[Cross-posted at The Left Coaster.]
Before the rush of the election overwhelms events of the last week I get to be the depressing realist before we move on, for the cute little trick of bailing out rapacious lying sickly incompetent Wall Street bankers for $350 billion to allegedly save us from something scary will have an effect on the political health of the United States, scope presently unknown, but certainly there.
$350 billion is an ephemeral, imaginary figure; originally Treasury simply made up the $700 billion number because it was large, then Pelosi chopped it in half before the House rejected it. All monetary bills are supposed to originate in the House but fuck the constitution, you know, the Senate grafted it onto an old bill, passed it, and then the House fell in line, the media still using the $700 billion figure all the while.
It probably is officially $350 billion for this year, but a check of accuracy in this regard is totally meaningless, we have no idea what in fact this will cost, the US Treasury checkbook is wide open for crooks again, and the little people have seen this act so many times not one rational soul believes any figure for current cost spit out in this nightmare. It will cost a vast fortune we do not have, only that is certain.1
The outrage of shoving billions of dollars at crooks who hold so much power over us and who have been so lavishly rewarded ranks right up there in odious, stupid reeking offensiveness with the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, and the FISA monstrosity vomited from this Executive and Congress. Sometimes it seems very hard to believe the America I grew up believing in could ever degrade to such a pathetic corpse of former self in just eight years.
As far as the bailout goes it as all so very very necessary, Treasury, Fed, Executive, Candidates and Lobbyists vociferously screamed that do nothing would imperil the faith in the US Markets. Sometimes they spoke...very...slowly since we must be so stupid as to actually believe the necessity of all this, but in the end Pelosi and Obama quite understandably fell in line, at least they were smart enough to have the Republicans walk off the plank with them this time.2
If Glenzilla has taught us anything it’s that to raise one’s voice and proclaim doom and future destruction is one of the gravest errors an American could make, and I will not be so foolishly self-defeating here. The bailout bill isn’t the end of the Republic, and I do think there’s a very good chance that after Obama wins—if he wins—the gravity of our times will allow a much more forceful agenda for change than (what I personally find to be) the pathetic half-stabbing shadow-box agenda on the Obama website.3
Because I am outraged, sickened, and discouraged does that mean I’ll stop paying taxes, vote or not obey the law of the land? Of course not. I’ll do the best I can with the duty put before me, just because the Republic constantly betrays me does allow ordinary citizens the same option, not by a long shot. Somebody has to keep the country going, Washington DC sure as hell won’t.
What is important for me to say at this bailout juncture that with this final outrage my personal lifetime experience in a Democratic America has been irrevocably smashed. I will fervently work and believe in a possible Democracy for my daughter, but in my time and place on the planet, the only life given to me, alleged stewards and leaders of America held the responsibility of the Republic and Democracy and completely squandered it.
My vote in the 2000 election was disenfranchised (spare me the nauseous technicalities, reality utterly dictates it), 9/11 was allowed to happen, war for lies unleashed, utter misery implacably descending for the wounded, for those with no health care, for the ever-growing hordes of the poor and displaced in our wrecked economy.
I used to love fishing every year, but now all the steelhead, salmon and rock cod are gone. I used to love flying before it turned into a disgusting, degrading experience of fear and repression.4 I used to vote and completely know it would be counted, unquestionably, with effortless complete faith. I used to gaze around the perimeter of the Bay and not know that Cindy Sheehan and Mary Tillman were in my line of sight, my heart didn’t break for them or feel shame that whatever puny problems I had were tiny compared to the hell America delivered for their lives.
It will be up to all of us and President Obama (please God) to get what parts of the Democracy back we can, if we can, yes. Just know that for this American my country is completely gone, and I’ll do anything not to die in old age and realize I didn’t do everything in my power to get it back for my daughter’s generation. It would have been nice if the generations before me felt the same way.
[1] Anyone brave enough to defend the integrity of Treasury figures and spending need only look at the current behavior of one AIG, the massive insurance company recently bailed out with a $75 billion Treasury loan ($75 billion here, $75 there, what the fuck, you know?). To the shock of business analysts and absolutely no one else, AIG has burned through $69 billion of that loan in a week. How sure we all are that Treasury knows what it’s doing.
[2] Leadership and proponents of this utter outrage of insanity now get the lovely, lovely experience of recovering from panic, for if anything defines stupid panic it’s the Wall Street bailout. Because it was ultimately a desperate political payoff totally ignoring the negative views of at least 200 economists it may not work, if in fact the actual federal mechanism can be built at all. Welcome to the world of socialism for greedy lying stupid bankers on the fly, good luck with that one. We’re watching.
[3] There isn’t 40,000 words of space here to properly define a correct liberal agenda for 2009, but suffice to say I will know change has come to America when the Department of Defense has it’s budget chopped in half to save our asses. I have four words for anyone who attempts to convince change has occurred without that accompanying fact of reality: please stop bullshitting me.
[4] Perhaps the most sickening, enraging fact of the Bush regime will be that little trick of the dreaded No Fly List: if you got on, there was never, ever a way to get off. It was and is a viciously stupid, repressive tactic of rank fear that makes me want to vomit and throw punches every time I think of it. Nazi and Fascist governments behave this way. I will never, ever forgive the Bush leadership for so stupidly taking us on this path of fear, never.