Posted by
Curt Day on Saturday, July 18, 2009 1:28:33 PM
The recent news regarding Goldman Sachs shows us a few things. First, Goldman Sachs' recovery, largely due to the bailout shows that the Conservative does not have a monopoly on exceptionalism. Exceptionalism states that the goal of government is to take care of the hero in hopes that the hero will pass along enough benefits to the rest of us to keep us from demanding real change. Heroes can take several forms but when the context is our nation's collapsing economy, the heroes are the financial institutions and other corporations.
Both the Conservative and the Democratic Liberal presuppose exceptionalism as a foundation of America's economy. The difference between the Conservative and the Democratic Liberal resides in how government is to support the financial hero. Currently, we see the Democratic Liberal supporting the hero through bailouts. The Democratic Liberal is too compassionate to allow the heroes who are falling to fail. In addition, there is a genuine concern as to whether the damage to the economy would be irreparable if the hero was allowed to fail.
The Conservative also financially supports the helps the financial hero monetarily but insists that this help comes through a proxy like the Pentagon budget. The Conservative also helps the hero via tax relief and deregulation. In essence, the Conservative message to the hero is to forget all responsibility towards society. Thus, as the hero becomes less encumbered paying taxes, treating workers fairly, and preserving the environment, the hero has a better chance at sucesss. And if the hero succeeds, he/she will bless the rest of us such as employing more people.
Next, the Goldman Sachs' bonuses show us who will benefit most from the bailout. While employees of Goldman Sachs are richly rewarded with taxpayers' money, the number of those who have lost their jobs in the last month still exceeds 450,000. So when will our tax revenues benefit the rest of America? We don't know. That is because in the American democratic system, as government takes care of our financial heroes so they can take care of us, we see that we have slipped into a democracy once removed. Our democracy is removed because the government is taking care of those who are then to take care of the America. In addition, we should note that it is highly speculative as to whether our financial heroes will take care of the rest of America because, having been raised with a Capitalist and Free Market mindset, they have learned to let greed be their guide.
Finally, this should peak our interest in the Left because this was predicted by some on the Left. BTW, those on the left make the Democratic Liberal sound like Rush Limbaugh because unlike either the Conservative or the Democratic Liberal, the Leftist thinks that investment and power should be shared with the worker, not consolidated with the State and the financial elite. In addition, the Leftist wants more of society to be run democratically, including the workplace, rather than have our only exercise in democracy to be voting every x number of years while we work at jobs run by tyranical management systems. Paul Street, in his book Barack Obama And The Future Of American Politics warned us of where Obama's real loyalties rest. He saw Obama's true colors after looking at Obama's major campaign contributors. He noted that half of Obama's leading 14 campaign contributors came from Wall Street and of his Wall Street contributors, the leading one was Goldman Sachs. Other Wall Street contributors included UBS, AG, Lehman Brothers, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Moran Standley and Credit Suisse.
Certainly we have entered an economic tunnel where we can see no light at the other end. But perhaps our biggest danger would be to turn back and exit the tunnel from where we entered. That is because while escaping Obama's liberal exceptionalism, we would return to the exceptionalism of the Conservative that put Obama in a 4th down and 99 yards to go first place. Perhaps, it is time for real change in America. Real change would be to step outside of the Republican-Democrat box and look for solutions from alternative sources and 3rd parties. Real change would be to introduce democracy into more areas of our life, such as the workplace, so that we have more control of our future. Real change would be to leave the train line whose only stops are Conservative or Liberal exceptionalism and learn to treat each others as equals and to share. All of that would be real change, but then we must ask if Real Change's name is Gidot?