this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2024
34 points (90.5% liked)

Showerthoughts

28533 readers
487 users here now

A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.

Rules

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
vatlark@lemmy.world
forkball@lemmy.world
quinten@lemmy.world
Thekingoflorda@lemmy.world
34
Joseph Heller tried to warn us of MBA's when he wrote the character Milo Minderbinder (lemmy.world)
submitted 3 months ago by ThrowawaySobriquet@lemmy.world to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
2 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Everything is for the good of the enterprise, even if you have to bomb your own camp

top 2 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[โ€“] yesman@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The part that stuck with me was how Minderbinder was a patriot. He didn't see any conflict between profiteering and being a loyal American. Even when that meant plain treason.

Contrast this with Harry Truman. A lawmaker who made his name investigating "war profiteering". Truman became a Senator because he had the backing of the notoriously corrupt Missouri political machine headed by the boss Pendergast. Truman was nicknamed "the Senator from Pendergast".

Truman himself wasn't corrupt. But he was a poor businessman, and maybe that makes him the least American of all.

[โ€“] ThrowawaySobriquet@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

I'd add the fact he was let off the hook due to his enormous profits. He beat the treason charges by having an objective measure of how very American he was. This was, of course, a fiction as usually these guys have to pay a fine, some small fraction of whatever was gained. They sometimes even get fingers wagged at them, I hear