It is hard to argue convincingly that the US is emerging like a phoenix from the ashes of our current financial firestorm. There is certainly a range of opinions on the subject. Even reading the tea leaves of the ‘facts’, e.g., housing sales and starts, unemployment numbers, etc., produces a variety of analyses from various economic pundits and financial know-it-alls: there are the boosters on Wall Street and the White House (yes, Virginia, pigs CAN fly if you burn enough money under their wings!), the moderately rosy prognosticators at the NY Times (including Nobel laureate Paul Krugman), the sad sack Republican sore losers (who want to give financiers even more license to steal and gamble), the gloomier views of the folks at Automatic Earth and Baseline Scenario among others, and, finally, the downright doomers like James Kunstler, Joe Bageant, and Dmitry Orlov, who are even now painting up the signs on the Welcome Wagons of societal descent. I tend to come down on their dark side, if for no other reason than at least these guys are people I want to share a meal and drinks with. Besides they write with panache, grace, style, and balls. Each of them always garners a lot of style points in their columns and blog posts. They are a necessary antidote to the all things bright and beautiful elixirs that are being peddled by the shills for American triumphalism.
Let’s face it, no matter how you frame it or what colors you try to drape over it, most folks out there are not experiencing anything that resembles a genuine ‘economic recovery’ they would recognize, and they aren’t ever likely to. We are drifting aimlessly around in unknown waters in a murky swamp for which there are no maps and for which there are no reliable guides. Those blustering self-aggrandizing Kool Ade peddlars on Wall Street and in the corridors of the White House are demonstrably not certified to lead us out of this. It is more likely that they have compromised any chance at ‘recovery’ by virtually opening up the entire vault to take care of the thieving CEOs and their henchmen at financial corporations and in the Big Banks. Any ‘stimulus programs’ that were reluctantly set in motion by Congress to help ‘main street’, municipalities and state governments were too lame and too feeble from the get go. While these efforts may have saved a handful of old jobs here and there, they haven’t inspired the creation of many new ones. After all, those DC boys take care of their own. Moreover, their targets were too ill-defined. In fact, the entire ‘ recovery program’ lacks clear definition and sharp vision. This was an opportunity to recognize and acknowledge the changed reality of the world’s inherent resource circumstances as well as those in the US. Our national ‘leaders’ failed absolutely to grasp the significance of the moment and chart a fresh course for the nation. But I suppose we shouldn’t have been surprised at their lack of vision and fortitude. Congress and the Executive Branch owe their souls to the highest bidders, usually corporations.
Consequently, virtually the entire nation is sleepwalking at the moment. Many millions people are trapped in debt, despair and disappointment. TO cope, they zone themselves out on medications that they hope will get them through the dark night of our plight, and cauterize their wounds with mindless mirth from the media. The Bread and Circuses machines are constantly alight with gaudy and brainless distractions. Hey, it’s our only real homegrown industry these days. Save for some of that medicinal weed in CA.
I am sure there are those out there who will choose to blame all of our current malaise on ‘the events of 9/11’. During the years of the Bush dauphinage it was hauled out anytime they felt the need to whip up ‘patriotic’ frenzy. And there are those out there who are still doing it. There is a cadre of politicians, pundits and plastic patriots (read: Tea Party) out there who are trying to peddle fantasies of ‘reclaiming American values’ and ‘restoring our freedoms’. The fact is that the events of 9/11 only shattered the illusions we all held about our invulnerability and invincibility. The ‘wake up call’ needn’t have led us to where we are now, but it has. And we are all complicit in our descent. America’s freedoms are usually won and maintained on foreign soils and with a lot of heavy arms.
As a nation we began hocking our freedoms at the Company Store a long time ago. The Company Store I refer to is that elaborate money laundering operation set up as a joint venture between the Corporations and the Government. And the Store is, in turn, beholden to the bankers and the financiers, the money lenders and money changers. While once folks like this were routinely driven from the temples, and excoriated for being the mendacious, rapacious, and sanctimonious scum they really are. NOW they own ALL the temples and charge us exorbitant fees just to stand in line at the door, let alone actually participate in the action. They’ve even been trying to convince us that they’re actually doing God’s work.
Every aspect of our lives in this country is monetized and monitored. The system even affects our children in the womb. They emerge into unending debt, and virtual perpetual servitude, none of it of their own making. The guys who control the money dominate this Vast Machine; they set all of the rules of the many and various games that comprise the System, their system, and they operate it all with ruthless and ceaseless fealty to the bottom line. Resistance is essentially futile. The only available option, if you don’t want to play with them, which is always costly to you, not them, is to try to figure out ways not to participate, as much as possible, or to not to play at all if you can. But finding a safe haven, amiable companions and crafting a meaningful existence is an increasingly difficult endeavor in this culture. And you have to be willing to be an outsider and an outlaw in many respects. That doesn’t mean proclaiming your ‘right’ to be an ass hole and bluster on about ‘values’ and ‘liberty’. It doesn’t mean toting your AK-47 around to rallies and threatening to kill anyone who disagrees with you. People like Sarah Palin and Glen Beck who protest and declaim with the vehemence and venom of spoiled, bratty, know-it-all children are, very wrongfully, getting all the press, and raking in a lot, a lot of $$$. Clearly our once clear-eyed ‘press corps’ can no longer tell the difference between magical thinking and reality. And even if they tried to, they would be fired. The longer the media can prolong the artificiality of it, the more easily these self-serving and extraordinarily canny, crafty schemers can chhisel away at our nation’s last remaining fig leaves of morality and decency.
So here I am sputtering and spewing. What do I choose? What am I going to do about the situation? On a macro-level, I am convinced that there really isn’t anything I can do. As for my own life, I can try to resist and try to participate as little as possible in the grand faloon (or is it saloon) of our culture. I can search out, and hopefully find, a place in which to settle for the rest of my days. I cannot actually set paths or build scaffolding for others. If I were a Buddhist perhaps I would just surrender to all of it, just acknowledge the existence of the System, accept it and move on. Usually that procedure doesn’t work, particularly well for someone with like me with such a high anger and disappointment level. Still, I flirt with that stance every day. Frankly, part of me longs for the ‘normal’ and the familiar of the last three decades. It was an easy and convenient life for the most part. Though it consisted mostly of relatively uneventful days and little in the way of fulfilling accomplishments, it was satisfying and quiet, a pastel USA version of a hobbit-like comfort and stability. We consumed too much and saved too little, of either $$$ or resources. Alas, that life is gone with the wind. On many days and more often, I think that may not be a bad thing.
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