Economics & Strategizing Posted by Oaktown Girl, 19 Jun 2007 05:42 pm

Issue #1 = the economy…NOT the “war”

By malcontent

The “war” ongoing illegal occupation in Iraq continues to be referred to as the “number one issue” among voters. Oh, really?

Perhaps, the occupation is the number one issue gnawed at by the dog of a corporate media we are confronted with on a daily basis. It is also the top issue “debated” by politicians from both the Demo-cans and Republi-crats. Neither of these conditions elevates the occupation to the most important “kitchen table” issue for average Americans.
kitchen_table_economics.jpg
I say, it’s the economy.

If you can’t buy groceries or pay your bills because your dollars aren’t worth what they used to be…it’s the economy. If you can’t find a decent job, because your industry of choice has realized they can outsource their workforce to a lower priced workforce…it’s the economy. If you can’t fill your tank with gas, because the oil companies are encouraged allowed to fleece the consumer with unjustified prices at the pump…it’s the economy. If you can’t make your mortgage payment, because your lender is raising your interest rates at the behest of the Federal Reserve…it’s the economy.

So, how is this affecting real American’s, people like you, your mom, my cousin, our friends, their neighbors? Let’s see:

U.S. Mortgage Foreclosure Filings Rise 90% in May

June 12 (Bloomberg) — U.S. foreclosure filings surged 90 percent in May from a year earlier as more homeowners fell behind on their monthly mortgage payments, RealtyTrac Inc. said.

There were 176,137 notices of default, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions last month, led by California, Florida and Ohio, the Irvine, California-based seller of foreclosure data said in a report today. The median price for a U.S. home slid 1.8 percent the first three months of 2007 as the housing slump entered its second year, according to the National Association of Realtors. The filings rose 19 percent from April.

A jump in foreclosures at a time of year that traditionally is the busiest for home sales means the slide in prices probably isn’t over, said James Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac. Typically, more than half of all home sales occur in the April to June period, according to Freddie Mac, the No. 2 mortgage buyer.

“Such strong activity in the midst of the typical spring buying season could foreshadow even higher foreclosure levels later in the year,” Saccacio said in the report. That will add “to the downward pressure on home prices in many areas.”

I, for one, am ready to change the debate. I’m committed to focusing on the issues which really concern and affect all of us. Issues like the economy, jobs, health care, and education. These are some of the components of A.Citizen’s progressive ideals, which he and I and our friends at Drinking Liberally Oakland discuss on a regular basis. You are welcome to join us.

***********
malcontent regularly blogs at Bear Republic Action Group.

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Responses to “Issue #1 = the economy…NOT the “war””

  1. on 20 Jun 2007 at 8:28 am 1. christian h. said …

    malcontent, thanks for the post! I’d say that I agree to a large degree. I have a basic aversion to “most important” claims, not only in politics - I don’t think the set of political issues is totally ordered, to use a mathematical term. It is not advisable, in my opinion, to concentrate on one issue to the exclusion of others - this is particularly true since they are intertwined.
    But, as far as it goes, there are different axes along which issues could be ordered. Mentioning just a couple, we could ask:

    1. What is the issue that affects people most in their daily lives?

    2. What is the issue people worry about most as a political issue?

    3. What do I believe is the most important issue, short or long-term?

    4. What, from a purely tactical perspective, is the issue the candidate(s) I may support should emphasize in a campaign in order to win?

    5. What, seen from my place in the political - ideological spectrum, is the issue I should emphasize most right now, either as regards party politics or as far as action outside the electoral arena is concerned?

    There are more, or course. To answer some of these questions, let me say I agree with malcontent that the answer to 1. is “the economy”, or, to be precise, the peoples economic situation (I make this distinction since the expression “the economy” has taken on a fairly specific meaning in our doctrinal system that is divorced from the actual concerns of the persons being a part of it).

    As for 2., I am not sure. I don’t know how far the ideological system has managed to convince the population that politics can’t really do anything about their economic situation.

    I’ll skip 3. - it’s really outside the purview of the post. I included it because people have a natural tendency to answer it first and then project the answer onto the population at large.

