09 October, 2013

Gator People Live In The River: October Score Card (For Those Not Keeping Up)


 Politics have no relation to morals. -- Machiavelli

Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists. - John Kenneth Galbraith

I've been watching the shutdown with interest and looking for those thin spots in the large story through which one gets a glimpse of what is really going on.

Trans-oceanic trade deals. Billions to the corporate-military complex prior to the shutdown. Military incursions into Libya and Somalia. A Utah GOPer exploring the possibility of selling public land (the parks) to private companies (land rapists) so that the government doesn't have to be saddled with the responsibility.The GOP taking full blame for the shutdown -- or credit depending on which America you happen to live in. Even the piranha at Fox News have moved away from their compromise of calling it a "partial shutdown." Guess no one wants to watch it, anymore.

But I suppose no one suffers like the middle class*... right, baby?

I digress.

The significant and most important thing for people to remember that in spite of the government shutdown, business is still being conducted. If you follow the money carefully, you can see that our corporate overlords are doing fine. Just fine. No worries there. So you can let loose that sigh of relief.

It was said of Mussolini's Italy that, at the very least, he kept the trains running on time.  Franco oversaw a genocide driven cultural reboot that unified Spain ... more or less.  And no, I'm not comparing Obama to Hitler. Hitler, for all of the atrocities he was responsible for, was a lousy political leader over the long run. He was tall on rhetoric and short on sanity.

Actually, he was just short. So, so short.

Our political system is designed so that every four years, we get to elect a new lobbyist-in-chief. The Beltway Bozos can run for office until someone pries their entitled executive washroom keys out of their cold dead hands. The Machination -- otherwise known as the bureaucracy -- keep the wheels moving... even if they can't keep the buses running on time. (And let's be honest: they don't want to. Only the poor ride buses and this country has proven consistently that it does not care about the poor.) Bureaucrats are not elected. The upper level eaters of children are appointed. The rest are hired to take the flack.

With all of this uncertainty and potential for stagnation, though, there is one constant upon which we, as the American People, can rely.

That's right. We can always depend on our multi-national corporate overlords. They aren't going anywhere. They have the process completely under control. The lights will stay on. The idiot box will continue to give us Duck Dynasty updates. Move along. There is nothing to see here.

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*Middle Class as defined by the concept of negative space. While there are some compelling arguments to suggest that being middle class is largely an identity concept, keep this in mind: it began with easy credit. Also keep this in mind: if you are two paychecks or less from not being able to pay your bills, you are not middle class. You are the working poor. That you may have a really nice flat screen tv and the NFL Ticket from Directv does not make you otherwise.