MEDIA ROULETTE

July 6, 2002

Bringing Down the Iron Fist

The New York Times today reported that The the government's unemployment rate rose to 5.9 percent last month.

According to The Times, "The economy appears to have fallen into a so-called jobless recovery that resembles the slow growth of the early 1990's, economists said."

How often do we read about how things have plunged back into the economic malaise of the early '90s? Notice how the conditions on many fronts are going back to the oppressive, dark days of Bush I? Crime rates are going back up again, the economy is going down the toilet. Hatred of the United States abroad is seething to an explosive level. Welcome back to the Bush Bad Times.

It took about a week, to start looking like a bleak totalitarian state after Bush got in. Actually it didn't even take a week. It came down like a sledge hammer the day the Supreme Stooges handed down their "decision."

Not that we weren't already well within the grip of the corporate state. Under Clinton the corporate oligarchy made great strides, with its misnamed North America Free Trade Agreement, its misnamed Welfare reform act, and consolidation of wealth and power to a degree undreamed of in history.

Even so, Clinton was a little breathing space in the hardliners' domination. As John Judge put it, after Clinton it was "time to take off the velvet glove and bring down the iron fist."

When the New York Times and its peers report over and over that conditions have worsened to levels not seen since the days of Bush and Reagan, are they hinting to us that there is a connection between the disastrous conditions of 1990 and of 2002, but unwilling to draw any inferences that may be embarassing to Washington? How does "objective journalism" respond to outrage? What happens when the news that's "not fit to print" builds up such a residue of poison that it begins to destroy the structure of our society?

-- By David Cogswell

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