Those CIA tapes

This is terrible, but I'm pretty sure about this. The past several years have revealed to the world cracks in our foundation, leaks in our roof, and fools herded in Novembers to elect partisan tools for undoing what's good for us. Right now we have a big problem on our hands. The Bush administration is going to leave (unless they declare a state of emergency and contract Blackwater and KBR to imprison us all) soon, and they've avoided everything for almost 8 years.

When the next administration ascends, we'll see a half-assed Afghanistan limping along, Pakistan is doing something wierd (hasn't made the news in the past week or so), China has lumbered forward to be the big greedy bully and they've politicked and bought their way into better competitive positions than ever before. Israel has been left to its own devices, not just the state but the whole situation. Africa is pretty well committed to its perpetual slide, the Amazon rain forest is approaching the tipping point, and the world science community has been sidelined by faithmongers in guiding US policy.

Now there are tapes. Just two, of course. They should have been preserved somehow, althouth being altered and remaining as primary evidence would be tricky... American agents, doing things to expose themselves to civil, criminal, or just plain honor-among-thieves justice, have been documented doing those things, those bad things. Yes, to a bad guy. Two bad guys. There are only two tapes. Ever.

I think (gulp) it's time to circle the wagons to stop letting the Bush team bury our international credibility and further fracture us as a nation. We're splintered now, and our allegiences are strained. Our economy is in the toilet, and our intelligence services have been beaten silly. We have to take the initiative to express our national interest pro-actively and say, "This failing has to stop. No further questions."

Ultimately, the Guantanamo detainees have to stand some kind of trial. Bush, et al, would prefer the olde-school methods of throwing them bound into a lake to see if they float. If the drown, they're innocent. These two tapes relate to two detainees? Only two? I suspect there is a body of circumstantial evidence against them. I think they can probably be put away Al Capone- style, using an unrelated charge to pack 'em away forever. And I know US prisons are hard to survive, although in that environment they may become new leaders.

But I think we should not allow this Executive cohort further damage us, expose our treasure and personnel, weaken further our international standings. We can come up with some way to punish this as a burocratic misdeed, and it probably warrants an obstruction charge- several. Or at least two. But let's not do it on the world stage. Let's get the initiative going to process Guantanamo first. The ground is too soft for a good footing, the tapes and their destruction have no independent standard. As the whole world is watching us work extra-constitutionally every day, let them see us dedicate ourselves to fixing it from within.

The Dyslexicon

Dyslexia is a serious issue. It's hard to recognize at first, and makes for lots of frustration and family tensions, keeps some kids at the margins, and it's very hard to help. It happens to different degrees, and unfortunately looks just like simple indiscipline. If you have it, it makes everything look like a word scramble and you can't turn it into information.

That's what the present administration is trying to do to us. Many of our federal agencies are still there, but they aren't producing their work the way we would expect. Check out the Non-Informist Lexicon of 'information' produced by our 'President' and his 'administration':
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004766.php

I call it the Dyslexicon.

Let them beat each other up

The most worn page of the Party Playbook is the one with instructions on handling opposition jockeying: Let them kill each other. They're self-destructing. Watch:

So now, the Senators vying for the Democratic nomination are feeding the opposition. Clinton and Obama both belong in the Senate, but their prominence within the activist communities made their banks fat and they've been elevated to Personalities. I like their political ambition, but I think the government is a train wreck and we won't know just how bad for years. These liberals are the wrong kind: Optimistic.

Job 1 for the next President is going to be cleaning the mold out of the basement, trimming the fat, tightening the belt. Only by doing that can our government be used to effect deliberate changes society can tolerate.

Inquirer Letters Section

The letters section of the Philadelphia Inquirer are usually good substrates for discussion. Usually, they include one Republican hack, a self-defense note, something blue and national, and something relevant to Philadelphia-area readers.

This week, we start with a discussion of the Turnpike Privatization Scam. These are our roads. We paid for them already, and continue to pay as we use them. That's perfect, right? Bonds, real estate favors, tax money went to putting them there. It's not complicated, it's a flattened section of earth between two points, sometimes through mountains and over rivers. There are cash registers every so often to collect tolls, but mostly it's the flattened earth doing the work. So we need cashiers in the booths, and we need road crews. The PA Department of Transportation has those. And they know how to hire surveyers to check how flat the earth is, and they can commission work to go make it flatter as needed. Leasing it to a private company and then taxing the toll revenue will almost eliminate either toll revenue or flatness. Eliminate appointees, and as Barrish suggests we'll see a different budget environment over there.

