THE CHICKENS HAVE COME HOME TO ROOST
Part XVII
Rise or Fall of American Empire?
Part 2
by
Doug Krieger
THE ELITES ARE THE ELITES – DON’T BE SO NAÏVE TO THINK OTHERWISE
I
get a depressing kick out of America’s quadrennial dance of the elites
attempting to identify with the multitude of commoners in the trenches of
life—you know, the millions literally breaking their backs to earn a descent
living – having to work multiple jobs with every single member of the household
toiling away to do so. Worse yet—what of them who assume that Obama’s elite
corps, including himself, are any different in their aspirations than the
McCainites who carry more of the scent than they? This leads us to Brad Reed’s
rapier.
Here’s the essence of Reed’s scathing sarcasms – a POX UPON BOTH HOUSES! But first, let me disabuse you – ALL OF YOU – that the God-like quality of being apolitical is not only the purview of the Almighty, it is the idolatrous expression of the elites; for you see, God is neither Democrat nor Republican – Labor-Liberal or Conservative – and neither are the elites! Rude awakening, isn’t it?
“But is Barack Obama really an elitist as his opponents claim? Well of course he is – he’s running for president of the United States! He wouldn’t have gotten this far in life if he’d spent the past 20 years driving a truck or moonlighting as a fry cook at Arby's. Like every other successful politician in the United States, Obama is a member of America’s political ruling class, which means that like every other presidential candidate in recent memory; he is typically insulated from the lives of ordinary people. Does Obama really have any idea what it’s like to live like a ‘Real American?’ Of course he doesn’t, and neither do John McCain and Hillary Clinton! Does any rational person out there believe that Obama, Clinton and McCain spend their free time away from the campaign trail hanging out at Jimmy Ray’s Chicken’n’Beer Depot playing darts with the common folk?
“In theory, this point should be fairly obvious. Even before getting elected, most politicians made a good deal of money in their careers as lawyers, doctors, actors or oil tycoons—you know, real salt-of-the-earth sort of work. But for reasons that have long confounded sane people everywhere, our national millionaire press corps gives positive coverage to political candidates who are the most adept at lying about their ability to connect with regular folks. And because it apparently takes too much work for our press corps to sift through the candidates’ policy positions to figure out what each of them is actually offering blue-collar voters, we don’t even get rational assessments of politicians’ working-class cred. (credentials) Instead, we get piles and piles of anecdotal evidence. (Elections in America: Millionaires Accusing Each Other of Elitism, Brad Reed, AlterNet, April 14, 2008)
Come on now, how could Obama be an elitist – man, he’s the antithesis of elitism? The elites hate this guy and are just about ready to “do something” – isn’t that the conspiratorial claptrap on the street?
“Which brings us back to the recent troubles that Obama has had lying to convince our press corps that he’s in touch with the average American. You see, Obama’s problems in this area aren’t merely confined to his statements about white working-class voters being bitter. For one thing, Obama decided not to wolf down artery-clogging piles of meat-flavored goo when he visited Philadelphia. After all, what could be more authentically American than eating your way to an early death? Also, Obama isn’t very good at bowling. Bloomberg columnist Margaret Colson said that Obama’s low bowling score was a ‘doozy’ of a mistake, since voters apparently want someone who’s good at ‘looking, acting, or sounding like the locals, eating homemade specialties, even if it’s funnel cake and smoked meat products, or wearing a Teamsters or Yankees cap for the first time.’ Yeah, Barack, come on—you don’t want these people to know that your life is a billion times more interesting than theirs! You're running for president!
“These phony proclamations of ‘elitism’ are not unique to Barack Obama, of course. John Kerry got pounded for his Brahmin ways after having the gall to windsurf. Al Gore got trashed in the press corps for sighing during a 2000 debate. Mitt Romney got pummeled for the way he ate pizza, Bush I for ordering a ‘splash’ of coffee. John Edwards? Paid too much for a haircut. Hillary Clinton? Has a phony laugh. And on and on and on and on.
“I
can’t claim to speak for Real Americans—after all, I don’t eat cheese steak or
clear brush on a regular basis—I can speak for myself when I say that I don’t
want my political leaders to be my friends; I only ask that they not actively
try to destroy the country and the rest of the world. And at this point, I don’t
care if our next president is the unholy love spawn of Richie Rich, Thurston
Howell and Charles Emerson Winchester III. As long as they can end the Iraq
war, provide national health insurance and generally make life in this country
stink less than it has under Bush, then they’ve got my vote.” (Ibid.)
