Something's going on. The "reality based" community (you and me as representative) is scratching its head. Can Bill O'Reilly finally be getting at least a part of what is driving this country down the shitter? Can Mr. Ideology (to be kind) finally be coping with the obvious, and has the obvious finally become too, like, obvious for even the most far-out wingnuts not to recognize it?
Consider O'Reilly's latest [http://www.billoreilly.com/...]column on two of my favorites: Exxon and its former CEO Lee Raymond - "I think he's a greed-head", says Bill. I believe that what the Republicans, Exxon, Citicorp, Wal-Mart and their ilk represent is a distortion of capitalism; with Bush as its enabler, we are losing the broad-based economic battle, difficult to summarize here, but back to Bill.
What the American oil companies are doing is exploiting the uncertainty in the world. Every time the nutty Iranian government threatens to kill the Jews or the Americans or whoever, speculators bid up the paper price of a barrel of oil.
flip...
Oil companies? Exploiting? What is this guy, a closet Socialist? Then he tries to narrow it down: it's not the system, it's those speculators, those motherfuckers:
These speculators operate in the so-called commodities markets. They gamble on where the price of oil and other tangible assets will be months from now. These Vegas-type people sit in front of their computers and bid on "futures" contracts.
Every time the oil company executives, guys like Lee Raymond, see these people bidding up oil "futures," they order their retail gas station owners to jack up prices to you. Supply and demand my carburetor--this has nothing to do with the free market.
If you don't believe me, try to start your own oil company. Just try. The government has to approve almost everything these conglomerates do, and there's no room for any "startups."
He seems oblivious to the contradiction that first, the government controls everything, but then these speculators are out of control. He's starting to agree with me, in parts, because there is little that is organic in corporations and systems, but humans, and their greed, are very organic.
O'Reilly then goes Robespierreian and Pat Robertsonian at the same time:
In the time of the French Revolution, Lee Raymond and his $400 million pension would be running one step ahead of the guillotine. But today, some in America admire Raymond and support his unbelievable compensation.
But to those of us who really understand what's going on here, Raymond and his ilk are hurting the country and the government is their enabler. Talk about gas pains. There isn't enough Alka-Seltzer in the world.
So, death threat/implication to a corporate leader, collusion and speculation driving the economy, out of control bad guys ripping us off, a bloated aristocracy living in luxury after they fucked us over.
Why is he doing this?
Are the Republicans signaling that they are changing tactics, and a new grand strategy will follow?
Is the scenario now that the corporations have their benefits locked in legislatively, and that the Republicans can now play on the short memory of the American voter and run against the corporations?
This may be the first shot in a new battle.