Romney claims he “retroactively retired” from Bain Capital in 2001, with effect in 1999âbefore Bain went on a spree of aggressive downsizing and outsourcing of thousands of American jobs. Can Romney’s victims climb into a legal time machine too?
Retroactive Retirement
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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And retroactively pay me $100,000 per year since that date.
This reinforces the point I’ve been making over and over. Romney and his ilk do this to people a little here, a little there, and we all just shrug our shoulders, mutter “oh, well,” and work all that much harder and faster for fear of being next on the chopping block. It’s been going on for decades.
I say vote for Romney. Get his gang of business criminals in, and let them cut to the end. When 50% of the country is out of work, basic services are failing (and I mean basic like fire departments, water treatment, electricity, cable), and a tiny cluster of people is doing fine and dandy, perhaps, just perhaps, the lumpen masses will wake up.
I have no idea if alex or whimsical has the better idea. Whimsical says if we’d overlooked a losing strategy in Vietnam and voted for Humphrey, then voted for Carter to follow Humphrey, and generally accepted anything and everything the Democrats threw at us, we’d have moved incrementally to the left, and things would be better now. Alex says that voting for the worst, most incompetent Republican the right has ever put up will result in a Hooveresque Presidency, followed by the left-wing reaction the first Hoover provoked. Decisions, decisions.
Will Romney be stupid enough to send ground troops in, where Obama wisely kills enough goatherds with drones to keep the voters happy? Will Romney totally crash the economy while leaving the DHS so weak that a revolt is possible, while Obama hands out just enough food stamps to buy off the radical left and keeps the DHS strong enough to suppress any revolt?
Right now, it looks like a 50/50 chance whether we’ll see another four years of Obama, as whimsical wants, or four years of utter disaster, which, whimsical assures us, will just move us that much closer to feudalism, and gradual acclimatization by the once middle classes to their new roles as serfs.
Que será, será.
Alex is playing directly into the hands of the right wing. They WANT to provoke a revolution, that they can then crush- and use as an excuse to excute what has always been their final game plan- the conversion of the United States into a fascist theocracy. If Romney gets in; especially if the Republicans take the Senate and keep the House it is “Game Over” for this country.
And I’ve already put my money on the line that, contrary to Alex’s opinion, the “lumpen masses” are awake/interlligent enough to keep that from happening.
The far fringe left has lost all knowledge of how politics actually works. And until they understand how to make politicians listen to them (Here’s a hint: it doesn’t involve having unreasonable expectations and unrealistic timeframes, and then abandoning politicians when the unreasonable expectations aren’t met on the unrealistic timelines) they will remain a tiny, unlistened to minority howling impotently into the wind.
I’ll cast my lot with the people making progress, no matter how small, thanks.
@Michael
No, Whimsical says that if the left stop sending the message they are currently sending to Democrats(“We will abandon you the picosecond you do not move far enough, quickly enough left- regardless of the practical rationality of our demands) and starts sending a different message to Democrats (“We will reward you for ANY movement left, even if it’s neither far nor quickly as we might like”) then, and only then, will they be listened to.
Until then, as I said, they will remain an unreasonaple, impatient, unlistened to mob, howling into the wind, and turning around and moaning about how ignored they are.
Whimsical,
What “incremental” changes are you talking about? It’s been Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Shrub, Obama for the past 30 years. In that time, the country has slowly and steadily swung to the Right, even when Democrats have been in control. Clinton and Obama were both, at best, centrists, compromising to achieve very little. Put aside the low-hanging fruit (wow, backing gay marriage, after the vice president forces your hand, in the 21st century, when poll after poll shows the majority of Americans support it, that’s the kind of leadership this country needs!!!!!1!), and Obama’s presidency is a chronicle of nothing. The bankers got away with it, the corporations sit on billions in money the government gave them, oil and gas concerns continue to despoil the country, education standards continue to slip, we’re in a depression that no one will admit to, and The One is the best the Democrats can do?
Incremental? We’ve tried that. We’ve incrementally approached the tipping point for so long now that people can barely remember when a job was stable, and a pension was an expectation, not an exception.
Alex-
“It’s been Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Shrub, Obama for the past 30 years. In that time, the country has slowly and steadily swung to the Right, even when Democrats have been in control.”
And you’ve never wondered WHY that is? Cause I can tell you exactly why that is: Starting with Teddy K’s rejection of Nixon’s health care deal, the left lost its mind, it’s patience and its perspective. They started sending the message to Democrats that they would abandon Democrats the moment they didn’t cave to their demands- whether or not those demands were realistically achievable.
And when the far left started pulling people away from the Democrats for the crime of not achieving the unachievable on an impossible timeframe, the Democrats lost- which had the following effects: It convinced politicians, that regardless of what public opinion polls says, that the country WANTS Republican policies; and second- it convinced the politicians that if they wanted to stay in office, the best odds of doing that came from ignoring the left completely.
The slide to the right is a DIRECT result of the electoral policies of the left, as is their marginalization. And it won’t be changed until the left changes their electoral policies.
“Incremental? We’ve tried that.”
The HELL we have. For 40+ years, the left’s strategy has been “Give me all that I want, RIGHT NOW, or I’ll throw you out of office.” That’s failed repeatedly, but y’all keep doubling down on it, and wondering why you keep getting ignored and the country keeps moving right. Here’s a hint- IT’S YOU. That’s not gonna change until YOU change.
So yeah, given 40+ years of the failed strategy you want to double down on- Obama is the best we can do right now. But if the left got a clue, and some patience (True story: My 7 year old niece asked me why my friends were mad at President Obama because “He hasn’t been in office long enough to do more than a little.”- a freaking CHILD gets it. Why can’t the left?) and threw their support behind Obama then the next guy would be a little better, and the one after him a little better than that- and slowly, incrementally, we’d climb out of the hole that 40+ years of failed electoral politics by the left has put us in.
But that would require patience, strategy, sanity and having a clue- all of which appear to be in short supply on the left these days. Instead, their going to double down on the same failed strategy and turn around and piss and moan about how they’re being ignored- when they ought to be looking in the mirror because the solution is staring them right in the face.
«… Obama is the best we can do right now. » Thanks, Whimsical ;now I understand what is meant by «ad astra per aspera»….
Henri