Amtrak came up again. So many of us drive along railroad tracks an hour to work, and so few wish to travel with others that we are guaranteeing the retardation of public transportation. I favor not using gasoline whenever possible. Feet were made for walking. It's impossible to replicate the rail system of Europe or Japan here, we simply weren't intended to be a fiefdom, where the patron could wave his wand and squeeze juice from the serfs and make it happen. I favor a strong network of rails to ensure the safe and subsidized traffic in goods. And it seems obvious to me that if 20 people are going to Pittsburgh, they should split the gas and tolls by riding in a train. I'm a rugged individual, but like universal health coverage, transpo is something we all need, all benefit from.

This week's Republican sniper complains about socialism as the Senate runs a skeleton crew to prevent Bush's despotic recess appointments.

I want to work for Progressive Politics

I want to do that. Work for Progressive politics. I don't really want to attach myself to a politician, although issues and I are already pretty tangled up together.

SOS! I'm crushed in the middle class!

It's very hard to be en enlightened, open and generous member of our society. My trouble stems from my education and upbringing, but the leanings I have now were probably already there. Before the adults got to me.

I went to college and studied a whole lot of stuff without intending to use it to derive my living. But I studied a whole lot of stuff before that. I have a passport. I've studied world religion, world history, the various competing world philosophies toward economy, art, justice. And I've studied chemistry, biology, molecular genetics, language, you name it, I've tried to learn at least as much as I think people ought to know about each of these disciplines.

We all know there are more than one side to every story. But we also know those sides are 'colored' by our interest in the outcome, the verdict of history or even the immediate rendition of justice. At some point in the distance, these rays of hope converge on their source, likely a single point-event with a specific set of true characteristics.

In general, it's the testimony of the completely disinterested materially likely to bear the closest resemblance to the truth. And the truth as I see it puts industries on their own path, looking for self-preservation at any cost. Part of the cost is social stability. 'Elections' as we understand them involve the pushback by and against interests competing for their independence and self-preservation. And right now, the acutely felt push is being made on behalf of those larger industrial interests against the wishes and dreams of the humans living among them.

The ignorant undertow of the 'conservative' faction in the west has at its heart something honorable: Protecting the legacy handed us by our parents and theirs. But it elevates the conflict far beyond the reasonable. Change happens. It has happened, and denying it doesn't do anything to bring about its reversal. Just requires more things to be changed to suit that world view.

Consider that work was once sacred. It was considered a man's right to earn a living at his trade. But it interfered with capital. Capital's interest in earning and not paying trumps your right to be considered a professional. It also upends the playing field by taking the rules as they apply to doing business in one place, and simply ignoring them because you're doing that business somewhere else. This completely destroys the value of the individual lying between the priestly and political classes and the absolute bottom. If you can't find a patron, then you'd better find something meaningless and unproductive to do that will please the Capital class.

A small business in a labor town is strangled now by the avaiability of cheap labor. The same factors formerly commanding premium earnings are the ones a small business has to combat to stay open. Wages. Benefits. Environmental and OSHA rules. Payroll taxes. How can you employ Union carpenters and continue to win bids? You can't. Imagine trying to compete globally as a manufacturer, buying steel and fuel on the world market.

Friggin' Specter again

Senator Arlen Specter, arguably the elder statesman and cooler head on the Republican side, is doing it again. He has a special problem with nominations during the Bush administration, holding his nose to approve the nominations of several anti-New Deal, anti-worker, anti-Me judges.

Now he's making a terrible and gratuitous concession to the dark side. Torture is illegal in the US, meaning the US government and our citizens are not allowed to do it. Waterboarding is torture. By refusing to accede that point, Mukasey paints himself as a politician. If he says it's not torture he won't be nominated. If he says it is torture he may be nominated to preside at Justice while war crimes prosecutions are assembled.

I'm okay with no head at Justice. We Americans have local judges and police, mayors, parents, all kinds of people in positions of authority who belong in our lives. Bush's AG has traditionally been the enabler for the decider, and not the advocate of public safety and order. The war on drugs, for example, doesn't need Mukasey, who would be more likely recruited to the cause of insider trading and corporate immunity.

