TPMCafe || BUSH BEGINS TO TANK: A CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE

TPMCafe || BUSH BEGINS TO TANK: A CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE: "Even though people will look back at the Bush years agape, it is hard to stay hopeful when we don't know when that will be. It's hard not to know how long of a haul we are in for: it's like when you are trapped in a really toxic relationship, and have not figured a way out yet. "

At Long Last Have They No Decency?

At Long Last Have They No Decency?: "The left and center-left need to find rhetoric that allows them to strike at Republican abuses, without being shrill recitations of old conflicts. Dean tried rhetoric that is really out of the civil rights era, and Durbin older rhetoric from World War II. But the reactionaries are not hold over segregationists, nor are they totalitarians of the stripe we saw goose stepping around the world in the mid-20th century. They are a unique threat, and must be called by their proper name, one to which they, and no one else, answer to.



"The flip side of this is the need to find a positive rhetoric. The reactionaries have their vision of a take no shit, take no prisoners, god fearing disciplined society. The kind of America that has a super bowl winning military that everyone cheers, and plenty of free beer. It is a simple vision of America that appeals to experiences in popular culture and personal daily life. The left does not have a corresponding vision of America, and therefore it is difficult for it to promote its own ideas, and even more difficult for it to attack the crass 'shit kicker' America that cheers on torture in Guantanamo Bay from the cover of Time Magazine.



"The time to do this is running out. America is going to want answers soon, and if it cannot find them from the Democrats, it will find them in some right leaning supposed maverick, such as John McCain. Someone who will tell America that a few reforms around the edges will solve everything, and the only thing we really need to do is get those boots resoled."



One key problem with the "Coming Storm" is the meterological metaphor allows for passivity. But, in this storm, people and politicians "ARE" the wind, the rain and the thunder.

The Trillion-Dollar Bet - New York Times

The Trillion-Dollar Bet - New York Times: "This year, only about $80 billion, or 1 percent, of mortgage debt will switch to an adjustable rate based largely on prevailing interest rates, according to an analysis by Deutsche Bank in New York. Next year, some $300 billion of mortgage debt will be similarly adjusted.



But in 2007, the portion will soar, with $1 trillion of the nation's mortgage debt - or about 12 percent of it - switching to adjustable payments, according to the analysis.



The 2007 adjustments will almost certainly be the largest such turnover that has ever occurred.



The impact is not likely to derail the economy on its own, economists predict, but it will probably slow growth. For individual families, the problems could be significant."



Looks like rain in the forecast.

Looking for a Scapegoat

Whiskey Bar: Looking for a Scapegoat: "what Friedman’s comment really drove home for me is how perilous the postwar political environment is likely to be for the remnants of American liberalism – and for the anti-imperialist left in particular."



The Coming Storm, rather than sweeping away the fascist State from its crib, may sweep away the remnants of liberal rationality. Be careful what you wish for.

WSJ.com - What Happens If Real Estate Goes Bust

WSJ.com - What Happens If Real Estate Goes Bust: "A housing bust would be worse [than the stock bust],' says Kenneth Rogoff, an economics professor at Harvard University and former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund."



". . . a dollar reduction in stock wealth cuts household spending by four cents, but a dollar lost in housing wealth reduces it by seven cents. Mr. Rogoff says the effect may have since grown because home buyers are more leveraged.



"The IMF found after studying housing cycles world-wide that "private consumption fell sharply and immediately in the case of housing price busts while the decline was smaller and more gradual after equity price busts." That's even though housing price declines were usually smaller at 30%, adjusted for inflation, compared with 45% for stocks. The U.S. had never experienced a decline of such a size in the period the IMF studied, so it's unclear how much the global experience would apply to the U.S."

War: Realities and Myths - by Chris Hedges

War: Realities and Myths - by Chris Hedges: "We are losing the war in Iraq. We are an isolated and reviled nation. We are pitiless to others weaker than ourselves. We have lost sight of our democratic ideals. Thucydides wrote of Athens' expanding empire and how this empire led it to become a tyrant abroad and then a tyrant at home. The tyranny Athens imposed on others, it finally imposed on itself. If we do not confront the lies and hubris told to justify the killing and mask the destruction carried out in our name in Iraq, if we do not grasp the moral corrosiveness of empire and occupation, if we continue to allow force and violence to be our primary form of communication, if we do not remove from power our flag-waving, cross-bearing versions of the Taliban, we will not so much defeat dictators such as Saddam Hussein as become them."



We cannot simply wait for the coming storm to do what we are unwilling to do for ourselves. If we would save our democracy, we must save it, and not sit passively hoping that, by "overreaching" Bush and his ilk will do it, for us. If the Iraq War was not "overreaching", the word has no meaning. He must be driven from office for this crime, or America is lost.



If you know someone, who now supports this awful war, talk to them. No, better, punch him in the nose and keep on punching, until he agrees never to vote again as long as he lives.

Whiskey Bar: Hard Evidence

Whiskey Bar: Hard Evidence: "Maybe the Downing Street Memo (coupled with Bush's sinking poll numbers) will be the cocktail that puts a little fire in the bellies of the Washington press corps. A few stiff belts of the truth seem to have encouraged Polman to stop pulling his punches anyway. More likely, the corporate drones at the top of the editorial pyramid will heed the voice of their master (Mammon) and simply close the bar -- long before the timid nobodies at CNN or the henpecked husbands of CBS/NBC/ABC ever get their hands on a drop of the good stuff.



"On the other hand, the sheer insanity of the Iraq occupation (and the administration's own progressively more flagrant detachment from reality) finally seem to be having an effect on the American public -- despite the media's attempts to severely ration the truth. It may not take much of the stuff to get a good bar fight going, one in which the administration -- and the conservative propaganda machine -- will come out the loser for a change."



One would have thought an unpopular war might have affected the 2004 election. One might have thought that numerous scandals might of interest.



It may be that the scandals are piling higher and higher, a giant bonfire of corruption and incompetence, which will ignite in an apparently spontaneous media firestorm. Of course, this is the same corporate right-wing media, which kept Whitewater alive for seven long years.



For the news junkies, all of this stuff is known. It is being reported. It just is not being reinforced into a continuous narrative. There was nothing to report about Whitewater. But, the continuous narrative was put in place anyway.



It is not the facts, which make a scandal. It is the will to repeat a narrative, which unites the facts. That will is lacking. And, without it, no facts about Bush will bring him down. There will be no perfect storm, to rescue America from a long, fast decline.



And, even if such a perfect storm should emerge at the horizon, look for Bush's masters to try some horror, to shortcircuit it all -- some dramatic, horrible event, to bring American atavism to the fore, and to preserve the fascist State Bush has been building.