The Make a Pass Foundation

With more and more Americans on the ropes and worse to come, as the baby-boomers retire in increasing numbers and Republicans salivate over their social security funds, the points of light are finally kicking in, with echoes of the feeble efforts of Methodists and others in Victorian London. Bah. Humbug. There's the Take a Piss Foundation, for Republicans of a certain temperament.

And Say a Little Prayer, for those of a religious disposition. The most popular has turned out to be Make a Pass, no doubt due to the American love of sports and betting. Mind you, none of these are funded in an ongoing way, but are modeled on lotteries and are educational, helping people to see that they are in trouble because they are unworthy and because God hates them.

No matter what some people seem to think it says in the Bible, about the rich and the poor. Make a Pass is a betting operation, the idea being that, once you see clearly you are going to fail, a "Hail, Mary," as they call it, is not only a good idea but the best option. You can't go negatively bust. Bankrupt by $100,000 is the same as bankrupt by $10,000, so it makes sense to gamble.

Though it is said Republicans will tip you if you find their monogrammed golf balls three fairways over from the hole they were supposed to be on, if you want to try that in order to stay solvent. Ball boy! The secretive umbrella group over all of these is the Ronnie and Nancy Reagan Foundation for Keeping Gov'ment Off Our Backs, technically a think tank.

Republicans love think tanks. There are social subgroups within the organization, Tee Me Up and Tea Me Up, for men and women respectively. This is where the hard work and heavy lifting of privilege occurs. There is no real hard work, of course. That's the point of privilege, but justifications must be maintained for the extraordinary perversity of the entire system.