"These are the times that try men's souls."
So wrote Thomas Paine, in an essay so stirring that General George Washington had it read aloud to his more or less miserable troops at Valley Forge that winter of 1776. Paine called his essay "The Crisis."
Here is a passage from "The Crisis" that might apply to the snake oil we are being offered for our (and our grand-children's) hard-earned $700 Billion:
There are cases which cannot be overdone by language, and this is one. There are persons, too, who see not the full extent of the evil which threatens them; they solace themselves with hopes that the enemy, if he succeed, will be merciful. It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice; and even mercy, where conquest is the object, is only a trick of war; the cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf, and we ought to guard equally against both.
That Dec. 1776 essay was the first in what would become a 13-part series crafted by Paine, through April 1783, the moment of victory and Independence. In that final "The Crisis" among other things Paine said the idea of America taking on debt was no big deal -- as long as it was in exchange for the precious rewards of liberty and justice:
The debt which America has contracted, compared with the cause she has gained, and the advantages to flow from it, ought scarcely to be mentioned. She has it in her choice to do, and to live as happily as she pleases. The world is in her hands. She has no foreign power to monopolize her commerce, perplex her legislation, or control her prosperity.
How these words echo so hollow today!
Let's never mind the foreign foes, whoever they may or may not turn out to be. No foreign power can "control the prosperity" of this country. Only Americans can determine the destiny of America.
The oil-drenched corporations and the war-mongers, the grand-scale grifters and the tax-dodging titans, the corrupt in Congress and those in the Administration who are incompetent by every measure except that of doing damage to our Constitution and our Economy: these are the influential powers who seek "to monopolize her commerce, perplex her legislation" and to sell you and I and our great-grandchildren yet unborn a huge stinking pile of what they openly call "toxic assets."
Well, I have called my Congresswoman and Senators. I have talked myself blue to friends, family and co-workers. I have emailed bits of blogs and diaries and Wikipedia entries on the $124 Billion we spent to bail out the savings and loans -- and precipitate the big recessions of the 1990s -- and I have shouted down the jabbering shills whose flatulence issues from the TV.
Now, I'm simply offering a link to the thoughts of Tom Paine. Mister Common Sense. Perhaps it will help someone make a convincing case somewhere, so that one more Komissar or Kongressperson will muster the moral courage to say "No" to this grand theft.
Thanks for reading!