Stink less? Sounds and smells a little putrid to me. And, that’s what fills her “cup of abominations” at the close of this glittering ball played out in Gotham City – the modern equivalent of Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the earth. You see, I’m not the only one exhausted by Babylon’s proclivities – NOTE: “The powerful rich get what they want” – but these “thistles” and “crabgrass” – as far as the Almighty is concerned – have been spotted “slinking away in disgrace” because it’s EXAM TIME!
Exam time? Those well dressed generators of wealth for us all – the great risk takers who explore the outer reaches of capitalism on our behalf (for without them, we are told – NOTHING would trickle down) are really all good people, aren’t they?
“What do you mean, ‘good people’!
You’re the enemy of my people!
You rob unsuspecting people
out for an evening stroll.
You take their coats off their backs
like soldiers who plunder the defenseless.
You drive the women of my people
out of their ample homes. (Foreclosures?)
You make victims of the children
and leave them vulnerable to violence and vice.
Get out of here, the lot of you.
You can’t take it easy here!
You’ve polluted this place,
and now you’re polluted—ruined!
If someone showed up with a good smile and glib tongue
and told lies from morning to night—
‘I'll preach sermons that will tell you
how you can get anything you want from God:
More money, the best wines...you name it’—
you’d hire him on the spot as your preacher!
The King James Bible calls these Wall Street charlatans “the prattler of this people” (Micah 2:11) – someone who “drips words” – just sort of oozes from their greedy lips. Of course, they have their counterparts amongst their religious counterparts who preach the same message of “everything is beautiful, in its own way” – that snappy, sappy gospel fifty miles wide and an inch deep. Man – it’s hard not to be cynical when speaking of these high-rollin’ crooks whose conscience long ago was seared by the King of Tyre:
“Son of man, take up a lamentation for the King of Tyre . . .
‘By the abundance of your trading you became filled with violence within, and you sinned;
Therefore I cast you as a profane thing out of the mountain of God;
And I destroyed you, O covering cherub, from the midst of the fiery stones.
Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty;
You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor;
I cast you to the ground,
I laid you before kings,
That they might gaze at you.
You defiled your sanctuaries
By the multitude of your trading;
Therefore I brought fire from your midst;
It devoured you, and I turned you to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all who saw you.
All who knew you among the peoples are astonished at you; you have become a horror,
And shall be no more forever.”
“Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre, ‘Thus says the Lord God:
‘Because your heart is lifted up, and you say, ‘I am a god, I sit in the seat of gods,
In the midst of the seas,’ yet you are a man, and not a god,
Though you set your heart as the heart of a god (Behold, you are wiser than Daniel!
There is no secret that can be hidden from you!
With your wisdom and your understanding you have gained riches for yourself,
And gathered gold and silver into your treasuries;
By your great wisdom in trade you have increased your riches,
And your heart is lifted up because of your riches),’”
The “Message” interpolation is a bit more colorful than the KJB – I mean, imagine God calling the King of Tyre a FAT HEAD!
Your sharp intelligence
made you world-wealthy.
You piled up gold and silver
in your banks.
You used your head well,
worked good deals, made a lot of money.
But the money has gone to your head,
swelled your head—what a big head!
(Ezekiel 28:4-5 – “The Message”)
Or
In much buying and selling
you turned violent, you sinned!
By sin after sin after sin,
by your corrupt ways of doing business,
you defiled your holy places of worship.
So I set a fire around and within you.
It burned you up. I reduced you to ashes.
All anyone sees now
when they look for you is ashes,
a pitiful mound of ashes.
All who once knew you
now throw up their hands:
‘This can’t have happened!
This has happened!
(Ezekiel 28 – excerpts – “The Message”)
“Get out of here, the lot of you!” – And, that’s apparently beginning to happen . . .
