Rearranging the Deck Chairs

If I am to believe last night's story from Steve Schifferes, Economic Reporter for BBC News, there is a good chance that discussions at the G20 meeting could get hung up over questions of governance having to do with which countries have how much voting power. This is precisely why I went on a rant yesterday over the absence of someone like Muhammad Yunus at such a meeting at a time when it is clear that, whatever talk of economic recovery there may be, most of us are still in a crisis situation. While Yunus has made it clear that solving problems, particularly the problem of poverty, has always been his primary concern, it is clear that the G20 delegates have only one concern; and that is the question of who is in charge. This is beyond the absurdity of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. We have now reached a stage where those rearranging those deck chairs are fighting among themselves for who has the best view of the iceberg! Like those "militaires" whom Georges Clemenceau realized could not be trusted with serious decisions pertaining to war, economic conditions are too serious to be entrusted to the G20 delegates. As has been the case at similar meetings in the past, protesters will at least try to take to the streets of Pittsburgh to make this point; but it is unclear that they will stand a chance against the resources that the consciousness industry can summon against them, be they resources of brute force or media control. Things have not changed since the days of Bush Administration Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, whose approach to dealing with the crisis was aptly summarized by Tim Dickinson's National Affairs blog on the Rolling Stone Web site as follows:

We. Are. So. Screwed.

We are no less screwed than we were a year ago, and all signs are pointing to our getting even more screwed!