I had a realization today: It occurred while I was reading Lewis Lapham's latest essay in Harper's, in which he points out that Bush has actually done exactly what he said he would upon taking office- i.e. that he would run the government the way he would run a business.
Now, obvious analogies to the less-than-stellar results of his former business ventures aside, this brings up a rather interesting parallel. Clearly, in this respect, we are all "shareholders" in the business of the American government, with a huge amount invested in the stock of how successful it is. And, if Lapham is right, and "the corporation of which he deems himself chairman and chief executive officer not unlike the ones formerly owned and operated by his friends, fund-raisers, and fellow bandits at Enron and Arthur Anderson", then we're all being royally screwed out of our futures. Our economic stability, our pension, the coming years, are all being radically oversold to us in the hopes that we will be suckered just as effectively as the millions whose golden years' security was dependent upon WorldCom and Enron.
Our stock in our own society, in our economic future and cultural progress, is being short-sheeted by Bush's top-down management. Bear witness to the projected ten-year $5.6 trillion surplus turning into a $4 trillion deficit, and you begin to see more clearly the explicit connection here. And Bush is being rewarded, the same way Sun Systems "Hacksaw" CEO was reimbursed millions every time he cast off another ten thousand employees.
All I can say is, I hope Thomas Frank was right, that a change is coming, and that "this time, it won't just be a bunch of kids flipping us the bird and smoking pot when we told them not to."