“U.S. Attorney’s Offices throughout the United States are going to be busy prosecuting mortgage fraud cases in the next few months as Operation Malicious Mortgage brought numerous arrests this past week. An FBI Press Release noted that:
‘Operation Malicious Mortgage resulted in 144 mortgage fraud cases in which 406 defendants were charged. Yesterday, 60 arrests were made in mortgage fraud-related cases in 15 districts. Charges in Operation Malicious Mortgage cases were brought in every region of the United States and in more than 50 judicial districts by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices based upon the law enforcement and investigative efforts of participating law enforcement agencies. The FBI estimates that approximately $1 billion in losses were inflicted by the mortgage fraud schemes employed in these cases.’
(Editor’s Note: Frankly, that barely scratches the surface – the figure is far in excess of $1 billion.)
AG Mukasey has not provided for a separate task force to investigate and prosecute mortgage fraud cases, (see NYTimes here) although some individual U.S. Attorneys Offices have created such a task force. (see here) The FBI Press Release does note that ‘The President’s Corporate Fraud Task Force, chaired by Deputy Attorney General Filip, is also responding to issues raised by mortgage fraud in the corporate sector.’” (Operation Malicious Mortgage, White Collar Crime Prof Blog, June 20, 2008)
But,
really, the efforts of the 400+ mortgage bandits is but a drop in the sea of
international credit markets where corruption is so rife and fraud so vast, that
what co-indicters Ralph
Cioffi and Matthew Tannin did in bamboozling their clients into believing that
these sub-prime hedge funds were in fine shape is, frankly speaking, a drop in
the bucket of this Atlantic frigidity.
“Operation Malicious Mortgage, on the other hand, involves the classic type of fraud we’re used to seeing. [Personal aside: Who thinks up these stupid names? I’ve never heard of a mortgage being malicious, even if it does come back to bite you one day.] But the victims are not, for the most part, those who are suffering from foreclosures or underwater mortgages with ballooning principal balances. Instead, they are the banks, commercial lenders, and other creditors who got taken in scams involving false documentation and inflated appraisals for the most part.
“There is an old adage that every generation thinks they discovered sex, and the same seems to be the case in the current mortgage fraud crackdown – this not a new type of crime. Does anyone remember the Savings & Loan Crisis, when the collapse of the real estate market brought to the surface any number of lending abuses? The fact that scam artists took advantage of the housing price bubble should not come as a startling revelation, and charging 406 defendants in a three-month period is a nice start but nothing to trumpet from the rooftops.
“Mortgage-related fraud is a serious problem, in much the same way that insurance fraud and shoplifting causes all of us to pay higher prices. The FBI’s assertion in a press release that Operation Malicious Mortgage will help ‘to combat the threat mortgage fraud poses to the U.S. housing industry and worldwide credit markets’ is more than a bit overblown. Even the billion dollar loss caused by the alleged mortgage frauds is surely just a drop in the bucket in the international credit markets.”
(This Is the Subprime Mortgage Smackdown? Guest Blogger, Professor Peter Henning - Wayne State Law School & Blog Editor Emeritus)
The Bear Stearns dynamic duo is but the tip of this frigid berg bouncing adrift off the Eastern Seaboard of the USA – it is, however, disgusting to witness their subterfuge (knowing full well that such “practices” are epidemic amongst “real estate brokers” who dabble in “hedge funds”).
“Meanwhile, The FBI said it has
arrested about 300 real estate brokers since March
- including dozens over the last two days - in its crackdown on incidents of
mortgage fraud. One law enforcement official put the losses to homeowners and
other borrowers who were victims in the schemes at over $1 billion.
“In a separate complaint also filed Thursday, the Securities and Exchange
Commission alleges that in the first five months of 2007, Tannin and Cioffi
‘deceived their own investors, as well as the fund’s institutional counterparts,
by fraudulently concealing from them the full extent of the fund’s deepening
troubles.’
“The complaint says that in March 2007, Cioffi withdrew $2 million of his own
money from a hedge fund without revealing it to other investors.
“‘Cioffi's clandestine redemption caused the Enhanced Leverage Fund to pay out
$2 million at a time when the markets were weak and the fund was facing another
month of losses, as well as escalating margin calls and forced sales,’ the SEC
said.
