With Ten Shopping Daze to Xmas

"You Can't Serve The Master And Master Card"

Norfolk, VA, December 15: This is a city that has known hard times. In 1776, the British shelled Norfolk and its port destroying everything but a church. In 1835, a yellow fever epidemic wiped out a third of the population. In 1862, a city that backed the Confederacy surrendered to the Union Army.

This was also slave country, an epicenter of the great American civil war that still has the highest toll of any conflict our military has ever fought, a fact worth remembering as Iraq is orchestrated into an "election" today.

Norfolk is still a military town, proud of its naval bases and memorial to World War 2. There is a memorial to super soldier turned renegade General Douglas MacArthur who was fired by President Harry S Truman for defying his authority and advocating an invasion of China during the Korea war. It is also still a slave town only, today, it is the whole population that is enslaved-- by debt.

Drive around as we did yesterday for a film I am making on America's credit squeeze and you practically see a check cashing joint or pawn shop on every corner. "Support Our Troops" has a different meaning to this acne of predators who target the sailors and marines here with high interest loans that keeps them trapped in an avalanche of debt that nobody seems to be doing much about.

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http://www.newsdissector.org/blog/2005/12/15/#1621