Would the last person who knows why we’re fighting please…?
By Rrrandy Wurst | October 27, 2008
Bill Moyers on his Oct. 24, 2008, PBS Journal, said, “The last person who knew why we are fighting died a long time ago.” Moyers didn’t know the author of the statement and a quick Google by Steve, my right and left hand man, didn’t yield an answer, which doesn’t really matter, because the wisdom inherent in the statement seems to shout loudly enough on its own.
But imagine this. Throughout American history, if there had been no “standing army” (as Thomas Jefferson wanted) to be whipped up and driven to war by the generals and politicians and yellow journalism newspapers, how many wars would the good ol’ U. S. of A. have missed out on?
How many “good wars” have there actually been? Versus how many battles have American citizens been sent to bleed and die in to “protect American interests?” We all know what “protect American interests” means. It means to protect American corporate property and profits. To protect American business property plunked down in foreign lands for the benefit of stockholders. The Marines have been doing that for over 150 years from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli. In China (remember that Steve McQueen movie?). In South and Central America to defend Dole (not Bob, the fruit company) and the corporate octopus called United Fruit which dominated Latin American economies and politics for more than forty years. (For a chilly read, look at a 1982 book called Bitter Fruit.)
American troops and arms, my friends, are bought with your tax-dollars and the blood of those troops, not to mention the blood of the people our troops bombard and invade. (And why don’t we mention that very much?)
Imagine, instead, American citizens getting to vote on whether our government should send Americans out to kill and die in foreign lands for American corporate profits. How many of those “little wars” or skirmishes or “police actions” would we have fought? How many of the big ones? Vietnam? Iraq- #1? Iraq-#2? What about that Korean War (officially a “police action”)? The Spanish-American War pushed by William Randolph Hearst? (Whose name is uncomfortably close to yours truly’s.)
To sell war to America following the Vietnam fiasco, our government has felt the need to decorate war with Hollywood-inspired monikers: “Desert Storm!” “Enduring Freedom!!” “Iraqi Freedom!!!” Gee, maybe that’s a good sign. Maybe Americans now need the full, wide-screen P.R. push in order to go along with war. Without, of course, our government letting us see the consequences. The caskets. (Again ignoring the caskets of the other side and the dead civilians whom we are there to “liberate.”) The lost limbs. Discounting the psychological damage, because, hey, it’s just in your mind, soldier.
Imagine how much more oil would be available if we hadn’t burned so much of it doing war, how much more we’d have for our cars, trucks, planes, and furnaces. Ol’ Faithful Steve tells me he was in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago during Fleet Week, a high-testosterone celebration of Naval might. On Thursday and Friday the Blue Angels precision flying jets—the ones who screech across the sky wing-tip to wing-tip— flew low over the city every fifteen minutes practicing for the one time they’d do it “for real” on the weekend. Think of the wasted fuel, not to mention the pollution raining down on The City’s citizens.
Yeah, let’s mention it. The pollution of warfare. The volumes of spent fuel. The exploding bombs. The burning buildings. Clouds of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous, CO2, and other lovely poisons roiling into our atmosphere, vile and destructive. Modern war alone might account for a whole degree Fahrenheit of global warming, especially when you consider all the practice that must be conducted in order to accomplish wholesale efficient killing and demolition.
Whoo, boy! Ain’t we got fun!
So, Mr. Bill Moyers, it’s a cute thought, but it’s not really true that “the last person who knew why we were fighting died a long time ago.” We know why we fight. It’s because our government and generals and corporations tell us to fight, that it’s a good thing to fight and waste and pollute and die for whatever reason they come up with. That’s reason enough… Isn’t it? Besides, do these people, our leaders, give us a choice?
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Which of these men inspires Presidential confidence?
