SusanJillParker
I'm 100% woman
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2011
- Posts
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In the five years I've been writing here, I've only had 3 stories rejected. This was a surprise. Yet, somehow, I knew this wouldn't fly.
For those of you who care to read this, for those of you who have an opinion, and for those of you who have suggestions how I can rewrite this, feel free. Perhaps, if I removed all the names and turned it into a work of fiction. Surely, if my story was fictional, no one would believe it. Yet, truly, it's all true, unfortunately.
Who Gets Your Vote Donkey or Dumbo?
With Mitt Romney the Republican torch carrier, who gets your vote?
Well, it looks like Romney is going to face off with Obama. Now what? Are we ready to dance, as we did when going from Clinton to Bush, taking two steps back for every step we took forward, if we go from Obama to Romney?
Are we ready for another Republican in the White House and more Republicans in the Senate and in the House or, as citizens of the middleclass, do we round up the wagons and make our stand right here and right now? By just a concentrated voting effort, we can change the world, you know. We can stop the evil empire from ever taking control again. As the most powerful segment in the world, the middleclass, we have more power, more influence, and more money than all the billionaires combined. Fortunately, for us, we do have a few billionaires on our side, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Oprah Winfrey, and Mark Zuckerberg, just to name a few of the more outspoken ones. Some of the others are secret Democrats hiding in the closet for obvious reasons.
"Bear with me for a moment, but I need your complete attention. I want you to turn off the TV, put down your beer and cheese doodles, and get up out of your reclining chairs. Repeat after me. We're not going to take it anymore. We're sick and tired of being used and abuse. We're not going to elect another lying and thieving Republican to office, even if we have to reelect Obama. Okay, now go back to what you were doing."
An out of touch, super rich, Mormon running against a college professor of the law, good or bad, that's our choice. My bet is on the articulate, intelligent, and in tune with the people, stately teacher, only, God help us, if Romney wins. I can see the headlines now.
'CZAR ROMNEY WINS THE PRESIDENCY OF THE UNITED STATES. LONG LIVE THE KING!'
Look on the bright side. If Romney wins, by the sake of merely electing him president, every man will be an honorary Mormon. Cool. Just imagine the benefits of that for a moment. You'll be able to tell your wife with a straight face, by presidential decree, that it's a new American law that you must take another wife or two. Finally, you can ask that woman at the office, your girlfriend, to marry you and that other woman, your mistress, that you met on your business trip to marry you, too. Let me know how that works out for you with your wife, after you get out of the hospital.
After having George Bush in office for eight long, miserable years, after having his father there for twelve long, suffering years, eight years as Vice-President and four more years as President, the country has been ravaged by twenty years of Republicans, specifically Bush's. Finally, the Bush era is over, thank God, that is, until slutty Jenna Bush runs for office, wins and opens a brothel in the White House. Conversely, if her twin sister, Barbara, ran for office, I may consider voting for her. Passing over his son, even though he graduated from Yale and received his MBA from Harvard (wink, wink), George W gives more proof to the axiom that an educated man is not necessarily a smart man. Barbara is the one who inherited her grandfather's and grandmother's brains.
Financially suffering for years, I'm not ready for another Republican in the White House. Are you? Yet, no matter who they are running against, the Republicans could nominate a monkey and they'd win the presidency, by fixing the outcome of the election, as they've already done twice before with Bush.
After Papa Bush kept his son, Neil Bush, out of jail by settling out of court and paying a mere $50,000 settlement in President Reagan's savings and loan scandal. After fixing the S & L crisis for Neil, fixing a presidential race is easy. Neil Bush? Who's Neil Bush? George H had three idiot sons, George W, Jeb, and Neil. With George the governor of Texas and Jeb the governor of Florida, we didn't hear much about Neil, especially after he disgraced his Daddy by getting both hands caught in the cookie jar.
"Daddy! Help! I'm stuck. I can't get my hands out of the cookie jar."
"Drop the cookies and take one hand out at a time."
"But Daddy..."
"Do it!"
We've already seen how Papa Bush can fix a presidential election can with "chads" not counted in Florida, when Bush stole the election from Al Gore. We've already witnessed how Papa Bush can fix a presidential election again, when Bush ran against John Kerry and votes in Ohio of the poor black and white Americans weren't counted. We're still paying for the backroom, midnight, dirty deals the Republican legislators helped George Bush rubber stamp, when the Republicans controlled the House, the Senate, and the White House. Unlike looking for non-existent weapons of mass destruction, we don't need to bomb someone unnecessarily to dig for answers why our economy derailed. Simply, it was because of that 8-year imbalance of power, when the Republicans controlled everything, that the economy failed, the stock market crashed, the rich got richer, and the middleclass suffered. Under the eight year, double fisted, greedy rule of Bush and Cheney, I would have rather voted for Charles Manson and the Devil, if only given that choice.
How we're all suffering now has nothing to do with what Obama did or didn't do in his first, unfinished term in office. With the Republican House Tea Party blocking his progress and voting against his legislation, with the Republican members of the Senate standing steadfast as one and unwilling to work with a Democratic president, Obama was doomed from the start. Yet, preceding Obama taking office, the writing was already on the wall and the economy was already crumbling, when George Bush finally finished his second term a much richer man than when he took his first oath of office. God only knows where we'd all be with Czar Romney calling the shots for his wealthy friends for four or eight years. Being the positive person that I am, always looking on the bright side, and looking for that cloud that has a silver lining, I wonder if Romney will bring back the Osmonds and give them a reality TV show. I always liked them, kind of, not really, okay, not at all. Yet, I bet a lot of you guys would like to see Marie Osmond strutting her stuff, while topless or naked.
Of course, after we scraped off all her makeup and removed her hair extensions, we'd have to put a bag over her head, a double bag, in case the first bag broke. She's not a very pretty woman without all that makeup. She does have big boobs, though. I wonder if they're real. Hmm, I wonder if Jennifer Lopez is a Mormon. I bet you'd like to see her on reality TV naked. Nah, she doesn't look like a Mormon, whatever a Mormon looks like.
Have you forgotten that Bush junior won his first presidential election with the help of his brother, Jeb, the then governor of Florida, along with the behind the scenes, clandestine plots of skullduggery by his father, Papa Bush. Even though he's wicked old, as old as Warren Buffet, do not underestimate Papa Bush or Warren Buffet for that matter. George H is a brilliant and still very powerful man, especially twelve years ago, when he wasn't as old then as he obviously is now. Needing to do something different to win the second presidential election, thinking out of the box or more aptly, out of the machine, under the guise of not wanting what happened in Florida to happen in Ohio, the voting machines were replaced with new, albeit rigged, Diebold voting machines.
"Nice machines but... Who's bright idea was that? Who authorized that? How dare they? Being that I'm a registered voter, I didn't get the memo, did you?"
How could we all be so stupid? How could the Republicans get away with rigging another election? When we were all too busy looking for and counting chads, when we were all too busy watching reality TV, drinking beer, and eating cheese doodles, the Republicans were a step ahead of us in going through their open bag of dirty tricks. How did they get away with putting voting machines in place with algorithms of how they collect and count votes deemed top secret from anyone in our government, but the owners of the company? Well, now we know. Bush's cousin, John Ellis, a Fox analyst, called the election before anyone, solely based on the inside information he received from George H, George W, Jeb, and Walden O'Dell, the principal owner of the Diebold Company, a big fund raiser in Bush's presidential campaign. Can't you hear them all laughing at us, while having cocktails at the club?
"Where's the outrage? Bad enough they fixed the first presidential election, but they rigged the second one, too. Now that it's public knowledge, now that the parties who pulled this off not only admitted that they fixed the election but also bragged about how they fixed the election with their phony voting machines, why didn't someone go to jail over this scandal? I can't kick a stuck ATM machine, a broken slot machine, and/or a jammed vending machine to get my paid purchase down, without being arrested, but these guys can legally install rigged voting machines in Ohio."
Back in November of 2004, with just a flip of a switch, if a voter in a poor, mostly Democratic district in Ohio, deemed the election battleground, at the time, incorrectly marked the ballot, instead of the machine rejecting the ballot, as it would do in a white, mostly affluent Republican district, it accepted it, but didn't count it.
"Huh? Wait, hold on, are you kidding me? That's not fair. That's not legal, is it?"
Ergo, those poor black and white Americans, who, no doubt, would have voted for Democratic presidential candidate, John Kerry, were not counted. Shades of what happened to Al Gore in Florida in 2000, when they incorrectly deemed 57,000 black voters as ex-felons and denied them their right to vote. Had those voters voted and their votes counted, Gore would have won the election. Even after the election was over and a recount was requested and granted, once the recount was obvious that Gore would win, the five Republican Supreme Court Justices declared that recounting the votes would do irreparable damage to Bush's integrity and credibility. Rhenquist, O'Connor, Thomas, Kennedy, and Scalia stopped the recount and declared Bush the winner.
"I pledge allegiance to my flag and Oh, my God! How can they just take the vote away from every American, who voted for Kerry, and ignore the majority to declare Bush, obviously the loser, the winner?"
This is not supposed to happen in America. This kind of dirty politics happens in countries that are ruled by dictators. It's mind bogglingly astonishing that something like this can happen here, in the greatest (gag) and most Democratic country (I just threw up a little in my mouth) in the world and in this century.
"God bless America because I won't!"
Answer me this one, simple question because I'm totally baffled. Please forgive my ignorance, but I just don't understand. Why would anyone who's not a millionaire or a billionaire vote Republican? A writer with two university degrees, one in business and another in English, I'm very educated, enlightened, and modest, if I say so myself, but I can't answer that one simple question. Honestly, I don't know why a middleclass, unemployed or underemployed American with no or insufficient healthcare coverage and financially suffering under the Republicans, who have ruined this country, would vote Republican again. It puzzles me.
The entire platform of the lockstep Republican Party is "No new taxes." That's it. What about all the other stuff, jobs, healthcare, safer neighborhoods, and better education? Granted, no new taxes sounds good on the surface, I mean, who wants new taxes? Right? Only, no new taxes means, no new taxes for them but not for us, of course. No new taxes simply means, no new taxes for millionaires and billionaires, but not for the middleclass average American. If anything, no new taxes for them means more new taxes for you and for me.
The other obvious gem in their political platform is that they want a smaller government, not necessarily a bad thing, who wouldn't want a smaller government? Right? That is, until we scratch the surface that we see why the Republicans want a smaller government. As if they are deregulating the government, as a whole, in the way they did with banks, insurance companies, airlines, and energy companies, a smaller government is a government with less watchdog agencies. The Republican Party wants a smaller government not to make things any better and easier for us, the middleclass, the Republicans want a smaller government, so they can do whatever they want behind closed meetings to enrich themselves, while making the lives of the middleclass even more desperately poor and deplorably horrible. They don't want us to know that they're lying, cheating, and stealing.
"Please, Sir, I want some more," wrote Charles Dickens about his character, Oliver Twist. Has nothing changed since 1838? When will those in power give us just a little more, so that we can survive with dignity? Never is the answer to that question. We're lucky to have what little we have.
I can state unequivocally what Republicans stand for in just one phrase, no new taxes, smaller government, and big business over the little people. So, why then, would the average, middleclass American vote for someone who doesn't have their best interest at heart? Moreover, knowing that Romney can't possibly beat Obama, unless they rig the election again, the Republican Party, as a whole, are playing the race card subliminally under the surface and using that to sway the vote in their favor. Why?
Surely, such educated, rich, powerful, and enlightened men and women aren't prejudice against black people but, by stoking the fires of race, white against black, they know that most of America is prejudice. To make their point of not having a black man in the White House, that is, unless he's Republican, as was Herman Cain, if the Republican members of the House and Senate could all dress up in white hooded robes and legally "lynch the nigga, Obama, and rape his wife," they would. It's been done many times in this country before, long after the Civil War, hasn't it? In the words of Harper Lee, who wrote, To Kill A Mockingbird, "you bet your ass it has," and he wrote about it.
In essence, when Republicans take the oath of office, an oath not to represent us, they take the oath among themselves for no new taxes and for the rich to get richer. Expressly, what they mean by no new taxes is the eradication of the capital gains tax and any other tax that they deem detrimental to their greed. The 15% capital gains tax imposed on those superrich, who earn the bulk of their income on investments, take a bite out of their vast fortunes. If they could spin the clock back to the time before taxes, the era of Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, and Carnegie, they would. Then, that no new tax platform would hence change to no taxes for us, but plenty of taxes for you. Oh, wait, it's already like that now.
Now, a fifteen percent capital gains tax may not sound like a lot of money, but 15% of a billion dollars is a not so paltry one hundred and fifty million dollars. Impossible to wrap your brain around one hundred and fifty million dollars, forget about having a billion dollars, imagine if you had 15% of just one hundred and fifty million dollars, that's twenty-two million five hundred thousand dollars. Wow! Now we know why the rich Republicans want the capital gains tax eradicated and, being that he's so taxed under the current 15% capital gains tax code, Romney is their chosen candidate to do it.
"Oh, yeah, we'll blame it on Romney, when the law to eliminate the capital gains tax passes. So long as we elect him President, he'll take one for the team."
"Greed is good," said Michael Douglas, when he played Gordon Gekko in Wall Street. Forget Michael Douglas, imagine Mitt Romney, Speaker of the House, John Boehner, or any billionaire Wall Street investor playing that role.
