Spiralling

The Fed's announcement, earlier this week, that a deflationary spiral may soon afflict the U.S. economy, has induced a state of semi-panic in the mainstream media. (Studious economy-watchers have been warning of deflation for some time, but not until now had Greenspan said, "Boo!")

Also this week; in reporting that Al-Qaida has moved its operational base to Central Asia, is undergoing a recruiting boom, and is preparing a new September-11-sized attack on U.S. soil; the media has noticed that maybe the Iraq bloodletting hasn't made us safer, after all. There can be little doubt that the next September 11 will elicit another musclebound U.S. military crusade, further escalating the seemingly unstoppable spiral of violence.

Apart from the drubbing working class American (and world) citizens would suffer with the onset of economic free fall, an endless series of cruise missile "diplomacies", and the final evisceration of civil liberties; are the two items related? We could say that they're inversely related, of course: the more the economy continues to founder, the more the Bush Administration will play up the threats of the terrorist bogeyman. A third item from the week's media cavalcade may provide another link: the Bush Administration is endeavouring to cover up findings of the investigation into the events of September 11.

The cynical might suggest that we're doomed to repeat history. The conspiracy theorists might suggest that that's the plan. The remainder might suggest that, either way, the human race is well and truly fucked.

Posted by Eddie Tews at May 8, 2003 11:52 PM