Screwed Again, Naturally

The Bush Administration wants to pass the proposed bailout bill in Iraq-like fashion – that is, to create a sense of urgency, as if doing nothing right now, this instant, will result in catastrophe. In this scenario, reluctant Democrats, and some Republicans as well, are merely cattle to be stampeded into a plan that will subsidize some of our wealthiest citizens. All for the public good, of course.

Suppose the Bush people met and concocted a strategy to get this bill passed, and it went something like this:

1: URGENCY URGENCY URGENCY – everything must happen now. If we don’t act now, this crisis will only get worse.
2: Darth Vader goes down to capitol hill to emphasize URGENCY. It’s only the second time his lying honorable self has been down there, the first time to tell lies about Iraq.
3. Emphasize that everyone agrees in principle on what must be done. There is no debate about that.
4. Throw some morsels to opponents to give them strategic cover for their votes – limits on executive pay, oversight committees, that sort of thing. Focus the debate on trifling side issues.
5. Have John McCain threaten to cancel the forthcoming debates because of the URGENCY of the situation.
6. Give Democrats more strategic cover, allowing them to outsmart McCain by coming to agreement in time to thwart his plan to thwart the debates.
7. Salute the spirit of bipartisanship that results in a colossal screwing of the American public.

Politics is not random, and the events we are witnessing occurring by happenstance. The enemies here, the people against whom all of this action is directed, are recalcitrant Democratic and Republican legislators who want to take it slow and be cautious, and, of course, the American people. In the end we will get a very bad bill, and another huge wealth transfer to our wealthy classes. Like Iraq and the Patriot Bill before, it will all have been done so fast that it will be law before we have a chance to think about it.

That’s how politics works. It’s how very smart people manage to get what they want, again and again and again, and why we are wrong to place our hopes in Democrats. They do not stand for the common good or the common man. They are merely the vessel in which false hope resides.