"The Government Joke" - Commentary by Tony Seton

The Government Joke

There’s a famous joke that says, I’m from the government and I’m here to help you. It’s not very funny. Nor is the way most government functions these days. Government is a joke. But not a funny joke.

The FDA has ordered that warning labels be put on Viagra, Levitra and Cialis, the so-called ED drugs in polite society -- it means erectile dysfunction -- and CGIU amongst the lower order of cognoscenti. (Can’t Get It Up) They want guys to know that if they go blind after taking the drugs, they should go to a doctor and let the feds know they can’t see. It says so on the label, which they won’t be able to read ‘cause they’ve gone blind.

We live in a capitalist society. The notion of government is such a system is that it checks the money interests so they don’t hurt the people. Well, that’s the theory. But since government has been purchased by special interests in the form of campaign contributions -- the Supreme Court ruled that such investments are merely free speech, hohoho -- there are no honest checks on business. So a broadcaster can own 1300 radio stations, drug companies can fleece American consumers, and Halliburton can run a war in Iraq.

Another stain on our structure might be the fact that the Dow Jones rose the day of the London bombings. Is there anything to be inferred from the fact that the value of the nation’s largest corporations actually rose after terrorists had their way with London commuters? Is terrorism good for the economy, or at least for the Dow-listed stocks? Are the folks on Wall Street betting that war is a good thing, at least as regards as where they place their bets? And if so, as seems to be the case, what do these companies hope will happen next?

Some Titanic deck-chair movers see a silver lining in the bloody cloud of the London bombings. A few weeks ago, a Senate committee voted to slash funds for mass transit security. That’s going to be reversed, apparently, at a minimum, according to an aide to headline-conscious Senate-Majority-Leader-and-likely-Presidential-Candidate Frist. Of course, spending the $50 million on more security on our subways is a breath-catching waste of resources since the likelihood of anyone stopping someone from leaving something on a train is virtually nil. People forget things on subways and buses all the time.

Consider that the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority said in response to Nine-Eleven that it would spend nearly $600 million to improve security. In fact, they’ve spent about $30 million, according to The New York Times, and "nearly all of that on consultants and additional study." It ain’t just the federal government that is mucking up, badly.

But the feds have the most to money to waste and they’re doing it in high style. Almost half of the money allocated for transportation security has been poured down the bureaucratic drain. So Americans are paying more and getting less. Thousands of weapons are still getting through the screeners onto airplanes because though we’re paying these yahoos $30,000 a year, they’re inept. The FBI appointed people without any counterterrorism training to head its counterterrorism efforts, which explains why they are busting pot clubs in Frisco while tens of thousands of illegals are pouring across the borders.

The intelligence just ain’t intelligent, ya know? Sputter if you disagree, but with all the billions being squandered on knowing what’s going on, a group of semi-amateurs was able to build and detonate four bombs in London without intelligence authorities catching wind of the plot.

Unless it turns out that authorities actually knew, but they didn’t warn anyone because they didn’t want to blow the cover of an informant. You know, the way FDR knew that the Japanese were going to attack Pearl Harbor but let it happen so that he could go to war with Hitler?

No, I don’t trust my government to tell me the truth. It has yet to be explained why George Bush sat in the classroom with "My Pet Goat" after the country had been attacked. Nor has anyone in our government ever said why we were attacked. And since there are myriad smoking guns pointing at the Bush Administration saying they lied about the reasons they gave for invading Iraq, we’re left without a real explanation for that venture, too.

These errors and omissions are born of different policies. There are the officials who maintain that they know better, that the public wouldn’t be able to handle the truth, that they are making decisions that will have better results because if the people really knew they would force different results. There are the pols who are solely focused on getting re-elected and push back the consequences of their votes until after they’re voted back in or after they’ve left office for their pay-off sinecures in the private sector. And then there are those who are in it simply for the money.

I’m not sure where the various political leaders over the past twenty years would fit in. Probably all three categories. Lately, however, I have worried over another explanation...that a bunch of the current decision-makers believe in an Armageddon whereby man destroys life on Earth and those who support the plan will find a special place in their heaven. Make no mistake, there are some seriously disturbed people out there, and they are in positions of power.

And that’s SetonnoteS...I’m Tony Seton.