Us Against Greed

May, 2012		Governance of the Gods With pity and chagrin the gods look down upon the mortals, tattered, beggary, a breath from Pluto's clutches; and the frown of Zeus advises that the misery afflicting humankind he would relieve. Assembled in a stately council room, the deities a master plan conceive: unnumbered mortal souls they would exhume from spectral tombs of wretched earthly lives. Petition they the worthy Aeolus, the lord of wind and tempest, who contrives a spinning maelstrom in the deep abyss to smartly spirit precious golden dust from earthen troves to heights empyrean, where justice-seeking Furies he'd entrust, in labors valiantly Odyssean, to fill celestial vessels with the fruits of mankind's self-indulgence, to restore and redistribute based on attributes of industry and zeal, and to implore obeisance fitting of recipients. But hail the scheming demigods: each weaves his path through kinship with and providence of Hermes, god of commerce and of thieves. Such lesser spirits, swift as birds of prey, do whisk away the riches to a cache beyond the clouds. The greater gods inveigh against such knavery, and with a brash display of magnanimity decree that all Olympus be at once dispatched to humankind's avail; prosperity would not be compromised by those who snatched the bounty! Better now to manifest divine intent with wondrous monuments and roads and cities, at the just behest of those transcendent. Certain recompense would be compulsory, in equal shares from mortals all, as each one celebrates his fortune through his offering, and swears allegiance to his noble potentates.	Links: Pay Up Now Rapping History Too Much Online United for a Fair Economy Comments? paul@UsAgainstGreed.org Essays: Five Reasons Why The Very Rich Have NOT Earned Their Money Half of America In Poverty? The Facts Say It's True A Very Good Reason to Tax the Very Rich The Question Conservatives Can’t Answer Gini’s Growing Fast Oh Say Can You Seethe? Fortify Main Street:
April, 2012 See it on Youtube		Sixteen Hundred iPhones a Day Oh, a factory in China makes your telephone, that little seventeen-year-old is skin and bone, but now her shift on the line it goes from seven to nine well that's fourteen hours where the sun don't shine, You're makin' sixteen-hundred iPhones a day, you'd like to own your own but it's too much to pay, St. Peter don't you call me cuz I can't go, I owe my soul to the Apple Store. The minerals are taken from an African mine by children on a dawn-to-dusk assembly line, they're scraping cinder and stone to put a tone in your phone, they'll have their bodies broken by the time they're grown You're makin' sixteen-hundred iPhones a day, you'd like to own your own but it's too much to pay, St. Peter don't you call me cuz I can't go, I owe my soul to the Apple Store. Americans are textin' on their their telephones, and makin' monthly payments with their student loans until they finally see signs that unemployment declines, and we'll all be makin' telephones with jobs in the mines. You're makin' sixteen-hundred iPhones a day, you'd like to own your own but it's too much to pay, St. Peter don't you call me cuz I can't go, I owe my soul to the Apple Store.
