Now I am getting scared and I cleave to Hawaii as a safe haven against what I hope doesn't happen in America.
The President cannot stand up and face the country's problems. He just doesn't have the leadership qualities which go with good intentions and good speech-making skills. He has confined himself to commenting about non-presidential issues like the dumb professor who got himself arrested...after a 'beer summit', Obama walked back his initial remarks about the racist white police officer. Then Shirley Sherrod. He had to call her and apologize. Then the 'ground zero mosque'. That's a New York issue, not a Presidential one. He emasculated himself politically when he gave that speech. He now has nothing left and is not taken seriously anymore, even by his supporters.
Adding insult to injury, the White House insists that the gulf oil has magically disappeared and that the economy has gained 'millions' of jobs during the last quarter and that we have some national security reason to spend a billion dollars a day losing the war in Afghanistan - and losing the war on drugs - and prosecuting people who whistleblow when they see something wrong and illegal (as they are supposed to do!). That is wrong. It is based up on bizarre psychology which works like this:
There are less people underwater with their mortgages and less toxic mortgages this month that there have been for a year. So the housing market is improving! OK, the statement is true enough...but the reason fewer people are underwater and there are fewer toxic mortgages is not because they got any help - but because the banks foreclosed! That is EXACTLY like saying "We had a million starving citizens, but most of them died...so now we have only a hundred thousand starving people; thus the situation has improved by a factor of ten." That's what the government is telling us about the economy. The numbers are getting better but not for the right reasons. The situation is not improving.
So...because the President can't bear to lead the country and won't fire the mopes he hired to run it for him, human nature will take over. Human nature doesn't require logical thought. In fact, it suppresses it. During periods of danger, everyone runs back to the fort and hides until the danger passes. But there is nowhere to run so people close their minds and follow people who promise change, even if it's the wrong kind of change. The radicals from both political parties are becoming more and more radical. There is no clear message, so people don't know what to believe. Glenn Beck is calling out the religious right, but he shouldn't be. He is appealing to emotion and appeals to emotion result in violence.
We had (I thought) just got past the religious fervency in America and had begun to renew our commitment to science. To use an appropriate metaphor, that advancement is now rapidly going to hell. We had turned the corner on racism...I thought. We had accepted gay people...I thought.
But we are falling back into the one thing which all countries face when they fail socially: we will unite by finding someone to hate. It may be the richest 1%, it may be Muslims, blacks, Ph.D.s or people with red hair. But someone will get the chop. I am a strong advocate for the Bill of Rights and the Constitution and I don't think calling the citizenry out in the name of religion....or in the name of anything except the duty of citizenship is a very good idea. Historically, that concept has resulted in more bad than good.
The economy is going into a multi-year depression. It will happen between September 1, 2010 and January 31, 2011. It is simply a matter of when last remnants of the middle class realize they are screwed and get out of the market before they lose everything. Even that won't save the country. Nothing will. But people are still holding on to the tiger's tail. ANY 'good' news, even if it is not true, spikes the stock market and ANY bad news, most of which is understated, drops the market. Within minutes. Anyone with a lick of sense must realize that there is so much volatility at the edge of the screen, that one wrong signal can destroy the economy before anyone even knows it is happening. People who have money in any equity market own imaginary money. It isn't real, and it can disappear in seconds. For my part, I believe I am better served by having nothing I cannot either eat or barter. Maybe that's silly or irrational, but it allows me to ignore the world with impunity. To quote Janis Joplin, "Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose".
"Lord, what fools these mortals be"
-Puck, Act III, scene II - A Midsummer Night's Dream
by William Shakespeare
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