Today being the tenth day of the Nine Days’ Wonder, neocomrade J. Jacoby has finally obtained a copy of his crew’s talkin’ points, which he adorns with a few sprigs of ideoparsley peculiar to himself, mainly vituperation of Congressman Frank, and publishes for the edification of a caravan that has already moved on. The main body of bandits broke camp at 12:30 this morning, Beltway City time. Quoth the ‘Globe-Democrat’:
| Congressional negotiators expect to announce a historic agreement today for a massive $700 billion bailout plan that lawmakers and the White House hope will calm jittery financial markets and ease the national credit crisis. After a grueling series of talks that went past midnight, "we're at a point where I think we can say something positive to the American people," said Senator Chris Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat and chairman of the Banking Committee. "This is an important moment." |
Rip Van Jacoby just got out of bed, though, and he is in no mood for anythin’ positive at this point in his spin cycle. If he stays a constant distance behind the rest of US, he ought to mellow on or about a week from Wednesday, lemme see, 7 Shawwál 1429, the former 8 October 2008. Though naturally he need not mellow at all, he will remain forever free to align himself with his neocomrade R. C. Shelby, Solon of Alamaba:
| Some lawmakers have made clear that they will not vote for the bailout plan under virtually any terms. “I didn’t want to be in the negotiations because I object to the basic principles of this,” said Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the senior Republican on the banking committee, who would normally be his party’s point man. Pressed about his role, Mr. Shelby replied, “My position is ‘No.’ ” |
That Dixielander is no J. Sidney McCain, he does fortify himself in Castle Negative merely to establish to himself how remarkably wunnerful "Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the senior Republican on the banking committee," happens to be. Not bein’ a two-hundred-proof narcissist like some folks I could name, neocomrade R. C. Shelby positions himself to pander to a constituency as well as to profile his self-courage. If neocomrade J. Jacoby of the Boston Globe-Democrat does not belong to the Shelbyan constituency, and lap up all Col. Shelby's basic principles, and admire the senior Republican on the bankin’ committee as the very model of a modern exemplum virtutis, well, who will belong and lap and admire? I ask you!
"The good ol’ boys over to the Court House," thee replieth, Mr. Bones? Perhaps they will, but then again, perhaps they won’t. I think gratification of the Colonel’s campaign contributors would be a better bet than yours is, though even that bet is not without risk. What bet isn’t, nowadays? O tempora, O mores! "None of this would have happened if Alan Greenspan were still alive."
I digress. It is Third Lieutenant Jacoby’s basic principles that belong to our announced topic, not Colonel Shelby’s or General Greenspan’s or even Miss Rand’s of Petrograd. Unfortunately the fishwrap neocomrade does not honour us with an exposition of his basic principles this mornin’, except insofar as inferences may be drawn from the axiom that Mr. Barney Frank is always wrong and fiendish. Barney's stuff goes like this, as per the militant extremist talkin’ points:
| The roots of this crisis go back to the Carter administration. That was when government officials, egged on by left-wing activists, began accusing mortgage lenders of racism and "redlining" because urban blacks were being denied mortgages at a higher rate than suburban whites. The pressure to make more loans to minorities (read: to borrowers with weak credit histories) became relentless. Congress passed the Community Reinvestment Act, empowering regulators to punish banks that failed to "meet the credit needs" of "low-income, minority, and distressed neighborhoods." Lenders responded by loosening their underwriting standards and making increasingly shoddy loans. The two government-chartered mortgage finance firms, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, encouraged this "subprime" lending by authorizing ever more "flexible" criteria by which high-risk borrowers could be qualified for home loans, and then buying up the questionable mortgages that ensued. All this was justified as a means of increasing homeownership among minorities and the poor. Affirmative-action policies trumped sound business practices. A manual issued by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston advised mortgage lenders to disregard financial common sense. "Lack of credit history should not be seen as a negative factor," the Fed's guidelines instructed. Lenders were directed to accept welfare payments and unemployment benefits as "valid income sources" to qualify for a mortgage. Failure to comply could mean a lawsuit. As long as housing prices kept rising, the illusion that all this was good public policy could be sustained. |
It seems to me, O Bones, that the merits of that sort of ideoproduct depend heavily on how it is datestamped. Neocomrades who could crank it out within a few hours after Hindenburg and Ludendorff (and Barney and Dubya) made clear their intention to stage a socialist coup d'état against the Heimatland Gottes may be awarded a significant number of points for vigilance and promptness, if not, perhaps, for substantive politics and economics and law and religionism. Neocomrades who rehash the same material ten days later, however -- well, perhaps we may apply nil nisi bonum to the brain-dead white male community and pass on.
