Image credit: St. Bernard Rescue Foundation, Inc.Yes, I haven't been writing much lately. You'd think I would, what with the showdown with Wall Street that's looming, if you believe what you read in the press these days. Then there's all that stuff going on in Afghanistan.
The truth is, I just don't see much point. The Democrats are pretending they're going to reform the finance industry. The Republicans are pretending that what the Democrats want to do will destroy our civilization for reasons that have nothing to do with why it will actually destroy it. The press, often as not, will breathlessly report the press releases and quotes of the major players, none of whom gives a shit about the rest of us.
It's a replay of the health care "reform" effort, and it will probably play out the same way, or worse. The end result is that nothing will really be changed, but lots of people who ought to know better will claim that they feel better already. On that front, Murray Waas wrote yesterday about how the insurance companies are continuing to do the same things they were doing. Ian Welsh explained yesterday how that will likely continue. Too bad I didn't see that coming. Oh wait, I did see it. Too bad no one wanted to believe it.
As for Afghanistan, it's costing so much that California could balance its budget if it were allowed to keep that money. Nothing of any use will happen there for all the money we're spending.
The common thread in all this, of course, is the complete unreality that pervades the process. The reason was summed up nicely by The Nation's Chris Hayes in this video interview with Lawrence O'Donnell:
Like the man said, DC is so corrupt that it can't help but do the wrong thing. The only truly extraordinary thing about Hayes' observation is that it was made on a television news show. Glenn Greenwald adds:
To which I'd add the supposed progressive organizations that continue to send me ridiculous e-mails like this one from Blue America yesterday:
Beltway denizens play various assigned roles -- this one reads from the Journalist script, that one poses as a legislator, this one's a Democrat and that one's a Republican, the one over there is a regulator, this one is a lobbyist, etc. -- but they all feed from the same trough, and their sole allegiance is to their decadent, insular, endlessly nepotistic, and deservedly dying pseudo-aristocratic culture, and to one another.
Various Matters
Nancy Pelosi has been fairly effective at moving legislation through the House. The trouble is that it's been largely legislation that isn't doing us any damn good. The health care bill the House passed died in committee. The other legislation is mostly going to die, or already has, to be replaced by even more useless and corrupt versions that the Senate has concocted. She refused to consider impeaching George W. Bush, and thus gave him and Barack Obama carte blanche to do whatever they want in office, no matter how many laws or Constitutional principles they violate.
I can't think of a better House Speaker in my lifetime than Nancy Pelosi. It would be a real tragedy to see all her efforts to move the country in a more progressive direction, and to move the government in a more transparent and ethical direction, go down the drain in November. And it could happen. If the Republicans win enough House seats Nancy will lose her Speaker's chair and the country will be saddled with the most reactionary and corrupt Speaker in contemporary history, John Boehner.
In short, she peformed the functions of her office very well, but never stood for anything that would make her country a better place. That's Washington in a nutshell these days, because that's as good as it seems to get.
How much worse would John Boehner be?
The progressive organizations, for the most part, are no use either. They've debased themselves so thoroughly now that no one with any sense will trust them, at least until they've managed to do something useful.
All I can do right now is just stand back and watch the spectacle of people getting worked up over all this nonsense. It's clear that whichever party is in power right now, there won't be any progress. The people who are there are, for all intents and purposes, interchangeable now. They have made themselves a profit center for the finance industry, the defense industry, and the megachurches.
Poke me in the ribs when something useful happens. Meanwhile, I'll be playing with this stick.
Afterword: In a poignant example of the incompetence of progressive organizations these days, the unsubscribe link to Blue America consists of a single line:
Kinda says it all, doesn't it? These guys haven't managed to elect an effective congressman yet, at least, if "effective" means having a positive influence on government policy.
String index out of range: -1
3 comments:
Agreed Cujo. Just want to add that because of this is why we are so screwed. Our side has done little for me and others like me. Wait until the crazy bastards gain back control and watch legislation be passed then. It will not be user friendly for the likes of us.
It used to be that I hoped the government would merely be ineffectual. That would have been a step up during the Clinton and Bush years. Unfortunately, we're at the point where the government has to do something, and it won't.
I don't know how to fix that. If more of our citizenry were usefully engaged in finding out what's going on and then insisting that things change, there might be a chance. As things stand now, though, there are too few of us.
A society that works this way cannot survive. That much is clear from our own Revolution and the French Revolution. It's clear from the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks, for that matter.
Lest anyone think I'm counseling revolution by those examples in the previous comment, I'm not. They're just examples of downfalls that come readily to mind, perhaps because, at least in the long run, the outcomes were positive. The same can't be said for other examples I can think of, like the fate of China and Korea in the 19th Century.
Stupidity has its price, and it's usually rather steep.
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