Remember that whole American free market capitalist financial system thing? Yeah, well, that's done. The foundations, the bedrocks of our financial system -- institutions like CitiBank, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Bear Sterns, Bank of America, Fannie Mae -- they're bankrupt and/or have completely collapsed. And also that whole automotive industry --- as American as Chevrolet? Finito. Hasta la vista, baby. Also, print media like newspapers and magazines where I've made bread and butter for the last 15 years? Quaint and antiquated and also dropping like cracked-out flies. Insurance industry? On it's back. Health care system? Intensive care unit in desperate need of resusitation. Energy policy? Ha-ha-ha. It's all complete MERDE.
Thing is, even though it's never ever nice to point a (or the) finger, MOST EVERYONE IN OUR COUNTRY BARES RESPONSIBILITY FOR THIS SHIT STORM. The greedy bankers and their absurd/criminal lending practices predicated on giving credit to utterly unqualified people; the government (holla Phil Gramm!) for deregulation fervor, integrating industries like banking, insurance, mortgages that were separated FOR GOOD REASON during the FIRST great depression; and the vast number of Americans for devouring credit for homes and SUVs on terms they could never ever hope to repay and for NOT using their brains to consider what was wrong with subprime interest loans.
And now here we all are in the perfect shit storm. Unemployment is skyrocketing, there's no credit to be had, real estate values are collapsing, businesses are shuttering, and there's a general malaise and despair not felt here in a long time.
Our AMAZING new President Barack Obama is a godsend. But he doesn't have the bi-partisan support he needs. The Republicans are obstructionists and playing petty politics -- which is laughable with the enormous deficit THEY ran up over the dark Bush years with an ABSURD UNNECESSARY WAR in Iraq. But Obama's focused on the economy, health care, and energy policy and seems to on the right track despite a daunting road ahead.
It's gonna be a tough couple of years here in the U.S.A. But the way things went over the last decade or more, with incredible avarice, sloth, stupidity -- gas guzzling, overweight, crass materialism, know-nothings engaged it vacuous mass culture, war mongering -- it's high time for a moral, spiritual, communal purge that makes this country a better place No more stupid wars, no more torture, no more SUVs, no more tainted food supplies filled with corn, hormones, or antibiotics, no more inaccessible health care, no more ridiculous income disparities, no more demonizing the others.
The incredible election of Barack Obama seems was bright light and an ENORMOUS step in the right direction. If the know-nothings let him, he and his relatively enlightened program move this country into a new orbit that's desperately needed, there may be hope. Meanwhile, many of us are going to have to hunker down for a while to keep the caca from blinding us.
