Post #362,532
9/12/12 10:47:37 PM
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O-man as tool/sellout
Thought experiment, Ashton: the dying Vito Corleone has passed over his surviving sons and handed the reins of the Corleone Family to you. We all know you for a benign soul, Ashton, and the traditional family businesses—protection, prostitution, extortion, numbers—will not resonate with you. You will seek more clement outlets for the organization you now head. The Corleones will now devote their considerable resources and energies toward...animal rescue. You explain this new objective to Tessio and Clemenza, your Godfather's trusted caporegimes. They shoot you simultaneously at this first meeting or, best case, passively obstruct you. In either event, not a single kitten gets placed with a loving family.
Of course, unlike you in this fanciful scenario, Obama has kissed the ring. He knew approximately what he was getting into, but I suspect that not until one settles in behind the Global Crimelord's desk in the Oval Orifice does one have a real view of the obstacles to a reformer's impulses. I think the last US president who arrived with genuinely naive reformist impulses was sworn in early in 1977, and the comfortable thugs of both parties, back when this was a proper duopoly, made common cause to thwart and ultimately expel him (remind me to lend you my copy of the late Walter Karp's Liberty Under Siege. I thought when I read it in 1987 that it was a little over the top; I now marvel at the author's powers of understatement).
My wife jokes about establishing an "Institute for the Hopelessly Romantic," in which women yearning for the arrival of their prince are strapped to a chair and slapped repeatedly as the trainer cries "No one's coming! No one's coming!" Alas, those of us who hope for someone to rescue late-stage capitalism from its essential nature are doomed to be appalled when the prince finally shows up: it'll be a real prince. For the duration we must needs content ourselves with a series of holding actions, and that, alas, is all we're likely to get from a second Obama term. But however imperfect, Obama/Biden are not Bush/Cheney, and for that I sacrifice an infant to Moloch every morning.
cordially,
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Post #362,539
9/13/12 3:20:14 AM
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{Chortle} ... close-enough, except:
As Capo di Capos, I trust I would have assigned my operatives to rescue ... race horses! Kitties just wouldn't fly.
Yess, that's it:
Ey, Vito was a sweetheart, deep down. I salute his legacy and now carry out his new directions:
Muggsy Clemenza, we gots to pay-back for all those 'arranged handicaps' (which bought your new Caddy. With the special trunk.)
So, I want you boys to track down the owners of those nags, buy/get the horses and move them--CAREFULLY--to the new farm.
Do this righteous and, we'll have some more new stuff for you to do; no questions--Got It?
Doesn't matter how much slack I cut the O-man, recognizing that of which you speak; keeping his actual agenda close-to-chest goes without saying--even in usual abnormal times.
Merely I report that: a significant percent of his Troops have gnashed molars over n+1 situations, during which Something (wisely terse) needed be said.
If you cannot 'say' that which Needs to be Said--something besides silence should ameliorate an obvious non-response perceived by so many.
He may lack that ability to contrive such, but I doubt this, given his intelligence and experience. I am merely gruntled; (too many) others are disgruntled.
'Holding actions' puts it about right; hell of a place to set-the-bar; ain't no glory in That!
(Maybe he could just fire all those holdover finance guys, at last. But.. replace them with Whom?)
I am resigned to just watching how he does the Lame-duck cha-cha-cha, hoping for the occasional surprise and for his making it through alive--no trips to Dallas, say.
I have no expectations of 'reform', for all reasons similar to yours. People have to die out before anything heroic might ever happen.
(That makes for a guaranteed dull play for the/My! 'duration': give up endorphins? or buy/rent a Kawasaki ZX and explore 200 mph? at least once. Flip coin.)
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Post #362,540
9/13/12 7:54:23 AM
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For someone who professes hope...
I read that post as terribly fatalistic.
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Post #362,556
9/13/12 10:32:52 PM
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Bah!
Do I profess hope? I do not, except insofar as I hope to evade the worst. And fatalists have always been proven right within a generation or two.
cordially,
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Post #362,564
9/14/12 2:02:52 PM
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Pedantic Nit.
You do profess hope.
Emphasis Mine.
Alas, those of us who hope for someone to rescue late-stage capitalism from its essential nature are doomed to be appalled when the prince finally shows up: it'll be a real prince.
But I cannot say that I disagree with you.
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Post #362,568
9/14/12 3:26:44 PM
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Isn't that a common expression that can mean...
"'some people' but I might or might not count myself in that group"?
From the same family of expressions as the "royal 'we'", I think.
Cheers,
Scott.
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Post #362,590
9/15/12 12:32:05 PM
9/15/12 12:33:14 PM
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I don't know if that was the intent.
Personally, if it were, imo it would have been better (or at least more clear to this aging old hillbilly from the foothills of the Appalachian mountains - and that's pronounced "App-el-lat-chin", not "App-el-lay-shun" like the yankees say it :) if it had been written, "Alas, for those who hope ..." instead of, "Alas, for those of us who hope.."
YMMV. As I said, it was a pedantic nit. But I understand your point. ;0)
Edit: Dang, I can't even quote properly.
Edited by mmoffitt
Sept. 15, 2012, 12:33:14 PM EDT
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Post #362,639
9/16/12 10:05:39 PM
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The primary goal of this Republic
is keeping Princes out.
And I think that goes beyond literal Princes. We don't need a leader, we need a competent administrator. Somebody who is just barely tolerable to his own side. But then we also need a legislative branch that works, and that means changing the filibuster back to what it used to be, none of this calling it and then sitting down.
Except I think there ought to be a provision that tarps are laid around the podium and very ripe vegetables distributed to the rest of the room, spectators included. The pay-per-view would go a long way towards deficit reduction.
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In the dessert, you can't remember your name
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