March, 2012 See it on Youtube		The Reagan Once upon a long and weary voting day, with chances dreary for a quaint and curious choice, a liberal ambassador; while I gauged the sense of voting, suddenly I heard some gloating as of someone sugarcoating memories of years before. "'Tis some candidate," I muttered, "ill-informed with good rapport - only this, and nothing more." Ah distinctly I remember, 'twas a leap year in November, every Senate member had a hundred lobbyists or more. Earnestly I wished for fairness, recognizing all the rareness of the public welcoming purveyors of progressive lore - condescending to the noble precepts of progressive lore: here, then gone forevermore. Now I heard this faint intoning, not unlike a distant moaning, near the bust of Adam Smith above the Senate's chamber door. Grave concern about tomorrow seemed to frame these sounds of sorrow, sorrow that we haven't known the likes of since we lost with Gore - sorrow like a candidate who'd never lost the vote before - sorrow like a lost l'amour. Heart of mine now all aflutter, hurried I to raise the shutter - there appeared an old acquaintance in his saintly guise of yore. Ghostly, gaunt, and ancient fellow, wrinkled, cheeky, pink and mellow, Mister Reagan, ever tasteful, decked out with a pompadour - speaking with the flourish of the surf on California's shore: Quoth the Reagan, "Tax no more.. "..Minimize the legislation, put an end to regulation, give big business all it wants, then turn around and give it more." Nothing further did he utter in his Presidential stutter, not the least obeisance would betray his movie star decor, glowing like a quote from Milton Friedman on the Senate door, "Laissez-faire and nothing more." Then the Gipper, ever smiling, ever skillfully beguiling all my anger into words to counteract his charm galore: "Mister Reagan, let me state this: didn't you anticipate this? All the wealth is concentrated, just a few have wealth galore. Is there any balm on Main Street - tell me, tell me, I implore!" Quoth the Reagan, "Nevermore." There he dallied, never leaving, still deceiving, always peeving those of us who choose the bust of FDR to stand before. "Wretch!" said I, "Your righteous leaning surely is devoid of meaning - still, it seems the Seraphim is on your side forevermore." All my hopes for income fairness, lying on the Senate floor, shall be lifted nevermore!
February, 2012		Beggar Contemptuous the wind that whips and cracks about the man, a thousand tiny blades of sleet slashing at his flesh, his face endowed with a colorless leathery armor by countless August wars. Pinkish sticks of bone seem to protrude from his spittle-stained mittens. Stoic warrior, this man: his legacy clatters along in a shopping cart, plastic bags flapping like bluish sails on the squally sidewalk, the hull of his vessel reinforced with newspapers. The vulgar throb and throes of hunger flail at the man from deep inside, but his daily ration is a paper cup of scattered coins; he resists a primal call to wail at his misfortune, he deflects the glassy indifference of passers-by. As frigid sidewalks darken in disdain and headlines flutter in storefront corners, the man labors under the sickly blush of streetlamps and the steely sputtering of empty flagpoles to his abode, a catacomb of rail and grime upon a concrete bed. It seems, for a moment, as he is gathered into the shadows, that the blurring winds are sweeping him into the city street's debris. And his limping steps beneath a swirl of white I paint anew in portrait as I lie awake at night.
January, 2012		A Fable for a Gilded Age I recollect a party at my uncle's house, some thirty years ago, a hundred hungry guests, and tantalizing pie. But some began to grouse when little Richie Leet (if memory attests) was inexplicably allowed the biggest piece. We couldn't argue, though, for we were satisfied with what we had. As fate would have it - in caprice or serendipity - my uncle would preside at our reunion party, thirty years removed, a hundred guests returning and a luscious pie. But now, discretion notwithstanding, it behooved me to complain, or short of that, to testify for fairness: Richie's piece was bigger than before - in fact, it nearly tripled in enormity! "No fair!" I cried. Had Richie done some special chore to earn his piece? The rest of us would quite agree that we had even less than thirty years ago! My uncle spoke at last: the years had made him weak, he chose to step aside, and it was apropos that Richie cut the pie himself. With this critique of party planning sinking in, I looked around at all the guests, and while I carefully refrained from judgment or admonishment, without a sound they stood and wondered why their hunger still remained.
December, 2011		Of the Street A brooding dusk surrounds the wintry hush of city streets, with headlines fluttering in storefront corners, and the sickly blush of streetlamps and the steely sputtering of empty flagpoles. Revelry departs a doorway, glassy eyes that stare beyond the void to proper worlds where pleasure starts anew. The street belongs to vagabond and beggar, blighted wretch who calls it home, his legacy in pocket, daily bread in scattered coins, abode a catacomb of rail and grime upon a concrete bed, effects we gentle citizens deplore, or more discreetly hasten to ignore.
