I listened to a fascinating podcast at Lew Rockwell yesterday: Russ Baker on The Looting Bush Family. Baker has written a polemic against the Bushes. The book's basic premise: the Bush family has been exercising undue influence behind the scenes of government since the early 1960s. What I found particularly fascinating: arguments that Prescott Bush was a part of a Wall Street establishment that controlled Richard Nixon and exercised (still exercises) immense control over Washington, DC. It's an argument that resonates with my observations last Saturday.
Unfortunately, the whole theory seems to smack of mass conspiracy (almost Matrix-like), which means it's the type of thing that will never be proven or debunked. Consequently, it'll just be ignored. Even though I, for instance, find the topic fascinating, I probably won't follow it up with further reading. My reason: The two sides of the argument are so far apart, I'll never have any idea who is telling the truth (see, for example, this brutal book review of Baker's book at the LA Times). What's the use?
I also struggle a bit with a few things I heard on the podcast, like arguments that the Bush family adopted religion, especially the evangelical version, just to get elected. It doesn't jive with H's soft Episcopalianism, and definitely doesn't mesh with Jeb's conversion to Catholicism.
Another question: if the Bush family was so powerful, couldn't they have stopped the punishing attacks from the entertainment industry that wracked W these past eight years?
Still, it's interesting stuff . . . at least in the way that Ripley's Believe It or Not is interesting. Listen to the podcast and see what you think.
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Keep subsidizing our consumerist lifestyle, let us wade deeper into the waters of potential economic thralldom: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Sunday urged China to keep buying US debt. More: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged China to continue buying U.S. Treasury bonds to help finance President Barack Obama's stimulus plan, saying “we are truly going to rise or fall together.” Of course, the stimulus package ain't going away. I guess if the rest of the world won't buy our promise to pay with our paper money, the fed will just buy the Treasuries and use digitally-created money to do so, resulting in more inflation.
Whatta mess.
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Happy Fat Tuesday/Mardi Gras. We normally have a small family party this night, but not this year. Kid 5 (call her "Octavia," but normally known as "Meg") has her First Reconciliation this evening. I'm not sure why they scheduled it for Fat Tuesday, but such it is and it takes priority over my gluttonous proclivities.
