Notes Regarding the Feasibility of a Minor Revolution, Part 2: Embrace the Leap:
Ask any man you know who recently decided to finally come out of the closet. There's such agony in denying what you know is true, that your marriage is a sham, that your desire for a male asscozy for your cock is making you ache with desire, but you can't, alas, you just can't betray the life you've lived for so very long. Sometimes, you have to know when to leap, when to go beyond the psychological roadblocks that hinder you time and again, and you just gotta be able to seize the moment and take that leap and discover the wonders that lie over the chasm. Maybe your wife leaves you. Maybe your best friend reveals he's gay. And then you can't look over the edge. You just have to see the welcoming arms of some hung Tom of Finland pantsless biker dude awaiting you on the other side.

President Barack Obama has been handed a golden opportunity in the convergence of catastrophes that have happened on his watch. Goldman Sachs, Massey Energy, and BP have all demonstrated that the deregulation chickens have come home to roost and to shit in our nests. And here's the kick in the taint: chances are that they were all acting within the law. Even the most flagrant of the trio, Massey, used the appeals process set up on safety violations to delay and delay taking the necessary measures and paying the goddamn fines so that lives might have been saved. It was all legal, man. Let's not even get into the clusterfuck of loopholes and rules and sub-rules and what-the-fuck-ever allowed Goldman Sachs to make money by dicking over its investors and laundering the cash through a third party.

And BP? Those fuckers (and the oil rig operator, Transocean) benefited like corrupt cops at a whorehouse in the way they abused the ludicrous, worthless self-regulation system. Does the phrase "police themselves" actually have any meaning? Because, see, if the Rude Pundit were to police himself, he'd say, "Well, gee, RP, as long as you only have just a little pot, coke, and ecstasy on hand and the goat you sacrificed for the blood orgy didn't suffer much, we can overlook it all. Don't kill any people, and we're good."

Now we're learning that, because of the criminal-favoring damages-cap on lawsuits, BP may only be on the hook for $75 million in economic losses for the entire Gulf region. That's like the budget for CEO Tony Hayward's ball-waxing. Oh, no, an entire fishing industry, tourism, and marshes will be destroyed, but at least Hayward will have to live with a hairy scrotum.

Last week, the Rude Pundit posited that Americans need to have someone to hate. You can say, "Scapegoat," but that seems way too mild for the frighteningly visceral extremes in which our populace indulges its feelings towards politicians, immigrants, and So You Think You Can Dance? contestants. So we on the left need to re-direct that potent energy of the masses towards the most obvious target: corporate entities that operate without care about people, the environment, or the nation. Seems easy? No, fuck you. It's not.

Don't put on your Mao jacket yet, for there's a catch. There's always a catch, no? It has to be done in a way that can't be labeled as "socialist" or whatever word people wanna misuse these days. The method is simple, and you have to suck it up, comrades: there has to be a case for good capitalism versus bad capitalism.

What is that, you ask? And how does this involve the President? That, of course, shall be discussed in Part 3.