Dear Dr. Bones,
Naturally one has but to hear the title for one’s hormones go out to the Freelord "President of the Massachusetts Bankers Association." Chained down with all those chains an’ indignities heaped upon recognized members of the profiteriat Class all across our Divine Homeland™, Party Neocomrade (third class) K. X. Brennan must suffer over an’ above --twofold over an’ above, even. Firstly, his freelordship must suffer precisely here, here in reactionary-lieberal Palæochusetts, I mean, here, where H*rv*rd and the Muses and you and I are all in league with The Union Thugs Inc., where scarcely anybooby at all barks out boldly for Scrooge-Warbucks Family values even insincerely. "¡Oh, to be at Madison, now the springtime’s come!" Alas: his freelordship is no closer to the open-shop cheeses of Beulah Land than Newton. To be sure, Auburndale is a little closer than Nonantum would be, but still.
Secondly is the sad quality of such local agitproppin’ in the path of Party an’ AEIdeology as does linger in psocialistic MA here an’ there. I conclude from the fact of his freelordship havin’ been reduced to scribble his own scribbles, that the usual scrivener scabs, who would surely be only too happy to selfservice his freelordship at even lower rates than last time, [1] seem inadequate.
Things are so bad for our John Galt wannabes, Dr. Bones, especially after the last election failed to produce lots of Scott Fratboy look-alikes in the fedguv congressional delegation, that if they get only a little more so than they are already, why, the profiterian Class may have to abandon us oppressors to our own devices.[2] ¿Will we slackers all starve when we have to stroke our own plastic? Please stay tuned . . . .
Thirdly -- ¿did I *claim* to be able to count whight, sir? -- the freelordly anguish must, as I conjecture, be screwed up yet again by the fact that his freelordship is not merely an exponent of the profiteriat in general, but of (as it were) _die Finanzprofitäriat_, no dirty hands-on manufacturer of somethin’ crude an’ physical, but a kid-gloved manipulator of other people’s informations. ¡Of their ‘identities’ even!
(( "Does the freelord neocomrade swipe his own plastic, even?," one wonders; "Or does he hand it over to some _ancilla indocumentata_ from the freelordly harem or stables to perform so vile an office?" ))
But pseriously, the issue here is that the Powers That Bee here in Taxachusetts -- H*rv*rd, the literal (_sic_) Frankensteins of genetic modification and the e-Frankensteins of bit mod or so-called "computer science", and the Muses, and you yourself, sir, [3] -- are themselves quite as much clean-jeans _mentipulatores informationârum_ as is Kenneth, Freelord of Brennan Newton in the neopeerage of Foxcuckooland, not to mention "president of the Massachusetts Bankers Association." AND YET . . . !
And yet, ‘we’, or such of ‘us’ as remain unadorned with M.B.A. degrees from the H*rv*rd Victory School [4], never miss a chance to throw caltrops out in front of the chevaliers of _Finanzkapitalismus_, as if, in this year of religionism 1432/2011/5771, neobankers preside over dark Satanic mills rather than, say, The Village Bank / 307 Auburn St. / Auburndale MA 02466". [5]
_Quâ_ agitpropper, I betcha his freelordship sails whight over the heads of the dupes an’ marks he has targeted. His problem may be figured _modo dickensiensi_: ¿How shall the Cratchitt clan be induced to stop self-sorrowin’ narrowly for themselves, an’ self-sorrow for poor old Scrooge a little?
Ideally, the not-so-Bad Poor would weep for ScroogeBank NA institutionally rather than only Massa Ebenezer personally, but to expect that much is not so much "Whig pastoral" as flat-out neomalarkey quite incapable of realization in mankind’s present tale of veers. Doubtless in the world to come, full justice will at last be done to the sterlin’ merits of all our fine upstandin’ corporate citizens. Meanwhile, however, our corporate Betters will have to settle for what they can squeeze out of "Citizens United v. Federal Eelection Commission."
Ah, well, "Life is unfair." Proverbially so, even.
Meanwhile, his freelordship aims lower than that. Still too high, though, as it seems to me. You might regard his freelordship as rather too neoclever for his own neogood, Dr. Bones. His freelordship grasps the scabbiness of the scabs so firmly that he is in serious danger of mistakin’ Scab Spirit for _The Key to All Whight-Wing Mythologies_. To all mythologies _simpliciter_, even.
Recurring to mythology myself, I’d say "The Freelord of Brennan Newton thinks he can take every agitation-propaganda trick in the rubber for Team Mammon by scatterin’ a few Apples of Discord™ about judiciously like Firstlord Paris of Troy or Ms. Atalanta." Apple of apples, in the freelordly eye, is the one that the headline angel at the _Herald_ actually detected whight, for once, _mirabile dictu_: _A Big-Box License to Swipe_ The freelordly (an’ wannabe-but-aingonnabe kiddiemagisterial) _ipsissima verba_ are located whight up against the bottom line, as follows:
| The real beneficiaries, and the power behind the push against interchange fees by retailer lobbyists, are the big-box stores like Home Depot and Wal-Mart. They will save billions of dollars at the expense of consumers and local banks. If you are a small business that has been pushing for a cap on interchange fees, be careful what you wish for — as the Wal-Marts, Home Depots and Targets of the world become bigger and more profitable, they force more small merchants like yourselves out of business. |
The appeal to Scab Spirit [6] ) could hardly be plainer, though I suppose really thoroughly wombschooled an’ freedumbed down kiddie selfservatives will manage to miss it, havin’ been rendered incapable of graspin’ that their own patrons an’ AstroTurf™baggers, traditional practitioners of scabbery, might become victims of it as well.