By Rrrandy Wurst | October 18, 2008
The embarrassing tongue-flash pictured below actually happened as the two presidential candidates came onto the stage at Hofstra for their final debate before the Nov. 4 election (found at Buzzflash). It is not the result of alteration or Photoshop manipulation. It is one of those instantaneous moments of truth at a time when each candidate knows the spotlight is on him to, at the very least, present himself presidentially. It is a picture of an awkward adolescent mind climbing the stage at a high school assembly.
Was McCain trying to “lighten the moment?” Maybe the way that George W. Bush has done so often? Such as W giving “the finger” to the camera before a televised speech. Such as W saying, “Things would be a lot easier if I was dictator,” in a similar situation. Such as W’s frequent snarky, head-pumping laughter at his own “jokes.” If so, then McCain is a bad, even less funny imitation of Bush.
Put this picture together with McCain’s frequent smirking, eye-batting during debates (even during his own party’s primaries, notably while Mitt Romney spoke), and famous history of anger and cursing even while on the job during his Senate duties, and ask yourself—policy positions and everything else aside— “Which of these men inspires Presidential confidence?”
Topics: 2008 election, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, John McCain | No Comments »
Palin Syrah takes a dive
By Rrrandy Wurst | October 6, 2008
Presidential election harbinger #1: “It was our best-selling wine,” complains the owner of a wine bar in San Francisco, about the recent drop in sales of Palin Syrah, an organic wine from Chile. (from The Economist, 9/27/08).
There are polls and there are polls.
Democracy as a form of government comes with one primary condition, which is also its fatal flaw. It requires the common people to be uncommon, that is, to pay attention to what their government is doing both for and to them. It requires them to pay attention, to learn, to understand, and to vote. None of which the common folk have done very well in recent elections.
So let’s hope that the decline in sales of Palin Syrah wine does serve as a harbinger of the outcome on November 4, as a result of the common folk waking up to their duty and paying attention to Palin (Sarah) and McCain.
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The Genius of Ignorance: The Sarah Palin Story
By Rrrandy Wurst | October 1, 2008
Check out this piece by Andrew Halcro, two term Republican member of the Alaska State House of Representatives, who has vast experience debating Sister Sarah:
I’ve debated Governor Palin more than two dozen times. And she’s a master, not of facts, figures, or insightful policy recommendations, but at the fine art of the nonanswer, the glittering generality. Against such charms there is little Senator Biden, or anyone, can do.
I may need to put some kind of protective netting in front of my TV screen. We know she’s not smart in the ways that smart people tend to conceive of smart, but she is shrewd …and physically attractive… and even possibly a good dancer, which are better qualifications for one of those TV dance competitions than for the White House. Although, Americans tend not to elect smart people (except those who hide their intelligence behind a big smile, like B. Clinton), preferring somebody “we” might want to have some yucks with while watching something like, say, Dancing With the Stars.
So maybe this whole election thing is coming down to a referendum, not on McCain and Palin, but on the American electorate. To wit: After the 8-year horror of the Bush/Cheney Administration, will we go out and elect another, probably less competent but similar, administration because (A) we’ve grown used to our deprivation and (B) they’ve developed slipperiness into a political art form that Americans gobble up?
Or maybe we’ve learned a lesson from Reagan, Clinton, and the Bush fellers. Ain’t life interesting?
Sphere: Related ContentTopics: 2008 election, homo (un)sapiens | 1 Comment »
Agreeing w/ 2 Cons in one day: shudder! + Bail-out of the Bail-out
By Rrrandy Wurst | September 30, 2008
Here is what conservative Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker said about Sarah Palin:
No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, I’ve been pulling for Ms. Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. I’ve also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted.
Ms. Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage, and there’s not much content there. … If BS were currency, Ms. Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.
And here is what Rod Dreher, who blogs from the adorably-named CrunchyCon: Conservative Politics and Religion, said when Parker was lambasted for dissing Palin by yet another conservative columnist:
One of the least attractive features of the Right is a tribalist impulse to punish anyone who is disloyal to the Cause — the Cause being defined not as any particular set of principles, but Getting Our Team To Power.
