My top ten quotations from the last decade..
10. "They frankly own the place." - Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Illinois) in 2009 admitting banks' influence in Congress.
9. "Haven't we already given money to rich people.... Shouldn't we be giving money to the middle?" - President George W. Bush in November 2002, acknowledging to advisers that he knew his tax cuts were giveaways to the super-wealthy.
8. "Keep your government hands off my Medicare." - Anti-health care protester at an August 2009 congressional town hall meeting in South Carolina - the single most succinct sign that many in our country have become just plain idiots.
7. "We did this for the show." - Falcon Heene on Oct. 15, 2009, telling CNN that the Balloon Boy chase was a hoax. The declaration demonstrated that the media's 24-7 knee-jerk sensationalism is irresponsible and proved that America's culture of celebrity aspiration is completely out of control with everyone wanting his 15 minutes of fame.
6. "As we know, there are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say, we know they're some things we do not know. But there're also unknown unknowns; the ones we don't know we don't know." - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Feb. 12, 2002 If you can understand ooga ooga language then you know he is effectively telling us that the government had no idea what it was doing by invading Iraq
5. "Bring 'em on." - President George Bush on July 2, 2003, daring al-Qaeda to attack US troops - yet more proof that the elite testostorone driven political chicken hawks define "toughness" as politicians flippantly sacrificing young American lives because they can command an army. They should have engaged in more barfights during their lives to have gotten this out of their system. Yeah , bring 'em on while they sit behind their desks. Real tough guys. But lest I forget, Bush was a cheerleader in college.
4. "The investment community feels very put-upon. They feel there is no reason why they shouldn't earn $1 million to $200 million a year, and they don't want to be held responsible for the global financial meltdown." - Daniel Fass, chairman of Obama's financial-industry fundraising party on Oct. 19, 2009, insisting that despite wrecking the economy and then being handed trillions of bailout dollars, Wall Street is a victim.
3. "$500,000 is not a lot of money, particularly if there is no bonus." - Wall Street compensation consultant James Reda on Feb. 3, 2009, giving the New York Times a good example of just how totally out of touch the super-rich really are.
2. "I didn't campaign on the public option." - President Obama on Dec. 22, 2009, expecting the public to forget that his presidential campaign platform explicitly promised to pass health care legislation giving all Americans "the opportunity to enroll in (a) new public plan." Flip flop sleazy Lieberman campaigned on the same promise until his palms were greased.
1. "It doesn't matter." - Vice President Dick Cheney on Nov. 5, 2006, referring to polls repeatedly showing the majority of Americans oppose the Iraq War - a sign the ruling class truly does not care about the demands of the public.
These quotes suggest a nation that has accepted the forces of avarice, corruption, dishonesty, incompetence and insensitivity. Some of them are darkly funny, some of them are gut-wrenchingly sad - but all of them are warnings. Whether we listen to them or not will be the difference between repeating the last decade's folly or learning from it.
Here's to resolutions for the new decade that finally choose the latter. But, I'm not overly optimistic.
Bob
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