A Freebie from Freemont

I have returned from Mexico having met a few Compadres in a region there I will not reveal in the likelihood I need to flea the States at some point during my revolutionary reign. I come back with a heightened immune system from drinking the tap and toilet water for a week. When the pipe burst here in Boston, I admitted to boiling my water because I am opposed to drinking water that’s filled with feces that’s not my own. However, I am unopposed to drinking the shit that doesn’t drop from the assholes of those in the United States of America. As I find Mexican feces to be made from a much fresher stock (because at least you know what you’re getting). And that is the extent to which I will reveal the undertakings of my mission to Mexico.

What I’d really like to talk about is the George W. Bushian United States that I found myself returning to this week (as it seems Obama is hell bent on performing the best W. impression of his presidential career). As it is, I have returned to the U.S. Senate passage of an extremely unsatisfactory financial reform bill (as I had predicted) and an oil catastrophe that will dwarf Katrina in its environmental destruction. And, still, no one has any fucking definite answers (we can only hope this latest attempt at a butt plug will work). Thank fucking Christ I built up my immune system while I was away because, at this rate, the oil will seep into our drinking water in a matter of a couple of months when this fucking leak still hasn’t been ceiled.   

The one good thing about this spill, though, is that it provides for a nice metaphor for the current course of the Obama administration. Because one way or a-fucking-nother, they are going to have to stop their political hemorrhaging. After a strong showing that lead up to healthcare reform, May has proved to be the worst month of Obama’s presidency. And it follows a period when the Dems appeared to be gaining political clout as well as approval ratings. But this moment proved to be as fleeting as a Laura Bush fart in the Texas wind and the Dems are in a lot of political trouble again. Thusly, the oil spill serves as such a fitting backdrop to this month of May and a perfect partner in crime with the timid and gutless financial reform bill that passed the Senate in the face of so many political analyst’s deep criticism. How did this happen? How do the Dems again find themselves in such a tragic position of having to stop another political gusher? And how did we, or, better yet, how could he have brought us back here? Well, at risk of being too politically philosophical, here is my analysis of the problem:     

It seems to me that we currently live in an America where there is no way to quantify or qualify who should gets the fucking breaks in this country. Who is bailed out? Who is allowed to fail? Who receives the thickest cushion? Who falls the hardest? Who is kept on a short leash? Who is left to wander at their leisure? If the White House does not start clearly presenting their answers to these questions or offer a fresh perspective on a solution to them, they are absolutely fucked. If there is to be a defining moment in the Obama administration, it will need to be soon because the president is, again, coming across to the American people as unfocused as he was during the darkest days of healthcare reform. It is, right now, an administration that continues to anger its base while (no surprise here) butting heads with its Republican counterparts. Surely, the inefficiency of our current Congressional system has something to do with this struggle. But, I also believe it has to do with the administration’s ineptitude in distancing themselves from the Big Elite America they set out to change—the big banks (that are still big), the corporate conglomerates (that receive gentle slaps on their wrists), and the corrupt regulatory agencies (that remain unpunished). If there’s one consistent criticism of the president from both the left and the right (excluding the TeaBagging nation of morons that live in their fog of socialist-hollering delirium) it has been his lack of consistent leadership. And, perhaps, as much as I hate the formulaic bullshit of the mainstream media, there is a truth to their criticism here. I remain baffled about how the candidate Barack Obama, whose Achilles’ heel on the campaign trail was whole-heartedly his lack of foreign policy experience, has kept such a clear-minded and pragmatic head abroad while struggling so deeply with his domestic policy. We are living in a bizarro world as this month of May comes to a close—in a strange land where our leader who still speaks of change returns to his back office with advisers to discuss political maneuvering and corporate pandering. It was once a laughed about Youtube clip of Barack Obama being asked the question whether he considered himself black enough to represent the African American race, but I want you to revisit this linked clip here with my blog in mind within these remaining days of May because I proclaim to you that maybe this facetious liberal-minded, banter-inducing question has turned into a political reality and that we have, indeed, elected the first black president who, right now, is simply not acting black enough. So, fuck Wall Street and fuck BP. And let’s ask the most important question: where have all our Huey P. Newton’s gone?

Well, there still remains one left here.

Convincingly Yours,

FreeB. Barrington      

The problem with the Senate Goldman Sachs hearing that occurred on Capitol Hill today is that it was all for show. The senators who questioned these fat cat, cigar-chomping, limp-dicked fuckwads spent the day dipping in and out of the proceedings, which began at 10 AM and continued on into the night. They, no doubt, had their pictures taken many times over so that they’ll appear in all of their local newspapers. And the perception will be: look who stood up against the financial institutions that caused the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and so many Americans to lose their jobs. This hearing with Goldman Sachs quite conveniently was taking place as Democrats and Republicans on the Hill tried to work together to bring the Dodd financial reform bill to the floor of the Senate.

What is really happening here, Friends of Freemont, is just another wink, wink, nod, nod by those people who are in power in this country. The play’s the thing here. And, as we sit back in the crowd with our heads resting between Ophelia’s legs, we need to keep our minds on country matters. Financial reform legislation is politically popular at the moment and both the Democrats and the Republicans are looking to score some approval points with it. So, they’ll put on a show for us. And they’ll try to work together. And there may even be some headway made on actual finance reform. But, really, all it is that any of these people want to do is stay in power and to do that they need to get credit for something. I find it very telling, for instance, that the last sentence of the first paragraph of Senator Carl Levin’s Wikipedia page now reads: In 2010, Senator Levin served as Chairman for the interrogations of the senior partners of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. relating to the SEC fraud accusations straining the latter.     

As I said in my below blog, Senator Levin’s line of questioning was absolutely hilariously bold and spoke to the root of the problem of financial greed. But I’m just not willing to believe that the government is doing enough to protect the American people from these fat cats. That’s because no matter who is in office, be it George W. Bush or Barack Obama, the White House will always be tied to the financial sector because it is the basis for our economy—an economy that needs to perform on a global scale. The unfortunate reality of this modern day capitalism is that the rich get richer as the poor get poorer. And those in power just dangle enough bullshit in front of our eyes so that we’ll stay quiet and get up the next morning.

After all these Goldman Sachs hearings are said and done, no one from the company will go to jail and I highly doubt any of their executives will receive anything more than a slap on the wrist. Their jobs will remain intact. And their young wives will blow them before they go to sleep at night. And all these big banks—they will be preserved in their conglomerate state.

So, the best advice that I can give to you is to continue to be aware of the black beast of corruption that preys upon the people of this nation. Don’t expect too much out of politicians, but expect less out of Wall Street. Because politicians, at least, need to answer to the American people. But those Wall Street fat cats only really need to answer questions when they pertain to the continued glutinous expansion of themselves.

- FB