Spitless
Back during the election, and especially during the primaries, I spent a lot of time decrying Democrats who acted like they had PTSD from decades of domestic abuse at the hands of the Republicans. Some, I said, crumpled into the fetal position at the mere thought of the commercials the omnipotent necromancers of the GOP would run, while others overcompensated, insisting that we had to become our enemies to defeat them.
Well, instant karma's gonna getcha, every time.
Today, I ran smack dab into not one, but two separate cases of PTSD I had unknowingly been carrying around. The first was political. I realized today that the way the media has reacted to Blagopaylosah was so much like the mass insanity of the Whitewater years it was triggering flashbacks. It's possible that this thing is a momentary fancy of the MSM that will run out of steam once it has some real news to report. Thing is, they already have plenty of real news to report. Just ferinstance, the fact that, as DHinMI put it at Kos, today, "[g]iven the choice between being reckless ideologues or doing what's best for the country, the economy, and millions of American families whose income is connected to the auto industry, the Senate GOP decided to be reckless ideologues."
What's triggered my flashbacks is the fact that we have a "story" where there is clearly no there there, yet the fact that they can't find any there in the nothing only exacerbates the insane feeding frenzy. The lack of evidence of wrongdoing is deemed proof that such evidence remains to be found and the MSM and the GOP are falling back into the same ugly co-dependant resonance that marked their relations (heh) back during Whitewater-Vince Foster-Monica's Hummergate. I admit my 90s flashbacks have made me at least borderline shrill. (But at least its not just me--Digby, the Queen of Shrewd, is worried about it too.)
But, speaking of the Republican plan to punish America and the world with a new Great Depression to repay their rank ingratitude for all that the GOP has done for them, I also had to confront my other case of PTSD, today. The one that involves real trauma and, therefore, transcends the realm of mere metaphor and approaches that of actual pathology.
Many years ago, during another recession, I suffered a long period of unemployment/underemployment. As the months passed, I endured the calls from credit card companies, drastic downgrades in the quality of my diet, the forebearance of all luxuaries, and during the last few months of it, I shared my apartment with the spectre of homlessness. If you've been through anything like that, you know it's scarring. The sense of helplessness---which in itself can become pathological--and the stress and the constant anxiety take their toll and they leave their mark.
They sure did on me. After I got a job and got back on my feet (along with the rest of the country) my reaction was perverse and rather shameful. Where previously, I'd been prudent to the point of parsimony, as soon as my credit was restored, I spent profligately, drunken sailor style, getting myself into a spot it took years to dig myself out of when I came to my senses. Where before, I had been open-handed with those less fortunate, I had a major compassion shutdown that lasted years. I didn't completely turn into Ebenezer Scrooge, but I applied a flinty capitalistic attitude to transactions as mundane as calculating a tip in a cheap restaurant and, unless it involved animals, it took a very sobby sob story indeed to move me to real charity.
And then there was the complete loss of confidence of my worth as an employee. My deep seated anxiety (which reinforced my already perversely overactive sense of loyalty) caused me to stick with a job that daily presented me with intolorable conditions, and to do so for a lot less than I was worth, to boot. That went on for several years. The fear of unemployment can do that to you when it ceases to be an abstract phenomonon. Or at least, it did for me.
I thought I'd gotten better. Hell I have gotten better. My sense of compassion was already coming back, even before the end of the 90s. Eight ugly years of Republican rule took it to heights it had never reached before (though the increase in my income may have a bit to do with that, as well). I grew back some of the cocky self-confidence I'd had as a smug know it all twenty-something.
So when the 2001 recession didn't really worry me much, I thought I was better. Then this one hit.
Here's the deal. I've been worried since the credit freeze up hit back in September. Having had more than a little exposure, both academic and real-world, to what credit actually means and how critical it is to the functioning of the economy, it worried me a lot. As things kept getting worse, I've become more worried, but I realized today that I've also been indulging in a a lot of denial and avoidance. I knew things were bad and that the risk of something really, really serious--the D word (and the one Prozac doesn't help, at that)--was theoretically possible. Nonetheless, I've nurtured this little fantasy that there's still time to avert a catastrophe. That somehow, we'll muddle along until January, then Obama will run up a good Keynesian fix, unemployment will trough short of 8% and then all we'll have to do is figure out how to stop the inevitable inflation without stallling out the recovery.
