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My phone rang early the other morning, so early that I hadn't fed our house cats yet and they kept meowing through the conversation. It was my favorite inside source, Ananias Ziegler, communications director for the Committee That Really Runs America.
After he asked about the cat sounds, he explained that
I wanted to warn you that your patriotism is in question
because you failed to attend your local Tax Day Tea Bag
rally.
How would you know that I was doing some yard work
before going indoors to poison my mind with liberal
propaganda from Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow?
We have our ways,
he explained. And I
understand you filed everything on time this year. What
kind of American would do that?
A self-employed American,
I replied, one who
is more scared of the IRS than of the Taliban, the Mexican
drug cartels and Somali pirates, all put together.
So you should have joined the protest,
Ziegler
said.
But I write for the evil Mainstream Media,
I
objected. And rumor has it that we have orders to ignore
the rally, although I haven't seen anything official from
the Biased Liberal Media Directorate, nor from the
Amalgamation of Drive-by Media. Besides. if Fox News is the
ratings champ it claims to be, doesn't that make Fox a
mainstream outlet? And Fox certainly didn't ignore the tea
parties.
You've got a problem with logic,
Ziegler growled.
You're using it, and this isn't about logic.
So what is it about?
I asked.
Indignation,
Ziegler said.
We should be indignant. Here we are shoveling
billions of our tax dollars into Citigroup, so that Citi
can turn around and lend it back to Americans at 17 percent
or more on credit cards.
That's not what you're supposed to be indignant
about,
Ziegler replied. You're supposed to be
indignant about those people who bought houses by taking
out mortgages that they couldn't repay.
Look, I didn't make those dumb loans.
Ziegler sighed. Don't you realize that the federal
government forced them to make these loans under the
Community Reinvestment Act?
That law started in 1977,
I replied. If it was
so bad, why did it take three decades to cause
problems?
He grunted. It was changed over the years to
encourage more bad loans.
I argued. I read that at least half the bad subprime
loans were made by lenders that weren't covered by the CRA.
Who was holding a gun to their heads?
Ziegler waited until I could push the noisy cat off my
lap. You just don't understand modern banking. And you
really don't understand modern scape-goating.
I guess I don't,
I agreed. It's just really
hard for me to image how a bunch of people too poor to make
their house payments could bring down the world financial
system.
Ziegler changed the subject. But aren't you worried
about these big federal deficits?
Of course I am. But just a decade ago, the federal
budget was running a surplus and the Congressional Budget
Office predicted the national debt would be paid off by
now. Of course, that was before the Bush tax cuts and the
invasion of Iraq. Where were the Teabaggers five years ago
if they're so worried about deficits?
Ziegler explained that Your problem is that you're
expecting people to be consistent and logical. You need to
get with the program by getting indignant about one of our
approved targets -- you know, illegal immigrants, gays in
the military, mortgage defaulters, gay marriage. Otherwise,
you have no right to be indignant.
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