Friends,
Chuck
Kagiso, Max
There are 91 days until Jan. 20, 2009.
Report from the Socialist International Conspiracy
by Barbara Ehrenreich
Huffington Post - Posted October 21, 2008
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barbara-ehrenreich/report-from-the-socialist_b_136514.html
Surely you have heard by now of the imminent socialist
takeover of
unlikely, ask yourself: How many socialists do you know
who lost millions in the recent stock market crashes?
Just as I thought -- none -- and that's not only
because you don't know any socialists. The truth is
that we, the Socialist International Conspiracy, not
only saw this coming, we are the ones who made it happen.
The plan took shape during a particularly intense
criticism/self-criticism session at our 2000 annual
convention in a booth at an
that we'd been recruiting no more new members per year
than the
efforts, more Americans have been taken aboard UFOs
than have embraced the historic promise of socialism.
So we decided to suspend our usual work of standing on
street corners and hissing, "Hey, how'd you like to
live in a workers' paradise?" Instead of building
socialism, one worker at a time, we would focus on
destroying capitalism, hedge fund by hedge fund.
First, we selected a cadre of crusty punks from the
streets of
suited them up in Armani's and wingtips, and introduced
them to the concepts of derivatives and dental floss.
Then we shipped them to Wall Street with firm
instructions: Make as much money as you can, as fast as
you can, and as soon as the money starts rolling in,
send it out to make more money by whatever dodgy means
you can find -- subprime loans, credit default swaps,
pyramid schemes -- anything goes. And oh yes: Spend
your own earnings in the most flamboyantly gross ways
you can think of -- $10,000 martinis, fountains of
champagne -- so as to fan the flames of class resentment.
These brave comrades did far better than we could have
imagined, quickly adapting to lives of excess and greed
punctuated only by squash games at the Century Club.
But we could not have inflicted such massive damage to
capitalism if we hadn't also planted skilled agents in
high places within the government and various quasi-
governmental agencies. When all this is over, Phil
Gramm, for example -- the former senator and McCain
economics advisor -- will be getting a Hero of
Socialism award for his courageous battle against
financial regulation. That's the only name I can name
at this moment, but I will tell you this: If you
happened to have been in a playground in the suburbs of
DC any time in the last few years, and noticed an
impeccably dressed elderly man poking around under
rocks, that was a certain Federal Reserve Chairman,
looking for his weekly orders from the central committee.
Things were going swimmingly until about a week ago,
when the capitalists suddenly staged a counter-coup. We
had thought that the nationalization of the banks would
bring capitalism to its knees, but instead, the
capitalists were craftily using it to privatize the
government. Goldman Sachs, former home of Henry
Paulson, has taken the lead, planting its agents so
thickly about the erstwhile public sector as to earn
the nickname "Government Sachs." Among the former
Goldman Sachs operatives now running the country, in
addition to Paulson, are the president's chief of
staff, the chairman of the
appointed to take over A.I.G., and the 35-year-old boy
wonder selected to oversee the bail-out program.
According to the New York Times, "Goldman supporters"
insist there is no "conspiracy" and not a black
helicopter in sight -- just a bunch of public-spirited
investment bankers sacrificing their normal 8-figure
salaries for the good of the nation. But we socialists
know a conspiracy when we see one, and some in our
ranks are complaining bitterly that as capitalism began
to collapse, the bankers seized the life raft that was
intended to save the laid-off, the foreclosed-upon, and
the exploited masses in general.
Ah well, we socialists still have the election to look
forward to. After months of studying the candidates'
economic plans, we have determined that one of them,
and only one, can be relied on to complete the
destruction of capitalism. With high hopes and great
confidence, the Socialist International Conspiracy
endorses John McCain!
[Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of thirteen books,
including the New York Times bestseller Nickel and
Dimed. A frequent contributor to the New York Times,
Harpers, and the Progressive, she is a contributing
writer to Time magazine. She lives in
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