During the recent presidential debate (9/26/08), moderator Jim Lehrer presented the following as one of his lead questions:

Are you willing to acknowledge, both of you, that this financial crisis is going to affect the way you rule the country as president of the United States.?

Play this one like Find the Hidden Picture in Highlights Magazine. Can you find the scary part of that question? I mean really scary, way too scary for a children's magazine. I'll give you a moment to look.

Some of you saw it right away, didn't you? It jumped right off the page (or screen) and slapped you in the face. Ouch! For the rest of you, take a couple more minutes.

Okay, time's up.

When I was watching the debate and I heard this question, I turned to my wife and asked a question of my own: 'What did he just say?' I had a follow up question too: 'Did Lehrer just say what I think he said?'

Proudly surveying our kingdom from atop the capitalist pyramid, we US Americans have deluded ourselves into believing we are at the pinnacle of cultural, social, political, and economic evolution. We fancy ourselves to be so exceptional that we are entitled to a perpetual blessing from “our” Christian God.

Break out the Haldol!

We have afflicted the globe with the fatal contagions of the American Way and corporatism. And all of us, to varying degrees, are culpable. From bicycle-peddling vegans to limo riding corporados, we are each complicit in perpetuating American capitalism, a system so rotten that were it a piece of decaying meat, starving maggots would reject it.

We would have far fewer amends to make if our nation’s impact were limited by the size of our population. Were that the case, we would be a mere blemish on the face of Mother Earth. But due to our extraordinary wealth and power, insatiable avarice, hostility towards life, and obscene appetites for consumption, the United States is more akin to a cankerous fist-sized boil, oozing pus and reeking with infection.

The big advantage most conservatives have had over most progressives throughout recent American history is way more disposable income. Lots of that translates into buttloads of material crap we don't need or want, of course, but also into something far more significant:

The time, energy and resources to push their conservative agenda.

This year's economic crisis, however, levels the playing field as newly-strapped reguzzlicans face looming poverty with little, if any, of our poverty management skills.

Their SUV payments, McMansion mortgages, gold card statements and other trappings of extra-excessive excess are excessfully drowning the excessful in stinking excesspools of debt.

Aaahh, that felt good.  

But this is no time for po'boy gloating. Instead, we progressives must press the advantage by doing even better at what we do best - making do.  Now, while the rich and their surrogates are preoccupied with bankruptcy, is the time to strike back by maximizing our own purchasing power and, by extension, growing our political power as well. 

"No Innocent Bystanders," by Mickey Z
Published by CWG Press, Sept. 2008

Well, I told my wife the other day, a book has to be perfect, or I won't read it.

Ruth looked at me and her eyes said, I knew you were a piece of garbage the day I met you, you, you arrogant neo-Nebraska a-hole ... the last twenty-six, seven, eight years have been wasted.

She said, "What?"

I said, you know, I have to like it. So do you. That's what everybody does.

Well, Mickey Z's book is not perfect, but I like it.

I think you will too.

It is organized sort of like a Michael Moore book.

Part of the organization are lists of species we have lost, along with chapters on various musings, like Mickey has dumped his pockets of all the notes he made while spending the day on the subway, walking around the city sitting in the park with pigeons on his knees, watching, making notes.

Mickey Zezima harbors deep observations of Americans and America. It is our luck that he chooses to share them.

They go to the root, perhaps like Ted Rall, maybe Dorothy Day.

Today's vote on the Paulson Plunder Act of 2008 may fail. It should. You should help block it by phoning your representative right now at (202) 224-3121 and promising to vote for them in November only if they vote NO on this grand larceny today. We do have a chance at winning on this and blocking this bill. Here's why.

First, the corporatists have put a bunch of true believers in office. They thought it'd be really clever to convince people that government is evil and should shrink and that the highest good is cutting taxes. They've carved out a huge loophole for the biggest increaser in spending, taxes, and debt: the military. But Congress Members are notorious for not being able to think straight in the presence of tanks and waving flags. Today's vote is not on eliminating a useful public program, and not on putting our grandchildren into debt in order to kill some foreigners either. Today's vote is on whether we should put our grandchildren into debt in order to give a pile of money to the same crowd that is always demanding that people be held responsible for their mistakes, and some of the money could even go to multinational or