When What Is Touted as 'Good for the Goose,' the Gander Is Often Left Out of the Conversation

And so it is with the current controversy over whether a percentage of profits from whoever wins the A.I. race, should be government owned. The argument for that is one of the few areas of agreement between Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Trump wants 5% and Bernie wants 50%.

The argument against, claims that government ownership would tilt the scale in favor of contract awards to those favored companies.

And yet, we already tilt.

The only reason Boeing hasn’t gone down the tubes of mismanagement, engineering failures, and production disasters, is that they are a favored military source of aircraft. Arguably, Elon Musk’s SpaceX would share the same fiscal difficulties as Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, were it not for NASA contracts.

In addition to that governmental largesse, don’t forget Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Palantir Technologies, KBR, Halliburton (an old Dick Cheney war machine), and General Electric Aerospace, just a few of the corporations that feed off congressional grants.

When our dysfunctional and locked-up Congress deems to do anything at all, it usually means an increase in an already agreed contract is having its nest feathered.

Case in point, Pete Hegseth’s outrageous demand that an already illegal (because it was not properly approved by that same Congress) pony up billions already spent, as well as additional billions forecast to pursue that witless project even further.

But Bernie’s demand is being attacked as ‘socialistic’ in a country that is already hip-deep in socialism. Sanders would simply like a payback hunk for an American public that is being robbed of their intellectual heritage and having it sold back to them for private profit.

Private Equity sharks are already cruising the waters of profit, from home ownership, to healthcare, to public institutions of all sorts, and doing what its name implies, ‘privatizing them.’

George Carlin, my favorite dead comedian, had something to say about the subject of billionaire control:

• “There’s a reason. There’s a reason. They own everything... They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations... They’ve long since bought and paid for the Senate...the Congress, the state houses, the city halls.

• They got the judges in their back pockets, and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls.

• And they want more, and they’ll get it. They’ll get it all from you sooner or later, ‘cause they own this fucking place. It’s just one, big, fucking club…and you ain’t in it.”

• The reason they call it ‘the American dream,’ is because you have to be asleep to believe it.”

They (the monied class that runs this country) are the geese. You and I, and everyone else sitting in the cheap seats, are the ganders.

That’s why I chose to call this article “In What Is Touted as Good for the Goose, the Gander Is Often Left Out of the Conversation.”

• How did Reagan’s ‘trickle down’ economics work out for you? Does it seem most of it trickled up?

• Tax cuts for the rich were the way to go, because the rich are the ‘job creators.’ Did they decide that creating those jobs in China was the better way to go for American employment?

• Did paying for those tax cuts by cutting benefits to the poor, and ignoring repairs to schools, bridges, cities, and the towns you lived in, make you either happier or more secure?

• Did anyone explain the benefits to the common man of the economic wizardry behind making millionaires a thousand times richer, as billionaires?

• When the Supreme Court allowed business to contribute unlimited contributions directly to your Senator or Representative, did that legalizing of fraud and corruption in politics actually help you?

• How did Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, or Iran work out for you? We ganders fought them, and made the rich richer by cutting our VA benefits.

• The gooses worked (quite successfully, it seems) to put we ganders at each other’s throats, so we are no longer able talk to one another. That okay with you?

Well, it’s not okay with Bernie Sanders, the only acknowledged socialist in the US Congress.

Bernie thinks we ganders need a more equitable split of the proceeds that have come from The Deconstruction of America, a book of mine you can find on Amazon.

Sanders was substantially ahead in the 2016 primaries, until the Democratic National Committee arbitrarily decided “it was Hilary’s turn” and ruined the chances of a man who might actually have defeated Donald Trump.

Which might have saved us from

• Governing through executive power. Critics argue the administration has relied heavily on executive orders and aggressive interpretations of presidential authority rather than legislation.

• Relations with allies. NATO partners, Canada, and several European governments have criticized the administration’s more transactional approach to alliances.

• Tariff policy. Many economists and business organizations say they raise costs for American consumers and manufacturers, while creating uncertainty for investment, not to mention the largest insider trading violation the world has ever witnessed.

• Government staffing and institutional disruption. Overlarge and unjustified reductions in bureaucratic staffing and restructuring across most of the federal government has created long-lasting damage.

• Scientific and medical research funding. Universities, medical researchers, and scientific organizations criticized reductions or freezes in some federal research funding.

• Immigration enforcement. Critics point to detention conditions, due-process deportation concerns, as well as deaths and kidnappings involving ICE operations.

• Environmental policy. The administration rolled back environmental regulations and emphasized fossil fuel production, weakening environmental protection and climate preparedness, as well as opening public lands to drilling and privatization.

Sanders doesn’t much like these wholesale abandonments he sees.

Hard to argue with that, but the issues are far more pressing. Indeed, as Ben Franklin has asked, “can we keep the democratic republic we have been given?”

‘More pressing,’ itself, is too weak a term.

In my 91 years stumbling around America, and trying to make sense of politics, I have never seen the nation at such risk. Not during the 1929 Crash, the Second World War, the McCarthy Hearings, or even the horrors of the 1960s assassinations.

Were you there in the 30s, 40,s 50s, and 60s?

I was there, keeping the books for you, but damn few of us remain alive today. Every single time I put a razor to my face, in the 75 years I have been shaving, I have never been able to not think of Adolf Hitler.

Every day.

Who will remember when I, and the others, are gone? Who will care enough to answer Ben Franklins question?

We are losing the voices raised in rage against our complacency, while we senselessly bicker about Trump, or the transfer of control to a non-democratic economic hierarchy, Iran, Pete Hegseth, or the two parties that sold out our republic for a buck and a half...

The American Theater is on fire.

The doors are locked.

The sprinkler system is not working.

The Fire Department has not even been called.

And Mr. Franklin is watching, with great interest…