Barry Goldman, LA Times: Wasps do it, but why should we?

[Sinistrous]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-goldman-sphex-20110515,0,7387307.story

(snip)

We continue to believe that business can regulate itself. Wall Street greedheads nearly blow up the world economy with their pointless, synthetic financial instruments, and we continue to believe that government regulation of financial markets would stifle innovation. We spend hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer money to try to fix the consequences of their most recent innovations, and yet we persist in the belief that regulating the industry would be un-American. We can't even summon the political will to pressure companies to reduce the salaries and bonuses of the most egregious malefactors.

(snip)

We continue to believe — against all logic, all evidence and all experience — that giving money to the for-profit insurance industry is the way to provide healthcare for the poor and sick. There isn't enough money in healthcare for not-for-profit institutions to make a go of it, but adding a layer of investors to skim off the top will make it work.

We continue to believe in the fantasies of smart bombs, surgical strikes and limited wars.

And we continue to imagine that a government funded by corporate lobbyists and dedicated to no higher principle than lower taxes is going to be a guardian of the public interest.

These ideas are not working this time. They didn't work last time or the time before that. We have no idea why. And we all just stand here barking.


(more)

Mr. Goldmann has done a remarkable job of describing many of the frustrations I am feeling.

I had a very hard time keeping the quoted part within the "4 paragraph" rule. The skipped passages are really worth reading.

[yurbud]

1. When people like Reagan's old budget director, David Stockman, say there's going to be a revolution

it's close.

Washington is one major corrupt, pro-corporate fuck up away from inciting it.

[Tace]

2. Great Commentary

Thanks for posting. : )

[bemildred]

3. Barking indeed, barking mad, day after day. nt

[Doctor_J]

6. Maybe at some point we'll go from barking mad to fighting mad

Then some things might change.

[Citizen Worker]

4. "And we all just stand here barking." This will be the epitaph on the tombstone of democracy.

[Doctor_J]

5. True that

Not a single casualty among the criminal class. We are really good at standing in the rain and barking though.