Fear merchants score again

Fear merchants score again. Well, it seems to have worked one more time, the fear card, that is. The House passed the revised Bailout (Rescue) Plan. The Bush administration put the fear of whatever into Congress by telling them that if they didn’t pass this bill the world would end, small businesses would fail, people would lose their jobs, and chaos would reign. While it is no doubt true that we have big troubles and some action needed to be taken, the urgency with which the crisis was presented stampeded Congress again into passing a very questionable piece of legislation. Other alternatives were ignored because, as usual, action had to be taken immediately, as with the Patriot Act. Remember that the original request was three and a half pages that basically suggested Paulson could be given complete control over 700 billion dollars, no questions asked, no supervision, no reviews. As it was only three and a half pages even a few Congresspersons could manage to read it. Once the full horror of what was being proposed was clear, Congress then made some changes, and added I don’t know how many pages to the document. When this was voted on it failed, much to everyone’s surprise. It was said that it failed because the American public was so dead set against it and so informed their Congressmen. So, back to the drawing board. A new bill was drafted which, I understand, runs to more than 400 pages. You can be pretty certain that no one read this tome. And, as the element of fear itself didn’t seem to be quite strong enough to insure passage, some of the paid-for Senators were instructed to bribe a sufficient number of Republican Congresspersons to get it done. And so, it was done, with something in the vicinity of another 150 billion dollars of pork. We now have a bill that no one knows whether or not it will even work, for a figure that was admittedly picked at random because they said they “wanted a really big number.” The claim is that this new bill will perhaps even result in a profit for the taxpayers, new regulations are built into the system, and everything is going to be hunky dory. The market responded with only a modest 157 point drop and no one is sure what will happen next. That’s what I call really good government. They couldn’t bother to take a few more days, perhaps even a week or two, to make sense of what it is they were doing. Fear drives their feet, so to speak, but money talks, too. Don’t bet that anything much will change and Wall Street will be 850 billion dollars wealthier.

I think I was far too generous to Sarah Palin last night when I opined how well she had done in the debate. I meant to say she did really well (for Sarah Palin). She was articulate, indeed, virtually non-stop articulate. She didn’t answer the questions (but she announced she wasn’t going to), she told many lies (which is par for the course for her party), and she apparently read some of her responses from note cards. She didn’t faint, vomit, or make any obvious gaffes. Therefore, she did well. Her base, along with Pat Buchanan, thought she was brilliant. She apparently thinks she can wink and smile and cutesy her way into the Vice-presidency. And she announced that once she attains it she is going for even more power than Cheney (the Constitution be damned). She smiled almost constantly, what I take to be kind of an evil smile, the smile Sadie Thompson must have smiled when she knew she had it over the Preacher in Maugham’s great short story, Rain.. Gentleman Joe Biden let her get away with murder, refusing to rise to the bait when she was particularly out of line, although he did correct her when she outright lied. That is what he was advised to do. It worked for him as it seems to be clear that he won the debate, and it also seems clear that many women were turned off by Palin’s performance. I don’t think I’d want a President who would wink at me. Palin knew what she was doing. Unable to answer any real questions, and clearly out of her depth, she resorted to what has worked for her in the past, that down home folksy I’m-just-like-you-all approach, with the winks and smiles, cornball language, and witty remarks. As Gwen Iffil didn’t press her with any follow up questions, or ask her if she really knew anything at all, she got away with it. McCain was very pleased. So pleased he apparently didn’t bother to tell her he was pulling out of Michigan.

out on a spring walk
I notice a wildflower
too precious to pick –
what is, what will never be,
it seems at times, are the same

Fumio Ogoshi