Carbon weighting

Fatigue had long set in with the tokenism, ‘folk’ and events Stateside. While always and immensely fascinating, on the small p; that window to a grim future of ultra-staged politics and the obscene budgets now necessary to find an acceptable face of inequality has always repelled me on a few levels.

The campaign has thrown up an interesting tension. The sharpening of extremes has developed an odd hue of choice in the most embedded of two party systems while ultimately leaving either candidate well short of answers for the America they hope to define let alone one those middle classes sincerely expect.

With two days to polling you’ve suffered enough barely thought out analysis so I just wanted to highlight this clip as the first to fill me dread beyond any of the foreign or economic sentiment of campaign 2012.

The chant, those who shout the loudest, instantly cognisant of the threat and appropriate response. Instinct.  A backdrop as we zoom slowly back to Romney and all it represents. The hollowest of rhetoric bookends.

A real essence in there I think. So much contained.

The interesting dynamic is that like Japan, seeing Manhattan underwater brings disaster into our world. Watching five bedroom houses float out to sea last year carried a shock the routine images of third world devastation have long lost. Similarly, now events of this force have moved up the East Coast the issue may become harder to shout down or at least lead some to shout a bit louder. This arrival in the first world has an effect not unlike the magnifying of the ugly in politics I mentioned at the start.

Bloomberg’s Businessweek on Friday led with, It’s Global Warming, Stupid, a convenient swerve away economy and obvious kick against one candidate but an interesting departure for Wall St. none the less. New York’s last big event continues to ripple around the world. Naive to hope Sandy will have anything like the same effect but epicentres like that make it harder to forget.

Obama arrived and soon found deflation when the economic mountain emerged and his team appear to have copped on to something politicians elsewhere are going to get used to.  Like the first, his second term comes on the tail of an event that calls into question the approach, challenges and short-termism, until the next time.