The Fire In Which You Burn
Am I the only one that was stunned this morning to wake up and hear that Wall Street is having all their bad debt bought off with our tax money. I wept. I've spent this entire summer being hounded by bill collectors. I've lived in a state of fear to open my mailbox or answer my phone because I owe so much money to medical bills that I can barely catch a moment before being reminded of how in over my head I am. It never stops. Am I the only one who looks at my own financial problems and wonders where the government has been to bail me out? Did I wake up with a note taped to my forehead that read "Bills paid!"? Nope. Another day in financial hell with no life preservers.
And then I think about those who foreclosed on their homes, or whose property value is devastated because their neighbor's foreclosed home is an unkempt lot of wood stripped of copper wire. I think about those who lost their homes and how incredibly unfair it is that while they couldn't keep up on payments, they're still going to buy that house they lost back. They'll pay for it vicariously through tax dollars.
This bailout isn't a plan. It's what you do when you don't have a plan. It's what a country does when the speed and trajectory of cronyism and corporate interests approaches a singularity beyond what it can do to sustain itself. It eats itself alive.
John McCain called this mess on Wall Street a 9/11. It's not 9/11. If this were 9/11 we would be demanding the heads of those hijackers responsible. Agencies would be creating lists of the masterminds and creating strategies to smoke them from their holes and force them to stand tall. Who has demanded that level of accountability? Both parties proved this week they have only the power to buckle into the same fold.
Let's pretend this is 9/11. Let's take a look at our collateral damage. Has either party done that? Let's pretend that the Twin Towers were made of infrastructure needs and Omar Sheik Magna Cum Dipshit just crashed the plane into the building. What did these hijackers just destroy?
This took all of three minutes on Google. It was easy because having spent a trillion dollars on a pointless war there were plenty of resources on what a trillion dollars can buy. Americans, this is what we just helped the hijackers destroy in the course of a day:
From the New York Times online (WHAT 1.2 TRILLION DOLLARS COULD BUY)
"For starters, $1.2 trillion would pay for an unprecedented public health campaign...a doubling of cancer research funding, treatment for every American whose diabetes or heart disease is now going unmanaged..."
From ABC NEWS Online (HOW IRAQ TRILLION COULD HAVE BEEN SPENT)
"The Treasury could have used the money to mail a check for more than $3,000 to every man, woman and child in the United States."
But if you prefer simple examples, look no further than Ian Welsh's What We Could Have Done With the Money:
"A solar power build-out big enough to generate enough energy enough for two-thirds of all American homes.
Send 5 years worth of high school students to a University, with fully paid tuition.
Clean up and revitalize 667 rivers.
Pave every highway with 23.5-Karat gold leaf!"
I'm done with both parties. There's not going to be any Universal Health Care, no rising the poor out of their misery or providing a fair wage. These are two parties who run to their master's bell and to no one else. It showed real leadership for Obama to race to the aid of Wall Street. I'm sure the White Knight will be quick to shell out a trillion when it's your ass on the slab. Just keep hoping for him to save you. That's what hope is all about.
And then I think about those who foreclosed on their homes, or whose property value is devastated because their neighbor's foreclosed home is an unkempt lot of wood stripped of copper wire. I think about those who lost their homes and how incredibly unfair it is that while they couldn't keep up on payments, they're still going to buy that house they lost back. They'll pay for it vicariously through tax dollars.
This bailout isn't a plan. It's what you do when you don't have a plan. It's what a country does when the speed and trajectory of cronyism and corporate interests approaches a singularity beyond what it can do to sustain itself. It eats itself alive.
John McCain called this mess on Wall Street a 9/11. It's not 9/11. If this were 9/11 we would be demanding the heads of those hijackers responsible. Agencies would be creating lists of the masterminds and creating strategies to smoke them from their holes and force them to stand tall. Who has demanded that level of accountability? Both parties proved this week they have only the power to buckle into the same fold.
Let's pretend this is 9/11. Let's take a look at our collateral damage. Has either party done that? Let's pretend that the Twin Towers were made of infrastructure needs and Omar Sheik Magna Cum Dipshit just crashed the plane into the building. What did these hijackers just destroy?
This took all of three minutes on Google. It was easy because having spent a trillion dollars on a pointless war there were plenty of resources on what a trillion dollars can buy. Americans, this is what we just helped the hijackers destroy in the course of a day:
From the New York Times online (WHAT 1.2 TRILLION DOLLARS COULD BUY)
"For starters, $1.2 trillion would pay for an unprecedented public health campaign...a doubling of cancer research funding, treatment for every American whose diabetes or heart disease is now going unmanaged..."
From ABC NEWS Online (HOW IRAQ TRILLION COULD HAVE BEEN SPENT)
"The Treasury could have used the money to mail a check for more than $3,000 to every man, woman and child in the United States."
But if you prefer simple examples, look no further than Ian Welsh's What We Could Have Done With the Money:
"A solar power build-out big enough to generate enough energy enough for two-thirds of all American homes.
Send 5 years worth of high school students to a University, with fully paid tuition.
Clean up and revitalize 667 rivers.
Pave every highway with 23.5-Karat gold leaf!"
I'm done with both parties. There's not going to be any Universal Health Care, no rising the poor out of their misery or providing a fair wage. These are two parties who run to their master's bell and to no one else. It showed real leadership for Obama to race to the aid of Wall Street. I'm sure the White Knight will be quick to shell out a trillion when it's your ass on the slab. Just keep hoping for him to save you. That's what hope is all about.
