Philip A. FarruggioPhilip A. Farruggio -- World News Trust
May 24, 2017
(Note: i wrote this op Ed column 12 years ago this month, and it was RIGHT ON TARGET --Phil)
On the South Sea islands, hours before a hurricane or tidal wave strikes, all appears calm and serene; the blue sky, the warm sun, the puffy white cotton clouds.
Yet, the wildlife on those islands begins to stir. Birds flutter their wings, preparing to flee. Dog, cats and cattle howl and moan They sense something terrible is about to occur. So it is with we progressives. Our America is moving on a crash course with reality, a reality that we foresaw five years ago.
William Shirer, in his 1984 memoir, "The Nightmare Years -- 1930-1940" recalls his time in Berlin as a news correspondent, covering the Nazi party and its assumption of power. Of 1935, he states: "... yet the Nazi terror in those early years, I was beginning to see, affected the lives of relatively few Germans. The vast majority did not seem unduly concerned with what happened to a few Communists, Socialists, pacifists, defiant priests or pastors, and to the Jews. A newly arrived observer was forced to conclude that on the whole the people did not seem to feel that they were being cowed and held down by an unscrupulous tyranny. On the contrary, and much to my surprise, they appeared to support it with genuine enthusiasm."
America 2005 is on the precipice of economic disaster. By next year, our country will see forever deepening financial crisis's. Already, in the major "boom areas," the real estate bubble is ready to burst. When conservative mainstream papers like USA Today devote cover stories to it, we know things are happening.
I make my living selling sanding belts to cabinet shops nationwide -- been doing it for over 15 years. Most of my contact is via the phone, speaking with small business owners throughout this great nation of ours. Yesterday, I was talking to my customer Carl, from Monroe, Connecticut. I remember, just nine months earlier, Carl telling me how swamped he was. "They are building like crazy up here -- average home starting at $500,000. Condos from $350,000. I can't keep up with the work!" That was less than a year ago. Yesterday Carl was in neither a joyous or harried mood. "Its slowed down here so much. Dead right now. Prices just too high!"
Think about it. Bush and company, through the Federal Reserve, have made sure that interest rates, which affect mortgage rates, remain low, ignoring the fact that the price of oil is skyrocketing to an unheard of (until now) $50-$60 a barrel. Factor in the $300 billion (do you get that, $300 billion?) that is going out of country to subsidize this war, occupation and reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan. That's $300 billion of our tax dollars, money that could have been spent here in America for schools, roads, mass transit, national health care, higher pay for teachers, police, fire, health workers- going into the pockets of crony friends of Bush and Cheney (Halliburton, Bechtel and the like). Wait until the NASCAR dads and soccer moms who support this war have a parent or grandparent in a nursing home or hospital, and they see how drastically the funding for services has been cut. Who then will they blame?
So, when the "bubble bursts" and interest rates go higher -- when two income families holding $200k-$300k mortgages have one breadwinner down-sized or outsourced out of a job, America will become "foreclosure land." Massive unemployment with no government "safety nets" in place (due to lack of money, due to our War Economy), and we will become a "two-tiered society": the wealthy and everyone else. Gated communities will become the "armed camps" they are in most banana republics to our south, as crime will increase along with toothless panhandlers and vacant strip malls. We will once again see "ghost towns" replacing Main Street USA.
If Americans do not wake up and read between the lines, then we have no one to blame but ourselves. This is not the time to wait for political leaders to show us the way.
No, this is the time to abandon the complacency that too many of us have fallen into. This is the time to stand on principle and know the issues that matter for our economic survival.
Perhaps when those 20-, 30-, 40- and 50-something neighbors of mine are forced to work in a box store, with no health coverage, and cannot afford the mortgage payments anymore, they'll turn off Fox and grab a protest sign. Even then, it may be too late.
PA Farruggio
May 2005
Philip A Farruggio is son and grandson of Brooklyn, NYC longshoremen. A graduate of Brooklyn College (class of '74 with a BA in Speech & Theater), he is a freelance columnist posted on World News Trust, Nation of Change Blog, Op Ed News, TheSleuthJournal.com, The Intrepid Report, Information Clearing House, Dandelion Salad, Activist Post, Dissident Voice, Counterpunch and many other sites worldwide. Philip works as an environmental products sales rep and has been a street corner protest activist leader and Green Party member since 2000. In 2010 he became a local spokesperson for the 25% Solution Movement to Save Our Cities by cutting military spending 25%. Philip can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..