It's not enough that the super rich only pay a paltry 15% on their investment income, when the rest of us pay 35% on our regular 40 hour a week, pre-taxed paycheck incomes, but they don't want to pay anything on their investment incomes. Now, unless you're a millionaire or a billionaire, you'd see the unfairness of their greed. I ask you my simple question again. Why would anyone, who's not a millionaire or a billionaire, vote for the Republican platform? Honestly, I have no idea.
Why don't the super rich, those rich, old, white men, who support the Republican Party, want to pay the 15% capital investment tax? Because, they claim, their investments create jobs and taxing them 15% would take away jobs. Jobs? Seriously? What jobs? Who even has a job? Where are the damn jobs? We haven't had jobs in this country since 2006. The Chinese and the Indians have all our jobs.
Now, let's follow this logic and extrapolate upon it. If the Republicans haven't created jobs with 85% of the money they still have, why would they have created more jobs with the 15% we taxed them? How dare they try to sell that load of crap to anyone with a brain in their head? How can I believe that Republicans care about creating jobs, when they sent all of our jobs out of the country to Canada and Mexico and overseas to China, Taiwan, Brazil, Japan, India, Sri Lanka, and God knows where else? Whether Democrat or Republican, the super rich have been receiving tax breaks for decades, tax breaks that aren't available to you and me. Their argument that taxation suppresses economic growth and jobs doesn't hold water, when we've been giving tax credits to the very rich for decades and there are still no jobs?
So where are all of these phantom jobs that their tax break income investments supposedly created? Has anyone received a job from giving a rich politician, whether Republican or Democrat, a tax break? I don't see any hands, especially after we gave these mega-millionaires lots of tax breaks over the years to supposedly create more jobs. If reducing taxes on millionaires, billionaires, and big businesses create jobs, then why are these companies still laying off people and why are you out of work? Does it make sense to you because it doesn't make any sense to me. I don't get it. I do get that the rich are getting richer and the disparity between the rich and the middleclass is greater.
I didn't get a job? Did you get a job? Let's have a show of hands. Forget about the Republicans for a second, how many of you have gotten a job from the super rich politicians not paying their fair share of taxes to create more jobs? Anyone? Did anyone get a job? I don't see any hands.
When they proclaim that the unemployment rate is 8%, even though we all know that the unemployment rate is double that rate and the underemployment rate is quadruple that, is anyone in this country working? Is anyone, other than that top tier 1% being treated fairly and paid enough to live on without having both spouses working? Come to think of it, Mrs. Romney, other than caring for her beautiful mansion and raising her children, with the help of a maid, a cook, and a nanny, has never worked a day in her life.
How many of you must have your wife work outside the house at a job for you to survive, while still having to cook, clean, and care for the children, without the aid of a maid, a cook, and nanny?
"Gees, look at all those hands."
Now, how many of you are working at a job that's part-time, underpaid, and doesn't have any benefits?
"Wow! Look at all those hands. There must be twenty-five million hands raised. Holy cow."
Just so that there's no misunderstanding, lemme make sure you understood my question. Raise your hand if you work part-time, but want to work full-time, and don't receive a vacation, sick time, paid holidays, and help with your health insurance? Gees, I see a lot of hands now that I mentioned part-time, underpaid jobs without benefits that I didn't see before, when asking if anyone got a job created by Republican tax breaks and was working full-time in a job that has benefits.
When I mentioned non-existent jobs created by the super rich needing, yet, another tax break to create more make believe jobs, no one raised their hand. No one that I know has gotten a job created by giving super rich politicians another tax break. Tired of believing Republicans telling us that they'll create more high paying jobs, if we give them another tax break, jobs that they didn't create and jobs we'll never get, none of us can afford to continue to allow the super rich to not pay their fair share of taxes because of a lame promise of a phantom job.
Unfortunately, no new taxes doesn't mean no new taxes for everyone. No new taxes means no new taxes for the wealthy, that 1/2 of 1%, who own 90% of everything and who can afford to pay their fair share, but who continue to tax the middle class, a segment of the population that can no longer afford to pay any more than what we're already paying. Sadly, the average American cannot afford to hire a lobbyist to buttonhole Congressmen and Congresswomen for their support on our behalf. We don't have the money to send members of Congress on free, lavish world trips, wine and dine them, and/or reward them with expensive gifts.
No new taxes means lowering the corporate tax rate, the rate that huge corporations pay to do business in our country. As it is now, with all their deductions, the average corporation pays a measly 4-8% or less in taxes. What percent of your income did you pay last year? Unless you're a millionaire or a billionaire, I bet you paid a higher tax percentage than most Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies.
Is that fair that someone like you, who earns $30,000 to $100,000 a year and must give a third of your income to the IRS and to the state, when someone earning one hundred or one thousand times more than you do pays a fraction of what you pay in taxes? Is that fair? Warren Buffett doesn't think our tax code is fair, when his secretary pays a higher tax percentage than he does. Warren Buffet believes that the tax code needs to be changed to make taxation fairer for all, instead of just one small segment of the population.
Seriously, how many of you middleclass folks, which is now the lower class bumping against poverty level, earned a penny on your stock portfolio investments? Other than your fee laden 401Ks, if you even have one, which is now worth a fraction of what it was worth, before Wall Street crashed the stock market, how many of you have a stock portfolio? How many of you even have a job? How many of you have a job but are grossly underemployed and hugely underpaid? Do any of you have overseas tax shelters? Tell me and be honest now, when was the last time you visited the Cayman Islands? How many of you have a secret Swiss bank account?
Now do you actually believe that the Republicans are thinking of you, when they push for no new taxes and a smaller government? Do the Republicans have your best interests at heart, when they push their legislation for the Keystone oil pipeline to pipe oil from Canada to Texas, a pipeline that will surely pollute drinking water from Canada to Texas? Does any politician, whether Republican or Democrat, pass any legislation that benefits you first over them? Are the Republicans so very altruistic that they propose saving this country from debt for the financial sake of our children and grandchildren?
Let's not forget that Republican President Nixon, good, old, tricky Dickie, not only was he the one who came up with the bright idea of HMO's and preventative medicine but also he was the one who put hundreds of billions of dollars in the pockets of pharmaceutical companies by doctors prescribing unnecessary medication to everyone. How many pills do you take each day? How many pills did your parents take every day? Gees, that's odd that your parents never took a pill and lived to a ripe old age, when you're paying hundreds of dollars a month in medication that you don't need and can't afford, while still not feeling well.
Nixon was the one who romanced the Chinese to not only loan us all that money in the first place but also to open their doors to us doing business in China. First and foremost, we are in debt because of the Republicans unnecessarily increasing the military budget, starting wars, and spending all of our money and resources on wars that we cannot possibly win. Then, if that wasn't enough, they sent all of our manufacturing jobs overseas.
"End of story. Period. Amen. The End. That's all folks! I have no more to write. I'm done."
Then, just as I thought that I'm done writing this story, I hear a voice in the distance, a voice of an idiot, and a voice peppered with annoying laughter. I hear, (God help me and God help us all), President Bush's voice, as if it's a mosquito buzzing my ear.
"Mission accomplished!"
"Say what? Don't you dare! Mission accomplished? What the Hell are you talking about, fool?"
Then, I remembered. Mission accomplished my ass! How many of you have lost a son or a daughter, after George Bush donned a flight suit and stood aboard the aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, to announce, mission accomplished and the end of the Iraq War? Thousands more of our sons and daughters died after his infamous, idiotic speech? Forget about him, in the eyes of the world, how embarrassing was that for all of us? Weapons of mass destruction, my ass. Bush and Cheney should have been arrested, charged with treason, and hanged in the way they hung Saddam Hussein, for getting us into such a war in the first place. How could we have such two incompetent fools and greedy pigs, Bush and Cheney, running and ruining this country for eight tortuous years?
"Assholes! May they burn in Hell for what they did to all of us."
The Republicans want a smaller government because they don't want anyone looking over their shoulders, while they accumulate more wealth, a political word for legally stealing money off the backs of us. A black man will go to jail, may even be put to death, for stealing a loaf of bread, food to feed his family, especially if he steals the food with a gun. Yet, politicians steal millions with a smile and billions with a handshake, behind closed doors and after midnight sessions of Congress, while the rest of us sleep in our beds, wondering how we can pay our credit cards, afford to buy food for our tables, and gas for our cars.
"Aren't you angry? No? Then, you ought to be angry and outraged that we've been duped, yet, again."
Put your magazine, newspaper, and book down. Put away your cell phone. Turn off your radio. Turn off your TV. Turn off your computer. Why? All of the media, whether print, electronic, and/or cable is control by super rich Republicans in the likes of Rupert Murdock, Michael Eisner, Sumner Redstone, and Ted Turner.
When the Republican's, under Presidents Reagan, Bush, and little Bush deregulated our communications system, they took away our guaranteed right of freedom of speech and morphed that to somehow include multi-billion dollar corporations. They filled the FCC with their people. Colin Powell's son, Michael, was given the chairmanship of the FCC. Why? Because they can control him to get what they wanted. Under his rule and under the guise of free enterprise, the FCC allowed billionaires to build mega communication empires and monopolies. With everything that you read, watch, and hear crafted and spun to a perfect sound bite, much worse than any Russian television program under Communist rule, American media is so controlled to make you believe that Republicans are good and Democrats are bad. Romney is good and Obama is bad. George Orwell's 1984 Big Brother is here and they are all Republican.
So, unless you don't want to pay capital gains tax, unless you have a huge stock portfolio, unless you have a tax shelter in the Cayman Islands, and a secret Swiss bank account, why would you vote Republican? If you're like me, a member of the decimated middleclass, you shouldn't vote Republican. You'd be crazy to vote for any Republican running for any political race, even dog catcher. Every Republican has already sworn an oath, a pledge, not to you, but to themselves and to their party. American Tax Reform President, Grover Norquist, who the Hell is this guy? Anyway, Norquist has sworn nearly every member of the House and Senate that they will not vote for any legislation that raises taxes. If they break their pledge, they break with the party and the Republican Party, as a whole, will abandon them and not give them any political support at reelection. Norquist claims that deficit reduction has nothing to do with raising taxes for the rich. They actually believe that, but the real question is, do you believe that? I don't and you shouldn't.
"Huh? Are you kidding me? Deficit reduction has nothing to do with raising taxes for the rich is akin to me trying to pay down my credit card debt without increasing my income. It doesn't make any sense. Hello? Obviously, they think we are stupid and we are stupid, if at reelection time we don't kick every Republican out of office, who took an oath not to represent us but to represent their party and their party's platform of no new taxes and smaller government."
What the Republicans mean by a smaller government is a government devoid of watchdog agencies for banks, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, media companies, and an end to the environmental protection nonsense that they erroneously claim cost Americans jobs in exchange for us having clean air and clear water.
"Huh? Wait, hold on, backup."
Seriously? The Republicans don't want us to have clean air and clear water? Yeah, they do, but not at the expense of big business and, supposedly, at the expense at creating non-existent jobs. Every time a Republican President, Republican member of the House or member of Congressman takes power, the first thing they do is to unravel all of the clean air and clean water bills that the Democrats put in place that protect us from pollution. Pollution may not be good for us, but it's good for the bottom line of big business. The Republican's argument is that the Environmental Protection Agency suppresses job creation. EPA is bad.
"What a crock of shit!"
Even though the Republican party, as a whole, knows better, it's bad enough, as a lockstep group that they claim there's no such thing as global warming, when we all know there is and every scientist will tell you that global warming is here to stay. So, why don't the Republicans want us to have clean air and clear water? Because adding government imposed regulations, restrictions, and fines to clean the air and water adds unnecessary expense to factories by not allowing them to foul our air and dump hazardous materials in the water that we drink. Simply clean air and water measures cost businesses money, money that they pass off to us anyway, in their costs of doing business. Only, the key element is this. For American businesses to remain competitive in a global marketplace, especially against governments, who don't impose sanctions, restrictions, and fines for fouling the air and polluting the water, eliminating pollution gives them an unfair potential profit disadvantage in the world marketplace. It's all about money and they can't make as much money here with our so called "big government", as they can worldwide with their free and easy "smaller" governments, which is why our manufacturing jobs have disappeared overseas.
What happened to all of our laws to protect us from losing American jobs to foreign governments? What happened to all the tariffs and import fees that should have been imposed on China and other countries to stop the flood of cheap goods that have ruined our economy? We all know who's watching out for the interest of big business, but who is watching out for our interests and our jobs? Not our political representatives. They're the ones that busted the unions, our only equal opportunity employment protector and preserver. They're the ones who sent our jobs overseas. Politicians, whether Republican or Democrat, are looking out for their own best interests first. Padding their nest for retirement, filling their campaign war chests, the average American is the last on a long list of patrons that they must pay.
If the Republicans had their way, all of our beaches would be polluted by offshore drilling and all of our fish would have a soft, green glow to them.
"Mommy, look at the pretty green fish."
"Don't eat that!"
If the Republicans had their way, there'd be no minimum wage, no unemployment benefits, no Social Security, no Medicaid, no Medicare, no welfare, no food stamps, and no "entitlements" is what they call anything given to anyone for free, especially to those, who have worked their entire life in betterment of our country. That's sadly funny, when politicians both Democrat and Republican are the biggest entitlement takers from legitimate legislation proposed but weighted down with pork barrel projects, benefits given to them that aren't available to us, and subsidies earmarked for their cronies and given to rich farmers, who not only don't need them but also don't want them.
