Friday, July 24, 2009

Dysfunctional or Highly Effective

Watching the right wing in congress wield its powers to obstruct the health care restructuring that 85% of the public wants reveals the character of the wingers more than ever. Policy that public interest would dictate is anathema to what remains of the GOP. It's rather scary to see what they do want; war, debt, deregulation, repression of workers/salaries.

Today as the minimum wage rises for the first time since the last Democratic White House, it might be a good time to look at who benefits when the public is slammed.

The facts behind the wars that the previous war criminal administration waged have become clear; the war on Iraq had been determined long before 9/11 which was used to precipitate it. Many believe, and state, that it was a war for oil; I think that the outcome indicates it was a broader pattern. Not just the oil companies that the previous maladministration truckled to profited hugely. The war profiteers that include Cheney's Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater and associated military suppliers also had free reign which included being appointed oversight of their own activities. The wars that impoverished this country enriched the perpetrators of it, something a previous profiteer,, progenitor of the worst president in history, had been rebuked for by Congress after WWII.

There were other methods of impoverishing the country, a major one being the deregulation of financial houses that pushed debt so great onto the country that our households have lost an estimated one-third of total assets. Wages' falling - along with soaring prices of oil and transported goods - has required individuals and families to go deeper into debt than ever experienced before. The service jobs that predominated during eight years of winger policies forced multitudes of wage earners to take more than one job to support themselves and their families.

National debt rose to pay for the extravagance of the free market profiteers. National debt brings to mind a vision of the Treasury, whose bonds have been sold to various investors here and abroad. More than just the Treasury is involved in the transaction, though.

The sellers of those Treasury bonds are for the most part the very financial houses that handle other investments, and can be your bank, your financial manager, even your insurance agent. Few have, as I did, bought their bonds directly from the U.S. Treasury, and it offended my banker to find out that I had not gone through him when I did. The profit in each individual transaction is minimal, but in the multitudinous transactions of sales to get into the immense debt constitution some trillions of dollars huge profits accrued.

Once again, policies that made a mockery of the concept of government, that it serves the public, brought huge profits to the moneyed interest that the right wing serves.

While public office holders who take direct bribes from those they serve by betraying public interest are prosecuted, those who serve their own interests by allowing them to profit off of policies harmful to the public usually are ignored.

The highway robbery, that acquiring huge public debt has been. may not ever be prosecuted. Like the war, though, it has accumulated huge profits for those that committed this crime against the public.

In discussion of the wingnut attacks on health care for the public, more than one commenter I've been talking with has expressed amazement that we aren't taking to the streets and running them out of office. Quite probably, if the full truth of their thefts from the public were exposed, there would be even greater anger against the profiteers from war, debt and the health crisis.

I prefer accumulating anger and using it personally to work for a return to government of, by and for the people. In the sixties, I marched around the White House holding a candle, and against the Pentagon - though I went home before the soldiers advanced against civilians there. It's quite likely that I will be marching again, should the wingnuts succeed in robbing this country of its access to health care, along with the return on its productivity and its right to survive on that production.

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2 Comments:

Blogger VforVirginia said...

Excellent, Ruth.

9:18 AM  
Blogger Ruth said...

I do appreciate your comment, V.

10:16 AM  

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