http://www.portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/05/288843.shtml

Burlesque politics replaces the hoodlum politics of Bush, Clinton, and Obama. Eliot Abrams, now given charge of Venezuela, brings back the perversions of death squads and lying to Congress. International lawlessness is paraded as a norm. The country with more in prison than anyone becomes the judge of human rights supplanting international law and the UN Charter. Empires can turn back to sand. Chalmers Johnson shared the historical hope that the American empire can change into a multi-polar world. Maybe the longest shutdown will be the last scandal of Don the con!

Back in the days of Shock & Awe, we came to liberate them all. Back in the days of repealing Glass-Steagel, we reinstated laissez-faire mythology. Private debt and private risk became public debt and revenue shortfalls. Back in the days of downsizing the IRS under Obama, corporate profits went through the roof. Back in the days of Trump's tax heists when trillion went to corporations and households with over a million dollars, corporations were encouraged to buy back their own stock. The buybacks amounting to trillion in 2018 made the US economy seem statistically robust. Profits exploded while investments, particularly non-defense public investments, stagnated.

What happened to responsibility? Critical independent economic thinking is the command of the hour. The financial sector should be shriveled and the public sector expanded! Where is an openness to critical thinking, system analysis, and system alternatives, to post-fossil, post-extractive, post-autistic and post-growth economics?

Unlike a chair, an idea can be shared by a whole people. You can make fish soup out of an aquarium but can't make an aquarium out of fish soup (Polish proverb). The one who says it can't be done shouldn't interrupt the one already doing it (Chinese proverb).