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Tonight, this is America

by mtippett | September 15, 2008 at 06:57 pm | 370 views | 19 comments | 40 recommendations

The photograph associated with this link struck me as poinant today. It got my attention because it showed up as one of Yahoo's most viewed. In it a man shielded by an unbrella walks in the rain in front of the tattered remains of a bank tower. This is not a picture of Wall Street or even Lehman brothers but rather the financial district in Houston Texas. The fact that the effects of a major hurricane have been pushed off the front pages of most newspapers because of an even bigger catastrophe seemed of tragic significance. Our hearts should be with our American friends tonight. These are difficult times for them.

Residents walks next to the damaged windows of the JP Morgan Chase Tower caused by Hurricane Ike in Houston September 13, 2008.

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SOLARLIFE

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 22:56 on September 15th, 2008

mtippett, I like this story. It's good stuff.

Heritage

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 02:04 on September 16th, 2008

mtippett, I like this story. It's good stuff.

Our hearts should be with our American friends tonight. These are difficult times for them.

Our hearts and minds should be with the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis. Killed by American greed.

If the banks collapse maybe the war machine will be crippled. For those young Americans serving in Iraq it could be a ticket home.

mtippett

at 02:41 on September 16th, 2008

Or maybe the collapse of the banking system will lead to more war. Peace requires stability and financial ruin and decimated lives in Texas give us neither. I would encourage you to be more generous in your sympathies.

Paschen

at 03:28 on September 16th, 2008

I fear that you may be right here mtippett, we may have a lot more wars yet to come because of unstable times in the finance world.

Heritage

at 03:50 on September 16th, 2008

Or maybe the collapse of the banking system will lead to more war.

How could the US justify spending hundreds of billions on Iraq if its own citizens were facing destitution? The voices for an end to the illegal war would grow louder.

Peace requires stability

The US has been stable for a long time and yet the wars go on. It does seem logical, Peace requires stability in the US, but I fear the opposite is true.

If the cost of saving Iraqi lives is America's temporary financial ruin that is an acceptable price.

I would encourage you to be more generous in your sympathies.

Duly noted thank you. But I feel the ending the crimes against humanity in Iraq requires my sympathies more than America's banking crisis.

Paschen

at 03:52 on September 16th, 2008

It did happen before Heritage, after the 1929 the only way out was war. The financial crisis was so bad and disastrous that War was chosen as a way out, followed by WWII.

After WWII we just started a new and had a great recovery and so one. Only this time I think war will not bring us recovery but an apocalypse. We are getting closer and closer with each day to WWIII.

Heritage

at 04:20 on September 16th, 2008

Yes, I see. But the US is already juggling Iraq and trying to police/control the rest of the world. She is already at war. She will only engage those who are weaker than her, so she won't engage Iran/Russia/Venezuela.

Again, it does seem logical, Peace requires stability in the US, but I fear the opposite is true:

So is a catastrophic meltdown coming?

If so, probably a majority of the people in the world are thinking: “Serves them right.” For the last 500 years, the West has been striding across the globe, armed to the teeth with firearms, warships, bombers, and—more recently—depleted uranium, enforcing the “white man's burden” by enslaving nations and peoples and confiscating everything of value—ranging from art objects to gold to oil—that can be carried away.

The financiers behind it all have also used the diabolically clever practice of creating money “out of thin air” to put the natives everywhere into debt, and, when that has proven insufficient, of doing the same to their own populations.

All this is rationalized by various brands of racism, cultural superiority, social Darwinism, historical determinism, “dominion of the Elect,” “God's chosen people,” etc. Or, simply, “might makes right.”

I believe this is a fair assessment of the situation.

Paschen

at 04:25 on September 16th, 2008

It is a good assessment, however a giant as the US will not fall with out striking first, why Europe, Japan, China and Arab Emirates have kept the US alive for so long and with so many loan to them, because all fear that this mad Giant will use Nuclear force or go nuts, and all have been trying to reason and work with the US to try to put them back on track and hope they would get over their madness, it did not work and now we do have a mess worth then ever and they are still going crazy. Do not forget that they have enough Nuclear weapons to destroy the Earth a couple of time. I think that may be our main problem now.

Heritage

at 04:34 on September 16th, 2008

Another point is, this is not 1929. Today we are more interconnected than ever. This limits possibilities of war.

I have (some) faith in the American people. I hope/believe that a financial catastrophe will force them to steer their nation away from the path of war and Empire. In the end it's up to them. I believe hitting rock bottom will make them see and change.

A financial catastrophe in the US could be a catlyst for peace.

Paschen

at 04:41 on September 16th, 2008

I do hope that you may be right Heritage, I am not so optimistic in the Human nature.

moonwolf

at 07:57 on September 16th, 2008

Heritage,

Here, here!

moonwolf

at 07:59 on September 16th, 2008

mtippett,

Unfortunately whatever it takes to bring the wanton killing and senseless destruction by the USA to an end works for me, and if it hurts some Americans, well how has it been for the countries the USA has looted and the millions of innocent and defenseless human beings it has tortured, imprisoned, displaced and killed? Turn off the money and you turn off their war machine. There will be global pain but any big change has always generated some pain, and it will be offset by not having their planes dropping bombs everywhere and their fleets no longer prowling half the planet threatening instant death to all who do no comply. How "stabilizing" an effect has America had on the planet for the last 10 years? All global indicators show a world spinning out of control in good part due to the hubris of one country, the USA. Most economists attribute a great deal of the current collapse to the US wars abroad!

If you've checked global consensus from most economists they agree the impact of this economic typhoon is mainly concentrated on the USA as that is where the new tools of greed and excess were invented, initiated, sanctioned and where their use reached its terrible zenith. The USA is where most of the profits were taken in an orgy of profiteering, fraud, graft, and outright thievery. That the American citizens have allowed a small group of rich guys to loot the treasury and their childrens' futures and steal everything not nailed down is their own responsibility, and they seemed totally OK with that as long as they could share the booty and live lives which emulated the oligarchs at least in appearance. Do I have sympathy for individuals caught in the tsunami? Of course I do, but this is the harsh medicine required to cure the disease, and the need for the cure outweighs my sentiment.

It is also time to re-invent the economic system under which we live, since the one we have been using is clearly unsustainable and the consequences of the corporate and individual greed which drives this current system is what has caused the conditions finally reeking havoc in the US and global economies. You speak of stability and financial ruin. Most people on the planet have never experienced the former but are intimately intractably bound to the latter. Trying to prop up a system that is this intrinsically dysfunctional simply because we here in the rich west want everything to stay stable, which actually translates into horribly inequitable for billions of humans, is morally reprehensible and just won't work. Nor would I want it to. That my life will be impacted and that times will be very tough is true. Bring it on. Some principles are worth taking a cut in lifestyle for don't you think?

All the pundits speak of 'corrections' in the system. Well get ready for the mother of all corrections, and not a moment too soon. If the system was functional this would not be happening. Laissez-faire capitalism has been a bold experiment but the glaring inequities it spawns, its institutionalized confrontational nature, the concept of corporate 'person hood' without personal responsibility, and its voracious need for endless growth and profit have produced glaring and deadly consequences which can no longer be swept under the carpet with small 'corrections'. If capitalism the American way continues the human race will end, full stop! We cannot continue to run a system which must have endless growth within a finite environment. That's just a no brainer. Up against that final consequence of continuing to run this system we invented that does not work anymore, devastated financial districts in the USA, and the pain that will ensue are small prices to pay.