The Rude Guy Podcast #77 March 15, 2011
[shame chant!]
So say the protesters in Madison Wisconsin after the governor smashed their rights to collective bargaining. But this ain’t over yet. Maybe the American Left will finally get its ass into gear. What more will it take? The unions didn’t come out against the war. Didn’t come out against Wall Street. Haven’t questioned Obama. Lots of them voted for the Republican governors who are now taking away their rights. And all of a sudden they are personally threatened and the Mid West is in an uproar. Good. If it happens in the Mid West it really happens. If it happens on the East or West coast it’s just a passing fad.
Rich Zubaty here. And I’m in a shitty mood.
The Egyptian army beat up the last holdout protesters at Tahrir Square; Michigan and Wisconsin legislators have outlawed collective bargaining; and Mobsters have taken over Wall Street. Really. Mobsters. The sons and daughters of the Italian and Jewish mobsters took bootlegger’s money and went off to great universities, and got reincarnated as bankers and brokers. They imported the mafia business model to Wall Street. Wear expensive suits, steal with both hands, put the cops on your payroll. Why sell dope and women when you can sell Collateralized Debt Obligations and securitized mortgages? Selling dope and women could get you thrown in prison. Selling bogus derivatives can get you an invitation to the White House. No, it’s not only wops and Jews; it’s Polacks and Micks and Frogs and Lebanese and Indians from India, and anybody else born without a soul. But they’re all operating off the mobster business model. Steal with both hands and put the cops on your payroll.
For example: Our latest problem is that State and local governments are having budget crises, so they are trying to cut the pay of teachers and fire fighters. The reason they are having budget crises is because state tax revenues are down, as much as 40% in some states. State tax revenues are down because the economy was destroyed by Wall Street greed, so people are not working and earning money and spending money, and therefore not paying tax on their earnings and spendings, as much before. The economy, that used to employ them, was destroyed by fraud, financial deceit, perpetrated on a massive scale, by Wall Street bankers and brokers.
Therefore, the Wall Street bankers and brokers are the ones who directly caused the state budget crises. Therefore, the Wall Street fraudsters are the ones who should be paying big money to bail out the paychecks of the teachers and firemen and the State and local governments.
Are they gonna do it? Would Al Capone, or Meyer Lansky?
We have in the Federal government, something called the Justice Department, run by Attorney General Eric Holder, a black guy, who is responsible for prosecuting fraud. Eric Holder is not prosecuting the fraud perpetrated by the banksters and brokers. Eric Holder was the lobbyist for Global Crossing, in 2001, at the exact same time that that telecommunications monster foisted a massive fraud on the U.S. economy! Eric Holder was also the hear-no-evil, see-no-evil errand boy, who secured a presidential pardon from Bill Clinton, for billionaire Wall Street fraudster, Marc Rich. So…hold your nose…if Holder prosecutes Wall Street fraud now, there is nothing to prevent someone really powerful from bringing him to his knees by thrashing him publicly, and maybe suing him, for his participation in the Global Crossing fraud, and the Marc Rich pardon, which, by comparison, make rotting fish smell like fresh bread. They’ve blackmailed him. Our first black Attorney General – blackmailed. By Wall Street. They bought the cop.
U.S. Representative Ed Towns, a black guy from Brooklyn, was Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform for the first two years of the Obama administration. This committee had the authority to investigate Wall Street fraud. Ed Towns did…nothing. Absolutely nothing, to investigate the white-collar Mobsters of Manhattan, just across the river from Brooklyn. The new chairman, Darrell Issa, California Republican, white guy, has finally subpoenaed the pertinent documents of the financial services corporation named Countrywide, one of the biggest criminals in the sub prime mortgage fraud. Why didn’t Ed Towns do that? Shit head.
And of course the president, who’s half-black, is in charge of the whole thing. And he also has done nothing to investigate Wall Street fraud, the biggest banker robbery in human history, and force the bankers to return the money they stole from the teachers.
