Two Must Read Articles

Not because they tell us anything we didn't already know, but because they lay out the problems so adroitly.

The first is Bill Moyers' Harvard Medical's Global Environment Citizen award acceptance speech (republished at TomPaine.com). In it, he makes the critical connection between the world view of the current regime and their backers and how this affects environmental policy. Writing about reporting on environmental issues, he says:

As difficult as it is, however, for journalists to fashion a readable narrative for complex issues without depressing our readers and viewers, there is an even harder challenge—to pierce the ideology that governs official policy today. One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the oval office and in Congress.

He goes on to elucidate the very frightening - and very real - view of many in the current regime and many more still of their supporters that the immanent coming of the Christ renders the need to protect the environment moot. Worse, by hastening the destruction of the natural world, these deluded fundamentalists believe that they are in fact speeding the Second Coming.

The next article is by Stanley Morgan writing in the Brooklyn Rail Express. It discuss the end of universal retirement benefits and outlines how the current regime and large business have colluded to eliminate as much as possible of the public and private safety net the elderly now have (not that it's much of a safety net to begin with in this country.) The article is also notable for underscoring how the current economic situation is not a normal trough in the business cycle and what that means for pension plans and social security.

Both articles lifted from my Cryptome rss feed.