When the new American revolution comes -- as inevitably it will -- it will probably be geezers who are first to the barricades.
While we slept, Dr. Kidglove's deficit reduction commission colluded with corporations and Congress to hack away at Social Security benefits.
"Oh," we shrugged, re-checking the iffy status of our 401(k) and other dwindling savings, "they'll never touch Social Security."
They've done touched it, folks, and ain't a thang we can do about it now. Get used to it: cheap dog food kind of tastes like, oh, Spam if you load it with ketchup.
While the lap dogs of the media kept us busy fretting over celebrity divorces, phonied-up videos of a black USDA official speaking to the NAACP, and manufactured controversy about whether the First Amendment applies to Islamic American citizens, that deficit commission was meeting in absolute secrecy.
We still haven't figured out that the moment anything happens behind closed doors in Washington, John Q. Public is going to suffer for it. When the something that's happening involves a whole gaggle of outspoken enemies of Social Security and all other aspects of the social safety net, the outcome is a foregone conclusion.
Now, these dudes who had made up their minds even before they began meeting in secret to agree with one another, will make their official report in December -- right after the Tea Party kooks, Republican extremists and other whores of corporate America have swept control of Congress.
So when Alan Simpson, Pete Peterson and the rest of the gang tell Congress that the geezers have sucked too long and too hard at the public teats, you can bet that Congress will rubber stamp it tout de suite.
The vote is rigged anyway because the House has already passed a resolution calling for an up-or-down/no-amendments vote on the Commission's recommendations, a procedure that assures the enactment of the commission's recommendations.
Every significant aspect of corporate government is rigged against We the People who formed this more perfect union.
Once, ten per cent return on investment was considered a fair and decent profit for an American business. Then Wall Street and the big investment banks -- yes, the outfits we had to bail out with our tax dollars a couple of years ago -- decided that ten per cent was peanuts, wouldn't pay the big bonuses CEOs were entitled to.
So they bought a few more congressmen and began to work away at the American labor movement, which created the middle class. In secrecy and shady deals, American labor was so neutered that American jobs, particularly in manufacturing, went "Poof" and reappeared overseas. And corporate profit margins soared -- 20 per cent, 25, 30. . . .Exxon Mobil!
It isn't coincidence that trillions went to save corporations and a few dimes went to create jobs for the millions of unemployed Americans.
Perhaps the jobless will join the geezers on the barricades when revolution comes. Who do you imagaine discovered that dog food tastes like Spam if you load it with ketchup?
It wasn't the fat cats in corporate suites and boardrooms.
"Don't tell Momma I'm a journalist; say I play the piano in a whorehouse."
