Posts Tagged ‘world markets’

We have had our first frost.  I put the feather comforter on the bed.  Winter is coming, and I don’t think on tippy-toes this year.  The weather may be average, but nothing else about this winter will be ordinary.

We have a Presidential election in a few weeks and partizans for the Republicans openly post images of their opponent, Obama, with a noose alongside the photo.  They lie and call him a Muslim.  They say he hangs out with terrorists.  Gee, you know if anyone who knew a college radical in the 60’s “hangs out with terrorists”, it sure could go a long way to explaining the ever-longer no-fly list, couldn’t it?   I knew that if I looked hard enough, long enough and without my brain or glasses, that it would all make a twisty sort of sense!

We have two wars that are ruinously ongoing.  And in Afghanistan, people will be starving this winter while we get NATO troops to further make war on the opium farmers who are merely trying to stay alive and feed their families with the only cash crop they can find.  We are distrusted and hated around the world.

The financial markets of the world are tottering and bringing up mental images of the old train wreck posters produced in sepia tones with cheesy captions back when I was fresh out of high school.  Britain is so pissed that little Iceland went broke before Brit investors could get their payoff that they have invoked anti-terrorist legislation to seize assets!  So, now bigger nations will go strip whatever has worth in smaller debtor nations to make their “ends” look at each other?   Apparently, it really is impossible for nations to sit down and say “Well, we are ALL in the shit; how do we make the best of it and climb out of the crapper?”

And what are the average Americans doing?  The news around here finds it encouraging that they are going shopping for Halloween.  Are you kidding?  Yes, I went shopping for Halloween, too.  I spent $8 on colored hairspray.  I am paying off my bills as fast as I can, keeping even with repairs and maintenance and hoping we somehow make it through the shit that is coming down the pike.

Clue to America: You can’t SHOP your way out of this.  Pay off your damned debts, look up the word “stringent” in the dictionary and make it your watch word for financial matters  and general living for a while.  Keep your cabinets stocked, do your job, don’t act like a panicked racist prick, and pay some fucking ATTENTION to the world beyond your own petty damned needs for a change.

I love the fall, usually.  In spite of my apprehensions and fears of stupid people in large numbers, I WILL enjoy the season.  With simple pleasures…..a good home-cooked meal, a backyard bonfire, a glass of cheer from the long-ago stocked liquor cabinet.  It is time to keep on keeping on, but at a real level rather than on the fantastical level.  And yes, for all you whippersnappers, that is a reference to a black and white movie “The Night of the Iguana” ….because the American Stupid party is over.  It has needed to be over for good while.  Park your greed and ‘me me me” at the dumpster and join the rest of the planet.