Specter acknowledges he's voting aye on Mukasey despite the terrible position he's been placed in, but the important issue is simple rule of law. Bush routinely issues those infamous signing statements, written into the record as pro-forma absolution as he refuses to abide by the bill as he signs it into law. Allowing that wiggle room for this horrible sham of a 'President' is unacceptable. Mukasey's limp position here means Bush won't be prosecuted even though the technique is illegal because torture is illegal and waterboarding is torture.

Once again, this should invite another investigation. We were promised investigations by Fox, by the Republicans losing their seats, by the Democrats coming into power. Now they're in, and I'm glad they're strategizing for '08 and beyond. But we need to declaw these bastards and the front burner right now is assigning a lawyer to Justice who would hold the line and bring the administration back into the light.

PA Troopers in Casinos???

No. This is stupid. We've made room for casinos to rapidly export the disposable income of Pennsylvania residents to other states and balance sheets, and we're paying for their security?

If they want to open their little casinos, let them fund an agency for security and self-regulation.

I was against 'gaming' in PA from the start, having actually been in Atlantic City, but now I'm angry about underwriting it.

SCHIP, Poverty and the Wastrel

Bush doesn't know a lot of words, and having never been poor, challenged, or even held to account despite decades of poor performance and bad behavior he can't be expected to understand poverty, which has generally been hidden from television viewers. He's a protected, greedy and jealous snot, working for the first time in his entire boomer life to keep you from getting anything out of your tax payments.

I'm sure he doesn't get or care about the irony in his opposition to the present state of SCHIP legislation. He's been sheltered his whole life by the federal government, and is now protecting us from being protected by it. His parents were career government workers, and their extraction industry benefactors have also benefited non-stop from the largesse of the US Taxpayer.

In just the past few years though, gasoline has tripled in price. Milk is up to almost 2X. Everything has ballooned in price, although some markets are lagging. Per-capita income has dropped, if you excuse the financial services and energy swindle industries. So even if you weren't poor in the last days of Clinton, keeping your 4% annual salary raise wasn't enough and now you live per paycheck.

So that $60,000 per year anywhere near the formerly industrial northeast or midwest is peanuts. A family of four earning $60K is strapped. Mr. Bush takes home a salary nearly double that of his predecessor (properly aligning this executive salary with the insane disproportion of his corporate peers despite leaving the for-profit sector to go into Presidentin'), and he still sits on his blueblood cushion.

SCHIP gives Americans too much of what they want: something.

If we end it now

If we end the Iraq thing now, as in 'poof- it's over', we'll have another 200,000 unemployed, with some medical benefits for a short time but soon to be on their own among us.

Suddenly civilians again, they'll be forced to readjust overnight. I doubt that's easy or even feasible without preparing (planning, Mr. Bush) for a big, national medical care overhaul and serious attention to emotional and psychological care.

The Relative Values of Voters

The Republican Party blew off the NAACP with near unanymity.

According to the US Census (http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/tables/07s0014.xls), there are only about 70-some million of THEM. Republicans get about 10% of their votes from THEM.

The '01 census counts almost 160 million Christians. So if they get half the Christian vote they're ahead of the guy with every vote from THEM.

That should explain why the comically uncommitted Giuliani, the desperate-for-despotism Huckabee, the charming old drunk character actor, the crotchety old man, the Mormon and the crotchety old Conservative all showed up at the Jesus Freak Convention to compete for their support.

So right now they're looking for room in their dogma to support serial-marriage Rudy, Never-did-nothing Thompson, McCain the rapidly aging or anti-everything Paul, so they don't have to vote for wacky-cult gay-marriage public insurance Romney.

If this were reality, we'd expect this freako fringe to be contemplating a ride on the next comet, or at least a third party to leave the things of this world to the students of it. But they're hypocrites too, and they really want to rule the world like the scion whose name it is a letter W.

Back in black & white, almost, and kind of

If you want to look at some pretty fun rants about Tom DeLay and the rest of the scandal roster from early in this abyssmal political cycle, look at the stuff I already wrote. I've written a lot of stuff since that last post, intending to tune my craft. This page might have to be deleted, but I hope I can give you and others a chance to get some value from the provocative crap I can come up with sometimes.

Joy,
Joe Monster

As expected, the whitehouse whitewasher in spin cycle

Once again, the Bush crew points to a new report, jumping up and down and still pointing, excited to tell us it means the opposite of what it says.

