Woops! Maybe Choosing Zealots to Run the Country Wasn't Such a Good Idea...
The Producers of Mel Brooks's early masterpiece had a wonderful plan: to amass a fortune by bilking investors in a Broadway production destined to fail. But there was one hitch: they cast an awful actor to star in their production of "Springtime for Hitler" with the expectation that a bad actor would, by definition, increase the overall stink of the show, causing it to quickly fold. They hadn't banked on the idea that what was needed was a good actor who would take the role seriously. The show became a huge hit and their plan was foiled to their great surprise and disappointment — all because of a miscalculated casting of the main part.
The government of the United States of America exists to open and promote markets for corporate exploitation — peacefully if possible, violently if necessary. ("The business of America is business." —Calvin Coolidge) The government of Murka is really nothing more than the tool used by corporate forces to increase their coffers via reverse robin-hoodism, and to aid in the modern corporate-capitalist incarnation of empire as neoliberal global imperialism.
But it seems that Murka's Board of Directors are beginning to realize that the current acting ensemble chosen to be their bankable stars and puppets have become uncontrollable prima donnas.
Operative Cornelius has alerted me to an article he knew I would find most interesting. Some highlights:
(Of course government here is a euphemism referring to any kind of economic regulation, especially as it pertains to some religiously held notions about neoliberal laissez-faire free-market rape-and-pillage corporatism. Government never refers to increasing the state's police and military powers.)
That's exactly right: Indeed, this administration has already shown that it can use a national crisis to advance goals that in fact reinforce the causes of the crisis.
It's a classic self-fulfilling prophecy. Those who claim that government is the root of all evil are now running that very government, implementing policies that completely prove their point. Lose your job, your savings, your security? Blame the government — rightfully so, it turns out — so they can continue to pretend to dismantle what they help grow ever larger. (This comes down to a fundamentally different definition of freedom between the two wings. The left wing understands freedom in terms of civil libertarianism; the right wing in terms of economics. Thus somehow an enormous military/police-state with an incredible deficit can be construed as smaller government by various sectors of the populace.) The more daddy beats you, the more you will seek his protection with renewed love and vigor.
The funny thing is that the corporate paymasters who originally thought it would be wonderful to have these zealous neo-liberal free-marketeers overseeing the coffers are now beginning to realize that perhaps they really didn't take into account a few variables, especially those pertaining to the inherently sociopathic nature of zealotry. And BushCo is nothing if not zealous. They constitute a weird and volatile confluence of three truculent, manichean ideological rivers — neo-liberalism, neo-conservatism, and dominion theology — that together has reached a critical mass and spawned a monster that is now unleashed, a juggernaut that will only stop when its gears ultimately spin out of control, but not before wreaking havoc of biblical proportions.
America has unchained their demented monster, the emanation of Murka's shadow essence. The monster's enraptured worshippers allow themselves to be blissfully consumed by his fiery maw while the world's townsfolk feebly run for their lives...
The government of the United States of America exists to open and promote markets for corporate exploitation — peacefully if possible, violently if necessary. ("The business of America is business." —Calvin Coolidge) The government of Murka is really nothing more than the tool used by corporate forces to increase their coffers via reverse robin-hoodism, and to aid in the modern corporate-capitalist incarnation of empire as neoliberal global imperialism.
But it seems that Murka's Board of Directors are beginning to realize that the current acting ensemble chosen to be their bankable stars and puppets have become uncontrollable prima donnas.
Operative Cornelius has alerted me to an article he knew I would find most interesting. Some highlights:
When the chief economist at Morgan Stanley says we have a one-in-10 chance of avoiding economic Armageddon, one tends to take notice. When America's second-largest creditor tells us to get our economic house in order the same week, two points begin to determine a line.
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First, the chief economist of Morgan Stanley (along with Robert Reich, Larry Summers, Paul Krugman, China and the currency markets) warned us that the U.S. economy is about to collapse. Second, we learned that the Bush administration is willing to ignore the likelihood of collapse and will push ahead aggressively with tax and Social Security reform. Put these two pieces of information together and you get a nightmare scenario.
&sdot &sdot &sdot
You know things aren't looking good when the chief economist of Morgan Stanley uses the word Armageddon in a briefing to the world's largest equity investing house.
&sdot &sdot &sdot
So foreign rescue is not likely. But it doesn't matter. The Bush administration is not interested in rescuing the economy.
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In the 1980s, Reagan's chief budget adviser, David Stockman, admitted that it was White House policy to expand the federal deficits in order to squeeze out social entitlement spending. The Bush administration has taken that tactic one step further, explained by the pre-eminent Republican operative Grover Norquist's famous goal, "to get government down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."
(Of course government here is a euphemism referring to any kind of economic regulation, especially as it pertains to some religiously held notions about neoliberal laissez-faire free-market rape-and-pillage corporatism. Government never refers to increasing the state's police and military powers.)
With a full four years in the White House, two years of hegemony in Congress, and an escalating, multi-fronted war, the far right has plenty of time and cover to push their agenda through. With no interim accountability, they can ignore reality and continue to spin wildly to the American public. Indeed, this administration has already shown that it can use a national crisis to advance goals that in fact reinforce the causes of the crisis. It happened with 9/11, and it can happen again.
That's exactly right: Indeed, this administration has already shown that it can use a national crisis to advance goals that in fact reinforce the causes of the crisis.
It's a classic self-fulfilling prophecy. Those who claim that government is the root of all evil are now running that very government, implementing policies that completely prove their point. Lose your job, your savings, your security? Blame the government — rightfully so, it turns out — so they can continue to pretend to dismantle what they help grow ever larger. (This comes down to a fundamentally different definition of freedom between the two wings. The left wing understands freedom in terms of civil libertarianism; the right wing in terms of economics. Thus somehow an enormous military/police-state with an incredible deficit can be construed as smaller government by various sectors of the populace.) The more daddy beats you, the more you will seek his protection with renewed love and vigor.
The funny thing is that the corporate paymasters who originally thought it would be wonderful to have these zealous neo-liberal free-marketeers overseeing the coffers are now beginning to realize that perhaps they really didn't take into account a few variables, especially those pertaining to the inherently sociopathic nature of zealotry. And BushCo is nothing if not zealous. They constitute a weird and volatile confluence of three truculent, manichean ideological rivers — neo-liberalism, neo-conservatism, and dominion theology — that together has reached a critical mass and spawned a monster that is now unleashed, a juggernaut that will only stop when its gears ultimately spin out of control, but not before wreaking havoc of biblical proportions.
Destroying the economy in order to remake it is just the kind of gambit that Democrats would believe so unlikely that it is not worth considering. It defies logic and credibility. Just like the possibility that Christian Zionists could take over Congress or that Bush might invade Iraq with no real evidence of a threat.
America has unchained their demented monster, the emanation of Murka's shadow essence. The monster's enraptured worshippers allow themselves to be blissfully consumed by his fiery maw while the world's townsfolk feebly run for their lives...