Let me ask you some more simple questions. Why are there no jobs? Why are you out of work? Why are you unemployed? Why are you underemployed? Why don't you have any job benefits? Why can't you afford health insurance for you and your family? Why can't you afford food and gas for your car? Why can't you make ends meet? Why do you have no savings? Why is your unsecured credit card debt so high? Why was your house foreclosed? Why were you thrown out on the street and your car repossessed? Why are you homeless? Why can't our elected officials fix the economy?
President Obama could have fixed the economy had his hands not been tied behind his back by an uncooperative Republican controlled House of Representatives. Instead of calling it what it really is, corruption, "they" put a spin word on it and call it partisan politics. How the Republican got control of the house, a majority vote, from a minority bunch of rich voters, is beyond me. Surely, Big Bubba down in Georgia, Clem in West Virginia, and Roy from Tennessee didn't vote Republican, did they? Who knows, maybe they were duped in the way so many others have been deceived by Republican rhetoric promising jobs that they never deliver. Instead of fixing the economy, instead of putting Americans back to work, and instead of making things here rather than importing them from China, the Republicans wave a flag and give us a war we can't win, while hoping we don't notice were much worse off than our parents.
So, back to the original question of why are you're out of work and why are there no jobs? Simple. Because there's no money in putting people back to work. Big business doesn't make any money giving you, an American looking for a fair wage of a full-time job with benefits. They make more money keeping you out of work and forcing their present staff to work harder and faster for less compensation without benefits, while shipping the good jobs, the ones with overtime, overseas to be done at a fraction of the rate. They don't pay a Chinese worker a premium wage for working 20 hours over his 40 hour work week. Chinese workers don't complain, rather, when they can't take the long hours and hard work anymore, they just kill themselves.
"What? You want a raise? You just had a raise three years ago, when they raised the minimum wage. Hey, if you don't like this job, leave. Go! Get out! There's another one hundred people waiting outside to do your job and who'd be happy to earn minimum wage without complaining, you slacker."
On the other hand, of course, there's money in forcing whoever is left working to do one and a half jobs, two jobs even, while paying them less money and giving them little or no benefits. Why would big business want to create anymore jobs and anymore payroll expense, when they are doing just fine the way it is now. They're doing better than fine. They're making money hand over fist, without hiring you, by slashing their employment costs and shipping all of our high paying with overtime manufacturing jobs overseas to China, India, even Brazil? The party is over for us, but the good times are still rolling for the rich.
Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of General Electric, was appointed by President Obama as head of the administration's highly touted job council. Huh? I didn't even know we had a job council. Wait. Who? Are you kidding me? Jeffrey Immelt? What a joke? He's the guy who said, "I don't care that people in America are unemployed. That's not my problem."
What? Not his problem? As head of the Job Council, aren't Americans out of work his problem and his job to fix?
"I see the bigger picture," he said on 60 Minutes. "I think globally, instead of national. I have a huge labor force in China, India, and Brazil, people who will work longer hours for a fraction of the wages, without even expecting any benefits, much less money than I'd have to pay lazy, American employees. Why build a new, restriction laden factory in the United States, when I can pollute the air and foul the water in China, India, and Brazil?"
This is a man arrogant and self-righteous enough to say this in front of an unemployed and underemployed American audience on national television. Maybe with all the cheese doodle crunching you were doing, you didn't hear that he called you lazy and we are, as well as stupid. We're all stupid for allowing the Republicans to steal our country away from us. Why are we fighting terrorists and terrorism, when our real enemies are those politicians we elected to represent us?
Yet, this is the man, Jeffrey Immelt, who runs General Electric, one of the biggest, most profitable, and one of the biggest polluting corporations in the world, is the man who heads our job council. What a joke? Is it any wonder why you're not working? Now we all know why we don't have a job and will never had a job. The only jobs he's counseled are the ones going overseas to China, India, and Brazil. Forget the Republicans, we have no one, not even President Obama, helping the average American to get back to work and earn a livable wage. With plenty willing to make our lives worse, we have no one making our lives better but ourselves.
"We give and give and they take and take."
Here's another question. Why was Papa Bush a one term president and his idiot son at the helm for eight years? Without doubt, in all respects, Papa Bush is a much better man than his dim witted, three stooges sons.
"Read my lips, no new taxes," said President Papa Bush in 1988 at the Republican National Convention, but then, as his way to lower the national debt, guess what he did? You're not going to believe this, but he broke with his own party and raised taxes. "Yeah, I know, no shit. Wow!"
Not only did he raise taxes but with the Reagan tax bill, he signed into law the largest tax bill in the history of America. Additionally, to take care of his billionaire friends, as an assuage to sooth their anger, after raising their taxes, instead of fixing a broken economy, he started a war, the Gulf War. When his own party couldn't control him, in the way that they could marionette and manipulate his son, they kicked Papa Bush out of office by not giving him their political support for reelection. Yet, don't count Papa Bush out, just yet. Even though he's old, he's still powerful. Once the head of the CIA, the only organization more powerful than the Mafia, he knows some people, if you know what I mean. Along with Mike Tyson, he's one man that I don't want to be on his bad side.
Born in Milton, Massachusetts, an oil man, not from Texas, but from Brookline, Massachusetts, Papa Bush has always been in bed with the Saudis. For those who are Republican loyalists, especially Bush friends, here's a well kept secret and something that you may not know. Did you know that Papa Bush and junior, little Bush, started an oil company, Arbusto Energy Oil, with members of Al-Qaida? Did you know that? It's true. How about that? They were actually business partners with Osama Bin Laden's older brother, Salem Bin Laden. Seriously. I kid you not.
"Honest to God. I swear on the Bible. Hey, I'm just another hack writer, too good to be fiction, I'm not smart enough to make up this shit. Besides, chagrined to admit it, being that I'm a fiction writer, the facts are always better than fiction."
Do you remember the clip they showed on the news over and again of President Bush reading to children on 9/11, while sitting in second grade classroom at Emma E. Booker elementary school, after terrorist planes hit the Twin Towers? How nice was that, but did you ever wonder what Andrew Card, President Bush's Chief of Staff, said when he leaned down to whisper in his ear? Bush already knew that the first plane had already hit the Twin Towers. Reports confirm that Andrew Card tells the President that a second plane has hit the Twin Towers. Only, as a writer, I imagined what Andrew Card told the President was that Osama Bin Laden's family have left their multi-million dollar condo in Charlestown, Massachusetts and are safe in a secret location in another country.
"What? Are you kidding me? Fuck me! Fuck us all! We've been had. After Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda destroyed the Twin Towers and murdered thousands of our citizens, under the protection of our government, Osama Bin Laden's family has left the country! Left the country? What about all of those families of those police, firemen, and EMT's that were killed on 9/11? If they knew enough to remove Bin Laden's family from Charlestown, Massachusetts, why weren't our first responders given safe passage and told not to go near the Twin Towers that day?"
Now, my accusation is not that President Bush knew that the Twin Towers was Bin Laden's target, maybe he did or maybe he didn't. Yet, after all the lies the politicians have told us over our lifetimes, I'm suspicious of what they knew and what they didn't know. What is more telling is, after the Twin Towers were attacked, why did he give Bin Laden's family safe passage from the United States? Don't you think that's as strange, as it is telling? A family that lived in Charlestown, Massachusetts for years, a family that could have been interrogated and used as a bargaining chip with Al-Qaeda were allowed to go free. Why were they not only allowed to leave but also escorted out and so protected by our government?
Think about it. Why couldn't the United States of America's CIA, NSA, and FBI find one man, Osama Bin Laden? Easy. They didn't want to find him.
"Osama Bin Laden, come out, come out, wherever you are? Hey, I looked everywhere and I can find him," said our Generals, the CIA, the NSA, and the FBI. "Gees, I dunno, maybe he's in one of those caves in the mountains of Afghanistan. I know, let's trying bombing the shit out of the mountains to flush him out. If nothing else, maybe after all the smoke clears, we'll find some precious gemstones."
Can't find him? Did you look under his bed? What about the closet? Did you check that? Have you looked in Pakistan? Maybe he's in a hole, in the way that they found Saddam Hussein. Or maybe he's hiding, kind of, not really, not at all, absolutely in plain sight and right in front of your eyes. Gees, how about that? There really was no reason to spend billions of dollars to bomb Afghanistan's mountain ranges, after all, when they could just telephoned his compound in Pakistan.
"Hello? Yes, this is Osama Bin Laden's residence," answered his wife, Amal al-Sadah.
"If it's Al-Qaeda, tell them that I'll call them back on a different cell phone. Unless that's pizza delivery asking for directions, tell whoever it is that I'm not here," said Osama.
"It's the United States Delta squad," said Amal looking over at her husband. "They want to know if you'll be home later tonight."
"Hang up the phone, Amal! Hang up the phone."
Why did the Delta Forces that snuck into Pakistan, kind of, after crashing one multi-million dollar helicopter, supposedly, as we have no concrete proof, shoot and kill Bin Laden, instead of taking him prisoner? Surely, these guys, most of them Navy Seals, are some of the scariest dudes on the planet. I wouldn't fuck with any of them, unless I had Mike Tyson on one side of me, ultimate fighter, Dan Severn, on the other side of me, and I was armed with an AK-47 and a few hand grenades. Yet, if the Delta Forces were in Osama Bin Laden's compound, while Osama Bin Laden was watching Rosanne reruns, drinking beer, and eating cheese doodles, while waiting for his pizza to be delivered, couldn't they have easily overpowered him, captured him, shot him with a drugged dart, a taser, or a stun gun and taken him alive instead of killing him? Weren't these guys expert in hand-to-hand combat?
As the top man of Al-Qaeda, didn't our government think that Bin Laden had valuable information that they could have used to defeat terrorists and terrorism? Or did they already have all the information that they needed (rolling my eyes)? Or maybe they didn't want Bin Laden testifying in open court.
"Please translate what Bin Laden just said."
"He said that the United States paid him to destroy the Twin Towers. I mean, he had no idea that Saudi nationals had planned on flying airplanes in the Twin Towers and the Pentagon."
Just as Bin Laden played the Saudis, from where he received the bulk of his money, perhaps, he was playing Al-Qaeda, too, in the way that he played the United States. Then, after making an ass out of the United States, after they supposedly shot him, why did they secretly and unceremoniously dump him overboard in the ocean? What the Hell was that all about? Are they really expecting all of us to believe that shit?
"C'mon, are you kidding me? I wasn't born yesterday. I'm more apt to believe the swampland that I bought in Florida is oceanfront investment property. I'm more apt to believe a Mother Goose nursery rhyme than any of the shit my government tells me. I'm more apt to believe a Grimm fairytale. By sticking a top secret, made in China, sticker on the file, all my government does is lie and cover up their lies. I'm getting ready to pack up all my possessions and move to Montana and lock myself away in a hardcore, anti-government compound with an arsenal of automatic weapons. Oh, yeah, trust me, if Al-Qaeda ever dares come to Montana, Texas, South Central LA, most of Chicago, and all of New York for that matter, they won't be leaving alive."
Now, just humor me for a moment and bear with me. If you all turn to the glossary page of terms in the official Mafia, La Cosa Nostra, hired hit man handbook of murder and mayhem and lookup, "Sleeping with the fishes," sleeping with the fishes means dumping someone in the sea or the ocean, and weighing down their body, so that they'll never be found again. The question remains, without having an actual body to examine and identify, who or what was dumped from the aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, we'll never know. Maybe it was Bin Laden or maybe it was a sack of potatoes but, just as I'm willing to believe that Marilyn, Elvis, and Michael are still alive and living life large in Boca Raton, Florida, I'm willing to bet that it wasn't Osama Bin Laden, who's sleeping with the fishes. I only wished they had dumped Cheney.
Lastly, you're not going to believe this. Better than any scripted, Oscar winning movie and better than any bestselling novel, coincidentally, and freakishly, the bulk of that same Navy Seal covert unit, the ones that captured and killed Osama Bin Laden, were killed in a rocket attack on their helicopter in Afghanistan. No way! Wow! Go figure. What are the odds of that? Against protocol, instead of using three helicopters, in the way they usually do, when approaching a target on a mission, they were all in the same one helicopter. How neat is that? Tragically they died nearly immediately after, before they could be questioned on Entertainment Tonight and before they could sell their memoirs to Hollywood for a made for TV movie.
Now, I'm not one to cast dispersions and make rash judgments, but just as I suspect every politician is a thief and a criminal that should be charged, convicted, and imprisoned, I don't suspect every priest of abusing children, okay, I do suspect every priest of abusing children, but this whole Osama Bin Laden thing smells too much like a CIA covert operation to me. What do you think, Papa Bush? A man behind the scenes, just as Cheney was really our president and not Bush, and with all of these secret societies positioned around the country, think tanks for the privileged, that are listed as private foundations, just who is pulling the strings in our country? Who has the power? Surely not Obama? He's just another puppet and if he gets too cocky, they'll eliminate him in the way that Kennedy and his brother were assassinated. We all know better than that and for those of you who don't, you should know better than that. The middleclass the most powerful segment in the United States, possibly in the world, is powerless.
"After America was sold to the highest bidders, God no longer blesses America. Especially when visiting abroad, I'm embarrassed to be deemed an American."
For those of you who don't know, by invitation only, there's always been a secret society of old, white, rich men, men from old money, who are running things around here, no matter who sits behind the Eagle emblem and in front of the United States flag of America in the Oval Office. These men hate everyone who is not just like them, no Jews, no niggers, no Asians, and no middleclass, uneducated, ignorantly naive, and uncouth slobs. Entrenched in nearly every major city in the country, who allowed all of these assholes to take behind the scenes power in the first place? Do you really believe that the President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country and in the world? Think again. The most powerful people are a collection of old, white, rich men, who own everything and everyone. With just a phone call, they get whatever they want, and whenever they need it.
