December 2009: The Not-So-Great Depression

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As Clever Sister has long said, we've had an economic depression for years—only it's been masked by credit card spending, something not available to the masses during the 1930s.

The old image of investors jumping out windows—it does seem somewhat fitting, at least compared to how many people of the non-investor class will probably be victims of a new upswing in murder-suicides, domestic violence, and workplace shootings.

Though according to this, the idea that the rich reacted to the Depression by suicide is mainly mythical, planted in the public mind—and histories—because of a few highly publicized incidents.

Having a government that responded to that particular depression was in the end a reality. And it tends to make me long for the good old, bad days—before the possibility of real discussion was suppressed, so that nothing important can ever be put "on the table" in our own time.

Thom Hartmann often plays clips of F. D. Roosevelt's 1936 speeches at the Democratic Convention in June, and at Madison Square Garden, just before Election Day.

From the convention speech transcript–

Against economic tyranny such as this, the American citizen could appeal only to the organized power of Government. The collapse of 1929 showed up the despotism for what it was. The election of 1932 was the people's mandate to end it. Under that mandate it is being ended.

The royalists of the economic order have conceded that political freedom was the business of the Government, but they have maintained that economic slavery was nobody's business...They granted that the Government could protect the citizen in his right to vote, but they denied that the Government could do anything to protect the citizen in his right to work and his right to live.

...

These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power. In vain they seek to hide behind the Flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the Flag and the Constitution stand for. Now, as always, they stand for democracy, not tyranny; for freedom, not subjection; and against a dictatorship by mob rule and the over-privileged alike.

And from the October speech—

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.

I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master.

No wonder he was hated by the wealthy. And no wonder they have worked relentlessly ever since, to become as safe in their ownership of government as they are today.

By now, they've also suceeding in making workers pretty much invisible.

Or at least until Republicans need to fake some populism—like thrusting "Joe" the "Plumber" into the media...

After "Joe" is set up in his latest incarnation—as "war correspondent"—Hartmann makes a point of inteviewing "Joe" about the real "areas of his expertise." [Not-to-be-missed audio here.]

And there's the other current fake populism: corporate lobbyist-financed teabagger rallies, where Medicare recipients demand that the gubmint lay off their health care.

While workers suffering from the lack of medical attention they can't afford have to line up for a rare chance like this.

But our media prefers reporting on those exciting rallies, with their dozens of "real people."

We've had a year of political pretense that bi-partisanism and post-racism are real. In other words, a year of lost opportunities.

A Department of Justice staying packed by the Bush administration.

The power of life and death over healthcare-deprived Americans being granted to Joe Lieberman.

There's no new New Deal in the works. Tragically mistaken, but completely predictable, given how far rightward acceptable discourse has been driven over the last thirty years. When Thom Hartmann broadcast from Denmark last January, he noted that the local conservative politicians were mystified by how right-wing Obama is. This researcher found the same reaction in Norway.

While the rest of the economy collapses, one commodity is booming: right-wing violence.

A women's health care provider can be gunned down in church, and the media label the victim, "Abortion Doctor." Both implied and direct messages being that it was only natural for there to have been strong feeling against him. Or, it could be said: he asked for it.

At least NYT readers took the paper to task over its shameful coverage.

And business is booming for right-wing propagandists.

They don't get the fabulous pay of the wingnut class, but the writers at Sadly, No persevere in cutting the right-wing pundits down to size.

From this Spring, as the right howled over DHS' release of its report on right-wing violence, is Gavin M.'s summary of a screed by right-wing blogger Ed Morrissey—

It is ridiculous to blame Bush for commissioning the DHS report, because while the Bush administration might have wanted an assessment of right-wing extremist threats, it would not necessarily have wanted one that blamed it on right-wing extremism.

Gavin adds a footnote—

We've switched Ed's favorite coffee with Eric Rudolph, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, James Adkisson, Michael F. Griffin, Chad "The Michelle Malkin Anthrax Fraudster" Castagana, John "Dirty Bomb" Cummings, Richard Poplawski, Donald Cooper, Paul Jennings Hill, Tharin Robert Gartrell and associates, David McMenemy, Albert Brock, Francisco Martin Duran, Frank Eugene Corder, John Salvi, Japes Kopp, Bradley T. Kahle, Clayton Waagner, Martin Uphoff, Chad Altman, Shelley Shannon, Timothy Dale Johnson, Buford Furrow, probably some others that we're forgetting, a scheme by Georgia wingnuts to kill Mexican people with machine guns; numerous unknown arsonists, bombers, assailants, and killers, possibly including the Leahy/Daschle anthrax terrorist; assorted anti-government militias; let's not even get into the whole Aryan Nations thing; and last and also pretty much least, Matthew Derosia, who rammed an SUV into an abortion clinic in January '09, in Ed's own demesne of St. Paul, MN. Let's see if he notices!

It's just a routine bit of brilliance from S, N.

As the decade ends—or at least, the atrocious aughts finish—it's Jonah Goldberg who gets a million dollar book deal.