I recently finished reading “Pigs at the Trough” by Arianna Huffington.  An enjoyable and depressing read.  While she railed against the scandals of the early years of this closing decade (the book was published in 2003) there could be no clearer prediction for the intense economic troubles we are currently facing then those inequities and corrupting influences Huffington outlines in her book.

In the four, five years following her books publication it’s clear that things only became looser between wall street and Washington and the lackadaisical regulation became nearly non-existent.  Yet once more in the face of excessive and dangerous greed that impacted hundreds of millions of people we still have done little to reform the fat cats working environment.

How long will it be till we collapse for real, unable to prop up a rotten system of economic greed and political influence with tax payer bailouts?  Because of the complete failing of our political system as it pan handles to it’s corporate donors, of our public regulatory agencies equally infected with the virus of greed and the very organizations established to benefit shareholders seek only to enrich themselves at the expense of said shareholders, there maybe little to no tax payers left to fork over the money to perform said prop up!

The change has to come with campaign finance reform, yet what initiatives do get passed are worked on tirelessly by those who would seek to punch as many holes in the regulations until they are rendered as ineffective as no regulation at all.  I don’t have the answer to the cesspool of corporate corruption and political whoring other then pitchforks and torches.  Yet our corporate owned press has seen fit to inhibit, criticize, undermine any efforts of the public to make it’s voice known, in some instances it has actually championed the causes of those who would seek to bankrupt us for their own greed.

The sad irony is that those who have the power to actually influence and remove this system of corporate governance through career politicians are so divided and demoralized that the once proud American ideal of individualism and patriotism casting off the chains of oppressive rules has dissolved into a society of meek lambs who march to irrational drum beats.

That’s my rant for today.

So Lou Dobbs has left CNN.  I’m not sure if this is a greater victory for Corrupt Capitalism or the Celebration of News Media.  I’m guessing he’ll show up on fox, he is a conservative and fox has been getting hammered for it’s nutters lately.  Best to sign a veteran moderate nutter to fill out the roster.

In President Obama’s address to the joint session of congress he truly delivered an amazing, awe inspiring, goose bump ridden speech that was defiantly energizing.  In it he made several key points one of which I found quite compelling.  He placed blame on both sides of the aisle for the degridation of the debate but also included the media.  The devil’s in the details and despite covering many of key points that the press has been beating like a dead horse the various spokesmen, Biden among others, have slipped back into answering press questions that are already covered.

The White House and the supporting democrats in congress need to stay out of the press trap of dragging the debate back down to the minutia that makes their various commentary panels so entertaining.  He ended his speech by re-framing the debate as a moral one.  Yet the press, even public radio, has gone back to the stance of discussing a cherry picked list of details, most of which, the president already addressed in his speech.  The spokesmen need to turn it around.  Rather then listing off a litany of facts and figures and polls and supporting groups in the industry of healthcare when asked a question already addressed in the speech these supporters need to say simply:  “The President discussed that in his speech on Wednesday, the real issue here is the moral one.”  To re-frame the debate and the questioning of the press into what is correct and right and good, rather then highlighting false information campaigns and rude micky mouse representatives.  Stay on message or it’s going to get away from you again.

He’s a graduate from Harvard! Oh and the first black President of the United States!!  Get a clue ASU.  It’s not about him it’s about you.  This whole bs about not giving a degree because he hasn’t “accomplished a body of work” did you read the first line I just wrote?  Face it your just looking for free press by stirring up a little controversy.  Cheap tricks and a sad state of affairs for a half ass state school that fancies it’s self as something more.  No offense to the alumni of course.

I was watching Comedy Central tonight and was really struck by a the guest on The Colbert Report. At first I was surprised that he had such a D list guest. This went along with my assumption that something must be hurting in the Daily Show / Colbert Report booking wing of Comedy Centeral as Jon Stewart had Tom Selleck on. However as I listen to Colbert’s guess speak I realize something much more is going on here.

The guest was John Fetterman Mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania. He spoke of the devastating decline of his district and the town that he calls home. As I write this I try to access his website http://www.15104.cc/ and undoubtedly the shear volume of users right now is causing their server to crash. As I listed to him and the real problems he faced and his commentary on how we can so easily spend so much on the financial institutions who days later slap us in the face with corporate excess on tax payer dimes I discovered something new about Colbert.

John Fetterman, Mayor of Braddock was the future of public service announcements. Steven and the staff at The Colbert Report had discovered a real American story and a real American need and used their influence through the media to bring light on this issue. I’m also sure there are many other towns, cities, villages that suffer similar fates as Braddock. I was just surprised that it has taken a comedy show at it’s roots to show us the true face of the needy here in America. It’s a testimate to how embroiled our main stream media outlets have become with ideological, partisan and sensationalist views. We are left with only one half hour, late night, on weekdays to discover news stories that demand attention.

When our companies and our financial institutions fell into troubled times recently our elected officials opted to aid them by putting the burden on the taxpayers. Ironically we chastise these firms and corporations for making poor decisions and high risk investments, yet our politicians do the very same thing.

Now it’s the local (city, state) governments that are having hard times. That is save Alaska who allows oil companies to destroy part of it’s state and gives a faction of the profits from these reserves back to the state. How are they coping in Cincinnati? They plan to tax their residents for trash pick up, like it’s a regular utility. I say to the residents of Cincinnati organize a trash to city hall day, and dump it all there. Perhaps after they get a glimpse of what it was like a few centuries ago where trash was just dumped in the streets and rivers they’ll change their tune.

The problem is that all the problems are ultimately placed on the backs of the American taxpayers while more and more services these taxes that they pay use to go towards are being cut back, charged for or stripped away entirely. Socialism is still a dirty word in America and I haven’t seen the phrase “The French Way” thrown about so much ever before. However if things continue as they are there must be a need for such thinking, a movement to turn the tables and get the private sector out of government and government back to doing what it’s suppose to do. Provide for those whom it governs not those whom abuse and attempt to buy it.