Now, I know some Mafia types. Being from Boston, specifically from the North End, the Italian part of Boston, and having grown up in a protected neighborhood, my family was all Mafia.
"Hey, it goes with the territory, capiche?"
Because I lived in a protected neighborhood, there was no crime. None. Zilch. My aunt and uncle were bookies. All my cousins were two-bit criminals practicing their craft in neighborhoods, other than the North End of Boston. My cousin, Frankie, lived in Arizona with his family for 25 years in the Witness Protection Program, after Whitey Bulger, (Google him, if you don't know who he is) put a hit on him and "The Rifleman" Flemmi, shot my cousin in the shoulder, after killing his friend, while they sat in a parked Cadillac. My Uncle Julio, who worked for a funeral home, used to fly dead bodies to Maine and bury them there, so that they could replace their body in their coffin with someone they murdered. My Uncle Mario made all his money during prohibition, when he carried cases of booze from Canada to America about his boat. Anyway, in the official Cosa Nostra handbook of hits, here on page 211, it reads and I quote, "Leave no witnesses."
"Read my lips," said George H. Bush.
"Fuck you, George!"
"Mission accomplished," said George W. Bush.
"Fuck you, George!"
Let me ask you this? Why wasn't President Bush impeached from office, when they didn't find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? C'mon, this is an easy question. I haven't gotten to the hard questions, yet. I'll give you a hint. President Clinton was impeached for lying to us, after receiving a blowjob from Monica Lewinski, a newsflash that was played over and again on Republican controlled media outlets not for weeks and months but for years. Now, why wasn't President Bush impeached for lying to us, after fucking us all up the ass by starting an unnecessary, costly war that took the lives of so many of our young men and woman? Why was that not played over and again, in the way that Clinton's blowjob was? At least Clinton kissed Monica. Did Bush kiss any of you, other than kissing you good-bye, of course, when he left Washington a much richer man than when he arrived.
Don't you just love seeing George Bush out in the open and smiling and waving to everyone. Secretly, he's giving us all the finger, behind our backs. I just love seeing George and Laura Bush sitting front row center with Nolan Ryan and his wife, Ruth, at a Texas Rangers game, when most of us can't even afford a bleachers ticket, never mind a lower box seats. Then, there's the issue of parking your car for $100.00. Looking so much like the monkey that he is, seeing my ex-president with that dopey grin on his face makes me feel warm all over, as if I just peed myself.
"Shit, I just peed myself."
You baseball fans all know that George W was once part owner of the Texas Rangers. A team that was purchased for eighty-nine million was sold for two hundred fifty million dollars. Now, inflation raises everything, including the purchase price of baseball teams, but unless the team was the New York Yankees that are worth an estimated ten billion dollars, the Rangers sold at a huge profit. Why was that?
I'll tell you why. Because Tom Hicks, the man who bought the Texas Rangers from Bush and his friends, as part of his package deal was allowed to buy more than 120 radio stations. Now having control over such a media market was something that was illegally prohibited, just a few short months before, that is, until the Republicans stacked not only the FCC but also the Supreme Court. No one was watching the chicken coop but thieving Republicans. This deal made any deal that Tricky Dick Nixon ever did. Oh, and by the way, how much in capital gains taxes do you think George W paid, when he sold his baseball team. Guess again. Just remove any numbers, but leave the zero. Because his private sale was protected under the conflict of interest laws, when assuming the office of the presidency, special laws not available to average Americans, George was able to reap the benefits of that Republican sponsored law.
So my question still stands. Why wasn't Bush impeached for starting a war with Iraq? Why wasn't Bush put in jail for fraud and tax evasion? You don't know? I'll tell you why.
"Are you ready? Shock and awe! Yep, that's it. Shock and awe. The Republican war mongers wanted to draw our attention away from the real issues of the economy by giving us a fireworks display in Iraq. Definitely, I may have been shocked by the extent my government goes to cover their lies, but I'm definitely not in awe of them."
As if we're all watching a live video game, by diverting our attention away from being broke and unemployed or underemployed, by dropping bombs and killing people, Republicans prefer to start wars than to fix the economy. There's a lot of money in starting wars but no money in fixing the economy. Now with the drain on the economy from the war that they started with Afghanistan and with Iraq, with Bush no longer in office, and our economy much worse than when Bush took office eight years before, they blame our bad economy on President Obama, when he merely inherited their mess. How's that for spin? Nice if they could pull that one off, but blaming Obama for starting a war they couldn't win and robbing the U. S. Treasury to bailout their rich friends doesn't make any sense to me. Does it to you? Go figure the truth, if you can find the truth with the Republicans controlling the media, in the way they spin their lies.
Still, I haven't answered the question, why Bush wasn't impeached, when we didn't find any weapons of mass destruction. Wasn't that the load of shit he sold us, as his reason to go to war? I'll tell you why he wasn't impeached. Because (picture Superman standing atop of the Statue of Liberty, while wearing a Wall Street type suit and carrying a briefcase, instead of wearing tights and a red cape,) in the name of peace, democracy, and the war effort, a lot of Bush's friends made a lot of money bombing the shit out of Afghanistan and Iraq. That's why.
Vice President Cheney, who was the real man-behind-the scenes, was Papa Bush's pick to be the stealth president of the United States. The once head of Halliburton, the company that provides supplies, from soup to nuts, to our military for our deceptive war effort, as well as for our oil drilling companies, think British Petroleum and the pollution of our Gulf waters, made millions of dollars for himself and billions of dollars for his company. Are you starting to see how we've all been duped? Are you starting to see how the rich get richer and how the rest of us pay for their good times with long term unemployment and underemployment?
Do you remember Angelo Mozilo? He was always by George, Jr. side shaking his hand and patting him in the back in the way that Bebe Rebozo was with Nixon. Don't get me started with Nixon. My blood pressure will climb.
Anyway, Angelo Mozilo, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive officer of Countrywide Bank, to avoid trial on civil fraud, settled with the SEC for a paltry $67.5 million dollars, after he squirreled away hundreds of millions more, think the Cayman Islands and secret Swiss bank accounts. Get this, he was allowed to "legally" keep $444 million dollars of his fraudulently accumulated money that he stole from honest, hard working people, after his company was slapped on the hand and charged with minority discrimination and fined the biggest fine in the history of fines, $335 million dollars. Bank of America, who now owns Countrywide Bank will pay the fine.
"What? Huh? Bank of America? Why? Why is Bank of America being so nice to pay such a big fine?"
Oh, don't worry, BoA will make it all back by charging you exorbitant fees for breathing in their bank branches, while expecting and begrudging you any customer service. Actually the $335 million dollar fine is chump change for what these big banks have earned and will continue to earn by ruining our economy and destroying the lives of millions of Americans with their exorbitant fees. Answer me this. Why isn't Angelo Mozilo in jail? Because Angelo, a good, personal friend of President Bush, made sure that he took care of all his Republican politicians and some Democrats, too, with big, low interest loans. How about that? Angelo safeguarded his exit by financing all his Washington pals. Let me ask you this, did any of you receive a big, fat, low interest loan from Angelo Mozilo's Country Wide Bank? No? Gees, that's weird. Don't feel bad because I didn't get one either.
Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson, under federal financial disclosure law, had to sell all his stock in Lehman Brothers, when he took office. Did you know that? Don't you feel bad for the man? Only, please don't feel bad for Paulson. By a law that was created for politicians like him, he was allowed, get this, to cash in all of his stock, all $450 million dollars of it...are you ready? Without paying a dime in taxes. Nothing. Not a cent. Now, timing is everything, when dumping, I mean, selling stock. Instead of Paulson telling the truth, he sat before the Senate and told them that Lehman Brothers was a financially sound company. Had he told the truth, his stock shares would have been worthless. Here he is the Secretary of the United States Treasury and he paid nothing in taxes. Just for comparison sake, now, of course, I realize that you made much less than $450 million dollars, but how much did you pay in taxes?
Now how many of you unemployed or underemployed had to hit up your IRA or 401K, if you even have one, to make ends meet, to pay your rent, save your home, and keep your car? How much did you have to pay in penalties for early withdrawal? How much did you have to pay in taxes? Now, compare that amount to how much Paulson paid for cashing in his stock and how much Bush paid for selling his baseball team. How fair is that? Men who could have easily paid, whatever the tax was for selling their stock and baseball team, the government comes after you, the unemployed or underemployed to stick it to you. That's your price for freedom.
If one of us hit the lottery for $450 million dollars and took the cash payout, we'd realize about $180 million dollars. One hundred eighty million dollars sounds like a lot of money, especially, when gambling a dollar in hopes of winning the lottery, but Paulson received all $450 million of his dollars tax free? Why? I don't get it. That's just not right. That's not fair. That's the way that it is. If you're not pissed, you should be. If you voted Republican and aren't a millionaire or a billionaire, then there's something seriously mentally wrong with you.
"God fucking bless America!"
Oh, we're not done with Paulson, yet, not by a long shot. Paulson, under Bush's watch and counsel, opened the doors of the United States Treasury and passed out billions of dollars to banks, insurance companies, and the auto industry without accounting for who got how much. He should be in jail, too. He's the guy who sat in front of a senate finance subcommittee investigating the financial fraud in the stock market collapse and swore that Lehman Brothers made good investments with their credit default swaps, derivatives, and hedge funds. A few weeks later, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy protection. Gees, what a coincidence.
"Sorry for being so stupid, but if a financial institution is making good investments with their credit default swaps, derivatives, and hedge funds, why would they have the need to file for bankruptcy protection? That just makes no sense to me. Does it to you? Yet, seemingly, somehow, it made sense to those in power of our government, the same men who didn't put Bush, Cheney, Mozilo, Paulson, and hundreds of others in jail."
None of it makes any sense, unless, of course, those credit default swaps were not worth the paper they were written on and derivatives were just another gambling bet in a hedge fund that was more a Ponzi scheme than it was a financial investment. Then, even while Lehman Brothers, AGI, Wachovia, Chase, Wells Fargo, General Motors, Chrysler, Freddie Mac, Sallie Mae, et al, were filing for bankruptcy protection, the brokers and their managers, the people who caused the markets to collapse, instead of being arrested, charged, convicted, and put in jail were given multimillion dollar bonuses and golden parachutes, from the bailout money showered upon them by Paulson, when leaving their failed companies. This is worth writing again for you to read. Secretary Paulson opened the doors of the United States Treasury and passed out billions of dollars to banks and insurance companies, without accounting for who got how much. Why wasn't he arrested? Why was he allowed to walk away scot free, after bailing out all of his powerful Republican friends?
Now, if a man held up a bank, there'd be a manhunt for him by the local police and the FBI, especially if that man was a black man. Yet, Secretary Paulson, an old, white man, stole all the money that we all paid to the IRS in taxes to give to the biggest, wealthiest, and most profitable businesses in the world. I don't get it. Why isn't he in jail, at least investigated? Why wasn't the money they handed out accounted for, at the very least? Instead, he's sitting at home drinking fine, French wine and stuffing his face with imported cheese cake.
Wouldn't you just love to never have to worry about money or about working again? Wouldn't you love to have stocks worth $450 million dollars and, knowing your company would soon be going out of business, called illegal insider trading information, allowed to cash in those stocks tax free? Wouldn't you love to be sitting at home drinking fine French wine and stuffing your face with cheesecake? When all of you lost your jobs because of Secretary Paulson's handling of the economy and aiding in Wall Street crashing, when he was the one in charge of Lehman Brothers, did any of you receive a bailout? Did anyone give you money because you lost your job, your home, your car, your marriage, and your life?
"Then, why aren't you as fucking angry as I am?"
Please, don't vote Republican. Our only hope is with Obama and the Democrats. Better yet, we all should strive to eradicate a two party system and adopt one party, the American party, a party that will help everyone equally, whether rich or poor. If I can stop one person for voting for Mitt Romney, than this essay was a success.
"Ding! Dong!"
"Wait, pardon me. Hold on a second. There's someone at my front door."
"Oh, my God! Are you kidding me? No way! It's Publishers Clearing House. I just won ten million dollars!"
"Tell us, what's the first thing you're going to do with your ten million dollars? Are you going to quit your job, buy a house, a new car, a vacation home, a boat, take a world trip, hire a cabana boy and a housekeeper to take care of your every sexual whim or all of those?"
"Actually, none of those. I mean, I may do some of those or all of those eventually, especially hiring a cabana boy and a housekeeper to take care of my every sexual whim. Yet, the first thing I'm going to do, that is, after I collect my money and return from the Cayman Islands and Geneva, is to turn Republican. I may be outraged over how the Republicans, and all politicians, have ruined this country, but I'm not stupid. If I can't beat them, I'll join them. Hey, I want to keep as much of this ten million dollars, as I can, without having to waste it on paying taxes."
Okay, especially after reading this essay, I know what you're all thinking. You're thinking that the Publishers Clearing House contest was fixed by the Republicans trying to bribe me, just so that I wouldn't go public with this essay. Right? Wrong. Me winning the Publishers Clearing House contest was just a coincidence. I swear. Honest. Really. You have to believe me. Would I lie to you? Have I ever lied to you?
Now, if only I can find the delete button to delete this story, before submitting it to Literotica.
