The Age of Incompetence

I came across a word recently that fascinated me in the way watching a snake swallow a rat fascinates. The groteseque always fascinates as Sherlock Holmes once told Dr. Watson, "There is but one step from the grotesque to the horrible." We are living in an age where we are constantly reminded we are stuck somewhere between the grotesque and the horrible. There was Iraq where we were told we must not wait to invade because of the danger of a mushroom cloud over Manhatten. Years and years later we know there was no reason to fear a mushroom cloud but the bilions and billions of wasted dollars and thousands and thousands of dead soldiers later conditioned us to blur the difference between the grotesque and the horrible.

Then there was Enron and the vanishing dollars hidden behind dummy accounting practices that wiped out the life savings of thousands. That also conditioned us to blur the difference between the grotesque and the horrible.

George Orwell coined the term newspeak in his novel 1984 to mean language made to hide the real meaning of something or limit the range of thought. In other words, doubletalk. I ran into a word that even Orwell would have to admire for its newspeak, the word fungible. I found it in an editorial by Frank Rich of the New York Times, in which he wrote:

"In its own independent attempt to penetrate the bailout, the Government Accountability Office learned that "the standard agreement between Treasury and the participating institutions does not require that these institutions track or report how they plan to use, or do use, their capital investments." Executives at all but two of the bailed-out banks told the G.A.O. that the "money is fungible," so they "did not intend to track or report" what they did with the taxpayers cash."

What is clear is that the American people have been so repeatedly abused, screwed, sodomized, gang-raped that they seem to have been de-sensitized and lost the ability to be outraged. The idea that main street should pony up billions to bail out Wall Street bunko artists was grotesque but what is going on as we speak is obscene.

All we are told is that the money is fungible and we're going to keep on abusing, screwing, sodomizing and gang-raping you until you come after us with pitch forks. Then we're hoping the first flight to Argentina with suitcases stuffed with your money. So have a nice life. Sucker.

Have a victimized people ever been so docile? It's not just the Republicans that should be driven out of Congress on a rail with some hot tar up the place the sun doesn't shine, so should every Democrat who has been there long enough to have voted on the grotesque $700 billion bail out bill that was passed after one week's "debate." Now the banks which took the money have given us the finger and told us to f-k off because it's all fungible.

This is why I am so gloomy about the future. There is no end in sight because as I wrote in my new book, I am certain the class which brought about this world-wide catastrophe will scratch and claw, and lie, to keep the old system in place with only cosmetic changes as I more and more hear the phrase, "It's a once in a century thing," rather like some spoke of Hurricane Katrina as a once in a century thing brought about by an act of God. That's the let's put some lipstick on a pig and pretend it's no longer a pig approach. There's no Harry Truman in sight to tell those who need it what a pig is and the difference between pig droppings and horse manure.

There is nobody to tell someone who uses language like fungible what the difference is between pig droppings and horse manure. There is nobody to put a sign on their desk, "The buck stops here," and really mean it. There is nobody to send some of these deadbeats to jail where they belong.

There is no light at the end of the tunnel. Just more newspeak. That's the beauty of our age.

You know a country is finished when no one gets angry at being abused, screwed, sodomized, or gang-raped. Is that clear?

Eric Blair AKA George Orwell
Like watching the snake swallow the rat I felt I needed to know more about fungible and went to the dictionary to learn what it meant exactly. It didn't help much as it seems fungible is something that is interchangeable to pay off a debt. Here it is, "being of such a nature that one part or quantity may be replaced by another equal part or in the satisfaction of an obligation." Is that clear?

So when the GAO is sent out by our bird-brained Congress to find out what these sleaze bags are doing with our money they merely say, "Go f-k yourself, it's fungible." Is that clear?

In my new novel (A Home In Bohemia:II) I decided shortly before I read that editorial by Frank Rick that I wanted to add a new last chapter, sort of an after word. I wrote the following, "And I am certain the class which brought about this world-wide catastrophe will scratch and claw, and lie, to keep the old system in place with only cosmetic changes." That was before I ran into the word fungible.

Evidently they will not have to lie or scratch and claw because they can just use language like fungible and no one will know what they hell they are talking about. The snake didn't swallow a rat it was just a fungible rodent of one sort or another. Is that clear?

Roger Burke
January 5, 2009