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The
narcolepsy of the long Yuletide draws to a close and the world reawakens to
its self-spun web of mutually reinforcing fiascos. Just before the holiday, a
sense of futility darkened the European banking landscape as cascading
sovereign default looked more and more inevitable. It was halted by a
bazooka-caliber currency swap Ponzi that allowed the European Central Bank to
pretend it had a $700-billion bag of sugar-plums to hand out to more than 200
banks there. That gambit will only keep up the appearance of normality for a
couple of months, until the late winter bond rollover provokes a new crisis
stage.
Likewise,
in the USA, some pressure-cooked December employment statistics gave the
false impression of a brightening jobs picture, but no major news network
dared to glance behind the curtain at the short-term holiday hires, the
uncounted long-term jobless, the ones who don't show up at the government
offices anymore, the ones who stopped getting checks, the legions of the
hopeless. A nation that can't call 'bullshit' on its own lies deserves all
the suffering that might rain down upon it, and that's exactly where we are
heading as things economic morph into things political.
How
quaint the current Republican jousting tournament will seem in a few months
when real violence rides in on the zephyrs of springtime. Each new primary is
like the unloading of a Ringling Brothers clown car. There is an inverse
relationship between the seriousness of these times and the laughable
personalities vying for a place in history. Are they running for high office
or auditioning for the role of Parson Weems in a new Lifetime Network TV
mini-series? Are you charmed by their absurd casual clothing? Comforted by
their know-nothing jabber about the "game-changer" of shale oil and
their sincere doubts about the climate change "story?" Is it
morally satisfying to know that one or another of these candidates won't drink
a beer? (They'd make good Ayatollahs.) In what sort of Creationist parthenogenetic incubator are such pietistic idiots
hatched? What these sanctimonious pricks don't realize they are doing is
destroying the very legitimacy of the idea that we're capable of governing
ourselves per se.
This
is the long-term direction of life in North America, by the way - a breakup
into small autonomous governing units. It's just that the current cast of
characters brings an aura of low comedy to the process. By the time they're
through with Washington, the credibility of Federalism will sound like a
knock-knock joke.
As
for the other side, the "folks" now occupying the White House and
its folkster-in-chief, Mr. Obama - the time has
come to abandon them. Their failure is complete with the new national
security act that allows for suspension of due process of law. The cheek of
Mr. Obama in offering a "signing statement" to the effect that his
administration would not enforce the law! - as he
signed it! For one thing, Obama tacitly invited his own impeachment by
declaring he had no intention of enforcing federal law, since enforcement is
the chief duty of his office. If John Boehner were not himself such a fraud,
he would have started a motion for impeachment before sundown that day.
Occupy
Wall Street will seem like a mere harvest dance when we look back from the
uproars later in 2012. Both organized parties have managed to banish the rule
of law in America. Both parties need to be driven into the wilderness of
history and the rule of law has to be rescued from the oblivion they sent it
to. What group of clear-thinking adults can get behind that simple project?
What voices will resolve out of the phenomenal noise of gadget America, with
its deafening tweets, incessant advertising, instant messaging, idiotic robo-calling, and ever-present flat-screen assault on the
senses?
I
discern the distant sound of rebellion, a spirit that won't be appeased by
bytes of Disney-babble from the pandering snouts of Romney, Santorum,
Gingrich, Paul or Obama. They are interested only in keeping a set of
suicidal rackets going. All the yammer about "freedom" and
"liberty" is hollow when the rule of law is AWOL. This ripe time is
the natural moment for a true opposition to rise. A few months from now
neither major party will have a credible candidate or a plausible platform of
ideas. This will be painfully obvious. What angels and demons will rush into
that awful vacuum?
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