Preposterous Politics & Lemming Voters
Waking Point
by Helen Noakes
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.” —Earnest Benn
SAN FRANCISCO, CA—(Weekly Hubris)—11/8/10—So, the vote is in: America is a nation of lemmings heading for the precipice at breakneck speed. Either that or we’re a nation of idiots who have voted for the same party that got us into our current mess in the first place.
Gee, let me see. How many years did it take the Republicans to strip us of our rights, embroil us in an idiotic war—correction: two of them—destroy our economy, send our jobs to foreign lands, allow major corporations, inclusive of insurance companies, banks, and Wall Street ruffians, to run us into the ground? Eight.
But wait! I’m off by a few decades. It actually started with Ronald Reagan, who was an amazingly well-maneuvered puppet. I do believe the presidency was the best gig he ever had. I admit that he had a team of great script writers, who delivered snappy lines. I especially liked, “Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall.” Particularly since Groby had planned to do just that well before Ronnie’s so-called admonition. Anyway, said Ronnie relied greatly on his spouse’s penetrating insights, and she, in turn, on her astrologer’s predictions. It was under this same Ronnie’s reign that I first encountered homeless people on the streets of these United States. Beggars in America? I never dreamed I’d see the day! But, hey, the fat cats got fatter, and the middle class was still sitting pretty, so who cared if a few mentally challenged folks were starving on the tarmac?
Clinton came along and our economy boomed. He was and is a Democrat, if you will recall. And, just in case you may have forgotten, he handed a very healthy economy to G. W. when he took office. Actually, I do believe Clinton handed Georgie a treasury with full coffers.
G. W. just loved those full coffers and gleefully raided them like a fat kid at a cookie jar until, presto chango, there weren’t even any crumbs left to devour. Where did all those cookies go? Hell if I know? Did anyone think to check whether Georgie and his pals have any off shore accounts? Whoops! I mean cookie jars. Just a thought.
G. W. Bush, the man who would be president, would go down in American history as the guy who was voted into office by the Supreme Court. That’s a first—at least I think it is. Maybe I’m wrong, but I know I don’t remember anything like that happening before in my lifetime. Now that’s an achievement. Anyhoo, Georgie wasn’t as good an actor as Ronnie. Nevertheless, he read his lines well enough, dropping in a few malapropisms along the way (some witty soul called them Bushisms). But Georgie, of course, was not the real president; the real president was his vice president. Bear with me; I know it’s getting pretty complicated.
Now, after 9/11, Georgie decided that he’d get the bad guy who was behind that particular mass murder. He’d send troops to Iraq, where he knew that the bad guy wasn’t, and just a token force to Afghanistan, where he was told the bad guy was. I know, I know: I’m still scratching my head over that one. But wait. Wasn’t the Bush family in bed with the Bin Ladens? Damn right they were, and being honorable men, just like Brutus was an honorable man, they simply couldn’t…but I digress.
The war blazed on, our troops were killed, Halliburton, a corporation beloved of the vice president, made money hand over fist, big business was given free reign, and it was damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead, and who cares how many of those low-life, middle-class, lower-class, and just plain class-free Americans were mowed down in the process. And we voted the same dudes into office a second time. Prompting George to comment, “They misunderestimated me.”
Then along comes Barack Obama, who believes that he can use reason to deal with people who are frothing at the mouth at the idea that a Black man and a Democrat has been elected president. Now, Obama is trying, he really is, but he is operating under the misapprehension that he is dealing with “the ladies and gentlemen of the Congress.” I do wish he’d read this, because I have news for him: ain’t no ladies and certainly ain’t no gentlemen in our Congress. OK, maybe a few, but very few and far between. I’ve also got some more news for the President. You can’t deal with these folks in the way you’d deal with any logical, ethical, or intelligent human being. These people are driven by one thing, greed and a sort of caveman mentality that requires clubbing the other guy so that you can get more of that bison meat sizzling on the fire. And I am lumping both the Republicans and the Democrats into this little Clan of The Cave-Gluttons.
Maybe, Mr. President, you need to look at the way Lyndon Johnson handled Congress and the opposition. Now there was a guy who knew exactly who he was dealing with.
But the fact is that in this election, America has spoken. America has indicated that it’s stupid enough to have expected President Obama to turn the economy around in two years, an economy that took the Republicans over eight years to plow into the ground. America has spoken by asking these same Republicans to—what? Maybe these folks want them to pour salt on this fallow land so that nothing will ever grow here again. And where was America when G. W. and his gang of thieves destroyed our country? Hell if I know.
On second thought, I’m glad that those Tea Party dudes and dudesses have control. They tell us that they have all the answers. That’s surely a good thing. Let’s give them a couple of months to turn this economy around. I’m not asking them to bring us to 100% employment. I’m not stupid. 90% will do. But let’s give them a couple of months to do it, shall we folks. Let’s be as reasonable as they are.
But, should they, heaven forbid, not manage to do that. We’ll give them the two years they gave our President. By then maybe we’ll have a real third party of thinking, reasoning, dedicated, and intelligent people who have our country’s welfare in mind and don’t espouse a fanatical, racist agenda, but who are powerful enough to kick ass and take names.
