Today, my suckups, toadies, and shuffling henchmen, I command you to listen to this little essay on Logic and Lawn Tennis by GKC<\/p>\n
Having done that, I now command you to contemplate the teaching of the Church<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201c1. Every budget decision should be assessed by whether it protects or threatens human life and dignity.<\/p>\n \u201c2. A central moral measure of any budget proposal is how it affects \u201cthe least of these\u201d (Matthew 25). The needs of those who are hungry and homeless, without work or in poverty should come first.<\/p>\n \u201c3. Government and other institutions have a shared responsibility to promote the common good of all, especially ordinary workers and families who struggle to live in dignity in difficult economic times.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Economics\u2013like lawn tennis\u2013was made for man, not man for economics. A world in which our Ruling Classes enjoy a 3669% rise in personal wealth and CEO\u2019s make hundreds of times more than their employees, get golden parachutes for driving their companies into the ground, and reduce human beings to \u201cdisposable workers\u201d is a world headed in the wrong direction.<\/p>\n Latest proof of this: A duplicitous Caesar, after plunging us into a war that has killed perhaps 1,000,000 Iraqis <\/a>as well as five other wars, and in the process killing, wounding, and maiming thousands of our own troops, rewards those troops by paying them crap wages <\/a>(all while increasing our Ruling Class\u2019 net worth by 3669%.<\/p>\n Bottom line: when our troops were called on to make gigantic sacrifices for their country, they did<\/a>. And they get paid crap wages for doing it.<\/p>\n When the rich (and this includes almost our entire ruling class both GOP and Democrat, including our God King, who sent them into harm\u2019s way) are asked to consider their obligation to the common good, they hole up in gated communities <\/a>and move from place to place in limos with no contact with the bottom 99%. Their struggles over the budget are a game played out in a tiny bubble inside the beltway in which everybody on both sides of the aisle is willing to play chicken for political advantage with no regard for what the consequences will be for the hoi polloi. <\/p>\n Elegy in a Country Churchyard <\/p>\n The men that worked for England But they that fought for England, And they that rule in England, That is all.<\/p>\n
They have their graves at home:
And bees and birds of England
About the cross can roam. <\/p>\n
Following a falling star,
Alas, alas for England
They have their graves afar. <\/p>\n
In stately conclave met,
Alas, alas for England,
They have no graves as yet. \u2013 G.K. Chesterton<\/p>\n