Devils and Dust

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

We’re a long, long way from home,

Home’s a long, long way from us . . .

Millions More Foreclosures Coming . . .

Only 12 percent of U.S. homeowners eligible for loan modifications under the Obama administration’s housing rescue plan have had their mortgages reworked, and millions more foreclosures are coming, the Treasury Department said last Wednesday.

Impending Commercial Real Estate Crisis . . .

Federal Reserve and Treasury officials are scrambling to prevent the commercial-real-estate sector from delivering a roundhouse punch to the U.S. economy just as it struggles to get up off the mat.  Their efforts could be undermined by a surge in foreclosures of commercial property carrying mortgages that were packaged and sold by Wall Street as bonds.  Similar mortgage-backed securities created out of home loans played a big role in undoing that sector and triggering the global economic recession.

Banking System Bound for Hell With the Hammer Down . . .

Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, said the U.S. has failed to fix the underlying problems of its banking system after the credit crunch and the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.  “In the U.S. and many other countries, the too-big-to-fail banks have become even bigger,” Stiglitz said in an interview today in Paris. “The problems are worse than they were in 2007 before the crisis.”

The Afghanistan Quagmire . . .

The Taliban are back. The Afghans are tired of American troops in their midst  . . . virtually every military expert agrees that Afghanistan is the last place on Earth for a modern army to wage war and that includes every NATO general.

Long ago, the British learned that Afghanistan is a place where empires go to die. The notion that democracy as practiced in the West can be transplanted there is farcical . . . since the 1700’s the primary export from Afghanistan has been heroin and it remains so today.   Other than growing poppies, there’s not much that passes for an economy there.   It doesn’t matter who’s elected because the business of Afghanistan is opium.  American troops will not alter that.

And the business of America is corporate greed, corporate profit, corporate expansion. Obama won’t alter that.  It doesn’t matter who’s elected, because other than speeches and smoke and mirrors policies, there’s not much that passes for reform here.

I don’t see any real change,

I don’t feel much hope,

I feel a dirty wind blowing,

I see Devils and Dust.

“The Devils and Dust of Health Care “Reform” . . .

In recent days, the White House has been speaking with moderate Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine about her idea for a trigger mechanism that would bring a public option in the future if health care legislation fails to meet thresholds for expanding coverage and reducing costs.  Democrats who are uneasy with a public option, such as Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, have said they could support a trigger mechanism. Such support could gain the 60 Senate votes necessary to overcome any filibuster attempt by Republicans for a health care bill.

They’ve got their fingers on that trigger,

And we don’t know who to trust,

When we look into your eyes . . .

There’s just Devils and Dust.

The devils of “centrism”, the devils of capitulation, the devils of K-Street, and Wall Street, the devils of every dead-end street you’d take us down.          

The dust of empty promises, the dust of broken dreams, the dust of an election blown away like it never even happened.  

Well I dreamed of us last night,

In a field of blood and stone,

In September’s fading light,

Progressives standing there alone.  

I dreamed of us last night,

In a field of mud and bone,

Taking our last stand,

Taking it alone.

Well you’ve got Rahm on your side,

And you’re just trying to survive,

But if what you do to survive,

Kills the things we love,

You’ll find out soon enough,

That Karma’s a powerful thing,

It’ll come calling, you can trust,

It’ll take this country down,

Fill it with Devils and Dust.