Meditations (Spirituality) - From Martin LeFevre in California
The Meltdown of America
Is there any doubt left that genuine leadership in meeting the hydra-headed human crisis is absent in the American
political system? If so, Friday night’s debate between McCain and Obama completely removed it.
The meltdown of the world’s financial system, emanating from the United States, received barely a mention. Sticking to
the debate script that featured the warp and woof of America’s foreign policy, the candidates sounded like they were
caught in a time warp, and woof! woof! is all that they had left to offer.
McCain’s condescending attitude toward Obama, and dismissive body language (he refused to even look at Barack, and often
appeared to turn his back on him) are receiving a lot of media scrutiny. But what also stuck out for me was McCain’s
reptilian tongue flicks. They reminded me of Donald Rumsfeld, and indicate which part of his brain he’s coming from.
Coupled with a strange hissing he made when pronouncing the ‘s’ sound, the impression was positively creepy.
But by the next morning the debate was already backdrop to the Save America Bill being hammered out over the weekend in
Washington. As the whole world watches, America melts down. But what significance does the collapse of the financial
infrastructure centered in the United States have for the rest of the world? Plenty.
The arteries of the world’s financial system are clogged, with the flow of credit and capital seizing up. So what are
we going to do? Inject another trillion dollars into the system. Americans are beginning to angrily ask for what—so the
fat cats can get even fatter?
The trillion-dollar bailout bill is like going to the doctor when one’s bloated body is completely breaking down, and
insisting that she inject you with a massive dose of the same drugs that enabled you to become obese and indolent in the
first place. What economists, nationalists, and mainstream media mouthpieces don’t realize is the nature and depth of
the crisis. And without a clear perception of that, no prescription will work.
Basically the US government is putting its own credit on the line in taking the incalculable “toxic debt” off the hands
of the banks and lending institutions that avariciously incurred it. So much for free market capitalism, and for
‘letting the market do its work.’
Treasury Secretary Paulson can get down on his knees and beg Speaker Pelosi all he wants; the US government no longer
has control of the situation. The Bush-Paulson-Pelosi-Reid plan won’t work because the Bush Administration has already
destroyed the credibility of the US government. And by going ‘all in’ on a collapsing economic model, it insures that
America will decline even more rapidly as the system continues to fall like a “house of cards,” as Bush himself called
it.
There are three factors at the core of this crisis that aren’t being addressed by supposedly mature leaders and
commentators in America. The first is that the present world order, for which America has been the main pillar and
driver, is dissolving before our eyes. The second is that 20th century economic and political instruments (epitomized
and led by the US Treasury and Fed) cannot be stretched to fit the 21st century global economy and polity.
The third factor, which is the most easily denied and avoided, is the most important. The ecological and economic
dimensions have fused. Nature’s carrying capacity for human fragmentation and rapaciousness has reached a limit, and the
depletion and destruction of natural resources (whether land, water, air, or oil) are now producing real-time economic
consequences. America is but the most egregious example, and the leading edge, of this unstoppable trend.
The question is, how bad will the growing pains of the global society be? Much worse than they need to be if we keep
trying to squeeze our 21st century actuality into the Procrustean bed of a 20th century political and economic
infrastructure. That strategy isn’t merely a wasteful exercise in futility; it’s a dangerous diversion of the focus and
resources needed to meet the dire, multi-faceted challenges facing humankind.
And yet what is the world getting from America? A trillion-dollar welfare program for the richest bankers and brokers at
home and abroad, after flushing a trillion down the drain in Iraq!
To top things off in Friday’s debate, McCain got a pass from Obama and the American media for bizarrely calling for
replacing the United Nations.
After making a chilling, uncontested statement in the debate that “Iran’s nuclear program is an existential threat to
Israel…and we cannot have another holocaust,” McCain called for a “League of Democracies,” which would exclude Security
Council members like Russia and China. He’s not just stuck in a Vietnam era time warp; he’s living in an alternate
reality.
The Congress may buy the USA a little more time, and the malevolent Republican rule may even end with an Obama
administration, but banking on either is a risk the world cannot afford to take. The question is, what’s going to
replace the American system when it crumbles?
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- Martin LeFevre is a contemplative, and non-academic religious and political philosopher. He has been publishing in
North America, Latin America, Africa, and Europe (and now New Zealand) for 20 years. Email: martinlefevre@sbcglobal.net. The author welcomes comments.