Prayer to Lord Ganesha

Ganesha, the elephant-headed god of the Hindus, is regarded in India as the remover of obstacles. That's why I have a statuette of him on my dashboard, where other people have a plastic Virgin Mary.

Today I'm praying to Ganesha to remove our most threatening obstacle to recovering from the mess we're in -- the American ruling class.

It looks like Obama is on board with this too, finally.

Joining a wave of public anger, President Barack Obama blistered insurance giant AIG for "recklessness and greed" Monday and pledged to try to block it from handing its executives $165 million in bonuses after taking billions in federal bailout money.

"How do they justify this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat?" Obama asked. "This isn't just a matter of dollars and cents. It's about our fundamental values."

The CEO of AIG says he HAS to pay the bonuses, because he has a contractual obligation to do so.

In a letter to Geithner over the weekend, the government-appointed chief executive of AIG, Edward Liddy, said the bonuses were legally binding obligations and the firm's "hands are tied." (Emphasis is mine.)

It isn't just Obama and the Democrats who are going ballistic over this. Conservative Republicans expressing the same kind of outrage include Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell called the bonuses "appalling" and said he hoped "the administration gets the message from the taxpayers on this issue."

Oh, the administration gets the message, all right. Not just the message from taxapayers, but the message from AIG. It's a little unclear, but I think AIG's message is, "If you don't let us pay these bonuses, we'll pull the strings on our suicide bomber belts. And then your whole economy will die a horrible death. Bwah-hah-hah-hah." Read this, and tell me if that's what it sounds like to you.

For 60 years the American government, no matter which party has been in charge, has been functioning as a bunch of water boys and gophers for the ruling class.

By "ruling class," I mean the people who charge you upwards of 20 percent interest on your credit card when you're forced to go into deep debt to meet a medical emergency, and pay you one-tenth of one percent on your savings when you're flush. And then they add insult to injury by adverstising at us. And divvying up our bailout money which we gave them out of the goodness of Little Timmy Geithner's so-called heart, as million-dollar bonuses.

Since when is a bankrupt and insolvent company obliged to honor its contractual obligations? When it's still got one sucker hooked, is the answer, as long as it's a real big sucker.

We've bought their credit cards and their SUV's and their wars. And now it's time to take and stand and eliminate them. And I DON'T mean "eliminate," as in "kill." I mean eliminate as in "Don't let the door hit you where...etc."

Lord Ganesha, I pray that you remove these pestiferous obstacles, and eradicate these pimples on the butt of progress.