This brief essay is meant to provide a quick rundown of how political eras can be defined as the periods between constitutional crises in the U.S.

The constitutional crises, in turn, are driven by the overshadowing, global economic climate which is so massive, in fact, that it far supersedes both the political desires and will of the White House, and also the ability of the government to decisively impact the course of economic events. Normal, standard controls at the disposal of government, like the Fed's control of the prime interest rate, are rendered useless in times of economic crisis where such delicate, subtle adjustments simply do too little.

Since this is just a sketch, I will only touch on two years, 2000 and 2007, which were times of consecutive constitutional crises for the U.S. administration. These political crises were merely symptoms exhibited by the underlying disease of financial unease which dramatically worsened in both years.

I'd like to get some housekeeping out of the way, first, by defining two separate, but interrelated, tracks of reality -- one being that of actual, objectively occurring political events, and the other being the ongoing showcase, or display, of events as itemized to the public by the mainstream media. (Incidentally, the function of the mainstream media is itself similar to that of the White House sounding horn -- both are lenses subject to political tilt, depending on current conditions.)

The objective reality track could be seen as the video content of a movie alone, without the audio portion. The dialogue, musical score, sound effects, and even the subtitles could all be seen as the political reality track. Relying on one track without the other gives only a partial impression of the whole, so both are necessary -- with the important proviso that * some kind of interests * will inevitably be behind the writing of the political reality. Certain labor goes into the creation of real events (video track), but some other labor, in the form of brainwork and narrative creation, must be expended for the creation of the depiction of reality (language, mood music, and sound effects on the audio track and subtitles).

Economic dynamics, like the visual portion of a movie, objectively play the fundamental role in the world. The economics of U.S. financial markets easily supersede and transcend U.S. government political developments, but remain intertwined with them nonetheless.

The U.S. administration at any given time is publicly seen and held up as the main proprietor of U.S. capital markets. So when markets slip, for whatever reason -- and usually externally to national politics -- all eyes turn to the White House, and the U.S. in general, with a glaring, piercing intensity.

In 2000 the dotcom crash was the main force that propagated political ripples. The 2000 dotcom crash was a sour scene on the "video track" -- it necessarily effected a change in dialogue, etc. (the "audio track"). Perhaps the Executive had a different script in mind, but in 2000 it trailed the events on the screen as the newly elected Bush faced an increasingly sour economic climate climate and a concomitant, hostile political environment. While nowhere near the 1929 crash in size or scope, the 2000 crash may be compared to it in intensity -- the period of stock market contractions staggered along and never fully recovered until 9/11 created a sea change, providing a bounty of political capital to the neo-cons amid disaster and tragedy.

Graph: Nasdaq Composite dot-com bubble
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Nasdaq_Composite_dot-com_bubble.svg

I will contend that the massive economic disruptions of 2000 caused the White House apparatus to be decisively weakened, well past the tipping point of remaining in a good light, and over into an area of exposure. Namely this was the point at which broader segments of the population began to amble over to discovery of the bipartisan collusion in the stolen presidential election of 2000.

Excerpt: > The 2000 election and its aftermath

> The 2000 election in the United States is a historical watershed. It marks an irrevocable break with the forms and traditions of American democracy. Phrases such as “crossing the Rubicon” are appropriate in assessing the significance of the five-to-four Supreme Court ruling that handed the election to the Republican candidate, George W. Bush. Notwithstanding the attempts of the media and the political establishment—liberal no less than conservative—to pass over the events of November and December 2000 and “move on,” as though nothing of great significance had occurred, America has been changed in a fundamental way, and nothing will ever be the same in the United States, or, for that matter, the world.

> It took five weeks after the November 7 vote for the political establishment to resolve the disputed presidential contest—itself a development unprecedented in twentieth century American history. The final resolution was effected on an openly partisan and anti-democratic basis.

> The Republican Party, with the general support of the mass media, campaigned for its candidate—who lost the national popular vote by more than 500,000 votes—to be declared the winner in the pivotal state of Florida (whose 25 electoral votes would determine the winner of electoral votes nationally) on the basis of an official margin of several hundred votes out of six million cast state-wide. This could be achieved only by blocking local election boards from carrying out manual recounts of ballots that had not registered a preference for president in the initial machine count. Such hand recounts are provided for by Florida law, and by election laws in every other state. They are by no means rare in American elections. Republican candidates in a number of electoral contests around the country asked for, and received, such recounts as a matter of course.

