the Shackle Report

But, hey, good, another story about the corrupt Clintons and their rich friends. In a major organ of the liberal media elite, no less. No one draws criticism for being major players on the world stage like these two. Oh, the money! Oh, the influence peddling! Oh, the nepotism, the corruption, the seamy ways of Washington! Where is our democracy? “Ingratiating himself”? Oh man, our innocence is dying again. Somebody get the infant defibrillator.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Please. I won’t recover from it. There is a scandal here. And a crime. And a steaming pile of the maggoty meat of capitalism: InfoUSA gets rich trading information about consumers to people looking to target them as potential buyers of their goods, whatever they are. The Times article claims that InfoUSA sold information to telemarketing outfits that were targeting senior citizens in order to rob them of their life savings. The seniors would give out information like how much money was in their bank accounts and what the account numbers were, to total strangers who called them on the telephone. Then, by using a legal unsigned check normally used to pay for legitimate monthly services, these outfits would manage to get legitimate banks to ok withdrawals from the accounts for bullshit services, and drain them. Sweet.

That’s what the big story is, I think; the Clintons bilking senior citizens. It’ll be interesting to see what the right wing press does with this. The hypocrisy, sanctimony and outrage will be fun to behold, from both sides. Each political party and their media affiliates will get busy building a stock of ammo regarding misdeeds on the part of the other. Each side will trumpet their innocence and lay claims to purity and transparency and drag out the “bad apple” cliche to describe any evident skidmark on their parties’ otherwise spotless panties. Somebody inconsequential will take a fall, except that everyone is consequential to someone. That’s the scuttlebutt, anyway.

Whatever connections there are between the Clintons and InfoUSA, it will be impossible to prove any wrongdoing, or prior knowledge of any such activity on the part of the Clintons. I don’t know much about Hillary or Bill Clinton, but the idea that they would be so politically maladroit as to let themselves be directly tied to stealing from American seniors, many of them veterans, is quite a giggle. Oh yeah, they got to the very top of American political and social life by being fucking retards. Ok.

I don’t disapprove of the story being told; I want whoever is responsible for stealing from seniors to get a vicious legal smack, and the financial institutions whose policies and personnel allowed it to happen to be forced to pay full restitution to everyone who got robbed. (Never happen.) I want changes to be made in the financial laws that allow such things to go on. (Could happen, not likely, but if changes are made, they will be inadequate, and leave other ways to accomplish the same thing, because the Constitution says that’s ok, according to someone really, really smart.)

I would like to say to the seniors and anyone else who got bilked, um, like, wake up. Rule #1: Don’t give out your account number to strangers. Rule #2: Don’t give out your account number to strangers. How could a man who served in WW 2, one example in the Times story, who saw firsthand the wretched shit people get up to, saw just how savage and senseless and malign they could be, still remain a babe in the woods to that degree? I don’t know the answer to that, but it makes me weary of the dumb gab I ambiently hear about how subsequent generations to his are all cynical and have no values and sense of community spirit like back in the good old days. Maybe they don’t, but maybe that’s because they don’t want to be played for a chump.

When I was seventeen years old, I played a traditional shell game on the street in NYC, and got taken. But, I was seventeen. I remained so ashamed of that moment of greed and foolishness that I never told anyone I lost a good chunk of a tiny week’s paycheck. Not to make myself out to be a Mr. Smartypants or anything, but I feel like I really learned something that day, and have remained suspicious ever since. Jesus, what would happen if I actually went to war or something heavy? How wise I would be about human nature! Years later, I played a shell game again. But, only the first round where they let you win. I walked away with a cool $1.00. And pissed off the guy on the other side of the table just no end. But around the table were a bunch of young, and old, people, queuing up to get fleeced. What can you do? I wasn’t going to try to talk them out of playing, for many reasons, like for instance not wanting the game dude’s cohorts to beat me ’til I shit blood, but also because the guy running the scam had a right to make a buck out of a sucker if he could, since people at the top are allowed to do the same thing if they can. It’s America with a fuckin’ “A”.

I sound mean about the senior citizens. I’ve ignored that they’re faculties are not all there. I’ve taken the anger I feel towards the perps and put it on the victims. Probably true, anger isn’t a rational thing. I do lack self-righteous anger toward the system and the culpable institutions, because the story is just too old for that, for me; capitalism is a cold system, that’s part of why it works so well. Oop, do I sound cynical? Oh, take me back to the good old days, before my soul rots and drops out of me like a fucked up transmission.