Report from the Socialist International Conspiracy

Surely you have heard by now of the imminent socialist takeover of America, and if you find the prospect 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 Akron IHOP. We realized that we'd been recruiting no more new members per year than the Green Bay Packers and that, despite all our efforts, more Americans have been taken aboard UFO's 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 Seattle, stripped off their Che t-shirts, 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 New York Fed, the man 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!

Comments

[Chickensh*tEagle]

Just one of the un-Che-T-shirteds' daring operations:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081020/ap_on_bi_ge/the_influence_game_housing/print

Mortgage firm arranged stealth campaign

By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – Freddie Mac secretly paid a Republican consulting firm $2 million to kill legislation that would have regulated and trimmed the mortgage finance giant and its sister company, Fannie Mae, three years before the government took control to prevent their collapse...."

(More at the link.)

[dkeefe]

I,m*still* dancing in the street & soon I won't be alone.

[RTR]

I love it!

[Danny Boy]

Nice!

["The Partridge"]

This is simply a temporary setback, my comrades. Soon the Feathered One will ensure completion of the great plan, and Comrade McCain shall emerge victorious. Then, his mission complete, the swallow will depart the nest at noon, LAX Delta flight 1412. Wait, should I have said that last part?

[Brian]

Today on npr's Market Watch they said already The biggest of the banks were planning on using some of the bailout money to buy smaller banks rather than rewrite loans and save borrowers. They are actually and boldly planning to use taxpayer dollars to finance their Merger and Acquisition activities rather than what Paulson promised us they would be used for. This goes to show the thinking in the corporate suites hasn't changed at all and is as opportunistic as always. Without our Treasury performing its regulatory role in the administration and monitoring of the 700 billion dollars of tarp funds we will get burned again by the very same people who started this mess. Even fannie mae and freddie mack have been holding back on restructuring loans when they have the money to do it now. Personally I wouldn't lower the loan amount, but it would make sense to convert arms to 30 year fixed loans a a lower percentage rate. This would add a lot of stability into the system while keeping people in their homes at the same time. What tarp shouldn't do is give the biggest banks the ammo to buy up the damaged midsize and smaller banks on an acquisition binge so they can boost their profits and executives bonuses once again.

[Jessica Star]

*sings* The people's flag is deepest red... :)

[Peter K.]

Classic.

[Michael Bérubé]

Congratulations, Comrade Ehrenreich, and members of the SIC - Akron IHOP Booth division! I believe I can see Minerva's Owl taking flight even as news of this post wings its way across the Internets.

[Conspirator 9345b]

I believe, Comrade Ehrenreich, that it's time for drastic action.

International Socialism just can't get a break. The Soviet Union turned to dictatorship, Cuba couldn't shake Fidel and China -- for God's sake -- China's gone capitalist.

We can't give up on America now. Just because our Final Leader screwed up and picked Sarah Palin as a running mate doesn't mean we retreat.

It's time to awaken the great sleeper cells of International Socialism. You know who you are: New York, California, Massachusetts, the part of Illinois with people in it...

Slap on bumper stickers, put up yard signs and, most of all, vote for McCain on election day so that capitalism, with it's fundamentals intact, can rush full speed over the economic cliff with no hope of stopping in time.

[Dennis]

If it hadn't been for that ultra-capitalist Franklin Roosevelt, we would have achieved socialism 70 years ago!

[Ua'Ronain]

Good read! Us socialists in the part of Illinois without people in it approve!

[Chris]

May the heroic maverick and the average hockey mom take the cake.

You can always trust someone with Cain somewhere in their name just like the bible told us, also his Keating Five involvement shows that he has exactly the kind of leadership and experience this country needs right now. His quarter of a century of service to this country in the Senate shows that he knows enough rich people by now to represent Joey the Plumber. Cindy McCain's 300 million dollar a year Annheuser-Busch etc. beverage distribution company shows that John is rooted to people support traditional American institutions.

McCain/Palin 2008!

Put out your signs socialist conspirators of America!

[MacAllister]

Heh. I've been telling people I'm a neo-Marxist for years, just to see the blank looks on their faces.

A lovely and very funny piece - thank you!

[Mike Sz]

I believe we Socialists have to follow Sister Sarah's lead and tax the oil profits and mail checks to everyone in America.

[Buena]

You guys got to meet in an IHOP? You must belong to the Elite Socialists. Out west we have to meet in the barn with the donkeys listening in. And I suspect they work for the NSA.

[Jane]

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[Chickensh*tEagle]

So now Paramguru Greenspan is saying, "You mean...life ISN'T like a rainbow?"

I love it.

[Dawn]

Nicely done. :) Maybe you can explain to me now in the midst of this banking meltdown that no one brings up the ancient history of the S&L crisis?

Ever since Bushy entered the presidential campaign 8 years ago, I've wondered how he managed to get the media and even his mother to never ever ever mention his brother Neil's name. And they NEVER mention the Savings and Loan Scandal of 1988 nor Neil's sweet Silverado Savings and Neil's several breaches of feduciary duty and conflicts of interest.

