Ok, so here I am, the CEO of a Fortune 500, or better yet, a scion to one of the great fortunes. I'm one of that top 1% that owns, what is it, 45%? 55%? of the whole country's net worth. Yay, me.

Now, "clearly" (great word, that), I'm VERY happy that my income taxes, capital gains taxes, dividend taxes, and inheritance taxes have all been cut. I'm even happier that the economy is doing great in the ways that matter to me -- corporate profits are up, asset values (whether equities or real estate) are up hugely... AND I'm paying far lower taxes on all of it. So my rate of wealth accumulation is up "doubly" (and far more than 2x as a multiple).

So, clearly, I really want this to go on -- or at the very least, I sure don't want to see it reversed. If I can't have my taxes cut still further, I sure don't want to see them inching back up again. I don't want my asset values put at risk. And I DEFINITELY don't want those politics-of-greed, punish-my-success DEMONcrats to get into office, where they might slow down the rate at which I accumulate further pelf! (Heck, even with my friends the Republicans in full control, look how far we didn't get in repaling Social Security! If THAT didn't put the fear of God in me...)

So -- why the HELL am I not, as CEO, giving all my employees the tiniest PITTANCE, or, as a member of the board or thru the voting rights I get by virtue of the shares I hold, insisting that management give that tiny pittance -- to the employees? Not enough to dramatically reduce the bottom line, of course, oh no. But just enough so that the majority of the workforce out there at least FEELS as if they're keeping up. The amounts we're talking about really aren't that great, so I stand to lose far less that way than what I might lose if those damn redistributionists take over even one house of Congress. I must be really stupid, or at least very short-sighted, to risk that catastrophe, over like 1% or so off the bottom line of the corporations in my portfolio.

Am I really that dumb? Am I that shortsighted and greedy? Am I that much like the dog in the Aesop fable that drops the bone to get at the bone that other dog, the one I see in the water, is holding?

I truly do not get why the ruling class isn't, as one, throwing that little bone to the voters. Can anyone out there explain this to me?

Might want to * that "Jim Jarmusch's 'Broken Flowers'" until it becomes clear whether it really is his.

A pending accusation of plagiarism (I have no idea how credible; just sayin') is detailed here:

http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2006/06/28/stolen_flowers/

We're having a special today, anyone wanna get one?

Not a coincidence that nobody's harshing on you, Tyler. Real leftists, who totally agree with your point about the loss of privacy rights, had little love for Clinton for many reasons -- remember all those Nader voters? Remember Tom Tomorrow's little waffle icon (which preceded Trudeau's)? Clinton was never a creature of the left, to whom he was always a mealy-mouthed corporatist sell-out.

What they didn't get (until far too late) is that merely keeping the burgeoning neocon/Xtianist/corporate cabal at bay was a huge and triumphant accomplishment, and probably the very best that could have been expected. The knives were out for the Clintons from before the inauguration, and the Repukes -- and the media (and the corporations that own both) -- were never gonna let even mild centrism, let alone anything further left, hold sway too long.

I had friends in the 80s who voted for Reagan specifically because they believed that only if things got much worse would the country's voters remember to appreciate that it was the left that created the policies and programs that fostered the huge growth of the economy and specifically the middle class throughout the 20th century. I thought they were nuts; turns out they were just prescient and a bit premature.

It's to our everlasting shame that it took the horrific and manifold failures of the Bushists to get Americans to start looking behind the curtains again. It's also a sad indictment of our culture, and our educational system in particular, that 35-40% of the populaace still buys the insanity and the lies.