America, Hillary and the Banks, and the Conning of the American People

I hope I have made it clear that I loathe Hillary Clinton and I remain amazed that, despite the fact that poll after poll shows that the American people neither like nor trust her, she continues to look like our next President. To those still supporting her, I refer you to the Politics page of the April 13th Huffington Post.

She is till fighting release of her emails, and while they would no doubt show an embarrassing lack of judgment, the real reason likely has more to do with her Wall Street speeches. You know, the ones she got paid $225000 a piece for; the ones she gave to such fine businesses as Goldman Sachs, the businesses who gave us the housing collapse and the disastrous recession we are still trying to get over. If the emails are released, it would almost force the release of those transcripts, as she could not possibly justify hiding speeches to corporations when National Security matters had been made public. Well, she could, but I do not think even her most ardent supporters would put up with that, although, who knows at this point.

Contrary to what she might have led people to believe. those companies make it clear that they have no say over her release of those transcripts. She owns exclusive rights to them. Now, Hillary keeps braying that she 'stood up to the banks.' She was in the Senate when the economy began its collapse and she introduced one, just one, bill on the issue, a bill that was so inadequate it never got any sort of consideration. Then, when out of the Senate, she started raking in a sizable amount of money by giving her little talks.

People who were in attendance when she spoke, and there are a good number coming forth, say that not only did she not stand up to them, she spoke in glowing terms of the importance of those banks, making it clear that they deserved the full support of the US Government. She went on to say that not only could they not be allowed to fail, it was not totally their fault, that all Americans  were to blame for the economic collapse.

I do not know about you, but I really do not recall giving my permission for the banks to act like common con men. I may be aging, but I still have a pretty fair memory and I remember Ronald Reagan pushing through the deregulation of the banks, with great support from his cohorts in Congress, thus giving the big banks a license to swindle, and they went right at it. I have seen hogs at a feeding trough show more subtlety and restraint. Yet, these are the folks Ms. Clinton gushed over.

I rest my case. 

America and Fear - Part 3

The 70s, a mere 40 years ago were the silly age, on the surface. They did however give rise to one of the great scourges of humanity, one of the terrors of the ages, disco, a word that should strike terror into the hearts of all who have any musical taste. Other than that, folks just acted goofy and after the weirdness of the 60s,that wasn't surprising.

However, under the silliness, things got worse, and I'll deal with two incidents. First, Watergate, another of those things I have never heard a rational explanation of. Why would Nixon, assured of an easy victory over McGovern, pull something like that? I do not believe that he was worried about the Democrats having evidence of shady manipulations of campaign funds and dirty tricks. After all, the Democrats were doing the same thing and Nixon no doubt could have shown evidence of their misbehavior. No, I think that either a) they had something really nasty he had done and he was afraid of political blackmail, or b) they knew of something historically explosive ( say, something connected with the JFK Assassination), or c), Nixon was set up, that the Powers that Be wanted him gone and knew that they simply couldn't keep shooting Presidents. What could that something have been? Personally, I believe that it had to do with drugs. Nixon seemed to think that he, as President, actually ran the country, a foolish notion, and seemed serious about stopping the drug trade. Operation Intercept kept Mexican weed out for a good while much to the dismay of myself and my friends.  Keep in mind, a whole lot of money was invested in the drug trade, some of it by some very influential folks with short tempers. Mind you that is just my opinion. I have no proof. Anyway, the American people, still shell-shocked from the previous decade, were witness to a scandal the likes of which we had never seen. Day after day, the top men in the Executive branch of the Government were paraded in front of Senators and pounded with questions about their unseemly behavior. Finally, Nixon, no doubt as confused as the rest of us, did the right thing, or the sort of right thing, and resigned. People joked about the whole mess,  but trust me, Americans were devastated.

At the same time, cocaine became an increasingly popular recreation. A stupid, mind numbing drug, it was the logical next step in drug use. High on coke, you can bargain, run around, do business, and still dance the night away and we suddenly saw large number of people shoveling mounds of white powder up their noses. More and more, Americans were becoming used to buying and using illegal drugs. First marijuana and acid, then coke. Of course not everyone loved the white devil. Those of us going through a post acid hangover were more inclined toward barbiturates, valium, and alcohol. Tequila became very popular. Now remember, that the strategy and channels for the illegal distribution of drugs had been set during Prohibition. Change product and you are now dealing drugs. Then the big one hit the streets. Heroin hit the suburbs. Heroin had been dealt throughout the 40s and 50s, but as long as it went to white ne'er -do -wells and the ghettos, no one cared. In the 70s, a heroin epidemic hit middle class America, but, to be blunt, despite a lot of public wailing, no one much cared. Oh well, at least the Viet Nam mess ended.           

