“Unfortunately, a lot of young folks haven’t had the opportunity to really understand how the economy works, and what it takes to put people to work in real jobs, and why we have banks, and what banks do. It’s a very understandable sentiment if you don’t find a job, and you can’t see rising incomes. You’re going to be angry and looking at someone to blame.”
I noticed the Romney quote above about the Bank of America protesters while in the midst of reading Matt Taibbi’s total annihilation takedown piece on BoA (titled “Too Crooked to Fail”) from the March 29th issue of Rolling Stone (yes, I’m pretty late). Here’s an excerpt from that article:
In sum, Bank of America torched dozens of institutional investors with billions in worthless loans, repeatedly refused to abide by contractual obligations to buy them back, evaded hundreds of millions in local fees and taxes, pushed tens of thousands of people into foreclosure using phony documents, ignored multiple court orders to stop its illegal robo-signing, and exploited President Obama’s signature mortgage-relief program. The bank fixed the bids on bonds for schools and cities and utilities all over America, and even conspired to game the game itself — by fixing global interest rates!
Yeah, I imagine that even Romney’s economically naive “young folks” could read this and grasp how truly, truly shitty BoA is.
Read the whole Taibbi piece if you have time because, like all the rest of his financial reporting over the last 3 or 4 years, it’s pretty goddamn essential.
And finally, in conclusion, Mitt Romney is a smarmy, patronizing dickface who needs to just shut right the fuck up.
(Source: huffingtonpost)
WHEN we don’t get the results we want in our military endeavors, we don’t blame the soldiers. We don’t say, “It’s these lazy soldiers and their bloated benefits plans! That’s why we haven’t done better in Afghanistan!” No, if the results aren’t there, we blame the planners. We blame the generals, the secretary of defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff. No one contemplates blaming the men and women fighting every day in the trenches for little pay and scant recognition.
And yet in education we do just that. When we don’t like the way our students score on international standardized tests, we blame the teachers. When we don’t like the way particular schools perform, we blame the teachers and restrict their resources.
The reason 2012 feels so empty now is that voters on both sides of the aisle are not just tired of this state of affairs, they are disgusted by it. They want a chance to choose their own leaders and they want full control over policy, not just a partial say. There are a few challenges to this state of affairs within the electoral process – as much as I disagree with Paul about many things, I do think his campaign is a real outlet for these complaints – but everyone knows that in the end, once the primaries are finished, we’re going to be left with one 1%-approved stooge taking on another.
Most likely, it’ll be Mitt Romney versus Barack Obama, meaning the voters’ choices in the midst of a massive global economic crisis brought on in large part by corruption in the financial services industry will be a private equity parasite who has been a lifelong champion of the Gordon Gekko Greed-is-Good ethos (Romney), versus a paper progressive who in 2008 took, by himself, more money from Wall Street than any two previous presidential candidates, and in the four years since has showered Wall Street with bailouts while failing to push even one successful corruption prosecution (Obama).
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Continued from the same post:
This widespread and growing movement against the twin corrupting influences of money on our politics and state patronage on big business is going on everywhere – on the streets, in these courthouses, in the homes of people refusing to move after foreclosure, even in the antitax movements and the campaigns against state pensions. The only place we can be absolutely sure this battle will not be found is in any national presidential race between Barack Obama and someone like Mitt Romney.The campaign is still a gigantic ritual and it will still be attended by all the usual pomp and spectacle, but it’s empty. In fact, because it’s really a contest between 1%-approved candidates, it’s worse than empty – it’s obnoxious.
It was always annoying when these two parties and the slavish media that follows their champions around for 18 months pretended that this was a colossal clash of opposites. But now, with the economy in the shape that it’s in thanks in large part to the people financing these elections, that pretense is more than annoying, it’s offensive.
And I imagine that the more they try to play up the drama of these familiar-but-empty campaign rituals, the more irritating to the public it will all become. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if, before the season is out, the campaign itself will become a hated symbol of the 1% — with the conventions and the networks’ broadcast tents outside the inevitable “free speech zones” attracting protests the same way the offices of Chase and Bank of America did this fall.
David Carr, writing about SOPA:
Maplight, a site that researches the influence of money in politics, reported that the 32 sponsors of the legislation received four times as much in contributions from the entertainment industry as they did from software and Internet companies.
Good to be reminded that most of our politicians are nothing more than puppets for private companies whose only mandate is to make more money for themselves.
I’ve been neglecting the semi-focus on music around here. Also in part due to the fact that I haven’t gotten much lately that has been that great. Try as I might, I can’t understand the appeal of Of Montreal. I do really enjoy the new Bloc Party record, so maybe I’ll post a song from that when I have the time and am on my laptop. The new Murs isn’t bad either (I didn’t realize dudes from Rhymesayers were friends with Snoop), and I’m pretty sure he’s coming to The Basement sometime soon. Like Palin says, “I’ll get back to you on that.”
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