But back to the Chamber for a moment. One would almost think the Chamber of Commerce would be an enterprise looking after America's interests, a body of patriotic Americans working as one to lift us out of this depression, which the President won't even admit exists, and this period of near Third World levels of unemployment. But no, the Chamber doesn't see that as its duty. In fact, the Chamber could care less.

The Chamber of Commerce is not the solution, they are the problem. And it is a problem that runs deep and concerns their very character. The Chamber of Commerce is in fact a body of representatives from 45 multi-national corporations, all of them doing a good part of their business overseas, very few paying any taxes and - to make it even more outrageous - many are the recipients of trillions of dollars of tax payer funds from the Obama Administration. Some of their money even put him in office. And he is going to need a lot more to stay there come 2012.

So when he met with this body of pure capitalist Randians earlier this week he made a little joke about how maybe he should have brought them a "fruit cake." Their laughter was as tepid as their applause when he first stepped to the podium. He doesn't wear a hat, but if he had it would have been in his hand. Obama spoke about how America has to be made well, it needs an industrial base, it needs jobs, it needs loans, a place to live, an education. It needs to be a real nation again.

Further, Obama told this crowd, the vast majority educated and born in this nation, that America needed ts help, particularly from the banking industry. Loans for small business, Loans for new businesses. Loans for bank customers. It was a plea for our banks to begin being banks again. No applause. Just a bunch of white guys in $4000 suits wondering when the President was going to stop talking so they could have the cars brought around and get out of there. There were some well-dressed women there too, but really, hardly worth mentioning since the real power resides elsewhere. This is the ultimate "old boys" club.

This is the same Chamber of Commerce that enthusiastically supported the Obama "Stimulus package," to their benefit. They supported the Obama Tarp Program, to their benefit. They endorsed the tax payer bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler. All of these hand outs of free money were wonderful in their high-taste opinions. Some of these banks and investment houses had literally threatened to destroy thousands of pension fund programs all over the country unless they got some free cash from Uncle Sam. And they did - access to $23 trillion from the government. That's not free enterprise at all, but they took enough handouts to make themselves financially strong enough to create and send more jobs out of this country and to pay their top employees the largest annual bonuses given out in American history.

What they most certainly did not like was some of the regulations that came with the handouts.The Chamber of Congress - the perfect blend of hypocrisy and dishonesty with just the right pinch of cruelty. Really, in a movie our Chamber would be destroyed by the Fantastic Four and we would applaud.

But just what was Barack Obama doing this week, standing there in front of these rich cats who he knows hate him, and trying to talk nice? What was that all about? You see, a President doesn't have to be "nice" to the Chamber during times like this.The President is, in fact, in many more ways than they would like to admit, their boss. He does not have to ask them nicely for anything. They believe they have paid him off like a crooked town hall pays off a police chief. The problems is, Obama is still the law. As someone said the other day, he can alter subsidy structures, change tax structures, screw-up their entire dreamland any time he wants to. But he doesn't. And you have to wonder about his complicity.

Obama talked about taxes, too, maybe as a way to scare the Chamber into helping its own nation. He told them he would lower taxes. This brought some applause. Then he followed it with what might turn out to be a velvet hammer, but could be the real thing. He said that although he would lower taxes, there would be fewer tax breaks. This must have confused the considerable number of representatives from corporations who don't even pay a nickel in taxes. Was Obama going to add some taxes that would take them a few years and millions in legal fees to discover enough loopholes to get around? Or was he going to close some loopholes that might take them months to open back up?

It ended like it began with the man in the White House who is beholden to the banks and investing houses returning to that White House. And with a line of limos headed for a line of G-5 Gulfstreams on the tarmac at Ronald Reagan Airport waiting to fly our Chamber of Commerce back to their various estates.

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• « The Kind of Love Adults Forget
• Child of Misfortunes - Part Ten - Letters and other odds and ends »

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