NO PROFIT IN PEACE

Huh.  So, contractors are bein' paid to do what could be done, and used to be done, by our military and even local law enforcement?

Dang.  Who are these folks and just who is it they're workin' for?

Hired thugs- free of the burden of a code of conduct that might be set by the state or our federal government, are unleashed on our Citizens and the rest of the World, and given carte blanche to harass and intimidate.

So goes the Privatization of Governmental Duties that could be handled by the men and women that are already gettin' paid as members of our Armed Forces, sans the oversight, direction, and accountability.

And yet, laws have been passed and processes have been modified over the past couple or three decades that give over more and more lucrative work to private companies.  (Companies that just happen to be in place and poised to go after it, for profit.  Boy, weren't we lucky!)

Prisons- Privatized for Profit.  The more citizens incarcerated, the bigger the payoff.  (I suppose this helps to explain shit like six years for Manslaughter, sixteen for Cultivation With Intent To Sell.  Who would you rather have in your prison- Killers or Stoners?  Yeah, that's what I thought...)

Border Patrol- Outsource it.  Why should the Government be tasked with the actual function and responsibility, the administrative drudge, when we have private companies that, amazingly, are standin' here just waitin' to bid for the opportunity.  (Okay.  So those given opportunities to bid are actually owned by the same corporation.  It's almost competitive, if you don't actually pay attention.)

War- Logistics, Services, Security- "Farmed Out"...  There is no Profit in Peace.  (Now, this one is the Big Money!)

The Ultimate Business Plan: Create a Need, then friggin' fill it.  Dead up brilliant.

Gotta hand it to 'em- Absolute Evil Genius.  These guys make Goldfinger look like a nine year old swipin' a freakin' Butterfinger.

Halliburton, Blackwater, Brown and Root- all manifestations of the same group of people that wormed their way into Politics as early as the Ford Administration (our only Unelected President- talk about opportunists!) and pushed for the privatization of countless aspects of Government Spendin'.  (And they're still pushin'.)

Cheney and Company- They're not really for Smaller Government.  They're for the Privatization of Government, includin' Military Functions, for which they have positioned themselves in order to soak the One Purse that is the Middle Class Tax Base.  They are not Patriots. They are not Leaders. They are not Good People.

These are Monsters.  Creatures addicted to the Rush of Power and Wealth, consumed by Unfathomable, Insatiable Greed.  These are the Ones for whom everything is Potential Collateral Damage.  They are the Soulless Ones.

No longer are they satisfied to look down from their Mansions, while the Common Folks raise children and set alarm clocks in neighborhoods made up of rows of tidy bungalows.  No.  In their eyes, the Common Man in America is now livin' beyond his position.  His lot, his birthright, is to be subservient to the Privileged, the Elite, the Royalty of Capitalism Unchecked.  And the Common Man would do well to not forget it.

We are all bein' systematically reduced to no more than service workers for the Preferred Caste.  The New Aristocracy.  The Kings of Business, Industry, and Commerce, to Whom All Others are Indebted.  Those that are determined to be incapable of supportin' the Golden Machine through their surplus value will be abandoned and left to perish.

And we are expected to subsist on the scraps they abandon on their plates, the crumbs they brush from their laps as they push back from the table.  Stuffed.  Lethargic.

The New Slaves.  That's where the Middle Class is headed.  And our Poor, our Elderly, our Feeble? A Goddamn Liability.  The sooner dead, the better.

Damnit.

~Fish