Heroes of the Well-Heeled: A Post-Convention Tribute
What a week!

Call me a hopeless romantic, but I'm still walking on air from this week's GOP convention. Every time our friend W. said the words "we're not turning back," my heart went all a-twitter. If all goes well, we certainly won't be turning back: not to the days when nickel-and-dime wage earners coasted on the free lunch of progressive taxation, not to the days when corporations couldn't count on government welfare to increase their bottom line, not to the days when the tyranny of the public interest thwarted the profitable exploitation of the environment, not to the days when our finest corporations were forced to bid like common plumbers for government contracts, not to the days when Big Business and government alike were straitjacketed by the soft Communism of traditional accounting, and certainly not to the days when the top tier of the upper-upper-class settled for anything less than top priority.

If anything were missing from this convention, I'd say it was a moment of recognition for the incredibly wealthy people who have made the past four years as remarkable as they have been. People who have shown that money truly does make the world go round. People who have shown that if you keep your nose to the grindstone, apply yourself, and earn, inherit, embezzle, marry into, or hoard gobs and gobs of cash, you can write a nice fat check that changes American history.

So, I present to you a tribute to these unsung heroes.

To Rupert Murdoch, who created a sensationalistic and mind-blowingly right-wing media empire, including Fox News, the Weekly Standard, and the New York Post, proving that anyone with a little spunk and enough bank to finance an enormous international mass communications conglomerate can single-handedly influence our national discourse;

To the pro-Bush executives at Clear Channel Communications, which took FCC deregulation by the horns and swallowed the national radio market whole, ensuring that views unsympathetic to Bush or his Billionaire friends can be quickly silenced;

To Walden O' Dell, CEO of Diebold, Inc., who saw an opportunity for profit in the Florida election debacle, making a killing on paper-trail-free computerized voting machines after promising to deliver votes to W. in 2004;

To Bob Perry, the Texas construction magnate and six-figure Republican donor, who wrote a $100,000 check to create Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, showing that lots of money and a scruple-free private dick can manufacture the priceless commodity of outrage;

To Ken Lay and the good folks at Enron, for giving us a glimpse of a glorious future, unfettered by onerous laws that protect gullible employees, stockholders, and energy customers from the harsh realities of the free market;

To Halliburton, the "Greatest Corporation," for showing us how the right connections can turn a private enterprise into a de facto branch of the federal government;

To Dick Cheney himself, who showed that shuttling back and forth between the federal government and a major government contractor can ensure your indispensability to the public and private sector alike;

To the anonymous heroes of Cheney's secret energy task force, who rescued our nation's rivers, forests, and potentially lucrative undeveloped land from the suffocating clutches of Mother Nature;

And finally, to all of the spectacularly rich folks who have contributed big money to W.'s campaign war chest, rendering public financing largely irrelevant for the foreseeable future,

We, who are about to get even richer, salute you.


- posted by Colin A. Faver @ 4:05:44 PM