From VPs to Official Murder—I'm rambling tonight

The longer one thinks about the VP debate last Thursday, the more bizarre Sarah Palin seems. Look at her often disconnected responses, her aw shucks attitude, and her constant "mavericking" in the debate and it's easy to see she is just winging it. There used to be a "no-nothing" party in this country (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_Nothing), back in the 1850's or thereabouts—she will be a no-nothing vice-president.
Oh, maybe I'm wrong, I forgot, she reads a lot of newspapers and magazines—"all of them, any of them, any that have been in front of me all these years."
Reassuring.

The only reason she is accepted at all by the Republican Party is because Johnny Mac is not ratcheting up the electoral energy. Johnny Mac looks like he is just about hanging on. Sarah is at least perky. Also, Frank Rich says in the New York Times that Sarah Palin has "more testosterone than anyone else at the top of her party."
Well, I wouldn't know about that, but she's not afraid to just leap in when she sees a chance to move up in the world. I guess you could say that's "ballsy."

In the meantime we hear that Palin failed to report travel reimbursements on her tax return. "Well doggone it, gosh, I must have forgot. That happens to us ordinary folks sometimes down here on Main street."

Anyway, mavericks don't have to declare everything.

Whoa, the house finally passed that bailout, uh, I mean rescue plan. Minor change—it's now up to $800 bil (got a lot more expensive over the course of the week). Seems like they had to address some of the representatives concerns before they would come over to the pro-bill side.
Usually this is called a bribe.

Adam Davidson talking to Ira Glass on This American Life:
"While Congress has been debating the Paulson plan, there is another financial rescue option that many economists prefer. Most economists whom Davidson and colleague Alex Blumberg have spoken with say a stock-injection plan is clearly better. Instead of just taking toxic assets off of banks' books, the U.S. government would directly inject capital into ailing firms. In return, the government — and taxpayers — would get an ownership share in the firms equal to the amount of their investment."
Yeah, so how come this isn't the focus of the bill? It seems like some of our conservative brothers think this is "socialism."

Ooohh, socialism! (Hold out your arms and use your forefingers to make a cross here).
We can't have that. Nuh-uh, not for America. Except of course if you're a corporation that has effed up egregiously, then it's shoring up capitalism, if the gov't. gives you money. If they give some to me, then it's socialism. There folks, you have the two terms defined.
Socialism—giving money to poor, indebted, unemployed me.
Capitalism—giving money to corporations who need to reward their CEOs with big severance packages after a couple years of effing up.
Succinct, and to the point. Now you can skip that class at school.

Socialism, otherwise known as "government actually doing something for its citizens" has gotten a bad rap in this country. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, corporate vultures like Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick and J.P. Morgan (may their names be forever despised) used this term to scare all the Anglo-Saxons when those immigrants from Ireland and Europe started bitching and moaning about how they were treated. Ungrateful wretches. Then we had occasions like the Haymarket massacre in Chicago. This was blamed on anarchists, but the police were there to make sure the people supporting striking workers knew who was boss. They didn't figure some wingnut would throw a bomb.
The powers that be were grateful for an excuse to start shooting.

This was the beginning of a long and glorious tradition of official murder. The culmination in this country was at Kent State in 1970.

The story of workers' struggle for decent living against the captains of industry is pretty depressing. Profits, profits, profits. There is a reason that Jesus said it would be easier for a camel to get thru the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven.
I don't believe in Hell, but I would believe if I knew that Carnegie, Frick, and Morgan (and others like them) were burning in it.
Not nice of me to say that, but there it is.

on that note— I'm outta here. I had some things to say about some catholic clergy trying to influence their flocks in a certain direction, but it's late. Gotta get my beauty sleep.

Thanks to both of my loyal readers for hanging in there with me.

WHY THE HELL AREN'T YOU DOING SOMETHING USEFUL?
Cheers.