The GAO reveals a grade of sub-F for this escalation to date, based on the goal posts as agreed before the surge. Allowing 3 of 18 correct answers, the boy in the White House is a functional idiot.

I don't have time for this anymore. Somebody else has to be the grownup in charge, and I believe heads of state must be held accountable for the terrible things they do, ostensibly in the name of their countrymen.

Karl Rove is a big fat bitch, if there ever was a bitch

Absolutely true: The democrats did the dividing. The Republicans did the unified marching. Some continue to march, even after the country admitted it was Democratic.

If the legislative Democrats weren't reflective, weren't trying to counter the cynical Republican agenda, weren't trying to represent American people in districts, they certainly would have also been marching, and there would be no opposition.

It would also have been the one-party state so useful to the Stalinesque/Neocon MO.

I'm glad that fuckhead went back to his own country, and I hope Bush sweats and whimpers without him, like the dog he is.

Unfortunately, since they said he's leaving, we can deduce he's not going anywhere. Because they can't speak without lying. Congenital. Their lying genitals are in each others' mouths.

Incurious George and the Bird Flu

Of course, since it's been in the headlines as a growing concern among health and science professionals, we can expect the Bush administration to issue a warning next fall: Elect a Republican, or the absolute inaction we've been taking on this important issue we really consider an opinion will sneak up and follow us home from Iraq.

Also of course, we don't know anything about what our Executive stand-in-for-a-real-President is doing. He's priveleged.

Cheers,

How the Democrats do it

This is how they are going to drop the ball:
I got a call from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Comittee soliciting funds for TV commercials targeting weak Republicans. As I told the nice lady caller, they don't need commercials. Bush and his thuglicans are already Democratic campaign commercials. They walk, they talk, and they do things, and every thing they say and do, everyone they walk with, only reinforce the general message that something's wrong and it rhymes with "Uglpew".

They have half the strategy working for them already, but the obvious second half, the B side is blank. What do they do? They ask for money to run commercials.

They are properly tying up the president. He's got the leash wrapped around both legs, and he can't keep up with his barking. But he is still President and Commander in Chief. He still gets to veto the laws passed by a Democratic majority. He's doing better at throwing back in the Democratic face than the Democrats are, and he is succeeding in making the Ds look ineffective and whiny.

But we want the investigations. We do. And we want the war to end. But we can't withdraw troops because we aren't the Commander in Chief. We can't dictate the budget because we aren't the final signatory.

The American people will appreciate the effective way Democrats in Congress are tying his hands, keeping his Attorney General lying in public at Congressional Committees, forcing everyone in the President's life to come forward and refuse to testify about his malfeasance. We will also be happy to hear the Congress has refused to provide a dime for the office of the VP. I want every thing the President does to be hindered so he can't screw things up any more than he has. That's enough for me.

But to take those extra seats from the party of the War (which we won years ago and have yet to win?) (which has transferred the treasure contributed by generations of working people into the hands of the few stockholders at KBR in the name of protecting the Saudi monarchy) (which has so altered the Justice Department and Justice System within the US that our children are reading civics books they can't possibly reconcile with the new ground rules) (which has passionately worked to protect the corporation from the person- in the legislature to exempt it from justice) the Democrats have to continue producing quality, clear legislation with no pork except what Republicans add, and to let Bush veto the "Save AIDS babies" bill, and the "Don't poison the babies" bill, and the "Don't burn up all the flowers" bill. Let him stand before us and hack progressive ideals to bits without the ability to hand out favors to donors or magnates.

This may be the only time in history when the high road can get us there. 1) Keep impeding the Bush agenda, 2) Defund the VP, 3) Quality, honest legislation written to make life a little easier for every human here.

Wow! Finally a firing!

Wow! Hard to believe, but after pages and pages of lies in print, hours of audio lies and an aggressive miseducation campaign, tons of ordnance, fuel, food, machinery, even after the cave people developed methods for shooting down our helicopters (flying over Baghdad too long, those fucks don't have ANYTHING to do by figure out how to blow stuff up), after a list of senior military officers were dismissed for speaking frankly, FINALLY, a high-ranking member of this collossal cluster fuck got fired for cause. He wasn't in Iraq though, and he's being replaced by the fuckup he replaced.

