july 3rd 1790

"these yorkers are the vilest of people. their vices have not the palliation of being manly. they resemble bad schoolboys who are unfortunate at play: they revenge themselves by telling notorious thumpers. even the new england men say that (rufus) king's character is detestable...a perfect canvas for the devil to paint on; a groundwork void of every virtue." the journal of william maclay 1789-1791. july 3, 1790. _________________________________________________________________________ rufus king was a senator from massachucetts and one of those "new england men" who kept the tariff bill bogged down in committee after committee so that their "constituents" could profit by charging their "customers" for a tariff they had yet to have to pay...another of thst "nest of vipers" old bill had to serve with and whom he detested so much for their backroom deals and manipulations of public policy for private profit...as the foul slide into the cesspit of the 2012 presidential election gathers unrelenting speed and generates a massive amount of cash for the correctly placed public relations firms and media outlets let's stop to consider that the system isn't broken...its well oiled hamiltonian/hegemonic culture machinery is humming along just as it was meant to...not that the goebbels of his time could foresee the technological gizmos or the finely tuned and byzantine ethical rationalizations that would develop..but he'd surely recognize the spirit of the system as an old, familiar friend it is...swilling from the trough of public policy has deep roots in america...a storied tradition with the likes of roscoe conklin and william howard taft as leading characters...willing to sell out the "voter" at the drop of a five dollar bill much less a greasy paper sack of wilted hundreds...bath house john and hinky dink called it "honest graft"...but they were small-time operators in a chicago ward with a parochial outlookon "honest" that viewed the everleigh sisters as upright and charles tyson yerkes as a role model......i'm inclined to call it a corrupt system run for corrupt ends ...and if joe, barak, hillary, mitt, or that lame assed quitter from alaska don't agree send them around...i'll be happy to give them an anti-federalist tutorial on madison jay and hamilton that would leave the tea party hacks gasping for breath and stampeeding the exits.