A GANG OF LOSERS

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (3/20/09)

Rather than assuming blame for legislation authorizing the scoundrels at A.I.G. to receive millions in bonuses, the House of Representatives set out on an anti-constitutional binge of revenge. They looked pathetic, like a gang of losers in a fit of pique pissing on a flower bed.

As a group, they're unimpressive, like a grade school reunion. They began weaseling about their hand in creating the mess, and, then, when they didn't have the decency to own up to their own malefic behavior, they set about to harm those who benefited from their ineptitude.

About the only one so far who has made noises about coming clean is President Obama. He said he was responsible, but he fell short of saying he was guilty. "I assume responsibility" is a non-content phrase used by politicians who should say "I am guilty" but can't hack full disclosure. It's a weasel phrase.

Of course, it's true that former President Bush and his Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson, are the chiefly guilty, along with Senators Kyl and McCain. They began the process of letting the scoundrels in A.I.G. fix the mess they created.

Mysteriously, the government allows half-made executives to remain on the job. After receiving $40 billion in bailout bucks, the chairman of Citibank, Vikram Pandit, asked to be given another chance and then authorized $10 million to refurbish his offices as well as ordering a $50 million company jet.

It's a contest as to who's the worst, Congress or the CEO's.

BONUSES AND BAILOUTS

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (3/15/09)

The citizens of the United States now own nearly 80% of A.I.G., the American International Group, having bailed them out with $170 billion of tax payer dollars. Now, the current chairman of A.I.G., Edward M. Liddy, wants to give $195 million in bonuses to its senior executives claiming that if the bonuses aren't paid, A.I.G. won't be able to retain those executives.

First, why would A.I.G. want to retain them since they recklessly messed up A.I.G. in the first place. The bonuses appear to be rewards for incompetence and greed. Secondly, in the current economic climate where would these allegedly invaluable employees go? The market is already flooded with invaluable employees. Who would employ someone who engineered a flop?

Rather than giving them bonuses they should be fired. Once corporate fat cats think themselves indispensable, it's probably time to can them and replace them with wizened skinflints.

A sign of their incompetence is the repeated gaffes they've recently made at A.I.G. First of all, soon after the first bailout money was handed over to them carte blanche by the Bush Administration's give-away artist, Henry Paulson, they planned a big party for themselves at California's Ritz Carlton seaside resort. They then gave bonuses after bonuses to themselves while everyone else suffered. Clowns, these guys gold plated their toilets. They don't even know on what side their bread is buttered.

As a citizen shareholder of A.I.G., I vote for their termination sans severance pay. On the street or in the hoosegow.

WASHINGTON SEXUALITY
The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (3/14/09)

Maureen Dowd reported in the New York Times that her fellow columnist, David Brooks, believes that "Washington is sensually avoidant." While that may be true, it's certainly not true that it's sexually avoidant. Senator David Vitter, R. La., was recently found to have had a liaison with a well-known Washington madam, and Bro. Vitter was simply one more instance of a long line of Congresspersons who have made prostitution a flourishing trade in Washington.

Mr. Brooks statement was in relationship to Michelle Obama's biceps. Perhaps, the political inhabitants of Washington would be less likely to fall into the arms of illicit sexual encounters if they were a little more sensual in the first place. Their avoidant sensuality has made them disconnected from life, as though reality were somehow abstractly cerebral. Just think what would have happened if those right-wing wonks in the Bush Administration grasped the fact that their policies were giving lots of children abdominal pangs from lack of food.

One suspects that for the politicians in Washington sex is more a power trip than an adventure in sensuality, else why would they pay for it? Apparently, they like to buy people as a means of social control.

With their brains idling in neutral the Republicans are frightened by a woman's arms that don't wave. I've been wondering for a long time why the Republicans are so out of it, and Mr. Brooks has provided the answer. The Republicans are avoidant personalities which means that they're hopelessly out of it.

POLITICAL SAVVY, CHICAGO STYLE

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (3/6/09)

Political savants were puzzled that President Obama mentioned Rush Limbaugh as antagonist thereby elevating the radio commentator
to a personage worthy of comment. In fact, he was using a style of Chicago politics in Washington, D.C., much to the dismay of the Washingtonians. With President Obama's recognition and Limbaugh's embrace of the recognition, President Obama made him a spokesman for the Republican Party, implying that the Republicans had no other spokesmen worthy of leadership. In short, Limbaugh fell into the trap because of his sense of self-importance, and the Republicans were suckered because no one in their party was saying anything anyone found useful. As they fell from grace, they grabbed a twig.

It's nice to see the Republicans outfoxed by the Democrats who are usually so enamored by their own political-correctness that they aren't very savvy. It's difficult to be self-righteous and cunning at the same time. The happy result is that the Republicans now have a buffoon as their spokesman, a drug-infested, florid-faced, cigar-chomping, over-stuffed buffoon at that. Sounds like old times.

Another aspect of President Obama's savvy is that he's unfailingly nice to the Republicans. Since the Republicans are so devoid of good manners themselves, they interpret his positive approach as duplicitous. President Obama's "yes" evokes in them an immediate "no," an unthinking, visceral "no." They haven't got a handle on the value of being nice.

Their paranoid reaction makes them look ungracious which, of course, they are in addition to being unpleasantly whiny.

WHAT'S SO GOOD ABOUT CAPITALISM?

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (3/4/09)

What's so good about capitalism? The Great Depression of the 1930's was the product of unbridled capitalism, and it was ended by large infusions of socialism. Our current debacle is the result of unregulated capitalism, and now the capitalists in a gush of socialism are begging for federal funds, one might add, to save their own skins.

The fact is that old-fashioned, entrepreneurial capitalism is a myth, a left-over illusion from our frontier, simpler days. Today, the capitalists are money traders and CEO's of behemoth corporations on the government dole either through bailouts or tax-breaks. In short, they are fat cats who don't produce a damned thing. They trade money or, worse yet, the illusions of money.

The justification for capitalism is that it fosters the entrepreneurial spirit. In fact, it smothers it by buying up the entrepreneurs once they become successful. The economic engine of American is the small entrepreneur with news ideas, knowledge, and ingenuity who develops new products that work.

The theory has been trickle down: give tax breaks to the wealthy, the corporations, and the banks so that'll have lots of money that they can trickle down to everyone else. It didn't trickle down. They kept it, squandering it on themselves.

Rather it should be tax breaks to the entrepreneurs and abolish the tax breaks for the rich, the corporations, and the banks. Capitalism is for fat cats. It has nothing to do with democracy. Give the breaks to those who deserve them, the entrepreneurs.