    Assuming you support Democratic candidates, regarding 4. I’d have to say it seems to me that making the war the overriding (but certainly not only) issue may have greatest marginal utility, although this depends on the candidate, obviously.

    Finally, I don’t see any chance that the Democrats in congress will force an end to our war on the people of Iraq without a massive popular mobilization that has to happen independently of the Democratic power structure. For that reason (but this is from my radical point of view), I think small-scale lobbying work and 2008 campaign participation could most profitably be directed at achieving greater working class power, something Democrats are supportive of to a limited extent. In concrete terms, the best use to be made of a Democratic congress, and president, from my perspective, is to get things like the employee free choice act, minimum wage hike etc. passed.

  2. on 20 Jun 2007 at 11:19 am 2. malcontent said …

    Excellent points, Christian. The impetus for my initial post was the ongoing commentary in the media about our occupation of Iraq. This has been used interchangeably with “war” and “terrorism” and just plain fear. These contrived issues do not affect my life–at least not directly. The motivation to create such issues is money.

    My concern is that our selected officials in Washington DC and the media have been successful in defining a distinction between points 1 and 2. When citizens are energized and actively participating in the political process, items 1 and 2 are the same. I feel that politics IS personal, and the more we (I) allow elected representatives to distract us with talk of war (= business) and terrorism (= fear; look over there), the more we (I) am distracted from the most fundamental issues.

    Your points 3, 4 and 5 are symptoms of the condition beset upon all of us who read and listen to sources of “information” provided by the same interests who benefit from the business of war…the business of politics.

    To you final points, I am dubious about much of the formal political process, as we have come to understand and accept it. I am deeply concerned that there are fundamental problems with both the quality and cost of representation at the national level. As I study the historical backgrounds of the two (and, still only two) opposing parties, I am unimpressed that there is any genuine opposition or substantive choice between them. I will concede that there are mearurable differences in the the nation’s economic performance, depending on which party occupies the White House. However, the differences are generally subtle, shallow and reversible…almost like a predictable good cop, bad cop routine.

    My time is short and I have much more to say on these issues. I will check back in when I return from my meeting in SF.

    Regards,

    m

  3. on 20 Jun 2007 at 12:33 pm 3. Oaktown Girl said …

    I agree with so many things that have already been said. I really hate polls that ask you to “rank” issues in order of importance, especially when they are all so tied together. And depending on one’s immediate personal situation, the “most” important issue may change frequently. Besides, no need to focus on just one anyway. Word to the politicians: we actually CAN walk and chew gum at the same time.

    What frustrates me the most overall is how ineffectual the Democrats have been in addressing BOTH the “war” and the economy. With the way things are right now, it should be as easy as shooting fish in a barrel, but they dance around like it’s rocket science or something.

    Maybe Michael Moore’s new movie “Sicko” will help give the Democrats some spine on at least the health care issue…which is of course a HUGE part of our “kitchen table” economic issue, and intimately related to our “war” issue with veterans being denied proper care, especially mental health care. We need to get our reps to stop talking about “insurance” for all, and start talking about cutting those third party rat bastards out completely with single-payer (if that’s the answer).

  4. on 20 Jun 2007 at 12:37 pm 4. James Killus said …

    Perhaps, the occupation is the number one issue gnawed at by the dog of a corporate media we are confronted with on a daily basis. It is also the top issue “debated” by politicians from both the Demo-cans and Republi-crats. Neither of these conditions elevates the occupation to the most important “kitchen table” issue for average Americans.

    There are a number of interesting assertions and assumptions in this paragraph. Some of them are actually, after a fashion, testible.

    For example, the notion that we are somehow being fed a news diet that is high in Iraq but low on economic issues can be checked by looking at the Google News archives over the past several years:

    Time Frame; Hits on “Iraq”; Hits on “Economy”
    02-03; 554,000; 521,000
    03-04; 509,000; 560,000
    04-05; 522,000; 544,000
    05-06; 575,000; 696,000
    06-present; 498,000; 679,000

    It had been my impression that the media shills have been trying to deliberately downplay Iraq since before the last election, precisely because it was an important issue for voters that was not providing the advantage for Republicans that it had in the 2002 and 2004 elections, and that it has only been the serious deterioration of the situation there that has made this nigh onto impossible. Nevertheless, the numbers support my impression; it simply does not look like the coverage of Iraq has been manipulated to magnify the importance of the war relative to economic news.

