This just popped into my head; but it fits like a glove. Well, actually, RMoney is even skeeve-ier and larger-scale than the Milo Minderbinder character of Joseph Heller's satirical anti-war novel, Catch 22.
Minderbinder is a war profiteer during World War II, "perhaps the best known of all fictional profiteers" in American literature. The Minderbinder character is a “bittersweet parody“ of the American dream, both a “prophet of profit“ and the “embodiment of evil“.
Milo is a satire of the modern businessman, and beyond that is the living representation of capitalism, as he has no allegiance to any country, person or principle unless it pays him.
His most interesting attributes are his complete amorality without self-awareness, and his circular logicality in running his Syndicate.
- Wikipedia
RMoney is satire come alive. John Stewart should cover this. What's even more delicious is that, in the movie version of "Catch 22", Milo was played by the reactionary nutcase, Jon Voigt. Someone should upload some clips of Voigt praising his crooked version of capitalism and make a phony PAC ad for Romney.
If you have read Catch 22, you need no explanation about Milo Minderbinder. I have no idea if anyone under the age of thirty has ever heard of the book/movie; but it was devastating during the Viet Nam era. For those of you who haven't heard of it, I'm just going to walk through the Wikipedia article and comment on it.
Minderbinder travels across the world, especially around the Mediterranean, trying to buy and sell goods at a profit, primarily through black market channels. Everyone has a "share", a fact which Minderbinder uses to defend his actions, stating that what is good for the company is good for all. For example, he secretly replaces the CO2 cartridges in the emergency life vests with printed notes to the effect that what is good for M & M is good for the country.
This kind of "everyone has a share" bullshit is the stock in trade of the market fetishists - a bit of misdirection which hides the fact that the super rich have almost all the shares, while the bottom 80% has almost none. Milo stole the CO2 cartridges, Mitt stole our jobs.
Eventually, Minderbinder begins contracting missions for the Germans, fighting on both sides in the battle at Orvieto, and bombing his own squadron at Pianosa. At one point Minderbinder orders his fleet of aircraft to attack the American base where he lives, killing many American officers and enlisted men. He finally gets court-martialed for treason. However, as M&M Enterprises proves to be incredibly profitable, he hires an expensive lawyer who is able to convince the court that it was capitalism which made America great, and is absolved only by disclosing to the congressional committee investigating what the enormous profit he made by dealing with the Germans was.
Heller thought he was writing satire; but its today's reality. RMoney got rich destroying America's industrial base and killing the lifestyles of its middle class by making "innovative" deals with the Communist Chinese to outsource our jobs. Yeah, like Milo was being innovative taking a contract to bomb his own people.
And, you can be sure that if RMoney gets in legal trouble for his illegal solicitations of campaign funds abroad, some sharp lawyer and some well-placed bribes will win the day and he will be lionized by the GOP Congress for making a profit on a political campaign.
The exact size of Minderbinder's syndicate is never specified. At the beginning of the novel, it is merely a system that gets fresh eggs to his mess hall by buying them in Sicily for one cent, selling them to Malta for four and a half cents, buying them back for seven cents, and finally selling them to the mess halls for five cents.
This kind of financial gimmickry, buying and selling and manipulating prices all along the line through phony companies on the black market, is exactly how RMoney got rich. He is Milo.
Heller created Minderbinder's famous saying "What's good for Milo Minderbinder, is good for the country" (insert Syndicate or M&M Enterprises for Milo Minderbinder) as a parody of Charles E. Wilson, who said "What is good for the country is good for General Motors, and what's good for General Motors is good for the country" during a hearing of a Senate subcommittee in 1952. Wilson was the head of General Motors in 1952, but became Secretary of Defense in January 1953, thus being an early example of the military-industrial complex, which the Minderbinder character well represents.
The RMoney/Ryan ticket wants more and more defense spending. It wants to guarantee Israel's safety no matter what lunatic attack the head-case Netanyahu plunges into. RMoney confirmed this by visiting Israel and refusing to meet with Netanyahu's opposition. His antics in Israel violated decades of State Dept. protocol, probably involved illegal foreign contributions (see above), and made him (contrary to any previous candidate) explicitly involved in foreign policy to the detriment of the President, the State Department, and the Pentagon. But, I'm sure he figures that just like Milo he can buy his way out of any treason charges.
Just to sum up, the GOP has offered America a candidate whose behavior exceeds that of a fictional, satirical character. A candidate who makes Barry Goldwater look like a liberal Democrat. An amoral, self-centered liar and crook who justifies sedition because it is profitable.
If we can't beat the crap out of the GOP for nominating this piece of human scum and his glassy-eyed, granny-killing, Ayn Rand worshipping "sideckick", the Democratic Party should be disbanded.
Oh, as an afterthought, can we call Paul Ryan "Peter Ryan", because he has denied his god, Ayn Rand, three times before the convention has crowed? Just askin'.