What's the point?

First, just in to Buzzflash tonight, Robert Novak, Republican operative pretending to be a newsman, has now announced publicly that Karl Rove was his source for the outing of Valerie Plame. Will Bush fire him as promised? Don't bet on it. There apparently is a discrepancy between Novak's testimony, Rove's, and the CIA's. So they will no doubt keep a he said/he said/they said thing going forever and nothing much will happen. Besides, would you expect Bush to keep his word? If so, where have you been for the past six years?

What's the point of giving immunity to the U.S. Military in Iraq? The Iraqis are now going to ask the U.N. to no longer allow immunity from Iraqi law for American forces. But why did they have immunity in the first place? What is so special about the American Military that they should not have to obey laws that all others would have to obey. The result of this exception to the laws of the host country is now coming home to haunt us. Basically, this amounts to no more or less than a license to rape, pillage, and murder. Now with at least five different investigations of American troops flagrantly breaking the law, and military rules as well, we are having to face the consequences of this foolish policy. And remember, the U.S. has twisted arms all around the world to exempt American Military personnel from laws that would apply to everyone else. This is just another example of the absurd notion that we are "good" and others are "bad."

What is the point of anyone having fifty billion dollars of personal wealth? Bill Gates, of course, is the poster child for this ridiculous practice. This is not meant to be an attack on Bill Gates personally, but on a capitalistic system that makes no sense whatsoever. How do you make money in such a system? You make it either by exploiting workers or arranging takeovers of various kinds. In either case it is exploitation pure and simple. Why should Gates personally have fifty billion dollars? Wouldn't everyone be far better off if that money had been more equitably distributed? Why should his employees (including those semi-slave laborists in Asia) not have been paid more? Why should not his prices have been reduced?

Similarly, whey should the top honchos at Disneyland be pulling in a hundred million per year each? Why couldn't they have charged a bit less and thus allowed more happiness for more people. Surely they don't need a hundred million a year for their happiness. Indeed, Bill Gates and other CEO's could easily take a ninety percent reduction in "wages" or "profits" and still have more money than they could possibly ever use. I don't care how hard anyone works, or how creative they are, no one deserves to accumulate that much money at the expense of others (which is the only way it can be accumulated). This is a system so out of control it is disgusting. It is intrinsically wrong and there is no way it can be justified. I believe some people do work harder than others, and some people are more creative than others, and some are just more clever than others, and such people deserve to be rewarded, but there should at least be some reasonable limits on greed.