well....

Unfortunately, they do not seem to have developed a pill for the disease which has "the financial structure" experiencing the most gawd-awful case of shithouse two-step seen in years'n'years.

Now, I must confess to a degree of nasty shadenfreude here. I split a gut laughing at a cartoon my daughter-in-law sent me, a shot of wall street with the caption "jump you fuckers jump". I have no investments, I have no wotzits nor even any hoozits and if every major bank in North America went tits up tomorrow it probably would only be reason for a deal of possibly misdirected mirth.

What does bother me, and bother me hugely, is the list of chain stores going out of business. And not just the ones you've never heard of, anyway. We're talking GAP, for example. They are said to be closing every store in the Excited States. Well, as we know all too well and to our chagrin, if the Excited States burps, so do we. This is going to mean thousands of jobs gone. Thousands of pay cheques gone.

Of course the CEO's and such won't lost pay or sleep. It's the clerks and tellers are going to take this one in the throat. And most of those clerks and tellers are, guess what, women. And often, women with kids.

So once again we are sacrificed in order to placate the god Mammon.

The Women's movement taught me how to explore something and develop an analysis. Ask yourself "is this an accident", then ask yourself "who benefits".

Well, from where I sit in the sunshine with the peak of the ballcap shielding my eyes, I have to say it does not look like an accident to me. Women, particularly women with kids, have always been promised room in the lifeboat only to find they're there for that time when things become so hungry the other passengers become cannibal.

As jobs vanish and pay cheques disappear, as the economy continues to pour into the crapper, women are going to , more than ever, find pregnancy an unwelcome and even impossible burden. More than ever, abortion clinics must be easily available. More than ever we must openly and loudly declare No More Unwanted Children.

So far, the powerful men who dictate policy, have worked to "bail out" the very ones who caused this mess. More and more wealth will wind up in fewer and fewer hands, and , almost exclusively, those hands will be male hands.

I do not accept that. And I do not accept having male hands around the throats of women, throttling our chances for equality and self-determination.

Yes, we'll go back to the barricades. And we'll take our daughters with us this time. Daughters raised in feminist homes, daughters who know only too well what life will be like if we do not go to the barricades.

This economic bullshit is designed by patriarchs who have never been our friends. They want women-dominated jobs to disappear. They know self supporting women are "uppity" and they will not quietly tolerate much of that!

Well, I won't miss the clothing with labels, I won't miss the chance to pay three or four times as much for things which only last half as long. I never did shop in Banana Republic. My jeans and tee shirt will become more and more the uniform of the uppity; all over again!!

Prepare yourselves. They'll aim their myopic sights at the clinics. This time we'll take a lunch, bring plenty of bottled water, and don't forget the musical instruments because we'll dance. Oh you can bet your bippy we will dance!

On their fuckin graves, we will dance!