November, 2011		Fortify Main Street The Wall Street people make a fuss: You're soaking us, you're gouging us - it's war, despicable and ugly class war, so cut 'em back and cut a little more, till government is out the door.. Occupy Wall Street, Fortify Main Street. But going back some thirty years, the soaking, gouging all appears true; it happened, though, to me and to you, our wages all began to accrue in pockets of the well-to-do.. Occupy Wall Street, Fortify Main Street.. Occupy Wall Street, Come here to help us to rise up to fortify Main Street.
October, 2011		Rich Man's Lament We've heard the working class complain that billionaires don't pay their share. With indignation and disdain the spokesmen for the rich declare: "Quit soaking us, quit gouging us, don't redistribute all our wealth, for who are you to raise a fuss and say we took it all in stealth? "We've prospered, to a great degree, through deft financial strategy. We innovate, we oversee, negotiate and referee. "We offer opportunity, we pay the worker's salary, we're masters of philanthropy, we're Vanderbilt and Carnegie. "Oh sure, the poor have had a spell of living with a smaller share, but mostly it's the ne'er-do-well relying on his Medicare, "and education, housing, health, and all the goodies on his list -- you're taking, frankly, all our wealth to give it to a socialist. "So cut 'em back and cut some more and leave us free to stimulate, and tax us less (and furthermore, continue to deregulate). "We promise an economy much better than it was before: an honest mortgage policy and cheaper gas and jobs galore. "For jobs we'll give it all we got (though most will be across the seas); we'll need some servants for the yacht and guards for shuttered factories. "So cancel those entitlements, and we of wealth and great renown will pledge with every confidence that revenues will trickle down."
September, 2011		Revolution Dream Once upon a time we heard from Dylan, tellin' us that things were gonna change. Stocks and yachts and poverty and killin' -- the times they are a-strange. Once upon a time we heard from Marvin: poison is the wind across the sea; escalate the war with children starvin' -- mercy, mercy me. Businessman is getting fatter, workingman is getting battered, evermore the chasm growing wide. Revolution. Revolution. Once upon a time we heard Ms. Baez, criticizing spending on the war. Politicians standing on the dais calling out for more. Once upon a time we heard from Marley, voice of our neglected humankind, telling us Redemption is entirely a rebel's state of mind. Pheasant on a silver platter, middle income kids in tatters, might as well be holding back the tide. Revolution. Revolution. Once upon a time we heard from Lennon, imagining a world that lives in peace. Still we sing the songs and keep pretendin' suffering will cease. Revolution. Revolution. Revolution. Revolution. Revolution. Revolution. Revolution. Revolution.
August, 2011		And All Shall Prosper The splendid gentlemen breathe soothing strains of wisdom like the seraphim, and light uncertain paths and shadowy terrains with inspiration certain to ignite the bleakest soul. Their special expertise is proffered: sleight and stealth and schemes they weave to spirit treasures on a silken breeze to godly pleasure rooms, where they receive idolaters to covet bulging sacks of golden coins, and men in jealous trysts caress their spoils like aphrodisiacs. But comes a promise from these alchemists: for all of us their riches will provide, when breezes, brash and bountiful, subside.
July, 2011		A World Apart The children huddle in the razor cold that numbs their hunger pangs, as nightfall paints the stench of squalor on the walls in bold assurance that their coffin-like restraints shall never be undone. Once-sugary and elfish notions barely blossoming are slumped in grayish pulps of apathy. Outside are tools of fire for butchering the innocents, or seething from the great industrial devices to defile and blacken human breath. Tomorrow's fate is cast, but spared in slumber for the while, and ne'er to breathe the air of destiny that surges sweet and giftlike over me.
June, 2011		Business Sense Behold the peacock perching on his horde of silver nesting threads and ornaments and epicurean repast. "Reward is mine," says he, "for cunning, confidence, manipulation, and free enterprise, which handsomely accoutre my abode." Upon his denouement I scrutinize the humble hinterlands as they explode with avian inhabitants, intense in their pursuit of domesticity. Says cock: "With just a whit of business sense they'd be like me, bedecked in finery." And propped by puffery he huffs away to wax alone in feathery display.
