...speaking of pitchforks, here's the NY Times:
WASHINGTON - The Obama administration is increasingly concerned about a populist backlash against banks and Wall Street, worried that anger at financial institutions could also end up being directed at Congress and the White House and could complicate President Obama's agenda.Ya think??
Look it's been an wonderful party up in the skyboxes, with the well-connected getting favorable regulation (or lack of regulation) in return for the occasional real estate deal or cottage in Ireland.
I've been beating this drum for a while, and the Democrats and Republicans should be competing to see who can hang their own worst offenders (Jim Moran? John Murtha? Alphonso Jackson? Don Young?). the party that had done that by now would be standing tall on the rubble of their opposition. Instead, both parties (sadly, the GOP slightly less than the Democrats) circled the wagons and defended the Charles Rangels and Jerry Lewises.
So now, the fiscal collapse and crisis in confidence in our institutions is being met by a bunch of cowering apparatchniks who are desperate for one more turn at the giant rice bowl. And when the people do finally lose patience, the problem is that the political class will have done more than enough to justify the collateral damage they will take.
It's not too late. Obama could get up tomorrow and start throwing elbows at Rangel, Jefferson, and Dodd for starters. Few would buy that it's a really moral position, and many would see it as more cynical tossing 'under the bus'.
But it will be better than the alternative.
For all his political skills and his capturing of the nation's desire for change in the 2008 election, Mr. Obama, a product of Harvard Law School who calls upscale Hyde Park in Chicago home, has shown little inclination to strike a more populist tone. The danger, aides said, is that if he were to become identified as an advocate for the banks and Wall Street, people could take out their anger on him.I wonder if he drinks tea.
"The change now is you have a free-floating economic anxiety that has expressed itself in a kind of lashing out at those being bailed out and people who are bailing out," Michael Kazin, a professor at Georgetown University who has written extensively on populism. "There's not really a sense of what the solution is."
"I do think there's a potential for a 'damn everybody in power' kind of sentiment," Mr. Kazin said.
-
That's a petard, not a pitchfork, and Obama is hoist with his own.
Who made corporate bonuses a scapegoat for the crisis? Including some AIG bonuses that the Loot House is now learning cannot be legally denied? Thanks in part to a big fat trillion dollar law that they just passed?
No they shouldn't, and no they wouldn't.
John Murtha demonstrated a winning model based on corruption. He was re-elected handsomely, despite insulting his constituents as racists. The party that acted a bit less like you recommend was comprehensively victorious, as you went on to note, and the party that acted more like you recommend (though still so corrupt it'd make a decent man sick) got crushed. The conscienceless Chicago machine politician became the Messiah, and Mrs. Clean Government from Alaska was pilloried with hysterical, vomiting, head-exploding rage, and lost, along with the crusty old pork-fighter who was her running mate.
The state is corrupt because the people are corrupt. Though some people dislike that corruption, decisive numbers vote for it.
And the (supposed) POTUS advocates breaking the law for political expediency (AIG bonuses not being paid). Turns out that ALL the players knew what was there and are now running around trying to find someone to blame.
So, who manages the Congresscritters pension funds, now?
Why the CiC of the US even got a dog in this fight? Shouldn't one of his minions be doing the heavy lifting?
Strange days we live in.
David, I agree with your corruption take down, just want to emphasize that it seems to be a general understanding between both parties. Both parties declare corruption from 'the majority party', but really, they're all dipping their pens in the same ink.
I always hoped there would be a corruption 'tipping point', where a congressional rebellion from one party would lead to reform. I'm starting to realize that will never happen, because those people are removed before they ever earn that kind of power (or because the laws are written with just enough loopholes to make them meaningless).
I'm not sure what kind of recourse we have in this.
While living in China, I learned that corruption is ultimately a mismatch between the formal structure of the government and the actual needs of daily life. The problem is that reforming the formal structure is far harder than simply ignoring it or bypassing it.
You're seeing a ton of both in the US now, especially here in California where much of the retail economy has gone underground to avoid taxes and regulation.
Alchemist, what you say is right.
I keep using the phrase "the late, unlamented federal Republican legislative majority" because no matter how bad the Democrats are the cap still fits.
Nothing they did offended me more than that they sheltered the obviously corrupt Democrat Congressman William Jefferson from the law.
Morality and public duty cried out for that crook to pay the penalty of his crimes.
Partisan advantage, pleasing the base and doing what is popular all pointed to letting him take the fall he earned.
Guild loyalty, with the corrupt standing up together because they are all crooks and that gives them a common interest, said shelter him.
After they showed what their highest value is I hated them, and I think other people should despise them too.
I don't know what recourse there is against this.
Seeing Edward Liddy trying to defend himself against Frank and co reminded me of the scene in Casino where De Niro has his license summarily revoked by the group of political hacks that he's been bribing for years and he chases them down the hall in front of the reporters reminding them of all the comps and bribes he's been showering on them.
Or rather i wish he'd had the guts to do it. The answer to why none of the fat cats have struck back with the truth is the same reaction the mobsters back home had in the movie: "what's he doing embarrassing our friends?"