"Oh, shit! Too late."
THE END
In the five years I've been writing here, I've only had 3 stories rejected. This was a surprise. Yet, somehow, I knew this wouldn't fly.
For those of you who care to read this, for those of you who have an opinion, and for those of you who have suggestions how I can rewrite this, feel free. Perhaps, if I removed all the names and turned it into a work of fiction. Surely, if my story was fictional, no one would believe it. Yet, truly, it's all true, unfortunately.
Who Gets Your Vote Donkey or Dumbo?
With Mitt Romney the Republican torch carrier, who gets your vote?
Well, it looks like Romney is going to face off with Obama. Now what? Are we ready to dance, as we did when going from Clinton to Bush, taking two steps back for every step we took forward, if we go from Obama to Romney?
Are we ready for another Republican in the White House and more Republicans in the Senate and in the House or, as citizens of the middleclass, do we round up the wagons and make our stand right here and right now? By just a concentrated voting effort, we can change the world, you know. We can stop the evil empire from ever taking control again. As the most powerful segment in the world, the middleclass, we have more power, more influence, and more money than all the billionaires combined. Fortunately, for us, we do have a few billionaires on our side, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Oprah Winfrey, and Mark Zuckerberg, just to name a few of the more outspoken ones. Some of the others are secret Democrats hiding in the closet for obvious reasons.
"Bear with me for a moment, but I need your complete attention. I want you to turn off the TV, put down your beer and cheese doodles, and get up out of your reclining chairs. Repeat after me. We're not going to take it anymore. We're sick and tired of being used and abuse. We're not going to elect another lying and thieving Republican to office, even if we have to reelect Obama. Okay, now go back to what you were doing."
An out of touch, super rich, Mormon running against a college professor of the law, good or bad, that's our choice. My bet is on the articulate, intelligent, and in tune with the people, stately teacher, only, God help us, if Romney wins. I can see the headlines now.
'CZAR ROMNEY WINS THE PRESIDENCY OF THE UNITED STATES. LONG LIVE THE KING!'
Look on the bright side. If Romney wins, by the sake of merely electing him president, every man will be an honorary Mormon. Cool. Just imagine the benefits of that for a moment. You'll be able to tell your wife with a straight face, by presidential decree, that it's a new American law that you must take another wife or two. Finally, you can ask that woman at the office, your girlfriend, to marry you and that other woman, your mistress, that you met on your business trip to marry you, too. Let me know how that works out for you with your wife, after you get out of the hospital.
After having George Bush in office for eight long, miserable years, after having his father there for twelve long, suffering years, eight years as Vice-President and four more years as President, the country has been ravaged by twenty years of Republicans, specifically Bush's. Finally, the Bush era is over, thank God, that is, until slutty Jenna Bush runs for office, wins and opens a brothel in the White House. Conversely, if her twin sister, Barbara, ran for office, I may consider voting for her. Passing over his son, even though he graduated from Yale and received his MBA from Harvard (wink, wink), George W gives more proof to the axiom that an educated man is not necessarily a smart man. Barbara is the one who inherited her grandfather's and grandmother's brains.
Financially suffering for years, I'm not ready for another Republican in the White House. Are you? Yet, no matter who they are running against, the Republicans could nominate a monkey and they'd win the presidency, by fixing the outcome of the election, as they've already done twice before with Bush.
After Papa Bush kept his son, Neil Bush, out of jail by settling out of court and paying a mere $50,000 settlement in President Reagan's savings and loan scandal. After fixing the S & L crisis for Neil, fixing a presidential race is easy. Neil Bush? Who's Neil Bush? George H had three idiot sons, George W, Jeb, and Neil. With George the governor of Texas and Jeb the governor of Florida, we didn't hear much about Neil, especially after he disgraced his Daddy by getting both hands caught in the cookie jar.
"Daddy! Help! I'm stuck. I can't get my hands out of the cookie jar."
"Drop the cookies and take one hand out at a time."
"But Daddy..."
"Do it!"
We've already seen how Papa Bush can fix a presidential election can with "chads" not counted in Florida, when Bush stole the election from Al Gore. We've already witnessed how Papa Bush can fix a presidential election again, when Bush ran against John Kerry and votes in Ohio of the poor black and white Americans weren't counted. We're still paying for the backroom, midnight, dirty deals the Republican legislators helped George Bush rubber stamp, when the Republicans controlled the House, the Senate, and the White House. Unlike looking for non-existent weapons of mass destruction, we don't need to bomb someone unnecessarily to dig for answers why our economy derailed. Simply, it was because of that 8-year imbalance of power, when the Republicans controlled everything, that the economy failed, the stock market crashed, the rich got richer, and the middleclass suffered. Under the eight year, double fisted, greedy rule of Bush and Cheney, I would have rather voted for Charles Manson and the Devil, if only given that choice.
How we're all suffering now has nothing to do with what Obama did or didn't do in his first, unfinished term in office. With the Republican House Tea Party blocking his progress and voting against his legislation, with the Republican members of the Senate standing steadfast as one and unwilling to work with a Democratic president, Obama was doomed from the start. Yet, preceding Obama taking office, the writing was already on the wall and the economy was already crumbling, when George Bush finally finished his second term a much richer man than when he took his first oath of office. God only knows where we'd all be with Czar Romney calling the shots for his wealthy friends for four or eight years. Being the positive person that I am, always looking on the bright side, and looking for that cloud that has a silver lining, I wonder if Romney will bring back the Osmonds and give them a reality TV show. I always liked them, kind of, not really, okay, not at all. Yet, I bet a lot of you guys would like to see Marie Osmond strutting her stuff, while topless or naked.
Of course, after we scraped off all her makeup and removed her hair extensions, we'd have to put a bag over her head, a double bag, in case the first bag broke. She's not a very pretty woman without all that makeup. She does have big boobs, though. I wonder if they're real. Hmm, I wonder if Jennifer Lopez is a Mormon. I bet you'd like to see her on reality TV naked. Nah, she doesn't look like a Mormon, whatever a Mormon looks like.
Have you forgotten that Bush junior won his first presidential election with the help of his brother, Jeb, the then governor of Florida, along with the behind the scenes, clandestine plots of skullduggery by his father, Papa Bush. Even though he's wicked old, as old as Warren Buffet, do not underestimate Papa Bush or Warren Buffet for that matter. George H is a brilliant and still very powerful man, especially twelve years ago, when he wasn't as old then as he obviously is now. Needing to do something different to win the second presidential election, thinking out of the box or more aptly, out of the machine, under the guise of not wanting what happened in Florida to happen in Ohio, the voting machines were replaced with new, albeit rigged, Diebold voting machines.
"Nice machines but... Who's bright idea was that? Who authorized that? How dare they? Being that I'm a registered voter, I didn't get the memo, did you?"
How could we all be so stupid? How could the Republicans get away with rigging another election? When we were all too busy looking for and counting chads, when we were all too busy watching reality TV, drinking beer, and eating cheese doodles, the Republicans were a step ahead of us in going through their open bag of dirty tricks. How did they get away with putting voting machines in place with algorithms of how they collect and count votes deemed top secret from anyone in our government, but the owners of the company? Well, now we know. Bush's cousin, John Ellis, a Fox analyst, called the election before anyone, solely based on the inside information he received from George H, George W, Jeb, and Walden O'Dell, the principal owner of the Diebold Company, a big fund raiser in Bush's presidential campaign. Can't you hear them all laughing at us, while having cocktails at the club?
"Where's the outrage? Bad enough they fixed the first presidential election, but they rigged the second one, too. Now that it's public knowledge, now that the parties who pulled this off not only admitted that they fixed the election but also bragged about how they fixed the election with their phony voting machines, why didn't someone go to jail over this scandal? I can't kick a stuck ATM machine, a broken slot machine, and/or a jammed vending machine to get my paid purchase down, without being arrested, but these guys can legally install rigged voting machines in Ohio."
Back in November of 2004, with just a flip of a switch, if a voter in a poor, mostly Democratic district in Ohio, deemed the election battleground, at the time, incorrectly marked the ballot, instead of the machine rejecting the ballot, as it would do in a white, mostly affluent Republican district, it accepted it, but didn't count it.
"Huh? Wait, hold on, are you kidding me? That's not fair. That's not legal, is it?"
Ergo, those poor black and white Americans, who, no doubt, would have voted for Democratic presidential candidate, John Kerry, were not counted. Shades of what happened to Al Gore in Florida in 2000, when they incorrectly deemed 57,000 black voters as ex-felons and denied them their right to vote. Had those voters voted and their votes counted, Gore would have won the election. Even after the election was over and a recount was requested and granted, once the recount was obvious that Gore would win, the five Republican Supreme Court Justices declared that recounting the votes would do irreparable damage to Bush's integrity and credibility. Rhenquist, O'Connor, Thomas, Kennedy, and Scalia stopped the recount and declared Bush the winner.
"I pledge allegiance to my flag and Oh, my God! How can they just take the vote away from every American, who voted for Kerry, and ignore the majority to declare Bush, obviously the loser, the winner?"
This is not supposed to happen in America. This kind of dirty politics happens in countries that are ruled by dictators. It's mind bogglingly astonishing that something like this can happen here, in the greatest (gag) and most Democratic country (I just threw up a little in my mouth) in the world and in this century.
"God bless America because I won't!"
Answer me this one, simple question because I'm totally baffled. Please forgive my ignorance, but I just don't understand. Why would anyone who's not a millionaire or a billionaire vote Republican? A writer with two university degrees, one in business and another in English, I'm very educated, enlightened, and modest, if I say so myself, but I can't answer that one simple question. Honestly, I don't know why a middleclass, unemployed or underemployed American with no or insufficient healthcare coverage and financially suffering under the Republicans, who have ruined this country, would vote Republican again. It puzzles me.
The entire platform of the lockstep Republican Party is "No new taxes." That's it. What about all the other stuff, jobs, healthcare, safer neighborhoods, and better education? Granted, no new taxes sounds good on the surface, I mean, who wants new taxes? Right? Only, no new taxes means, no new taxes for them but not for us, of course. No new taxes simply means, no new taxes for millionaires and billionaires, but not for the middleclass average American. If anything, no new taxes for them means more new taxes for you and for me.
The other obvious gem in their political platform is that they want a smaller government, not necessarily a bad thing, who wouldn't want a smaller government? Right? That is, until we scratch the surface that we see why the Republicans want a smaller government. As if they are deregulating the government, as a whole, in the way they did with banks, insurance companies, airlines, and energy companies, a smaller government is a government with less watchdog agencies. The Republican Party wants a smaller government not to make things any better and easier for us, the middleclass, the Republicans want a smaller government, so they can do whatever they want behind closed meetings to enrich themselves, while making the lives of the middleclass even more desperately poor and deplorably horrible. They don't want us to know that they're lying, cheating, and stealing.
"Please, Sir, I want some more," wrote Charles Dickens about his character, Oliver Twist. Has nothing changed since 1838? When will those in power give us just a little more, so that we can survive with dignity? Never is the answer to that question. We're lucky to have what little we have.
I can state unequivocally what Republicans stand for in just one phrase, no new taxes, smaller government, and big business over the little people. So, why then, would the average, middleclass American vote for someone who doesn't have their best interest at heart? Moreover, knowing that Romney can't possibly beat Obama, unless they rig the election again, the Republican Party, as a whole, are playing the race card subliminally under the surface and using that to sway the vote in their favor. Why?
Surely, such educated, rich, powerful, and enlightened men and women aren't prejudice against black people but, by stoking the fires of race, white against black, they know that most of America is prejudice. To make their point of not having a black man in the White House, that is, unless he's Republican, as was Herman Cain, if the Republican members of the House and Senate could all dress up in white hooded robes and legally "lynch the nigga, Obama, and rape his wife," they would. It's been done many times in this country before, long after the Civil War, hasn't it? In the words of Harper Lee, who wrote, To Kill A Mockingbird, "you bet your ass it has," and he wrote about it.
In essence, when Republicans take the oath of office, an oath not to represent us, they take the oath among themselves for no new taxes and for the rich to get richer. Expressly, what they mean by no new taxes is the eradication of the capital gains tax and any other tax that they deem detrimental to their greed. The 15% capital gains tax imposed on those superrich, who earn the bulk of their income on investments, take a bite out of their vast fortunes. If they could spin the clock back to the time before taxes, the era of Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, and Carnegie, they would. Then, that no new tax platform would hence change to no taxes for us, but plenty of taxes for you. Oh, wait, it's already like that now.
Now, a fifteen percent capital gains tax may not sound like a lot of money, but 15% of a billion dollars is a not so paltry one hundred and fifty million dollars. Impossible to wrap your brain around one hundred and fifty million dollars, forget about having a billion dollars, imagine if you had 15% of just one hundred and fifty million dollars, that's twenty-two million five hundred thousand dollars. Wow! Now we know why the rich Republicans want the capital gains tax eradicated and, being that he's so taxed under the current 15% capital gains tax code, Romney is their chosen candidate to do it.
"Oh, yeah, we'll blame it on Romney, when the law to eliminate the capital gains tax passes. So long as we elect him President, he'll take one for the team."
"Greed is good," said Michael Douglas, when he played Gordon Gekko in Wall Street. Forget Michael Douglas, imagine Mitt Romney, Speaker of the House, John Boehner, or any billionaire Wall Street investor playing that role.
