walking through neiman marcus was like taking a knee, man

they have been telling us that we are in an economic crisis. if this is so, how is a department store still able to sell coats for five thousand dollars? i saw shirts for $1600, ties for $400, and a vest for $2200. i also saw several people shopping at this store. they looked serious, as if they might actually buy. i thought to myself, are these people suffering through an economic crisis? obviously not, as they have the money to buy such things. which leads to the following thought; if we have a society where some people can afford $5000 coats, and others are forced to sleep in their coats because they can't afford heat, then why don't we take the wealth from the $5000 coat guy and redistribute it to benefit they guys who can't afford heat? who is in fact suffering through a crisis? is aig in crisis when they send their employees on a vacation that costs nearly $500,000? is gm in crisis when they send their ceo's to congress in private jets? and are the n. marcus shoppers among us going through a crisis? i think not.

last year, the u.s sent 200 million dollars to haiti, the most impoverished nation in the western hemisphere. mind you, this is better than kidnapping their president, but let's put it in perspective. aig was recently given a 85 billion dollar bailout. the congress voted on a general bailout plan of 700 billion, half of which has been distributed to various banks. by conservative estimates, the iraq war has cost 600 billion dollars. we have spent more on the iraq war in one day than we have sent to haiti in one year. and think of what we, along with the french, have stolen from that nation, the first free black country in the west. our marines invaded in 1915 and didn't leave until 1934. we armed and supported the duvaliers. we have killed thousands of their people. we have forced imf loans on them, which have forced them to eliminate public spending on things like education and health care. we overthrew aristide at one point, and then kidnapped him at a later point. looked at in this way, that 200 million sum is pathetic. by the way, the 9/11 memorial cost 500 million.

now, if we are concerned about an economic crisis, shouldn't we be very concerned about a nation like haiti, the poorest in the hemisphere? but, of course, we aren't worried about poverty. we don't consider poverty a crisis! especially when countries like haiti suffer from it. but, isn't suffering from extreme poverty an obvious example of economic crisis? of course, and through out the world, the victims of capitalism and u.s. imperialism are suffering through the economic crisis of poverty. surely, iraq is currently going through an economic crisis, thanks in large part to us.

look at how this "crisis" is discussed. we hear a lot about people losing their homes, and this is of course unfortunate, and does reflect problems in our economic order. but doesn't the fact that millions starve each year in this world also demonstrate an economic crisis? apparently not, as this is the norm. what of the two billion people who survive on less than 2 dollars a day? even before the economy was in "crisis," this was a fact that was often repeated. which begs the question, is it not an economic crisis that 1/3 of the world survives on less than 2 dollars a day? i guess not, as long as some of those 2 billion people make sneakers at a nike factory. then, the economy is strong!

at the martha root of the issue is the fact that a strong american economy is not necessarily a good thing, because the american economy is too closely alligned with corporate power, and corporate power, along with war, is the great evil of our time. you will hear all the leaders say we need to grow the economy, that we need to invest in this and that, but the truth is we need to relax, and take a long look at this course we have been on. growth is the last thing we need. in fact, we need to scale down. we need less wars, less of a military budget, less spending on the cia, fbi, and homeland security, less billionaires, less multinational corporations, less agribusiness,less pollution, less production of worthless consumer products, less cable, less cars, less oil, less electricity, less paper, less work, which will in turn lead to less unemployment, as we could spread the work around. after we do this, we could start to have more clean air, more peace, more health care, more public transit, more quality education, more libraries, more parks, more leisure, more culture, more sleep, more sex, more aid to the poor.

so yeah, we are in a crisis, but we are always in a crisis. and many of us, like those assholes that buy $5,000 coats, are never in a crisis. and that's the sad part. so, what we need to do is to create a crisis for them. a vote for obama won't do it. but a bunch of enraged, armed (with both the truth and anything else you can think of) lunatics who won't quit until they get what they want just might do it.

as for me, i am doing what naomi wolf said is the most important thing one can do, and that is blog.

of course, 10 minutes after she said that, a guy in a white coat came and took her away.