Waking Up

It is 6:00 a.m. You have to go to work and as the alarm rings you are just waking up from a particularly bad nightmare. This nightmare was the kind which had you jumping out of your bed in fright.

Suddenly you realize it was all a dream. You did not fall off the cliff, the murderous robbers are not about to kill you, and you are not about to be run over by that massive semi which was only moments ago bearing down upon you. But you must still go to work, shaken as you are by the very bad dream.

This is roughly the state of America today shortly after the airlift which allowed G. W. Bush and Vice-Minion Cheney to escape the "socialist" Obama take-over of The White House. (Remember the charges of the McCain campaign last fall? Remember the evacuation of Saigon in 1975?)

While being light-hearted, the gravity of the moment is quite real. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs and tens of thousands more are about to. While Barack Obama is no George Bush, there is a realization setting in that, nevertheless, things may not get significantly better economically anytime soon. This is not to say they couldn't, just that they likely will not. (And here, a cold realism is called for.) Even though appropriately scolded, the Wall Street crowd is still in control of -- at least -- Wall Street. And that in and of itself is cause for concern. For this means the profit system is still in place.

Happily this post does not need to end there. For the captains of finance are facing a mutiny on this bounty-less Bounty. It seems at a minimum there will be no $1400 trash can without reimbursement, if not to the government at least to the corporation.

And where are we in our morning revery which began this post? We are now on our way to work on this Monday morning, say. We just got a cell-phone call that there is to be a union organizing meeting tonight of all the workers at the company. Maybe this is it. Just maybe this is the break we have been waiting for.