Elections Have Consequences

Elections have consequences. Losers give speeches, struggling to wrap themselves in sanctified rags of their Good Intentions, while minimizing their serial misbehaviors as "honest mistakes", as though they were the excess of their passion to secure their nation and work for the welfare of their people. Okay. Bullshit.

George W. Bush got elected, to the extent that he really ever did get "elected", by distinguishing himself from the other Republican candidates for President by having a better record at killing prisoners. Oh, does that sound unfair? Really? If you think so, I have some bedtime reading for you. Not a "bedtime story" unless you have strange tastes in recreational reading, but a story to stand your hair on end: (Click Here)

Let's be blunt; the outgoing President was not a very nice man, nor a very principled man. It would almost appear (though we may never be able to prove it) that early in his Governorship he decided to distinguish himself for personal cojones by killing his way through the pending Death Penalty cases in Texas, including those involving the halt, the lame, the sick and the blind. Okay, I made that last one up. I do not know that any of the 152 prisoners that Bush nudged towards the Gas Chamber was legally blind. Some were retarded, others apparently insane, while some were just bad to the bone. All of them died, arguably in a cause greater than themselves; getting George W. Bush elected President, as the most badass Governor in America. A former aide referred to President Bush recently as a "Sarah Palin-like figure", easily lead by Vice-President Cheney and his unsavory associates. Neo-Cons, ya know. Toy Soldiers. Pansy-ass chickenhawks; lots of draft deferments, lots of John Wayne movies, no experience of actual war, aside from a safe distance.

And now all those third-rate minds are leaving our nation's capital. It would be nice to imagine that some of them, at least, could be held accountable for the havoc they leave in their wake. Republicans are big on "accountability" we are told. They lecture us that the poor should starve and freeze and attend crappy schools, as a just return on their failure to become CEOs. When they leave government, as "Dick" Cheney did after Gulf War I, they tend to gravitate towards industries where their connections can be useful. In short, the ideal for many Republican political figures is not just to patronize prostitutes, but to become a really, really well-paid one. And the good of our nation? Are you joking? Are you, sir, some kind of "socialist" or something? Why "getting ahead", by fair means or foul, is the American Way! Anyone who is afraid to sell out is a namby- pamby liberal limp-dicked sissy!

But things sometimes change. Something changed last year. Actually, a lot of things changed last year, in what I think history will see as a "perfect shit storm" of bad news for business as usual. Did anyone else listen to Eric Holder's testimony to the Judiciary Committee today? I had no idea who Holder was, had never heard him speak, I thought he looked a bit like a suit, but who knew? Who knew that Eric Holder came up through the ranks of the Justice Department not because he knew someone, or was someone, or someone owed him. He clearly rose to the cusp of being our next Attorney General because he is really, really smart and really, really principled. In short, an excellent choice and pretty much the "anti-Gonzales" at a time when someone like that is so badly needed. Our jails are filled with poor people who are in for selling small amounts of drugs or petty thefts. Bad behavior, no doubt, but then there is Bernard Madoff, who says he thinks that he has "made off" with perhaps as much as fifty billion dollars. His punishment, to date, has been to be confined to his 5th Avenue penthouse. Damn! Call the Red Cross! The poor man will be forced to have his domestic staff shop for him and prepare his meals! Oh, wait, they already do that? For some reason we seem able to find abundant rationales for mild treatment of really, really big crooks and we compensate by coming down like a ton of bricks on the poor who stray. Why is that? Do we have a system of dual standards? Are the wealthy seen as inherently weak, but not culpable for their own actions? Are the poor a greater threat to the fabric of our society? or does it have something to do with how well one dresses and speaks? That's my guess.

And elections have consequences.

Can anyone imagine Congress giving a Democrat a check for $350 BILLION as they enter office? Wow. That's a lot of petty cash, isn't it?

We've become a bit blase about large amounts of slush money, haven't we? I'd like to give us a reality check for a minute. Can anyone else recall President Bush's deranged ravings about the terrible condition that the Social Security system was in? No? about six or seven years ago he and his sock puppets wept crocodile tears about how SSI was "going broke" and would be impossible to fix, unless someone magically could find an impossibly LARGE SUM OF MONEY, too large for our nation to afford. Really. That "impossible sum" (TM)? 75 Billion. Say what? No, seriously, that was the shortfall, that was the insolvable crisis. Honest. Today Congress gave President-Elect Obama 4.67 times more money than that, for him to use for "stimulus". Okay. So "stimulus"... what the heck is that? It is doing something or spending money on something that will make people have more confidence in our economy, so they will go back out and buy and invest and feel... good. Call me old-fashioned (and not for the first time) but if someone skimmed 75 billion off the top of the "TARP" funds and fully funded SSI so I could retire knowing that my government could keep its promises to me? that would make me MUCH more optimistic and adventurous about life. I would, in short, feel very STIMULATED.

So while Bank of America says they really want a whole lot more money, and Citibank says things are really tight this month, my response is "fuck 'em". And for good measure "you betcha!" It am tired of those lying weasels (TM) pissing and moaning and bleeding the poorest segments of our society with credit card extortion and usury. Think that is unfair? It turns out that banks earn 40% of their profits from credit card interest and penalties. Yup, it is not from loans to large business, or mortgages, it is from taking advantage of the desperate and temporarily short-of-cash. And which of us has not fallen into that situation a time or two? Eh? Really? Never? Vito and the Bank of America count on you having problems, or getting really sick, or... or the host of other problems. They are not social workers, they are vultures. And now they have made some bad investments themselves and they'd really like us all to let bygones be bygones and give them a hand up, at really reasonable rates. That $350 Billion they already got? oh, THAT $350 Billion? they can't really talk about what they did with the money, so sorry. Oh, yes, they did buy a smaller bank, or two... I mean, the prices were just sooo attractive, but making new loans? Mmmm, no, that did not really seem so attractive. Maybe if they had another $350 Billion, then a few small loans would be possible, maybe, but we'd have to wait and see...

Fuck 'em. I think we have a lot of things that can be done with the money that do not involve trusting large banks and investment houses. Social Security is just one example. That would still leave 275 Billion, which is a lot of stimulus.

Listen, I am just glad that an intelligent and principled Democratic President is going to have some walking around money to spend. Elections have consequences. What are we talking now? Four and a half days, or slightly less? How stunning. I think it is all going to work out okay. Oh, and when it does I think the 2010 elections are going to drive the Republican Party into a decade of ecllipse. I was fascinated to see that Senator David "diaperboy" Vitter was the sole Senator to vote against the confirmation of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. Given the beatings he endured in "discipline sessions in a famed New Orleans bordello" I had assumed he would vote for a strong woman, but guess again. And guess when Vitter comes up for reelection? Yup, 2010. Elections have consequences. Maybe Vitter can go to work for Halliburton, as they struggle to reinvent themselves as a Green Energy Company. Or maybe he, like many of the functionaries of the Bush era, will just go away, tainted forever by their complicity in a deeply flawed Presidency and corrupted government.

Anyhow, that's how I see it. Now I've got a party to get ready for.

Arthur