05.03.10
So when do the bastards actually get punished?
Unintentionally hilarious headline from the WaPo today:
One of the dilemmas faced by the Obama administration – and the US government, in general — in these days of Biblical fail is the inability to see to swift and very public punishment for those who visit catastrophe upon the nation.
It’s a hallmark of Paul Fussell’s BAD, so to speak. Always much bragging and talk about technology and America’s limitless can-do talent during staged events and commercials. But a more deeply rooted and expansive talent for folding like cardboard when the chips are down, then making a lot of excuses and dressing up fail as a great new paradigm of success.
The US is great at bombing and assassinating trivial pests and civilians around the globe — and making big boogeymen out of the same.
It’s virtually powerless to administer quick justice to wrecking balls like the Tony Haywards and Lloyd Blankfeins on its own property.
BP will have to pay for the clean-up, insists the President.
This is very weak, semantically. It will read even worse when the millions of barrels of oil in the Gulf have smashed livelihoods and wildlife, very visibly, across many states.
Sometimes the bad people just have to be tarred, feathered and put away permanently. Being called before Congress to be badgered by a few puffed-up white guys with pointing fingers for television cameras doesn’t really do it for anyone.
Speed is also a virtue. Allowing weasels to squirm around on the loose for years because they’re wealthy, it’s capitalism and they have an army of corporate lawyers, isn’t justice — it’s the process of fail set in cement.
This is political dynamite for the Obama administration. It can either have its arms blown off or choose to blow someone else’s life up who deserves it up for a change.
Putting such men specifically on notice — on network TV, f’r instance — that they’re now officially on a Public Enemies list, could be a start.