Trial and error.

This is truly the age of the pirate. I don't mean those Somali teenagers in speedboats - I mean the kind you find trawling the rich waters of Wall Street, J-Street, and Pennsylvania Avenue. And if there were any justice in this world, they wouldn't have a peg leg to stand on. So short of any proper court proceeding, lets look at who wins the Jolly Roger award this week.

Hedge Fund Managers. Well, here's a class of individuals that's been cut a rather serious break over the past year or so. Our massive bailout of the financial industry, A.I.G., etc., has been a godsend to hedge fund managers - albeit not the sort that might put the fear of any god into them. The "trickle-down" theory of economics is so ingrained in our system that we keep using it even when it utterly implodes. Thus the hedge funds and other manipulative sectors of our economy are given unlimited underwriting courtesy of the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve in hopes that this will grease the wheels for the "real" economy that actually employs working people.

And yet, when Chrysler (employer of working stiffs) went through the process of restructuring, it managed to gain concessions from workers, suppliers, everyone but their creditors.... hedge funds! So thousands will be at least temporarily laid off as the company goes into a controlled bankruptcy spiral. What the fuck - if we can pour billions into these massive speculative funds, why the hell can't we divert some of that money into something that actually creates jobs... particularly when the class of companies that received the most bailout money are cutting manufacturing off at the knees? Justice, please.

Good ship Cheney. Just to return briefly to the detainee abuse / torture issue. Does anyone think for a moment that the Bush Administration wasn't trying to elicit false confessions out of people? Am I the only one who remembers the fact that Cheney was constantly running over to CIA headquarters in the run-up to the Iraq war, pressing them to come up with that "smoking gun"? A New York Times reporter I heard on the radio this week dismissed the notion that they were trying to drum up incriminating - if false - evidence about Saddam Hussein's government; his point was, in essence, why wouldn't they just make it up themselves? Answer - it doesn't matter. They obviously felt they needed some evidence to ratchet up the fear factor and build support for the war. That's why they relied on a drunk like "Curve Ball" and a shyster like Chalabi. That's the central principle of terrorism, as the name suggests - scare the be-jeebus out of them so that they'll do what you say.

So... when are we going to stop letting these fuckers off the hook?

luv u,

jp