Progressives in the United States know – or should know, by this late date – that the stories that the corporate media chooses to cover the most are not necessarily the most important. This weekend, as many people are still reeling from the consistently bad to worse to worst news about the economy, there is a rather stark omission from the “top stories” being followed in the U.S. media: the news that the head of the International Monetary Fund said yesterday that the world is on the brink of global economic collapse, while his chief economist predicted that the stock markets would lose another 20% of their value before the situation “stabilized.”
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the IMF . . . said “Intensifying solvency concerns about a number of the largest US-based and European financial institutions have pushed the global financial system to the brink of systemic meltdown.”. . .
Olivier Blanchard, his chief economist, said stock markets had further to fall. “At the worst, the governments will need another few weeks to make the right assessment and the stock exchanges could fall by another 20%; then there will be a turnaround,” he said.
This news story was prominently featured on the website of the Sunday Times (UK). By contrast, the top three news items that came up on the U.S. edition of Google News (which aggregates literally hundreds and thousands of articles from all over the world) were:
North Korea Is Off Terror List After a Deal With the US
Bush Says US Must Take Lead in Solving Crisis
Concern in GOP After Rough Week for McCain
Now, I’m not saying that this news isn’t news. But isn’t it likely that Americans would want to know that high level officials and experts in the IMF believe that we’re not just having a bad week on Wall Street, but are actually at risk of a world-wide “systemic meltdown”? Consider that another 20% drop in markets would mean, for the U.S., a Dow Jones Industrial Average at its lowest pioint in more than ten years. That’s ten years of profits evaporated – mostly within a matter of a couple of weeks. It reflects literally billions of dollars in pension funds gone. It anticipates losses of thousands and tens of thousands of jobs, more foreclosures and evictions, and cutbacks in social services, education, and infrastructure on a more drastic scale than even conservative Republicans can imagine.
If you’re an activist and you believe in defending the interests of working and poor people, maybe you need to take a few minutes to wrap your brain around this information. Our class is facing a global Hurricane Katrina. Not only will the immediate affects be devastating, but corporate America and its shills in Washington (and its lesser shills in Hartford and every other state capitol in the country) will not hesitate to use our bodies as sandbags to keep the rising flood from dampening their floors.
Voting for Obama . . . much less voting for McKinney, Nader or anyone else . . . is not going to be enough. I certainly don’t advocate that any activist give up the projects to which they are committed, because all of this work, whether it’s defending the rights of immigrants, working to stop attacks on civil liberties and civil rights, fighting for the best possible contract in your union, or opposing the war, needs to continue. But it’s time that we asked what we must do in order to protect our communities, our organizations, and our class in this time of crisis.
I believe we have to be prepared to raise issues and make demands that a year ago might have seemed impossible, because we are faced with an impossible situation.
Recently I was listening to a radio program in the car and I heard a liberal proposal responding to the dramatic escalation in foreclosures and evictions. The proposal was that the government should pass a law requiring that before there could be a foreclosure on a residential mortgage, there had to be a certification from the mortgage holder that it had made every reasonable effort to come up with a “work out” that allowed the homeowner to keep their home.
My immediate reaction – and my reaction now, after reflecting on it further: Bullshit!
This isn’t a proposal to stop foreclosures, it’s a proposal to legitimize the process, like requiring that you prepare an environmental impact study before you stripmine. We can expect plenty more well-meaning, reasonable, business-like liberal responses as more and more people face long-term unemployment, homelessness, and the emptying out of pension funds. They are the kinds of responses that were inadequate in ordinary times and in the midst of this hurricane they are about as much use as a cheap umbrella.
Filed under: Economic crisis
