Now Don't Go Slashing Your Wrists or Nothing

So's that none of you go offing yourself or smashing your head into the wall for a few days, I say you just gotta laugh at The Sideshow of the Stupidest Idiots in the History of the Universes, otherwise known as "the government." I love this stuff. Honest, I do.

We got this little example of courage and fortitude on behalf of the "ordinary" American, you know, the ultimate (coerced and extorted) sucker, the big loser in this craptastic funfest. Here you go:

Congressional Republicans had warned against slowing the bailout by tacking on additional provisions, while Democratic leaders urged the administration to use its new role as owner of large amounts of mortgage debt to help hundreds of thousands of troubled borrowers at risk of losing their homes.

Ooohhh, Democratic leaders urged the administration to remember that people actually exist who are not among the administration's vastly wealthy and powerful friends. Of course, they're the Dems' friends, too, so there is that. But there are people in the world with a net worth under $1 million, who maybe live on $30,000 or $75,000 a year? I am amazed. Who knew such people lived on this glorious earth? Anyway, the Democrats will probably put together another "stimulus package," to provide a teensy eensy bit of help to all those "ordinary" Americans, those people whose side the Democrats keep telling everyone they're on. But first the Democrats have to shovel tons of money belonging to "ordinary" Americans and their descendants for the next 20 generations to the wealthiest Americans who got everyone into this mess in the first place. What I said yesterday. I wonder how all this adds up. A hugely increased tax burden for years to come, with all the related weakening effects on the economy generally, versus a little dab of help to those "troubled borrowers..." Hmm. Is the "ordinary" American better or worse off when you put it all together?

Hmm. Oh! He's worse off! You lose! Astonishing!!

I am deeply pleased to note the extraordinarily sophisticated level of analysis being brought to bear:

“We don’t have any choice but to act,” Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, the Banking Committee chairman, said on ABC

Psst, Chris: you always have a choice until you're dead, jerk. And if you're going to "act," make sure you're addressing a problem that actually has a solution. What you and your brainiac pals are doing doesn't begin to qualify.

We don't have any choice but to act! Let's invade Iraq!

We don't have any choice but to act! Let's make sure the economy is largely wrecked for decades to come!

We don't have any choice but to act! Let's bomb Iran! (I'm giving you a preview of Obama-Dem coming attractions. Cuz I'm a swell guy. Feel free to fill in a country other than Iran. Obama and the Dems will probably give you lots of choices, especially with Bomber Joe around.)

You may now dispose of all the books in all the libraries in the world. We don't have any choice but to act! No more thinking, no more analysis, no more understanding required. Chris has the answer! We gotta act, baby!

I love all of the NYT story, but maybe my favorite part is the opening:

Bipartisan support appeared to be emerging Sunday among American lawmakers to approve quickly a vast bailout of financial institutions in the United States. The Bush administration has proposed granting unfettered authority for the Treasury Department to buy up to $700 billion in distressed mortgage-related assets from private firms as part of a program that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said “has to work.”

“I hate the fact that we have to do it, but it’s better than the alternative,” Mr. Paulson said on “Fox News Sunday.” “This is a humbling, humbling time for the United States of America.”

I hardly know what to say.

I lied. Fuck you, Hank.

"A humbling time for the United States of America"? I don't think so. It should be a humbling time for people like you, Hank, who created this crisis and are now using it to extort immense sums of money from Americans innocent of all wrongdoing in order to enrich your friends -- precisely those people who have acted like greed-ridden maniacs (since that's what they are) and now demand that the innocent save them. You should be humbled, Hank. You should be so ashamed that you disappear from public life and never open your lying mouth ever again.

And this huge extortion scheme "has to work." More of that sophisticated, high-level analysis. We have to act. It has to work. What if it doesn't work, Hank, baby? What if it makes things much, much worse? What then, sweetheart? It HAS TO WORK. Oh.

And, Hank, c'mon. You don't "hate the fact that we have to do it" -- because we don't have to do it. We don't have to rescue your rotten pals.

Your ruling class. It wins every time. That's the way they set it up. That's the way it works. Yes, with regard to the system as it now exists and will continue to exist, that's the way it has to work. The ruling class has made certain of that. It will not change until the system is fundamentally altered. Not happening.

Aw, heck. I'm sorry for the mean things I said. I love Murka. I love Chris. I love Hank.

I love everybody and everything. Such a great country. Oh, hell. I'm gonna cry now.

Ain't that the truth.