Anyway, his freelordship blatantly means to provoke a real cat fight between the "big box" Chambermaids of Commerce an’ the "mom-and-pop" Chambermaids of Commerce. That is a tolerably neoclever plan, considered in isolation: the fault line in the TopPercenter Class above which Freelord Ken explodes his dynamite charges certainly exists, and it exists close enough to where he does his demolition work that some sort of success might conceivably be attained. And I do not doubt that most kiddie selfservatism at the level of _The Boston Humbug_ will, as his freelordship anticipates, side with Family Values as against vulgar bigness of box.
Not all of ’em, though: I betcha a few one-eyed geniuses in the land of the colourblind will have taken to their hormones the long-standin’ agitprop campaign on behalf of the enemy that boils down to "Everythin’ is cheaper an’ better at BigBox. Only an idiot buys anythin’ but maybe lottery tickets at tiny holes in the wall."
To go all gooey about Mom ’n’ Pop logically befits us lieberals and demoncrats far better than whight-winged _Herald_ angels, after all. To the extent that logic enters into such a fray, that is: not far at all.
(( DIGRESSION _ad homunculum_.
(( Few BH consumers are so close to bein’ political grown-up that they will see the biggest problem with his freelordship’s here agitproppin’, namely, that ’twould all look a far more respectable an’ impressive effort on behalf of Mom ’n’ Pop, if only his freelordship, and the _Auburnthaler Dorfsbank_ -- probably the "Massachusetts Bankers Association" as well -- did not look so distressin’ly mommempoppish themselves. Were his freelordship a perfect scrooge, burnin’ with the hard gem-like flame of pure self-greed, unencumbered by duties to abstract ideology or former ideobuddies, he would have done better to have had recourse to the _Globe_ and petitioned Comrade Governor Paddy and the General Court to take proper cognizance of Banking in Massachusetts as only another desperately endangered species.
(( *Mommempoppish* Mass. bankin’ exclusively, that is, naturally. ¡Father Zeus knows, the good folks at Santandér, and at One Bryant Park NYC NY 10110, can take care of themselves!
(( ))
Happy days.
--JHM
___
[1] Take dictionary definition of SCAB (n.) and then add that a really consistent neoexample of the product would aspire to break solidarity even with herself, which is precisely what never askin’ for as big a gratuity from one’s toff next time can achieve. To be sure, if this plan were to be really piously maintained, the only good scab would turn out to be a dead scab, an emaciated scabbess who has starved herself to death by a long process of continuous self-discountin’. ¡Talk about "hormone-touching"!
But let us not be silly, sir: even the _Herald_ angels themselves are not so angelic as all that.
_Pari passu_, I notice that his freelordship did not volunteer to give his journalistic (?) bravos an’ valets an’ seconds an’ bottle-washers a small break by insinuatin’ these words of freelordly wisdom into the Party-an’-Ideology fishwrap as a generously overpaid-for advertisement rather than the sort of op-ed freebie that even you or I might aspire to obtain, were the B’nôt Purcell unaware of our psocialism an’ other assorted bad attitudes _vis-à-vis_ greater Rio Limbaugh.
[2] ¡It may be startin’ already! At any rate, the e-scabs at [ http://nerej.com/pdf/46191 ] do not return my clicks.
[3] Please feel free to include this coarse and illiterate keyboard out, if you’d like. Or in, if you’d like that better. No big deal either way.
[4] Being the former Allston (Taxachusetts) College of Chirurgy and Barber Science.
[5] The pet g@@gle failed to find an exterior snapshot of the _Auburnthaler Dorfshypothek_right off. Sorry ’bout that.
I fear that surveyance camera *does* give off at least a faint whiff of the Benthamite Panopticon, if not exactly of the Blakeo-Diabolic Mill.
Even more fearsomely, the photograph confirms my antecedent suspicion that there may not be a great deal of strictly Mass. banking left to preside over.
Naturally-- inevitably -- the freelordly freebie does not inform us students of neocomradology whether or not, say, Grupo Santander is a proud member of the M.B.A.. Or at least eligible to become a humble associate, should the _señora corporacíón_ graciously condescend to apply an’ remit the customary tribute.
Though the Freelord of Brennan Newton be no great shakes as an agitpropper, he does manage not to babble out any such secrets of the blessèd Secret Sector as that in a public fishprint where hostile ears like yours or mine might pick them up and then probably use them against.
[6] The Polish _niesolidarnosc_. (( ¿Perhaps we might coin ‘dissolidarity’ in Homeland™ic? ))