In the meantime, I’ll bask in the fact that the Giants won, and that we don’t have Meg Whitman as governor of this beleaguered state.
Helen Noakes
Helen Noakes is a playwright, novelist, writer, art historian, linguist, and Traditional Reiki Master, who was brought up in and derives richness from several of the world’s great traditions and philosophies. She believes that writing should engage and entertain, but also inform and inspire. She also believes that because the human race expresses itself in words, it is words, in the end, that will show us how very similar we are and how foolish it is to think otherwise. (Author Head Shot Augment: René Laanen.)
8 Comments
Abraham Miller
Well, Helen, even when I disagree with you, I usually marvel at your insight, but this time I have to part company. This piece is long on SF-based slogans, political stereotypes and short on facts. How did we get a ton of sub-prime mortgages? In the beginning there was the Community Reinvestment Act that started with Carter and was going full throtle at the end of the Clinton era and into the Bush administration with Clinton appointees still at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Basically, the CRA compelled banks to make community-based loans, even if there was insufficient collateral for them. The FDIC published a list of banks meeting their CRA obligations, and the FDIC came down hard on those that didn’t. You can find the list on the Internet. When PNC bank wanted to expand its branches, the FDIC reminded them of their CRA obligations. How do you make loans in a community where people have sub-average income? Why you ask for less collateral and create subprime mortgages. Into the mix came Franklin Raines and Jaime Gorelick, Clinton appointees at Fannie Mae. Neither had any banking experience, but both knew how to get rich quick at tax payer expense. Compel Fannie Mae to make more mortgages and then change the compensation structure so that you get paid not on the profit but on the total volume of loans made. The oversight entity went to the Democratic Congress in 2006 and said the whole scheme was a disaster and the mortgages were worthless. What happened? The black caucus and Democratic liberals got behind Frank Raines and called this a “lynching.” Put “Maxine Waters and Fannie Mae” into You Tube and you can actually watch the hearings investigating NOT Fannie Mae but the oversight entity, with the chief officer being repeatedly called a “racist.” Talk about the race card being maxed out! And of course, you can see Barney Frank giving us reassurances that Fannie Mae was solid. So solid that Obama wants hundreds of billions AGAIN for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Raines left with 20 million; Gorelick with 12 million. You and I are holding the bag. Enter Bush’s denouement and Paulson’s (recruited from Goldman Sachs) bailout followed by Obama’s bigger bailout with Geithner (Goldman Sachs alum) shifting billions of taxpayer money to AIG which then bailed out whom? Why Goldman Sachs, of course. So tell me, why did AIG pay Goldman Sachs 100 cents on the dollar for financial paper that was worth .15? It’s OK, I do know the answer to that one. Then came TARP. Now, I have a friend who is a major shareholder in a bank that never made a subprime mortgage. So along comes the FDIC and tells his bank to take TARP money, and he says, “We don’t have any toxic assets; we don’t need it.” And the FDIC tells him he must now raise his capital requirements because they didn’t take TARP money. As I write, they (FDIC) have thirty people in the bank monitoring its capital requirements. How many do you think they have at B of A which took a whole lot of TARP money? Anyhow, Obama has talked class warfare, but his crony capitalism is no different than the preceding administration and the economy is worse off because we’ve spent a trillion dollars and Real Unemployment is still about 17%. So, let’s see the people in the city that voted to outlaw toys at McDonalds but legalize dope (toys bad; dope good), and sent Pelosi (with a 6% national approval rating) back to Congress are the sophisticates, and the rest of those shmucks who knew months ago that there is no such thing as shovel ready because they do real work and commute over real roads and bridges are a bunch of leemings who should vote for the party that gave us CRA, TARP, and is this morning printing money so fast that the commodity traders are getting rich overnight. These are the guys we should keep in office? Sorry, Wall Street exploited the subprimes. But without the Democrats and Acorn, there would have been no subprimes to exploit. I won’t let Wall Street off the hook, but somewhere some Democrat has to enunciate the sacred words “Franklin Raines.” Anyhow, want to understand Obama, research and write a column on what Michelle Obama did at the U of Chi Medical Center for 317,000 a year (she was so good that she was literally irreplaceable), and then do some research on Shore Bank and its relations to Valerie Jarett and Anthony (Big Tony) Rezko. Maybe the common guy in the Midwest understands what the people in SF are incapable of, and voted not as leemings but as people who sees main street collapsing while Wall Street flourishes and the Messiah talks class warfare but got one of the largest chunks of campaign money from…you guessed it…Goldman Sachs. Welcome to the Chicago way.
eve akel
Dear Abraham,
What have you guys done…..good or bad, except not pay taxes?
