When Sorry?
And Open Letter from We, The Peasants...
Joel Bowman, appraising the situation from Buenos Aires, Argentina...
Welcome to another Sunday Session, dear reader, that time of the week when we... fly to Mendoza to give thanks and praise to Dionysus!
Yes, fellow patron, your selectively pious weekend correspondent is on the road (or in the air) as you read this, en route to Argentina’s famous wine region, nestled in the foothills of the spectacular Andes Mountains. We’ve got family in town, fattened calves to sacrifice and libations to pour, so we’ll keep this ordinarily bombastic preamble short ‘n’ sweet...
Below you’ll find an open letter, addressed to the hoi oligoi on behalf of we, the hoi polloi. Please feel free to circulate it far and wide, adding your own “remember when...” observations in the comments section, below...
When Sorry? An Open Letter from We, The Peasants
By Joel Bowman
To whom remain unconcerned,
We – the collective, excess mass of humanity you so casually refer to, down your long, sneering noses, as “The People” – would like to know:
When might we expect that apology? Eh? Eh?
We appreciate you’re busy, what with protecting us from the uncertainty of the big, scary future and all. You have rates to fiddle, markets to diddle and thumbs to twiddle, even as the Empire burns. Your Climate Panjandrum, John Gulfstream Kerry, assures us you are a “select group of human beings,” on a mission to “save planet earth.” An “extraterrestrial” task, as he put it.
Gee whizz! The air must surely be thin, up there on the mountaintop!
Though nothing compared to your Capital-C Causes, Great and Grand, we’ve been busy, too, down here on the flatlands of filth and ignorance... busy tending our own gardens, sweeping our own stoops, making our own beds and generally minding our own business. It’s not quite saving the planet, granted, but at least it’s honest. (You’ll just have to take our word for it.)
Even so, with all our stubborn own-business-minding, we couldn’t help but notice you seem to have... dare we venture... erred of late. We’re sure these peccadillos are mere oversights, products neither of malice or stupidity. (How else to explain the presence of evil in a world invigilated by beings omnipotent, omniscient and beneficent? Hmm...) Still, we reckon they’re worth bringing to your attention. Herewith, a few areas of concern...
No doubt you’ve noticed (how could you not have?) some fissures appearing in the financial system of late. The edifice, built on a foundation of trust in the “full faith and credit” of the American Government, over which many of you – elected and unelected alike – preside, appears to be giving way.
Silvergate Bank... Silicon Valley Bank... Signature Bank... Credit Suisse... Deutsche Bank... First Republic Bank...
And yet, it was only a few short years ago (the blink of an eye for your immortal/undead ilk) when then Chairperson of the Federal Reserve, Ms. Janet Louise Yellen, stood in front of the nation and declared, with a straight face:
“Would I say there will never, ever be another financial crisis? You know probably that would be going too far but I do think we’re much safer and I hope that it will not be in our lifetimes and I don’t believe it will be.”
~ Janet Yellen, June 20, 2017
But lo! Contrary to her highly paid prognostications... Ms. Yellen lives, even as major institutions under her bailiwick pass one by one into the shades. Even more astounding, Ms. Yellen is not earning her keep as one of Santa’s dopey elves at the local shopping mall, or spinning a pizza sign at an abandoned intersection, or even authoring weekend columns in some fringy Substack publication (Hermes forbid!)... but instead serves as both head of the United States Department of the Treasury and chief financial officer of the federal government of the United States of America.
Benevolent overlords, we are not without a sense of humor... but you’re going to have to unpack that punchline for us.
Then there’s Ms. Yellen’s comrade-in-arms, over at the Federal Reserve. Now, before you furrow your almighty brow, we understand that Chairman Powell inherited a mess of epic proportions. And we get that the Powell bone connects to the Yellen bone connects to the Bernanke bone, etc. And yes, we appreciate that The Covid wasn’t the Chairman’s leak (about which, more in a second).
But by pinning rates to the floor for 21 months straight, right as his mates over in the federal government were hosing the economy down with trillions of gallons of jet fuel, it was Mr. Powell who lit the match that set off the greatest conflagration in prices in over forty years. What’s more, to do so while telling Americans of the non-bazillionaire class – who were at the time gagged, locked down and lathered in Lysol, as per expert recommendations – that such a painful spike would be “transitory,” was more than a mere breach of decency. It was downright duplicitous.
Now, if it were just a money thing... confined to your meddling with the price of credit, the value of your devilish fiat, the stability of your stacked and corrupted financial system... we could maybe turn a half-blind eye. Unlike your kind, we lowlanders do not worship exclusively at the feet of mammon (although a little predictability, stability and durability in our money is not unappreciated... ergo, gold).
The problem, alas, is that your creepy McMission creep McCrept into other realms of our lives, too. In our language, you see, concepts like “liberty” and “self-determination” and “privacy” are not pejoratives, but values we hold dear. And so it is your overt and relentless intrusions into these realms with which we must take umbrage. (And please, kindly excuse our use of the “Royal You” hereafter – we mean no undue respect by it.)
Remember when you told us you were not conducting Gain of Fauci research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology...
...when you were?
Remember when you told us that so much as asking questions about a possible “lab leak” was tantamount to attacking “The Science”...
...when it wasn’t?
