Airing of Grievances

Today is officially Festivus, the holiday for the rest of us. If you need some background on this faux-holiday, check out my Festivus post or read the Wikipedia entry.

Time for my airing of grievances. I have a lot of problems with you people.

• Republicans, who put forth a sorry effort in the 2008 election, falling back on the politics of smear while nominating for vice-president an unqualified right-wing religious zealot as a way to capture the PUMA vote.
• CEOs and corporate boards who abdicated their responsibilities to employees, shareholders, and customers by greedily turning their decisioning matrix into a single-channeled spigot spewing ludicrous executive compensation packages as their companies tanked.
• Everyone who approved the TARP funding package that's allowed poorly run banks and investments houses to rake in oodles of cash with no oversight, which means that a percentage of my taxes, for the rest of my life, will slowly be poured down the resultant black hole.
• Anti-gay marriage supporters, for failing to live up to the basic tenet of human equality in their quest to restrict the ability of committed adults to form recognized relationships. When these folks can tell me at what point in their development they chose to be straight and have feelings only for members of the opposite gender and begin to punish adultery, I'll have a better understanding of how my gay friends chose to be gay and began their grail to destroy traditional families.
• General Motors and Chrysler, who made and sold shitty cars for thirty years and now expects me to give them money since they couldn't get me to buy their products. I'll give you my money when you give back all the salary and bonus money you've made.
• Dick Cheney, for his single-handed rape of the Constitution and for commanding the charge of neo-conservatists who brought us torture, Iraq, Abu Ghraib, Katrina, the US Attorney scandal, Blackwater, energy task forces, financial tumult, world scorn, and essentially most things that are wrong in the world today.
• Eliot Spitzer and John Edwards for allowing their peckers to taint all of the good works they have performed and for virtually guaranteeing that they will never make the kind of difference in the world that they could have if they would have thought with the big head instead of the little head.
• George W. Bush for his feckless leadership and blinded world vision.
• The FDA and corporate farming conglomerates for serving us salmonella-tainted tomatoes and peppers, listeria-traced deli meats, and e-coli burgers for the main course.
• The Federal government and corporate lobbyists for continuing to ensure that desperately-needed healthcare reform takes a back seat to profit, because anyone can suffer an early, painful death, but only a select few deserve big houses and golden parachutes.
• Traditional media for their incestuous relationship with the subjects they are paid to cover, for failing to speak truth to power, and for their obvious futile effort to ride their outdated business model like a dinosaur into the sunset.
• The American people, for their continued addiction to foreign oil and blatant unwillingness to sacrifice even a little bit to develop alternate energy sources and efficient vehicles.
• Microsoft, for roughly 5% of my blog postings concerning their vulnerabilities, clunky overpriced software, and core integration of their insecure browser into their base operating systems.

There are more, but this is a good start. Please chime in with grievances of your own via comments.