“‘Although Cioffi had lost faith in the funds, as evidenced by his own
redemption from the Enhanced Leverage Fund, he nonetheless falsely expressed his
supposed confidence in the funds, encouraging investors to add money to the
funds and attempting to dissuade them from redeeming,’ the complaint said.” (Bear
Stearns Pairs Surrenders to Feds, CBS News, June 19, 2008)
NEOLIBERALISM: CAPITALISM WITH THE GLOVES OFF
Noam
Chomsky and Robert M. McChesney in their
1999 read, Profit Over People, tagged Neoliberalism
as the culprit behind these incessant outbursts of economic globalism and the
BUBBLE BANDITS who blow these immense and vacuous financial spheres hither,
thither and yon – only to burst, affecting us all down here on the planet. I
strongly urge you to read and understand the fix we’ve gotten ourselves into
(repeatedly) and the elite propagandists who mouth the justifications in
perpetuating these criminal philosophies espoused by the merchants of the earth:
“Neoliberalism is the defining political economic paradigm of our time—it refers to the policies and processes whereby a relative handful of private interests are permitted to control as much as possible of social life in order to maximize their personal profit. Associated initially with Reagan and Thatcher, for the past two decades (now three) neoliberalism has been the dominant global political economic trend adopted by political parties of the center and much of the traditional left as well as the right. These parties and the policies they enact represent the immediate interests of extremely wealthy investors and less than one thousand large corporations.
“Aside from some academics and members of the business community, the term neoliberalism is largely unknown and unused by the public-at-large, especially in the United States. There, to the contrary, neoliberal initiatives are characterized as free market policies that encourage private enterprise and consumer choice, reward personal responsibility and entrepreneurial initiative, and undermine the dead hand of the incompetent, bureaucratic and parasitic government, that can never do good even if well intended, which it rarely is. A generation of corporate-financed public relations efforts has given these terms and ideas a near sacred aura. As a result, the claims they make rarely require defense, and are invoked to rationalize anything from lowering taxes on the wealthy and scrapping environmental regulations to dismantling public education and social welfare programs. Indeed, any activity that might interfere with corporate domination of society is automatically suspect because it would interfere with the workings of the free market, which is advanced as the only rational, fair, and democratic allocator of goods and services. At their most eloquent, proponents of neoliberalism sound as if they are doing poor people, the environment, and everybody else a tremendous service as they enact policies on behalf of the wealthy few.” (Robert M. McChesney, Introduction to: Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order, Noam Chomsky, Seven Stories Press, 1999, pp. 7-9)
And, make no mistake – this self-righteous addiction, akin to the Elegant Lady who rides the political Beast of the Apocalypse – presents herself in control and wholly able to direct the political affairs of the nation(s). She abides the singular exponent and rational solution-giver to the world’s propensity to tear itself apart (i.e., “We can avoid that if I’m in charge!”) . . . only they can keep her in balance; and, naturally, they are paid handsomely for their selfless efforts . . .
“The economic consequences of these policies have been the same just about everywhere, and exactly what one would expect: a massive increase in social and economic inequality, a marked increase in severe deprivation for the poorest nations and peoples of the world, a disastrous global environment, an unstable global economy and an unprecedented bonanza for the wealthy. Confronted with these facts, defenders of the neoliberal order claim that the spoils of the good life will invariably spread to the broad mass of the population—as long as the neoliberal policies that exacerbated these problems are not interfered with!
“In the end, neoliberals cannot and do not offer an empirical defense for the world they are making. To the contrary, they offer—no, demand—a religious faith in the infallibility of the unregulated market, that draws upon nineteenth century theories that have little connection to the actual world. The ultimate trump card for the defenders of neoliberalism, however, is that there is no alternative. Communist societies, social democracies, and even modest social welfare states like the United States have all failed, the neoliberals proclaim, and their citizens have accepted neoliberalism as the only feasible course. It may well be imperfect, but it is the only economic system possible. Earlier in the twentieth century some critics called fascism ‘capitalism with the gloves off,’ meaning that fascism was pure capitalism without democratic rights and organizations. In fact, we know that fascism is vastly more complex than that. Neoliberalism, on the other hand, is indeed ‘capitalism with the gloves off.’
“It represents an era in which business forces are stronger and more aggressive, and face less organized opposition than ever before. In this political climate they attempt to codify their political power on every possible front, and as a result, make it increasingly difficult to challenge business—and next to impossible—for non-market, noncommercial, and democratic forces to exist at all.” (Ibid.)
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