Remember when you locked down our communities, our businesses, our schools, our churches, our theaters, our airports, our state and national borders, our kids’ playgrounds, because it was necessary for “our own safety”...
...when it wasn’t?
Remember when you tackled people to the ground for yearning to breathe freely...
...when fresh air was what they needed most?
Remember when you built quarantine camps in the Australian outback...
...and then told us we should “be grateful” for them?
Remember when you assured us the vaccines were safe and effective...
...when they were neither?
Remember when you told us you had conducted clinical trials into their efficacy regarding transmission...
...when you hadn’t?
Remember when you sacked millions of nurses, firefighters, policemen, pilots, teachers, surgeons, factory workers and truck drivers, when they dared exercise their own bodily autonomy...
...exactly as was their right?
Remember when you told us to mask our dear children, because gagging their precious little faces was necessary to protect them...
...when it wasn’t?*
Remember when you told us Black Lives Matter was not a giant scam, designed to relieve well-intentioned non-racists of their hard-earned money...
...right before the founder purchased a $6 million private mansion?
Remember when you told us biological males had no advantage over females in sports...
...then failed to flatten Lia Thomas’s curve?
Remember when you said there were Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq...
...when there weren’t?
Remember when you promised, repeatedly, you would “bring an end” to the Nord Stream pipeline...
...and then claimed you didn’t?
Remember when you said the Hunter Biden laptop story was fake news...
...when it was as real as the Big Guy’s paychecks?
Remember when you told us that 2+2 could = 5...
...when, 4.
Remember when you said we had two, five, ten, twenty, pick-a-number years before the ice caps melted...
...and then they didn’t?
Remember when you said the Great Barrier Reef was going to die off...
...right before it grew at a record rate?
Remember when you said hurricanes and extreme weather events were increasing because of global warming...
...then refused to retract your “stories” after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (which you cited!), disputed your claims?
Remember when you said advanced, industrialized economies, like Germany, could run just fine on renewables...
...right before citizens there spent the winter felling virgin forests and burning trash to keep warm?
Remember when you said this constituted “peaceful protests”?
Remember when you said climate-related deaths were exploding...
...when they’re at historic lows?
Remember when you said we should “defund the police”...
...right before an epic crime wave?
Remember when you said you’d drain the swamp/close Gitmo/rein in government spending...
...then you didn’t?
Remember when you told us that you couldn’t define a woman...
...because you’re not a biologist?
Remember when you said “non-women” could get pregnant...
...when... really, do we have to even do this one?
We could go on. Indeed, our abiding readers are no doubt champing at the bit, another dozen examples of your ineptocracy at the very tip of their tongue... (do drop ‘em in the comments section, below...)
On these, and so many other fronts, you not only failed the smell test, you positively stunk the joint out. And yet, you continue to claim authority over our lives, our freedoms, our fates. Why should we listen to you, who could not have been more wrong… on more subjects… with more frequency?
We do not ask for much in this life, mere peasants that we are. To be left alone, to live and let live, to chart our own course, as best we can...
We are but a simple people, having eschewed the miseducation of your woke, monoculture, Ivy League factories. Yes, we’ve read your books... your Keynes and Marx; we’ve suffered your opinion pages, your Krugman and Friedman; we’ve even endured your alleged “comedians,” your Colbert and Fallon. We’ve listened, politely, when you hurled your unlettered epithets – deplorables, conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers, racists, etc.
But all we really want to know, given the high crimes and misdemeanors perpetrated by your wretched lot, is...
...when sorry?
* Oh, and may there be an especially noxious cauldron, bubbling away across the River Styx, waiting for those of you who enforced that gruesome diktat.
And that will do us for another Sunday Session, dear reader. As usual, feel free to like and share our work and drop your own thoughts into the comment section below…
If all has gone to plan, your editor should be raising a glass at Bodega Azul right about now, one of our favorite vine shrines in the pristine Tupungato region. Pics to come, next week.
Bill will return with his regular missives from tomorrow, as will Tom and Dan, with their paid research, Wednesday and Friday, respectively.
Whatever you’re up to this weekend, be good… or be good at it.
Cheers,
Joel
Remember we needed only 15 days to slow the curve...
....but you took 3 years to start relinquishing powers?
Remember NatSec wasn’t spying on Americans...
...when it in fact was?
Remember when it was deadly to visit a dying loved one...
...but George Floyd protests were healthy?
Remember when questioning election integrity was a patriotic duty...
....until it was a threat to democracy?
Remember when we were done with bank bailouts....
....until the very next bank failure?
Remember when freedom of speech was a fundamental right...
....until it came to speech you don’t like?
Remember when sanctions and global shunning would crush Russia...
....but they didn’t?
We remember. And more and more people now recognize the depth and breadth of the lies that have been told and are being told to us plebes in order for a small group of elites to tighten and maintain power. The lies and the embedded corruption bankrupting our country and citizenry will soon meet the same fate of similarly corrupt and vapid empires strewn through history.
Remember when “global cooling” was going to kill everyone, but it didn’t.
Remember when “global warming” was going to kill everyone but it didn’t.
Remember when “climate change” was going to kill everyone but it didn’t.
Remember when banning “assault weapons” would reduce crime, but it didn’t.
Remember when the “Inflation Reduction Act” would lower inflation, but it didn’t.
I could dredge up more, but my head is exploding. Think I’ll join the Peasant’s representative and have a glass of wine…