Bail-out Photo Op

There are watershed moments in history that sometimes are not appreciated until much later. Was that what this White House meeting was yesterday (9-25-08) or merely an illustration of the farce that has become governance in this country?

George Bush, hapless defender of "The fundamentals are all OK", ignorant or uninterested in the state of the economy and counting the days until he can go home and play on his make believe ranch, convened a meeting to solve the "really really big problem". The idea was to put together congressional Democrat and Republican "leaders" and get them to back Treasury Secretary Henry "Why-is-he-not-in-jail" Paulson's scheme to address the crisis by paying off the banker - criminal class to the tune of $700 billion. It was a laughable proposal from the start, structured without any congressional oversight, as if that would even amount to anything. Even more laughable then, this stupid White House Conference with its Last Supper like photo opportunity. George Bush played Jesus Christ sitting in the middle of his table surrounded by his Democratic and Republican apostles. Among these disciples of course, were John McCain and Barak Obama. A day earlier McCain had made a dramatic announcement that he was "suspending his campaign" - for a couple days - in order to rush back to "the nation's capital" to help broker a deal. Obama, pointing out that this might be the best and not the worst time for the scheduled televised debate to go ahead, was nevertheless himself obliged to answer the summons of El Presidente and showed up like a school boy who hadn't studied his lesson to the conference. At least he didn't stir up trouble.

Late in the afternoon I started hearing BBC and other postings reporting that the meeting had not gone well and that the "restructuring deal" was on hold. Low and behold, it emerged that a block of House Republicans were stalling the deal - the right move for some of the wrong reasons - and that none other than John McCain was being coy about where he stood in regard to the renegades of his own party. By nightfall, it was widely believed by the Democrats that the whole thing was a ploy by Bush and McCain to create a problem on Thursday that the Republican nominee could "fix" on Friday. It didn't work. Talks completely collapsed and the conference turned into a literal shouting match, according to even the corporate reporting outlets.

Meanwhile, Washington Mutual went down. It's assets go in a government forced sale to none other than JP Morgan bank. (Imagine working for an outfit named for such a criminal!) This is the same bank that got to Lehman Brothers assets, am I right? Doubtless they are a little nervous at having received this "gift". A lot is being said about this being the biggest bank failure in US history and all it's implications for the savings and loan "industry" and the credit markets in general. But from our point of view here on the left coast, this was the last major financial institution headquartered in the Pacific Northwest. We are now entirely a colony.

Are we all disgusted with this election yet? Every four years it gets to this point where I can't stand it anymore. This time it was supposed to be different.

When I first voted they'd just lowered the age from 21 to 18 and I was 20 and McGovern was running against Nixon. I even worked for McGovern in the city I lived in then. It was hard to believe they reelected the Dick. Later who could believe they'd elect Reagan, and then that disaster, Bush I, and then Clinton, the jerk, and then BushII. Jesus, how fundamentally broken can a Democracy be.

Unless, of course, it's not a democracy at all.

This year, my daughter, who turned 18 yesterday, will vote for the first time. AND, for the first time since that McGovern race, there is a Democrat she might actually be enthusiastic for. That's great. But look at what's gone wrong so far in this campaign.

The race is neck and neck. Obama has squandered a double digit lead! They should be mopping the floor with Palin-McWhatsHisName. The stupid Democratic national party ALWAYS does this. They don't know how to win because they don't want to address the issues. It's all a "horse race". The function of the DLC and the DNC is to make sure that any progressive instinct a candidate has is harnessed to serve the interest of the corporate donors to... the DLC and DNC. I mean, Joe Biden?? Give me a fucking BREAK! How in the hell do they expect to get a decent, self respecting leftist like myself to vote for a ticket with the senator from the Bank of America? Every day since the "convention" Obama has moved, or been made to move, to the corporate center. Not that the guy was a Lefty in the first place. Every bit as much as Clinton, the man has played his cards in a way that "preserved his political viability".

Here's the thing, Democrats. That's the way you play the corporate political game. It's is definitely NOT the way you change the way the country works, or is governed, or operates its economy. The party must move left, occupy a well defined position, and present that as a logically coherent program with a definite objective.

For some of us, this "objective" could be described as Revolution, which, honestly, has meant different things at different times. But the point is that a real popular front could rally around a left position that didn't necessarily proclaim itself as revolutionary... or at least not any more than the average shampoo commercial does.

Bottom line. If the Democratic lead is within the margin of error they loose the election. 2000 was stolen in Florida. We still don't know who won Ohio in 2004. To beat these guys, you've got to have a double digit lead going into the election. It's not like its a fair vote, after all.

OK, here's what I'm up to with this. I'm going to have this blog page to write the occasional missive about this or that, or maybe to post a poem or essay now and then. I also have a page on the flikr.com site where I can upload pictures of things. I'm going to create a Myspace page (if I can overcome my aversion to it!) as an entry point to get to both of the other places.

Why haven't I done this up to now? I have a strong suspicion it's a waste of time. I'm not morally opposed to wasting time, however. I do it pretty well, in fact.

In general, I'm not impressed with technology. Back in the early to mid '90s I had a pretty extensive web presence, with all kinds of linked pages where I talked about geography, music, labor unions, and poetry. It was hosted through the servers at the university where I was employed but over time, there was more and more institutional pressure to standardize the look and feel of everything and so I scrapped it all. I think part of it was a sort of guilty feeling that it was entirely too narcissistic. I'm still not sure I can deal with that part.