I feel Weberian. Politics is the slow boring of hard boards. And this is one motherfucking hard board. Here's the analysis I put forth at the Soli meeting yesterday.
(1) Another war is likely in the short term. Personal disposable income in the year before the election is almost the only factor responsible for outcomes of presidential elections. The Bushies have no plan to get personal income up (except via tax cuts) in the next 18 months. Hell, they can't even get profits up for their core constituency! So they need an exceptional scenario - a war fever - to win.
(2) Europeans will continue to object to U.S. wars. We will continue to be able to mobilize our 25-40% of the population (depending on the circumstances) against it. But neither will stop Bush. The primary resistance against the empire, then, is going to come from the locals, most importantly AFTER the occupation (in one country after another) begins. And that opposition, in many cases, is going to be anything but historically progressive. On the contrary, it will often be led by pigs. Think of some of the most retrograde feudal elements in the leadership of the 1857-58 revolt in India and you get the idea. How we relate to this resistance is going to pose some very difficult questions.
(3) Krugman is basically right about the federal government. It's now a pension fund with an army. The Bushies want to kill the pension fund. There's no way they'll do it by privatizing Social Security, so their fall-back means is to create the fiscal crisis they need to make the program unfundable. Hence tax cuts and more tax cuts as the sole plank of their economic program. Look forward to more old people eating dog food. Look forward to growing gaps between those who can pay for health care and those who can't (the fiscal crisis will hit Medicare first).
Eat well, exercise, get plenty of rest, get angry, and outlive the fuckers. (Anyone notice how long some of those Amurrican commies seem to have lived?)
Michael McIntyre