Monday at lunch a gent across the
table asked me, “Didn’t you publish The Cascade
Interpreter?”
“Guilty as
charged!”
He
explained he had bought some old copies at an auction. I howled, “Do you mean
that after I lost all that money, somebody else is making money on it?”
“Well, wasn’t
very much.”
“I don’t
care if it was 5 cents; there are still people who come into the Club and
tell the hostess they don’t want me to wait on them because of The Interp.”
“What did
you say?!”
What I saw: I had spent time in Europe selling
advertising, attending conventions, and observing societies there. Seeing they understood
the true nature of the capitalist beast (as we did not) and had instituted safeguards
against it, (as we had not). In the late
1980s we were saddled with the Savings and Loan crisis, which up to 2004 had cost
the American people $124 billion and according to Bert Ely at the Library of
Economics and Liberty, and may end up costing as much as $160 bill. (http://www.econlib.org/library) Yes,
we are still paying!
But as one
happy capitalist put it, “That paper chapped my ass!”
As one of
my fans put it, “Nothing like a little truth to chap a few asses.”
As Interp editor I cranked a lot at bankers,
shyster developers conning local city councils, farmers for excessive
chemicals, ‘cides, erosion, and at ordinary citizens for excessive TV, sports, obesity
and assorted societal ills. Astonishing, that here we are, having now spent as
much to bail out the banks in the 2008 Mortgage Meltdown, with the provisions
of the Dodd-Frank bill reversed last week, fatter and more polluted than ever.
The Cascade Interpreter was
inaugurated the last week of August 1989, making 2014 its 25th
Anniversary, but since it did not make money, it is a failure. Sad, that even a critical eye has trouble celebrating ordinary
truth as a success.
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