Grand Canyon

TomDispatch has an article by Mike Davis on our new horizon. As he points out, the presidential candidates, up to now, seem so blinded by current events that they are unable to speak to them in any meaningful way. He says of Obama:

With baffling courtesy to the Bush administration, he failed to highlight any of the other weak links in the economic system: the dangerous overhang of credit-default swap obligations left over from the fall of Lehman Brothers; the trillion-dollar black hole of consumer credit-card debt that may threaten the solvency of JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America; the implacable decline of General Motors and the American auto industry; the crumbling foundations of municipal and state finance; the massacre of tech equity and venture capital in Silicon Valley; and, most unexpectedly, sudden fissures in the financial solidity of even General Electric.

In addition, both Obama and his vice presidential partner Joe Biden, in their support for Secretary of the Treasury Paulson's plan, avoid any discussion of the inevitable result of cataclysmic restructuring and government bailouts: not "socialism," but ultra-capitalism -- one that is likely to concentrate control of credit in a few leviathan banks, controlled in large part by sovereign wealth funds but subsidized by generations of public debt and domestic austerity.

It's hard to believe that tonight's debate will be any different. While McCain lives his 'To Ayers, or not to Ayers' moment, and try to look ready to defend us from ACORN, Obama will keep trying to prove that he's just like the rest of the Beltway, just black and better looking.

The Grand Canyon that lies in front of the country is not even admitted to exist by the news media. Whether or not they and the candidates will be forced to confront it before the election, its presence can't be hidden much longer. And read the whole article.