So what I want to know is, how come these three black guys are such sell-outs to rich bankers? How come they won’t prosecute the crooks? How come they toady to the big money guys?
I’ll tell you why. Because they’re black guys. They’re the perfect street camouflage for bankster mobsters. The Italians learned in the 1930s, you wanna deal dope in the black neighborhood? You hire black guys. Liberals won’t condemn them because they’re black, just as they didn’t condemn Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice when they lied us into war. And Conservatives won’t condemn them because they’re doing their work for them. Protecting Big Money.
Martin Luther King Junior was my hero. Martin Luther King Junior is dead. I’m sick to death of these black asshole sell-outs taking the Martin Luther King magic carpet ride to popular success. These guys are Uncle Tom’s, compromisers, sell-outs, toadies. Martin Luther King did not die so that this species of black used-car salesmen could reach positions of power. I spent a lifetime opposing this kind of political treachery. I want to see something more than dark skin on MY politicians. I want to see vision and morals and political courage.
Here’s what’s supposed to happen:
Tax Wall Street. Tax the bankers. Tax the brokers. Prosecute them. Throw some of the big fish in jail. Make them pay back the money they stole from the teachers and firemen and State and local governments…and the rest of us.
That’s how you deal with mobsters! Trow da bums in jail!
[bird]
The Union uprising in Madison is finally Change I can Believe in. It’s about time. I hope these grassroots uprisings spread and I hope I can figure out how to organize some of them too.
But where are our leaders? Who are our leaders? If Amy Goodman and Michael Moore are our leaders, we’re fucked. I like them. They do good work. But they’re journalists, not leaders. Media personalities. Not leaders. Though…Michael Moore gave a really great speech to the crowds in Madison, and I think he’s tiptoeing into those shoes. But still. He’s a rich guy. If he gets arrested he’s gonna get bailed out. If I get arrested who’s gonna bail me out?
We’ve got no leaders. And here’s why. Feminism emasculated the leaders. Feminism marginalized real men and lined up behind feminized wimps and two-faced sell-outs. Charmers. Like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Guys raised without dads! Abbie Hoffman had courage and artistry and balls. Leftist media spokesman John Nichols is a mouse-man. I’m not following him. When the going gets tough John Nichols will slip into a hole in the baseboard till things quiet down. These journalism types get a lot of face time, but they’re not leaders.
As I’ve been writing about for years, the feminist focus on social issues has gutted leftist politics in America. Conservatives cannot win elections on economic issues, because everyone knows they’re greedy thieves. So they push social issues: opposition to abortion and homosexual marriage. And brain-dead leftists take the bait. Liberals rant self-righteously about women, and gay rights, but when it comes to economic issues and war, where are their voices? Where are their marching feet? They’re Lieberman Liberals, roaring like lions in support of gays in the military. Scurrying like mice when it comes to war and workers and wealth and Wall Street.
Leftists used to be brave and virile. Bolsheviks with cannons and Union bosses with lead pipes. Nowadays union leaders are afraid to mention the word “general strike” because you know, it’s against the law to have a “sympathy strike” for another union. Against the law! Isn’t lying to congress about war against the law? Isn’t torturing prisoners against the law? How about securities fraud! There is no more law. The only law is rich people doing whatever the hell they want and pocketing the cops.
Fortunately, there are groups emerging to confront the banksters. There’s one called U.S. Uncut. U.S. Uncut. It migrated across the Atlantic from England, where the people realized that if the corporate giants simply paid up the taxes they already owe – and have been refusing to pay – there would not have to be ANY cuts in ANY government services for people. So, Uncut activists in England began flooding into banks, telecoms, and other corporate offices, en masse, clogging them up, decrying the crimes of the tax cheats, and effectively shutting them down for the day.
