Have we created a permanent war economy?
Bear Stearns for $2 a share, down from $160. Housing prices down 19%. Foreclosures on the rise. Trade imbalances. Massive deficits. Outsourcing jobs overseas. Toyota surpasses GM.
Now Cheney and McCain are running around the Green Zone.
What are we doing? Where are we going?
I thought maybe it was poor choices on our part that got us into this stupid war. I even thought maybe it was blood for oil. I thought it was tax breaks for the wealthy that screwed our economy. But is there more? Was I naive?
It seems that increasingly we are narrowing our product line to weapons and war. We seem to want to live and die by the sword. We want the rest of the world to finance our being the cops.
Is this what we have come to: an economy that's really premised on the fortunes of the military-industrial complex and its war machine? Is this why McCain is comfortable speaking of a 100 years' war? Is this why Clinton and to a lesser extent Obama hedge on the certainty of withdrawal plans?
How did we get into this mess? More importantly, how the hell can we get out of this and back to some semblance of normalcy? Do we have to keep warring around the world to keep our economy afloat?