    Next comes that nice little “Demo-cans and Republi-crats” construction. Without wishing to get to contentious, and yet bowing to the inevitable, I find the ongoing, knee-jerk, “a plague on both your houses” mental gymnastics from many progressive quarters to be contemptible. George W. Bush was elected (or, if you prefer, put close enough for the election to be stolen) on just this sort of thinking. If you confuse the majority of not-very-well-informed voters into believing that there’s no real difference between the parties, and then have a chunk of we’ll-vote-for-our-guy-no-matter-what voters, you can get even an evil bastard with a narcissitic personality disorder elected, and that’s what happened. In California, some of the 2000 campaign literature from Bush called for a Social Security “lockbox,” That’s how much Bush wanted people to think he was just like Al Gore.

    Finally, in what universe is a war that is draining hundreds of billions of dollars from the U.S. Treasury into the pockets of contractors and other profiteers, a war that will cost trillions when the final bills come due, a war that yanks Reservists from their jobs, cripples and maims tens of thousands, destroys families and small businesses that depend on those men, in what universe is that war not one of the most important economic issues of the day?

  5. on 20 Jun 2007 at 12:39 pm 5. James Killus said …

    Okay folks, your spam filters seem to be on my case again. If the message has been lost, let me know, and I’ll repost.

  6. on 20 Jun 2007 at 3:02 pm 6. christian h. said …

    I find the ongoing, knee-jerk, “a plague on both your houses” mental gymnastics from many progressive quarters to be contemptible

    It’s only one house with two rooms in my opinion, and it’s not knee-jerk, so I just escape being “contemptible.” Phew.

  7. on 20 Jun 2007 at 3:15 pm 7. christian h. said …

    Plus, I’m not a progressive.

    Seriously, though, the evidence you present isn’t entirely convincing, to say the least. In some sense, it can’t be: its evaluation depends on baseline assumptions. For example, we probably all agree that Paris Hilton is in the news too much. Yet, there are only 37000 hits for googlenews archive search “Paris Hilton” between 2006 and today. What does this prove? Precisely nothing.

    In any event, what’s happening in Iraq certainly warrants extensive coverage; but precisely the kind of coverage that links it to the broader questions regarding imperialism, the military-industrial complex and so forth are widely missing from coverage. That’s because these issues are not really contentious within the ruling class, so there’s no need to investigate them.

  8. on 20 Jun 2007 at 3:31 pm 8. Oaktown Girl said …

    Spam Filter notice - If you ever get caught in the spam filter, if you can, just post a one line comment (if it will go thru) “Please check your spam filter”. Or email one of us directly (if you are lucky enough to be a WAAGNFNP High Council insider), or ideally, do both.

    Eventually, one of use will get an email notice from WordPress telling us a comment is awaiting our approval, but that takes a while. The 2 options listed above are quickest. We try to check as often as we can, but please keep in mind we are at work. So emails and/or reminders in the comment section are not irritating, they are welcomed.

    Our Spam Filter never did like James Killus. The reasons for that change depending on who’s telling the story. Sometimes it’s because James hit on the Spam Filter’s wife, sometimes it’s because James cut the Spam Filter off in traffic once, and sometimes it’s just because the Spam Filter likes to mess with James just for the hell of it. There’s other tales too, depending on how drunk the Spam Filter is when he’s telling it. But I’ll let James reveal those if he chooses.

  9. on 20 Jun 2007 at 4:14 pm 9. JP Stormcrow said …

    A couple of quick thoughts.

    Within the economic arena, I do think health care is a great hook. It is really the sense of uncertainty around it that resonates with people, and it penetrates much further up the economic spectrum than many other kinds of economic uncertainty. It may be unfortunate that it takes something that creeps upward like this to get attention, but it is the type of issue on which to hang winning election campaigns.