May, 2011		Promise of Pie Upon a once triumphal time, our wisest guides aspired to high ideals and sublime designs to unify the populi, applying viable and rightful subdividing of the pie (and my oh my, a fine and tantalizing pie, I can't deny). But by and by, in highly diabolic styles that testify to borderline alliances devitalized and gone awry, a wily tribe of wry, defiling, Midaslike, conniving, sly idolaters disguised in piety contrived to multiply, requantify and magnify their slice of pie, to satisfy an appetite decidedly too sizable to justify, reciting blithely an invitingly compliant alibi while sighing quite defiantly a trite but dignified reply, advising, pridefully, they'd undeniably revivify society by striving mightily to bake another pie.
April, 2011		Gini's Turning 1 A puppy's sigh, our princess, bloom of Babylon, her dewy eyes obscuring the museum glass of parents rising from the dust, a maiden swan escorting chariots from starry bliss where brass was turned to gold through whimsy-sculpted alchemy, and fortune seekers on the gravel-slickened slope were swept in giddy bounds of seven leagues with key and compass to the money dens, kaleidoscope of gaud and flounce and filigree, mosaic glow of palace halls. But we have pledged to our betrothed, the scorned and beggarly below, the overflow of boundless cornucopia, and they'll be clothed in satin robes and finery, the queen's trousseau. For this we wait in patience, watching Gini grow.
March, 2011		A Wealth of Rationality A tax on our prosperity? How's that for asininity! If not for our ability to gather private equity, a constant perspicacity as masterminds of merchantry, a will to work, sagacity, creativeness, tenacity, a speculating pedigree and individuality, we wouldn't have a GDP, we'd flop around in beggary! I'll take this opportunity to speak to those who came to be without a steady salary, an undergraduate degree, a well-connected family, or residential property: Instead of living aimlessly and taking from society and wallowing in sympathy for rampant prodigality, endeavor for equality and upward class mobility and lasting job security through corporate ascendancy. Provided that the market's free, your talent and tenacity and attitude will guarantee your chosen path in industry. With this arose a reverie of unicorns in ecstasy as gremlins skipped across the sea with Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
February, 2011		Of the Street A monolith, this stoic warrior, his shield erect against the stinging sleet that pours from apathy, a barrier of battle-weary blurred and bittersweet tomorrow's end that girds a brittle reed in bloodied earth and stigma and the stench of violated humanness, as greed perspires from condescending eyes to drench his tattered coat of mail in solitude, and pocked and teary fields of battle pull him closer to a blessed interlude with roots once promising, once prodigal. The righteous rise in virtuous refrain, as frigid sidewalks darken in disdain.
January, 2011		His Man in Office With icy stoicism sculpted on his face the man embraces darkness, the protective glass distorting rows of headlights from his little space, and blurring his perspective. Frigid minutes pass, commute's been getting longer. Transit cuts. He warms himself with labored jumps that seem to energize an indecisive wind. A workplace image forms in front of him: the dust, the brilliant light, the rise and fall of presses, the acidic inky stench - more pay a year ago, what happened? Now his wife is waiting tables, son needs braces. Try to wrench the thoughts away, he tells himself, our daily life will soon improve: the man in office spoke last night. The bus, at last. And somewhere in the cheery strains of conversation over cocktails, with polite attendants, silver trays, and classical refrains from piccolo and violin, a friendship forms, with talk of taxes: bad for business, stunting growth, and too constraining, curbing freedoms -- angry storms of protest would ensue -- indeed, we should be loath to even think of it! And in a dignified response, with all perceptions carved to clarity as steaks are served, the people's needs are set aside until the time is right for proper scrutiny.
December, 2010		Crime Story "He says he couldn't find a job -- c'mon, keep lookin'! Guy's a loser, guy's a con. His children needed food, he told police, the rent is due. Well, let him find his peace in jail -- a year is all he got? The clerk was scared to death! The system's gone berserk. Who, me? Still dabbling in derivatives: our bet against the mortgage market gives a lot of business to my company, all fees and carried interest, almost free of taxes. Times are tough, though, bonus pay is down. You can't afford a yacht today." Howard Zinn wrote about the petty thieves who go to jail for crimes averaging $1000 per offense, while financial insiders devise clever investment strategies to ‘legally’ take billions from society.