Then I read this from Ambinder:
It's quite unsettling to talk to members of Barack Obama's transition teams these days, especially those who are helping with the economics portfolio. Without going into details, the sense I get from them is that they are very worried that the economy will get a lot worse before it gets better. Not just worse... a lot worse. As in -- double digit unemployment without the wiggle factors. Huge declines in aggregate demand. Significant, persistent deficits. That's one reason why the Obama administration seems to be open to listening to every economist with an idea and is stocking the staff with the leading lights of the field. In one sense, the general level of concern among Obama advisers and transition staffers is reassuring; they get the magnitude of the problems, and they're not going to assume that, just because the bottom has never dropped out before -- certainly not in the lifetimes of most people doing policy these days, the bottom will never drop out.
That's when I realized that I was, and for weeks had been, scared spitless. I've just been whistling my way past the graveyard the whole time. The truth is that I've been looking nervously at the demeanor of people out shopping, counting cars in the mall parking lot and empty tables in restaurants for weeks, now. When a retail business in a place I shop closes up, I take notice in a way I didn't before. Every conversation I have with a client begins and ends with a discussion of the fall off in business and the inability to get some grace from lenders, no matter what business they are in. Despite all that, I've maintained an irrational confidence that things aren't as dire as they seem.
Tonight, however, I realized that for the first time in my life, I've been feeling the precise kind of fear that FDR was talking about in his first inaugural address. FDR's most quoted words in that speech, are applicable to any kind of fear:
So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself--nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.
However, in the sentences immediately following, he starkly ennumerated the reasons why people at that time, in fact, had good reason to be afraid:
In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone.
More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.
FDR could say that because, by the time he was inauguarated, it had already happened in a big way--it was just stating the bleeding obvious truth, not making a scary prediction that could send the markets into a further tizzy and turn a possibility into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
We will not hear any such bleak, stark descriptions of the situation from Obama, I think, because all of that stuff is only starting to happen now. God willing (I find my agnosticism wearing thin, just of late), we can avert the worst of it and turn things around before it spirals completely out of control. He sure doesn't want to do anything to lower his chances.
But I do feel the fear Roosevelt was talking about. The specific fear. Its a constant crawly feeling in my gut these days. A fear that says "sure, its not hitting our bottom line much now, but if this keeps getting worse, it will, and then I could end up out on the street." Its a fear born of personal experience plus too much knoweldge of history and too many dire stories of the Great Depression from my elders. I'm scared for me, for my mother, brother and sister. I'm scared for my girlfriend and my cats and for the whole damn world.
I've been feeling it for weeks, but today, I finally admitted it to myself. The truth is, we'd damn well better hope that Obama is a lot better than FDR was at dealing with this crisis. And the turth also is that that's why I have had absolutely no goddamned patience for the cable asshats blathering on and on about whether they can parse Obama into the Blagopaylosah scandal. We are facing a national emergency, yea, an international emergency, right here, right now that's worse than anything we've faced since, hell, the Cuban Missle Crisis. A little rallying around the President-Elect would seem in order. Unless, of course, you're some cable asshat with a multimillion dollar contract an no fear of losing everything.
2 years ago I wrote to Senator Obama and asked him to run for president. For the first year after he announced I dealt with countless, numerous people telling me that it (Obama becoming president) would never happen. They gave me various reasons... because he was black, because of Hillary, because our country was not evolved enough/ready for a real leader. And to be truthful... many, many of them were afraid. They were afraid to believe, afraid to imagine the possibility, ... afraid of change. I told them 'we decide what is possible'. I believed and I persuaded some of them to trust me and in time many of them came to trust Senator Obama.
I went to a talk on integral finance about a year ago with one of the men who helped create the euro and another financial leader of integral finance in the US.
They warned of us what was coming. I realized that things were a mess and they predicted a variety of things. They suggested that there were reasons to be 'afraid'. Yet what I noticed about many of us in the audience was that all we wanted to do was know how to best cope with the situation and how we might reduce the problem. We looked to creative ways to respond.
Here we are. Much reason for fear. Many more people in need of faith, help, and hope. Those of us who have any of this to spare would do well to keep this in mind. Still right now many are putting hopes in our new leader and his team to help guide us through this.
I believe that we have a creative capacity to solve every problem we encounter (reference every disaster movie). I believe that we will have exactly the degree of recession that we need to experience and that it really is up to us (and if Obama is not the 'Bruce Willis' hero to save our economy someone else will fill the part). I believe in our creative capacity to help each other. Our world needs to adjust for past errors in judgement and character. Unfortunately human beings tend to grow from pain. This is more change than we may have expected but it still may be an excellent thing once we get through it.
