Fear and loathing in Zuccotti Park...

Ever since I read The Great Shark Hunt, Hunter S. Thompson’s anthology of various essays, articles and literary madness many years ago, I have looked at Pat Buchanan differently.  In the book, Thompson describes – several times – occasions where he and Buchanan got together for a few late night Bass ales and conversation and Thompson clearly had a sort of reluctant admiration for the pugnacious former Nixon speech writer, spear-carrier for the right, and bombastic publicity magnet.  I’ve always thought of listening to Pat as a good way to keep track of what the enemy is doing because, unlike many of his ideological brethren, he doesn’t cause me to retch and throw things.

That’s why his take on Occupy Wall Street caught my attention on The McLaughlin Group this weekend.  Pat said he thought that the protest – specifically in New York but one could project to other major cities as well – would probably end badly as the weather gets colder and everyone starts to lose their patience.  I think he’s right. 

The Occupy protests have made their point and from here on they are in danger of becoming a liability in terms or what the end game should be; getting previously uncommitted voters to lean to the left just enough to recognize that the republicans are a bunch of corporate whores who are only interested in getting people back to work if it is non-union, no benefits, slashed wages corporate servitude in keeping with the modern ruling class narrative of “global competitiveness”.   Essentially corporations have moved jobs overseas to low wage / no benefits countries and are tacitly telling us all that, if we want jobs back in America some sacrifices need to be made so they can maintain their profits.  And by the way, if we do that we want you pay more in taxes too, because some of you ner do well low life snivelers don’t even pay taxes now.

I am sensing a tremendous campaign afoot in the republican ranks to discredit the Occupy protests by linking them to Huey Newton and Jane Fonda and calling attention to the lack of demands, as if a list of demands might prompt corporate interests to reconsider their selfish and greedy policies for some rationally negotiated improvement.  Ha!!!  There is also a whiff of fear in the bug-eyed press appearances and statements being made by an increasingly shrill cadre of right wing foot soldiers – Bitch McConnell, Eric “the Fearful” Cantor, poster-boy and Hitler youth look-alike Paul Ryan and a covey of republican governors across the country trying mightily to disenfranchise the young and the old, the poor and unemployed middle class and people of color.  And the sense that the 1%ers are getting nervous is also reflected in the flurry of rhetoric coming from the dullards running for the republican nomination.  How else to explain retrograde and widely discredited economic policies like a flat tax suddenly being pushed as the idea of the month by chumps like Rick “Hell, I don’t know if it will really work” Perry and Herman “Goering” Cain.

Perry in particular is just a fountain of warmed over Reagan era ideas; ideas that history has longed judged to have been a series of fairy tales and hallucinations with no more chance of working than a handful of magic beans and Harry Potter’s wand.  Between his “sure fellas; come and get it” energy plan that’s nothing more than a 30 year old industry wish list, to his stale flat tax idea pushed with the accompanying sales pitch of promoting “fairness”, not only are corporate and ultra wealthy interests not caving in, they’re doubling down.   It’s like they’re saying, “Hey, you want to stir up shit and cause us trouble; we’ll take the food off your table and have you living in a box behind the bowling alley.” 

Cain's plan would raise taxes by about 58 percent for the bottom 20 percent of earners, double them for the middle class, and cut them by 249 percent for the top fifth of the income ladder, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.   Yet he continues to wander the country at random repeating the same tired lie over and over and over again, that it won’t do the very thing that everyone knows it will do.  His handlers are clearly counting on the ignorance of the low information voters, as Mike Lofgren referred to them, to carry the day simply based on blind acceptance of a ludicrous idea.  How is this possible? 

The so-called Super Committee tasked with coming up with some way to reduce the deficit, the reddest of red herrings in itself, is the perfect current example of the corporate class pushing this remorseless agenda of shoving the tax bill down on to the lowest quartile of Americans.  Intransigent republicans have absolutely no interest in even the most carefully considered proposals to raise revenue if it has any hint of a tax increase on the top 10% - the job creators, to use Bitch McConnell’s surrealistic description.  This phrase always begs the question, so where the fuck are the jobs?  But we know where they are – they’re in Asia for the most part.  They’re sure as hell not in Pennsylvania of Illinois or Michigan.  And Rick, a million unskilled minimum wage jobs doesn't mean they are in Texas either.

No, I think it’s time for the Occupy protestors to pack up their tents and head home for the winter.  Register to vote, go door to door, work for some worthy politician – assuming you can find one – write letters, talk to your friends and neighbors – just don’t let these sleazy bastards turn something good and real and noble into a shit-storm of tainted media, exaggerations and distortions.  You all did some good, now take Pat’s advice, leave the park and go home and get to work – running these creeps out of town on a rail.