	November, 2010	Guardian of the Wealth In bloody ripple of a scowling dawn awaits the guardian of nectars plucked from rosy bosoms of the woebegone disciples of the land, who now construct their brittle bastions as the being stirs and bulging fields explode in tapestries of harvest ambers, and the overtures of sweet hosannas rise on scented breeze. And soon the lustful minotaur appears, attired in swagger and the shroud of night, and with the flair of knaves and profiteers he smoothly strokes his swollen appetite on silver sails to shores of Sybaris, while those divested ponder the abyss.
	October, 2010	Wall Street Wizards They’re more conservative than radical, though devilishly diabolical, with numerous and uninformed attacks on those who want a fair progressive tax. Indeed, from 90 of a hundred folks the government has little right to coax a penny more in taxes! One percent (the proud elite) devised a monument to profit through financial sorcery and daunting doses of chicanery, appropriating productivity to record levels of ignominy: they played their backwards-dating options game, and carried income by another name, and floated, swapped, and hedged with derring-do that richly titillates the well-to-do.
	September, 2010	Support Our Troops To young Americans without employ and lacking purpose: great adventures wait for you in distant lands. You'll feel the joy of rising from the dust to liberate the nations who undoubtedly aspire to be like us, and we'll invoke your name upon our chariots of smoke and fire, and in our colosseums we'll proclaim our gratitude in song. Heroically you'll vanquish unknown evils, in defense of endless bounty that deservedly is ours, and you will reinforce the sense that for a few of us will come extremes of wealth, for others never-ending dreams.
	August, 2010	Hegemony (A play with Hegemon, outspoken leading man; the innocent Subordo, from a world apart; and simple Publico, of short attention span; and Opulo, the merchant.) Let us start. Says Hegemon: "It's vital that we intercede to help you govern." Says Subordo in reply: "This serves us well. In compensation we'll concede our country's wealth." But as its fortunes go awry, Subordo nominates a leader for reform. Says Hegemon: "His record of debauchery and greed will devastate your land. You must transform your nation to a market-based democracy!" The people balk, thus Hegemon's soliloquy: "Such insolence demands that we suspend all trade." Subordo, cast aside in misery, appeals to Hegemon, who promises to send a righteous leader to restore the fragile peace. Says Publico: "You're welcome to our bank accounts!" Says Opulo: "Our arms production must increase!" As Hegemon prepares a gala to announce the victory, Subordo cries, "Our homes are lost, our land destroyed!" Says Hegemon, "We must denounce the enemy, and then rebuild at any cost!" Says Publico: "You're welcome to our bank accounts!" Says Opulo: "Rebuilding? Let me calculate." And Hegemon declares in mighty voice: "We state the Truth -- throughout the world our message resonates!" (Then silence, as production terminates.)
	July, 2010	Hedge Fund Manager He's fifty-thousand times as valuable as one policeman. Justifiable? He makes enough to pay the salaries of every teacher in New York, while fees for basic life necessities increase. The nation's richest one-percent, whose piece of income pie was thick in Reagan years, has seen it TRIPLE as these profiteers have learned to quietly deregulate the deals to which most people can't relate.
	June, 2010	Rich and Poor The vulgar throb and throes of hunger lash the man from deep inside: an anguished beast obeys a primal call to wail and slash till fading pleas for clemency have ceased. A terse and natty lord of commerce flares his bully nostrils in polite disdain, all prig and peacock are the patron's airs as fussed and flaunting windows entertain, and puppy-eyed the urchins sniggering in tribute to the unexpected sport. With soundless shooing and admonishing the man his herded masters do exhort, as blurring shreds of his humanity are swept into the city street's debris.