So Let's Raise Hell

Wall Street Died And Went to Heaven
Rodney Spoilt, a charmer and a cheat, went broke one day when several of his buncos blew up in his face. No problemo. He went to fabulously rich uncle Chauncey Cashcow and took out a “loan” to tide him over. Don’t worry, Unc said, there’s plenty more where that came from. So just go about your business, whatever it may be. And don’t forget to quaff plenty of La Tache and Margaux while you’re at it.
That’s the Vanity Fair version of the happy circumstances on Wall Street at the moment. Whatever pecuniary problems you may have, rest assured that you don’t have to worry a whit about the masters of the universe. They’ve attained nirvana. There has never been a more perfect time on the planet for the big buck boys.
The government gives them gobs of money. They invest some and keep the rest. How much? No one’s really counting. If the investments pay, they keep the proceeds. If they tank, the government covers their losses and gives them more spondulicks with which to speculate.
This ‘crisis” stopgap is supposed to be “regulated” at some time in the future. But then again it may not be--at least, not seriously so. Some Dems and virtually all Reps believe that the free market goose must be indulged, even if it now devours golden eggs instead of laying them. To do otherwise would be “socialistic.”
So it’s like Bonnie and Clyde being told that they will no longer have to rob banks because an ATM will be reserved for them to make withdrawals whenever the fancy strikes.
They say the great unwashed are seething at this scheme. Every poll and survey rates the great bank bailout as about as popular as swine flu. But Barack Obama, the guy who approved it, still tops the hit parade of politicians. And there are naught but scattered protests out in the heartland. When do folks really start putting their (dearth of) money where their mouth is?
A Depression baby, I was raised on tales of people who were poor but politicized. Their activism was the sunlight glinting through the gray clouds of misery. Everyone was marching, picketing, sitting in, throwing rent parties, planting veggie gardens, joining movements. When families were dispossessed hundreds showed up to defy the sheriff and move the furniture back into the house. It was all very social, if not to say socialistic.
Now it seems everyone is having their own private little depression alone at home. The jobless and foreclosed are mistakenly blaming themselves instead of the system. Or they think a rising stock market is a sign of recovery. Or they’re hoping that Obama, Geithner, Summers, Goldman and Sachs will make everything okay again. Or, worst of all, they’re paying attention to yahoo magpies like Beck, Limbaugh and Hannity who will only lead them deeper into the slough of stupidity. Come on, people. The least you can do is rent the Grapes of Wrath and get a bit worked up.

Hail the Philadelphia Lawyer

Great ExSpecterations
For decades lefties like me were told by our liberal friends that we should “work inside” the Democratic party rather than start third parties that can’t win but only “spoil” Dem chances for electoral success.
The part they always forgot to mention is that the Dems, faithful servants of business as usual, maintain a highly effective internal system for weeding out lefties, reformers and other such troublemakers seeking to stir their stasis. Accordingly, you don’t see the Dems giving anything more than lip service to progressive policies. And you certainly don’t get any budding Herbert Lehmans, Bill Moyers or Ralph Naders on Dem tickets. No, the Dems are far more comfortable with tired old tories like Arlen Specter, who, facing ouster by the yahoos who took over the Reps in Pennsylvania, jumped the fading GOP and joined the flourishing Dems
While the numerically determinist among the Dems cheered because they had presumably gained a veto-proof 60 vote Senate, Specter himself warned his new party not to count on it. He said he’d be his own man as he was with the Reps, where he artfully combined black-hearted reaction with yellow-bellied moderation.
At his press conference that night, Obama said the same thing. He didn’t expect a rubber stamp congress, he offered, because independent thinkers like Specter must be free to go their own way. The Reps, along with thousands of other parliamentarians from Ottawa to Oslo must have fallen off their well-polished seats.
The whole idea of party politics, as invented and refined by the Brits four hundred years ago, was to whip members into line to get the party’s program passed. This is exactly how the Reps, under the ruthless Tom “The Hammer” DeLay, ran congress in the Bush years.
Obama said that because the Dems have no actual need for such discipline. That’s because they don’t really have a program to pass. As I never get tired of noting, the Reps stand for business and the Dems for as usual.
Take a close gander and you’ll see that Obama’s domestic initiatives, with the exception of his gift to Wall Street that keeps on giving, are, in the words of the immortal Billy Dannreuther in Beat the Devil, more pomp than circumstance. And even these proposed “changes,” as we are constantly reminded, are subject to Obama’s exquisitely pragmatic sensibilities (Google pragmatism and Obama and you’ll get a half million results).
So the sere Specter should fit in just fine with the Dems. And if Obama ever needs a shamelessly implausible alibi, excuse or cover story, recall that Specter authored the preposturous “magic bullet” theory in the JFK killing.