> Indeed, within hours of the November 7 vote there were widespread reports of voting irregularities and fraud in Florida, involving thousands of Jewish voters in Palm Beach who, because of a confusing ballot, mistakenly voted for the anti-Semite Pat Buchanan, and African-Americans and Haitian-Americans in other areas who were kept from voting by police roadblocks, or told, incorrectly, that they were not properly registered to vote.

www.wsws.org/articles/2001/feb2001/elec-f06.shtml

Not until 9/11 did the administration wrench back control of the spotlight. Post-9/11 the script was re-written and the U.S. veered off to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. Jingoism (for renewed consumer spending) and military Keynesianism provided a quick economic boost and a partial recovery which is now again weighted down and crashing on the rocks, thanks to the worsening housing bust and resulting economic slowdown.

Excerpt: > Whatever we’re going through, it’s not a repetition of the market crash of 2000-2002.

> No, it’s a different beast. But not altogether different. And it’s still aiming to bite us in the backside.

> Instead of mad money rushing into dotcom, heavily leveraged money is splurging on IPOs and LBOs. It’s creating dozens of high-priced new companies with absolutely no track record of success. Just as bad, it’s turning perfectly good companies into ones with huge debts. And they’re now being forced to pay back debt by increasing sales at precisely the time when consumers are slowing down spending. Talk about a recipe for disaster!

www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp

Progressive forces are only recently seeing a resurgence, now that the Bush administration is re-foundering on the arrival of this new economic crisis. No longer able to jaunt around in a codpiece, Bush is becoming beached as a new constitutional crisis (an existential crisis, actually) wracks the U.S. entity. Top items on the Executive wish list are now both exposed and out-of-reach, like leisurely domestic wiretapping and the clinching of the 2008 election.

Not having Iraq anymore as a political issue to kick around, inevitable policy differences (splintering, factionalism over top-shelf political jewels) are playing out in the Justice Department over the extent of governmental spying powers. Also, some sort of inherent self-preservation mechanism seems to be kicking in, in anticipation of further Republican Party dirty tricks, this time to secure the upcoming 2008 presidential election. It doesn't even seem to be a Democratic Party self-preservation mechanism, per se, but is manifesting as a spasm from some part of the body politic to prevent a blatant rerun of 2000 (and 2004).

Excerpt: > Specter: Administration has 18 hours to clarify Gonzales testimony on wiretapping

> By Elana Schor and Susan Crabtree
> July 30, 2007

> The Senate Judiciary Committee’s ranking Republican, Arlen Specter (Pa.), emerged from a crucial Monday briefing and gave the Bush administration 18 hours to resolve the controversy over apparent contradictions in Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’s congressional testimony.

> Gonzales took issue last week with former Deputy Attorney General James Comey’s description of internal dissent in 2004 over the legal authority for the National Security Agency’s (NSA) warrantless eavesdropping program. Frustrated Democrats called for a special prosecutor to investigate Gonzales for perjury, noting that several officials have publicly echoed Comey’s account. Those calls prompted Specter to request a classified briefing to clear up the dispute.

[...]

thehill.com/leading-the-news/specter-administration-has-18-hours-to-clarify-gonzales-testimony-on-wiretapping-2007-07-30.html

Excerpt: > 2007 White House scandal regarding firings of U.S. attorneys

> Judiciary Committee sends contempt charges for Miers, Bolton to full House
> Nick Juliano
> Published: Wednesday July 25, 2007

> The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday formally recommended criminal contempt charges against former White House counsel Harriet Miers and chief of staff Joshua Bolten for their failure to comply with an investigation into the firing of eight US Attorneys.

www.rawstory.com/news/2007/Judiciary_Committee_sends_contempt_charges_for_0725.html

As of about half a year ago the administration lost control of the rudder and now their momentum of nationalist / imperialist initiatives has ground to a halt -- the U.S. propaganda machine has even begun to spin in reverse, regurgitating all of the bile that had been pushed down during the post-9/11 pro-war offensives. Ugly circumstances surrounding the deaths and p.r. hype of Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman are becoming just the latest exposures in a growing chain of embarrassing scandals for the U.S., now at an unmistakable standstill. Absent another Pearl Harbor or 9/11 stunt, the coming few months are shaping up to be an incredibly volatile period that could unveil unprecedented opportunities for broad-based, militant struggle.

Chris





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