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Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Adult Conversations

Let me tell you a little story, that you may have heard before.  Bear with me, I have a point.

As fall was approaching, a young bird decided he didn't want to fly south.  "That's what everyone does, but not me!  I'm a non-conformist!"

As October turned to November, our little bird friend was fine.  He was proud to still be in his meadow while all his wimpy friends left.  Then November turned to December and the snows came.  He was cold.  The fields (and the food) started to freeze over.  Finally, our little friend decided he needed to fly south.

Funny, that.  As he climbed a few hundred feet into the sky he got even colder.  He flew into a snow cloud and soon was getting coated with ice!  Eventually he fell to the ground.  Things looked bad for our little friend.  He was coated in ice, shivering in a cow pasture, and began to think he was going to die. 

And then a miracle happened.  A cow came walking by, and by the greatest fortune, dropped a great steaming pile of shit on him.  Sure it smelled awful, but it was warm!  Wonderful warmth!  Our friend started to feel better.  He could move his wings!  He was so happy he began to sing ... and then a bobcat, following the singing, found him and ate him.

Which leads to the dual morals of our story:  everyone who shits on you isn't your enemy, and everyone who gets you out of a pile of shit isn't your friend.   

What does this have to do with anything?   This posting on Market Ticker.  Go watch, it's a 8 1/2 minutes long but must see. 

The "kill the bankers" theme is wrong.  The bankers the narrator talks about are a tiny group of international elite that the viewer will probably never see or ever get to.  There is no logical difference between saying "the bankers caused my trouble, let's kill them" than the Free Shit Army saying "the white people caused my trouble, let's kill them" or "the crazy right wing nuts caused my trouble, let's kill them".  All they're doing is starting a bloody civil war.  It smells of this (SEIU invades a bankers home and lawn):
It smells of mob tactics, and to use the phrase Ann Coulter is using everywhere, it smells Demonic (and, no, I haven't read it).  

Look, I'm not defending the bankers.  But they aren't the only ones responsible:  don't forget Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the incredibly stupid Jamie Gorelick, (you can almost hang the 9/11 attacks on her neck, alone) and the astonishingly corrupt Franklin Raines.  Don't forget the Community Reinvestment Act which first Jimmy Carter, then Bill Clinton used to force the banks into giving out bad loans, ACORN and other groups that would protest in the lobbies of the banks or at the homes of the bankers if that bank didn't give enough loans to people who couldn't afford to pay back the loans.  Don't forget ACORN founder Wade Rathke, his embezzling brother Dale and for God's sake don't overlook Dr. Evil - George Soros.  Throw in Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and as many house and senate banking committee members as you want: it was there job to over see Fannie and Freddie - you can see how well they did. 

There's a very well done piece on what caused the 2008 meltdown at Investopedia.  Their conclusion:  the Congress is largely to blame.  

Your local banker has virtually nothing in common with the big banksters this video waxes poetic about killing.  The banker down the block is just a working Joe like all of us, trying to do what he thinks is a necessary job - and provide for his family.  Your local credit union banker is probably even a non-profit, "folks helping folks".  They're not the cow. 

My version:  talking about "the bankers" is the same as talking about any group.  Groups aren't responsible: individuals are.  Those people need to be arrested, tried and otherwise dealt with.  It's a national shame they haven't been, but you just gotta know one reason is that they'd implicate congress. 

5 comments:

  1. Thanks for saying what I've been trying to put into words for a while now. You said it better than I could have.

    As to that "Black Swan" video posted on Market-ticker.org.. well, Mr. Denninger is always interested in 'signs of the times', so I don't think he's endorsing the content (and I don't think you thought he was). You'll find me doing the same thing on my site from time to time, because I'm keenly interested in taking the pulse of a certain slice of the American culture.

    Certain aspects of our 'shared illusion' are starting to crumble, and I think that 'black swan' video was a bit of cheap propaganda intended to speed that process. And the collectivist 'get all the bankers' crap (or Michael Moore's hypocritical tirades against the rich) are starting to worry me.

    When the SHTF, many of us who just want to be left alone to rebuild may initially find ourselves surrounded by a culture that has been propagandized for decades against the 'rich', businessmen/capitalists, bankers, gun owners/gun rights activists/militia/2A defenders, and on and on. Guess what they'll be inclined to do with all that conditioning they've received over their lifetimes?

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  2. Yep, good post. I wish we had more adult conversations in this country.

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  3. Very good post. Messages in videos like that always rub me the wrong way.

    The real problem, of course, is that if your going to start passing the buck upstream, as it were, you cant stop there. Congress isnt a self-manifesting entity...we sent them there.

    Karl posted a link to a sermon yesterday that I thought was very important. I dont care if you are an antagonistic atheist...the core message that was preached is universally applicable. Just ignore the christian bent if you must, what is being said is too important:

    We all share a piece of the responsibility and it is morally bankrupt to overlook the problems that we helped cause because we would rather point out the problems of the "other side".

    http://www.northpoint.org/messages/recovery-road#

    Until our nation starts to get our house in order on an individual level we will never get our House (or Senate for that matter) in order.

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  4. Thanks, all. I will go listen to that Sermon, but the summary you post, Taylor, is right on. It is morally bankrupt and dishonest to overlook problems "our side" created. Count me among those who feel both parties are essentially a ruling class, and both sides almost indistinguishable.

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  5. I'm an unantagonistic atheist ;-) I just posted a Dennis Prager essay to my blog, on a ten-step program that will cure the ills of the world. You can read it directly at

    http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0811/prager081611.php3?printer_friendly

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