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Down The Middle - Sep 21, 2006 - Printable Version
- WAL-MART TO QUIT LAYAWAYS!
by Down The Middle
I ‘m sure you’ve noticed the price of gasoline has been unexpectedly decreasing the past few weeks…and after enduring a year of almost unprecedented price hikes that have dramatically inflated our entire economy, it strikes me a bit strange that fuel prices are now suddenly dropping by leaps and bounds…and doing so just in time for the November elections. Blamed on war panic in the oil futures market, oil companies have been sacking up huge petro-dollars from their record setting profits, while forcing virtually every other business in the country to raise prices on their products and services across the board, to cover the increase in operating cost. Unfortunately, working class consumers are left, once again, to scramble for more innovative ways of surviving the economic shock to their personal finances…such as living in the dark.
In time of war, oil always goes up…but considering we weren’t receiving any imports from Iraq before the war…and that nothing, to date, has happened in the Persian Gulf to impede the shipping of oil from any terminal in the region, the only realized effect of this entire episode was taking the hard earned dollars out of the working man’s pocket and putting them into the over-stuffed mattresses of the “terminally rich”. Is that what “O’Rushanity’s” talking about, when he mentions the “redistribution of wealth”?
Why now, when we are in such danger of losing control of Baghdad that the military is forced to rapidly redeploy troops from the hotly contested Al Anbar district, to re-enforce the capitol…and why now, as the Administration continues to rattle the saber at Iran and Syria, on a daily basis are gas prices suddenly rolling back towards pre-war levels? Obviously, this has nothing to do with the threat of interdiction of the oil supply but is orchestrated purely for the benefit of the Neo-con candidates, by sending out the message to the mentally lethargic that “everything is okay”…and there is no better way of doing so than to give these shallow-thinking, American voters back their cheap gas, even if only for a few weeks.
But yes, there is a strange quieting, at the moment…or at least a perceived normality among much of the populace, simply because many of the people don’t recognize the true seriousness of this war. We must remember that the vast majority of today’s populace have only experienced little wars, such as Viet Nam and Korea. As horrible as they were, those wars…and all the other little wars surrounding them…were nothing compared to the two world wars of the last century, the latter experienced by a generation whose survivors are now nearing 85 years of age or older. As I told my WWII veteran father, many years ago, “The third world war will begin when your generation has passed away…or become too elderly to resist it.”
The “fighting-age” generation of today’s America (political and military) has only experienced the “glory” of global war, through the romantic renderings of “the big screen” and the video games that teach our youth to kill without remorse. Most have yet to fully realize the pain of losing a loved relative or the horror of watching a friend mangled in combat…and even Hollywood’s technical reality stops at the stench of rotting corpses.
The “complicit” news media is also doing its part, to maintain an “all is well” profile. The morning after twenty-five of our soldiers were killed or maimed by a car bomb, the largest newspaper of my home state, The Daily Oklahoman (Gaylord/Republican) ran the headline, “Wal-Mart To Quit Layaways”. Not much fear in that one…so, I suppose we can all take a deep sigh of relief and go home…right? Well, I wouldn’t give up on those plans for that fallout shelter just yet.
I find it hard to believe that there will be any satisfactory settlement at the U.N. and I believe that all the “jaw-boning” going on there, now is merely an exercise in P.R., allowing us time to pre-position our forces. And I find it hard to believe that so many Americans have submerged themselves in this denial of the reality to come. Cheney, himself has warned of a new terrorist attack before Congressional elections, as have many others. Al Qaeda’s #2 man, Ayman al-Zawahiri recently announced that the Gulf and Israel would be the next targets and many of the blogs have written about another “false flag” attack, within the next two months. No matter where and how this new war begins, it appears it may start very soon. Unfortunately, something much worse is in the forefront of America’s shallow imagination…the tragic news of Wal-Mart quitting layaways.
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