Wow! Reasoned self-reflection from the Right. How Refreshing!
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So, I’m sure you’re wondering what is Rrrandy Wurst’s take on the infamous (if it passes) 2008-Pre-Election-October Surprise-Let-the-Poor folks-Bail Out-the-Rich guys-who-Caused-the-Problem-in-the-First-Place proposed legislation. Hmmmm, let me try to make my feelings clear and unambiguous about this issue.
1) Don’t bail out the guys who shot holes in the boat.
2) If money must be given, give it to the ones who were screwed by being suckered into bad loans by those who should have known better.
3) Re-insert the quarter of a percent tax on all securities transactions. That is, let Wall Street bail out Wall Street, instead of you and you and you bailing them out. (Me? I don’t own a home, I only need my one Uncle Sam outfit and not even that back on the farm, and I’m happy eating garbage. They want my garbage? They can bring a truck. Hey, I don’t even like corn anymore with all that genetic engineering.)
4) Limit “margin” (leveraged) securities buying to the 20% —10% would be better—that was instituted by Roosevelt after the 1929 Wall Street Crash to reign in the financial ancestors of today’s Wall Street vultures.
5) Ask Dennis Kucinich what he would do, then do it. (For example, re-establish the Home-Owners Credit Corporation, which would bail out home-owners instead of the big bad bankers.)
This whole bail-out thing? It’s like giving your car keys to a drunken thief, then wishing him well.
Sphere: Related ContentTopics: 2008 election, Congress, Government Oversight, homo (un)sapiens | No Comments »
Are You for Sarah?
By Rrrandy Wurst | September 28, 2008
Sports fans and opera buffs, RV-livers and quaking mortgagees, workers and out-of-workers, retirees and wannabe-but-can’t retirees, worry-worts and too-dumb-to-worry-worts, voters and too-cynical-to-voters, in other words, Americans of every stripe and star, please check out the following excerpt from a recent rant by Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone ….
Here’s the thing about Americans. You can send their kids off by the thousands to get their balls blown off in foreign lands for no reason at all, saddle them with billions in debt year after congressional year while they spend their winters cheerfully watching game shows and football, pull the rug out from under their mortgages, and leave them living off their credit cards and their Wal-Mart salaries while you move their jobs to China and Bangalore.
And none of it matters, so long as you remember a few months before Election Day to offer them a two-bit caricature culled from some cutting-room-floor episode of Roseanne as part of your presidential ticket. And if she’s a good enough likeness of a loudmouthed middle-American archetype, as Sarah Palin is, John Q. Public will drop his giant-size bag of Doritos in gratitude, wipe the Sizzlin’ Picante dust from his lips and rush to the booth to vote for her. Not because it makes sense, or because it has a chance of improving his life or anyone else’s, but simply because it appeals to the low-humming narcissism that substitutes for his personality, because the image on TV reminds him of the mean, brainless slob he sees in the mirror every morning.
I must disagree with Mr. Taibbi, because I do not believe that such Americans as described above, that is, those who would vote for Sarah Palin, are necessarily “mean.”
Thank you and good night.
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Profit is our most important product!
By Rrrandy Wurst | September 24, 2008
Remember the good old days? When Ronald Reagan was an actor/shill instead of our President? Before the string of corporate-loving presidential clones who followed? (I count you among them, Bill Clinton.)
Shilling before the TV cameras for the GE Theater, Ronnie used to say, “At General Electric, progress is our most important product.” What a nice, all-American guy! And, boy-oh-boy, how we wanted to believe him. (Actually he wasn’t employed by GE or CBS. He was paid by Batten, Barton, Durstine and Osborn (BBDO), a major advertising agency in the TV industry, which justifies, if justification is needed, my calling Reagan a “shill.”)
But back to “Progress is our most important product.” Though it’s a nice sound-bite, progress is actually not GE’s most important product, nor is any product or service a corporation’s most important product. “Profit” is the most important product of a business. Any other product or service it provides for the money it makes is merely a “by-product.” Sort of like the chitterlings (chitlins, for you folks in the Deep South), being a by-product of the pig-meat industry. While it pains me some to use this metaphor, Rrrandy is a rrrealist.
