The BobboSphere: Don't believe everything you think.

First of all, it's not the fault of "the market". Blaming the market for the estimated 1.7 million foreclosures this year means that no one is responsible and everyone is off the hook. But market fluctuations are not the weather, nor are they "Acts of God", to use the favorite expression of the insurance industry. Markets are constructed by real human beings. Markets have rules written by real human beings. Markets have referees and judges who are real human beings. Markets have participants who are real human beings.

Forget about the "invisible hand of the marketplace" so beloved by ivory tower econ professors and overpaid media pundits. There is no invisible hand of the marketplace. Real human hands shape the marketplace and they have left plenty of fingerprints behind. Those estimated 1.7 million foreclosures mean a lot of fingerprints.

­­­The Straight Talk Express is arguably the most famous bus in America right now. Riding around in the conveyance favored by everyday working class people is a nice touch really. It makes McCain seem like one of us. It's true that McCain now flies around in a Boeing 737 of the same name, equipped with first class seats for himself and his entourage, but it's the bus that people see and remember.

Buses remind us of going to work bleary-eyed in the morning crowded together with lots of strangers and then coming home exhausted at night crowded together in the same way. Buses are about enduring extreme heat and cold waiting for them to arrive. They are about the fear of being late to work when you miss one, or when it breaks down or gets stuck in traffic. They are about the fear of waiting for one at night in a dicey part of town, hoping that you won't become another mugging or rape statistic.

"This is a war on the middle class", an American Axle worker said, "People are losing their homes, while the banks and the rich are getting more profits. They preach they are creating more jobs—but what kind of pay are these jobs?"

The jobs that the striking American Axle worker referred to pay $14 an hour, down from the $28 an hour that the American Axle parts workers had been formerly paid. As peoples' mortgages, car payments, kids' college tuition and health care went down the drain when the strike was lost, American Axle CEO Richard Dauch was rewarded with an 8.5 million dollar bonus for his brave service in the battle against the American middle class.

Shortly after 5 PM on June 16, 2008, longtime lesbian activists Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin were wedded by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome. Both women were well up into their eighties and had been together for 55 years. They were founding members of the Daughters of Bilitis which began way back in 1955 and became the nation's first lesbian advocacy group.

Given their history, it was fitting that they were the first gay Californians to get legally hitched. They were followed by hundreds more, joining the many gays who had already married in Massachusetts where it has been legal since 2004.

On February 7, 2007, Carmen Cecilia Santana Romaña, a leader of a Colombian agricultural workers union was murdered in her home that she shared with her 3 children and her husband Hernán Correa Miranda, who was also a union leader. Carmen Cecilia Santa Romaña was among the over 2500 union activists killed in Colombia since 1986. Most have been killed by paramilitary death squads with close ties to the Colombian military. The US government has lavished millions on that military.

It's amazing how much terrorism it takes to keep a US approved free market economy going these days. Carmen Cecilia Santa Romaña had visited a Colombian human rights organization in November 2006, and spoke openly of the fear she felt and the intimidation that was part of her everyday life. The father of her children had been murdered and she wanted the killers found. She wanted to return to her home and resume her work as a union organizer, but her actual homecoming turned into a death sentence.

In Jean-Paul Sarte's play, No Exit, 3 people are locked in a room together forever. Eventually they figure out that they are in hell and this is their punishment.

If being locked in a room with 2 other people is hell, what do you call it when the room is on fire and you can't get out?

That's what American writer Florence Lasser explored in her play, The Story of the ILGWU (International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union). One of the episodes includes the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911 when 146 mostly immigrant Jewish and Italian women workers were killed because the fire exits were locked. Some of them leaped to their deaths as the flames drew closer.

Last fall two environmentalists did a barnstorming tour together touting the advantages of solar and wind to politicians in three states. Nothing unusual about that except that one of them was the president of the United Steel Workers union and the other was the president of the Sierra Club.

A hardhat and backpacker together? Yep, economic crisis.....meet the environmental crisis.

According to the LA Times quoting the usual unnamed  off-the-record official,  the largest number of foreign fighters and suicide bombers in Iraq come from--- Saudi Arabia, a major oil producer. Let's see, 15 of the 19 September 11th attackers came from Saudi Arabia, Osama bin Ladin is a Saudi, the Bush family and their acolytes are close allies of the Saudis....oops, better stop there.