This is my first whack at a diary so bear with me.
With the media and the Kososphere so pre-occupied with Ryan's economic slights of hand, fine gifts though they are to us all, methought to look into what might make him tick.
Unsuprisingly its money, dirty money. Oil fracking money.
It seems to me that it is his passion for this money that drives the love letters to himself that are his budget proposals for our fair nation.
Yesterday I read in WaPo that among his disclosed finacial interests he'd been involved with a company called Blondie and Brownie. This conjured too many images to pass up so I googled.
Well, I found me a fine lot of recipies for desert squares but it wasn't until I tossed 'Ryan' into the combo that I found gold. Black gold, Oklahoma T, as that other Jed (Clampett) would have said.
It was on this here site with the provocative title of 'Badger Democracy:Progressive Truth in Journalism.'
http://bdgrdemocracy.wordpress.com/...
You may call me cynical but you may also call me Mayor Jake, proponent of small governments, and you can follow me below our beloved orange sideways orgy of ampersands for some progressive ranting and perhaps a sober thought or two.
http://bdgrdemocracy.wordpress.com/...
This is what really opened my eyes:
Statements of Economic Interest (SEI) recently released by Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Janesville), when compared to previous years’ SEI show a clear pattern – the more influence he has on the Congressional Budget process, the more stake he (through his wife Janna (nee Little)) has gained in Oklahoma mining interests. This family interest is led by Ryan’s father-in-law, Dan Little; and is currently making millions leasing rights to energy giants engaging in extensive natural gas shale fracking.
The financial conflicts at work here are direct. Ryan’s budget gives $43 Billion in tax breaks to the companies and processes the Little family (and Ryan) profit from. The policy conflict is the expansion of fracking, which the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is promoting through powerful Legislators like Ryan.
Fracking, as I'm sure you all recall, is the process whereby the bedrock below our communities is shattered and an enema hose engaged through which toxic juices are pumped to flush oil out of the shale.
It really makes you want to go hug the nearest tree because the chemical backwash that results oozes like santorum from the ground and into the water table.
There it becomes a bigger problem for those of us exploited by the process than it is for those who profited by it, thanks to a fine foxing of the regulatory hens paid to cluck about such matters.
I don't mean to scare the children with this tale ...
No, actually that's exactly what I want to do:
Once upon a time somewhere north of Jim Thorpe PA there were rich men who, of course, wanted to be richer. Men who secretly envy China in the way they can exploit their natural resources and their population without having to trouble their conscience. There they see a more perfect form of government, better even than the flexible ethics the commonwealth's constitution allows for the matrons of municipal governance: Townships.
Up there in Ethically Impaired Township they fracked 'em up some oil. The little peoples of Appalachia rose up and said, 'We're fine with what you done, giving us that kickback, but you ain't about to dump all that santorum in our backyards are you, you shitweasels? (Or wells, or swimming pools or rivers, whatever.)
So those who Supervise Ethically Impaired Democracy up there in the rocks decided to spread the wealth and flush all the conditioned earth's excreta, after trucking it across three counties, into a stream that ran into a river that ran through Philadelphia. Contract was all signed with Morally and Ethically Impaired Township down there within communting distance of Philly when, HORRORS- some 'a those little people and a pesky press found out about it.
We all live happily ever after however because the good Supervisors of Ethically Impaired Township made a deal that trucks the santorum across state lines to another Monetarily Challenged community near you.
So this is Paul Fracking Ryan's vision of America for you, o you small persons in small towns cash strapped by the raping of the country's pensions by robber baron moneychangers like wifey's Daddy Peacebucks Little.
His economic policy is a smokescreen that further disempowers small governments during times of fiscal austerity, further loosens regulations on the despoilers of the land and lets Ryand (I love that conjunction of Ryan and Ayn Rand one of our fine wordsmithing kossacks recently coined) and his cronies laugh all the way to the bank while he is (by some at least) being seriously considered for the second most powerful position in the world.
Ya think?