First Count

The old carnival hucksters liked to say that the person who got "first count" of the day's receipts always made out pretty well, since he skimmed a bit off the top before handing it over to the next in line. The carnival hucksters had nothing on Paulson and the rest of the carnies over at the Treasury Department. I'm not feeling too creative today so here's something from Joe Bageant's web site (link at right):

"I never make predictions, but now I'm willing to guess that it's going to take a genuinely brutal collapse, one in which our citizens cannot get even the most basic necessities of life before the spell of American exceptionalism is broken. And even when that happens I have no doubt the citizenry will be provided with some appropriate scapegoat abroad, most likely a Muslim or Russian one. Hell, they are already ginning up the case against several suspects.

I find it amazing that after the highest rolling scam artists are given a walk for their theft. Our government is now letting the collapsing industries consolidate and actually own thousands of banks at the local level. I suspect that having raped the public for fees and having exhausted all the other mortgage racket scams, they now want to get closer to the pockets of the people and "get first count of the dough," as the carnies used to say. He who gets first count always makes money in the carnie world.

Another local citizen I talked to said: "Well, it's all more complicated than we can understand. You have to leave it to the experts." As if "the experts" somehow are not human beings prone to greed or other human folly. That people can watch such a disaster happen before their very eyes and somehow not relate it to their own lives as Americans boggles the imagination. It goes beyond apathy and into the realm of learned helplessness. Complete helplessness in the face of the corporate state. Complete reliance upon unseen "people in high places" who somehow know what is best for the rest of us, and belief these people will act first in our interests instead of their own.

I fear for this country's fate. I really do."