taboo truths for humanity: Those Who Serve (The Ruling Class) At the Top Get Their Reward

The way ex-Presidents of the U.S. see it, they who served the class interests of multimillionaire and billionaire corporate bosses and parasitic speculators deserve to be multimillionaires themselves. They sacrificed by going into “public service,” having to scrape by on six figure salaries year after year and free taxpayer-paid-for health care (and not that crappy Medicaid or Medicare either), and guaranteed pensions, and paid-for staff they can (illegally) use for personal errands and reelection campaign work on the side. Why, maybe they could have made hundreds of millions in “the private sector”!

Let’s hear a couple of them telling us how rough they had it. Here’s Bill Clinton, the mass murderer of Haiti, Rwanda, Sudan, and Waco, Texas, on the hardship he endured:

"I never had any money until I got out of the White House, you know, but I've done reasonably well since then." He never had ANY money his WHOLE LIFE until AFTER he was president. All those years spent in homeless shelters...it must have been tough. His wife also claims they were “dead broke” after “serving the nation,” as the cliche goes, for 8 years in Washington. (I sure hope they didn’t have to go on welfare, after Clinton gutted it.) [1]

Here’s a bit of what Clinton means by “I’ve done reasonably well since then:” $65 million just in speaking fees from 2001 to 2009. (Now the total is over $100 million.) Then there’s book income and etc. Oh, plus there’s hundreds of millions he’s raised for his “foundation,” which also supports him in his various vague endeavors and pays for his staff of lackeys and bag carriers. (Free bodyguards for life courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer. The Secret Service does that. And his pensions from being president and from being governor of Arkansas- pocket change for a guy like him these days, but maybe just enough to keep him from having to sleep on park benches if he falls on hard times again. His wife is pulling in big bucks too. Maybe she can give him an allowance, if he’ll stop sleeping around.)

George W. Bush is another guy who sacrificed big time for us to be our (elected by stealing elections) president. Discussing his post-presidential plans, Bush described his urgent priority to “replenish the ol’ coffers.” With a reported net worth of a paltry $6.5 to $20 million* by the time he was done saving the nation from terrorists, Bush barely had two nickels to rub together. Fortunately the gentlemen who are the audiences on the corporate oligarchy rubber chicken circuit (more like a filet mignon circuit) have big hearts and are willing to cough up six figure “honoraria” to hear Bush stumble his way through his banal, canned speeches. As of Spring 2011, Bush managed to add a little something to his coffers; $15 million from speeches, plus his book deal, plus whatever secret Bush family schemes hidden in the background with the Saudis and rich Texans and whoever else. It’s not much, but at least it keeps the wolf from the door.

You must understand, presidents are forced to pay zero rent to live in the White House. They only get a six figure salary, and free health care for themselves and their families, and all-expenses-paid travel and lodgings, and paid-for staff. It gets mighty expensive living for free, so one can see how Bush’s coffers were drained by his eight years of sacrifice for us. YOU try living an all-expenses-paid existence some time! It’s harder than it sounds! (Well, maybe it isn’t, but don’t think about that. You’re not supposed to think about such things. Just drink the propaganda Kool-Aid.)

In a heartwarming development, Bush and Clinton have taken to doing speeches (for money, of course) together, sort of a politicians-cashing-in-together duet novelty act. Apparently their shared sacrifice created a bond, like men who have been in combat together. We should all be inspired by their example.

*U.S. financial disclosure forms required by law mandate very broad ranges only, to avoid, I don’t know, embarrassing our rich overlords? Violating their privacy? (They sure have no respect for OUR privacy.)

1] Hillary did manage to eke out a living after laying down her heavy burden of being “First Lady,” a “job” with no actual identifiable duties, running for president herself, and being Secretary of State in the regime of Barack “I’m Pretty Good At Killing” Obama, scraping together $5 million in “speaking fees” and a book “advance” (non-refundable to the publisher, a special privilege political poohbahs get, unlike ordinary writers who have to pay back whatever part of their advances they don’t earn back in royalties from sales) of $14 million. It was calculated that Simon & Schuster would need to sell the book for $70 a pop to recoup that. Obviously it’s really a bribe or payoff of some kind, for past or future favors. I’m talking about this year’s book deal. She had another book deal with S & S in 2000 for an $8 million advance. Hopefully that alleviated her dead brokeness.

S & S is owned by media conglomerate CBS, which is controlled by billionaire Sumner Wellstone, who also controls Viacom, another media goliath.

But then, why should poohbahs have to pay back their advances like ordinary writers? It’s not as if they actually write “their” books, anyway. [“Hillary Clinton: ‘We Came Out Of The White House Dead Broke.’” Of course, Diane Sawyer, who asked Hillary C. about this, is one to talk. Just once, I’d like to hear someone ask these multimillion-dollar-a-year TV teleprompter/script-reading propagandists about their incomes.]