Great Recession or Long Emergency? by gimleteye

The lead NY Times article begins, "The rancorous debate in Washington over whether to raise the federal debt ceiling is alarming many of the nation’s governors from both parties, who fear that whatever the outcome, much-needed money will almost certainly be drained from their states." Duh.

The problem is that we are stuck in a place we have never been: a superpower grounded by the myths of American exceptionalism. At the very moment we most need wisdom from our politics, what is thrown at us by large corporations funding political campaigns is the lowest common denominator. Their ultimate aim: to keep Americans passive consumers. What is our purpose?

In Miami, we retreat into family enclaves. Tribes and tribal politics. Here, these are default mechanisms of an undeveloped city. What passed to the nation, from the Great Depression in the 1930s, as the social fabric and common good never quite materialized here. Now, it is being further hacked to pieces by the further myths of free market fundamentalism: that the public interest is better served by self-interest (greed) than regulation or government policies. Through the prism of the conservation movement (that ought to be a conservative bedrock principle), the past decades have been a 40 Year War on the Environment. We have literally designed government to fail, in order to protect polluting industries. Big Sugar is Exhibit A, with the attachment of the constitutional amendment Floridians passed in 1996 by state-wide majority that the Florida legislature, dominated by Republicans, never enacted. Exhibit B, changes to the Everglades Forever Act promoted by Big Sugar and Jeb Bush in 2003, judged by a federal court to be illegal in 2008, that still remain unaddressed. Two small examples (with billion dollar impacts) how misdirection dominates the political landscape.

We are seeing how other examples work out, right now, with the head-long rush to cut deficits without raising revenues or accountability brought to the thieves and crooks who caused the national crisis. That crisis, in Florida, manifests as the massive, crushing effects of a real estate nightmare unleashed by industry that claimed-- all the way to the cliff-- it was providing "what the market wants".

Paul Krugman, Nobel economist and NY Times columnist, is virtually alone decrying the abysmal consequences for our economy that-- in my view, forget statistics-- never recovered from the horrendous consequences of serial asset bubbles: first in internet stock and then in housing.

Jim Kunstler, a fellow skeptic, coined our crisis, "The Long Emergency". I agree. Under the cover of confusion, GOP majorities in Tallahassee and Washington are taking a hatchet to the safety net in order to protect trillion dollar fiefdoms. In this long, hot summer that is becoming clearer and clearer except where it counts: voters.