    To me another common thread between Iraq and the economy is the pervasive fundamental sense of insecurity that both provide. My major concerns for my children is that they will live in a degraded world, in which they are either persecuted and degraded or “compelled” to persecute and degrade to avoid being on the receiving end of same. We are all doing the latter by proxy in Iraq right now, and the current trajectory of the economy seems to be one that would increase the likelihood of forcing them into one or the other extremes. However, hard experience has taught me that I am an unreliable proxy for identifying issues that will have mass appeal.

  10. on 20 Jun 2007 at 4:28 pm 10. James Killus said …

    christian, I did not say “convincing;” I said “testable.” What I was testing was not whether Iraq (or the economy) gets “too much” coverage, but whether there is any evidence that “the occupation is the number one issue gnawed at by the dog of a corporate media we are confronted with on a daily basis.” The evidence simply does not support that reading. And however much someone may wish to talk about the nuances of war news coverage, that was not the original argument that I was addressing.

    During the 2002 election, political consultants told Democrats that they should stick to “the economy” as an issue and avoid Iraq, no matter what, because Democrats are perceived as “weak on Defense.” Would they have done better in 2002 if they had confronted the Iraq issue head on? I don’t know, but I doubt that they would have done worse, and they saddled themselves with the image of not having strong convictions that also cost them dearly (flip-flop) in 2004. Which is to say that one does not avoid looking weak by avoiding confrontations.

    Now, when Iraq is a political plus for Democrats, I see all sorts of people again telling them to ignore the war stuff and concentrate on the economy. Again. Because that strategy is such a winner.

    To what purpose? Expediency? Is the massage that money spent on Iraq would just be wasted in any case, because both political parties are equally corrupt and incompetent? Or is it that half a million dead Iraqis aren’t very important when you’re behind in your house payments?

  11. on 20 Jun 2007 at 4:29 pm 11. James Killus said …

    And, just for the record, it was Spam Filter’s wife that hit on me.

  12. on 20 Jun 2007 at 4:45 pm 12. christian h. said …

    Just to be clear, I agree (see my first comment) that from a tactical point of view, Iraq is an issue the Democrats should emphasize. In fact, I’ll go so far and say they should actually do something to stop the war. I don’t think they will, but I do think they should.

    As for the “testable” hypothesis: come on, you know as well as I do that malcontent didn’t write “the majority of all stories on the news are about Iraq.” At best, you tested a hypothesis that’s basically meaningless.

  13. on 20 Jun 2007 at 5:03 pm 13. christian h. said …

    And indeed, half a million or more dead Iraqis are extremely important. But again, if you can show me where the Democrats, or the media (who have all decided to operate with absurdly low numbers of Iraqi dead and ignore the epidemiological research done on this) give a shit about those dead Iraqis, I’d be obliged. I usually hear them blame the Iraqis for their “failure to live up to their part of the bargain” (a bargain they didn’t enter into willingly) or whatever.
    I can’t speak for malcontent, but for me the problem with the media coverage is that the version of the Iraq story being pushed is designed to insulate basic structures from critique and instead limit the fallout of the disaster to a purge of a small group of people (who deserve to be consigned to hell, no doubt). This has happened before. Afterwards, we can all agree that “mistakes were made” and promptly move on to the next war. In the meantime, we have the bonus feature of using the fear generated to suppress discussion of the top-down class warfare being waged in the capitalist world.

    Only by analyzing properly the economic power structures of the country can we ever hope to overcome the imperialist agenda from the inside. As Oaktown Girl said, we should be able to pay attention to more than one narrowly defined issue at the time.

  14. on 20 Jun 2007 at 5:24 pm 14. James Killus said …

    you know as well as I do that malcontent didn’t write “the majority of all stories on the news are about Iraq.”

    No, he wrote that Iraq was the number one issue on the news, which is not the same as majority, but is also not the same as being in second place, either. Or, on any given day, further down than that, behind the economy, Paris Hilton, and some other white girl in trouble.

