Us vs Them

So here's a potentially interesting thingie - al Jazeera reports a big scary story about all the mutant seafood coming from the post-BP Gulf, complete with eyeless shrimp and clawless crabs; while US Federal agencies seem a bit reluctant to tell us any bad news about what we're eating.  And I'm wondering: does a good American patriot believe the terroristy news agency or does he look to the Gubmint for reassurance?

(hat tip = Wonkette)

Give It A Rest Already

Every election cycle - actually, we're well into the Era of the Perpetual Campaign, but that's a different rant - anyway, every election cycle for at least a good 35 years, we hear the same crap: "We need the government to run like a business".  This is the dumbest fuckin' nonsense imaginable.

Think about any business you've ever owned or worked for.  Can you tell me, with even the tiniest kernel of honesty, that that business was operated as a democracy?  Think of the lightest, fluffiest management you've ever worked under; did they put their policies up for a vote?  Good management always talks about "empowering our people" and "soliciting input" on some of the more important issues, but let's be real clear; what's going on is that you're being invited to agree with decisions that have already been made, and/or decisions that will be implemented when the "labor climate is a little more receptive"; no matter what they are, and no matter how they affect you, these decisions are not yours to make.  Your participation in these decisions is always post facto.

Looking for proof?  You find a hundred people who've worked for any private company maybe 3-5 years, and I'll do the same.  We'll ask them all this question: "Have you ever been in a meeting (or in an argument with your boss) debating company policy, where the final pronouncement on the subject has been, 'Yeah well, this is no democracy'?"  I'll pay you for every "No" answer, and you pay me for every time somebody says, "Shit, that's all we ever fucking hear any more."

A business is Top-Down and Authoritarian.  It's run by Powerful Elites, chosen by other Powerful Elites, who form a Central Planning Committee that sets policy and issues commands in order to make the company do whatever Ownership wants it to do.

Are you sure that's what you want your government to look like?

This Won't End Well

From truthout.com:

A logical explanation of why true oversight hearings have continued to decline is that there is less and less stomach to hold hearings that would expose and embarrass powerful corporations and individuals who would or could become a steady source of campaign money. So, it is easier to have fewer hearings and hearings on safe subjects such as social issues and to attack bureaucracies that aren't within the political beliefs of the party in power. Meanwhile, as more and more of the federal government is contracted out to major corporations, there is less interest in exposing fraud, waste and abuse in contracting, favoritism in contract selection, and other forms of cronyism such as the revolving door.

It would be simply astounding to find no fire when there's so much smoke in the air.

Newt, Inc

   

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Get Rich By Running For Office

I'm not sure I have a huge problem with this, but there is definitely something about it that stinks just a little.

“All candidates publish books and they offer them as premiums to donors, but most candidates aren’t buying them from their own companies,” he said. “It raises the question of his campaign contributions ending up in his own pocket.”

Read all about it over at Bloomburg.

This Is What You Call A Recovery?

To go along with Bush's Jobless Recovery, now we get Obama's Wageless Recovery.  And it kinda makes sense in a weird, Compendium-of-Official-Horse-Shit kind of way.  We already have the Non-Denial Denial, and the Non-Apology Apology - now we can add the Non-Recovery Recovery.

NYT

Between June 2009, when the recession officially ended, and June 2011, inflation-adjusted median household income fell 6.7 percent, to $49,909, according to a study by two former Census Bureau officials. During the recession — from December 2007 to June 2009 — household income fell 3.2 percent.

It gets harder and harder for me to justify voting for Obama again.  I'll probably stick with him because the alternative (so far) just seems too terrible to contemplate.  That could change tho'.  Everybody has to decide; at what point are you willing just to let the fuckin' thing burn?

The Job Creators

Add this to the growing litany of Repub bullshit: "Government never created even one job."

(hat tip to John Gorman)

Part Of The Problem

A complaint that I find fairly typical on the part of a lot of Americans who consider themselves "regular folk" is that Government is filled with people they disdain as elitist, while at the same time, they spout the virtues of evolving an elite class of leaders in the private sector.

Why is Darwinism commendable and preferable in Business, but dangerous and damnable in Government?

You can try to argue that Government has the power to coerce thru the threat of violence, but I think it's obvious that as Business captures control of Government, then it acquires the coercive powers of Government and you end up with the same effect.

Again: If your basic premise is false, then your conclusion cannot be true.