Given the current situation, I've been cheering myself up recently by reading about the Great Depression. Like us,they had self-serving idiots in power but, for the most part, everybody survived (until WWII came along and 'fixed' the economic downturn and population pressures). Two books that I especially found myself drawn to were Studs Terkel's Hard Times and James Grey's The Winter Years. Different styles and different countries but both straightforward and though provoking reads.
Terkel leads off his chapter on the high life with this classic written by Lew Brown in 1931 which is as relevant now as then.
'Life is just a bowl of cherries, Don't take it too serious, Life's too mysterious. You work, you save, you worry so, But you can't take your dough when you go-go-go, So keep repeating it's just the berries. The strongest oak must fall. The sweet things in life, To you were just loaned, So how can you lose what you've never owned. Life is just a bowl of cherries, So live and laugh at it all.'
"In America, anybody may become president, and I suppose it's just one of the risks you take." - Adlai Stevenson
Nobody likes a smartass. They'd rather vote for somebody dumber than them. Hell, I work for somebody dumber than me and I wouldn't vote for them unless I could pick their execution method. Why in God's name would you want somebody lower than you on the Great Chain of IQ deciding anything important?? The Stupids should be left to what they do best (like sweeping floors or plunging toilets) and not running for the highest (and second highest) office in the land.
Picturing McCain and Palin in office is like some kind of nightmarish version of Dumb and Dumber come to life.
I wonder who's going to get the worse end of this conversation??
My prediction is that the Prince of Darkness will probably be sitting in the corner hacking away at his wrists with a razor blade after about ten minutes of Goldstein's self-consciously clever banter.
George Carlin: Education and the Owners of America 4:41
Man, I really found myself getting all verklempt when I watched this on YouTube.
George hits the nail on the head and he hits it really damn hard. Things are really going to Hell in a colostomy bag right about now and the public is too stupid or apathetic to do anything about it. But it's not just normal stupidity that keeps them down, it's stupidity that is actually built into the system to keep people from questioning why everything is so screwed up. Nothing like the fact that the captains of business are driving the economy like a bunch of drunken teenagers with a stolen vehicle to keep the public distracted from the bigger picture. And then there are those military conflicts that the US keeps getting into... (And now Palin wants to get into a scrap with Russia. Jesus H. Christ, pick one fight at a time ... and try to stick to small countries that can't fight back. Like Iraq. Wait, lets try that again. Like Iran. Or Russia. Maybe the US should finally give into their imperialist instincts and invade Canada again. The last effort didn't go so well but I'm sure some downsized Wall Street spin doctor could rationalize it to the rest of the world.)
The facts that Carlin presents are structured like stand up comedy but you can't do much but chuckle nervously because you know that they're all too true. As George said, "They want your retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street." Our benevolent employers, who established retirement plans for their employees have suddenly decided to unpack them and take back their contributions. It's only slightly less appalling than Wal-Marts abuse of the dead peasant laws in the US of A to profit from their employees dieing.
What would George Carlin do? More importantly, what would he have to say about last weeks bail out of Wall Street? Bush and his cronies have really put the biscuit wheels on the gravy train one last time. Most presidents make some attempt to leave a legacy but Bush just appears to be trying to milk the American public one last time before the ride him our on a rail.
The legacy of the Bush administration is going to be one of jobbery and ineptitude writ large. And if things go really wrong America will see even more maverick economics courtesy of John McCain. I was looking at a textbook on white collar crime today and happened to notice that McCain played a supporting role in the Charles Keating S & L deregulation scandal in the 1980s. McCain didn't care about the American workers any more twenty-five years ago than he does today.
