Pass me some Kool-aid, a tin foil hat and a copy of “Seven Days in May.” Why? A nagging question keeps popping into my head regarding the $700 billion bailout. What if it’s a total scam?
It is no secret that a large percentage of the ruling elites and their influential friends would like to turn America into a full-blown socialist state. It is also no secret that such a total transformation would be met with massive resistance by Americans who recognize the danger of having the federal government in total control of our lives.
Question: how do the elites get such control without a shot being fired?
Answer: scare Americans to death. Tell them everything they’ve worked for could disappear tomorrow. Get the media to pump up end-of-the-world scenarios, Great Depression comparisons and other assorted gloom-and-doom stories. Hold a special news conference, suspend political campaigns and call off debates. Tell the public the architects of our salvation are “experts”–experts who have been appointed, not elected. Convince all Americans that bipartisan participation in such a scheme is ample evidence of its worthiness, and that those who’ve come out against this complete abandonment of capitalistic ideology underestimate the gravity of the crisis.
Considering what most Americans know about economics (yours truly, somewhat included), perpetrating an economic coup de etat–as opposed to a “traditional” one with all the attendant violence, is pure brilliance.
Oversight? Elitist foxes guarding the working man’s hen house. The presidential election? Largely irrelevant, once a $700 billion dollar albatross is tied around the winner’s neck.
One last question: as recently as 2004, the federal budget was a bit more than two trillion dollars. Today it’s three trillion. If the government is looking for an extra seven hundred billion bucks, why not reduce government spending to 2004 levels as part of any deal? Is there a scintilla of a doubt Congress do it, if they were genuinely interested in saving the country?
If this column sounds like a conspiracy theory, so be it. Sometimes the best scams are perpetrated in broad daylight with the whole world watching.
Especially when most of us don’t really know–exactly–what it is we’re watching.
atahlert@comcast.net
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