Oh, one more thing, picture from the jungle of SE Asia started showing up, pictures of US Special Forces and CIA agents guarding helicopters that were being loaded with opium, on its way to becoming the junk that people were sticking in their veins. To this day, people can see those pictures and still deny that happened. We call that cognitive dissonance and that, my dear readers, is a symptom of extreme fear.                  

There was one other little thing going on in the 70s. Iran overthrew the Shah and dared to pick their own leader. For further detail, I refer you to my series entitled Is Paris Burning? For now, suffice it to say, we were losing our grip on the Mid-East.        

On to the great 80s when greed was the main focus  of American life and Ronnie Reagan was our Cheerleader-in- Chief. The Old Gipper promised to fight the Commies and by God, he did. The evil Soviet Empire collapsed. Of course to do this, he ran up such deficits that we will never be out of debt. At the same time, to beat the Evil Nicaraguan Sandinistas, he and a merry crew including head boy scout Ollie North were having mountains of cocaine flown into Mena Arkansas by CIA operative Barry Seal. Surely you remember Mena, a place run by the future President and his wife, also a likely
 future President. But Slick Willie will have to wait.                                                                           

He has to wait because no visit to the 80s would be complete without a remembrance of George HW Bush, a whiny ass of a man. By the way, remember the CIA opium smuggling, remember the cocaine runs of the Reagan era? Well, George "Poppy" Bush was a big deal in the CIA during the opium days and Vice President during the coke days. That, of course, proves nothing, but, darn it all, things do seem a wee bit coincidental.For reasons unclear (have you noticed a pattern. we keep doing things that make absolutely no sense) he got us into the Gulf War against our one time puppet, Sadam Hussein. To give Poppy Bush his due, when we had humiliated Hussein's forces, an easy task since they didn't fight back a whole lot, he got us out, using a really cool exit strategy. He just said, "We win," and we left. At home, one and all cheered our victory and few bothered to ask, "Just what the hell did we win?"                                     
                                                                                                                                          
 Now, we get to the 90s and the reign of one of our most despicable Presidents, Willie Clinton and his equally loathsome spouse. These two should be sitting in jail for life, given all the crap they have pulled. I always thought fitting punishment would be to sit them in a maximum security prison, locked in the same room, 24/7, unable to see or speak to anyone else. Instead, he runs around making 10s of millions giving speeches and she is very possibly, even likely, to be our next President. One good thing during the Clinton years, the technology boom. We made all sorts of really cool new stuff. One problem. Some not so nice folks played fast and loose with the stock market and what was a bubble that made a lot of traders rich, burst and made the same traders poor again. Oh well, what goes up, comes down. The Clinton era also saw two shameful events take place. First, the slaughter of the branch Davidians in Waco. The story we have been fed does not make sense, but I guess we should be used to that by now. Whatever happened, if Federal authorities cannot put a stop to an unstable situation, without killing everyone and burning children alive, then we have reached a sorry state indeed. Also, a bit after Waco, we had the Oklahoma City bombing. I won't even mention the official explanation. By now so many holes have been pushed through that inane tale that it sinks on first glance. Someone knew something and it was the job of the President to find out the truth, not to except a half-assed bunch of crap that we were fed. When something happens on a Presidents watch, he has the responsibility to seek truth and justice. All of our recent leaders, and this goes not just for Presidents, but Congressmen, Military leaders, Diplomats, Religious leaders, local and state Government officials, and Business leaders have forgotten Harry Truman's famous motto "the buck stops here." Now, one and all try to pass the buck down the line until we just get tired of watching the whole sorry show.                                                     
                                                       

 We are now just 15 years from the present, and before we get to the recent nighmares, stop and think about all the change we've seen, and trust me, we have just hit the big stuff. Humans can deal well with change, but not constant upheaval, Put enough stress on anyone, and they break. But, enough for now. Get ready as in the next episode, the weird reaches the Outer Limits.