March 18, 2012

David McGee - Guest Writer

Hi. You probably don’t know me. Let me tell you about myself: I’m 5’11”. I really enjoy frozen yogurt. I sometimes go outside in support of an inclusive economy and then your police officers threaten to arrest me for crimes as eeeeeeeevil as “dancing in the street” and “having a stack of books for people to borrow” and “noticing how fucked up everything is and actually caring about it.” Release the hounds, right? So far, I’ve managed to avoid getting clubbed, punched, sprayed with toxic chemicals, having my head shoved against anything, being handcuffed for no reason, being left on the street seizing without anybody untying me, beaten bloody, or any of that really awesome stuff you guys are getting to be sooooo good at. 

Hey speaking of “blank” and “fine”, you know Lloyd Blankfein? (listen, I’m a professional writer; these are the kind of segues you gotta watch out for). He’s the guy who runs Goldman Sachs. And since you and I are both fully in support of arresting people, I was wondering: would you please go arrest that miserable asshole? You know that he illegally accepted naked short sales in the wake of the Lehman Brothers collapse, enriching himself and his company while the world economy was crumbling? You know that he underwrote bonds and then went and illegally encouraged other customers to bet against those bonds? You know that he helped Greece hide the true nature of its debt in order to keep making money from them, helping the European economy and therefore likely the world economy to the precipice of collapse? You know that he “failed to disclose to investors vital information about the CDO, known as ABACUS 2007-AC1, particularly the role that hedge fund Paulson & Co. Inc. played in the portfolio selection process and the fact that Paulson had taken a short position against the CDO?” OH MAN that sounds complicated. I bet it must have been really bad, right? But what are we supposed to do about it if we don’t even know what it MEANS?

Idea 1: I will convince Lloyd Blankfein to come down and dance in the street. We all know how illegal THAT is. I’ll see him on the sidewalk sometime (we run into each other a lot, because we eat at the same restaurants (Taco Bell)) and be like HEY LLOYD. I FORGET WHAT THE MACARENA LOOKS LIKE. HELP A BUDDY OUT? And then BOOM you can send in the commandos with their machine guns and their Star Wars helmets to lock him up. And then when people are like “You can’t arrest him! He’s a rich white man!” you can be like “HE WAS DANCING IN THE STREET. WHAT ABOUT THIS DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND?” and then you can arrest all of THOSE people too for having the temerity to question you!

I’ve already chosen my reward. Keep arresting us. But just tell me how many more arrests it’s going to take before you start to actually do your goddamn job.