Tim Wise on structural racism in the housing market and the "culture of irresponsibility."

To all those that would suggest that there are behavioral as well as structural dimensions the problems facing Black communities I would say the following: Why don't you worry about fixing your fucked-up structure, and I'll worry about my behavior.

Congress at work: $70 billion more for War

Chalmers Johnson on the $70 billion dollar down-payment on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for fiscal year 2009 (the rest will be slipped in through "supplemental appropriations"). Johnson thinks that it is strange that the defense budget is not an issue in current economic debates.

Hawks Ascendant

Stephen Zunes takes Obama to task for failing to challenge the reckless and irresponsible foreign policies of McCain and the neocons. Zunes lays out point by point, where Obama could have and should have called McCain's bluster. A language of dissent exists, there are alternative visions of America's role in the world and in history out there. Why won't Obama listen, and lend his voice to chorus? Why must he insist on clinging to a sinking ship?

Fri could have been an important moment in making the discursive shift to a new America. But alas, it was yet another missed opportunity- it was yet another moment in which the cultural, intellectual, and political hegemony of the neoconservative vision/nightmare of American power was discursively reproduced.

Rebert Dreyfuss makes many of the same points.

The Me Too Party

"Naturally, the common people don't want war ... it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country."
– Hermann Goering

out-Hawking the Hawks

Mr. Congeniality chooses to cede all foreign policy arguments to his rival. But you can't really blame him, the decision to take the Iraq War off the table, and make the election a referendum on economic issues worked brilliantly for John Kerry...

Why Obama continues to embrace discredited neo-conservative interpretations of political developments in places like Georgia and the Middle East is beyond me. He seems to accept the notion that the American electorate is so stupid that it has no tolerance for nuance on issues such as "Israel's right to defend it self against an Iranian nuclear holocaust," or the "threat of Russian aggression." (though in Obama's defense, there is a theory out there that argues that if you treat someone like they are stupid for long enough, they may indeed become stupid. As PT Barnum observed: "you'll never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." I don't suppose that we should let the fact that Mr. Barnum died in debt overshadow the simple elegance of his formula...)

Obama may get lucky and be able to ride bad economic headlines into the White House, but when it comes to the more fundamental problem of coming to terms with American Empire, apparently we are not the ones we have been waiting for. Apparently they will come along some time later. Perhaps they will be able to reframe foreign policy issues in more realistic, less militaristic and ideological terms than "we" are currently able to.

I wonder how they will manage to do that.

Walden Bello breaks down the current financial situation in terms of capitalism's tendency toward crises of overaccumulation- ie when an economy's productive capacity out paces its capacity to consume. Essentially, workers are not paid enough to buy what they produce. As a consequence inventories grow, prices fall, and firms collapse. Firms with sufficient capital and political connections to withstand the crisis can then swoop in to buy un or under-used assets at bargain basement prices.

Bello analyzes the financialization of capitalism (the shift away from investment in productive enterprises such as agriculture and manufacturing toward speculative enterprises known as FIRE: Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate. The theory is that there is always a bigger sucker out there somewhere - I'll buy for $1 because some idiot out there will surely pay $2) as a proposed solution to the 1970s crisis of overaccumulation, and the root of the current meltdown.

In a restaurant yesterday I overheard some pretty undeniable common sense. A patron explained to a fellow patron: "if the problem is that banks are failing because people can't pay their mortgages, why not give homeowners $700b, they can then pay there bills and the problem is solved..."

Nobel prize winning economist, and University Professor at Columbia. Joe Stiglitz makes essentially the same argument.

Updated post: The end of neo-liberalism?