmings demand. Believe me, the participants at McCain's rallies are already foaming at the mouth and ready to crusade -- check the maniac on the street interviews outside a recent Ohio event spotted by Tom Duffy at The Garlic.



According to economist Michael Hudson speaking on KPFA's indispensable Guns and Butter the Paulson/Bush/Pelosi plan isn't a socialist bailout, it's a fascist bailout. When combined with talk that martial law will be unleashed at the first sign of mob disapproval, and considering how depression's create mobs by putting the main ingredient for them (people) out on the street, Hudson's admonitions become that much more ominous. When people put it together that Fiscal Emperor Paulson's grift will make all the elite's bad debts good while still permitting the moneyed few to repossess our homes and foreclose on small businesses at a record pace, unrest among the unwashed will skyrocket. The powerful know this thus the contingency plans to use the military to impose mobster rule upon the dispossessed multitude.

If McCain can talk his way back into the race by using faux populist rhetoric to con us small folk into believing that he is the only hope, we will be in deeper shit than ever. Whispering Johnny would be an awful president but he has the true makings of a garden variety military governor. Let's hope the supposedly brilliant Barack Obama is prepared for this and will step up with some preemptive populism of his own. He needn't spell everything out, he just has to assure us that as things get rougher, he won't deploy the military to defend the perimeters of gated communities and he certainly won't use it to assault huddled masses.
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If elected, President Obama will have to have a Renewed Deal ready for roll-out. He will need to decree that we will only print money to help create jobs, buttress small businesses, repair our infrastructure, protect the environment, provide a mind-opening education for our children and make sure the human rights of shelter, good nutrition and proper health care are available for every American. He will need to make it clear that we can only develop a plan to save ourselves if we overcome our addiction to foreign wars. It means that he will have to sell Americans on the idea that pounding our swords into plowshares will benefit our economy, the environment and the rest of the world. Of course this means he will have to know all of this in the first place. Does he? I don't know. Will he ever acknowledge our screaming need for economic triage? He will if enough of us raise our voices to demand that our nation stop wasting its resources to destroy lives when there are so many people already fighting to survive at home and abroad.

ADD COMMENT

PalinurusMonday, October 13th 2008 1:42PM

Are McGain's & Pallin's followers all on psycho-pharmaceuticals? A nation of zombies courtsy of Zolloft, Prosac, et al.? Watch McGain on his connection to the "Keating 5" in the link.

uncle buckMonday, October 13th 2008 10:02AM

We'll see what a new week brings, but it was clear at the end of the last one (will this election cycle ever be over?) that McStain is balking at the frankenstein they've unleashed. The hate - raw hatred - among certain whites attending the Palin rallies is really, really scary.
The fear now, is how Obama survives the period between his election on Nov. 4th (a given) and his swearing in on Jan. 20th.
Not to mention what mischief the Cheney/Bush fanatics will reap in their final days in power.
The price we are about to pay for Pelosi/Hoyer taking Impeachment off the table is about to play out before our eyes. Cover your children's ears; it's going to get a lot uglier before Hope, hopefully, wins out.

Glenn CondellMonday, October 13th 2008 6:17AM

By the way Barry, I noticed at historian David Kaiser's blog History Unfolding a reference to a New Yorker piece by George Packer which gels with your series on the dying outback of NY and Penn. Packer may be doing penance for his craven war support. Kaiser says:

'There is meanwhile an extraordinary article in the New Yorker by George Packer--whose writings on Iraq I have discussed at length--on another critical bombed-out landscape, the towns of semi-rural Ohio. Gradually, learning what the last 20 years have actually done to the working class of the United States, Packer realizes the real reason that Democrats have been having so much trouble with white working-class voters. It isn't racism, religion, or guns (and Packer, to his credit, quotes the context of Obama's notorious remark along those lines, to show that Obama himself understands this quite well.) The real reason is that it has been so long since the Democratic Party actually did anything to help these people economically. The national leadership's decision not to take any stand against de-industrialization, union-busting and the erosion of health care and retirement benefits has left white Americans with little or no reason to vote Democratic. The same trend was evident in Congress two weeks ago, when the Democratic leadership could not come up with a real alternative to the bail-out, one that would intuitively have appealed to the middle-class Americans whose votes they seek. Packer found almost no enthusiasm for McCain, but many of the people he met declared their intention not to vote at all.'

The first link is to Kaiser, the second to Packer.

COMMENT ON THIS

Glenn CondellMonday, October 13th 2008 6:03AM

'no one in this country is so much as suggesting that we follow the economic demise to its source: the USA's desperate use of force to maintain its failing empire'

Not quite true Bazza. Bill Blum and Chalmers Johnson have been at this aspect like dogs with a bone. But if you really meant 'no-one likely to get within miles of an MSM microphone', then yes, you're spot on.

tjwashSunday, October 12th 2008 7:00AM

Barry...did you happen to hear about McCain "sticking up" for Obama at a recent rally and getting booed for doing so?

Please...how fucking stupid does he think we are?

That tactic was CLASSIC KKKarl Rove. It also had to be a staged incident. It was only after his fellow CONSERVATIVES started bemoaning the fact that he wasn't saying anything about the glorified KKK rallies that his speeches have become, and the videos of them actually started making the talk show rounds, that he conveniently hushed it on that day. Hell, before that, he didn't give one little shit. He actually looked like he was ENJOYING the racist garbage that was eminating forth from his crowds.

Listen to the quotes..."OBAMA's not an ARAB"... "You don't have to be SCARED of an OBAMA presidency"... "OBAMA's not a TERRORIST"

Classic Rover...get the words out there somehow, and always attach them to the name, so that no matter what, they stay linked together, even if it appears that you are apologizing or making nice. Same fucking tactic that got 70 percent of Americans thinking that Saddam Hussein was directly involoved in 9-11 (among other things).

Hell you're a writer,and a hell of a comedian...you of all people know the power of carefully placed words. I'm probably not even telling you a damn thing you don't already know.

You hit the nail on the head. It is nice to see the repugs go down in flames like they are, but there is a big overshadowing of what is going to have to actually be done to fix the damage of 8 years of unimpeded neo-con rule. I have to admit to enjoying the look of resignation in McCain's eyes though, as he has been reduced to making snotty remarks about cocktail-party-liberals and watching as his supporters dwindle down to only the pitchfork waving morons.

Walter DufresneSaturday, October 11th 2008 1:34PM

Thanks for hitting that one out of the ballpark.

COMMENT ON THIS

LisaFriday, October 10th 2008 8:31PM

Thank you.