Don’t be put off by my assertion that in business no product or service is needed. The act of offering a product or service costs money. Think about whether GE or General Motors or General Mills or any other corporation would make and sell a product or service if it didn’t have to and could still make a profit. Rrrandy has not gone off the deep end. Stay with me.
Business Axiom #1: You are “in business” to make a profit.
Business Axiom #2: Your objective is to maximize your profit.
Business Axiom #3: You “earn” more profit by making a product or service as cheaply as you can yet still be able to sell it. Zero cost is the cheapest you can go.
Business Axiom #4: If you could get away with selling literally nothing and people would pay you money, you would maximize your profit. (See Axiom #2)
Which is why many “business people” say that their only purpose is to maximize their profit (See Axiom #4). Which proves my outrageous assertion stated above.
Okay, I hear you scoffing out there. You’re saying that I’ve presented nothing but a pile of semantic sophistry, also known in more polite circles as farm-animal manure. But consider this. What do the derivatives guys on Wall Street sell? What product or service worthy of the name? They, and the big companies that employ them—which, according to Our Leader G. W. Bush, “Our nation can’t afford to let fail”— do a trick called “selling short.” Selling short isn’t a product. Or a service. It is simply selling something you don’t even own with the hope that the price will go down, when you will presumably pay for it at this lower price. It is “selling” a stock or bond or bundled mortgage or barrel of oil (or pork belly), etc., that you don’t own, for a set price in the hope of paying for “it” later at a lower price.
This is the business they are in, moving money around for a profit at the risk of the thing they “bought” and didn’t pay for yet going up in price (bad for them) instead of going down (bad for the people who, say, own the home). They “take risk.” No product. No service. Some risk, but lots of profits, especially if they can manipulate the prices. The risk to you is if your mortgage got sold and resold and bundled while the price of your home went down, which could put you and your family out into the street. But that’s another story.
So if the securities sharpies in New York and Chicago and Hong Kong-London-Johannesburg-Tuberville can play that game, why can’t you? Sell, say, a house or a car or a carton of figs that you don’t own, if you can find a “free marketplace” where somebody is stupid enough to buy it. No cost, all profit. Business at its best.
Oh, there are laws against that? You can’t do that with a house or car or even one fig? But you can do that on Wall Street? That’s unfair! Let’s change the law…so they and we can do it anywhere. After all, Republicans claim that God loves a “free marketplace,” none of that satanic government regulation. Besides, isn’t caveat emptor another one of those Business Axioms? If it’s okay for our government to spend our tax dollars to bail out big businesses for making bad deals—Heaven forefend we should recognize that as socialism—why can’t you and I sell something we don’t own? Just doesn’t seem fair.
Sphere: Related ContentTopics: George W. Bush, Government Oversight, John McCain, Republican, Uncategorized, wealth | No Comments »
BEWARE!: 32 alarming words from King Henry Paulson
By Rrrandy Wurst | September 23, 2008
“Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.”
This demand is from “Section 8″ of Henry Paulson’s “plan” to somehow save America and rectify the Wall Street financial collapse by giving $700 BILLION directly to the perpetrators of the collapse. How? By bailing out the same people, banks, and investment firms that caused the damn thing. The “Secretary” in the 32-word statement is Henry Paulson, himself. In other words, his “plan” can only work if no one reviews it. Huh. According to the full three-page statement, which he claims that Congress “must” pass and fast with no changes—remind you of the PATRIOT Act?—there can be: NO OVERSIGHT, NO REVIEW BY EITHER A COURT OF LAW OR ANY GOVERNMENT AGENCY.
