Pick an issue, any issue -- guns, gays, abortion, teh dronz, energy or environmental policy -- they all pale in comparison to (indeed they all spring forth from to some extent) the issue of monetary policy, whether the spoils continue to go only to the (ahem) "job creators" (wherever those jobs are, anyway), or we decide that a banana-republic asset disparity is no longer tenable in a nation of 320 million people.
So count yours truly as among those who couldn't possibly care less that Obama made some apparently strident rhetorical gestures in his inauguration ceremony. Unless and until he decides to hold thieves and bastards accountable for their misdeeds, instead of merely enabling them to do it yet again -- only bigger and badder -- nothing else matters.
This is sort of the flipside of an argument I recently posited re gun nuts: where they persist in this delusion that they are some doughty bulwark against encroachment of an already thoroughly-entrenched State, so are your token libruls frequently missing the larger point in their chosen points of emphasis. For example, yes it's terrific that women still have the right to choose (even though that right has been chipped away in many states so as to be virtually non-existent), and do not have to consult noted gynecologists Drs. Akin and Mourdock for their options.
However, the abortion argument is itself an economic argument, insofar as women with more economic options and opportunities don't typically find themselves in circumstances that dictate their life choices for them. Even with the gun goofballs -- hey, gee whiz, maybe if these guys had decent job prospects, and hadn't just spent the last generation watching their livelihoods and towns get outsourced so that some asshole could make the big jump from eight figures to nine figures in net worth, they wouldn't have the time to fret over such non-issues.
Perhaps if the "economy", as it currently stands, were not simply an oft-squeezed milch cow for the rentier capitalist class, if people who worked hard and played by the rules were duly rewarded, just as if they were desk-jockeys "creating value by diddling spreadsheets and moving jobs to Bangalore and Shanghai, you might have fewer angry, paranoid assholes wondering where it all went. I could be wrong about that, but I'm willing to speculate a bit.
But hey, as long as we don't make Jamie Dimon or Phil Mickelson feel too overburdened after all the incredibly hard, backbreaking work they've done (because hotel maids and restaurant waitstaff and teachers don't do shit, amirite?), then we have preserved this here structural integrity, Because Capitalism. So, you know, let's keep those foxes on henhouse duty, so that the banksters can continue to be too big to fail -- or even prosecute effectively when you catch them red-handed laundering money for vicious drug cartels.
Anytime you've literally selected Jamie Dimon's "perfect choice" to head the SEC, you know you've royally fucked the proverbial dog. Now Obama can go back to griefing potheads for their high crimes, and the banksters can sleep the sleep of those who know their investments in government have paid off as planned.
You ever hear the old saying about it being morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money? It's one thing to adopt that as one's personal money-making ethos, so long as one stays within the scope of the law. It's quite another to make it the operational philosophy of the wolrd's largest economy. It's still another thing altogether to bamboozle poor people into supporting such a racket so consistently. P.T. Barnum would be proud, but it's still a hard rain that's gonna fall. Again. These fuckers aren't done with you.
So count yours truly as among those who couldn't possibly care less that Obama made some apparently strident rhetorical gestures in his inauguration ceremony. Unless and until he decides to hold thieves and bastards accountable for their misdeeds, instead of merely enabling them to do it yet again -- only bigger and badder -- nothing else matters.
This is sort of the flipside of an argument I recently posited re gun nuts: where they persist in this delusion that they are some doughty bulwark against encroachment of an already thoroughly-entrenched State, so are your token libruls frequently missing the larger point in their chosen points of emphasis. For example, yes it's terrific that women still have the right to choose (even though that right has been chipped away in many states so as to be virtually non-existent), and do not have to consult noted gynecologists Drs. Akin and Mourdock for their options.
However, the abortion argument is itself an economic argument, insofar as women with more economic options and opportunities don't typically find themselves in circumstances that dictate their life choices for them. Even with the gun goofballs -- hey, gee whiz, maybe if these guys had decent job prospects, and hadn't just spent the last generation watching their livelihoods and towns get outsourced so that some asshole could make the big jump from eight figures to nine figures in net worth, they wouldn't have the time to fret over such non-issues.
Perhaps if the "economy", as it currently stands, were not simply an oft-squeezed milch cow for the rentier capitalist class, if people who worked hard and played by the rules were duly rewarded, just as if they were desk-jockeys "creating value by diddling spreadsheets and moving jobs to Bangalore and Shanghai, you might have fewer angry, paranoid assholes wondering where it all went. I could be wrong about that, but I'm willing to speculate a bit.
But hey, as long as we don't make Jamie Dimon or Phil Mickelson feel too overburdened after all the incredibly hard, backbreaking work they've done (because hotel maids and restaurant waitstaff and teachers don't do shit, amirite?), then we have preserved this here structural integrity, Because Capitalism. So, you know, let's keep those foxes on henhouse duty, so that the banksters can continue to be too big to fail -- or even prosecute effectively when you catch them red-handed laundering money for vicious drug cartels.
Anytime you've literally selected Jamie Dimon's "perfect choice" to head the SEC, you know you've royally fucked the proverbial dog. Now Obama can go back to griefing potheads for their high crimes, and the banksters can sleep the sleep of those who know their investments in government have paid off as planned.
You ever hear the old saying about it being morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money? It's one thing to adopt that as one's personal money-making ethos, so long as one stays within the scope of the law. It's quite another to make it the operational philosophy of the wolrd's largest economy. It's still another thing altogether to bamboozle poor people into supporting such a racket so consistently. P.T. Barnum would be proud, but it's still a hard rain that's gonna fall. Again. These fuckers aren't done with you.
2 comments:
As Calvera says in The Magnificent Seven, referring to the peasants in the village: "If God did not want them sheared, he would not have made them sheep."
My continual annoyance with capitalist apologists is the absolute devout allegiance to the idea that any gross wealth disparity, poverty levels or unemployment is somehow just a bug in the system.
Its not a bug, its a feature.
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