    There are entire news shows, half hour long, hour long, what have you, about economics and business, so I see no reason to treat a claim that Iraq has been pumped up by the media as a null hypothesis. I do not believe that the polls showing Iraq to be the number one issue on people’s minds are the result of media manipulation (if anything, I believe that the opposite is true), and that was what malcontent was implying, if not stating outright. Moreover, as I noted, the Iraq disaster itself is also making people more nervous about the economy, but that also puts the economic anxiety as secondary to Iraq.

    Lastly, I do not believe that it was I who picked this fight. It is entirely possible to be concerned about economic issues without sneering at concern about Iraq, but if the original post was not sneering, then I confess I was completely taken in.

  15. on 20 Jun 2007 at 5:32 pm 15. James Killus said …

    And indeed, half a million or more dead Iraqis are extremely important. But again, if you can show me where the Democrats, or the media (who have all decided to operate with absurdly low numbers of Iraqi dead and ignore the epidemiological research done on this) give a shit about those dead Iraqis, I’d be obliged.

    You’re going to have to help me out here. My point is that the media have not been hyping the Iraq story. How does the above argue against that point? It looks to me like it supports it.

    I will say, however, that I believe that there are some journalists and Congressmen/Senators who do “give a shit about those dead Iraqis,” but who feel as helpless to stop the carnage as you or I.

  16. on 20 Jun 2007 at 5:36 pm 16. James Killus said …

    Furthermore, when Spam Filter’s wife hit on me, I took her up on the offer, and afterwards she told me I was a much better lover than he is, though I gather that such a comment is faint praise, given Filter’s premature ejaculation problem and all.

  17. on 20 Jun 2007 at 5:45 pm 17. christian h. said …

    How does the above argue against that point? It looks to me like it supports it.

    Again, I can’t speak for malcontent - he’ll be back soon to take on all comers, I’d think.
    My point is that there isn’t “the Iraq story”. There are many possible Iraq stories, and the one that’s very prominent in the media is different from the one I would think should be prominent.

    I am sure there are individual politicians - in both parties, actually - and journalists (and voters, too) who do care about what we’ve done to the Iraqis. But the institutional voices don’t.

  18. on 20 Jun 2007 at 6:09 pm 18. Oaktown Girl said …

    Furthermore, when Spam Filter’s wife hit on me, I took her up on the offer, and afterwards she told me I was a much better lover than he is, though I gather that such a comment is faint praise, given Filter’s premature ejaculation problem and all.

    Oh Sweet Lord Astaroth, you made me LOL here at work with that one. Praise Gojira, my boss had just walked out the door 10 minutes earlier and was not here to hear my loud guffaw.

    Apparently this tiff between you and Spam Filter goes a little deeper than I first thought. I better tell WAAGNFNP Sheriff and organizer extraordinaire, Kiera, it’s never too early to start thinking about seating assignment for the High Formal Diner at the WAAGNFNP World Gathering ‘08. (We’ll want to keep you two well apart until it’s time for the entertainment portion of the evening).

    [Note to all word smiths: think of a WAAGNFNP-appropriate title to replace the boring word “Sheriff”. Ideas welcome on the most recent Open Thread (title must retain meaning and authority; as always, the more over-the-top or sublimely snappy, the better).]

  19. on 20 Jun 2007 at 6:38 pm 19. malcontent said …

    I looove being misunderstood…and misquoted. When I said,

    “the occupation is the number one issue gnawed at by the dog of a corporate media we are confronted with on a daily basis”

    I meant talk of the occupation is what is given the most emphasis in the media. That goes beyond what is “reported” by the official news readers. This also factors in all the non-news bloviating by “experts.”

    The emphasis in the above comments on the importance of how measureable this issue is, is immaterial. It is the most discussed political issue among pundits, talking heads, advisors and candidates. It is the issue which regular, everyday people have been convinced will determine who, at least for the Democrats, will make it into the general election.

    I think that is hogwash.

    Why should we (I) allow the news-and-commentary spin cycle to determine what is important to me. I don’t have anything against the Iraqi government or the its people, nor anyone else whose died at the wrong end of our foreign policy. Those innocent people are not dying for political reason. They’re dying over money. Money and power.

