The Economic Double Standard

by: David Sirota

Mon Mar 23, 2009 at 11:00

We all know that despite the rhetoric that fills our political debate, there are two standards in this country: The standard for the very wealthy, and the standard for the Rest of Us. That's nothing new - but what is new is how obvious it has become. As I document in my syndicated newspaper column this week, there's no effort to hide the double standard anymore.

The discussion about the sanctity of contracts really shoved the double standard right up in our grill. The government at once insists it had zero power to revise contracts at a company it owns (AIG) while asserting almost total power to revise contracts at companies it merely lends to (GM and Chrysler). Then, in a reversal, the government insists it has total power to renegotiate mortgages for vacation homes that the super-rich own, but zero power to renegotiate mortgages for primary residences that the Rest of Us own.

I guess the good news is that in becoming so overtly hypocritical, the government is educating the public in a more effective way than ever before. Whereas there used to be the pretense of "fairness" and "equal protection under the law," those platitudes are being debunked by very clear, very easy to understand actions. And that's where the populist anger is now coming from - America is finally awakening to the fact that this is not a democracy, it's a kleptocracy.

Some say realization is "dangerous" - but that's the same thing the Establishment was saying when the country demanded transformative change from the Roosevelt administration. Indeed, the term "dangerous" is an epithet routinely thrown around by the staunchest defenders of the status quo. What this moment really is, IMHO, is a huge opportunity - and if progressives shirk that opportunity and use it for our positive agenda, you can bet conservatives will seize it and use it for their negative one.

Read the whole column here.

The column relies on grassroots support - and because of that support, it is getting wider and wider circulation (a big thank you to all who have helped with that). So if you'd like to see my column regularly in your local paper, use this directory to find the contact info for your local editorial page editors. Get get in touch with them and point them to my Creators Syndicate site. Thanks, as always, for your ongoing readership and help contacting local editors. This column couldn't be what it is without your help.

David Sirota :: The Economic Double Standard

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The Economic Double Standard | 5 comments

Bingo! (4.00 / 1)

I guess the good news is that in becoming so overtly hypocritical, the government is educating the public in a more effective way than ever before.

This is really the most significant thing going on right now. Most people have always been aware of this at some level, but now this is being shoved in their faces 24/7.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

by: Paul Rosenberg @ Mon Mar 23, 2009 at 10:14:07 AM CDT

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It CAN be dangerous (4.00 / 3)

If the public perceives that it's liberal Democrats putting the screws to them -- and the current administration, which is regarded as "liberal Democrat" by most regular non-blog-readers, is doing very little to disabuse the public of that perception -- then you've got fertile ground for right-wing populism. So far we've lucked out that the right doesn't really have any effective leaders to speak of, but if they come up with one... well, I'm not sanguine about the consequences.

It would be MUCH easier for progressives to seize the moment if our nominal leaders weren't spending so much time pulling out the rug under us...

"We judge ourselves by our ideals; others by their actions. It is a great convenience." -- Howard Zinn

by: Master Jack @ Mon Mar 23, 2009 at 10:29:04 AM CDT

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what if people are so disgusted by both democrats (0.00 / 0)

and republicans they decide to break the two party system open
altogether? would that be bad? could that mean we might see a candidate who has a different view on:

fisa
war/military budget
constitutional integrity/executive power
israel/palestine
congressional/corporate collusion
civil liberties

because in the super wide spectrum of ideologies of the senate
i hear the same things again and again.

by: M.B.S.S. @ Tue Mar 24, 2009 at 01:09:45 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

This is basically the "Two Americas" of Edwards that comes (4.00 / 2)

from the ideas of Martin Luther King, Jr. and goes back to Thomas Paine. This is revolutionary stuff not modest progressive reforming of this failed system. King in his "Where do we go from here" speech said that "communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets life is social". King called not for communism or capitalism but a synthesis from the two.

The Democratic Party no longer represents the other America which is most of us. It represents Goldman Sachs. The final meltdown is being overseen by the corporatocracy that has their money offshore.

It is an oligarchy and "managed democracy". It is smiley faced fascism or repackaged feudalism. It will doom this shell of a Democratic Party. The right wing populists are waiting in the wings with their law and order meme ready to go. It worked for Nixon.

If we don't have a new coalition of real lefties,labor folks, libertarians, future of food types and rising lefties of Latin American, then hello to the in-your-face fascists.

Naomi Klein reminds us that Milton Friedman said that "only a crisis...produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around."

We have got to get our ideas that are lying around in the cellar back into the light of day. But it will take us joining some sort of local and state uprisings. All I can do is write a weekly letter to the editor in our weekly newspaper (I did one this week on top marginal tax rates) to educate neighbors to the propaganda they've been getting. We can take some of our ranch and open it up to more local food production.
And maybe encourage somebody to start a community credit union.

I'm grasping at straws here. But I did hear the Edwards' message back in 2003 and it resonated with me. There are clearly Two Americans and "the game is rigged". Time to "reward work over wealth".

by: FeralCat @ Mon Mar 23, 2009 at 12:20:17 PM CDT

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Yeah (0.00 / 0)

What makes wealthy people so greedy?

Is it,because they have no heart or they do not care about anything,but the money they make?
I never can't understand how you can have no heart at all.
I know someone who is wealthy comes to my family's house just so he can eat for free and get what he wants and my family like the guy and i am sick of the guy.My mom asked me to make a copy of CD so i did and when i have asked the guy to give me just a dollar he said "O no thanks!" Come on now it's just a dollar what's up with this? provillus

by: checker @ Tue Mar 24, 2009 at 14:42:27 PM CDT

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