Jon Stewart on the Goldman hearings

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[Jenn F.]

Ha! That's great. I think the best part of the hearings yesterday, which, as Stewart points out, are leading nooooowhere, was this exchange:

Sen. LEVIN: When you heard that your employees, in these emails, and looking at these deals said, God what a (beep) deal, God what a piece of crap - when you hear your own employees or read about those emails, do you feel anything?

Mr. DAVID VINIAR (Former CFO, Goldman Sachs): I think thats very unfortunate to have on email.

Unfortunate to have on email. Listening to the testimony is actually pretty great-- I was gratified to hear, once I'd stopping yelling, "unfortunate to have on EMAIL?!" at the radio the sound of Congress gasping and saying, "ooooooooh." Viniar does himself no favors backtracking. Still. I doubt it will lead to anything, much less the GOP deciding that they were elected to take part in governance, not obstruct anything that anyone on the other side of the aisle even vaguely indicates a passing interest in.

[DoctorD42]

Jenn, I am glad that you yell at your radio.  I yell at the television all the time!

I hope that some of Goldman's disgraceful behavior is at least sinking in to some politicians, and to some reporters, and that some of it will sink in to some voters.  However, I have to admit that you couldn't tell that from the AP story I saw today, which emphasized how valiantly Goldman is "defending itself."  

Why isn't anyone out there picketing the big banks?  Where are the mad bombers when we really need them?  It is hard to understand how naturally-angry people have been so completely misguided in where they direct their protests.  I guess propaganda (al Fox News) really is very very powerful, and the power of human reason and good will, not so much.

[Jenn F.]

YES. I so totally agree. How did the outrage get lost on the way to the front door of GS? Too distracted by the Washington Monument?

[DoctorD42]

Jenn, I have not totally thought this through, but at the moment I am toying with the idea that a kind of racism/cultural conflict really is at work.  

Some people got so upset over the health care initiative--which, really, has nothing very objectionable and much that is beneficial in it.  So what were they so angry about?  Obama was portrayed as this black "witch doctor,"or a foreign socialist.  He does indeed have a funny name, right?  He doesn't look like the other presidents, does he?
Critics argue that he is un-American, claim that he wasn't born in the US.  He is "different," foreign.
Now a lot of people are upset (and have been) over immigration, mostly Mexican I guess.  Again, "foreigners" are taking over "our" country.  (Let me be clear--I am against illegal immigration myself).  Noisy protests, let's get out our guns, let's demonstrate, etc. etc.
So, why in the fury that has has been created have the Wall Street bankers escaped popular wrath?  How come?  Really, they are the actual cause of our national economic distress--not Obama, not the Democrats, not the Mexicans, not socialists or foreigners.  The Wall Street bankers primarily, with the support of the Bush Administration and the negligence of the (mostly Republican) Congress.
------>> Because they are a bunch of white boys. <<----
Could that really be it??  They aren't black, they aren't foreign, they aren't Mexican, they don't have funny names.  They aren't socialists (as people generally understand that term, although they sure are glad to accept loads of government money).
The explanation is racial.
Now, a Marxist would be very upset with this.  "Don't the people, the proletariate, realize they are being screwed by the capitalists, the owners, the wealthy?  Don't they know that their own problems relate to economic and social class, to the turning wheels of the biggest financial and industrial organizations?"
Well, no they don't.  Because (my hypothesis is) they themselves are white, and the Wall Street crowd is white, and the Republicans are white--but Obama is black, he is "foreign," and he is blamed for losing "their country" even though, from every informed perspective, he is 100% innocent of all charges and indeed is here to help.  He is the only help we have right now.  And even though the actual fact is that he, Barack Obama, is a perfect embodiment of the American story, the American dream, that "anyone can grow up to be president," that in this land anyone can get ahead.  (Or at least they used to be able to).
Sort of like a lynching?  The little town is going broke, there was a fire in a house, the crops are failing, the general store has closed, things are awful.  So what do we do?  Let's hang some poor jig-a-boo from a tree.  That won't fix the town's problems--but it will make us feel better.  Let's get out the white robes and sheets and string him up.  We don't want their kind here.  They don't belong.  They aren't like us.  They are black, but we are white, and we are the true Americans, and they are "foreign."
What do you think?  Is that is what is really going on?

[Jenn F.]

Yes, I do think that is plays an important roll. I do indeed. I don't know if you saw my comment response on the posting I made last week, but it kind of talked about a related issue-- though not drawing the line to the Wall Street folk. I think the line could be drawn though. I also think there's a class thing going on-- they are rich and powerful, first of all, and Americans can be surprisingly reticent about going after the rich and powerful. But the other issue with class is that, unlike, say, the UK, particularly prior to the last few decades, we don't have a terribly regimented class system, which allows Americans to completely ignore it as a driving force in American society. It's definitely there, but how many times do we hear about it being a classless society? One of the features of this delusion is the belief that we can all become Andrew Carnegie, right? Bobbin boy at a factory to bazillionaire. And I think that this fantasy impacts people's willingness to throw stones at the rich and powerful. I think it might be why people who are middle class, lower middle class, even lower than that, don't agitate for more progressive tax rates-- because they imagine that one day it will be them discussing tax loopholes with their accountant on their private jet on their way to the Bahamas.

But the class thing doesn't explain the birthers or any of that stuff. To me there is an obvious undercurrent of racism and disquiet amongst a certain group of people in society who feel that their "place" is being usurped. In their parents' or grandparents' generations, being a white man meant that you were higher up in the food chain than anyone of color. I'm not sure that many of the people all upset about stuff even think about it overtly, but I think they see an African American man in the White House, signs in Spanish at Walmart, diverse groups of people on television, reports that in a decade or so whites will no longer be in the majority in this country and it freaks them out. I think for many of them it is easier to believe that there is some vast conspiracy to put a non-citizen in the White House than it is to accept the idea that in the not too distant future they will be just another minority.

[DoctorD42]

Yes, I think so.  Well stated:

To me there is an obvious undercurrent of racism and disquiet amongst a certain group of people in society who feel that their "place" is being usurped. In their parents' or grandparents' generations, being a white man meant that you were higher up in the food chain than anyone of color. I'm not sure that many of the people all upset about stuff even think about it overtly, but I think they see an African American man in the White House, signs in Spanish at Walmart, diverse groups of people on television, reports that in a decade or so whites will no longer be in the majority in this country and it freaks them out.