And they’ve done it here too, and boy, do we need to get behind them, and show up at their rallies and do more of this. On February 26 U.S. Uncut protesters showed up at 50 Bank of America’s in 50 U.S. cities, flooded into the tellers lanes, and announced for all to hear, how Bank of America took 40 billion in Taxpayer funded bailout money, how they made $4 billion dollars in profit last year, and how they paid NO taxes. If Bank of America paid a billion dollars in tax money on their 4 billion in profits they could eliminate the state pension fund problems of Wisconsin, and nine other states! And Bank of America is not the only one, not by a long shot. The five top Wall Street firms: Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Citibank, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, could pay off all the states workers pension shortfalls by paying the $13 billion in taxes they owe.
Also: Democracy Now showed footage on March 8 of how on March 7, 600 activists from National People’s Action closed down a branch of Bank of America in Washington DC. That’s what we need people. That’s what we need. U.S. Uncut and National People’s Action. Bravo.
Oscar Wilde said: “Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.” We need to be Egypt, and be Madison. It’s time to rebel. Take down the Wall Street bastards. Tax the rich!
[bird]
I just heard a tax expert, David Cay Johnston, say something I never thought about: When corporate tax rates are high, owners keep reinvesting in their business instead of withdrawing money. Because they don’t get taxed for keeping their money in the business. And this keeps businesses expanding and people working. But when tax rates are low, the owners grab the money out of their businesses and buy jets and paintings and gold, and the economy stalls out. According to Johnston, if we made the corporate tax rate zero, our economy would collapse. We NEED a hefty corporate tax rate to drive the economy. Cutting corporate taxes – as the right wing is always arguing, and as history has proven – does NOT increase business investment. It wipes out business investment, and stalls the economy. The only ones who prosper are realtors in Aspen and custom yacht builders.
[bird]
Worldwide food prices are going through the roof again. So is gasoline, even though we have a worldwide surplus of oil at the moment. These prices are unhinged from reality, and are being driven by those shameless hyenas, commodities speculators. Wall Street brokers. Chicago commodities traders and Connecticut hedge fund managers.
How it works is very simple. They have huge piles of cash on hand from the bailout, and from not reinvesting back into our ailing industrial economy and sick real estate market. They hear about something, like say a war in Libya, they anticipate a shortage of oil, which will drive the price up, so they buy futures contracts on oil…or…they hear that the earth will achieve a population of 7 billion people by the end of this year, so they anticipate shortages in food and, expecting the price to go up, they buy futures contracts on food.
So far this hasn’t hurt anything. It might even have helped stabilize the market. But then the hyenas pile on. When they see Goldman Sachs buying oil and wheat they start buying oil and wheat, creating a buying frenzy and driving the price up. In 2008 they drove the price of wheat up from $3 a bushel to $25 a bushel. And people starved. And there were food riots. George Soros said this was “just like secretly hoarding food during a hunger crisis in order to make profits from increasing prices.” Souless bastards.
This is exactly the way they created the real estate bubble and the dot.com bubble and the stock market bubble. And nobody stops them. But, it gets worse.
Here’s Frederick Kaufman, author of the Harper’s article: The Food Bubble: How Wall Street Starved Millions and Got Away with It.” And as goes food, so goes oil.
Quote:
… [T]he other outrage … is that at the time that Goldman and these other banks are completely messing up the structure of this market, they’ve protected themselves outside the market, through a really diabolical idea called “replication”…. Let’s say, … you want me to invest for you in the wheat market. You give me a hundred bucks…. [W]hat I should be doing is putting a hundred bucks in the wheat markets. But I don’t have to do that. All I have to do is put $5 in…. And with that $5, I can hold your hundred-dollar position. Well, now I’ve got ninety-five of your dollars…. [W]hat Goldman did with hundreds of billions of dollars, and what all these banks did with hundreds of billions of dollars, is they put them in the most conservative investments conceivable. They put them in Treasury bills…. [N]ow that you have hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. Treasury bills, you can leverage that into trillions of dollars…. And then they take trillions of dollars, they give ‘em to their day traders, and they say, “Go at it, guys. Do whatever is most lucrative today.” And so, as billions of people starve, they use that money to make billions of dollars for themselves. Mobsters.
