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To Winston Smith:
By David Glenn Cox
Michael Moore was talking about banking reform on The Tavis Smiley show. Moore was lamenting that the banking reform legislation in Congress was nothing more than window-dressing. That it is symbolism over substance, then Moore sighed and said, “I get tired of being that guy” that comes on TV to tell the public the government isn’t doing what it should. I can relate. I, too, get tired of being that guy.
“Are we still in1984?” Moore asked. “It’s all so Orwellian,” he added, voicing his frustration at the public’s apathy. There are lots of things that I would rather write about, too, but I can’t. I have three projects that I’m working on for a second novel and I like them all very much but can’t motivate myself to complete them when the world’s on fire.
My secret dream of dreams is to own a sailboat and sail off for blue water and orange sunsets and to leave all of this behind. It is a harmless dream for idle hours, an escapist vision because I cannot ignore what is going on all around me. I cannot walk away from a burning theater and not yell fire. Maybe I need to smoke a joint or get laid or to get drunk? But those are temporary solutions that would end in the morning and the things that my eyes still see and my ears still hear would still be all around me in my world of barbed-wire fences and security alarms.
I get tired of being that guy when I read mainstream publications like the New York Times trying to ratchet up war fever again. If, and I emphasize If, Iran is trying to build a nuclear bomb the only thing that it will change will be the ability of the United States to destabilize Iran. The US is determined to dominate the region and an Iranian bomb foils that plot. For all the press about crazy mullahs and Islamic extremists in Iran, how many countries has Iran invaded? The media tells you what madmen they are as we continue to drop bombs on civilians with our hundreds of thousands of troops stationed in foreign lands.
Michael Moore is right. This is 1984 and most Americans just sit in their cubicles and think about the next drink or the next sex or the next episode of “American Idol” while the powers that be steal from you, that’s right, steal from you! I received a comment in regards to “The Alcohol Party” where I wrote about the rise of corporate fascism. “I’m not voting for the Republicans man, no way!” I never told anyone to vote for the Republicans but to this gentleman’s way of thinking if you criticized the Democrats you must be advocating for the Republicans. The mind is locked into to an A or B formula with no concept of C. or D.
Either you are a thought criminal or you’re not. Wages and industry have declined in America because of unions and regulations, not because third world workers' wages for a day’s work wouldn’t buy you a cup of coffee at Starbucks! This is the way that millions are trained to think, all thanks to the miracle of television. If I told you that your media is no freer than it was in Joseph Goebbel’s Germany or Joseph Stalin’s Russia, would you believe me?
I used to watch Keith Olbermann’s program online and he catches hell for supposedly being a liberal. Does he have as his guests people like Noam Chomsky or Amy Goodman or Glen Greenwald? No, he has radicals like Howard Fineman, Markos Moulitsas and Arianna Huffington. Oh yeah, get your guns, boys, the revolution has begun.
Hurricanes, earthquakes and volcanoes can’t be helped; everything else is planned. There are no accidents. There are miscalculations but no accidents. Anyone notice that the financial collapse occurred during the last days of the Bush term? Just like American troops were being sent into Somalia in the waning days of George the elder's term, leaving Clinton holding the bag. Just as the Bay of Pigs invasion was planned under the Eisenhower administration leaving Kennedy to hold the bag.
Like a crooked card game, they let the mark win for a time until the poor sucker pours in all his money, then as the clock strikes twelve they pull out the rug. Hank Paulson goes to Bush and says, “It’s a doomsday scenario out there, George!” where we win and they lose. If, Paulson warns, you don’t give us all the money that we ask for, the economy will collapse.
Bush winks and says, “Whatever you say, Hank, we can’t let that happen!” Wink, wink.
The losses suffered by the big banks have all been made back from the interest on your credit card. They have new funding given to them from your Treasury. The banking executives earned over 120 billion dollars just this year in bonuses from your efforts. The state of California is going to have to lay off 26,000 school teachers this year. Do you suppose that it can’t be helped? That it is just the way it goes? That eighteen million Americans to be evicted this year just fell on tough luck?
It’s called a wealth transfer. The corporate raiders of the 1980s eyed companies with well-funded pension plans as takeover targets, so companies began to encourage 401k contributions and we know what happened to those. Now ask yourself, after they’ve stolen your pension and cleaned out your 401k and shipped your job overseas, what wealth do you stupid Americans have left?
There is a scam among car thieves where they will steal an expensive car, say a Porsche, and they strip the car of its motor and transmission and doors taking anything of value and leaving only a shell which they dump in a public parking lot. Then the car is towed to the impound lot and the insurance company settles the claim and then the shell goes to an auction house where it is auctioned off with a clean salvage title. The thieves buy the car shell for a thousand dollars and reassemble the car. Clean title with lots of profit.
The banking industry is doing the same thing with American homes. That no-good, rotten, son of a bitch George W. Bush began a mortgage rescue plan that only assisted one percent of all potential mortgages. Thank God we elected that nice Barack Obama because his mortgage rescue plan is assisting one percent of all potential mortgages in trouble.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith own a house they bought for $200,000 after putting $50,000 down. Mr. Smith lost his job at American Axle and Mrs. Smith’s hours have been cut back at Wal-Mart. Mr. & Mrs. Smith fall behind in their payments and their mortgage company offers to cut their payments for one year. That’s called a rescue. After the year is up the Smith’s are foreclosed on and evicted. The bank writes off $150,000 as a loss and takes it off their taxes. They take the deed to the FDIC and are given credit for new money to replace their loss. The FDIC then begins to auction off these toxic assets for twenty-two cents on the dollar. Take three guesses who is waiting to buy the house.
Not the Smiths but the bank, the bank can buy the house back for forty four thousand dollars and put up a for rent or for sale sign in the front yard and wait for the next unsuspecting Mr. & Mrs. Smith to wander up. It would have been easier and cheaper for the government to just buy the Smith’s mortgage and refinance the loan for an extra ten years as was done in the 1930s, but that would have cut the banks out of their racket.
That’s what this is, it’s a racket, a scam to pilfer from the middle class any wealth they may have left. Jobs don’t just migrate like birds flying south for winter. A government has to make it possible. Pension plans don’t just accidentally get looted; a government has to make it possible. Did millions of working people lose their homes in Europe? Why are European economies recovering? Is the sagging American economy just an accident, perhaps?
America’s middle classes are not accident victims, they are crime victims. They did not lose their houses to foreclosure; they were stolen from them. Their jobs didn’t just disappear; they were methodically shipped overseas. This is corporate fascism, the government works for corporations and banks and not for you. The Senate banking reform bill offered a $50 billion fund to insure failed institutions. The fund would have been raised by taxing the same banking interests that might potentially fail. Democrats are expected to scrap the fund to lure Republican votes. Why should big banking interests have to pay for their own bailouts? That’s what the Treasury is for!
Percentage of banks requesting financial assistance that received Federal assistance: 100%.
Percentage of homeowners requesting financial mortgage assistance that received Federal assistance: 1%.
It just goes down the memory hole, doesn’t it, Winston?
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