It's not enough that the super rich only pay a paltry 15% on their investment income, when the rest of us pay 35% on our regular 40 hour a week, pre-taxed paycheck incomes, but they don't want to pay anything on their investment incomes. Now, unless you're a millionaire or a billionaire, you'd see the unfairness of their greed. I ask you my simple question again. Why would anyone, who's not a millionaire or a billionaire, vote for the Republican platform? Honestly, I have no idea.
Why don't the super rich, those rich, old, white men, who support the Republican Party, want to pay the 15% capital investment tax? Because, they claim, their investments create jobs and taxing them 15% would take away jobs. Jobs? Seriously? What jobs? Who even has a job? Where are the damn jobs? We haven't had jobs in this country since 2006. The Chinese and the Indians have all our jobs.
Now, let's follow this logic and extrapolate upon it. If the Republicans haven't created jobs with 85% of the money they still have, why would they have created more jobs with the 15% we taxed them? How dare they try to sell that load of crap to anyone with a brain in their head? How can I believe that Republicans care about creating jobs, when they sent all of our jobs out of the country to Canada and Mexico and overseas to China, Taiwan, Brazil, Japan, India, Sri Lanka, and God knows where else? Whether Democrat or Republican, the super rich have been receiving tax breaks for decades, tax breaks that aren't available to you and me. Their argument that taxation suppresses economic growth and jobs doesn't hold water, when we've been giving tax credits to the very rich for decades and there are still no jobs?
So where are all of these phantom jobs that their tax break income investments supposedly created? Has anyone received a job from giving a rich politician, whether Republican or Democrat, a tax break? I don't see any hands, especially after we gave these mega-millionaires lots of tax breaks over the years to supposedly create more jobs. If reducing taxes on millionaires, billionaires, and big businesses create jobs, then why are these companies still laying off people and why are you out of work? Does it make sense to you because it doesn't make any sense to me. I don't get it. I do get that the rich are getting richer and the disparity between the rich and the middleclass is greater.
I didn't get a job? Did you get a job? Let's have a show of hands. Forget about the Republicans for a second, how many of you have gotten a job from the super rich politicians not paying their fair share of taxes to create more jobs? Anyone? Did anyone get a job? I don't see any hands.
When they proclaim that the unemployment rate is 8%, even though we all know that the unemployment rate is double that rate and the underemployment rate is quadruple that, is anyone in this country working? Is anyone, other than that top tier 1% being treated fairly and paid enough to live on without having both spouses working? Come to think of it, Mrs. Romney, other than caring for her beautiful mansion and raising her children, with the help of a maid, a cook, and a nanny, has never worked a day in her life.
How many of you must have your wife work outside the house at a job for you to survive, while still having to cook, clean, and care for the children, without the aid of a maid, a cook, and nanny?
"Gees, look at all those hands."
Now, how many of you are working at a job that's part-time, underpaid, and doesn't have any benefits?
"Wow! Look at all those hands. There must be twenty-five million hands raised. Holy cow."
Just so that there's no misunderstanding, lemme make sure you understood my question. Raise your hand if you work part-time, but want to work full-time, and don't receive a vacation, sick time, paid holidays, and help with your health insurance? Gees, I see a lot of hands now that I mentioned part-time, underpaid jobs without benefits that I didn't see before, when asking if anyone got a job created by Republican tax breaks and was working full-time in a job that has benefits.
When I mentioned non-existent jobs created by the super rich needing, yet, another tax break to create more make believe jobs, no one raised their hand. No one that I know has gotten a job created by giving super rich politicians another tax break. Tired of believing Republicans telling us that they'll create more high paying jobs, if we give them another tax break, jobs that they didn't create and jobs we'll never get, none of us can afford to continue to allow the super rich to not pay their fair share of taxes because of a lame promise of a phantom job.
Unfortunately, no new taxes doesn't mean no new taxes for everyone. No new taxes means no new taxes for the wealthy, that 1/2 of 1%, who own 90% of everything and who can afford to pay their fair share, but who continue to tax the middle class, a segment of the population that can no longer afford to pay any more than what we're already paying. Sadly, the average American cannot afford to hire a lobbyist to buttonhole Congressmen and Congresswomen for their support on our behalf. We don't have the money to send members of Congress on free, lavish world trips, wine and dine them, and/or reward them with expensive gifts.
No new taxes means lowering the corporate tax rate, the rate that huge corporations pay to do business in our country. As it is now, with all their deductions, the average corporation pays a measly 4-8% or less in taxes. What percent of your income did you pay last year? Unless you're a millionaire or a billionaire, I bet you paid a higher tax percentage than most Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies.
Is that fair that someone like you, who earns $30,000 to $100,000 a year and must give a third of your income to the IRS and to the state, when someone earning one hundred or one thousand times more than you do pays a fraction of what you pay in taxes? Is that fair? Warren Buffett doesn't think our tax code is fair, when his secretary pays a higher tax percentage than he does. Warren Buffet believes that the tax code needs to be changed to make taxation fairer for all, instead of just one small segment of the population.
Seriously, how many of you middleclass folks, which is now the lower class bumping against poverty level, earned a penny on your stock portfolio investments? Other than your fee laden 401Ks, if you even have one, which is now worth a fraction of what it was worth, before Wall Street crashed the stock market, how many of you have a stock portfolio? How many of you even have a job? How many of you have a job but are grossly underemployed and hugely underpaid? Do any of you have overseas tax shelters? Tell me and be honest now, when was the last time you visited the Cayman Islands? How many of you have a secret Swiss bank account?
Now do you actually believe that the Republicans are thinking of you, when they push for no new taxes and a smaller government? Do the Republicans have your best interests at heart, when they push their legislation for the Keystone oil pipeline to pipe oil from Canada to Texas, a pipeline that will surely pollute drinking water from Canada to Texas? Does any politician, whether Republican or Democrat, pass any legislation that benefits you first over them? Are the Republicans so very altruistic that they propose saving this country from debt for the financial sake of our children and grandchildren?
Let's not forget that Republican President Nixon, good, old, tricky Dickie, not only was he the one who came up with the bright idea of HMO's and preventative medicine but also he was the one who put hundreds of billions of dollars in the pockets of pharmaceutical companies by doctors prescribing unnecessary medication to everyone. How many pills do you take each day? How many pills did your parents take every day? Gees, that's odd that your parents never took a pill and lived to a ripe old age, when you're paying hundreds of dollars a month in medication that you don't need and can't afford, while still not feeling well.
Nixon was the one who romanced the Chinese to not only loan us all that money in the first place but also to open their doors to us doing business in China. First and foremost, we are in debt because of the Republicans unnecessarily increasing the military budget, starting wars, and spending all of our money and resources on wars that we cannot possibly win. Then, if that wasn't enough, they sent all of our manufacturing jobs overseas.
"End of story. Period. Amen. The End. That's all folks! I have no more to write. I'm done."
Then, just as I thought that I'm done writing this story, I hear a voice in the distance, a voice of an idiot, and a voice peppered with annoying laughter. I hear, (God help me and God help us all), President Bush's voice, as if it's a mosquito buzzing my ear.
"Mission accomplished!"
"Say what? Don't you dare! Mission accomplished? What the Hell are you talking about, fool?"
Then, I remembered. Mission accomplished my ass! How many of you have lost a son or a daughter, after George Bush donned a flight suit and stood aboard the aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, to announce, mission accomplished and the end of the Iraq War? Thousands more of our sons and daughters died after his infamous, idiotic speech? Forget about him, in the eyes of the world, how embarrassing was that for all of us? Weapons of mass destruction, my ass. Bush and Cheney should have been arrested, charged with treason, and hanged in the way they hung Saddam Hussein, for getting us into such a war in the first place. How could we have such two incompetent fools and greedy pigs, Bush and Cheney, running and ruining this country for eight tortuous years?
"Assholes! May they burn in Hell for what they did to all of us."
The Republicans want a smaller government because they don't want anyone looking over their shoulders, while they accumulate more wealth, a political word for legally stealing money off the backs of us. A black man will go to jail, may even be put to death, for stealing a loaf of bread, food to feed his family, especially if he steals the food with a gun. Yet, politicians steal millions with a smile and billions with a handshake, behind closed doors and after midnight sessions of Congress, while the rest of us sleep in our beds, wondering how we can pay our credit cards, afford to buy food for our tables, and gas for our cars.
"Aren't you angry? No? Then, you ought to be angry and outraged that we've been duped, yet, again."
Put your magazine, newspaper, and book down. Put away your cell phone. Turn off your radio. Turn off your TV. Turn off your computer. Why? All of the media, whether print, electronic, and/or cable is control by super rich Republicans in the likes of Rupert Murdock, Michael Eisner, Sumner Redstone, and Ted Turner.
When the Republican's, under Presidents Reagan, Bush, and little Bush deregulated our communications system, they took away our guaranteed right of freedom of speech and morphed that to somehow include multi-billion dollar corporations. They filled the FCC with their people. Colin Powell's son, Michael, was given the chairmanship of the FCC. Why? Because they can control him to get what they wanted. Under his rule and under the guise of free enterprise, the FCC allowed billionaires to build mega communication empires and monopolies. With everything that you read, watch, and hear crafted and spun to a perfect sound bite, much worse than any Russian television program under Communist rule, American media is so controlled to make you believe that Republicans are good and Democrats are bad. Romney is good and Obama is bad. George Orwell's 1984 Big Brother is here and they are all Republican.
So, unless you don't want to pay capital gains tax, unless you have a huge stock portfolio, unless you have a tax shelter in the Cayman Islands, and a secret Swiss bank account, why would you vote Republican? If you're like me, a member of the decimated middleclass, you shouldn't vote Republican. You'd be crazy to vote for any Republican running for any political race, even dog catcher. Every Republican has already sworn an oath, a pledge, not to you, but to themselves and to their party. American Tax Reform President, Grover Norquist, who the Hell is this guy? Anyway, Norquist has sworn nearly every member of the House and Senate that they will not vote for any legislation that raises taxes. If they break their pledge, they break with the party and the Republican Party, as a whole, will abandon them and not give them any political support at reelection. Norquist claims that deficit reduction has nothing to do with raising taxes for the rich. They actually believe that, but the real question is, do you believe that? I don't and you shouldn't.
"Huh? Are you kidding me? Deficit reduction has nothing to do with raising taxes for the rich is akin to me trying to pay down my credit card debt without increasing my income. It doesn't make any sense. Hello? Obviously, they think we are stupid and we are stupid, if at reelection time we don't kick every Republican out of office, who took an oath not to represent us but to represent their party and their party's platform of no new taxes and smaller government."
What the Republicans mean by a smaller government is a government devoid of watchdog agencies for banks, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, media companies, and an end to the environmental protection nonsense that they erroneously claim cost Americans jobs in exchange for us having clean air and clear water.
"Huh? Wait, hold on, backup."
Seriously? The Republicans don't want us to have clean air and clear water? Yeah, they do, but not at the expense of big business and, supposedly, at the expense at creating non-existent jobs. Every time a Republican President, Republican member of the House or member of Congressman takes power, the first thing they do is to unravel all of the clean air and clean water bills that the Democrats put in place that protect us from pollution. Pollution may not be good for us, but it's good for the bottom line of big business. The Republican's argument is that the Environmental Protection Agency suppresses job creation. EPA is bad.
"What a crock of shit!"
Even though the Republican party, as a whole, knows better, it's bad enough, as a lockstep group that they claim there's no such thing as global warming, when we all know there is and every scientist will tell you that global warming is here to stay. So, why don't the Republicans want us to have clean air and clear water? Because adding government imposed regulations, restrictions, and fines to clean the air and water adds unnecessary expense to factories by not allowing them to foul our air and dump hazardous materials in the water that we drink. Simply clean air and water measures cost businesses money, money that they pass off to us anyway, in their costs of doing business. Only, the key element is this. For American businesses to remain competitive in a global marketplace, especially against governments, who don't impose sanctions, restrictions, and fines for fouling the air and polluting the water, eliminating pollution gives them an unfair potential profit disadvantage in the world marketplace. It's all about money and they can't make as much money here with our so called "big government", as they can worldwide with their free and easy "smaller" governments, which is why our manufacturing jobs have disappeared overseas.
What happened to all of our laws to protect us from losing American jobs to foreign governments? What happened to all the tariffs and import fees that should have been imposed on China and other countries to stop the flood of cheap goods that have ruined our economy? We all know who's watching out for the interest of big business, but who is watching out for our interests and our jobs? Not our political representatives. They're the ones that busted the unions, our only equal opportunity employment protector and preserver. They're the ones who sent our jobs overseas. Politicians, whether Republican or Democrat, are looking out for their own best interests first. Padding their nest for retirement, filling their campaign war chests, the average American is the last on a long list of patrons that they must pay.
If the Republicans had their way, all of our beaches would be polluted by offshore drilling and all of our fish would have a soft, green glow to them.
"Mommy, look at the pretty green fish."
"Don't eat that!"
If the Republicans had their way, there'd be no minimum wage, no unemployment benefits, no Social Security, no Medicaid, no Medicare, no welfare, no food stamps, and no "entitlements" is what they call anything given to anyone for free, especially to those, who have worked their entire life in betterment of our country. That's sadly funny, when politicians both Democrat and Republican are the biggest entitlement takers from legitimate legislation proposed but weighted down with pork barrel projects, benefits given to them that aren't available to us, and subsidies earmarked for their cronies and given to rich farmers, who not only don't need them but also don't want them.
