Delirium and Powerlessness

Saturday, the day after the unprecedented downgrade of U.S. debt, in which the financial rating agency Standard and Poor’s withdrew the U.S.’s AAA rating, the Republican governor of Texas, Rick Perry, gathered 30,000 people in a stadium for a day of prayer. Standing before a crowd often kneeling, sometimes in tears, with the Bible in hand and citing the frenzied market crisis and economic discord in Congress, he proclaimed that God was now the United States’ only hope.

It was a surreal scene — the intersection of delusion and powerlessness — but it’s quite predictable in a country where the helmsman no longer has the power to control a ship going completely adrift.

Deficit mismanagement and the United States’ debt have resulted in a three-ring circus, led by the irresponsible leaders of the tea party, the far-right fringe of the Republican Party. Allergic to taxes, especially those that would require the rich to pay their fair share, they have done everything to cripple the White House’s efforts and silence moderate voices struggling to be heard today.

The prayer meeting in Texas is a natural reflex, a call for help from the beyond when we feel we have lost the ability to resolve major problems that plague society. Since the housing bubble burst 10 years ago, a nagging fear has become embedded and is growing with each jolt of the stock market. Millions of people lost their savings and saw the value of their homes annihilated while greedy financial workers filled their pockets. Yet, the system that allowed these abuses continues.

The U.S. government intervened to salvage the economy by injecting hundreds of billions of dollars that it didn’t have and therefore had to borrow, adding to the burden of debt already exacerbated by the cost of the Bush administration’s military adventures in Iraq. The public is not fooled in this regard: a poll last week showed that 44 percent of Americans hold George W. Bush responsible for the current economic mess. Only 15 percent blame Barack Obama.

But no one foresees the possibility of a short-term solution emerging.

The endemic pessimism of one part of the population, combined with the incessant fuss of politicians more interested in the outcome of the 2012 presidential election than in effectively fixing immediate holes and finding long-term solutions, is creating a volatile atmosphere. Lack of hope for a better future and fear of something much worse to come create the ideal conditions for panic. Brokers reported this weekend that their wealthy clients had ordered them to sell their entire stock portfolios. This is unheard of!

Facing a relapsing housing market, the prospect of a new recession, the threat of rising interest rates after Standard and Poor’s rating, the risk of European implosion and the global shock waves that this would cause; the cacophony coming from our neighbors to the south is only amplifying. Obama is in a cul-de-sac and he knows it. The voice of reason can no longer win against the uncompromising cries of the new Republican extremism.

What’s left? The Almighty?

“You are our only hope. … We see discord at home. We see fear in the marketplace. We see anger in the halls of government, and as a nation we have forgotten who made us, who protects us, who blesses us, and for that we cry out for your forgiveness.” said Gov. Perry, who may be aiming for the White House.

God, in his infinite wisdom, has probably already plugged his ears…