There’s a way to stop this that is already on the table. That is for the Commodities Futures Trading Commission to enforce limits on the size of the futures bets traders can make. The commission has five members. Two Democrats in favor of placing strict limits, two Republicans against strict limits, and one asshole, Michael Dunn, who won’t cast the deciding vote, who doesn’t seem to be in favor of much of anything, who was appointed by George W Bush, who’s frozen the entire enforcement process, and whose commission expires, in June. That gives Obama the opening to appoint someone in favor of strict limits to rein in the vicious speculation in oil and food that is enraging the world and thwarting our economic recovery, as only high oil prices can do.
Will he do it?…He’s a black guy, a toady, who has not done one thing to ruffle Wall Street’s feathers yet. Whose biggest campaign contributor was Goldman Sachs. I’m not holding my breath.
Obama’s political patrons are starving babies and keeping our economy in ruins in order to make a profit. And he’s not gonna stop ‘em. What needs to happen is that a million people need to sit down on Wall Street and shut it down. Shut it all the way down. Like Tahrir Square. Like the Madison Capital building. MAKE Obama take a stand on something! Make him send in the National Guard like Mubarak and Gaddafi. Or send Wall Street to the wood shed, like he should have done on day one of his adminsitration. Make him do SOMETHING besides talk.
Because I’ll tell you right now, Barack Obama will not do a single thing without being forced. He doesn’t have a good heart, or he wouldn’t be torturing Bradley Manning. He doesn’t have a vision, or he wouldn’t have Bill Daley, a wretched Chicago political boss, as his chief of staff. He is not being thwarted by lesser politicians. He hides behind their skirts like he did on the public option. He is a political mouse who is allowing 75 years of Democratic Party principles to be flushed down the toilet on his watch. Massive achievements like collective bargaining and protection against corporate fraud…flushed down the toilet on his watch. And the Left sits on their tongues because he has fucking brown skin.
[RG voice outrageous]
Here’s how democracy works:
I got notice that Paypal would no longer accept donations for alleged Wikileaks whistleblower, soldier, hero, Bradley Manning’s legal defense fund.
The leftists started beating the online tom toms.
Then …amazingly … within ten hours…the Paypal donation link for Manning, was restored…because Firedoglake collected and sent to Paypal, 10,000 signatures of people emphatically opposing Paypal’s unilateral decision to shut off the money pipeline…and because people like me emailed personal hysterical complaints to Paypal that we would look for other ways to transfer funds online.
So Paypal backed down. Real fast. People power. It works.
[bird]
Here’s an email from a listener.
Hi, Guy
As you know, half of everything in the USA is owned by about 400 families. This half includes virtually all corporations. That includes the corporation with the name “Federal Reserve”. By law, corporations are REQUIRED to provide return on investment. They have no choice. It is these “400″ who are driving corporate behavior. That behavior includes the cyclic inflating and deflating of the money supply to take wealth away from the general public and transfer it “upstairs” to the shareholders, the”400″. Obama and Reagan are more alike than different. They’re both good actors, hitting their marks and delivering their lines without deviating from the script. Without canned messages written by the people who are actually in charge they’re both fish out of water – Reagan at the Iran-Contra hearings, Obama about Egypt. Obama’s puppet masters were a little slow in coming up with the correct scripts for him to memorize.
Keep up the good work.
Jim Daldry Raleigh NC
Thank you sir, for listening and taking the time to comment.
[bird]
If you like this show, email me. So I hear about it. So I muster the will to keep on going. Every month I ask myself why the hell I keep doing this, and every month I have no good answer to that question. therudeguy@hotmail.com and maybe I’ll even read some of your thoughts on the air…and visit my website too: happyfool.ORG And if you want to participate in the uplifting experience of keeping the bandwidth flowing from me to you, donate a few bucks, if you can. Remember…2011 is the Year of Reality. Fuck fantasies, we don’t have time for that shit any more.
[the rude guy “no more bullshit”]
[shame!]