This more the ring of a manifesto than a financial plan. Sounds like resurrection of the “Divine Right of Kings,” which democracy was devised to surmount Also sounds like the position that an arrogant Wall Street CEO might take. What? Really? Henry Paulson was CEO of Goldman Sachs, one of Wall Street’s biggest players? Hmmm, just one of those coincidences, like Dick Cheney coming to the White House from the CEO chair of Halliburton.
Those of you out there of a certain age might recall the old “Section 8″ of the U. S. Military discharge, which was applied to soldiers “unfit for service.” If Rrrandy Wurst had his way, that old “Section 8″ would be brought back to life and applied to King Henry Paulson and his “untouchable” and his “unfit for service” Wall Street bail-out plan. Great Spirit willing.
The insiders of the financial crisis, the ones who caused it and have profited from it, of course offer their own two-cents worth. Scott Talbott, a key lobbyist for the financial services roundtable stood up on his hind legs and supported Paulson’s Manifesto:
“We’re opposed to adding provisions that will affect [or] undermine the deal substantively.”
No added provisions wanted or needed, what Paulson and his cronies call “a clean bill.” No oversight or penalties, which would be a “deal-breaker.” A deal-breaker? The hubris! The chutzpah! King Henry Paulson must have balls like a buffalo.
And they dare call it a “deal”? It’s a bail-out, you shmucks, not a “deal!” The American government—We, the American people, fahcrisake!—are bailing YOU out. If it’s a “deal-breaker,” YOU drown. YOU shot your boat full of holes, and now you want us not only to fix the boat, but give you Nile barges full of money without attachment or oversight so you can, what?, do it again? Because you are “The experts?” Fix up your boat and let you run it aground again at our expense again, is what you want. (Listen to their chortling. Watch their “That’s business” shrugs. “Of course that’s what we want. It’s the free market way.”)
Because they are so outrageous, let us—you, me, and Congress (hopefully they’re alert and willing to fire their weapons)— hark back to Paulson’s 32 damning words…
“Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.”
Yup, it’s plain and clear. Paulson wants and expects us to hand him $700 BILLION without the chance of oversight or penalties or lawsuits, presumably to the end of time. He and George Bush and others in this godawful administration that has given us so many things to remember, warn that any effort to attach other provisions would be a deal breaker.
But as economics analyst Robert Kuttner points out,
“it is the financial industry that is coming hat-in-hand to the government, not vice versa. The industry has no leverage here, except to the extent that Congress lets itself be intimidated.”
….”to the extent that Congress lets itself be intimidate.” Aye, there’s the rub. King Henry P. is calling for “Action! Now! No Hamlet-like considering or questioning or mitigating conditions. Is this, perchance, Paulson’s Wet Dream? We should just give in to his scheme (protected as law by those 32 words when and if the bill passes) whatever it will be. Just give him the damn check and be thankful he didn’t demand a blank one.
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveler returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.
Hamlet’s soliloquy (the end of it), but it could also be called Paulson’s Creed in which he (our financial conscience) chides Congress to act now or suffer the immediate collapse of the world’s financial markets when, actually, it is the world’s financial marketeers that would get crushed. The government could stop foreclosures and lost homes at the stroke of a pen. Protecting the people from the unscrupulous and predatory is what governments are for, and damn you Ronald Reagan for spouting otherwise.
Yeah, Hamlet overdid it with the cogitation thing, but isn’t deliberation what Congress is for? To thoughtfully consider, then act to halt the immediate danger and punish those who put us in danger and keep them from doing it again? What a concept!
Too good to be true? What will OUR Congress do? Stay tuned.
Sphere: Related ContentTopics: Congress, Corporations, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Government Oversight, The Constitution, wealth | No Comments »
How ’bout that financial “industry?”
By Rrrandy Wurst | September 22, 2008
A few words about the current financial “industry” situation: “Aaaaghh!” “Eeeeaahhh!” “Fuuuuuuck meeeee!” “Oyyyy vaaaaaaisssmeeeeer!” And the always available: “IknewitIknewitIknewitwhydidn’tIsellwhenIhadagoodprofitIamsuchadumbhead!”
