US corporate greed and political complicity

By Paul J. Balles

3 October 2008

Paul J. Balles predicts that the next great disaster for the USA won't be from terrorists abroad giving Washington a lame excuse to go to war, but it will be “a severely pained American public rising up … against the US corporate monarchy".

Dear Congressman,

What are you and the rest of your colleagues going to do when the masses really start to feel the pinch of the fraud you’ve sold them? There's no doubt that they will feel the pinch. You and the old boys’ network in Congress may be able to stave off the financial disaster for a short bailout time. But what then?

What will you do when the con game of free market economics implodes on the country, nay, the world? How long will you be able to intervene for the rich, leaving everyone else to fend for themselves? 

What will you do when your public discovers you have received a million dollars in campaign financing and the donors expect to receive billions in tax breaks, government protection and subsidies? The public has been so apathetic to what you and your fellow travellers do in Congress that you've been able to get away with your shell game virtually unnoticed.

Now John Q. Public is about to really hurt! When they can't afford basic necessities and can't get the credit they've been used to, where do you think they'll look for answers? I suspect you're starting to get the idea: the economic chickens will come home to roost.

When they get there, without health care, with high gas prices, no tax relief except for retooling the likes of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, AIG and Lehman Brothers, more mortgage failures and foreclosures, no credit to pay the bills, what do you think the coop tenders are going to do then?

It seems the current administration already has an idea of what's going to happen. How else can you explain the item appearing in &&The Army Times&& revealing the movement of a brigade of troops from Iraq to the US as “an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks?”

Are you beginning to get the larger picture, Congressman? The next great disaster for the USA won't be from terrorists abroad giving you a lame excuse to go to war. It will be a severely pained American public rising up for a modern Boston tea party, but this time it will be a revolt against the US corporate monarchy.

You allowed the profiteers to deregulate everything to satisfy their monumental greed. They bribed you and extorted billions from the coffers filled by the American public and investors from China and Japan and other foreign subsidisers of US government sloth.

Where’s the financial regulation that you should have provided for the military-industrial complex and corporate thieves like Caterpillar, IBM, DuPont, Ford, Chevron, Monsanto, Dow Chemical, Boeing and General Electric identified by Stephen Slivinski of the Cato Institute?

When the rape of the American worker's credit comfort and survival rings in the ears of those who are hurting, the voices of a current day Thomas Paine will surely herald the modern revolution. What will you do when the Second Amendment armies descend upon you with their legal guns?

Equally important for you, Congressman, what will you do following the tea party, when the modern revolutionaries come running down the street after your brigade surrenders to the masses? If you're lucky, they'll not hang you or stand you before a firing squad.

The masses will have a perfect resort for you and your colleagues at Guantanamo Bay where you allowed the emperor and his conspirators to keep their guests complete with water boarding entertainment. They probably won't rush to return habeas corpus to active duty; but then you let your administration take those civil rights away.