Villagers With Torches

Remember the Frankenstein movie? Remember the scene when the villagers became an angry mob and marched up the hill to the castle with torches in hand?

Where the hell are they now? Why isn't the current level of insanity in our society being met with more emotion - more outrage?

We are taught as children that anger is a negative emotion and must be controlled. In some cases, that might be desirable.

When we have our current level of social perils, it seems that we should consider whether we are being a bit too passive about expressing our fears, frustrations and, yes - anger.

I'll volunteer to get this latent emotion starting to bubble up. There can certainly be risk in creating what some might call a mob sense of panic and anger; there is obviously a huge downside in continuing on our current timid course.

OK. Let's fire the opening shot.

In the past six weeks we've been inundated with news and commentary on the "Bailout" of the auto companies. While I won't certainly defend many of their lame, inefficient and greedy decisions in the past - I also won't join in the nearly irrational bashing they have received during the public and governmental debate about their actions and fate.

Hey. Give me a break. Are you kidding? I heard the most amazingly idiotic and yet forcefully self-righteous commentaries from seemingly intelligent people that it made me consider whether I was in some bizarre world of parallel existence.

These intelligentsia mouthed a series of inaccurate or half-truths that were wrapped up and delivered in a condescending tirade against the evil Big Three. They rattled on with verbal diarrhea about "how they didn't make the cars Americans wanted" and quality stereotypes that are at least 20 years out of date. They hinted that the management of these companies should step down. They never acknowledged that the public wanted and continued to buy trucks and SUV's until gas spiked over $4. Nor did they seem to understand the cause of Detroit's cash crisis was merely an effect of an external economic house of cards impacting everyone.

The congressional hearings consisted of a huge amount of self-serving diatribes on the part of congressmen who were often misinformed, had obvious levels of bias and offered liitle encouragement that adressing serious issues is really a task that the body can really accomplish.

Magicians are clever in performing their illusions. They mentally walk us in the direction that steers our attentions toward a diversion and away from their actions. While we are focussed on the action on the left, they are working on the right - away from our sight and awareness.

While I don't want to give Washington credit for magical powers, it seems that they have (at least in this case) mastered the ability to create a diversion of monumental proportions.

In the midst of thousands of hours of debate, talk show discussions, blogs and editorials in all types of media over what has now been whittleD down to an apparent $15 Billion loan program...

...a hand-full of people, not directly accountable to the American public are actively passing out what is approaching (or maybe has already exceeded) ONE TRILLION DOLLARS!

This money is being passed out with little apparent oversight to the sector of our economy that has created siginifcant peril to the stability of our society and has resulted in the most painful economic downturn in recent history. These are the same people who have made amazaing personal fortunes while gambling and playing games with the assets and futures of billions of people worldwide.

This crisis was not created by GM selling Escalades that got 15mpg or Chrysler's quality problems. We are in this mess due purely to greed and incompetence in both Washington and Wall Street.

It seems that it is OK to beat up Detroit, but nobody is laying a glove on the perpetrators of disaster.

Where they hell are the villagers when you need them?