Look at your credit cards. Chances are that more than half of them are with MBNA. Here’s what MBNA founder Charles Cawley says: “Today is not as good a time to be in banking as five years ago.” Mr. Cawley, obviously prefers calm, cool understatement. Sort of like the captain of The Titanic, when he finally hits the iceberg, saying, “All in all, I’d rather be on a tugboat in New York Harbor.”
And here is glow-dome Henry Paulson, as Treasury Secretary (appointed by G. W. Bush, natcherly) in charge of the financial “industry” which is at present exploding and sinking faster than an oil tanker staffed by pyromaniacs: He says that adjustments need to be made, but we needn’t be “punitive” about it. In an interview with George Stephanopoulos, Paulson said: 
“We’re trying to offer a program across the whole financial landscape to buy the assets that are clogging up the system, so that the markets can work…And I believe, to have this program work, we don’t want to make it punitive and make it difficult for…”
Difficult for whom? For those financial “industry” executives who made the bad executive decisions and created the financial meltdown crushing or soon to crush everyone from you and me to Granny Frickert, either now or down the generations who will eventually have to pay for the $700 BILLION bailout?
Why not punitive? Punitive is just what they deserve. Had they done their dirty/stupid deeds during the first 100 years of our nation’s existence, they’d have been (1) stripped clean of their assets, (2) tarred and feathered, and (3) ridden out of town on a splintery rail. But we’re too civilized for that these days. Let’s just let them keep their grubbed money and give ‘em a golden-parachute bonus, as well.
Who got our financial “industry” into the quick-sand? Industry “giants” who head(ed) Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, mortgage-marketer AIG, those adorable twins Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (privatized by your very own REPUBLICAN PARTY in the person of Phil Gramm, John McCain’s top economic advisor, who will/would be McCain’s Treasury Secretary), etc. These are the guys walking away with many millions of dollars in severance with not even a slap on the wrist from the overflowing latrine they created. Paulson, however, wants Congress, meaning tax-payers and financial-sufferers, to pony up $700 Billion to bail out those financial wizards for their egregious (meaning obscenely stupid) mistakes. Hey, maybe their decisions weren’t so obscenely stupid, if Congress lets them walk away with the bail-out. Not stupid for them, anyway. Hell, they’ll probably wind up with more homes (Aspen? Palm Beach? Cote d’Azur?) and cars and private jets than even, say, John McCain. Who says an MBA is worthless?
Barney Frank, House Financial Services Chairman, said, “It would be a grave mistake to say that we’re going to buy up a bad debt that resulted from bad decisions of these people and then allow them to get millions of dollars on the way out. The American people don’t want that to happen and it shouldn’t happen.”
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The astute reader—and who among Rrrandy’s rrreaders would not be astute?—will have noticed that each time I mention the financial “industry,” I put quotes around “industry.” This is because it is difficulty to see what “product” or “service” it provides beyond coming up with slick new ways to move money from our pockets into theirs. It is a game these financial wizards play among themselves with our money. Our mortgaged homes, our bank and cd deposits, our car loans and credit card balances, even, perhaps, our student loans are their chips.
They have devised such financial-game strategies as “short selling” and “credit-default swaps” among many others. “Short selling” is when a speculator sells something he or she doesn’t own. What you do is you take a “short position” on widgets at a $100 each, then hope the price of widgets falls to, say, $75 each, then you sell, making $25 on each of them, which you never actually owned. Really! Honestly! Well, maybe not honestly, but legally. Cool, huh? You get to make a big profit on my home if it goes down in price, even though you never owned one nail or board of it. It’s a game they play on Wall Street in which the players make fortunes on other people’s misery, like when the housing boom goes bust or people’s bankruptcy depresses the price of bank stock or whoever holds those mortgages. A similar “shorting instrument” is the put or a futures contract. All of them make money from misery without the player ever having to own or even rent anything of substance. These people do nothing that adds to the U. S. economy, yet they’re the ones who can make millions of dollars a day. Better they should be baseball players who make a million or two for at least batting .200.
