Shearing Us Sheep

Why, it is reasonable to ask, would the government allow to continue what the much pilloried Jim Cramer rightly calls "naked and illegal short-selling" when the world economy is facing a meltdown? One has to look beneath the "reported" stories and delve into the global netherworld where power, politics and state-sponsored crime have operated since 1562. That was the year the first English slave trader, John Hawkins, left home with 100 men in 3 ships, captured 300 slaves in Sierra Leone along with hides, ginger and sugar and found a delighted business partner in Queen Elizabeth I.

To appease her subjects appalled by the accounts of slavery coming from Spain's New World colonies, the noble queen declared that "if any of the Africans were carried away without their own consent, it would be detestable, and call down the vengeance of Heaven upon the undertakers." So detestable, in fact, that England proceeded to dominate the trade for the next 250 years. Much like the fight against godless Communism, it justified the practice on the pretense of saving those poor African heathens from savage ignorance and showing them the redeeming love of Jesus Christ.

When the burden of the lie became too great the Church of England would ease their monarch's conscience by declaring that Africans had no souls. In fact the English church found African slavery to be of great benefit-- for instance The Church's missionary arm, the Society for the Propagation of the Faith in Foreign Parts, owned the Codrington plantation in Barbados and slaves had the word "Society" branded on their chests with red-hot irons.

If a Muslim fundamentalist understands anything about the glorious West it is the value placed on honor and the depths of Christian charity... to the extent of their bankers' profit.

As a consequence of the Triangle slave trade each plantation economy became part of the new global economy. American financial and shipping industries were dependent on slave-produced cotton, as was the British textile industry. As the cotton plantation economy expanded, the banks and financial houses in New York supplied the loan capital and/or investment capital to purchase land and slaves. Enslaved Africans became a legally traded commodity, frequently used as collateral in kind for goods and services.

Had Eliot Spitzer paid closer attention to that history he might have spared himself a great deal of trouble and allowed us New Yorkers to retain an ethical governor. Instead he violated the sacred rail of politics by exposing corruption that flourishes in "service of the state".

the Online Journal explains:

Greenberg and AIG had a long association with the CIA. Cornelius V. Starr (yes, uncle of that Ken Starr,) started AIG as “American Asiatic Underwriters” in 1919 in Shanghai. He moved AIG from Shanghai to New York after the Communists came to power in 1949. Ironically, AIG is back in China through its ownership of People’s Insurance Company of China. AIG also owns AIG Korea Insurance.

AIG has, on behalf of U.S. intelligence, kept tabs on rising players on the Asia political scene, particularly in China, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and other countries. The quid pro quo for AIG is that it has weathered the storms generated by Spitzer and the global financial meltdown.

While the U.S. taxpayer is being fleeced for trillions of dollars, Gretchen Morgensen writes in the NYTimes "at A.I.G, good luck finding the money."

(it seems even A.I.G.'s own independent directors haven't been told which of the counterparties were paid. Huge claims have been paid off in full, even though widespread defaults have not actually occurred. Yet the government continues to pretend it's all hunky-dory.)

For those who suspect that the subjugation of the "coddled" American middle class is the goal of our ruling capitalists I submit a poem penned in defense of 19th century slavery.

He who to thwart GOD'S system tries,
Bids mountains sink, and vallies rise;
Slavery, subjection, what you will,
Has ever been, and will be still:

Bread and Circuses (soberly appended and revised)

"...while thy Rome stands and the Capitol thou hast restored to the world, Saturnalia shall continue"--Statius

Watching the corporate media feast on the Christmas scraps tossed them by Patrick Fitzgerald in the form of the Blagojevich scandal evokes scenes from the "Rites of Saturn." Though the ritual is associated with careless pleasures, Roman potteries with their grisly human heads remind us that as winter approached and torches were lit against the darkness of Saturn’s year-end chaos throats were bled upon the harvest god's altar. As the days grew lean, life reverted to its native state of misrule and madness.



Seneca the Younger, describing Rome in December of 50 AD: "Loose reins are given to public dissipation; everywhere you may hear the sound of great preparations, as if there were some real difference between the days devoted to Saturn and those for transacting business..."

If there is a single reporter who was genuinely surprised that an Illinois governor would seek to peddle his power then a child in grade school is surely qualified to join the Washington press corps. Indeed should such illicit trading be prosecuted evenly there is a certain governor recently aspired to be vice-president who richly deserves the breathless scrutiny being lavished upon poor dumb, and possibly unhinged, Rod Blago. It seems that to cheer our dark and dismal Christmas the corporate media would like us believe that "quid pro quo" is somehow a rare art unique to Chicago and not "business as usual", (or at least anything to keep their bosses' exposed cupidity out of the headlines.)

Now that a second Bush presidency has plunged us into another major recession the masters of our financial universe are desperate that we not catch on to the fact that for the last (two hundred) thirty years our country's governance has by in large been a criminal enterprise. What honest member of Congress would hand the very scoundrels who just got through fleecing the public of another 700 billion dollars and then fail to inquire to whom or to what did the Federal Reserve just quietly dole out over $2 trillion crisp new bills? Oh, but winter's almost here-- there are lean and dark days coming-- so let's pretend and make merry--off with that rascal Blago's head!-- and may his corpse leave its rotten stench upon Emmanuel and his smug St. Obama.

Before Blago There was Spitzer

It's one thing to pretend you are fighting corruption by indicting the hired hands (a la Rudy) and something else to attempt to make one's name by exposing the Lords of High Finance as did our zealous New York governor. Spitzer was stopped, thanks to his apparent arrogant belief that Saturnalia can be pursued year-round by a moral crusader.

Because of that inane sexual indulgence, Spitzer's expose of Wall Street corruption, a presumptuous inquisition that ended with a $1.4 billion settlement and the disgrace for the banking world's leading figures has been mostly forgotten save by the gangsters and front men facing thousands of shareholder lawsuits. Lawsuits I suspect that are about to vanish or be tactfully settled.

Thanks to Mr. Spitzer's reckless ambition, we now know that the chain of corruption leads right to the top. Yet despite such indisputable evidence that the thieves were guarding the cupboards our discreet and upstanding public servants who-- unlike that foul-mouthed Governor Blago would never dream of peddling a senate seat-- have handed those very same banks the dwindled remains of our children's college funds and our old-age pensions.

Against this breadth and depth of corruption it is possible to forgive poor Eliot for failing to soberly observe the line between normal behavior and the mindless excess of Saturnalia. And surely only during such a careless time as the mad days of Saturn would politicians presumably less deluded than Palin and Blago attempt to pimp their soiled garments of ethics and decency. But such is the harvest grown from avarice and greed: gamblers squander the fruits of real labor while our drunken Lords of Misrule clap their hands on the nation's grave and dance naked.