Don’t be angry.
I keep telling myself that, each time I sit at my computer to write something about the state of the country.
Let go of the anger.
I feel it rising inside of me, like a slow boil, someone has a flame just below me, and I feel the temperature rising. I’m fanning myself to cool off, but the fire burns below, and the warmth is gaining.
Maybe I’m describing the tempered feelings of the masses, who spend their time hoping for the best, working hard to get ahead, and keep spinning their wheels to no where.
For a long time, no one spoke to the realities felt by the average American. The media from on high dictates the dialogue on a regular basis. In their lofty towers, they tell us the official stories we are supposed to accept. Beneath it all, something disturbs us, but we cannot figure it out. Pop another pill and go back to your regularly scheduled program. Go play some Angry Birds, you’ll feel better soon enough.
Blame The Lazy Poor, living off of YOUR hard earned tax dollars. Blame The Terrorists, who are plotting endlessly to kill you and your family because they hate your freedoms. Blame The Illegal Immigrants, who are here to steal your jobs. Blame The Other Party, because they don’t care about Our Party, Our America. Our side is Right. They are Wrong. Look at how they fight each other on our TV screens.
Meanwhile, the country is falling apart, literally. There are over 65,000 bridges in need of repair in this country. http://www.usatoday.com/... Roads are such a mess in some areas that they are turning them back into gravel. http://www.texastribune.org/... While other countries are leading the way in quality and advancement of transportation, we are sadly lacking. Public schools are limping along, more worried about test scores that enriching inquisitive minds. And now, our government can’t seem to get it’s act together, so it is planning on shutting down. Good jobs are becoming harder and harder to find. Workers are more productive than ever, and making less than ever.
Yet for the Good Ole Boys Club on Wall Street, things are better than ever. Gee, those guys are just so smart. How do they manage to do it? Just a few short years ago, they brought this country, hell, the world, to the brink of complete financial collapse, and now, they’re all back to living large with nary a slap on the wrist. They’ve got financial “regulators” in their back pocket, lobbyists up on The Hill ensuring that the administration and Congress is taking good care of them, and all the bull shit nonsense they put us through just a few years ago is still going on. Not only that, but they’ve got their media minions doing their bidding, once a celebrated dance of smoke and mirrors, now has become such a blatant display of ass kissing it’s as if they permanently have brown shit smudges tattooed on their lips.
See? Hard for me to not be angry at the sycophant suck ups we’re witnessing regularly in the media who not only defend these criminals who should all be in prison for the atrocities they’ve committed against the trusting population of this country, but who shower them with such overblown adulation it regularly brings up the vile in the back of the throat.
Ok, so maybe you think I’m being a bit harsh. Cool your jets, girlfriend! Don’t get your panties in a wad! It’s just how the game is played! These guys are experts in their fields! Who else could run these big banks, no one else has the know how and talent, that’s why they deserve those big ass bonuses!
Yeah, yeah, sure, sure, while mom and pop are having their retirements swindled, while we’re finding out 401k’s were a big scam, while John Arnold is running around trying to get at all the pension funds in this country, I know, I know, who am I to get angry at the guys who are just better at playing financial chess than the rest of us?
Let’s face it, America, these guys (and I’m sure many ladies out there, I’m sure criminal banking behavior is an equal opportunity exploitation game) have had it out for us for a long time. Deregulation and loopholes are their specialty. If you want some bad banking back round, just go here and read everything Matt Taibbi has written about the financial crisis. http://www.rollingstone.com/... Matt ahem, I mean Mr. Taibbi (hey, considering the work he’s done in pursuit of the truth about the financial madness and in defense of the American Public, I adore this man so much I’d practically offer to bear him children, or at least be on a first name basis..hopefully..) has done the work that was desperately needed to inform us as to the calculated behind the scenes schemes and misadventures of the Wall Street cronies.
Still, girlfriend, why so pissed off?
Oh, let’s just take a look at some of the brown nose ass kissing that’s been in the news lately. Today, we had Alex Pareene on CNBC in a 3 to 1 take down when he dared challenge the greatness of Jamie Dimon. http://www.salon.com/... Never mind the role Dimon has had in ripping off America, he’s making money for stockholders and shares are up, so he’s a hero to the small bubble of the money markets. It’s amazing how criminal behavior is defended when there’s money to be made. It’s like DeNiro defending Pesci in Casino for all those bodies buried in the desert outside of Vegas, no one complains as long as the big boys back east are seeing big dollar signs.
That’s not the worst of it, though. Didn’t you know the head of Goldman Sachs, one of the worst offenders of the financial crisis, Lloyd Blankfein, is only “doing God’s work?” Or that what Wall Street has really been doing, despite all facts to the contrary (facts is a loaded word on Wall Street, I’ve heard) is that they are responsible for LIFTING people out of poverty. http://www.cnbc.com/...
Mr. Blankfein, I’d love to see your data on that. Oh, or maybe you believed that your fellow Wall Street criminal cohorts were living in poverty conditions before you doled out $16 BILLION in year end bonuses?
That must be it.
Or how about the column by noted member of the Ayn Rand Institute and previous “associate” of Ayn’s, Harry “Bite Me, Poor People” Binswanger claiming that not only should the 99% be giving back to the 1% for all that they do for them, but that Blankfein has done more for mankind than Mother Teresa. http://www.forbes.com/... He also believes that top earners should be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. It’s as if they’ve turned the “let them eat cake” into a whole new level of grossness, like eat the cake and then eat the shit that results from it, and smile and say thank you sir for every big brown bite.
If you think this is bad enough, don’t forget the CEO who was bailed out by OUR tax dollars complaining that the anger directed at Wall Street bonuses are equal to the lynchings that went on in the Deep South. Yes, poor Wall Street banksters are feeling much like a black man hanging from a large tree being hung to death just because of the color of his skin. http://billmoyers.com/...
Oh, the woes of those who live in their insulated bubbles of money fraud. How they reek of the lies and deceit perpetrated on the weak and those in need. The financial crisis was equal to the Great Depression, and yet the celebrations on Wall Street seem to be not only a continuous backslapping grandstanding in the face of those who are still suffering extreme economic downturn, they might as well be slapping us all in the face with their hundred dollar bills. http://www.usatoday.com/... While it’s Champagne and Caviar dreams for those in their big glass towers, the real hardships for ordinary Americans never get much coverage in the Wall Street crony ass kissing newsrooms. http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/...
Hmm. Anger justified.