What will happen when half the country is unemployed, with no medical insurance, stuck in a sheet rock house miles from public transportation? They’ll be ripe for religion or revolution if you ask me. Bibles and bullets. Will they still support the billions a day spent in Iraq? I don’t think so—even now they don’t. One would expect they’ll be pretty pissed off watching the rich and famous party endlessly and continue their glamorous lifestyle—or maybe not. Surprising to me, those being duped and exploited by banks and entrepreneurs often envy their “betters”—they want to be that person in the Beemer or Lexus, and will mortgage everything they’ve got to have a symbolic piece of it. Instead of anger and action we get envy—the bane of every outside agitator, union organizer, and young revolutionary.
I remember when MLK decided to tie the Vietnam War in with domestic issues like poverty and racism, and many thought it ill advised. They assumed he would lose some support—there were still some in favor of the Vietnam War at that point—and that it might dilute the focus on jobs, racism, equality and votes.
I think he was right. This stuff is tied together. Katrina and Iraq are not separate issues. The securities and safeguards guaranteed to the super rich by the Bush administration and the credit crisis are probably linked as well. I don’t mean conspiracy linked—the connections and actions don’t have to be premeditated or thought out in advance to make a network. There are organic emergent forces at work, self-organizing systems arising that benefit some and not others. That too sounds complex and conspiratorial, but it’s not.
He and Eno making music, touring...
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