Let me ask you some more simple questions. Why are there no jobs? Why are you out of work? Why are you unemployed? Why are you underemployed? Why don't you have any job benefits? Why can't you afford health insurance for you and your family? Why can't you afford food and gas for your car? Why can't you make ends meet? Why do you have no savings? Why is your unsecured credit card debt so high? Why was your house foreclosed? Why were you thrown out on the street and your car repossessed? Why are you homeless? Why can't our elected officials fix the economy?
President Obama could have fixed the economy had his hands not been tied behind his back by an uncooperative Republican controlled House of Representatives. Instead of calling it what it really is, corruption, "they" put a spin word on it and call it partisan politics. How the Republican got control of the house, a majority vote, from a minority bunch of rich voters, is beyond me. Surely, Big Bubba down in Georgia, Clem in West Virginia, and Roy from Tennessee didn't vote Republican, did they? Who knows, maybe they were duped in the way so many others have been deceived by Republican rhetoric promising jobs that they never deliver. Instead of fixing the economy, instead of putting Americans back to work, and instead of making things here rather than importing them from China, the Republicans wave a flag and give us a war we can't win, while hoping we don't notice were much worse off than our parents.
So, back to the original question of why are you're out of work and why are there no jobs? Simple. Because there's no money in putting people back to work. Big business doesn't make any money giving you, an American looking for a fair wage of a full-time job with benefits. They make more money keeping you out of work and forcing their present staff to work harder and faster for less compensation without benefits, while shipping the good jobs, the ones with overtime, overseas to be done at a fraction of the rate. They don't pay a Chinese worker a premium wage for working 20 hours over his 40 hour work week. Chinese workers don't complain, rather, when they can't take the long hours and hard work anymore, they just kill themselves.
"What? You want a raise? You just had a raise three years ago, when they raised the minimum wage. Hey, if you don't like this job, leave. Go! Get out! There's another one hundred people waiting outside to do your job and who'd be happy to earn minimum wage without complaining, you slacker."
On the other hand, of course, there's money in forcing whoever is left working to do one and a half jobs, two jobs even, while paying them less money and giving them little or no benefits. Why would big business want to create anymore jobs and anymore payroll expense, when they are doing just fine the way it is now. They're doing better than fine. They're making money hand over fist, without hiring you, by slashing their employment costs and shipping all of our high paying with overtime manufacturing jobs overseas to China, India, even Brazil? The party is over for us, but the good times are still rolling for the rich.
Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of General Electric, was appointed by President Obama as head of the administration's highly touted job council. Huh? I didn't even know we had a job council. Wait. Who? Are you kidding me? Jeffrey Immelt? What a joke? He's the guy who said, "I don't care that people in America are unemployed. That's not my problem."
What? Not his problem? As head of the Job Council, aren't Americans out of work his problem and his job to fix?
"I see the bigger picture," he said on 60 Minutes. "I think globally, instead of national. I have a huge labor force in China, India, and Brazil, people who will work longer hours for a fraction of the wages, without even expecting any benefits, much less money than I'd have to pay lazy, American employees. Why build a new, restriction laden factory in the United States, when I can pollute the air and foul the water in China, India, and Brazil?"
This is a man arrogant and self-righteous enough to say this in front of an unemployed and underemployed American audience on national television. Maybe with all the cheese doodle crunching you were doing, you didn't hear that he called you lazy and we are, as well as stupid. We're all stupid for allowing the Republicans to steal our country away from us. Why are we fighting terrorists and terrorism, when our real enemies are those politicians we elected to represent us?
Yet, this is the man, Jeffrey Immelt, who runs General Electric, one of the biggest, most profitable, and one of the biggest polluting corporations in the world, is the man who heads our job council. What a joke? Is it any wonder why you're not working? Now we all know why we don't have a job and will never had a job. The only jobs he's counseled are the ones going overseas to China, India, and Brazil. Forget the Republicans, we have no one, not even President Obama, helping the average American to get back to work and earn a livable wage. With plenty willing to make our lives worse, we have no one making our lives better but ourselves.
"We give and give and they take and take."
Here's another question. Why was Papa Bush a one term president and his idiot son at the helm for eight years? Without doubt, in all respects, Papa Bush is a much better man than his dim witted, three stooges sons.
"Read my lips, no new taxes," said President Papa Bush in 1988 at the Republican National Convention, but then, as his way to lower the national debt, guess what he did? You're not going to believe this, but he broke with his own party and raised taxes. "Yeah, I know, no shit. Wow!"
Not only did he raise taxes but with the Reagan tax bill, he signed into law the largest tax bill in the history of America. Additionally, to take care of his billionaire friends, as an assuage to sooth their anger, after raising their taxes, instead of fixing a broken economy, he started a war, the Gulf War. When his own party couldn't control him, in the way that they could marionette and manipulate his son, they kicked Papa Bush out of office by not giving him their political support for reelection. Yet, don't count Papa Bush out, just yet. Even though he's old, he's still powerful. Once the head of the CIA, the only organization more powerful than the Mafia, he knows some people, if you know what I mean. Along with Mike Tyson, he's one man that I don't want to be on his bad side.
Born in Milton, Massachusetts, an oil man, not from Texas, but from Brookline, Massachusetts, Papa Bush has always been in bed with the Saudis. For those who are Republican loyalists, especially Bush friends, here's a well kept secret and something that you may not know. Did you know that Papa Bush and junior, little Bush, started an oil company, Arbusto Energy Oil, with members of Al-Qaida? Did you know that? It's true. How about that? They were actually business partners with Osama Bin Laden's older brother, Salem Bin Laden. Seriously. I kid you not.
"Honest to God. I swear on the Bible. Hey, I'm just another hack writer, too good to be fiction, I'm not smart enough to make up this shit. Besides, chagrined to admit it, being that I'm a fiction writer, the facts are always better than fiction."
Do you remember the clip they showed on the news over and again of President Bush reading to children on 9/11, while sitting in second grade classroom at Emma E. Booker elementary school, after terrorist planes hit the Twin Towers? How nice was that, but did you ever wonder what Andrew Card, President Bush's Chief of Staff, said when he leaned down to whisper in his ear? Bush already knew that the first plane had already hit the Twin Towers. Reports confirm that Andrew Card tells the President that a second plane has hit the Twin Towers. Only, as a writer, I imagined what Andrew Card told the President was that Osama Bin Laden's family have left their multi-million dollar condo in Charlestown, Massachusetts and are safe in a secret location in another country.
"What? Are you kidding me? Fuck me! Fuck us all! We've been had. After Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda destroyed the Twin Towers and murdered thousands of our citizens, under the protection of our government, Osama Bin Laden's family has left the country! Left the country? What about all of those families of those police, firemen, and EMT's that were killed on 9/11? If they knew enough to remove Bin Laden's family from Charlestown, Massachusetts, why weren't our first responders given safe passage and told not to go near the Twin Towers that day?"
Now, my accusation is not that President Bush knew that the Twin Towers was Bin Laden's target, maybe he did or maybe he didn't. Yet, after all the lies the politicians have told us over our lifetimes, I'm suspicious of what they knew and what they didn't know. What is more telling is, after the Twin Towers were attacked, why did he give Bin Laden's family safe passage from the United States? Don't you think that's as strange, as it is telling? A family that lived in Charlestown, Massachusetts for years, a family that could have been interrogated and used as a bargaining chip with Al-Qaeda were allowed to go free. Why were they not only allowed to leave but also escorted out and so protected by our government?
Think about it. Why couldn't the United States of America's CIA, NSA, and FBI find one man, Osama Bin Laden? Easy. They didn't want to find him.
"Osama Bin Laden, come out, come out, wherever you are? Hey, I looked everywhere and I can find him," said our Generals, the CIA, the NSA, and the FBI. "Gees, I dunno, maybe he's in one of those caves in the mountains of Afghanistan. I know, let's trying bombing the shit out of the mountains to flush him out. If nothing else, maybe after all the smoke clears, we'll find some precious gemstones."
Can't find him? Did you look under his bed? What about the closet? Did you check that? Have you looked in Pakistan? Maybe he's in a hole, in the way that they found Saddam Hussein. Or maybe he's hiding, kind of, not really, not at all, absolutely in plain sight and right in front of your eyes. Gees, how about that? There really was no reason to spend billions of dollars to bomb Afghanistan's mountain ranges, after all, when they could just telephoned his compound in Pakistan.
"Hello? Yes, this is Osama Bin Laden's residence," answered his wife, Amal al-Sadah.
"If it's Al-Qaeda, tell them that I'll call them back on a different cell phone. Unless that's pizza delivery asking for directions, tell whoever it is that I'm not here," said Osama.
"It's the United States Delta squad," said Amal looking over at her husband. "They want to know if you'll be home later tonight."
"Hang up the phone, Amal! Hang up the phone."
Why did the Delta Forces that snuck into Pakistan, kind of, after crashing one multi-million dollar helicopter, supposedly, as we have no concrete proof, shoot and kill Bin Laden, instead of taking him prisoner? Surely, these guys, most of them Navy Seals, are some of the scariest dudes on the planet. I wouldn't fuck with any of them, unless I had Mike Tyson on one side of me, ultimate fighter, Dan Severn, on the other side of me, and I was armed with an AK-47 and a few hand grenades. Yet, if the Delta Forces were in Osama Bin Laden's compound, while Osama Bin Laden was watching Rosanne reruns, drinking beer, and eating cheese doodles, while waiting for his pizza to be delivered, couldn't they have easily overpowered him, captured him, shot him with a drugged dart, a taser, or a stun gun and taken him alive instead of killing him? Weren't these guys expert in hand-to-hand combat?
As the top man of Al-Qaeda, didn't our government think that Bin Laden had valuable information that they could have used to defeat terrorists and terrorism? Or did they already have all the information that they needed (rolling my eyes)? Or maybe they didn't want Bin Laden testifying in open court.
"Please translate what Bin Laden just said."
"He said that the United States paid him to destroy the Twin Towers. I mean, he had no idea that Saudi nationals had planned on flying airplanes in the Twin Towers and the Pentagon."
Just as Bin Laden played the Saudis, from where he received the bulk of his money, perhaps, he was playing Al-Qaeda, too, in the way that he played the United States. Then, after making an ass out of the United States, after they supposedly shot him, why did they secretly and unceremoniously dump him overboard in the ocean? What the Hell was that all about? Are they really expecting all of us to believe that shit?
"C'mon, are you kidding me? I wasn't born yesterday. I'm more apt to believe the swampland that I bought in Florida is oceanfront investment property. I'm more apt to believe a Mother Goose nursery rhyme than any of the shit my government tells me. I'm more apt to believe a Grimm fairytale. By sticking a top secret, made in China, sticker on the file, all my government does is lie and cover up their lies. I'm getting ready to pack up all my possessions and move to Montana and lock myself away in a hardcore, anti-government compound with an arsenal of automatic weapons. Oh, yeah, trust me, if Al-Qaeda ever dares come to Montana, Texas, South Central LA, most of Chicago, and all of New York for that matter, they won't be leaving alive."
Now, just humor me for a moment and bear with me. If you all turn to the glossary page of terms in the official Mafia, La Cosa Nostra, hired hit man handbook of murder and mayhem and lookup, "Sleeping with the fishes," sleeping with the fishes means dumping someone in the sea or the ocean, and weighing down their body, so that they'll never be found again. The question remains, without having an actual body to examine and identify, who or what was dumped from the aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, we'll never know. Maybe it was Bin Laden or maybe it was a sack of potatoes but, just as I'm willing to believe that Marilyn, Elvis, and Michael are still alive and living life large in Boca Raton, Florida, I'm willing to bet that it wasn't Osama Bin Laden, who's sleeping with the fishes. I only wished they had dumped Cheney.
Lastly, you're not going to believe this. Better than any scripted, Oscar winning movie and better than any bestselling novel, coincidentally, and freakishly, the bulk of that same Navy Seal covert unit, the ones that captured and killed Osama Bin Laden, were killed in a rocket attack on their helicopter in Afghanistan. No way! Wow! Go figure. What are the odds of that? Against protocol, instead of using three helicopters, in the way they usually do, when approaching a target on a mission, they were all in the same one helicopter. How neat is that? Tragically they died nearly immediately after, before they could be questioned on Entertainment Tonight and before they could sell their memoirs to Hollywood for a made for TV movie.
Now, I'm not one to cast dispersions and make rash judgments, but just as I suspect every politician is a thief and a criminal that should be charged, convicted, and imprisoned, I don't suspect every priest of abusing children, okay, I do suspect every priest of abusing children, but this whole Osama Bin Laden thing smells too much like a CIA covert operation to me. What do you think, Papa Bush? A man behind the scenes, just as Cheney was really our president and not Bush, and with all of these secret societies positioned around the country, think tanks for the privileged, that are listed as private foundations, just who is pulling the strings in our country? Who has the power? Surely not Obama? He's just another puppet and if he gets too cocky, they'll eliminate him in the way that Kennedy and his brother were assassinated. We all know better than that and for those of you who don't, you should know better than that. The middleclass the most powerful segment in the United States, possibly in the world, is powerless.
"After America was sold to the highest bidders, God no longer blesses America. Especially when visiting abroad, I'm embarrassed to be deemed an American."
For those of you who don't know, by invitation only, there's always been a secret society of old, white, rich men, men from old money, who are running things around here, no matter who sits behind the Eagle emblem and in front of the United States flag of America in the Oval Office. These men hate everyone who is not just like them, no Jews, no niggers, no Asians, and no middleclass, uneducated, ignorantly naive, and uncouth slobs. Entrenched in nearly every major city in the country, who allowed all of these assholes to take behind the scenes power in the first place? Do you really believe that the President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country and in the world? Think again. The most powerful people are a collection of old, white, rich men, who own everything and everyone. With just a phone call, they get whatever they want, and whenever they need it.
