What Might it Bring?

As I chortle at the CNN ticker showing the steadyDOW collapse (9250! this morning) and world markets in turmoil, my wife turns to me and reminds me that our investments are being wiped out, our children can lose their jobs and futures, my mother could end up living with us, and on and on, the REALITY of an economic depression. She has that wise womans sense. I am aware of these terrible consequences and still I celebrate because this is a moment of possibility for justice unlike any I've experienced in my lifetime. I'm not naive. It could turn to naught.But I think there is a chance this collapse will provoke a shift, a rupture, will do more than simply result in politics as usual, in empty rhetoric about change or sacrifice, or in a meaningless " progressive adjustment" of the current barbaric system. Therefore, the question becomes: Who will this mobilize?

When the smoke clears and the dust settles what sorts of questions will be asked? Will young people buy into the same fantasies and be re- sucked into the Spectacle or will this "crisis" provoke a deep examination of accepted beliefs, dogma and ideology? I remember a moment when all the lies I was being told about US involvement in Vietnam were exposed to me and my reality was upended, forcing a reappraisal of my own responsibility and allegiance. Awakening happens.

In moments like this I unfailingly turn to Rush Limbaugh for a guide through the idiocracy because much can be learned from the fear of reactionaries. Today he is in full panic mode. He senses (perhaps sub-consciously) the edifice crumbling, and intuits that soon the curtain will lift to expose his pathetic form lying prostrate before his own hollow idols, money and power. He is breaking out every possible weapon like a street fighter backed into a corner, race baiting , "class war", anti-intellectualism, misogyny, and zenophobia. He can't decide who to spew more venom on , Obama or McCain. He is forced back to his sixties nightmare and lashes out at commies and hippies and braless women, he defends wealth and privilege and every melting pillar of movement conservatism. It's all the fault of ACORN, of Bill Ayers, of Hillary and Nancy! of Brown People and Bleeding Hearts!

Russia has "suspended" trading on it's stock market. Iceland is in meltdown. Britian is nationalizing it's banks. Sonia is still drooling over Sarah Palin.