Abraham Miller
Well, Eve, first off I am not one of those guys. You have made the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent. Because I disagree with the current administration I must favor the previous one. Could it not be that I think a pox should befall both parties. But let’s nonetheless consider that when Clinton was elected in his first term, one of the major MSM outlets asked a group of leading economists what the new administration should do. Most wrote long answers that possessed multiple recommendations. When it came Milton Friedman’s turn, he responded with one word, “Nothing.” It seems the first obligation of government should be to do no harm, to get the hell out of the way and let the private economy function. Government doesn’t create prosperity. The best it can do is make it possible for the economy to work by tinkering only when necessary. Remember we were in a recession in 2000 and GWB’s tax cuts got us moving again. So, yes lowering taxes does help. JFK figured that one out back in the Sixties. This morning another six hundred billion of stimulus money was pumped into the economy, further reducing the value of the dollar. The official Chinese newspaper called it an assault on Chinese investment in this country, which is incidentally well over three trillion. Think the Chinese will be investing anymore? Russia says this debasing of the currency will lead to a trade war. Germany, which had no stimulus, is now out of the recession and reducing unemployment. I believe it is now down to six per cent. So, yes, reducing taxes and getting out of the way is a better policy. Democrats love to tout their programs which are then evaluated by intention rather than outcome. Now tell me, did compulsory busing alleviate segregation or make our cities more segregated? Republicans love to be safe and do nothing, even when something is called for as in protecting the environment. But basically both parties are committed to staying in power and using whatever tactics will keep them there and play on whatever fears will mobilize the vote. Nancy Pelosi is one of the largest employers of illegal aliens in Northern California. Think they have Blue Cross and Blue Shield? Her protection of wetlands on the Bay enabled her husband’s adjacent land to soar in value. Boxer publicly attacks the military, but her husband’s business reaps defense contracts. Politics has become the new religion and people are incapable of recognizing that their gods have clay feet. All I want is the government to get the hell out of people’s bedrooms. doctors’ offices, and pocket books, and get involved in securing the borders and the nation’s security. And I don’t want some moron genuflecting to dictators, kings, and other foreign bastards. In the middle of of a recession, I don’t want a president renting thirty elephants in full regalia so he can participate in some parade. I want a president who can stay at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai and utter the words “Islamic terrorism,” and one who can answer a question on Jihad without speaking for six minutes and say nothing.
eboleman-herring
From WeeklyHubris’s financial columnist, Sanford Rose (Dolors & Sense):
“Success has many fathers; failure is an orphan.
In this crisis failure has many fathers; success is an orphan because it has not yet materialized.
If I were to isolate a single source of trouble, it would be a mortgage banking industry, funded but mostly not owned by banks and subject to Federal Reserve oversight but not actually regulated by the Fed, which found itself, after the culmination of the refinancing boom of the early part of the decade, encumbered with excess capacity that it could not employ unless it found new customers among those who never would have qualified for mortgages in the past. It found them. It pursued them with so-called innovative deals. And, both unused to and flattered by the courtship, the customers succumbed. If I were to isolate one among many possible villains, it would be the leader of this industry, Countrywide’s Angelo Mozila.
Many other villains suggest themselves. Macroeconomic factors, such as negative real interest rates and excess East Asian saving, also played supporting roles, but if one wishes to find a single individual and the type of institution he typified,
Angelo gets the nod.”
–Sanford Rose
Helen Noakes
Thanks to all for your comments, insights, and points of view.
I believe that avarice is at the core of any economic collapse, and the seed of avarice is fear. We may seek to explain the decline of a way of life, or of an empire, with erudition and great insight, but whatever we might dress it up in, this economic slide can be traced back to that nasty, ever-present inevitable core.
Sadly, humankind has been running scared since Cain killed Abel. And while some “great minds” sought to put America at the top of the world trade community, let’s remember that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
I’m hoping that the boys and girls who run our country will grow up and face the immense task of mending our nation’s ills with a mind towards a serious cooperative effort, and not one dedicated to sticking the knife into an opponent’s back. Alas, that hope is frail.
Abraham Miller
Eboleman-Herring’s comment about Angelo Mozila is certainly on point. Whether he is the primary bastard or one of many is a hair split. Certainly he is a major villain. And we should remember that among the senators whom Mozila favored with below-market mortgage loans was Chris Dodd of the Senate Banking Committee, who oversaw the mortgage industry. And of course Mozila walked out of Countrywide with a lot of cash an no jail time. Frankly, I am for capital punishment for massive economic crimes. The greed and fraud in the sub-prime crisis produced misery the cost of which in individual and societal suffering is immeasurable. How many millions of lives have been ruined? An entire country, Iceland, has been bankrupted by fraudulent paper from Wall Street. When I worked in Washington, it was said that big business will screw you every chance it gets, but big business colluding with government will f**k you in ways you haven’t even dreamed of. Believe me, that’s not an erotic fantasy.
eboleman-herring
Mr. Miller, I WISH I could take credit for Sanford Rose’s savvy response to yours above but, please, read more carefully: Mr. Rose channeled his response to you through his editor. You might enjoy reading his WeeklyHubris column, “Dolors & Sense.” He has more sense, and cents, than most of us. eb-h
Helen Noakes
Dear Sanford,
Thank you so much for your clear, concise analysis of the situation.
I had to read Keynes, at university, but nothing he said seems to be applicable to our current debacle. Of course, his ideas are probably rusty and ready for the dust bin. As for all the economic gurus that led our country on this merry dance. A pox on them, I say!