In the comments to yesterday’s post was this one by TomD:
“For a number of years, I saw leftism coming and attributed it to a politically motivated elite with a brilliantly executed long focus political motive. There’s probably at least some of that but the revelations of last few weeks lead me to think that what we have been observing with such dismay over the past decade or so is coming from a much baser motivation: greed.
The revelations coming from DOGE seem to imply a very large and intricate network of NGO’s lavishly endowed from scantily controlled government disbursement programs. Apparently, the amount of money disappearing into these dark and uncontrolled conduits is well into the $trillions.
Everybody close to government is getting RICH and they do not want the trails to become illuminated.”
I think a lot of us who were just plain old patriotic Americans, or what they now call civic nationalists, assumed that the Left really was sincere with all the craziness they preached and that the waste and inefficiency were symptoms of their myopia and unwillingness to use meritocratic selection when populating the federal government with useless people of all imaginable types.
But just like TomD I’ve finally gotten it through my thick skull that for the most part all these people in government are just plain crooks stealing us blind. And I include almost all the Republicans in that category too. All they want is a way to cash in on their positions in the machine that prints money and hands it out to those in the know.
I suppose that I should be philosophical about all this. After all, greed is what makes capitalism work supposedly. And I suppose if they were just wetting their beaks but still doing their jobs to keep this country healthy, rich and strong I’d be inclined to say, “Well, that’s just human nature. They’re just good old boys picking up some crumbs from the floor of the bakery.”
But it’s nothing like that. They’re like Mitt Romney’s company Bain Capital. They’re selling off the assets of a company (America) and sending the employees home without jobs and without their pensions. They’re liquidators. It’s a giant going out of business sale with us as the former employees forced to take temporary employment, boxing up the equipment as it’s shipped off to China and elsewhere.
But for as long as the Merry Go Round keeps turning, they get paid by skimming off of the proceeds from the sales of what’s still left.
Eventually, our bodies will be all that’s left. And the only use for those will be as cannon fodder for the forever wars that still bring in value to the people running the show. And that’s why Ukraine and the Middle East and Taiwan are always in the news and why we still have to hear about how important democracy is. They need our sons to suit up and fly to the desert and die in the heat.
And that’s why we should hate these people with all the hate we can manufacture. To them we’re cattle and that’s all. They feel not the least kinship toward us and we should not have the least compunction about them failing, losing their jobs or anything else. Hearing about how NGOs are laying off people means less than nothing to me. In fact, I’m overjoyed to hear about some Harvard graduate who was making mid-six figures working for a George Soros “open society” NGO shocked and dismayed to be out of work and stuck with a huge mortgage on a five-million-dollar house in Northern Virginia.
Compare his plight to a family that’s been living for the last two hundred years in Ohio or Pennsylvania while the industries that were located there systematically relocated to China and left the working class more and more desperate and poor. Trump has looked at what is going on and clearly seen the liquidation game for what it is. If the rest of his team are smart, they’ll see that their only hope (and ours) is to continue this process to force the corporations to invest in us. To quote a mythical small town American, “this rabble you’re talking about, they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community. Well, is it too much to have them work and pay and live and die in a couple of decent rooms and a bath?”
Call it populism, nationalism, whatever -ism you care to. This used to be a great nation. A balance has to be struck that allows for a prosperous middle class. Instead, the masters of the universe think they can settle into a feudal system with them at the top and us as the serfs. I think it’s time we let them know that if this is going to be feudalism then we might as well bring the time up to the French Revolution and make a big old bonfire out of their cool stuff.
Enough is enough. Empty out Washington, slash the federal budget, lower our taxes, stand pat on the nuclear arsenal, fix all the broke stuff, bring back our jobs, fill up the prisons and rebuild the middle class.