Watch the Monkey!

[Daveparts still]

Watch the Monkey!
By David Glenn Cox

There is an old expression that says, “Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.” In this case I think the expression should be inverted. Never hold discussions with the organ grinder with the monkey in the room. The organ grinder is in charge; the monkey is merely a distraction and will remain a distraction and cannot ever be anything but a distraction.

You can talk until dawn but you will never get the monkey to acknowledge any of your points. In any public discussion you would be thought the fool for arguing with a monkey. The monkey’s job in show business is to look cute, do funny things and collect coins. The organ grinder just stands there and turns the crank.

So, we have this political environment with Democrats in control of the House and the Senate and the White House. It should be glory days, legislation should be flying and the President should have writer’s cramp from signing progressive legislation into law. Only the President doesn’t want to sign progressive legislation. He wants to sign corporate legislation. In the House the dozen or so in the liberal camp spar with the centrists and blue dogs. In the Senate they practice their imitation of the House of Lords.

We are fighting two and a half wars, and our economy is imploding. The value of our currency is declining; the number of unemployed is increasing. The numbers of home foreclosures is increasing to 300,000 per month. Our city, county and state governments are laying off workers at a time when they should be adding workers. State and municipal leaders recently warned Congress that without an infusion of cash, municipal infrastructure systems could begin to fail before the end of the decade.

Think about what that warning means to an industrialized society. It means that when you turn on the tap some day in the near future there might not be any water. Or when you flush your toilet the waste might end up dumped into a lake or a river, untreated.

We have in this country a wave of counter intellectualism. It’s not cool to be informed. Let’s talk about Lady Gaga or who is sleeping with whose wife or husband. Let’s talk about who is gay or what happened on "American Idol." There was a time in this country when we talked about real issues. During the Watergate hearings Americans were riveted to their TV sets watching the testimony. It was a CBS white paper that brought Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” to mainstream public attention.

Today the media gives us the teabaggers and Sarah Palin. Watch the monkey! In truth the teabaggers have about as much political clout as the Loyal Order of the Moose Lodge in Prattville, Alabama. They are completely meaningless as a political force. So are the teabaggers racist? Yes, of course they are. Watch the monkey! Come on, watch the monkey! Do teabaggers do and say funny things? Yeah, sure they do. Watch the monkey!

The big banks on Wall Street are borrowing money from the Federal Reserve for .25%, one quarter of one percent. That’s one million dollars borrowed for $2,500 dollars. The Treasury, your treasury, then sells Treasury bills and pays interest on the bills up to 4.58 percent. The Wall Street banks are borrowing money well below cost. With record numbers of Americans unemployed the Treasury Secretary goes before Congress and when asked what the administration's plans are to deal with unemployment he answers, “What me worry?”

Congress devised a plan of their own to cure unemployment, give businesses a one-year waiver on paying into the Social Security trust fund. At a time when Social Security is all ready hurting because of high unemployment the Congress thinks the best way to bolster employment is to drill another hole in the bottom of the Social Security boat! We got an $18 billion jobs package that is $14 billion in tax cuts.

But hey, Sarah Palin said something! Watch the monkey! See the monkey do funny things! Damn, that monkey sure is dumb!

The White House and the Congress agree on one point regarding the unemployed in this country. Let someone else take care of it. Let big business do it; let corporate America deal with it, because they won’t touch it. The Wall Street banks massaged their fourth quarter numbers to show big profits. Then they passed out billions of dollars in bonuses and then the same banks showed first quarter losses. How do you lose money when you borrow at a quarter of a percent and lend at no less than 3.29 percent on home mortgages and upwards of 30 percent on credit cards?

That’s how bad the economy really is. The Commerce Department reported a one percent rise in US manufacturing as proof that the recession is abating. They forgot to mention that manufacturing had declined for forty-eight consecutive months; that’s forty-eight with a four and an eight. Imagine going to Vegas and losing forty-eight straight hands of blackjack before winning a hand and then announcing to the room, “I’m on a hot streak now!”

Home sales in November set a new record low. That record was broken in December, which was broken again in January. New home construction is at one-third of what it was three years ago. That means that two-thirds of tradesmen are out of work; it means that suppliers are going under or barely hanging on. This nation is on the cusp of an economic collapse. The banks are grabbing for easy money with both hands and investing in the Stock Markets. Major industries are consolidating, trying to wring the last profits out of a rapidly drying sponge.

Meanwhile, while the public is fascinated with teabaggers and Sarah Palin, there are rumblings out of Asia. Chinese central bankers are being ordered to increase the amounts of reserve funds banks must keep on hand. Chinese banking is a wild and wooly affair. Want to get promoted? Increase profits. Want to get rich? Increase profits. Want to help your family to get rich? Want to take kickbacks under the table? With a 25 percent growth rate it would be mighty hard to say no.

“The World Bank indicated in a report yesterday that China should raise interest rates to help contain the risk of a property bubble and allow a stronger yuan to help damp inflation expectations.”

Wait! Don’t tell me, where have I heard this story before?

“Morgan Stanley Asia Chairman Stephan Roach said that Paul Krugman’s call to push China to allow a stronger yuan is 'very bad' advice and that increased Chinese spending is a better way of reducing trade imbalances.”

But it wasn’t just Krugman; it was the World Bank as well.

There is only so much room on the political stage. If we allow that stage to be cluttered with teabaggers and Sarah Palins we are being set up for a fall. These things are not accidents or luck of the draw; this is medicine show politics. In the old medicine shows an entertainer would come out and tell a few jokes and sing a few songs. They would add a pretty girl or two and get the crowd in a good mood and maybe sell a few bottles of worthless medicine. The show was designed to keep the audience from asking the important question, “What’s in it?” The only really relevant question worth asking.

Teabaggers? Watch the monkey! Sarah Palin? Watch the monkey!

[Andronex]

1. Teabaggers? Sarah Palin? Watch the monkey!

I could not agree more, the loony right is a deliberate diversion, the purpose is to keep us in a partisan frame of mind and for instance applaud health care reform which nothing more but a give away to the insurance company's because the republicans are against it, so our side won... in the meantime the ceo's of these company's will be getting huge bonuses and the shares will be going through the roof, and you can thank republicans and democrats for playing their part in this grand illusion.

[DemReadingDU]

2. Watch the monkey!

Meanwhile, Greece is about to default, banks are cooking the books, and we got health reform.