I draw thee’s attention, however, to one feature that may even be specifically Jeffy-Jacobean. Who’d ’a’ thunk (in advance) that a Big Management Party neocomrade might define the term ‘minorities’ as "borrowers with weak credit histories"? Si non è vero -- and it ain’t -- è ben trovato! The Political Capitalism subfaction of the militant extremist GOP ought to find that ploy comin’ in very handy, it seems to me, sir, if only they have brains enough to see how useful it is. Neocomrade J. Jacoby himself does not seem to, so perhaps it was not invented in the bowels of the Globe-Democrat after all. Perhaps it was neocomrade S. L. Heath-Putin (sp?), the Governess of Alaska, who thought of it first -- if not Her Excellency literally and individually, then somebody much like her sociologically and political-pathologically. Some neocomrade from the Political Capitalism [PC] subfaction of the Party of Grant and Hoover who puts Political Capitalism first, which neocomrade J. Jacoby plainly does not.
The fishwrap artist himself belongs, of course, to the Political Christojudæan [PC-j] subfaction of extremist Party militancy. He does not, in ordinary times, worry much about borrowers and credit histories and mortgages, he is too busy assistin’ at the solemn rituals of the Fœtus Cult and makin’ rude remarks about the pretended "affirmative action." [1] The polemical definition of ‘minorities’ that strikes thee and me as worth of Rabbi Ben Trovato himself is not likely to seem very strikin’ to a PC-j neocomrade like Jacoby.
Tantamne rem tam negligenter? Not if I can help it, Mr. Bones! The ineffable beauty of definin’ minorities as "borrowers with weak credit histories" is simple enough: in effect IT LETS BUCKS VOTE. That is to say, it amounts to part, at least, of the extremist GOP's Holy Grail, that elusive snipe that the core of the Big Management Party -- the economic conspiracy of OnePercenters -- have been huntin’ for ever since March 1869 at latest.
Now the problem arises at once that the peripheral hangers-on amongst the Elephant People have no special interest in lettin’ bucks vote in either sense of the word ‘interest’: (1) they do not think about stuff like that much, and (2) there is nothin’ much in it for themselves. Indeed, if the definition were pressed just a little, the peripherals could be cast into a condition of hopeless dhimmitudo forever by announcin’ that possession of a STRONG credit history is neither less nor more nor other than bein’ an economic OnePercenter. Even the Stupid Party will, I presume, not actually go that far in its own characteristic direction, when to do so would mean there will soon be no Stupid Party left. In fact the peripherals would not allow themselves to be dhimmifactured, they would just walk away, leavin’ the high-and-dry OnePercenters in more or less the position of Federalists after the Hartford Convention. As Col. Shelby of Dixie might phrase it, America's position on the Federalist position circa 1820 was ‘No’.
Like any powerful drug, "minorities are folks with weak credit histories" must be used accordin’ to the instructions on the label. An overdose could easily be fatal. But abusus non tollit usum, a moderate dose of the exact same Peruna could work wonders for the Party of Grant and Hoover and Goldwater and Atwater.
And the Big Management Party patient does seem in need of a pick-me-up at the moment. Col. Shelby’s bad (?) attitude is an indicator of the problems of militant extremism: has he entrenched himself in Castle Negative strictly because the Hindenburg-Ludendorff-Dodd-Frank-Bush-McCain-Obama bailout scheme is in contravention of the basic principles of Political Capitalism and/or injurious to Little Business? I think not. I fear the Colonel shows definite signs of a populistical taint, presumably contracted by way of angry telephone calls and e-mails from constituents who do not give a hoot about the theory of PC but would be happy enough to lynch an i-banker if they could lay their hands on one.
Third Lieutenant Jacoby would much prefer the peasantry clamoured to stick their pitchforks in the Honourable Barney Frank. How his sayin’ so in the Boston Globe-Democrat is supposed to make it happen, however, is more than I can guess. But possibly the neocomrade just wants to put on the record for Princess Posterity how very pitchfork-worthy the fat wiseass is? God knows best.
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[1] How the neocomrade jumped his rails is plain from his own agitprop as already cited, "All this was justified as a means of increasing homeownership among minorities and the poor. Affirmative-action policies trumped sound business practices." J. Jacoby's independent interest in sound business practices is utterly eclipsed by his antecedent detestation of AA on other grounds, kulturkämpfisch and PC-j grounds. If AA could be abolished only by sackin’ Little Business and sowin’ the ground with salt afterwards, neocomrade Jacoby might hesitate a few seconds, maybe as many as fifteen, but the idea that he would endure the abomination to maintain good relations with the PC subfaction of his Party is visionary. Visionary in the sense of "ridiculously incredible."
Congressman Frank is another lesser point of derailment, being insufferable to PC-j subfactional fanatics for reasons too familiar to rehearse and also "House Financial Services Committee chairman Barney Frank, a Newton Democrat and a key negotiator," credentials guaranteed to drive the PC subfactional fanatics up the wall as well. The overlap is as logically accidental as an overlap could be, and neocomrade J. Jacoby could have scribbled against the Hindenburg-Ludendorff economic power grab without mentionin’ poor Barney’s name. But that would be a very artificial exercise in self-restraint, especially for a PC-j hormone-baser like neocomrade J. Jacoby of the Boston Globe-Democrat. What would be the point of the señorito havin’ an op-ed playpen all his own and then refusin’ to have any fun in it?
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