Just seven words.
These particular seven words are perfectly acceptable for family consumption and conform to all broadcast standards.
Oh, by the way, "helpers", those last three words there, "all broadcast standards" are an oxymoronic punchline all by themselves these days.
Meanwhile, back to Bernie...
The post-Iowa skirmishes between the Bern and the Hill (she really needs a cool nickname, don't you think?) didn't result in any revelations from the Vermont senator, nothing headline making, earth shaking or even particularly new to those who have been paying any attention for the last few months.
What we/you saw/see when it comes to Bernie Sanders, or Hillary, for that matter, is pretty much what you/we get.
He is, obviously, a man with an agenda, several, many, in fact, but there's nothing to indicate that he has any agenda(s) hidden away, to be sprung on us in some kind of after inauguration "ah-HA!" moment of revealed treachery and/or deception.
Somehow, I get the feeling that "executive order" isn't a button a guy like Bern is likely to even have in the office, let alone right there on the desk, next to the phone and pencil cup and pictures of the family.
Whatever else he is, or isn't, Bernie Sanders has not been, because he really can't be, accused of being anything other than a straight shooter.
Whether or not you like his rootin tootin style, his brand of bullets or the targets at which he is aiming.
Speaking of...
The head of Goldman Sachs said on Wednesday that Bernie Sanders' insurgent candidacy "has the potential to be a dangerous moment."
Lloyd Blankfein, who is chairman and CEO of the bank, was speaking to CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
“I don’t take it personally since we never met," Blankfein responded.
But he added that Sanders' attacks on the "billionaire class" and bankers could be dangerous.
“It has the potential to personalize it, it has the potential to be a dangerous moment. Not just for Wall Street not just for the people who are particularly targeted but for anybody who is a little bit out of line,” Blankfein said. “It’s a liability to say I’m going to compromise I’m going to get one millimeter off the extreme position I have and if you do you have to back track and swear to people that you’ll never compromise. It’s just incredible. It’s a moment in history.”
Old definition.
Mixed feelings is seeing your ex-wife drive off a cliff...in your brand new Ferrari.
New definition.
Mixed feelings is hearing that bankers and billionaires are feeling threatened.
Actually, no, you know what?
Scratch that.
There's no mixed feelings there at all.
I feel pretty confident that nobody actually reading this piece is feeling at all upset by the idea.
Because I feel equally confident that the readership demographic of my work is very, very lean on bankers and billionaires.
As for the rest of us?
Dollars to day old doughnuts (staying within our budgets, don't you see) that we're all, at least, a little jazzed by the idea of the fat cats feeling a little less imperial these days.
Yeah.
That's right.
Let them eat cake.
And it's more than a little fun that Mr. Goldman Sachs CEO Blankfein seems to be unaware that he is validating our paltry peasant perspective that the uber rich folk really, really are out of touch with life down here on planet middle class by actually allowing into print his fears that Mr. Sanders' candidacy represents a threat to them.
Them, of course, being the uber rich folk.
Because Bernie wants to take a lot of their money and just give it away to the riff raff living down here on planet middle class.
Uh, excuse me...Mr. Goldman Sachs CEO Blankfein?....uh....calm down a little, dude. It's gonna be okay.
Bernie Sanders ain't Robin Hood.
And you guys ain't the evil Prince John and his partner in crime, the sinister Guy of Gisbourne.
Oh, you're evil and sinister and shit, but the leotard look?
You could never pull it off, man.
And Bernie isn't talking about stealing from you to give to the poor.
Or as they're more commonly known, everybody who doesn't belong to your country club.
He's simply, and folksy-ishly, talking about working to change a country that is currently owned, and operated, by a few very, very, very....very wealthy people into a country that is owned and run by that most magical of heretofore mythical groups.....
"we, the people."
Yeah, okay. So the ice cube has a better chance in hell.
Because you guys can be pretty mean when riff raff dares to knock on the door of your country club and ask for a tee time.
Or an application.
Or, God forbid, a crust of bread.
And purchasing power means the ability to purchase lots of power.
And lots of power enables people to do lots of things mere mortals could never do.
Two words.
Jimmy Hoffa.
But I digress.
While you and your ebony black American Express card qualified Decepticons may be feeling a little quivery at the idea that Bernie will show up at your monogrammed vaults and load up sacks of your greenbacks to dole out to the rabble, there are some of us who have neither a fear of the rumored looting (because even if it went down, we ain't got nothin' he'd want to loot, anyway) nor any excited anticipation that our lives are about to do a 180, thanks to the arrival of truck loads of the aforementioned captured currency in our tidy, but admittedly tiny, middle class, suburban driveways.
Some of us understand that it's not going to happen.
First, because we simply don't think that what Bernie Sanders is saying translates into a warning of the impending arrival of any neo-Robin Hood.
Second, because we do think that all he is saying is that it's time to try and put a stop to half a dozen people owning America and their thinking of the other 318, 899, 994 (at this writing) citizens of the United States as tenants who should be grateful for the space they've been granted in a really, really big ass rental property.
Third, though, it's totally understandable why you would want to never want to see Bernie anywhere near a headset calling the plays.
Government by oligarchy is never, ever...ever to be found on a level playing field.
Again, though, all you Richie Riches of the U.S. of A., not to worry.
Your monopoly is safer than money in a mattress.
Bernie will never get anywhere near Boardwalk or Park Place.
And there's no need to worry about all those other terrifyingly "radical" ideas/plans of his.
Like an educational system that welcomes new graduates into the world, and work force, unburdened by an obscene debt that will take them more than the rest of their working life to settle.
Like a heath care system that actually offers health care at a fair and reasonable cost.
Like the literal elimination of wasteful government spending (a delightfully redundant phrase) and the implementation of sensible spending on programs and opportunities and infrastructure, et al.
And that's just the top three on the Bernie Sanders hit list.
Fair play?
Reasonable and sensible spending?
Debt free education and care of our nation's health?
Seriously, what is up with this guy?
Is he Cuh-raaaaazy?
This is America.
The land of the free and the home of the brave.
Well, one out of two ain't bad.
The nation where, as folk hero Gordon Gekko so eloquently offered some years ago, "greed...for lack of a better word...is good..."
But even if greed and avarice and sloth (oh, my) were to evaporate over night, there would still be, insuring that somebody well intended but, obviously, deluded like Bernie, a fail safe that would prevent any common sense, good judgement, fair play or reasonable methodology to find its way into the American mainstream of operation.
Seven words.
The seven words that have resulting in management in almost every professional field since the beginning of time digging in heels to prevent any change or variation from the "manual" regardless of how much sense any change or adjustment might obviously make.
The seven words that are to experimentation and/or innovation like Kryptonite is to the Man of Steel.
The seven words that will be hauled out, doled out, spewed out and/or fast drawn from the head honcho holster to bring down any upstart, impertinent attempt to make things better than they are.
All Bernie Sanders is really talking about is getting rid of waste and implementing balance.
Shutting down old and inefficient ways of doing things and implementing new and efficient ways of doing things.
Eliminating failed methods and instituting potentially successful methods.
But it ain't gonna happen.
And I don't know about naming that tune in seven notes, but I can sure sum up why Bernie's quest is valiant but in vain in seven words,
"We've never done it that way before."
Which, automatically and inevitably, activates the go switch on another written in stone American axiom.
The more things change....
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