Bad American

I don’t know if Paul Craig Roberts and I are reading each other’s notes but we’re clearly on the same vibe. From his latest column:

In new books writers as disparate as Naomi Wolf and Pat Buchanan conclude that America as we know her is disappearing. Both writers hope, but are not confident, that enough Americans will catch on in time to find the leadership to pull America back from the brink.

If polls are reliable, a majority of Americans are dissatisfied with President Bush and Congress. However, Americans are far short of Wolf and Buchanan’s grasp of our peril.

I do a podcast for the Canadians (actually two podcasts). In my rabble radio commentary which I sent on Monday, I wrote the following (I’ve included links for the Americans to understand what I’m writing about):

Happy December my Canadian friends this is rabble columnist Keith Gottschalk for rabble radio.

Would there be too many tears shed in Canada if the United States implodes? I mean on a one to one basis we get along just fine and I don’t mean Condoleeza Rice and Peter MacKay either. There are just enough of us Usian progressives to keep things jolly on both sides of the border. 

So just in time for Christmas, American conservative commentator and former Presidential candidate Pat Buchanan comes riding the fifth horse of the apocalypse to tell Americans we are. . . doomed.

Buchanan seems to be repeating an old schtick pioneered by comedian Alan King who used to have little TV specials with names like Alan King’s Final Warning. Well this time, Pat is giving us his final warning in a book called, Day of Reckoning: How Hubris, Ideology and Greed Are Tearing American Apart. 

Yeah, real optimistic title that one. And that’s from a conservative.

Buchanan basically holds that the dollar is crashing, our military is a shambles, our economy is owned by foreign banking interests, the Mexicans are taking over the southwestern states, and we’re dividing along class, ethnic and race lines. 

All this at $25.95 just in time for Christmas.

The funny thing about all of this is that in places like where I live, little towns on the peripheries of large cities, we’re really not cognizant of our own impending doom. Sure gas costs a lot, still more in Canada, but hey Christmas shopping got off to a great start and the Browns might make the NFL playoffs so how bad can things really be? 

Its at this time when we celebrate peace and brother and sisterhood on earth that I wonder if something truly remarkable might happen if we put Pat Buchanan and Naomi Wolf in the same room together – they might agree on something.

Wolf’s newest work: The End of America: Letter of Warning To A Young Patriot, contains her 10 Steps to Fascism and examples of how the United States is following them. It’s a chilling call to arms that has also ignited much discussion amongst the educated classes that make up about 15 percent of the American population. 

I envy Canadians, I really do. While the United States is in the process of tearing itself asunder the entire Canadian media and government is wrapped up in another delicious and utterly Canadian scandal involving Brian Mulroney, whose shadow across Canada seems as large as Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s but for all the wrong reasons.

So what does Karlheinz Schrieber know and what is he willing to tell about the cash deals between himself and the former Prime Minister and those other scandals he supposedly knows about? 

So did Pat Martin really call Paul Szabo a son of a bitch?

Oh, to get a live CBC feed of Parliament Hill next week! A two-four of Blue and mountain of popcorn for this one for sure. 

You Canadians are so lucky. You’re politics are fun and spicy and your politicians unrestrained and saucy. Our government is so boring and predictable by comparison. And your country isn’t going down the toilet yet if the worse things going on are scandals like this.

I’m genuinely envious. 

Oh well, need to go out to chop down some trees in the backyard for winter heating fuel and hock the family gold jewelry to pay for gasoline. You folks up there just enjoy the holidays and think well of us Usians mired in what Buchanan calls our ‘existential crisis.’

See you in Buffalo for the cross border shopping.

Back to me here and now again: so smile and be happy. The dollar and the markets still have a long way to crash.