    I’m just tired of whacking at branches, when the roots of the problem are continually fertilized by the bullshit in media and politics.

    I do not have a candidate, but at least there are a couple who are willing to discuss poverty and wages and stratification. We have a long way to go, but it is a start.

  20. on 20 Jun 2007 at 7:46 pm 20. A.Citizen said …

    Split hairs much? Many will disagree with the following contention but….

    It’s my feeling that one of, not the most important perhaps, but certainly in the top five reasons the folks who created the Bush ‘The Decider’ Sockpuppet took us to war in Iraq was to create the ‘fog of war’, yes mal I know it’s an occupation, which has proved extremely helpful in his….

    NSA wiretapping….

    ‘Signing statements…’

    Theft of the second Presidential election….

    Suspension of Habeus Corpus…

    And a veritable host of other things ‘Lil Bush’ and his puppetmasters think are good for us ignorant peasants.

    So no it’s not surprising that Iraq is also used to distract the citizenry from the ‘economy’ whatever the fuck that is.

    But, some are finally, finally, starting to realize the Goebbels techniques everybody thinks Rove invented are running out of steam. As gas spirals towards $6.00 a gallon, as the housing market struggles against lack of confidence by the consumer (wow! I wonder what caused that) and millions more are laid off…The idea that the the war which any five year old can see we are losing in The MeatGrinder will ever have a positive effect on the increasing struggle to survive economically in Bush’s Corporate Slave State becomes…..

    Untenable.

    Even the RWAs in Dixie, the rural crackers in the Mountain West who were all for ‘gittin’ dat Osama and stringin” his ass up!’ and the ’salt of the earth’ farmers in the Midwest bein’ squeezed out by Big Ethanol, are now totally awake to the fact that Bush and his criminal posse of Insane Clowns sold them a bill of goods. Check the latest polling if you don’t believe me. They needn’t feel bad as all those Xtian whitebread New Republican Suburbanites in the suburbs are finding out that ARMs can be….

    A problem …

    And that the mortgage company don’t really give a rat’s ass how much you gave to your Xtian preacher. They just want the house payment.

    Or the house.

    So remember the Iraq occupation, see I know the correct terminology mal, is still a useful tool for distraction. But now we are starting to see the inevitable backlash to the Rovian Fear which Robert Alteman discovered twenty years ago. That is, if you repeatedly scare someone for a long period of time but that event which you are using to scare the person does not come to pass….

    The ’scaree’ turns on the ’scarer’ and attacks him/her. Psychological fact and one reason which explains why ‘The Decider’ finds himself at 28%.

    And why he and his merry band of Fascistii are headed for a seriously bad end.

    Debates over the exact amount of attention that the ‘people’ are paying to the ‘Occupation’ vs. ‘The Economy’ can be fun but the important thing is….

    To drive the ‘conservatives’ into the sea of the voters disgust and drown them and their vile political cancer in the surf of every election for the next 20 years.

    Remember,

    ‘Progressive is Peace, Health and Prosperity for Everyone.’

    Everyone.

  21. on 20 Jun 2007 at 8:48 pm 21. malcontent said …

    Mr. Killus,

    Per your comments above:

    Next comes that nice little “Demo-cans and Republi-crats” construction. Without wishing to get to contentious, and yet bowing to the inevitable, I find the ongoing, knee-jerk, “a plague on both your houses” mental gymnastics from many progressive quarters to be contemptible.

    I will concede that the assertion of this construction is hyperbolic. However, I also believe we are not presented with truly discernible alternatives, between those who are offered as viable top-tier candidates. For instance, despite the Democratic party leadership’s promise of a new direction during and after the 2006 campaign cycle, substantive changes are…still coming.

    What is the functional difference between the current major parties if the politicians who populate them are not actually changing the underlying policy? The occupation is still being funded. We’re still building our 14 permanent bases and the largest embassy in the world in Iraq. The reconstruction of New Orleans is still underfunded by 10s of millions of dollars. The quality of the education provided in our public school classrooms are still a joke. Etcetera.

    What has changed? Really?

