Arma-Greed-on "how do you feel, how do you feel"

I have been accused of late as being kind of a negative guy. I don't really see that but I can understand how people who don't really know me might say that. After all I have very publicly stated that (a) I believe President Bush may cancel the 2008 election and set himself up as essentially a quasi-dictator. Legislation exists that would allow for this to happen in the event of a national emergency so my expectation is that soon we may very well see that national emergency manifest, perhaps as a war with Iran, perhaps as something else.

I have also stated that (b) I expect the military draft to be reinstated if we go to war with anyone other than Iraq or East St. Louis. For my opinion as to the likelihood of this happening, please refer to (a) above.

In addition to that, I have also stated that I felt the housing market would "crash", that the easing of credit standards was due to a complicity of key players (and yes I think it is appropriate to insert the dreaded word "conspiracy" here) thus artificially inflating the values of homes.

This serves as a positive for the previous owners and especially the financial institutions underwriting the loans and a negative for anyone who utilized questionable mortgage packages to get into homes, based on the faulty concept that the equity value in their homes would rise faster than their payments. Any hiccup in this equation, of course, makes for a bad day and now as homes are dropping in value—since now no one can get loans to buy them—many of those people betting on rising home costs defraying their exposure will be crushed.

The subsequent bail out of the banks and lenders will have an even greater—although less visible (again insert the word "conspiracy" here if you so choose)—impact as the infusion of capital in to the markets to stave off runs to the banks with little red wagons is adding additional dollars in to the mix, thus potentially, ney probably, disrupting the lives of anyone on a fixed income or little old ladies with bags of fifties stashed in the mattress.

I renamed the Patriot Act "The Gestapo Bill" and have compared 9/11 to the burning of the Reichstag Building in Germany back in the early thirties. I published both of these comments on the internet 4 and a half years ago (Feb, 2003) so I have a long and loud history as a cynic.

The reason I bring all this up is that like canaries in the mines or cows before an earthquake, many of my closest friends have gone through tremendous psychic upheavals over the past year.

Almost ALL of my closest friends who were/are professional psychics (as I used to be) have just been ripped apart, like a shamanic cleansing with a roto-rooter and my guess is that many other creative sensitive types in this country (and throughout the world) have also felt this pervasive sense of angst and discomfort.

I am not just talking about thinking "oh, things are fucked up". I am talking about a real fundamental internal malaise that feels in many ways as if the world is going to end.

I believe there are many of us who feel this and, to that end, I would like to write about it and share our stories and our coping mechanisms and try to catalogue them into a book. In addition to my current project on music and magick and creativity, I also would like to talk to you if you, too, have felt this "thing" within. Even if nothing comes of this as a creative project, perhaps there may be some comfort for all of us in this state to reach out to others and see that we are not alone in having these feelings.

I believe that life is essentially good. I also believe that we are now facing a very difficult time in this country and we may soon be faced with issues that are unusual and taxing and in many ways quite demoralizing. For those of my brothers and sisters who also feel this canary in the mine angst, I look forward to hearing from you.

Together all of us canaries (if we sing together) can perhaps make a difference, after all.