Don't get me started on the bailout.

11.30.08

The bailouts are a crock of shit. The government should be bailing out the American people, instead of bailing out the major corporations that have been screwing us over, ripping us off, and still failing in the free market. These companies are actually being rewarded for their incompetence and corruption. It disgusts me.

Conservatives will say: “Well, that’s socialism for you,” so they can indict left-wing politics for this horrible practice, and place the blame solely on the Democrats for this one. The truth is that this is bipartisan idiocy, and the opposition to it is also bipartisan.

They like to pretend that it’s socialism. However, what it really is is the same bullshit that the Republicans have been doing for years: looting money from the national treasury and funneling it into the hands of the private sector. A few millionaires reap the benefits as the nation is bankrupted. It’s exactly what George W. Bush has been doing for the past eight years.

If it was socialism, it might work, as maybe Obama's government could run the Big Three better than they have been doing. But what we're witnessing is the opposite of socialism: Public money is being placed in private bank accounts, not vice versa.

If it was really socialism, the government would take over the big four auto companies, consolidate them, and run their operations from here on out. The government isn’t doing that. The government is merely footing the bill for the inevitable failure caused by a corrupt, bullheaded, and dishonest industry that is essentially responsible for many of our nation’s ailments.

The more Hummers they sell, the more countries we have to invade to get oil. And instead of anticipating the future that everyone saw coming and researching alternative fuels in anticipation of our energy crisis, the Big Three continued to exploit the ignorance and stubbornness of “bigger is better” Red State Americans by selling them hulking, massive, gas-guzzling monstrosities that got shitty mileage and were neither environmentally friendly nor fuel efficient. General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler were laughing all the way to the bank.

Keep in mind that these companies are the same pricks responsible for the demise of public transportation in the US, as they bought up and destroyed railways in the early 20th century so that they could sell more cars. If anything, they should be paying the government reparations for the harm they have done to our culture, both socially and environmentally.

And for those "free-marketers" who prescribe privatization and an unregulated marketplace as the cure for all of America's woes, let's look at what the privatization of American railways actually left us: eyesores of traffic-clogged highways stretching for hundreds of miles, a smoggy, shit-brown sky, and an ocean full of twisted metal and concrete that was dumped there after GM bought out the railways in Los Angeles.

That's privatization for you: the people get fucked while a few assholes get rich.

But the chickens finally came home to roost. In a case of poetic justice, the Big Three American auto companies failed and went bankrupt, as the people they were swindling finally turned their backs on them, no longer able to afford their conspicuous consumption as they were buggered from all sides by Big Auto and Big Oil. It soon became far too expensive for Joe the Plumber to compensate for his small penis by driving a big truck.

The car companies had over-fished the waters, and now had nary a dollar to earn. Their businesses failed. Yes, they deserved it.

But now our tax dollars are being spent to bail them out, to bail out these crooks and lobbyists that helped to drive our country off the cliff, to bail out these millionaires who somehow maintain enormous fortunes while their corporations fail and their stockholders get robbed, to bail out these sleazeballs who are in bed with the oil companies and the GOP and the slimy white collar Wall Street criminals and insurance salesmen who we bailed out before them.

Truly, it disgusts me.

Barack, what are you thinking? You know these bailouts aren’t going to help the weary and exploited auto workers. They are just going to pay for the fat cats’ victory vacation to the St. Regis Resort, where they can hang with the jerks from AIG who are already there, partying on our dime.

Like I said, don’t get me started on the bailout.