    Finally, in what universe is a war that is draining hundreds of billions of dollars from the U.S. Treasury into the pockets of contractors and other profiteers, a war that will cost trillions when the final bills come due, a war that yanks Reservists from their jobs, cripples and maims tens of thousands, destroys families and small businesses that depend on those men, in what universe is that war not one of the most important economic issues of the day?

    The question should be, “why are we at ‘war’?” It is also noteworthy that more half of your questions address the economic impact of the operation. How does it affect you? I can’t say. How does it affect the majority? I contend, economically. You seem to agree.

  22. on 20 Jun 2007 at 9:12 pm 22. spyder said …

    High Formal Diner at the WAAGNFNP World Gathering ‘08.

    As the designated high emcee for that event, i would suggest that we seat the Spam Filter by the kitchen door and his wife soemwhere else entirely.

    Regards the economy and Iraq, or versa vice or whatever. Citizens in the US are being assaulted by very grave and serious issues from several directions. Out here on the road it is palpable and sadly apparent. The sheep can’t hide too much longer from the impending realities. Iraq is taxing the infrastructures of states, and fracturing communities who formerly were very supportive of the invasion. Broken people, mistreated by the system that conscripted them into prolonged extended service in hells are awash in the backwaters struggling to just make sense of the day. Gas prices are crippling local merchants and delivery infrastructures. Health care isn’t happening, and getting worse. The dollar is as fragile as it has been in a very long time (might even be going back to the early 1800s??).

    As hideous and vile and disgusting as Iraq is, it will be the failing of the economy that stimulates the population to react and demand the end of the occupation. It won’t take too many hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, or other disasters to clearly show that the lack of national guard units is unacceptable. I was talking to a dairyman on the plane yesterday, and he was saying that people are in for a big shock very soon, when the price of dairy will skyrocket (i thought it had already??) because of the droughts destroying food resources. Cows are drying up, and butter will be a premium luxury item. This is not good news to me the ice cream eater, but worse to so many who rely on WIC subsistence supports and AFDC etc.

    We, the good citizens of this country, and by we i do include all of us, have been complicit in transferring massive quantities of wealth to corporations who are taking those assets (liquid and otherwise) outside the US. James is absolutely correct (and others) that this idiotic war is bankrupting this nation at its core, philosophically and economically. People are beginning to be afraid of real things, rather than phony threats of terror. Water is becoming an issue out here across the west. Do you water the gardens or save it for drinking??? Australia is at the forefront of the nightmare, and we are not far behind. We can not pay another fake penny into this war (and all the pre-2005 ones are worth more than 1.5¢)and we cannot wait for someone else to stop it.

  23. on 20 Jun 2007 at 9:54 pm 23. Oaktown Girl said …

    As we all know, when the corporate media discusses “mistakes” and the Iraq invasion, they speak only about mistakes being made in strategy and planning. They don’t talk about the REAL mistake of the invasion itself: it was really a good idea don’t ya know, Bush just bungled it.

    Similarly, when Bush and the corporate media talk about the economy, they judge it on how well stock prices and corporate profits are doing. The real “kitchen table” issues aren’t a part the discussion. No one ever gets on a Sunday talking head show to talk about people working more and more for less and less while corporate profits have never been higher (because talking about that would constitute “class warfare”).

    And why ANY Democrat or Independent would ever say ANYTHING about the economy - the economy of real working peoples’ lives - without slamming NAFTA is totally beyond me (I know, I know - corporate donors and all). Same thing with the immigration issue - don’t say word one about it if you’re not also going to talk about NAFTA and how our corporate-driven policies are just driving more and more desperate people across the border. Like malcontent said: money and power.

    spyder - good points about water and the drought impacts. Everybody’s favorite opportunist wingnut, Dennis Miller, was just on The Showbiz Show last week “ranting” about the scare tactics of global warming, and gee, what’s the big deal about a 1.6% world temperature increase? Good job, Dennis. Thanks for using all that “brain power” of yours to see the Big Picture. (By the way - he had a show here in the Bay Area last week, and they were GIVING tickets away to get people to go in).

