In the space of just 8 years, George Bush managed to destroy the entire capitalist system. Think about it -- AIG bankrupt, Lehman Brothers bankrupt, General Motors bankrupt, the entire banking system -- frozen or bankrupt, the housing industry -- in complete freefall. We often think of capitalism as this permanent, timeless, immovable force. And yet after just 8 years of George Bush, or rather, after 8 years of this experiment in almost complete Chicago School neoliberal economic policy with no regulation, minimal taxes, and no oversight -- the entire capitalist system is on the verge of collapse (and indeed would have collapsed if the federal government hadn't stepped in to take over). That's kind of incredible don't you think? Capitalism is in fact a very fragile system -- all it takes to kill it is to leave the wrong guy in charge for 8 years. It makes you wonder if perhaps communism might have survived if only Gorbachev hadn't decided to just say fuck it and sell out to the west.
Look, as Milton Friedman himself would probably say if he were still alive, capitalism was a great idea in theory, it just didn't work that well in practice.
All these years, lefties have been starting nonprofits and running NGOs and publishing journals full of revolutionary ideas that went nowhere -- when all they really needed to do to bring down the capitalist system was to let Republicans run all 3 branches of government for a few years.
So a couple lessons to draw from all of this. First, those who crowed about how the downfall of communism proved the virtues of capitalism can shove it up their ass. Capitalism would fellatiate itself to death if it wasn't for the occasional checks and balances provided by lefties (and indeed capitalism itself apparently has to be completely taken over by a massive federal intervention every 50 to 75 years or else it would not exist).
Second, if we can suddenly find a trillion here or a trillion there to bail out banks, investment banks, insurance companies, the auto industry, and the housing industry -- then we can sure as heck provide a trillion here and a trillion there for universal single payer health insurance, universal college education, social security, clean air, clean water, and decent roads, bridges, hospitals and schools.
Finally, before the Republicans run off to hunker down in the Hoover Institution to come up with a blueprint for how to once again unite Wall Street and broke ass conservative rural voters in another unholy alliance to take over the country and rob the treasury again -- before they lawyer up and grant each other pardons and send their surrogates out to the cable TV networks to preach the virtues of bipartisan cooperation -- before all that -- it'd be really nice if Republicans just stopped for a minute and gave us all an apology. An apology for being asleep at the wheel during 9/11. An apology for sending over 4,000 American men and women to their deaths in Iraq. An apology for completely blowing the federal surplus on tax breaks for people who own private jets. An apology for bankrupting the auto industry and killing the financial services industry, and bankrupting the treasury. Because before we can even talk about working together for the good of the country -- it'd be nice, really nice for Republican to take responsibility for COMPLETELY FUCKING UP EVERYTHING THEY'VE TOUCHED FOR THE PAST 8 YEARS.
A brother can dream right?
1 comment:
Yes!
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