I'm not gonna lie to you; I don't know a huge amount about the way the stock market works. I don't make enough money to really have anything substantive invested either; sure, the few investments I have may have dropped 55% in value over the past few months, but half of a couple grand is barely a decent computer. Not the end of the world.
But I am aware enough to know that breaking New And Exciting Records each week -- either the biggest drop ever, or having the S&P hitting the lowest point in five years -- isn't good. In fact, it's pretty terrible. Because I, like most ordinary people, know how much my gas costs. My health care. My food, lately. And I know how hearing economic news like we've all been hearing lately affects my actions.
The Bush I recession helped carry Bill Clinton into office. I may not have felt the pinch then -- I was in high school; I was just trying to decide whether "Use Your Illusion I" was better than "II", and hoping desperately to get some female attention. But I do remember how nervous the country was, and what a big deal the economy was at that time.
Obviously, most of us remember those things. And we realize that that crisis had nothing on what we're currently seeing.
McCain's economic advisor Phil Gramm got nailed for calling America a nation of whiners, and rightfully so, but it seems to me there is some truth to the notion that an economy works based on the mindset of the people operating within it. I fear we're headed towards a Depression, so I don't buy things the way I normally would. Christmas will be small this year. My girlfriend and I go out to dinner less. We see less movies, and don't buy as many CDs (or iTunes files; you get the idea). We put less money into the economy, which hurts businesses, which leads to further job loss, which helps create more bad economic news spurring us to cut back even more, and so on and so on.
But it seems to me we're looking down the barrel of a 30-year-old gun right now, one that was loaded a very long time ago, and that we as a Nation were more than happy to pull the hammer back on over the past 20 years. Buying things on credit, living beyond our respective means, doing nothing while the manufacturing base of this country left for foreign shores. We were lazy. And we were busy -- we had pop culture to obsess over, and culture wars to fight.
Yet we could only distract ourselves for so long. Eventually, the bill was going to come due and the evening would be at a close.
I imagine the direness of the situation is part of what is aiding the Palin-McCain ticket in reaching the depth they've now sunk to, working their base up into a delightful hate-filled froth. People riled up into violent moods. People letting their inner racist flag fly without concern. Celebrating each other for their intolerance and ignorance.
See, this is what happens. Human beings; we're not that complex. Above all, we just want to make sense of the world around us. And the simpler answer, usually, the better. Why is organized religion so popular in a world of science? Because it provides answers. Because we as a species try to avoid fear at all costs, and the unknown equals fear. So we crave stories that let us know what happens after we die. Lets us know where we came from. Lets us know that there is an overall order to this world so that when we as individuals feel surrounded by chaos... we can still maintain inner peace.
Unfortunately, going too far in embracing simple answers only reinforces the need for them. It can even make one dependent on having a simple black-and-white understanding of the world, eschewing any shade of grey.
Which brings me back to the Palin-McCain rallies. We have a country of people filled with uncertainty and doubt. Where what they've believed for the past 30 years, or longer, is proven to be a falsehood. Supply-side economics doesn't work. Deregulation doesn't work. The essential tenants of the conservative movement, left unchecked, do not provide for anyone but those in control. The legacy of Ronald Reagan is a lie.
So what we are seeing is, in a sense, The Great Modern American Existential Crisis. What is easier; to rethink and recast one's basic belief systems? Or is it easier to turn one's fear into hate? Into anger? And project those feelings on an easily defined foe -- "terrorists", for example?
And as the sound operator mentioned in the above-linked HuffPo story learned, perhaps just not being white will suffice to serve as the "foe".
"Sit down, boy" one said to him. "Uppity negro" said another. "Kill him", another McCain supporter shouted when Sarah Palin rallied her faithful by discussing inconsequential links between Barack Obama and Bill Ayers. "Traitor", still another said about Obama, while Palin herself inferred Obama approved of and was party to domestic terrorism.
About an United States Senator, these things were said. This is our country, of freedom, liberty, and personal responsibility?
The most disturbing news is that we have seen all of this before. Nobody wants to be the first one to jump the Godwin's Law shark (and I'll catch hell here at DKos for it), but there was another period in World History where a country facing economic depression was rallied to direct all of their confusion and doubt intp hate and animus and towards a certain group of people, who they blamed for all ills -- just as Republicans are now blaming our current housing crisis and economic collapse on minorities. And the most despicable acts in Human History were then carried out as a result.
We all look back to these events as a tragedy and a travesty. We have desperately told ourselves "that could never happen here".
But we must be vigilant. These same seeds are being planted as we speak, right here, right now. It is the ugliest part of human nature being exploited. And it represents a seminal moment in our history.
What happens next is up to us.
(Cross-posted on The Skin Mechanic blog).