Clarion Content

2007 was a tough year for America. In part one of this piece the Clarion looked at why it was a lousy year for New York sports fans, and American sports fans, in general. But 2007 will be remembered as a rocky year for America for a lot bigger reasons than the Michael Vick dog fighting ring and NBA referee fixing scandal.

2007 was a year where oil prices and consequently gas prices shot through the roof. Oil was up more than 57%. Gas was $3.00 in most of the country all year. Worse yet the tools in Washington passed massive pro-Ethanol legislation mandating billions of gallons in fuel tanks by 2022. This has had the horrifying blowback of driving up the prices for many staple foods in America. Rising food prices are of course, bad news and irritating in America, but across the 3rd world it can be a disaster, especially in combination with rising fuel oil prices.

More suckatation included the heretofore unsinkable American housing market seeing some declines, in a few areas, at both the top and bottom end of the market, huge declines. At the bottom end, this asset decline led to massive foreclosures and unwelcome government intervention in the housing market. At the top end, in combination with fancy derivatives and equity vehicles, it led to ostensibly independent banks selling huge chunks of themselves to sovereign debt funds from Abu Dhabi, China and elsewhere. Meanwhile middle America having already borrowed via home equity loans against the increasing value of their homes to prop up consumer spending is stretched thin. College tuition and health care costs continue to rise faster than inflation. Average wages, save for CEO's are flat in America. 2007, ladies and gentlemen. Blech.

But sadly the litany continues, despite pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into Iraq in the past four years, 2007 saw more United States casualties than any other year. Of course, the on-going consequences for the citizens of Iraq continue to be devastating and deadly. We can only hope the pause in the fighting and decrease in bombings at the tail of 2007 offer an opportunity for a modicum of stability to take hold. Unfortunately, the Clarion is unable to muster optimism. Sadly 2007 also saw more American killed in Afghanistan than any other year since the United States invasion in 2001. Despite this stability remains elusive in Afghanistan as well. Many development projects are stalled. Rural Afghanistan is destitute and therefore growing as much opium as ever. Afghani President Karzai has little control outside Kabul and a few other cities. The law of the land is still the business end of a rifle. Next door in a ill-constructed state, Pakistan, 2007 saw the United States continue to support a brutal dictator. In 2007 nation-building remained as trying and vain an effort as ever.

Rampant environmental degradation continued apace. Exploitation of natural resources and growth trumped any concerns of deep ecology. Perhaps the most startling and scary environmental story of 2007 was the disappearance of the bees in the United States. There is a massive, unprecedented and unexplained decline in the bee population. No less than Cornell University estimates the potential danger to American agriculture as cataclysmic.

WTF.

In 2008 it is time for each of us to do our part to collectively seize the reins and apply the brakes. The Clarion believes change is possible. We can do it.

Labels: ecology, Politics