My rant (#47 above) was about NPR saying Lott really wasn’t rich, because he had only a million or so dollars, not counting residences in DC and MS, with a snarky comment about Lott’s MS house being taken care. Appropo of nothing, you replied that Lott just recently got compensated by State Farm for Katrina damages to his house, none of which changes the fact that my normal American standards, having more than $1M in the bank plus residences in DC and (fully repaired) in MS makes one pretty darn rich, as I said originally in post #47. I’ve got no dog in the fight between Lott and State Farm. I’m not fond of either one of them.
Lott has more than $1M in the bank, two expensive residences, plus at least a Senate pension to fall back on (does he have other pensions, from the House or Mississippi elective office? Probably, but I don’t know for sure). His desire to now get really really wealthy doesn’t generate much sympathy from me.
Jezus, Mary and Joseph, the point of my post #47 was to point out how ridiculous it was for NPR or anyone else, to say that Sen. Lott isn’t rich, or that in making that calculation it is reasonable to disregard two very valuable pieces of real estate. He’s not going back to MS to live in a FEMA trailer, and he’s not going to have to spend any of his own money in order to live very comfortably. The fact that that doesn’t make him the head of the Senate millionaires club doesn’t lead me to want to take up a collection for poor ol’ Trent, or to listen to him or anyone else poormouth about how now he’s finally got the chance to make some real money.
I’ve nothing against making money. I’m trying to do it myself. I’m very much against well paid public servants cashing in their public service as if they’re owed a lush lifestyle after retiring.
Then what does it generate? Jealousy? Resentment? I mean, why are you so on about someone else’s money. If I open a thread bashing Ted Kennedy, will you be there growling about his wealth?
It generates (for me) a general outrage that a public servant who’s only just started a new term representing the people of his state has decided that two years without the chance to make big lobbying money means more than the six years of service in the Senate that he was hired to do.
I’m tired of people who consider political representation to be nothing more than an opportunity to line their pockets. I’m tired of the influence of lobbyists and re-election fund money and PACS in politics. I’m tired of one dollar, one vote. I’m tired of the system as it stands right now. I’m tired. These people (in general) don’t represent us. They represent themselves (and more importantly, their bank accounts).
It’s getting OLD…
*and that includes Democrats as well as Republicans, incidentally. I honestly think the dearth of Democratic financial corruption scandals (in relation to the Republican ones) is mostly because the Dems had basically no power whatsoever for over a decade. I imagine that’s going to change soon, if it hasn’t already and we just haven’t found out about it yet.
Peter, Paul and Mary… but they didn’t say he isn’t rich. And others picked up on that, too, talking about how they don’t feel sorry for him. So fucking what? No one asked anyone to feel sorry for him.
Not just hired, Lott campaigned for the job. Now that he’s decided he’d rather do something else, the taxpayers of Mississipi get to pay for a special election, or go without elective representation.
Damn, you must be one tired guy! You have my permission to take a nap this afternoon. I love naps. If God didn’t intend us to take naps, why would he have made couches so comfortable?
I very much agree with your sentiments, jayjay. In fact, I’ve preached the corruption and greed of politicians for eight years here. (God, is it going on nine now?) But who, other than a select few like Ron Paul, doesn’t fit in that group. I mean, I just don’t see how somebody can be mad about one but not the others. I also agree with you about the Dems in power becoming corrupted. They’ve certainly had their share in the past. (Heavily biased cite, but still… the shit’s there.)
He’s been in it for 35 years. Fuck, I wish some of the rest of them would take a cue from him and go find actual jobs. And it’s just factually incorrect that the taxpayers of Mississippi will go without elective representation. The governor will appoint a replacement until the election next year. And there’s nothing special about it other than an extra name on the ballot in an election that would have been held anyway.
More importantly he was raised in East Texas (the “East” is very important) and shaped by the political culture there. An excellent analysis of this, and of Texas’ several ethnic and political cultures, can be found in Made in Texas: George W. Bush and the Southern Takeover of American Politics, by native Texan Michael Lind. (Explains very clearly how LBJ and GWB were the products of two very different, though very distinctly Texan, political traditions.)
I am. I am a very tired guy. Unfortunately, it’s not the kind of tired that a nap can help.
I honestly believe that, at this point, there’s no way to change the system to something that actually represents the people (or, more accurately, the people who vastly outnumber the few who can afford actual representation) without some sort of catastrophic uprising. I have a very bad feeling that a couple of more decades of corporatocracy is going to end in the small cadre of very rich people being very unpleasantly terminated by a WHOLE LOT of very poor people. I don’t want mob rule by people who’ve been living in hopeless poverty for decades any more than I want to live in feudal America, but it doesn’t look good to me.
I love naps. If God didn’t intend us to take naps, why would he have made couches so comfortable?