THREE LITTLE DITTIES: A Bailout, a Blunder and Bureaucracy

Firstly, how could a life-long conservative activist, advisor to Reagan, Kemp and Dole, with impeccable Republican credentials bail out of the GOP and vote for Barack Obama: Writing in the New York Daily News on Wednesday, “The answer is simple” said Larry Hunter, Ph.D. “Unjustified war and unconstitutional abridgement of individual rights vs. ill-conceived tax and economic policies – this is the difference between venial and mortal sins.” Hunter claimed that although he doesn’t take Obama at his word on domestic issues and believes he even says “all the wrong things,” … “the Republicans said all the right things – fiscal responsibility, spending restraint – and it didn’t mean a thing.” Better late than never? But the taxpayer/citizen takes it in the ass!

Secondly, the Small Business Association caught a small oversight they made between 2004 and 2007. After deciding to check more than a token 5% of loans they made to businesses claiming to be in poor neighborhoods, they discovered that only half of the 13,000 such businesses qualified for such loans. Millions of dollars illegally disbursed. In short, the businesses lied. No, they were not in poor neighborhoods. They just said they were. Corruption or business as usual? You decide but the taxpayer again takes it, well, you know where! Not to mention how the poor people take it. It must be great fun to have millions if not billions to throw around without real accountability, no? Actually, it's tragic when such a major multi-million dollar blunder becomes a mere blip on the screen.

And, thirdly, locally, speaking of taking it where the sun don’t shine, Niagara county opts for more Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!, Lions and Tigers and Bears! Oops, I mean lawyers and experts and managers, Oh My!, lawyers and experts and managers! Greg Lewis and company I believe is still looking for a Homeland Security Director. Sweet Jesus! They ought to first do something about protecting the Power Plant, the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge and the other bridges in the county.

I think the county also hired a six-pack or so of Conflict Attorneys. I’ll bet they couldn’t even negotiate an argument with their wife and kids. Seriously, though, there is always a rationale for this kind of bureaucracy building. But do we have any way of reasonably combating such a cancerous proliferation of "remediators" given we live in a world where it's presumed that ordinary people of the communities cannot and should not deal with their own problems independently of the official mechanisms of the professional world such as the courts?

And recently Lockport decided it just might need a Main Street Manager. When you’re done laughing, please finish reading this. If you were listening to the announcement on the Scott Leffler show the other day and were listening closely, you may have noticed that it was not quite clear whether the new manager would be a “manager,” a “promoter” or an “economic development specialist.” My guess is they don’t have to get clear about the job description, because he probably won’t know what he’s doing anyhow. Besides it’s doubtful there will be any objective prior measure of the state of Main Street before he starts such that when they finally do get rid of him/her, or give him/her tenure, they will know whether there’s any real difference in having hired him/her/it in the first place. But the point is when you can get a “grant” (read bureaucratically rationalized tax-money giveaway) why not perform acts of desperation. Let the taxpayers fund the business ventures. If they fail, they’ll just raise taxes again. Bureaucracy rules!

Yes, capitalism under Liberal Democratic regimes whether local or national, whether Republican or Democrat, whether ‘liberal or conservative’ really isn’t working is it. Oh well don’t worry. If the economy goes in the shitter, we can always start another war, find another evil foe to fight and blame our problems on, or, just sell what’s left of the country and move to Switzerland. You can all afford it, can’t you?

Maybe you can find the common thread here better than I can. My guess, however, is that we are in the grips of a philosophical crisis of national and local identity which we cannot face. Why can’t we face it? One reason is because we have monumentally fantastic distractions: the nihilistic and meaningless war on terror being fought in the wrong way. Moreover, we have an endless stream of money in the form of taxes to invest where a sane capitalist would never invest. And we are mystified by the New Class of lawyers, specialists, experts, managers, consultants, professionals, technocrats and administrators, who, given enough time and money, we are deluded will solve all our problems.

Lastly, in America we have an overabundance of cretins whose fundamental inspiration is TV, sports and video games. If they do participate politically it is usually in "party-speak," an Orwellian language spoken ad nauseum especially during political campaigns by pundits, reporters and politicians.

Maybe the common thread here should be called "CLUELESS". That is, it seems most traditional wisdom is clueless as to how to deal with the crisis of American political confusion, confidence and committment to a clear national purpose and the role of local communities in that purpose.