I am reminded of the title of a book from the late 60's entitled: "Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me". I never read the book, but the line captures the feeling that this time invokes. With world financial markets in free fall, there is the feeling that the chickens have finally come home to roost. The feeling of the pervasive ugliness of greed, self interest, hatred and other crimes of passion that have been not only condoned, but held up by political dogma as the highest reaches that we all can aspire to, have come crashing down in a collapse that these generations have not seen in their lifetimes. The bottom is still dropping away and finally the good citizens of this United States are asking themselves if indeed the past years have not been terribly wasted.
We have seen an economic ideology masquerading as science emanating from the Chicago School of Milton Friedman inspired by the likes of Ayn Rand that have glorified self interest, telling us that if self interest is pursued, that the group welfare will be adequately taken care of as if by some mysterious magic. That they were not only misguided, but horribly wrong is now obvious for all to see. Just as the Communist ideology was exposed by the failures of the Soviet Union and others, the right wing philosophies free market capitalism have brought the whole world to the brink of economic disaster. Luminaries such as Allan Greenspan who for so long hid behind reams of obscure language that dazzled his Congressional and Presidential audiences and hypnotized them into surrendering their fiduciary responsibilities to oversee and regulate the financial sector to protect the citizens that they were elected to represent now are discredited and will forever have their tombstones stamped with the finality of the word "Failure".
It is ironic to see the Republican candidate for president, John McCain continue to proclaim the free market ideological dogma as if he were unaware that the electorate at large, at least those who are intelligent enough to understand, finally see that this is a failed ideology and to re-elect another of its representatives is to ensure that this disaster will become the permanent state of the Unites States of America.
Wake up citizens! I don't know if the hole we have been dug into is too deep for us to dig out of or not, but if you don't wake up and try with everything you've got, your children and your grandchildren will live their lives in economic slavery. Vote! But don't just vote. Correspond with your elected representatives and tell them what you want, demand it, hold them accountable if they secumb to corporte interests. Corporations do not vote, they are not represented in Congress, you are. Take back your right to a government that represents you.
