Both
are scavengers and both of species to which I cannot relate. While my
father instilled in me a firm commitment to keep my mind open about
everything for as long as possible especially when dealing with
people, however unpleasant they may at first seem, I find vultures
and similar venues of the same in the form of Bain Capital and Mitt
Romney interesting but repulsive.
Vultures
have their special niche in the animal kingdom. They are the vacuum
cleaners
from the sky that remove rank messes, and the health of many others
depend upon the performance of
their
gory duty of ripping up and devouring a carcass so as to
fertilize
fields far and wide. Without the vulture's undertaking, protozoa and
bacteria would reign and disease run rampant. Their tasks seem foul
and ugly to us; as strange and weird as that of a distant culture of
cannibals.
My
revulsion does not spring from hate. I understand that all creatures
great and small have a place in the grand scheme of cycle of life. I
wouldn't presume to attempt a reordering of the duties of this or
that creature or
to circumscribe its behavior to suit my tastes. In a sense, “It is
the best of all wild kingdoms.” But still, I gag when I think of
the almost machine like process followed during the disassembling of
weakened assets (businesses), and the spreading of those to farther
ventures.
While
the gory work of redistributing capital it ugly, it has made other
businesses strong. But the mere workers who had affectionately (or
foolishly) attached themselves to the now disassembled workplace,
have been left with nothing more than a sharp slap to the face. The
bottom-line had lined them out, and their homing ground, was no more
than a capital asset to be
broken
up, devoured, and shat out
so that others might make their balance-sheet more robust. The
groundlings discovered they were not assets. Rather, they were
liabilities to be set
free to ply their trades elsewhere, that their salt too might
fertilize the fields of commerce. The young marketed their skills,
others slipped sideways to a similar job, too many caught unprepared
with neither skills nor energy nor spirit slipped down the economic
scale. It has happened before, it will happen again and again, as
industries grow, mature and die. Those who believe themselves so wise
and clever to have chosen their careers so well may soon discover
that they were simply born in the right place, at the right time, and
of the correct milieu. In short order they too will be
harvested
by Mitt and friends.
I
harbor no ill will toward either Mitt Romney or his kite namesake, as
I believe we need such scavengers. Having accepted their existence as
a necessary evil, I still feel no urge to embrace a vulture.
