The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot

The legend lives on from the chippewa on down
Of the big lake they called gitche gumee
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of november turn gloomy
With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more
Than the edmund fitzgerald weighed empty.
That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed
When the gales of november came early.

The ship was the pride of the american side
Coming back from some mill in wisconsin
As the big freighters go, it was bigger than most
With a crew and good captain well seasoned
Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms
When they left fully loaded for cleveland
And later that night when the ships bell rang
Could it be the north wind theyd been feelin?
The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound
And a wave broke over the railing
And every man knew, as the captain did too,
Twas the witch of november come stealin.
The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
When the gales of november came slashin.
When afternoon came it was freezin rain
In the face of a hurricane west wind.

When suppertime came, the old cook came on deck sayin.
Fellas, its too rough to feed ya.
At seven p.m. a main hatchway caved in, he said
Fellas, its been good tknow ya
The captain wired in he had water comin in
And the good ship and crew was in peril.
And later that night when his lights went outta sight
Came the wreck of the edmund fitzgerald.

Does any one know where the love of God goes
When the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searches all say theyd have made whitefish bay
If theyd put fifteen more miles behind her.
They might have split up or they might have capsized;
May have broke deep and took water.
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters.

Lake huron rolls, superior sings
In the rooms of her ice-water mansion.
Old michigan steams like a young mans dreams;
The islands and bays are for sportsmen.
And farther below lake ontario
Takes in what lake erie can send her,
And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
With the gales of november remembered.

In a musty old hall in detroit they prayed,
In the maritime sailors cathedral.
The church bell chimed till it rang twenty-nine times
For each man on the edmund fitzgerald.
The legend lives on from the chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call gitche gumee.
Superior, they said, never gives up her dead
When the gales of november come early!

Welcome to ET, Paul Krugman

Watching the AM version of Democracy Now, Sept.1.

For Steps 5 - 9; "Anarchists" are being detained through Wed. outside the Rep. convention, even one of the Democracy Now correspondents.


Welcome to ET, Paul Krugman

She does get a bit over the top, but somebody has to shout "fire!" when the building is going up in flames.

As to their being a conspiracy, there is, but people look in the wrong place. There really is a "vast right wing conspiracy" run by the core group of super wealthy families in the US. They have been running a concerted propaganda campaign for about 40 years and have achieved so much success that their most outrageous ideas are now seriously discussed and used as the basis for policy.

To get you started studying this group look at this report (PDF) on their influence on the estate tax repeal.

Spending Millions to Save Billions
The Campaign of the Super Wealthy to Kill the Estate Tax

I cite this because it lists most of the key players in the movement and because it highlights just how small the movement is in terms of people.

If you then look up each of the families on SourceWatch.org and mediatransparency.org as well as the "think tanks" that they have created you will begin to see the web of influence.

To cap it off you can then read this site for some stats about how severe wealth inequality has become in the US.

http://www.demos.org/inequality/numbers.cfm

As for parallels with the past, the closest is the rise of the Nazis. At the time the big German industrialists were afraid of the rising popularity of the socialist, communist and labor movements. So they made a deal with the Nazis who would help suppress these popular movements in exchange for money and political backing. Mussolini did something similar and even coined "Fascist" as an explicit term to mean an alliance between business and government.

The Italian model worked pretty well, with the abuses of civil liberties being common, but without the extremism seen in Germany. It didn't last long as Italy was forced by Germany to become as harsh as the Nazis.

In the US the super wealthy have bought up the government through a combination of lobbying and campaign funding and twisted economic development for their own ends. They have (so far) avoided the need for a full police state by throwing consumer products at the population - the modern version of bread and circuses.

While there is rising discontent over stagnating economic development for the working classes it is not at a level where stronger measures are needed. If the downturn gets worse and the Dems do little about it in the next administration things may change. Woodrow Wilson was a Democrat, but had no problem throwing socialists like Eugene Debs in prison and sponsoring the Palmer Raids when he feared that popular discontent against entering WWI was getting too strong.

Only the people can prevent a dictatorship. They just have to refuse to be subjugated. This is how Marcos was overthrown in the Philippines. One doesn't need a revolution if the country just refuses to work. You can't force millions to go back to work no matter how big your police force is.

Policies not Politics
---- Daily Landscape