Peter Michaelson: Let Them Eat Corn, or Why We Shouldn’t Fear a Recession
A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION by Peter Michaelson
The Republican Party’s great success of recent years has been its production of “The Grand Old Pretense,” the theatrical parody showing in the nation’s capital and starring Benito Bush and Franco Cheney.
From its opening night, the production has been praised in the corporate media. Several scenes are especially acclaimed, including “The War in Iraq,” which the audience is assured is not America’s biggest debt machine or a pretense of security. Another scene, “Tax Breaks for the Rich,” extols the new science of Empire Economics.
A later scene, titled “Benito to the Rescue,” shows market fundamentalists giving evangelicals biblical justifications for Benito’s $145 billion economic stimulus package. In this scene, though, everyone wonders where the $145 billion is coming from. Benito sneaks into Ben Bernanke’s office at the Fed and cracks open his office safe. To Benito’s astonishment, it’s empty. But he finds the money by gallantly producing his own hundred-dollar bill and reflecting it in the Fed’s hall of magic mirrors. [more]