This Ripe Moment
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?
