I'm not one for doomsday predictions and "apocalypse is upon us" sentiments, but damn if doesn't look like the world is going to hell as fast as it can. (It's long and super rantly, fair warning)
The eurozone is tearing itself apart with self-defeating austerity that basically ensure no one will recover from the crisis of 2007-08. It'll be interesting to see what happens when Germany,whose economy is export dependent, starts seeing their deficit increase and economy deteriorate because they've forced everyone else to stop buying their shit. It's starting already, they're GDP lost a percentage point last quarter and that's only going to get worse, so maybe they're own economic failure and suffering will be the anvil that finally breaks through the austerity mindset. But honestly, since Greece, Portugal, France, Spain, Italy, Ireland and the UK have all failed abysmally already with no rethink in policy, I doubt Germany failing will do the trick. And by the time Germany is in trouble, there probably won't be all that much to save anyway.
On our side of the pond, we'll be viewing the farcical and utterly depressing spectacle that is our presidential election. It's somewhat hard to believe that it's been four years since the last one, after all Republicans went into their strategy of obstructing Obama's agenda from day one so they could fire up their base with all that Democrat hating that seems to be their only means of survival (aside from Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, Welfare...) And Obama, for his part, made sure to not investigate any of the banks or financial firms on Wall Street for their crimes in causing a global economic meltdown or foreclosing on homes they can't prove they actually own. After all, he can't effectively fund raise if all of his top donors are in jail or stripped of their ill gotten gains, can he?
But I think what is most depressing of all this election year is how completely and utterly identical the two candidates will be. Obama has entrenched Bush 43's foreign policy model, which can be summed up as "1. Kill muslims 2. If 1 isn't achieved, detain indefinitely." How can you argue with that when Obama has claimed the right to kill American citizens he deems as terror suspects wherever he finds them and carries out drone bombing campaigns in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia? And then who also signs a bill that codifies into law the policy of indefinite detention of terrorism suspects without a trial or even a criminal charge? Also, 40% of the stimulus packages' cost where tax cuts, aka The Republican Magical Economic Elixir. The fact that tax cuts are a terrible way to boost economic growth is what helped make an already undersized and meek policy so largely ineffective. (Just to add here, the stimulus worked insomuch that it stopped things from getting worse. But it did not make anything better in the long run).
And more importantly than that, what Obama is likely going to be touting as his signature legislative victory, the Affordable Care Act, is the Republican health plan. Has much has Romney and Fox News will try to obfuscate this point, it can't be repeated enough. The ACA works by expanding private insurance to the point where a large enough percentage of the population will be insured so to drive costs downward. No government takeover, just an alteration to the private market. It is the exact same plan and principle that the Heritage Foundation proposed in '89, that Gingrich campaigned for in '94, and that Romney enacted in Massachusetts. Don't get me wrong, the plan works, it lowered the Massachusetts uninsured sate by 2/3's. But it is not a liberal plan, that would be the public option or making Medicare available to everyone in America; but Obama gained the support of the Health Insurance lobby by promising that those things wouldn't happen.
Basically this all one long way of saying that this election reminds me of the video for "testify" where clips of W. and Gore are spliced together where they finish each others policy promises and proscriptions, but worse. And that no matter what the electoral outcome our problems of a worsening education, inequality, and unemployment will go unfixed because all these things are not in the interest of those who fund the campaigns.
Maybe the visual metaphor for the world ending isn't that of a damsel about to be crushed by a train, but that of a piece of shit flushed down the cosmic toilet.
Since I mentioned it above
The eurozone is tearing itself apart with self-defeating austerity that basically ensure no one will recover from the crisis of 2007-08. It'll be interesting to see what happens when Germany,whose economy is export dependent, starts seeing their deficit increase and economy deteriorate because they've forced everyone else to stop buying their shit. It's starting already, they're GDP lost a percentage point last quarter and that's only going to get worse, so maybe they're own economic failure and suffering will be the anvil that finally breaks through the austerity mindset. But honestly, since Greece, Portugal, France, Spain, Italy, Ireland and the UK have all failed abysmally already with no rethink in policy, I doubt Germany failing will do the trick. And by the time Germany is in trouble, there probably won't be all that much to save anyway.
On our side of the pond, we'll be viewing the farcical and utterly depressing spectacle that is our presidential election. It's somewhat hard to believe that it's been four years since the last one, after all Republicans went into their strategy of obstructing Obama's agenda from day one so they could fire up their base with all that Democrat hating that seems to be their only means of survival (aside from Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, Welfare...) And Obama, for his part, made sure to not investigate any of the banks or financial firms on Wall Street for their crimes in causing a global economic meltdown or foreclosing on homes they can't prove they actually own. After all, he can't effectively fund raise if all of his top donors are in jail or stripped of their ill gotten gains, can he?
But I think what is most depressing of all this election year is how completely and utterly identical the two candidates will be. Obama has entrenched Bush 43's foreign policy model, which can be summed up as "1. Kill muslims 2. If 1 isn't achieved, detain indefinitely." How can you argue with that when Obama has claimed the right to kill American citizens he deems as terror suspects wherever he finds them and carries out drone bombing campaigns in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia? And then who also signs a bill that codifies into law the policy of indefinite detention of terrorism suspects without a trial or even a criminal charge? Also, 40% of the stimulus packages' cost where tax cuts, aka The Republican Magical Economic Elixir. The fact that tax cuts are a terrible way to boost economic growth is what helped make an already undersized and meek policy so largely ineffective. (Just to add here, the stimulus worked insomuch that it stopped things from getting worse. But it did not make anything better in the long run).
And more importantly than that, what Obama is likely going to be touting as his signature legislative victory, the Affordable Care Act, is the Republican health plan. Has much has Romney and Fox News will try to obfuscate this point, it can't be repeated enough. The ACA works by expanding private insurance to the point where a large enough percentage of the population will be insured so to drive costs downward. No government takeover, just an alteration to the private market. It is the exact same plan and principle that the Heritage Foundation proposed in '89, that Gingrich campaigned for in '94, and that Romney enacted in Massachusetts. Don't get me wrong, the plan works, it lowered the Massachusetts uninsured sate by 2/3's. But it is not a liberal plan, that would be the public option or making Medicare available to everyone in America; but Obama gained the support of the Health Insurance lobby by promising that those things wouldn't happen.
Basically this all one long way of saying that this election reminds me of the video for "testify" where clips of W. and Gore are spliced together where they finish each others policy promises and proscriptions, but worse. And that no matter what the electoral outcome our problems of a worsening education, inequality, and unemployment will go unfixed because all these things are not in the interest of those who fund the campaigns.
Maybe the visual metaphor for the world ending isn't that of a damsel about to be crushed by a train, but that of a piece of shit flushed down the cosmic toilet.
Since I mentioned it above