In September of 2008, there was a part of me that thought Bushco's Last Grab would be the end of it. We'd soon be done with Bushco I reasoned, all but the prosecutions I thought with confidence. I could not then conceive of our ever letting those bastards slide. I'd have bet good money that the next president would rip them a new one for what they'd done to the country, the country that all of us supposedly love. As it turns out I could not have been more wrong.
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."
Bob Dylan
And you don’t need to be a financial guru to know when you’re being robbed. Seriously, to the fools trying to stuff a trillion-dollar bailout down our throats, "what have you done for us lately...I mean OTHER than rip us off?"
Patriot Act
Military Commissions Act
FISA
Iraq
Torture
Habeas Corpus
Posse Comitatus
Free Speech Zones
Katrina
Deregulation
Mercenary Armies in America
All of this madness and more while ignoring everything that really matters:
Climate Change
Deforestation
Pollution of land, sea and air
Diplomacy and World Peace
Hunger
Poverty
Homelessness
Sustainable Agriculture
Universal Healthcare
Alternative Energy
The General Welfare
Now you’re going to jump up and rush through a bill written by those who have done all of the above? A bill that bails out the very villains who created this colossal mess in the first place? Is it any wonder that people are skeptical?
And they’re not just trying to ram this disgraceful legislation down our unwilling throats, they’re doing it – and there is nothing any of us can do about it.
They are following their well-known Bush/Rove/Cheney formula of Disaster Capitalism:
whip up the fear, ram bad legislation through quickly, and rip off the American people with the full cooperation of the Democratic leadership. This shit stinks to high heaven.
Your Money or Your Life - Bushco's Last Grab
It still stinks, only this time it's worse. This time the Democrats are leading the charge.
“Call your congress critters and demand a balanced approach to ripping you off.” (paraphrased)
A balanced approach my ass!
Essentially what we had offered Speaker Boehner was over a trillion dollars in cuts to discretionary spending, both domestic and defense. We then offered an additional $650 billion in cuts to entitlement programs -- Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security.
When did Democrats forget that they were supposed to protect these 'entitlement' programs at all costs? But I guess that is just so last century. The entire political class now serves the oligarchy and the oligarchy only. The people be damned.
To our 'leaders': There is no balance here. If you want balance, tax the ultra-rich and corporate free-loaders like there's no tomorrow, cut the hideously bloated 'defense' budget, strengthen our anemic and embarrassingly minimal 'safety net' and create some damned jobs - then we can talk about balance. Do something for the poor for a change, other than just swell their ranks. Act like you have a decent bone in your bodies. Pretend that you really are American patriots and that you genuinely love this country and its people.
But that's not what's going to happen...is it?
No, you're going to keep on bleeding us to the bitter end. And the supposed 'good guys', the 'progressives' and 'democrats' who are supposedly going to stop all of this madness are instead going to take every blow as an opportunity to beat us up for more money. “Stop the madness...donate now!” This bullshit floods my inbox. The more aggressive the attacks on us become the more urgently they hit us up for money. “Give us your money, if you have any left, and we'll make it stop. We promise. This time we're for real.” Disaster capitalism coming and going. Republicans aren't the only rapacious predators gnawing at our bones. We've been played by both sides.
And the band played on. More and better democrats? Pffffft! You'd have to be a chump to believe it.