Sunday, December 20, 2009

Man of the Year

So, Time anointed Ben Bernanke as Time Man of the Year for 2009. I guess a case could be made for him. After all, he was one of the participants in the economic meltdown of the Nation, although, to be fair, he was but one of many.
Frank Rich, NY Times Columnist, makes a fair case for Tiger. His case rests not so much on the simple fact of his headline dominance for the past few weeks. No, Rich’s case is that Tiger represents a peculiar class of personages in the country—the iconic human—perfect in all respects, except of course in reality. Tiger was/is very much a creation of the media and a fawning, and fairly gullible public. He’s one of a class, like Eliot Spitzer. Rich’s case is fairly convincing, but perhaps I might go one step beyond Tiger (anyway, I’m really tired of Tiger-News).
I would nominate as Person of the Year – Publicus Americanus, PA for short, a new class of humans residing in North America. PA is recognizable by the following characteristics:
1. Gullibility –PA will believe anything fed to him by the media, especially by the Faux News Network—anything that is, so long as it does not resemble reality. Reality is to be avoided.
2. Anti-Government – PA resembles nothing short of an anarchist, since he believes that anything undertaken by Government is necessarily evil, and probably incompetent. The odd exception to this ironclad rule seems to be our military killing machines. So long as it is engaged in blowing up things foreign, Government is fine.
3. Anti-European – PA seems to believe that all of Europe is hopelessly socialist, immoral, and elitist. They think they’re better than we are, just because they’re better educated, so they’re, ya’know, hoity toity.
4. Anti-Liberal – Since all members of the Democratic Party are either Liberals or Socialists, or Fascists, (PA has trouble keeping these disparate ideas separated)) they are not to be trusted on any subject. So, anything they propose—anything—is cause for alarm, and a tea party of some kind.
Now the other dominant characteristic of PA’s is that they don’t actually live in the real world. Instead, they reside permanently in a state of Altered Reality, mostly manufactured by FAUX News anchors and assorted other political bimbos (see Sarah Palin). They love TV shows like American Idol, the reality shows, and the survivor shows, mainly because they bear no resemblance to anything real. The reason George Bush was able to sell the Iraq War was because PAs were eager to believe his line of untruths and half truths. The only thing they cannot tolerate is reality, or perhaps, The Truth. They want, nay need to be lied to. And curiously, they mostly aren’t even on drugs. Remember that old joke—in the 1960s, people took acid to make the world weird. Now they take Prozac to make the weird world normal. PA seems hooked on the drug of FAUX News Altered Reality Shout-Outs. They can’t resist.
So, PA, you’re the Real Person(s) of the Year for 2009.
Time, eat your heart out.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Richard,
You have it wrong. You pay too much attention, and are too hard on PAs. Yes, their collective behavior is bizarre, and often detached from reality ("Keep your government hands off my Medicare!") And their anarchist/Know-Nothing politics does have serious and worrisome consequences. But for the most part they are a noisy group of very frightened people desperately clinging to the only things that seem solid to them: a simplistic faith and an idealized, Ozzie-and-Harriet world where Dad spent his entire career at GM or GE [earning good money and a secure pension] and Mom spent her career in the kitchen.
They have good reason to be frightened. The deck is stacked against them: they have lost jobs, homes, and pensions. 40 million of them have no health insurance, and 60 million of those who do have lousy coverage. They haven't had a raise (a real adjusted-for-inflation raise) in 20 years and they are barely scaping by because "Harriet" works 28 hours a week (any more and they'd have to give her "benefits") for close to minimum wage at WalMart. Their kids go to mediocre schools that cannot prepare them for the competitive global economy. They are "underwater" on their home, behind on their mortgage payments, and up to their neck in credit card debt. Life is not good for the PAs.
Meanwhile, their government invests trillions in warfare to protect and expand the American Empire ("Making the world safe for Goldman Sachs & Coca Cola!"), slaughtering and traumatizing their kids in the process. But we can't invest in education or jobs; that would "explode" the deficit. We spend trillions bailing out the bankers, but can't help distressed homeowners. And our Hamlet President, who many of us invested so much in, can bust into a private meeting in Copenhage to tell the Chinese exactly what they must do on global warming, but he can't tell Nelson, Lieberman, Landrieu, etc. to STFU and vote for a decent health bill.
The real Person-of-the-Year, in my opinion, is Lloyb Blankfein, CEO at Goldman Sachs. He has seen the federal government bail out one of his key trading partners (Bear Stern), let one of his major competitors (Lehman Bros.) fail, prop his company up with a $10B, no-interest loan, and pay Sachs $12.9B through the bankrupt AIG (money they would never have received except from the taxpayers.) As Krugman said, for the financial sector we have socialized risk and privatized rewards. Blankfein/Goldman Sachs have been the big winners. It's business as usual for them, with a major competitor gone, allies propped up, a "too big to fail" policy underwriting their risk, and outlandish bonuses all around. The PAs are small potatoes; Lloyd Blankfein is the biggest cheese, and I think you should make him your 2009 Perswon of the Year.