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Oligarchs Unite! by polyp.org.uk
My ex-brother-in-law, who fancies himself part of the ruling class by writing speeches for overpaid CEOs, often rushes when hitting his email "To" button. So I get unexpected, highly revealing tracts to his fat cat clients, in this case to a full-sized, strangely dissatisfied oligarch. From the tone, it looks like brother-in-law pays homage to his contact's angry frustrations with the dismal GOP field and "liberal" media bias. Other than fixing obscurities and deleting pathetically dumb jokes, here's the misdirected email. Mum's the word.
Dear JD:
Of course, we high achievers deserve to be as pissed off as those raucous street protesters. And high time to counter Occupy media stories that blemish the prominence of real job-creators. People talk like love or faith or sunlight run the world when we know hard cash, investment capital, and fixed commissions on transactions rule. Where would we be without our government-buoyed, national financial services company? Like you said once, in the freakin' poor house. Don't malcontents know that attacking Yankee enterprise, let alone equating money with the devil, undermines our exceptionalism at the top of the pyramid?
Hey, could be worse, like the violent "60's when war linked to capitalism loomed as public enemies -- and the naive were just as sure then the system would implode, like an old star. Well, that worked out well for us. Sure, let's instead reinstate wampum or banking big stones, like South Pacific islanders. Why not revive the pre-capital medieval age when autocratic liege lords boasted divine rights? Don't you just love protesters furiously networking "revolution" on Steve Jobs' toys, totally missing the irony? No greater business genius existed in our age, thus Apple now sits on $75 billion in cash.
You're right -- what's wrong with the "best government money can buy," thus awarding a bit more say to those who own a lot more assets? Fair is fair, and we like majority rule fine, like majority stock ownership in a corporation. Are we not true conservatives, replenishing the shining city on the hill established by land-, slave-, and property-rich Founders? You betcha. Better, we say, for money to rule than the "best government Rapture-obsessed, know-nothing fanatics can buy." Or the "best government racist, secessionist-extremist militias armed-to-the teeth can buy." The cash nexus tops supremacy by appetite-driven, pizza-loving, ego-maniacal politicians. Don't protesters get it? Here's the only real-world choice -- either 1) educated, well-traveled, secular, halfway tolerant CEO millionaires, OR 2) redneck, birther, nativist gangs armed with 19th C. prejudices and far more than pitchforks.
Profiting from Government
No question, JD, our richer-than-thou class needs better press, and not more of Karl Rove's silly, outdated mayhem. Did that yokel miss the memo that blatant lying went out with Dick Cheney? First, he stupidly attacks Elizabeth Warren as godmother of OWS, then bizarrely as ardent defender of big banks? Grist for her mill, say goodbye Scott Brown. Don't the zealots get the seething upswell against a business class disgraced by the mortgage meltdown, fat bonuses, and the folly of creating jobs by cutting taxes and budgets -- or especially the neanderthal Norquist idiocy all taxes are always too high? What about good fixed rate taxes, not just Social Security or Medicare, but state sales tax or those on alcohol, tobacco, and gasoline?
If we're not careful, another New Deal-style uprising will trim our sails, reducing all our investment risk-taking to robber baron greed. And yes, more GOP nomination goon shows, flush with charlatans, hypocrites, flip-floppers, celebrities, and un-housebroken know-nothings, only keep Obama in the White House. Can you believe our guy Romney is getting elbowed out by that self-serving, self-absorbed, self-defeating political assassin called Newt Gingrich? Our business leverage loses out when the Koch Bros. or Newt speak for us, like that blather about abolishing child labor laws and, worse still, forcing poor kids to be janitors. And he's the "intellectual" in the field? Gee, how did Rove miss that zinger?
Say what you will about our charm-challenged Romney, he's already made his bundle, unlike the grasping, elitist Newt, and he's enough of a democrat to change position after sniffing out polling. Weird as it is, public opinion trumps Gingrich's multiple personalities, and which aspect of his demagoguery will surface. His serial hypocrisy, like taking Freddie Mac millions as an "historian," gives not just lobbying, but our favored "pay to play" arrangement a bad name. Can you imagine Newt, encrusted with countless marriage, money and ethics scandals, playing well against the scandal-free, goody-goody Obama?
Further, after three years, if Tim Geithner the Wall Street banker stands as the great Obama embarrassment, then we must give this slick interloper credit. Plus, V.P. Biden hasn't commandeered the government, like that wingnut Cheney, nor plugged friends in the face. Of course, our club members talk up Obama as governing "from the far left" -- sure, if you ignore TARP, bailouts, interest-free loans, toothless regulations or a steadfast refusal to mess with our business as usual.
Holding Our Own
Looming over everything is how does the big, bi-partisan money business party hold its ownership while idiotic wannabes shred the very government that's so good to us? Sure, folks hate taxes but it's been years since we put in more than we got out. We'll have to face a growing problem, though, as old-time Republicans, even party operatives like Mike Lofgren, bolt the GOP because the clowns on top "may be as crazy as their statements indicate." Check out his shocking sayonara.
Truth is, when unelectable zealots like Bachmann, or empty vessels like Perry, or con artists like Cain take center stage, the duller Romney fades like yesterday's sunset. So, if we ruling class are supposedly in charge, why are idiot defenders of crony capitalism turning the debates into debacles? Plus providing too much easy fodder for the Occupy types -- and we don't prosper when our guys are ridiculed, night after night, by the likes of Jon Stewart.
Whatever the backroom GOP nabobs think they're doing right is boomeranging. Hear the gloating from MSNBC's Chuck Todd on Friday: "It's been [Obama's] best week, perhaps in two years ... And they haven't done anything. Right? It's just been Republican on Republican crime." Further warming Obama campaign staff, Todd added, "this is great [for Obama] because Romney is moving to the right to try to stop Newt. And so, even if he becomes the nominee, he's got like a longer path back." Only months ago, the besieged Obama looked like easy pickings, a loser if we could promote anyone halfway respectable.
We don't stay on top by backing losers so that means reconsidering the Kenyan socialist Muslim as our safest bet. Ouch, but at least we know the right-centrism we are buying -- and a sane pro-capitalist president outpoints an unpredictable, loony Gingrich posing as the new Reagan. Newt would be Cheney without a heart condition as president. Sure, some of our club members may be arrogant and full of themselves, but we're not stupid enough to write off an entire election -- or to think Gingrich the new messiah. After all, if we don't run the show, who does?
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