“Credit-default swaps” are another, more complex, Wall Street game. These are financial “instruments”, an artful name if I’ve ever heard one, based on bonds and loans that are used to speculate on a company’s ability to repay debt. If a borrower can’t pay back the loan, these “swaps” pay face value to the guy who bought it. Fun, games, and profit at some risk, of course, because, after all, it’s a game. But they offer no product or service that anyone can actually use. Just money going from one pocket to the other. It’s like the Wall Street trader in Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities trying to explain to his daughter what kind of work he does. He tries to use her birthday cake as an example. But she asks him whether he makes the ingredients or bakes it or delivers it or even slices it, and he, wanting to be honest with his daughter, at least, has to say “No” to each. She wants an answer, so finally, brilliant guy that he is, he says, those crumbs that fell on the plate? I eat the crumbs.
That was back in 1987, before many of today’s financial “instruments” were invented. (Some would call them sophisticated, when they are merely shrewdly predatory.) In these post-Reagan, post-Poppy Bush, post-Clinton, nearly post-Junior Bush times, the financial “masters of the universe” take the cake and leave the crumbs.
Sphere: Related ContentTopics: Corporations, George W. Bush, Government Oversight, John McCain, Republican, wealth | 2 Comments »
Abe Lincoln vs. Reagan/Bush/McCain Republicans
By Rrrandy Wurst | September 19, 2008
“You may fool all the people some of the time, you can even fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time.”
Abe Lincoln supposedly said that, although it’s also been attributed to P.T. Barnum, an odder pairing there never was. Except if you compare the first Republican president (ol’ Abe) with the most recent three, plus the current hopeful. What would these guys do with the concept of government and business fooling “the people?” Hmmm, how about this?:
“You may fool all the people some of the time, you can even fool some of the people all of the time…which is good enough for us to rape the American economy for our own pleasure and profit while sending the American government, which has the potential to control us (as in regulate), down the tubes.”
Think I’m kidding? How about this 2002 quote from Grover Norquist:
“I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”
If you don’t know or can’t recall who Norquist is and why well-situated Republicans and business “leaders” would pay him mind, he heads or headed Americans for Tax Reform and the National Taxpayers Union. He has been a lobbyist for the National Rifle Association, Microsoft, and American Express, and friend and associate of Jack Abramoff imprisoned for lobbying offenses. Norquist is the moving force behind the innocently-named “Wednesday Meetings” of his “Leave Us Alone Coalition,” to which both George W. Bush and Dick Cheney send representatives.
Grover hates taxes. He has equated the Estate Tax with the Holocaust. He coauthored with Newt Gingrich the 1994 Republican “Contract with America” (since become infamous as the Contract on America). Norquist is the Right Wing Republican essence of their dearly-held belief that government is best when it is least…except, of course, when it can be used to bail-out their friends from AIG, Lehman Brothers, and sure to be other stock, bond, and mortgage manipulators. Bail them out with the tax dollars paid mostly by ordinary citizens whose homes are being lost because of those same manipulators from AIG, Lehman, etc.
This is the world–Grover’s World, Ronnie Reagan’s World, George W’s World, John McCain’s World–of government deregulation, “shrinking it enough to drown in a bathtub.” What a world! American voters have somehow bought into it for 30 years, and the polls show that Americans are all too close to buying into it again.
Abe Lincoln knew the truth. P. T. Barnum knew the truth. The truth was also known by W. C. Fields, who said “Never give a sucker an even break” (title of his 1943 film), and was, according to legend, also a ruthless businessman. If Americans continue to vote for those who screw us and our government, do we deserve an even break? A pig with half a brain wouldn’t buy that poke.
Sphere: Related ContentTopics: 2008 election, Corporations, George W. Bush, Government Oversight, John McCain, Republican, pigs, wealth | 3 Comments »
