Garrison Keillor: They're Stealing from You and Me -- Where's the Outrage?

[marmar]

via AlterNet:



They're Stealing from You and Me -- Where's the Outrage?

By Garrison Keillor, International Herald Tribune. Posted October 6, 2008.

It wasn't their money Wall Street was playing with. It was ours.



Where were the cops?

It's just human nature that some calamities register in the brain and others don't. The train engineer texting at the throttle ("HOW R U? C U L8R") and missing the red light and 25 people die in the crash -- oh God, that is way too real -- everyone has had a moment of supreme stupidity that came close to killing somebody. Even atheists say a little prayer now and then: Dear God, I am an idiot, thank you for protecting my children.

On the other hand, the America's federal bailout of the financial market (yawn) is a calamity that people accept as if it were just one more hurricane. An air of crisis, the secretary of the Treasury striding down a hall at the Capitol with minions in his wake, solemn-faced congressmen at the microphones. Something must be done, harrumph harrumph.

The Current Occupant pops out of the cuckoo clock and reads a few lines off a piece of paper, pronouncing all the words correctly. And the newscaster looks into the camera and says, "Etaoin shrdlu qwertyuiop."

Where is the outrage?

Poor Senator Larry Craig got a truckload of moral condemnation for tapping his wingtips in the men's john, but his party proposes to spend 5 percent of the GDP to buy up bad loans made by men who walk away with their fortunes intact while retirees see their 401(k) go pffffffff like a defunct air mattress, and it's business as usual.

John McCain is a lifelong deregulator and believer in letting brokers and bankers do as they please -- remember Lincoln Savings and Loan and his intervention with federal regulators in behalf of his friend Charles Keating, who then went to prison? Remember Neil Bush, the brother of the C.O., who, as a director of Silverado S&L, bestowed enormous loans on his friends without telling fellow directors that the friends were friends and who, when the loans failed, paid a small fine and went skipping off to other things? ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/workplace/101694/they%27re_stealing_from_you_and_me_--_where%27s_the_outrage/

[Robbien]

1. I hate when people repeat that bogus question "where's the outrage?"

Anyone who asks it implies that the only action which counts is that which is reported repeatedly by the M$M. There is outrage all over this country being seen each and every day but since it is not being reported people act as if it didn't happen.

The media doesn't report many important events. Did Hurricane Ike not devastate every single state between Texas up through Michigan? Are those thousands of people homeless now and the hundreds of people missing not homeless or missing just because the media refuses to report it?

Outrage over the financial highway robbery is occurring every day across this nation but the media only reports it if the wealthy are the ones being affected and are whining their outrage.

[LiberalEsto]

2. "The Current Occupant pops out of the cuckoo clock "

That's one of the best descriptions of W's role I've ever read. Keillor has a marvelous way with words.

:rofl:

[OakCliffDem]

3. Kick