So now I turn to you, the "Support our troops" phonies. Your shithead war, your shithead president, the shithead Secretary of Defense, the shithead VP, everybody on the button-pusher side of this bullshit phony 'war'. How are you? How do you feel about the terrible conditions some of the the wounded soldiers you care so much about have been subjected to WHEN THEY CAME HOME WITHOUT PARTS OF THEMSELVES. Makes me think of the imaginary soldier spitters greeting the Vietnam returns. What a fuck in the ass!

Plop atop that sundae the gag order. We've invited these young (and more mature) patriots to our new colony in the sunny fertile crescent to help Paul Wolfowitz pad his resume, force them to get blown up by guerillas after bowing to Al-Sadr and failing to install our puppet, let anybody with feet waltz across the border with anything they can carry (no beer though), we yodel and moo about increased security and Constitutions, we wonder why physics continues to work even though Bush is president (Nature abhors a power vacuum, just as Iran abhors Sunni Iraq's easy water access), we herd our maimed finest into a sty, and then we threaten them with jail if they exercise their first amendment right to speak about how shitty the Republican Party is.

You're not bad people, I think you're just crazy. Right now you're saying "This isn't the Republicans, it's the Iraqis blowing them up!" But Bush appointees run the military, because the Republican Party gets free blowjobs at the White House. Or something, it's got to have a reason for life to have meaning.

Wow! Finally a firing!

Wow! Hard to believe, but after pages and pages of lies in print, hours of audio lies and an aggressive miseducation campaign, tons of ordnance, fuel, food, machinery, even after the cave people developed methods for shooting down our helicopters (flying over Baghdad too long, those fucks don't have ANYTHING to do by figure out how to blow stuff up), after a list of senior military officers were dismissed for speaking frankly, FINALLY, a high-ranking member of this collossal cluster fuck got fired for cause. He wasn't in Iraq though, and he's being replaced by the fuckup he replaced.

So now I turn to you, the "Support our troops" phonies. Your shithead war, your shithead president, the shithead Secretary of Defense, the shithead VP, everybody on the button-pusher side of this bullshit phony 'war'. How are you? How do you feel about the terrible conditions some of the the wounded soldiers you care so much about have been subjected to WHEN THEY CAME HOME WITHOUT PARTS OF THEMSELVES. Makes me think of the imaginary soldier spitters greeting the Vietnam returns. What a fuck in the ass!

Plop atop that sundae the gag order. We've invited these young (and more mature) patriots to our new colony in the sunny fertile crescent to help Paul Wolfowitz pad his resume, force them to get blown up by guerillas after bowing to Al-Sadr and failing to install our puppet, let anybody with feet waltz across the border with anything they can carry (no beer though), we yodel and moo about increased security and Constitutions, we wonder why physics continues to work even though Bush is president (Nature abhors a power vacuum, just as Iran abhors Sunni Iraq's easy water access), we herd our maimed finest into a sty, and then we threaten them with jail if they exercise their first amendment right to speak about how shitty the Republican Party is.

You're not bad people, I think you're just crazy. Right now you're saying "This isn't the Republicans, it's the Iraqis blowing them up!" But Bush appointees run the military, because the Republican Party gets free blowjobs at the White House. Or something, it's got to have a reason for life to have meaning.

Long time coming

I think it's nice that Mr. Bush fired his lawyer, former Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, and replaced her with an even stronger defense lawyer.

His lack of consideration for all of us ad for his job is admirably reflected in the way he discarded this faithful companion when the lap-dog breed became less useful.

But I do think that letting him wreck the house for the past 6 years should be enough, there's no reason to waste the time of another 20,000 of us for an unknown duration.

These factoidal anecdotes come together to show us the Rove/Bush method at work again, defending the CEO against stockholders and employees. I hope it will backfire, but the intention is solely to put Democrats in an uncomfortable position, risking potential antipatriotic labeling in 2 years. I just hope it doesn't backfire by forcing Iran's hand. His cronies aren't competent to stand that trial.

Why is my father-in law an asshole?

Over the holidays, I was rousted from sleep by a loud exchange in my kitchen. Sis-in-law, who has dated an actual black guy, was apparently attempting a discussion involving openness in human society. Pops wouldn't have it. He sees black people on TV, and despite the black neighbor he knows and basically likes he's sure black culture is the problem.