New and innovative creations, healthier, better ways of living, stronger communities, a little different sense of how we are all in this together, ... so many great things may come from this situation that also offers reasons to be afraid.
I really appreciate your open, naked sharing on this. I wanted to share some perspective in response. It's not that I feel no fear... but I dance with it.
December 12, 2008 1:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good post. Anyone who isn't somewhat afraid isn't paying attention. The lack of any consensus on how we can ameliorate the effects of the economic crisis alone is reason to worry. We're in uncharted territory, and whatever we come up with I think it's gonna take time before we see employment and credit stabilize. Those of us who are living close to the edge will be the first to feel the full brunt of the recession. As those people fall into economic hardship the effect on the rest of our us will snowball.
I think we'll muddle through, but the real question for me is whether we will see where we went wrong and have the courage to change it. Blame the deregulation of the past 10 years - that's part of it. Blame the so called 'toxic derivatives' issued by Wall Street and that's part of it too. Too easy credit? Check. What does it all boil down to? 'I've got mine', (remember how you felt after your financial penury and the concomitant miserliness in response to the panhandlers you came across?). Culturally we are all somewhat responsible for our demise. As a society we've bought into the greed paradigm of acceptable behaviour. It didn't go out of style with Milken, Gordon Gecko, and Bud Fox. We buy our tabloids and in our star-struck weenie minds we subscribe to the star-f#@k mentality of Branjelina/Who wants to Marry a Millionaire/F#@k-your-buddy/I've got a deal in the works/anything to get ahead of the fray. I've got mine. How about you? Too bad. If I don't have mine yet, I can get it by playing the market/inventing the next great invention/etc. I can imagine the investors here rolling their eyes. To them I say I've got no problem making a profit and a handsome one at that. Just do it with a conscience. Don't sell something built of trash and call it a sweet deal. All hail the GDP, but you know it's more than that. Let's put ourselves in the place of a family in the DRC or Darfur trying to survive in the face of genocidal enemies. Kinda puts our fear for our retirement accounts into perspective. So maybe this uncertainty, this fear can help us culturally gain some compassion for what's going on outside the borders of the developed nations. Maybe we won't be so stingy with our foreign aide to developing countries. Maybe we'll realize after the global nature of this economic crisis that we're not in this alone, and can't afford to dictate our terms to the rest of the world, (...so long W). Maybe.
December 12, 2008 3:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Great comment M-H2O.
And great post Steve. I'm still so scarred by 80-82 I can barely talk about it. To learn that you can go from being the shithot next big thing golden boy to friends couches to depression to being homeless and stealing yoghurt to live... within 18 months? No, you don't forget that shit. And to all the people who're still in Step 1 of the Grieving cycle, fingers-in-eyesocket Denial, I'd just like to say - hurry up and get over it. Cause we can't go forward til you unplug from Survivor 37 and look around.
And oh yeah.... Grumble grumble.
Thanks again, folks.
December 12, 2008 3:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm concerned about you quinn. I hope things look brighter for you soon.
December 12, 2008 5:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks FDRdog. Naw, I'm personally ok. Just pondering what's happening a lot, and not entirely pleased watching as the first wave of unemployment begins to wash up on the steps of family & friends. It's those bigger things that have me grumbling.
'twill be fine. Cheers.
December 12, 2008 8:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am one of the lucky ones who still have a job (at the time of this post, anyways), but the last couple of weeks I've watched as some of the hard-working people around me are escorted to the door. Those of us left feel paranoid, grateful, and doomed all at the same time. Or most of us. Two days ago, I found one co-worker of mine (who has been around for years and thinks himself very valuable) spread out sleeping comfortably in a place no-one would ever find him while everyone else was holding on to their jobs for dear life. He had just watched people walked to the door, yet he felt comfortable enough to take a nice nap on company time? I hate to say I'd wish fear on anyone, but I think this guy could use a healthy dose.
December 12, 2008 8:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
There is nothing like personal testimony, when it comes to righteous anger or well-placed fear. You eloquently speak of the fear you feel. But beneath our current financial circumstances lie all the reasons why righteous anger is another response. For example this:
http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/fury-builds-over-crisis-at-banks/?scp=1&sq=Fury%20Builds&st=Search
And M-H2O has it exactly right:
Kudos for the post and every comment above!
