(© Skip Williamson; ZAP Comix, 1968)
New York Magazine online presented a major piece on Little Bernie Madoff, who (along with The Wall Street Boyz, thousands of Real Estate loan brokers, and Little Jack Abramoff) are the Poster Children of our times -- the Gonif Generation, where not even prison humbles our Masters Of The Universe. They still feel such pride for their, uh, 'achievements'.
But that evening an inmate badgered Madoff about the victims of his $65 billion scheme, and kept at it. According to K. C. White, a bank robber and prison artist ... Madoff stopped smiling and got angry. “F--- my victims,” he said, loud enough for other inmates to hear. “I carried them for twenty years, and now I’m doing 150...”
For Bernie Madoff, living a lie had once been a full-time job, which carried with it a constant, nagging anxiety. “It was a nightmare for me,” he told investigators, using the word over and over, as if he were the real victim. “I wish they caught me six years ago, eight years ago,” he said in a little-noticed interview with them.
Notice that Little Bernie, a textbook sociopath, doesn't show a shred of remorse for what he's done, any real grasp of the twenty years in which he did it, or any empathy with those he harmed. He doesn't actually conceive that he's done anything wrong. It's all about his feelings, his nightmare... "as if he were the real victim."
And in our politics, our business and finance, there are so many like him -- their attitudes unrepentant, their behavior calculating and unjustifiable. And, they're still firmly in control.
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