Now, I'm no black guy. I have a dusty but genuine Arkansas Ave. ghetto pass, I dated black girls at a frequency roughly mirroring demographics, and I can make fun of you very well. I think I’m in a better position to report on ‘Black Culture’ than most of us out here with no claim to it. I grew up in Wilmington, DE, in Claymont and then near Edgemoor. There were race problems, but it was the perception of race problems that gave the problem a body. Then (1970s), there, white people found themselves at the bottom, for the first time forced into contact with the Black people. "Who the hell let them in here?"

Remember, it was in the 1950’s that Black Americans were given the right to be seen in public. The co-incidence of wild economic disparity with the arrival of an essentially new ethnic minority implies linkage in newspapers and television, which ignore socioeconomics. Strip away insinuated status, and people see themselves busting their ass and resent the influx of others chasing the same precious paycheck, devalue the other’s contribution. America has attracted people from all nations, and has hosted plenty of racism and ethnic tension. But this father-in-law’s brand is the beer-hall variety, the dishonest cry of a chronically disgruntled working class. There is no outside object, no external cause for their lament. Hell- this guy doesn’t even have to go to work anymore! He just didn’t mature, never gained the personal confidence to meet difference with serenity. He still thinks the Sharks are going to come to his neighborhood and woo the chicks (and I think he thinks he’s a Jet!).

I’m fascinated that the short period of time that brought us birth control and sexually transmitted disease, sent many to Viet nam (sent this guy to friggin’ Greenland!?!?!?!) and a few to the moon liberated only a retarded xenophobia among some blue collar types, and that so much of our culture is frozen in that period. A guy my age recently cited Hanoi Jane as a good reason to vote for George the Lesser. WTF?

My son's grandfather isn't a racist, he's lazy- more of a bigot. He's another boomer, raised with the daydream of silver spoons, rudely awakened to the truth of life in Capitalism by the 1970s economy. He and the majority of his cohort stopped believing in idealism or hope and started bitching about the bounty. Blacks, Mexicans, Jews, everybody is a problem because he never outgrew his infantile vanity to see the other people standing near him in the mirror too.

Again, he's not a racist. He's a colicky baby. He's got discomfort with the facts of his world, and he complains. He doesn't do anything to alleviate the discomfort, which is important- because he can't do anything about it, can’t even narrow his irks down to a single problem. He's confused and dummed by too much television and not enough life, and like many gravitates to other bitchy people professing common sense. Black culture is the problem. Social liberalism is the problem. The fat cats are the problem. But the fat cats aren’t pawing his daughter, so let’s look a little deeper into the blackness.

African American as an ethnic group is a minority in this country. Very few of them gain the attention of the popular media. Those people are interesting to Wall Street, to Ted Turner but not to Jane Fonda, because they are interesting to CONSUMERS who are interesting to WALL STREET. To delude himself into thinking (he's not actively deluding OR thinking, just parroting teenage angst) he understands black culture from his lengthy excursions into television programming is a thought crime. He doesn't trust the media, but uses it in place of perspective. Instead of looking and talking and assimilating into American society, he waits in his storage facility for the news to come to him. He has come to the conclusion that the people of Blackdom are drugged up gangsta thugs with no jobs, no ambition, and no respect for the American way of life. Of course, the reinforcement of that opinion is a contortion: the Rappers and comics and talk show hosts and obnoxious athletes in his complaints do have jobs, ambition, and exhibit perfectly the American way of life, if crass.

Having an opinion about Blacks, Asians, Eskimos is fine. Embracing the idea that the media is a lie, basing your life on being discomforted by change, and then slavishly attending to every dot and dash broadcast from Wall Street makes people stupid, and people who stupidize themselves are assholes. Internal inconsistency is neurosis. A reflective, critical mind wouldn't tolerate the hunger for disinformation and the mistrust of it, certainly ought to shut up with the baby complaints with no possible resolution and turn off the fucking television.

If what you want can't exist, then pick something else. Your lot in life isn't the blacks' fault. It’s life and it’s pretty good here. The Capitalists, stock brokers and speculators are the people with a stake in your opinion, and they hold a little more leverage over your satisfaction in life than TO. Would we know anything about Owens’ bad classless behaviour without the banks financing the stadiums, the manufacturers sponsoring the halftime shows, the media broadcasting his name? I called him an asshole, in front of our whole family, and I did it pretty loud. I felt bad that it wasn't in context, but now it is and I feel better.

For a scholarly treatment of the above topic, please read What’s the Matter with Kansas? By Thomas Frank.