In all the recent debate about America’s space program, I have read little or nothing about its most important by-product: the boost American education received after the U.S.S.R. launched Sputnik.  Americans in general and American politicians in particular were running scared, thinking that the science and technology of the godless communists was going to kick good old Yankee ingenuity in the butt.  While they are probably godless and communists in name only, the Chinese may end up doing that in the 21^st century (the Chinese god seems to be money and their ideology is uncontrolled capitalism), but that’s another story.

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Blame all those violent video games, Hollywood action flicks, the influence of guns, high testosterone levels induced by junk food, all those English-abusing immigrants-blame whatever or whomever you will, but intelligent discourse has taken a major hit in our country.  While the parade of Wall Street Thomas Crowns through the hallowed halls of Congress yesterday was enough to try the Dali Lama’s patience, Senator Levin’s repeated use of the s-word was yet another example of how low our national dialog has sunk.

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Mr. Greenspan’s phrase, actually dating from the mid nineties, but used more recently in describing the causes of the financial disaster of 2008, now seems to be very inappropriate.  Wall Street bankers, in an unprecedented financial attack on just about everyone not belonging to their exclusive club, implemented and are currently implementing schemes that are devious at best and illegal at worst.  It is a policy of rational arrogance.  I don’t think it stops with Goldman-Sachs.  To employ an old cliché, we have just seen the tip of the iceberg so far.

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(R. J. McDonnell, Rock & Roll Rip-Off, Killeena Publishing, 2010, ISBN 978-0-9814914-2-4)

I began reading Rock & Roll Rip-Off with some misgivings.  Too many authors, inspired by Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch series, Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series, or other famous series in popular fiction, start to write a series.  The tradition goes all the way back beyond Christie’s Miss Marple and Poirot to Conan Doyle’s Holmes.  The standard cliché that “you can’t argue with success” seems to mesmerize the writers’ world.

A series, successful or otherwise, is itself something of a rip-off.  A writer, comfortable with a character and perhaps stimulated by the character’s popularity, now has the freedom to pay more attention to developing other aspects of the story.  A better writer, on the other hand, takes the opportunity to also develop that main character a little more-returning to his childhood, lost loves, traumatic events, and so forth.

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There is a growing xenophobic sentiment in this country.  It feeds on the bitterness and desperation of people without jobs.  It eats at the soul of those that are forced to choose between feeding their families and paying their mortgages for houses that no longer have any market value.  It passes like wildfire through those weeds among us that think government and especially Mr. Obama are out to get them.  Or it justifies the hate of people that are just plain nuts.

When President Obama’s administration and the Congress finally take up immigration reform, I’m worried that this sentiment will define the debate.  Cooler heads will not prevail and we will pass legislation that reforms the immigration laws in a way that is bad for this country.  It will make a mockery of what’s printed on the Statue of Liberty.

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You can now see on news clips Republicans and Democrats slapping each other on the back as they broker deals for new laws regulating the banking industry.  Does this give you that safe Teddy Bear feeling you had when you were a kid cuddled up in your warm bed?  It shouldn’t.

The bankers on Wall Street are smarter and more devious than politicians.  Their greed has turned them into sleaze-bags, so they have come up with a devious and brilliant plan:  Recapture the public trust by allowing oversight but continue the “too big to fail” policy where the biggest banks can still make all kinds of risky investments, knowing that the government will bail them out.

The Simon in the title is Simon Johnson, an island of sanity in a sea of insanity and one of my heroes in this ongoing saga that I call “Capitalism without Control.”  Through his blog baselinescenario.com and now his book 13 bankers he has made a good case for a banking oligarchy that arrogantly thinks it owns the federal government and the American people.  This is not paranoia.  It’s not a conspiracy.  It’s real!  And Middle Class America will be the ones left holding the bag, as usual.

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Brave New World, 1984, Animal Farm, Darkness at Noon, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Autumn of the Patriarch, Cardinal of the Kremlin, Absolute Power-this small list of political novels corresponds to some of the best authors in the English language.  (Technically I suppose that some of these aren’t completely English but all but Autumn became famous in their English editions.)  Some people would believe that novels like Ape and Essence, Not This August, Fahrenheit 451, The Manchurian Candidate, The Children of Men, and The Road also might fall into this category, but I would like to make a distinction.  (Can you name all the authors of these novels?)

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Clayton Moore (no relation) as the Lone Ranger often got the scoop about the bad guy from his trusty sidekick played by Jay Silverheels (we can’t name his character anymore due to political correctness):  “He speaks with forked tongue.”  George Orwell in 1984 called this double-speak.  Call it what you will, GOP senators and representatives have become quite good at it in recent years (a certain ability in this arcane art of public speaking is required of every politician).

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Economics, especially the economics of taxation, is a dull subject.  It is a mix of opinion and science with the heavier weight being given to opinion-there is little science in spite of what you might believe from watching the movie A Brilliant Mind (there are brilliant minds in economics, but it’s still not a science).  Since old April 15 is right on our doorstep (why does he look like the grim reaper?), I thought I’d get in the spirit of the season and lambast liberals and conservatives alike about taxes.  (This doesn’t make me a libertarian.  My political party is “Poor Suffering Bastards of the Middle Class.”)

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Justice Stevens’ retirement from the Supreme Court is a potential disaster for the progressive movement in this country.  Justice Stevens was to President Ford as Justice Warren was to President Eisenhower-a force for rational, progressive change named by a conservative president.  How lucky is that!  Maybe Ford wasn’t the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but Eisenhower was the military genius that smacked Hitler around.

Don’t expect that to happen much in the future.  On the contrary, President Obama, thinking that it’s more politically expedient, you can be a wuss and try to name someone that will upset conservatives and liberals equally and therefore be a shoo-in for Senate approval.  If that happens, the over-all effect would be to make the Supreme Court more conservative.

Don’t do it, President Obama!  Be bold.  You won the election.  Ignore political expediency, pick your progressive candidate, and nominate him or her.

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