Bi-party Sin

You want me to say something. About the financial crisis. Why, I wonder. This is a political blog. Didn’t you hear the news? The financial crisis is above politics. Politics has nothing to do with it. It’s time to be bi-partisan. We’re all Americans. We all live in the same world; we don’t want to see it go down.

Oh, we don’t? Some of us seem to think: better the world go down than I lose my job. Others seem to think: here’s my opportunity to blackmail the world, to hold it at gunpoint so I can get my little piece of the payola – say that park with my name on it. Still others want to punish the rich guys even if the rich guys have to sell one or two extra homes, while they’ve got to go live in a box on Broadway.

It’s a joke, isn’t it, the way they keep blaming each other back and forth? Well, here, unfortunately, I have to come out on the side of the hated Republicans, for one simple reason. I’m a simpleton, I admit it; I like simple reasons. Wanting to let poor people live in houses just like all the rest of us is a Democratic concept. The Dems are the good guys, remember? The Republicans are always in there trying to ruin it for the little guy. So why should they want to pay his rent in a house he can’t afford?

But by now, that’s a big SoWhat? We have to do something. And do you know what our representatives are doing? They’re trying to squeeze their own pet bills into this overwhelmingly important one. Items they know the other guys would normally have to reject. It’s business as usual down in Washington. Oink! Snort! Snurgle! We do love that pigmeat.

Gimme, gimme, gimme. And they’re getting.

Remember when we used to laugh at Russia because there was only one candidate running in their elections? We have two. And we’ve convinced ourselves that makes it better. Yet these two parties, together, have ruined us.

Left/right, blue/red, Dems/Reps, donkeys/elephants. Two points of view. How come no more? Two points of view is a tug of war. Three points of view is a round-table discussion. You Dems, do you ever listen to Ralph Nader? The media has shut him up tighter than a … never mind. Tight. He’s been anti-corporation, anti-Wall Street, pro-people, from the start. He’s the only one with anything to say on the matter. And they won’t let him say it. Do you know the debates are run not by the TVstations, but by a commission, a joint commission of the two parties? There’s where it is, my innocent readers, right at the top. That’s where they’re braided, knotted, fused, married, in it together to get what they can, and to keep everybody else out.

If you don’t like Ralph, try Ron. Ron Paul has been preaching the downfall of the American economy… well, you heard him, didn’t you? Way back then when they let him into the debates. He gave real economics lessons. On the dangers of printing money. Hell, if it were up to Ron Paul, we’d all be carrying gold pieces in our cargo pants.

Here’s a plea, people. You don’t have to vote for the elephant or the donkey. Chances are, if you’re in my demographic, your vote does not count. Hear that? Your vote does not count. Your state is going for Obama, no matter what you think, no matter which lever you pull. So you are free. Free to do some good with your vote. Express your intelligence. Express your defiance of being put in your place and told to stay there. Express your outrage at how they’ve taken over the government and now are trying to take over America. Give your vote to somebody else. Nader if you like him. The marijuana party if you like them. The Green Party. The Libertarian party, BobBarrBeDamned.

Nobody’s been minding the store. The kids came in and divided up the inventory. They’re playing their own games with it. Things are breaking, getting misplaced. Lost. They didn’t take a good look at where things were, and now they don’t know where they came from.

We need to call in some outside help. Some grown-ups.

I came upon this note I wrote last winter. Or notes. It’s titled “Lessons from The Bible and Gibbon.” The first one is irrelevant, but to whet your appetite I’ll tell you what it is:

Prostitutes are powerful people.

Next: War, or at least the ability to wage war, is necessary for peace. (Recall the fate of those non-violent peoples in their little walled cities.)

And last: Anyone living in America should not be complaining. Anyone who finds fault –it’s not the fault of particular men, let alone of the country, but of humankind. Be glad for everyone who rises above and try to, yourself.

But I must leave you with some real help in these troubled financial times. Let me pass on something that a friend told me. Something to help you grasp the enormities. And all the zeroes. In hundred dollar bills, a million dollars will fit into a large attaché case. A billion dollars fills ten pick-up trucks. A trillion dollars is about 200 of those standard forty-foot shipping containers.