Web Commonerpolitics, social commentary, and ramblings on pop culture

While young people took to the streets of London and beyond this week, politicians and the news media appeared blind to the irony that the rhetoric chosen to describe the events seemed reserved only for the young class of criminals looting shops and not for the thugs at the top of the food chain looting the world’s currency.

Speaking to the House of Commons, Prime Minister, David Cameron said, “Responsibility for crime always lies with the criminal, but crime has a context, and we must not shy away from it. I have said before that there is a major problem in our society with children growing up not knowing the difference between right and wrong.”

Since the global economy’s near collapse several years ago, corrupt bankers, politicians, police authorities, media owners, and other establishment officials have been prioritizing wrong over right, demonstrating consistently bad and mindless behavior. There should be little surprise when young people, with little hope for the future, pray on the vulnerability of others, especially given the example set by those who, conveniently out of CCTV range, hold the reigns of power.

“The potential consequences of neglect and immorality on this scale have been clear for too long, without enough action being taken,” said Mr. Cameron. “To the law abiding people who play by the rules,” he continued, “and who are the overwhelming majority in our country, I say the fightback has begun. We will protect you. If you’ve had your livelihood and property damaged, we will compensate you. We are on your side.”

To date, of course, very few corporate criminals have been brought to justice or even taken responsibility for their roles in the global economic disaster, and their victims continue to lose their homes and livelihoods. In fact, most of them continue to reap the financial benefits of their actions in the form of tax giveaways and corporate bonuses while government cutbacks take their toll on the poor and less privileged.

Acting with little difference between themselves and the people that they like to label as “mindless criminals” and “thugs,” a small minority of increasingly wealthy individuals, who often looted their way to the top by taking from others, create the conditions that lead to such strife in the streets. “It is criminality pure and simple,” as the Prime Minister put it, “and there is absolutely no excuse for it.”

As homes and buildings burned, merchandise vanished, and livelihoods changed, too many people were quick to point out the criminal nature of youths rioting on the streets of London while ignoring the criminality of people who set the socioeconomic order in the first place. Fortunately, we have politicians like David Cameron to filter through the noise, find the “criminals,” and make empty promises to ensure that “they” get what’s coming to them!

“And to the lawless minority, the criminals who’ve taken what they can get, I say this: We will track you down, we will find you, we will charge you, we will punish you. You will pay for what you’ve done.”

Riot Noise

The first Matt Damon tongue lashing that I had the pleasure of witnessing came nearly three years ago when John McCain first introduced Sarah Palin to the world. In a heavily circulated interview on the Internet, Damon accurately described the absurdity of the media circus surrounding Palin’s nomination for Vice President, comparing it to a “really bad Disney movie,” and indirectly submitting an unofficial script proposal for a spectacularly horrible straight-to-DVD movie featuring the folksy hockey mom. My personal favorite swipe, though, was Damon’s desperate and rather simple plea to the media, asking that somebody, anybody, find out if she, “really thinks dinosaurs were here 4,000 years ago.”

Fast forward to 2011, when the country is no longer threatened by the prospect of a Palin presidency but continues to deal with the toxic Tea Party movement that she helped shape during the 2008 campaign. This time, Damon is forced to contemplate the absurdity of those who argue in favor of continued tax cuts for American millionaires and billionaires while military, domestic, and entitlement spending gets slashed. Interviewed in Washington DC at the Save Our Schools march protesting education policy, Damon laid into the conservative mindset that increased taxes on the ridiculously wealthy is a bad idea.

Lest we forget, Matt Damon is an actor, and nobody should assume that he spends his days scouring the Internet or news networks in search of truth. Still, you don’t have to be a politico or newshound to know how much the Bush tax cuts, which have been in place for ten years, have benefited the upper class and sacrificed everyone else. Indeed, you only need to be poor, out of a job, or incredibly rich with a conscience, like Damon.

His observations, while well-intentioned, are not completely accurate because there was a time in the last century when the wealthy paid exorbitant amounts in taxes. Throughout the last thirty years, the top tax rate rested between 28% and 35%. Before the presidency of Ronald Reagan, though, the wealthy paid nearly double that amount under numerous Republican and Democratic presidents. Given this historical context, Damon’s argument that, “so little is asked of people who are getting so much,” could not be more accurate concerning today’s rich. According to the IRS, tax payers making more than $33,000 annually are expected to pay nearly 100% in income tax while those making more than half a million dollars pay nearly 60% less.

Finally, as Damon notes, there is no reason to believe that the wealthy are so-called, “job creators.” One only has to examine the total number of jobs created under the Bush administration to know that.

Listening to Robert Reich converse with Bill Moyers on his show recently about the prospect of a public health care option, it suddenly dawned on me that this might actually be what saves American capitalism. After witnessing Wall Street crumble before our very eyes and the banks peel back decades of corruption, unjustified speculation, and unethical lending practices, nobody seems to doubt that the very idea of capitalism took a low blow to the gut last year. It seems to invite a direct comparison to the disastrous policies of the Bush administration, with lack of oversight in the form of government deregulation leading the financial industry to take advantage of its market the same way Bush used the American people to sew the seeds of war.

After unregulated and unchecked financial institutions drove the world into economic meltdown, it doesn’t seem completely irrational to believe that health insurance giants might be just as corrupt and unethical as yesterday’s banks and lenders. Those of us who are not denied coverage outright and can actually afford insurance have the unfortunate privilege of experiencing this first hand, either through denied claims, increased costs, inadequate care, or downright inhumane customer service. In an adequately regulated capitalist system, competition is supposed to mitigate the occurrence of these issues, unless the industry is so corrupt that company executives actually work together to regulate the flow of profit. No example of this cronyism could be more valid than energy in the 90′s, and no event more telling than when the vice president of the United States, former CEO of energy giant, Halliburton, held a closed-door meeting in the White House with the country’s top energy executives, including some from Enron.

With the proposal of a new public option for health care, Reich argues that the current private health care system will be forced into competition with the government and, more importantly, itself to provide better care. That’s right, it’s an option. Despite rhetoric spewed from the mouths of mostly Republicans and health insurance lobbyists on Capitol Hill, nobody’s proposing that the government universally take over or “socialize” health care in the United States. Instead, people would have an option to stay with those who currently provide care, or they can go with the new guy. The one that offers care at lower costs and has the potential to collect and analyze patient information on a massive scale, ultimately leading to improved care in the future. This might sound to you like an unfair advantage but, to me, it sounds like competition, and capitalists always argue that competition is what spurs efficiency and innovation.

So, bring it on. An alternate option to the current system that creates real competition amongst insurance giants sounds like a wonderful idea, and one that will foster tremendous reforms. It almost seems ironic that diehard capitalists would oppose the concept, given that their entire philosophy lives and dies by the idea that competition pushes its industry forward and fosters progress. I would suggest that they stop being hypocrites and put their money where their mouth is, inherit some real risk for a change, and embrace competition like they’re supposed to do. Instead, private insurance corporations seem insistent on denying reality and maintaining the status quo by working together and dispatching lobbyist underlings to Washington in pursuit of quelling talk of reform. The truth hurts, and sometime it takes more courage to acknowledge that fact and make a change than it does to keep doing what you know is wrong. GM learned that the hard way.