One Hundred Sixty-Five

Posted on June 14, 2015 by John Swinburn

Some decisions are indefensible. They are so blatantly self-serving and so laced with avarice that no apologist can successfully endorse them as reasonable. But we turn a blind eye toward them and stay quiet because it just wouldn’t look right to cause a ruckus, would it?

About John Swinburn

"Love not what you are but what you may become."― Miguel de Cervantes
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3 Responses to One Hundred Sixty-Five

  1. John Swinburn says:
    June 15, 2015 at 1:10 pm

    Juan, that’s the sort of thing that leads to revolution.

  2. Juan says:
    June 15, 2015 at 8:08 am

    At a recent Blackstone meeting (Blackstone, now in excess of 215 billion in assets, reaping 7.5 billion in 2014 revenue), Stephen Schwarzman said, “We are here to occupy Wall street.” His ham-handed sarcasm, delivered in a mousy voice, was near deafening to me, especially what should be a wakening call to arms: Four hundred people in the states now earn more than 45 percent of the nation combined!

    Recently, a political summit hosted by Rick Scott of Florida was called to order; it was nothing less than a collective plan to keep power within the hands of the few, while deflating government sponsored programs for the poor — it is the gospel of wealth, Gordon Gecko’s “Greed is Good.”

    Frankly, I am reaching my boiling point, John. I’m reading Carl Sandburg again and retrieved an old copy of Bertram Russell — I need to find my voice, my fighting voice. I think the world has gone to sleep because we, who have the potential tools for that “fighting voice,” have kept quiet and still.

  3. Holly Forrest says:
    June 14, 2015 at 11:10 am

    As so often with your writing, I feel teased, drawn in, desperately wanting to know what incident(s) prompted the observation. You have the art of the hook down to a science, JS.

    The specifics of this particular post resonate very strongly, as I suspect they do for many people. For me, at least, it’s not so much the unwillingness to create a ruckus that stills my objections, but rather the desire to watch to see to what new heights – or depths, as the case may be – of avarice the guilty party may clamber toward. There’s nothing more fun than watching a train wreck, is there?

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