By now it would have been obvious to anyone but the recipients that most of the citizens of the USA are the pitiful and brainwashed self-wounding winners in this famous award competition.
I just spent three hours listening to a self-described moderate explain how the current credit and liquidity situation is the fault of the citizens, and that by now everyone should know that signing papers without the advice of a lawyer or financial expert is dangerous to your credit.
He would not, however, admit to an analogy with the larger situation with the United States in the world credit situation, in which our Congress doesn't make good law, and the Justice Department doesn't enforce the ones we have, and voters refuse to correct the situation. I guess we will get the government we chose.
I'd like to restate a thesis I find it hard to resist: humans are not governable by democracy because they are now at such a tremendous psychological disadvantage in the war with consumer corpocracy and their legions of psywar experts that the battle is lost, and the war.
I strongly suspect that things will get worse for the average citizen, and that the country will become a wholly owned subsidiary of the Saudi and Chinese governments, through deals at Davos.
And yes, the obvious question is "If you believe this, why are you here, working in your peculiar fashion to improve the awareness of the situation? Why not take the money and run?"
The answer is somewhere in the region of "It's such an important conclusion that I want to make sure beyond any doubt that it is true, because the lifestyle choices I make are dependent on that conclusion."
I have to say the evidence is overwhelmingly negative.
I'd love to hear some positive evidence. "Keep your powder dry!" and "Everything will be decided in our favor in November 2008 if you just contribute lots of money and doorbelling hours!" don't do it for me any more. I need some real, solid, evidence about the future, and that is very hard to come by.
I'd settle for Kucinich win in a primary, an impeachment resolution passed in the House, or a dozen Halliburton executives in jail. Stuff like that, which should have happened a long time ago, and hasn't.