And except for the one mention of an extravagant AIG trip, I haven't seen any more reportage on the use of the funds taxpayers paid to bail out CEOs and save their Country Club memberships. But, maybe I'm not looking in the right places....

[rick]

"She was also wearing her hair down in one shot, so where’s Barbara Ehrenreich to revive her theory on Clinton’s hair? Come on, Barbara, burnish your feminist credentials by once again linking changing hairstyles to instability."

http://riverdaughter.wordpress.com/2008/10/24/she-doesnt-eat-puppies-either/#comment-195504

[Brian]

I agree Barbara that there is something to "Government Sach's". From Bush's chief of staff to Mad Money for the small retail investor to the man running the TARP they work the econmy from all ends. I guess paulson liked Bear Stearns over Lehman Brothers from his days as ceo of goldman sachs. McCains fascist handlers are so fixated on obama's "share the wealth" comment made naively like a college student it gives a reprise to the term obssessive compulsive, except with the mcainites its a disorder. Has America ever been in such a dark psychological place as it is now, despite our still haveing a lot of wealth? Is this what simply happens when you have george jr. preside over the government? Did his dad see this coming? Watching Snow and Greenspan and Cox at the hearings didn't reassure me at all. But then as the fading middle class, now being repeopled to extinction, I don't matter at all.

[roger]

“ I believe we Socialists have to follow Sister Sarah's lead and tax the oil profits and mail checks to everyone in America. “

i think you have the wrong guy.

i have made every effort to ignore this silly tendency to label senator obama as any of the following: socialist. terrorist, muslim, racist. i have made an effort to evaluate each candidate upon what they have said and what they have done in the past.

obama in 2001:

You know, if you look at the victories and failures of the civil-rights movement, and its litigation strategy in the court, I think where it succeeded was to vest formal rights in previously dispossessed peoples. So that I would now have the right to vote, I would now be able to sit at a lunch counter and order and as long as I could pay for it, I’d be okay, but the Supreme Court never entered into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society.

And uh, to that extent, as radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution — at least as it’s been interpreted, and Warren Court interpreted it in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties: [It] says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf.

obama seems to be advocating the extension of the civil rights movement into the realm of the redistribution of wealth for the purpose of fulfilling social justice. obama faults the warren court for failing to take this step. he appears to insist that to be a recipient of this wealth is a formal, basic right.

to break free from the constraints of an apparently flawed constitution, it would be necessary for the government to redistribute wealth on the behalf of dispossessed peoples.

as one from whom the wealth would be confiscated, i would ask: what measurements would be appropriate in the determination of what constitutes social justice, what is the legal doctrine would allow for confiscation of wealth and its redistribution unto those who did not create nor earn the wealth, why would the citizens of the united states allow the government to be the arbiter of how much of their wealth can be legally redistributed to others.

i have no use for any of the following shorthand: liberal, conservative, red, blue, purple states, progressive ect.

the question at hand is: is it in the interest of the country to cede to the government, the same government which responded to hurricane katrina and which failed to regulate the mortgage and finance companies, the power to confiscate, on an enormous scale, the wealth of some and redistribute this wealth to select others.

we are welcome to set aside the tawdry nature of politics and look at the actual, tangible words spoken and the philosophy behind them and make the determination as to whether this is sound strategy.

[Andrea]

Roger, you have a point.

We may, in fact, be foolish to trust the government to redistribute wealth. We do not know what principles of social justice will become the standards by which the redistributors will determine when wealth has been adequately leveled.

We do know that when issues of money find their way to the House floor, a lot of Members of Congress grab at a piece of the pie for their districts, which can become bullet points on the resume they present to voters during re-election.

On the other hand, we can look around us and see what happens when Free Marketeers are welcome to invent wealth and slosh it around at will.

The question then becomes, Do we trust the Government, or do we hand the reins back to the Wall Street Guys?

Either way, seems to me that human nature gets in the way of society working out.

[Brian]

instead of wholesale redistribution of wealth as is going on now to the big banks and brokerages and insurance companys and soon the auto companies, why can't government focus on financing nationwide accessable health care, higher education, retirement, and early child care and education? With those essentials people would feel free to take a wider variety of jobs, trades, fields, etc to improve our lives in more ways than simply high stakes gambling to make more money. They would some of the most potentially damaging basics covered and would only have to focus on providing housing, a car, clothes, and recreation for themselves. If someone wanted to work like crazy for a porsch or boat they could, but if another wanted to just work 35 hours a week and focus on their homelife or family they could without fear of going broke from no health insurance or no retirement.

[roger]

redistributive change from slate:

" In some states, like California, judges instructed the state to take steps to equalize school funding from district to district. In others, like Kansas and Kentucky, and in ongoing litigation in Connecticut, the court decisions are framed in terms of adequacy of funding—making sure each district has enough, rather than the same amount. Either way, it's redistribution of what's become a rather routine sort. "

http://www.slate.com/id/2203237

ok this touches upon what brian is saying, that there is redistribution of resources as a natural course of governing, however my concern would be the part about redistribution of actual wealth. couple this with the off hand remark made in ohio that we need to spread the wealth around. this is precarious doctrine.