No Earmarks Here

In a recent article at Common Dreams, Nick Turse looks at American base building in the mid-east, and finds quite a bit of it. In fact, you would be astounded if these construction projects came to your town, and for a brief time there would be no recession there.

But this highlights the difference between the chronic cyclical cratering of the poorly regulated capitalist economy, and the chasm of the structural depression that is opening before us. There may be some value in these construction projects for those who take them over after we leave, but there is none for us. They are every bad thing you can imagine doing to an economy wrapped in one giant regret-now and pay-later down elevator to Hell.

Even worse, we don't even know how to change. Amazingly enough, most of us are still enjoying ourselves so much that we can't find the time to master tedious details about saving energy or preventing global warming. Amongst average university grads, the conversations on these topics typically are about as sophisticated as chimpanzees showing each other children's blocks, and agreeing that they like the 'train' block and don't like the 'car' block.

Will this be enough? In democracy, it's always hard to tell. But if we were a hockey team, there'd be no plans for the post-season. Because, in this game, if we're not good enough to make it into the post-season, there won't be any post-season. And right now, we're nowhere close.