Monday, December 15, 2008
Bee among the Berries
Today I got a package of raspberries, and there, nestled among fruit, was the body of a small bee. I couldn't help but think about what might have happened if the bee had decided to climb inside one of the berries. Sweet protein! Yummy!
These days it seems like we are all in the reverse situation -- searching desperately for a berry amongst the bees. The breadth and depth of corruption in our society takes my breath away. Starting with Enron, the collapse of the financial world, the corruption of Governor Blagojevich and financier Madoff, the blindness of the aircraft industry, and oil companies gleefully raking in the largest profits ever in the face of gasoline prices at $4 a gallon, intoxication with money and power seem to have overridden any sense of decency, honesty, and morality.
Even with President-elect Obama, the self-proclaimed agent of change, one has to wonder how serious he was about that claim, given that much of his Cabinet harkens back to Clinton, or worse to Bush! I can wrangle myself into seeing the idea behind keeping Gates -- he is the most familiar with the situation in Iraq, so he can best help us to get out of there -- but it sure seems an odd thing for the candidate who ran on an anti-Iraq war platform to keep on the architect of the surge. I'm with those who are saying, this isn't exactly the change we were hoping for.
The sad thing is that Wall Street, Big Business and the White House (ie big players in the Republican world order) all seem to have forgotten where their living comes from. That would be the little guy. If the little guy can't make his mortgage payments, can't afford new cars, and can't get his basic needs met by the government (like tax breaks for middle and low income people rather than the rich) your castles in the air are going to come tumbling down.
One can only hope that Obama and the Democratic party don't make the same mistake -- forgetting the role that progressives played in getting them the majority in Congress and the White House. Otherwise the Democratic bees may find their raspberries gone the same way as the Republicans' did.
¶ 4:02 PM
These days it seems like we are all in the reverse situation -- searching desperately for a berry amongst the bees. The breadth and depth of corruption in our society takes my breath away. Starting with Enron, the collapse of the financial world, the corruption of Governor Blagojevich and financier Madoff, the blindness of the aircraft industry, and oil companies gleefully raking in the largest profits ever in the face of gasoline prices at $4 a gallon, intoxication with money and power seem to have overridden any sense of decency, honesty, and morality.
Even with President-elect Obama, the self-proclaimed agent of change, one has to wonder how serious he was about that claim, given that much of his Cabinet harkens back to Clinton, or worse to Bush! I can wrangle myself into seeing the idea behind keeping Gates -- he is the most familiar with the situation in Iraq, so he can best help us to get out of there -- but it sure seems an odd thing for the candidate who ran on an anti-Iraq war platform to keep on the architect of the surge. I'm with those who are saying, this isn't exactly the change we were hoping for.
The sad thing is that Wall Street, Big Business and the White House (ie big players in the Republican world order) all seem to have forgotten where their living comes from. That would be the little guy. If the little guy can't make his mortgage payments, can't afford new cars, and can't get his basic needs met by the government (like tax breaks for middle and low income people rather than the rich) your castles in the air are going to come tumbling down.
One can only hope that Obama and the Democratic party don't make the same mistake -- forgetting the role that progressives played in getting them the majority in Congress and the White House. Otherwise the Democratic bees may find their raspberries gone the same way as the Republicans' did.
¶ 4:02 PM