December 12, 2008 10:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
This may be contrary to the feelings of a lot of people, but one of the conclusions I've come to is that we're going to have to be willing to step away from our sense of retributional and, to a lesser extent, distributive justice as we deal with this thing.
Is it fair to throw a lifeline to the idiots who first broke the back of the New Deal era regulations that prevented things like this from happening for decades and then promptely drove the train straight into the ditch? Hell no. Is it fair that these idiots are still giving themselves bonuses instead of having the decency to throw themselves out their office windows like their forebearers did? Double hell no.
But keeping the creditors from collapsing is more important than that. The credit markets are still frozen. The people I call "the idiots" know all too well what they've done and they too are paralyzed by fear. We're going to have to figure out a way to unclench their terrified fingers from the cash, and soon bucause the strategy of just stuffing them so full of money that some of it has to spill out the top isn't working. But if they collapse, we're not going to have the opportunity to even try to force them to start lending again. If they collapse, double-digit unemployment, a complete collapse of aggregate demand and years of outright depression await.
Is it fair to help out the auto companies who wouldn't have been in such shit shape now if they hadn't spent tens of millions warding off new CAFE standards so they could keep manufacturing dinosaur sized SUVs unhindered? Absolutely not.
But keeping the auto-industry from collapsing is more important than giving those guys their just deserts. If the formerly Big Three go under, demand for their product completely collapses. Dealers go bankrupt like dominoes and hard eyed bankruptcy trustees look covetously upon unpaid car loans--there'll be no grace from them. Worse, the supply chain collapses--the same chain used by Toyota (hear that Mitch McConnell and Jim Bunning, you stupid useless, pigheaded ideologues?) and all the other foreign companies with plants in the U.S. If they collapse, double-digit unemployment, a complete collapse of aggregate demand and years of outright depression await.
I am very much afraid that in the here and now, retributional justice is the one luxuary we cannot afford and one me may never be able to afford. And,though, in the long run, redistributional justice is an economic imperative, but, in the short run, we need to defer that anger.
December 12, 2008 10:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Anyone notice that Toyota stock is down, because the slumping US economy means lower sales for them, too? The auto bailout failure seems to have depressed Asian markets, and that is the reason offered, that more unemployment here hurts those exporters.
Worth remembering, a la Jared Diamond, that if bizarre but possible disruptions happen, we could all be hungry, and cold (or hot). Something like 2% of Americans are in farming, and they could be hungry, too, if they're not growing food crops but feedstock of some sort.
Our system is dependent on certain beliefs, which are well-founded but not demonstrable in real time. They include the belief that money reflects real value, that it can be used to buy food, that more food will be arriving soon, etc. Let's keep these deep basics strong, and that unreasoning fear far away. I don't want to wait until I see the worst case scenarios. I think we can take a chance and make mistakes, and have that be better than doing nothing.
George Soros "Radical Fallibility" argues we will of course get it wrong on the first try, but we can only get it right by trying.
December 12, 2008 11:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Great, Jared Diamond"s "Collapse." There's a ray of sunshine I hadn't brought into my thinking yet. Thanks a lot Tom! (j/k).
December 12, 2008 11:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know whether "redistributional justice" in your last paragraph is a typo of 'retributional', but I like it as written. Who says a little redistribution of wealth isn't in order? Regarding the automakers "who wouldn't have been in such shit shape now if they hadn't spent tens of millions warding off new CAFE standards so they could keep manufacturing dinosaur sized SUVs", I think you can lay their woes more on the deregulation of the financial markets than their acceptance of CAFE standards.
December 12, 2008 11:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
No, that's what I meant.
If there is one basic lesson of history that that the knotheads at the top are perpetually incapable of learning as a class, it is that the middle class (or whatever its equivilent is in a given historical economy is) is the goose that lays the golden eggs. They can never stop themselves from killing the goose to accelerate their acquisition of those eggs.
I don't claim to be an economist, but I know a little bit about history. I think one of the recurring themes of history is that when the middle thrives--be it the working class plus the bourgeoisie in an industrial state, the yeoman farmers in pre-industrial or industrializing economies, the upper class (be they nobles, capitalists or patricians) thrives as well.
Invariably, however, there comes a point when the high accumulate so much political power that think they have the ability to further enrich themselves by impoverishing the middle and, having acquired that power they cannot resist doing so. It is always self-defeating. It is always self-destructive. And they can never stop themselves.
