GranolaBox

My ex-brother-in-law Dave did sarcasm great. When the family was in an argument he’d interject at something slightly lower than a yell, “the important thing is that we assign blame….. not SOLVE the problem. “

And that’s what both sides of the aisle are doing with the collapse of the banking system and peak oil. Everybody is looking for someone to blame and punish. Let’s take Iran, for example. The United States is pretty much blaming them for everything they can possibly blame them for. I actually like that the Iranians did that test firing. They’re kind of saying to George Bush… hey… we might not have a bigger dick than you and Israel combined, but we’ve definitely got a bigger dick than Israel. We don’t like to hear such talk.

With the banking crisis, the bipartisan Congress seems to be putting the blame on the “speculators.” These mysterious speculators made a lot of money hedging the subprime market, but the financial institutions that underwrote them are the ones you and I are now bailing out in the form of our tax dollars.

And we’re not just bailing out American banks and financial institutions; we’re bailing out foreign institutions as well. The recent failure of Indy Mac, a huge repository of liar loans, is an example. Most of Indy Mac’s shareholders that we’ll be reimbursing are foreigners. What’s more, we’re underwriting the military defense of many of these countries already.

We pretty much ordinary Americans have our share of the blame too. We’ve been grasping for this brass ring of a carefully marketed American Dream that’s been set too impossibly far out to reach. We are, through our ignorance, almost as much to blame as the corporate world that molds our minds.

The point is, as Dave never failed to make, is to solve the problem. Where do we go from here? In a recent post, William Kunstler pointed out that “the previous “release” of the American Dream software is obsolete, and the new version will require a whole lot more of [Americans] in the way of earnest effort, delayed gratification, and revised expectations. This is a great place to start.

Another good solution is to talk about it. Corporate media gives Americans a set of “talking points” that become accessible discourse for Sunday morning news shows and somewhat more advanced water cooler conversations. We need to expand the agenda, and expand the number of media and forums at which these new agenda are discussed.

Another thing we need to do is to get our collective shit together. There are tons of groups protesting the war in Iraq… but we’re so disorganized that it’s easy for the corporate media to ignore us. As little fish, we need to cooperate to scare away, if not eviscerate the big fish.

Finally, we need to read about alternatives. There are lots of people out there with good ideas about where to go from here. Many of them knew where we should be going a long time ago. If alternative politics isn’t your bag then learn about alternative medicine, alternative agriculture… alternative anything!

Any other ideas?

Technorati Tags: George Bush

Filed under: EWAKI, Politics on August 5th, 2008