  24. on 21 Jun 2007 at 5:18 am 24. christian h. said …

    (By the way - he had a show here in the Bay Area last week, and they were GIVING tickets away to get people to go in).

    Dennis was stopping in the wrong town, methinks.

    Apparently, there’s now drought in the Southeast, too, not just the Southwest anymore. I saw some Senator(?) from Alabama or so say they were actually hoping for a tropical storm to get some rainfall. But hey, didn’t that NASA administrator say that being afraid of global warming consequences meant assuming that the current climate is the perfect possible one? (A student of mine making a comparable statement in Calculus class would fail.)

  25. on 21 Jun 2007 at 6:41 am 25. Kiera PSI said …

    Goebbels techniques everybody thinks Rove invented are running out of steam

    Historically, they do that. Nazi Germany fell down around Hitler’s ears and he finally committed suicide (or was murdered by associates, depending on who you believe). Would be interesting if Dubya or his associates did us that pleasure. Maybe Cheny could take his boss hunting and then do us the favor at having a massive coronary once the dead was done? No, no such luck. Besides, it would make martyrs out of the pukes.

    High Formal Diner at the WAAGNFNP World Gathering ‘08

    Wait, we’re having the gathering dinner at a diner? Oh, I guess it’s all we can afford with the trillions being spent on the occupation coming out of our pockets.

  26. on 21 Jun 2007 at 7:36 am 26. black dog barking said …

    (By the way - he had a show here in the Bay Area last week, and they were GIVING tickets away to get people to go in).

    Don’t take the free tickets. Hold out and they’ll pay you to sit through a Miller “show”. That’s how things work in a 21st Century service economy.

  27. on 21 Jun 2007 at 9:36 am 27. JP Stormcrow said …

    That’s how things work in a 21st Century service economy.

    That’s how it goes when “attention is the scarce resource”. all shoud read Riders of the Purple Wage to prepare. Or Vonnegut’s first book Player Piano - just replace the über Engineers with über Software folks … or maybe just über Google.

  28. on 21 Jun 2007 at 9:37 am 28. Oaktown Girl said …

    Thanks for the link, Black Dog! I love the description of Miller on that first link: “Bush Toady, brownshirt wannabe…sold his soul to Al Michaels and Roger Ailes, has a major crush on John Ashcroft”.

    On The Showbiz Show, Miller also announced he’s voting for Ghouliani…big surprise there. (Is the corporate media or any Dem candidate ever gonna call Ghouliani out on his pre-9/11 security fuck-ups?)
    David Spade barely interacted with Miller at all. It was definitely a case of trying to help out an old colleague, but not having very much fun doing it.

  29. on 21 Jun 2007 at 11:56 am 29. spyder said …

    I recommend keeping in touch with Jim Lippard’s blog, wherein he regularly assesses the effects of the economy on the Arizona housing markets and such (among his other scathing critiques–a member of the inner sanctum of the Skeptics Circle he be).

  30. on 21 Jun 2007 at 2:39 pm 30. James Killus said …

    I dunno. I use cut-and-paste yet still I stand accused of misquoting. I blame Span Filter; his wife will reap the benefits.

  31. on 22 Jun 2007 at 6:13 am 31. christian h. said …

    Talking about health care, the poor Democrats are wrong-footed by Sicko. According to the LA Times, a single-payer program would alienate voters (I think that must be insider code for “the insurance industry”). The article is really a marvelous illustration of capitalist democracy.

    “Whatever mix of private and public sources will increase the number of people with coverage, the insurance companies would like it to be managed by them,” [Berkeley health care economist James] Robinson said in a recent interview. “They can work with Medicare, they can work with Medicaid, they can work with employers, they can work with whomever.”

    There’s little room for such nuanced partnerships in “Sicko.” If there’s a villain in the movie, “the villain is called the health insurance industry of America,” Moore told a Capitol Hill rally Wednesday. To laughter and applause, Moore said he hoped the film would turn into a “going-away present” for industry lobbyists.

    So, let me get this straight: because the insurance industry would like to make money as a do-nothing middle man, it’s politically impossible to cut them out? Right.