The patricians could not resist the temptation of snapping up the farms of all the good citizens who left the plow to defend the Republic from Hannibal. And, of course, the Punic War provided the patricians with a horde of cheap slaves to work those farms, which drove the remaining freeholders out of business, which put more farms on the market, and so on and so on and so on. When the Gracchi tried to raise the alarm and show them that they were harming themselves, they murdered them.
In the Middle Ages, they did the impoverishing with brute force. In the nineteenth century, they did it with technology. Today, they do it with outsourcing. Their unending delusion is that they can make themselves richer by slashing labor costs and then, eventually, putting the impoverished plebes into debt to them. And invariably, then are shocked, appalled and mystified when the economy collapses because the plebes/serfs/workers/middle class just can't afford to buy stuff anymore.
We never seem to learn so, instead, all we can do is take advantage of economic disruptions to beat back the self-destructive rapacity of the upper class. Marx notwithstanding, rich people are necessary to the functioning of an economy, but as a class, they're as stupid as domestic turkeys--they'll eat themselves to death if we give them the opportunity. And that's exactly what we've been doing for the last decade.
December 12, 2008 1:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well said. Especially like the domestic turkey analogy.
December 12, 2008 3:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for reposting that in comment to my blog. I was really amazed this morning at how many blogs were coming at similar themes from different angles. The Cafe is abuzz! In a wonderful way!
December 12, 2008 6:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here I was, toodling along in my nice safe coccoon of denial, and THIS post comes along!
I'm probably one of the few Americans around these days whose job is protected by an iron-clad collective bargaining agreement. {At least I think that it is.} And I appreciate just how profoundly important that agreement is: in times like these, I don't have to worry that my job will evaporate six months from now, or 12 months from now, and I can concentrate on actually doing my job. That security allows me to spend my energy on things other than subsistence concerns. I am a fortunate individual, and so are all my colleagues.
But the drip, drip, drip of insanity coming from the cable news is starting to erode that coccoon. Not the news about the economic catastrophe, but the constant harping about Obama's role in Blagomess (Liz Sidoti said this morning on Fox, of Obama, "He hasn't been indicted with anything, of course, but still...."
Stunning. He hasn't been indicted, sure, but he's been cleared by Fitzgerald, that overzealous hog of a prosecutor who did poor little Scooter in. I am deeply concerned that the so-called "taint" the media keeps crying about will handcuff Obama in his efforts to get this country back on track. In the same manner that the Lewinsky affair handcuffed Clinton, and forced the Clinton Administration to spend hours and untold energy dealing with that. Haven't we come further than that? I'd like to think we have: Obama got elected, in spite of REZKO REZKO REZKO WRIGHT WRIGHT WRIGHT AYERS AYERS AYERS LIPSTICK, PIGS, AND OMG!!!! HE'S STILL SMOKING!!!, but right now, after getting a snootful of cable news this am, I'm deeply worried.
December 12, 2008 11:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Don't worry too much if you're watch Fux Snooze for your information quota: Bill O' and Dick Morris have such a grasp on the basics that they keep referring to Fitzgerald as "Fitzpatrick." With that kind of aim, Obama doesn't need to worry about being in their sights.
December 12, 2008 12:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Okay, everyone, let's pounce the puss with the layoff plan.
December 12, 2008 1:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, that's a little smackier than I was going to put it, but I was headed down to the bottom to basically say the same thing.
December 12, 2008 1:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obnoxious, aren't I?
Working in education can have its security...
But it's probably deeply unfeeling of me to mention that.
December 12, 2008 1:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Most people in education have traded security for what might have been a more lucrative salary in business. So kudos to you!
December 12, 2008 6:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well said, dear NCSteve. I agree with both of your points. I just have two or three minor comments to make about them:
1)
Not only is this completely accurate, but the real irony is that the desperate dead-enders over at No Quarter are actually enjoying it. At least I find this ironic, because I have no doubt that the exact same dynamic would be playing out right now had Clinton won the presidency, and they would be righteously indignant about the whole thing (as rightly they ought to be). I cannot say that I really look forward to another 8 years of idiotic media inanity, but early indicators suggest that I might as well get used to it.
2)
I am doing exactly the same thing myself. Every time I drive to work and pass a new foreclosure sign in front of a house, I feel a momentary panic. Both my wife and I are still employed, but I did a long stint of unemployment myself a few years back, and the experience definitely leaves one jumpy.
