Yes, We Get It!

(Lessons from the “GULF”¹ between theory and practice; between words-then and words-now; between seeing and not seeing; between astute and stupid; between talking sense and talking points; between …; between …; between … . Oh! Déjà vu!)

Yes, we get it.² Oh! how WE GET IT!

WE GET that deregulation exacerbates greed, corruption, cutting corners, oppression, collusion, cover-up, irresponsibility, finger-pointing, hypocrisy, asininity, ETC., ad infinitum.

WE GET that laissez-faire is a false and pernicious theory that has mugged reality LONG ENOUGH.

WE GET that the absence of appropriate business law and regulation leaves exploiters free to do their worst damage.

WE GET that government is not the enemy; the enemy is the voracious, unregulated profit-seeker.

WE GET that government can become an “enemy of the people” when it sells itself to unregulated profit-seekers (thus, presenting a “state” of GUI: Governing Under the Influence).

WE GET that profiteers seek to have government defined as “people’s enemy #1.”

WE GET that those who denounce government intervention are amongst the first to denounce its failure to intervene (in the right amounts and ways, of course) in order to save us from the worst of the profiteers. (Such denouncers constituting “fair-weather” laissez-faires.)

WE GET that it’s time to account the social (etc.) costs of business against their profits.

WE GET that the extreme right is as dangerous and anti-democratic as the extreme left—perhaps even more so.

WE GET that hubris and hypocrisy eventually trip themselves up.

WE GET that common, ordinary people eventually do and pay for most of the cleanup of our many and various “GULF” disasters.

WE GET that it’s time to be accountable and to demand accountability of our legal fictions (business entities), beguiling investment portfolios, and our, WE THE PEOPLE, (distracted) government.

WE GET that it’s time to forge a balance between individualism and the common good.

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1. April 20, 2010: British Petroleum (aka BP) and their drilling agents suffer a deep-water oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico that kills 11, sinks the blazing rig, and begins an oil spill disaster that goes beyond damage control.
2. At least those who have not become so loyal to or romanced by theories (stiff-necked syndrome) that they cannot/will not brook questions or criticism.