Stuff That Can (Or Is Going To) Go Wrong

Congress should be indicted for murder: Before you jump to the (perfectly reasonable) conclusion that I am about to clobber the Republicans for acting like spoiled children and incompetent jerks about the rescue plan this week (they did), there is plenty of blame to go around for everyone. The Congress, as a whole, has worked hard to murder the entire country. While Republicans in the House and the Senate, who now represent the last of the red areas of the country, have proven themselves to be intractable, stubborn, short-sighted and obstinate, just to prove a point (or try to), the Democrats have simultaneously proven that they have been born without backbones (Reid and Pelosi are jellyfish) and have allowed the discussions to wipe out much needed provisions in the bill to save schools, education, infrastructure and health care. Collectively, these over-paid idiots (Claire McCaskill included) have wasted valuable time, laughed in the public’s face, claimed immunity from sanity and behaved like uninformed buffoons. And all of that is on a good day. (The infrastructure of this country is woefully inadequate and collapsing. It must be repaired and soon, so why not do it now, and kill two flocks of birds with one stone?) . If the US was a business (it is, really), and we were not making money (we’re not: it’s called the GDP), we would make layoffs (including upper management) and stop paying people until the economic conditions improved. I move that we lay off and stop paying the Congress until they manufacture something we can sell/market at a profit, i.e., JOBS. If members of Congress can only act like clowns, let them go get jobs in the circus.

Misuse of Personal Pronouns: As much as I loved the President’s first press conference for its eloquence, detail and good grammar, he got his ego shoe stuck in his mouth. He kept referring to cabinet members as “my” secretary of the treasury, etc. No they are not: the cabinet members are OURS. W’s megalomania is over: stop that shit. This is supposed to be “Yes WE can”, not “Yes I can”. And speaking of the press conference, why on earth did he snub the grand dame of the press corps, Helen Thomas, by not answering (even obliquely) her question about nuclear weapons in the Middle East? Potential grandeur was spoiled by arrogance. Huffiness ruined the moment even if he did call on The Huffington Post.

How do you spell mistake? Geithner. He is guilty of tax malfeasance, is just another over-rated Wall St./Harvard MBA banker, cannot speak in public ( Paulson did as well but looked more ghoulish) and made a presentation to the people on Tuesday that left even Krugman and Reich saying, “Say what?”, while the Dow tanked so badly that Wall St. almost shut down for the week. No details, no clarity and no…oh, no… transparency. God, I am beginning to hate that word. Transparency in government isn’t, and only means that you will get to see what the government wants you to see, when they want you to see it… and when you do see “it”, it will be too late to do anything about it. Geithner is a surefire way (so far) to take the “can” out of yes we can. Go ahead, hope otherwise if you like.

Stop mixing up terms: Governments and politicians have always played fast and loose with words and phrases, but the current torrent is becoming intolerable. Beginning with the faux financial crisis of last fall, when Paulson and company introduced TARP, now we have TALF (?), and most sadly, pork, earmarks (thank you, John McCain), stimulus and spending, and all have become interchangeable. The President has asked, with regard to the spending bill “What do you think a stimulus bill is, anyway?”, and just this morning I heard Orin Hatch (R-UT) call the entire “stimulus” package an “earmark”. This sloppy use of terminologies (employed, I think, just to confuse the public) is misleading and irresponsible. Oh, I forgot the favorite term, “Christmas tree”. Bah humbug.

Gaza, The West Bank and Israel: We certainly forgot all about that mess in a hurry. The MSM has gone stone deaf again while many Gazans are still stone dead and suffering. And amid the aftermath of that turmoil, Israel is actually trying to play at normalcy and have an election. I’m sorry, but Tzipi Livni sounds like an anorexic Italian sports car. And Obama has said zip about any of it. Maybe we should just give them a few more F-16‘s and hope the problem goes away? Calling Dick Cheney.

Bipartisanship in Congress is a Ruse: Get over it, move on, and worry about something we can work with. The only goals of the legislature are to get richer (Daschle, etc.) and re-elected. And they will pursue those goals if it kills the country (see the first paragraph), and it surely will. Dogs will not mate with cats, and elephants will not fornicate with donkeys. The only successful hybrid animal I know of is called a jack-ass and we have plenty of those in government already without encouraging more illicit and obscene behavior. Stop wasting our time with this useless palaver and do something that will move the country forward. Pining about bipartisanship will do nothing to prevent you from falling off of a cliff of philosophical, political euphoria.

One Place We All Go Wrong: Linguistically, and in terms of truth and substance, we have been served up shit stew for so long, that we are immediately and completely bowled over by the rhetoric and style we have been given by the new President. Everything is relative: in the press conference, President Obama alluded to the fact that the American people would be prone to listen to reason and practicality. He actually said that we would welcome “rational argument”. Bullshit: we are impatient, have unreasonable expectations and want immediate gratification. It may be reassuring to hear him say all of that, and it may make us feel momentarily warm and fuzzy, but it just sets up unrealistic estimations of our status quo and puts hope on an unattainable pedestal. Remember Condi Rice (where the hell did she go?) and aspirational horizons? Please don’t do that to us, again.

Breaking Bad Habits, Attracting Private Capital and Making Nice with Iran: Good grief! Why even waste time and oxygen talking about changing bad habits is Washington? That is like trying to turn an aircraft carrier around in a swimming pool. Smoking is a bad habit (and addictive), which is why the makers of nicotine patches make so much money. And like quitting smoking and drinking alcohol, bad legislative habits are bound to have a serious recidivism rate. So while it sounds good, don’t expect much “change” (I doubt John McCain will sell many houses or K St. will go away any time soon).

And in keeping with the brandishing about of silly terms, enticing private capital to buy “toxic assets” is complete and utter nonsense. This country was not built on credit default swaps and will not be saved by anyone buying them. Anyone who offers this as even a partial solution to our financial problems (Geithner) should have his/her mouth washed out with soap. No successful entrepreneur made his fortune by buying up worthless crap. If all the cars in your used car lot won’t start, you’re screwed.

The President said that some of Iran’s actions have been “unhelpful”. Well, after all the dirty deeds and conniving and political skullduggery the US has been up to in that region for decades, what do you expect? We have a lot of explaining to do.

I surely wish the new President and his (precariously co-mingled) cadre of cabinet members and advisors the best, and of course that means I mean the best for our country, as well. But, as my friend Ron and I have oft discussed, the “wheels seem to be coming off the wagon” (this morning he embellished that with “the cotter pins are coming out of the axles”) and the prognosis is not good. As I sit and write this (and watch MSNBC), a member of Congress, representing the Blue Dog democrats, has just said that if any details of the current stimulus bill are altered in the compromise discussions this week, the “blue dogs” will withdraw their support and vote against final passage of the bill. Having heard that, I will close with these observations:

Such radical, narrow and inflexible thinking is largely why we are in the mess we are in (combined, of course, with greed, avaricious behavior and irresponsible regulation: I really do think that John Boehner and Lindsey Graham have had brain damage) brings me right back to my first paragraph. But if we do indict these reprobates for their despicable behaviors and such spectacularly poor stewardship the country, how in the world will we EVER find a jury of their peers for the trial?