Now, I know some Mafia types. Being from Boston, specifically from the North End, the Italian part of Boston, and having grown up in a protected neighborhood, my family was all Mafia.
"Hey, it goes with the territory, capiche?"
Because I lived in a protected neighborhood, there was no crime. None. Zilch. My aunt and uncle were bookies. All my cousins were two-bit criminals practicing their craft in neighborhoods, other than the North End of Boston. My cousin, Frankie, lived in Arizona with his family for 25 years in the Witness Protection Program, after Whitey Bulger, (Google him, if you don't know who he is) put a hit on him and "The Rifleman" Flemmi, shot my cousin in the shoulder, after killing his friend, while they sat in a parked Cadillac. My Uncle Julio, who worked for a funeral home, used to fly dead bodies to Maine and bury them there, so that they could replace their body in their coffin with someone they murdered. My Uncle Mario made all his money during prohibition, when he carried cases of booze from Canada to America about his boat. Anyway, in the official Cosa Nostra handbook of hits, here on page 211, it reads and I quote, "Leave no witnesses."
"Read my lips," said George H. Bush.
"Fuck you, George!"
"Mission accomplished," said George W. Bush.
"Fuck you, George!"
Let me ask you this? Why wasn't President Bush impeached from office, when they didn't find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? C'mon, this is an easy question. I haven't gotten to the hard questions, yet. I'll give you a hint. President Clinton was impeached for lying to us, after receiving a blowjob from Monica Lewinski, a newsflash that was played over and again on Republican controlled media outlets not for weeks and months but for years. Now, why wasn't President Bush impeached for lying to us, after fucking us all up the ass by starting an unnecessary, costly war that took the lives of so many of our young men and woman? Why was that not played over and again, in the way that Clinton's blowjob was? At least Clinton kissed Monica. Did Bush kiss any of you, other than kissing you good-bye, of course, when he left Washington a much richer man than when he arrived.
Don't you just love seeing George Bush out in the open and smiling and waving to everyone. Secretly, he's giving us all the finger, behind our backs. I just love seeing George and Laura Bush sitting front row center with Nolan Ryan and his wife, Ruth, at a Texas Rangers game, when most of us can't even afford a bleachers ticket, never mind a lower box seats. Then, there's the issue of parking your car for $100.00. Looking so much like the monkey that he is, seeing my ex-president with that dopey grin on his face makes me feel warm all over, as if I just peed myself.
"Shit, I just peed myself."
You baseball fans all know that George W was once part owner of the Texas Rangers. A team that was purchased for eighty-nine million was sold for two hundred fifty million dollars. Now, inflation raises everything, including the purchase price of baseball teams, but unless the team was the New York Yankees that are worth an estimated ten billion dollars, the Rangers sold at a huge profit. Why was that?
I'll tell you why. Because Tom Hicks, the man who bought the Texas Rangers from Bush and his friends, as part of his package deal was allowed to buy more than 120 radio stations. Now having control over such a media market was something that was illegally prohibited, just a few short months before, that is, until the Republicans stacked not only the FCC but also the Supreme Court. No one was watching the chicken coop but thieving Republicans. This deal made any deal that Tricky Dick Nixon ever did. Oh, and by the way, how much in capital gains taxes do you think George W paid, when he sold his baseball team. Guess again. Just remove any numbers, but leave the zero. Because his private sale was protected under the conflict of interest laws, when assuming the office of the presidency, special laws not available to average Americans, George was able to reap the benefits of that Republican sponsored law.
So my question still stands. Why wasn't Bush impeached for starting a war with Iraq? Why wasn't Bush put in jail for fraud and tax evasion? You don't know? I'll tell you why.
"Are you ready? Shock and awe! Yep, that's it. Shock and awe. The Republican war mongers wanted to draw our attention away from the real issues of the economy by giving us a fireworks display in Iraq. Definitely, I may have been shocked by the extent my government goes to cover their lies, but I'm definitely not in awe of them."
As if we're all watching a live video game, by diverting our attention away from being broke and unemployed or underemployed, by dropping bombs and killing people, Republicans prefer to start wars than to fix the economy. There's a lot of money in starting wars but no money in fixing the economy. Now with the drain on the economy from the war that they started with Afghanistan and with Iraq, with Bush no longer in office, and our economy much worse than when Bush took office eight years before, they blame our bad economy on President Obama, when he merely inherited their mess. How's that for spin? Nice if they could pull that one off, but blaming Obama for starting a war they couldn't win and robbing the U. S. Treasury to bailout their rich friends doesn't make any sense to me. Does it to you? Go figure the truth, if you can find the truth with the Republicans controlling the media, in the way they spin their lies.
Still, I haven't answered the question, why Bush wasn't impeached, when we didn't find any weapons of mass destruction. Wasn't that the load of shit he sold us, as his reason to go to war? I'll tell you why he wasn't impeached. Because (picture Superman standing atop of the Statue of Liberty, while wearing a Wall Street type suit and carrying a briefcase, instead of wearing tights and a red cape,) in the name of peace, democracy, and the war effort, a lot of Bush's friends made a lot of money bombing the shit out of Afghanistan and Iraq. That's why.
Vice President Cheney, who was the real man-behind-the scenes, was Papa Bush's pick to be the stealth president of the United States. The once head of Halliburton, the company that provides supplies, from soup to nuts, to our military for our deceptive war effort, as well as for our oil drilling companies, think British Petroleum and the pollution of our Gulf waters, made millions of dollars for himself and billions of dollars for his company. Are you starting to see how we've all been duped? Are you starting to see how the rich get richer and how the rest of us pay for their good times with long term unemployment and underemployment?
Do you remember Angelo Mozilo? He was always by George, Jr. side shaking his hand and patting him in the back in the way that Bebe Rebozo was with Nixon. Don't get me started with Nixon. My blood pressure will climb.
Anyway, Angelo Mozilo, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive officer of Countrywide Bank, to avoid trial on civil fraud, settled with the SEC for a paltry $67.5 million dollars, after he squirreled away hundreds of millions more, think the Cayman Islands and secret Swiss bank accounts. Get this, he was allowed to "legally" keep $444 million dollars of his fraudulently accumulated money that he stole from honest, hard working people, after his company was slapped on the hand and charged with minority discrimination and fined the biggest fine in the history of fines, $335 million dollars. Bank of America, who now owns Countrywide Bank will pay the fine.
"What? Huh? Bank of America? Why? Why is Bank of America being so nice to pay such a big fine?"
Oh, don't worry, BoA will make it all back by charging you exorbitant fees for breathing in their bank branches, while expecting and begrudging you any customer service. Actually the $335 million dollar fine is chump change for what these big banks have earned and will continue to earn by ruining our economy and destroying the lives of millions of Americans with their exorbitant fees. Answer me this. Why isn't Angelo Mozilo in jail? Because Angelo, a good, personal friend of President Bush, made sure that he took care of all his Republican politicians and some Democrats, too, with big, low interest loans. How about that? Angelo safeguarded his exit by financing all his Washington pals. Let me ask you this, did any of you receive a big, fat, low interest loan from Angelo Mozilo's Country Wide Bank? No? Gees, that's weird. Don't feel bad because I didn't get one either.
Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson, under federal financial disclosure law, had to sell all his stock in Lehman Brothers, when he took office. Did you know that? Don't you feel bad for the man? Only, please don't feel bad for Paulson. By a law that was created for politicians like him, he was allowed, get this, to cash in all of his stock, all $450 million dollars of it...are you ready? Without paying a dime in taxes. Nothing. Not a cent. Now, timing is everything, when dumping, I mean, selling stock. Instead of Paulson telling the truth, he sat before the Senate and told them that Lehman Brothers was a financially sound company. Had he told the truth, his stock shares would have been worthless. Here he is the Secretary of the United States Treasury and he paid nothing in taxes. Just for comparison sake, now, of course, I realize that you made much less than $450 million dollars, but how much did you pay in taxes?
Now how many of you unemployed or underemployed had to hit up your IRA or 401K, if you even have one, to make ends meet, to pay your rent, save your home, and keep your car? How much did you have to pay in penalties for early withdrawal? How much did you have to pay in taxes? Now, compare that amount to how much Paulson paid for cashing in his stock and how much Bush paid for selling his baseball team. How fair is that? Men who could have easily paid, whatever the tax was for selling their stock and baseball team, the government comes after you, the unemployed or underemployed to stick it to you. That's your price for freedom.
If one of us hit the lottery for $450 million dollars and took the cash payout, we'd realize about $180 million dollars. One hundred eighty million dollars sounds like a lot of money, especially, when gambling a dollar in hopes of winning the lottery, but Paulson received all $450 million of his dollars tax free? Why? I don't get it. That's just not right. That's not fair. That's the way that it is. If you're not pissed, you should be. If you voted Republican and aren't a millionaire or a billionaire, then there's something seriously mentally wrong with you.
"God fucking bless America!"
Oh, we're not done with Paulson, yet, not by a long shot. Paulson, under Bush's watch and counsel, opened the doors of the United States Treasury and passed out billions of dollars to banks, insurance companies, and the auto industry without accounting for who got how much. He should be in jail, too. He's the guy who sat in front of a senate finance subcommittee investigating the financial fraud in the stock market collapse and swore that Lehman Brothers made good investments with their credit default swaps, derivatives, and hedge funds. A few weeks later, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy protection. Gees, what a coincidence.
"Sorry for being so stupid, but if a financial institution is making good investments with their credit default swaps, derivatives, and hedge funds, why would they have the need to file for bankruptcy protection? That just makes no sense to me. Does it to you? Yet, seemingly, somehow, it made sense to those in power of our government, the same men who didn't put Bush, Cheney, Mozilo, Paulson, and hundreds of others in jail."
None of it makes any sense, unless, of course, those credit default swaps were not worth the paper they were written on and derivatives were just another gambling bet in a hedge fund that was more a Ponzi scheme than it was a financial investment. Then, even while Lehman Brothers, AGI, Wachovia, Chase, Wells Fargo, General Motors, Chrysler, Freddie Mac, Sallie Mae, et al, were filing for bankruptcy protection, the brokers and their managers, the people who caused the markets to collapse, instead of being arrested, charged, convicted, and put in jail were given multimillion dollar bonuses and golden parachutes, from the bailout money showered upon them by Paulson, when leaving their failed companies. This is worth writing again for you to read. Secretary Paulson opened the doors of the United States Treasury and passed out billions of dollars to banks and insurance companies, without accounting for who got how much. Why wasn't he arrested? Why was he allowed to walk away scot free, after bailing out all of his powerful Republican friends?
Now, if a man held up a bank, there'd be a manhunt for him by the local police and the FBI, especially if that man was a black man. Yet, Secretary Paulson, an old, white man, stole all the money that we all paid to the IRS in taxes to give to the biggest, wealthiest, and most profitable businesses in the world. I don't get it. Why isn't he in jail, at least investigated? Why wasn't the money they handed out accounted for, at the very least? Instead, he's sitting at home drinking fine, French wine and stuffing his face with imported cheese cake.
Wouldn't you just love to never have to worry about money or about working again? Wouldn't you love to have stocks worth $450 million dollars and, knowing your company would soon be going out of business, called illegal insider trading information, allowed to cash in those stocks tax free? Wouldn't you love to be sitting at home drinking fine French wine and stuffing your face with cheesecake? When all of you lost your jobs because of Secretary Paulson's handling of the economy and aiding in Wall Street crashing, when he was the one in charge of Lehman Brothers, did any of you receive a bailout? Did anyone give you money because you lost your job, your home, your car, your marriage, and your life?
"Then, why aren't you as fucking angry as I am?"
Please, don't vote Republican. Our only hope is with Obama and the Democrats. Better yet, we all should strive to eradicate a two party system and adopt one party, the American party, a party that will help everyone equally, whether rich or poor. If I can stop one person for voting for Mitt Romney, than this essay was a success.
"Ding! Dong!"
"Wait, pardon me. Hold on a second. There's someone at my front door."
"Oh, my God! Are you kidding me? No way! It's Publishers Clearing House. I just won ten million dollars!"
"Tell us, what's the first thing you're going to do with your ten million dollars? Are you going to quit your job, buy a house, a new car, a vacation home, a boat, take a world trip, hire a cabana boy and a housekeeper to take care of your every sexual whim or all of those?"
"Actually, none of those. I mean, I may do some of those or all of those eventually, especially hiring a cabana boy and a housekeeper to take care of my every sexual whim. Yet, the first thing I'm going to do, that is, after I collect my money and return from the Cayman Islands and Geneva, is to turn Republican. I may be outraged over how the Republicans, and all politicians, have ruined this country, but I'm not stupid. If I can't beat them, I'll join them. Hey, I want to keep as much of this ten million dollars, as I can, without having to waste it on paying taxes."
Okay, especially after reading this essay, I know what you're all thinking. You're thinking that the Publishers Clearing House contest was fixed by the Republicans trying to bribe me, just so that I wouldn't go public with this essay. Right? Wrong. Me winning the Publishers Clearing House contest was just a coincidence. I swear. Honest. Really. You have to believe me. Would I lie to you? Have I ever lied to you?
Now, if only I can find the delete button to delete this story, before submitting it to Literotica.
"Oh, shit! Too late."
THE END