3) As an interesting aside, I was a neighborhood team leader for the Obama campaign, and while I was at team leader training, they made us tell our stories of how we came to get involved. I noticed that a period of long unemployment was a common thread for a lot of us. Many of us had a story that centered around being really down economically, and how that experience made us really concerned about the social safety net in our society (especially vis-a-vis healthcare). This does not indicate, of course, that Obama will be able to turn things around, but it does indicate to me that an awful lot of us (not just yourself) are really hoping and counting on him to be able to get things moving back in the right direction.
December 12, 2008 12:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
I too find the for-sale signs and the for-rent signs and the empty tables to be cause for anxiety. I look at how this ripples out in so many ways. Gosh... we are in hard times - even if it's not "us" yet that are feeling such a pinch. But just "seeing" the effects that we can see and imagining the cascading effects beyond what we can see, it's a scary thing that's gotten going, like a run-away train. Once it gets going... very hard to stop it or turn it around.
December 12, 2008 1:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
One of the actions taken in 1933 was to repeal alcohol prohibition. This permitted states and municipalities and the feds to immediately tap into a ready source of revenue.
Before the Depression, everyone assumed that Prohibition, having been written into the Constitution, was permanent---along with the crime, corruption, infringement on liberty, and hypocrisy that it spawned.
Start raising the suggestion of repealing cannabis prohibition. A tremendous potential source of revenue, a significant reduction in unneeded governmental expenditures and police repression of liberty, and also a remedy for the emotional/psychological terrors of the Depression.
December 12, 2008 1:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
And, besides, in the immortal words of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, "dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope."
December 12, 2008 5:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hope we can work through this in the next five years and my kids (all of our kids) will be OK.
Nice post Steve. The honest sharing of your travails and current feelings of fear struck home and moved me deeply. I feel the same.
December 12, 2008 1:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good post, Steve.
Yes, the Republicans are proceeding to bury Obama in shit, and yes, as with Bill Clinton, they will never, ever stop. This is what Republicans do.
Some of the shit will stick to Obama, because relentless repetition will become "truth" to the brain-dead media, who will keep reporting unverified claims and debunked myths as if they are facts. Eventually, repetition of these rumors by the media will plant seeds of doubt in the minds of a small percentage of Democrats, who for some reason begin parroting the myths, creating a rift within the party. That's when Republicans move in to take power, it's how Republicans win elections: by turning Democrats against Democrats. Like taking candy from a baby.
During the primaries, Clinton supporters tried to tell you this would happen to Obama, and we believed that Hillary might somehow weather the shit storm better, however impossible it is to predict such an outcome. This philosophy is called Better the Shit Storm You Know Than the Shit Storm You Don't.
Staunch Obama fans complained BITTERLY that you were tired of the same old shit. Okay, fair enough. We now have fresh shit to contend with.
Mind you, I'm not saying Hillary should have won instead; I'm saying some of us are not at all surprised that Obama is getting mercilessly pelted. I'm saying no matter how many times Democrats get buried alive, they never learn to stick together, they never learn there's strength in numbers.
Meanwhile, the most cynical among us will say that Republicans are thoroughly capable of destroying the U.S. like they destroyed Iraq, and likely have already done so (and not without the help of plenty of Democrats, I might add). I think we have reason to be fearful, but cable asshats are the least of our problems. We have plenty to fear on a real-life personal-practical level, and we all need to brace for a very rough 2009.
December 12, 2008 2:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
P.S. For a nice rundown on the cable asshats, see Media pick up where they left off 8 years ago by Jamison Foser.
December 13, 2008 10:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
In June 2007 I canvassed for Obama in Darien IL. It was the first big event for him across the country. Darien is mostly a fairly well off middle class suburb of Chicago but the neighborhood I was in wasn't. Mostly older, smaller run down homes. One of the people I met was a white woman, I guess in her mid 50s. She looked awful, frazzled...drained, depressed. When I told her I was canvassing for Obama she flipped from that lost look to not just hopeful but practically pleading with me to tell her he could really do it, he could really get elected, as if my showing up on her doorstep made me a messenger with news that would deliver her from her problems.
I assured her he could and seeing as she was instantly so enthusiastic I asked her if she wanted to get involved, to help get him elected. She begged off and explained her health problems, various surgeries, etc. which neither of us cared to dwell on. On my part it was because I thought she might start crying. On her's I don't think she was trying to be stoic or make excuses, I think talking about it just made her more miserable and scared.
So I know that fear and hope you're talking about Steve. I saw it at one of my first stops in the election cycle. I just hope she's ok and Obama can pass his health care plan in time to help her and others like her.
December 12, 2008 7:38 PM | Reply | Permalink