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A few political odds and ends here. Stan Goff reminds us that Dr. Dean's prescription of "bringing in the UN" or the Arab League to run Iraq is pretty much hooey as long as we're fighting a guerrilla war there. "You fucked it up, you fixed it" is going to be the world's attitude. Either way, why is it for non-Iraqi institutions to determine the country's future (other than us paying reparations for invading without cause)? Are the Iraqis kids? Goff reminds us that Nixon beat the so-called antiwar candidate in 1972, but it was the antiwar movement that ended the war. He lays out a credible Green critique of the globalist agenda that I agree with almost entirely, but I'll still vote for whatever lyin' blowhard and corporate shill the Dems put up, to be rid of the unctuous Jesus freaks and war loons currently in office.
Goff alludes to the Twilight Years of the Gasoline Economy we're currently living through (how long will it take Gaia recover after we've burned all the fuel?), and James Howard Kunstler eloquently indicts the unbalanced cities we've built for ourselves in such an economy. A constant theme of his Architectural Eyesore of the Month (page back through all of them--it's worth it) is how the automobile dominates planning priorities, giving us ugly homes, parks, and workplaces. I lived in the Washington DC 'burbs for a few years and it got to be heartbreaking watching developers tear out yet another chunk of forest to make room for some crap-ass subdivision, with big fuel-guzzling houses accessible only by fuel-guzzling autos. I flew over Atlanta recently and felt like crying for the same reason. Our slash-and-burn lifestyle is just nuts.
Nothwithstanding the above (and apropos of the bloodsucking theme in the upper left corner), the most potent issue in the coming campaign should be so-called outsourcing of jobs. Here's an article about CPA firms sending tax-preparation work to India. One might argue that the trend makes sense economically if it weren't for the record salaries upper managers are paying themselves. Keep pushing it, guys, you're really gonna enjoy the view from the lampposts you'll be swinging from in a few years.