A high ranking Republican senator says that AIG executives should consider suicide in the time-honored tradition of the Japanese Samurai. Why? Because they have dishonored themselves by the damage they have done not only to their parent corporation but to the country and the world economy. Maybe Sen. Grassley was engaged in some hyperbolic rhetoric, but we all know what he was getting at, and why. What’s lacking is a sense of shame and a sense of honor. Who destroys the lives of millions and then accepts a million dollar bonus for their efforts?
But the AIG executives are very small potatoes compared to the elites that ran this country from 2001-2009. Whatever damage the AIG execs did to the world, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney did ten-fold…maybe a thousand-fold. That’s why I find it so hard to understand why the press is defending Dick Cheney against slights against his dignity and character. It’s okay for a sitting senator to suggest that some anonymous insurance executive slash his wrists in the bathtub, but let the president’s press secretary dismiss the dignity of the former vice-president and suddenly protocol has been violated.
But Dick Cheney really should consider killing himself. If Senator Chuck Grassley had said as much, I wouldn’t bat an eye. By any standard, including the Roman or the Japanese, a statesman that had presided over such a string of epic failures as Dick Cheney would feel duty-bound to plunge a sword into his abdomen and move the sword left to right in a slicing motion until he was dead. The man is guilty of war crimes. And even the legal decisions that he made ended in unmitigated disaster.
Maybe the country isn’t ready to impose justice on the Bush administration for all the hardships they created, but that should not prevent members of the Bush administration from administering their own justice on themselves. Doesn’t honor almost require it? To think that members of the press would take offense at the present administration’s refusal to show deference and respect to the prior one!!
Okay, I understand that American culture frowns on suicide. We do not have the same culture as the Romans and the Samurai. That is probably a good thing. But can’t we reserve some of the vitriol we’re leveling at Wall Street for the people that we’re actually in charge for the last eight years? Is that asking too much?
As a Southerner, the concept of honor is deeply rooted in my psyche, a product of both upbringing and environment. And I do not mean the kind of “honor” that people like John McCain talk about, something that can be slighted by the comments of others. Honor, as I understand it, is a commitment I have to myself to uphold the standards by which I live. Only I can bring dishonor upon myself by failing to live up to those standards.
The problem with the Bush administration, as with John McCain and the Wall Street robber barons, is that they are honorless dogs. What matters to them is what is said about them, about the deference they receive or do not receive. It is an external thing, an empty show. Expecting such men to take responsibility for their misdeeds is expecting them to exhibit a quality that they simply do not possess. One might as well expect a squirrel to compose a symphony.
This is why, at least in theory, we have a justice system. We should choose to use it. Quite frankly, these men do not deserve the dignity of suicide. They should be tried, convicted, and then, in the fashion of the Romans, scourged and dragged through the streets. That they would understand. And it would send a message to others like them, as the Nuremburg trials did, that civilized men and women of honor will not, by their very nature, dishonor themselves by failing to uphold the social contract that is what raises us above the level of animals and neocons.
and hey, the Federal government could probably recoup all the lost money if they aggressively prosecuted white collar crime.
…or better still, if they passed legislation that criminalized behavior that amounts to a crime but as of today is perfectly legal… such as conspiring to undermine an open and liquid market in a product/service to generate extra revenue from the deliberately created illiquidity and lack of transparency… read CDO market (collateralized debt obligations). Elsewhere this is known as… EMBEZZLEMENT.
Or fucking people with bizarro mortgages they don’t understand… elsewhere this is known as… ENTRAPMENT. Or for a publicly traded company to hide liabilities in off-balance sheet vehicles… elsewhere this is known as… FRAUD.
(On a different note altogether: your review of Watchmen was unfortunately right on the money…)
“But can’t we reserve some of the vitriol we’re leveling at Wall Street for the people that we’re actually in charge for the last eight years?”
Wall Street WAS in charge for the past eight years. Sadly, they will be in charge for the next eight years as well. The real issue with AIG is that it (we) is paying out Billions to Goldman Sachs and others who simply bought put options on various bonds that ultimately defaulted. They have a right to do this I suppose, but if the counter party to the trade defaults, that’s their problem. Or it should be. Obama is happy to make it our problem.
Arguing that Bush and Cheney were “even worse” misses a very valuable point. All are acting for the benefit of big money at the expense of everyone else.
If you want to change this, neither side of the two party system has a place for you.
I’m a Ron Paul man, myself, but since you wont trust him, here is Eliot Spitzer to tell you the real deal;
http://www.slate.com/id/2213942/
Ah the joys of ignorant outrage…
So what did you think a bail-out of AIG (or any other financial institution for that matter) constituted? It of course constitutes funding that enables that institution to maintain its financial commitments, rather than declare itself insolvent. AIG is an insurer. One of the insurance products it underwrote is credit insurance. So you are saying AIG should stop paying out on its insurance products, because the beneficiary is someone you don’t like… well in the real world it doesn’t work like that. Contracts are contracts.
The stark reality is: either bail-out, or no bail-out. Bail-out has been the chosen route. Non-bail-out initially sounds good at the kindergarden level of human reasoning, but honesty requires to then also state its consequence: the overnight insolvency of the entire Western financial and banking system. All banks closed, deposits frozen, and when the banks reopen deposits marked down to a fraction of their former value — as was done in Argentina in 2002 was the year.
Before indulging in further poutrage, consider who your company is in this, and whose tune you are really singing. Today’s front page of the Wall Street Journal contains the following items: “Hedge Funds (hissss) May Get AIG Cash” (read: bail-out money) and “Treasury Will Make Grab To Recoup Bonus Funds”. It is very clear what the right-wing media machine is trying to do, namely fomenting a collective blind anger that they see as the GOP’s only way back to power. So they try to create a no-win situation for the Obama administration by hitting them from both sides at once: (a) claiming that a new socialism is afoot with the government (i.e. “they”) using the crisis to grab the wealth of its citizens (i.e. “our” money) and (b) bail-out money (“our” money) being used (by “them”) to channel funds to nefarious counterparties.
Think twice before becoming an unwitting part of this latest version of the GOP faux populist lynch-mob game.
Oh and about Ron Paul: it’s not that he is “wrong”. To be wrong on an issue you have to first achieve a minimum connection to reality. Ron Paul and his fantasy libertarianism lack any connection to our economic and social realities. Ron Paul’s “prescriptions” have as much reality content as someone exclaiming we should all swim without getting wet.
The only real things about Ron Paul are his racism and the horrors of his anti-immigrant platform.
And Krauthammer calling for a guillotine to be used on malefactors of great wealth. Now, perhaps the AIG bondholders should be “given a haircut”, but that’s a bit extreme.
I, for one, welcome Krauthammer and Grassley into the ranks of the Dirty Fucking Hippies. Put them on the front lines for the coming class warfare.
I really don’t think he considers himself a failure. He took out enemies #1, the federal government, and #2 labor – and grew richer all the while by looting the treasure through war contracts – off the main set of books, of course.
In a few years, when American labor is making $30/month like the rest of the world and those who pooled our tax money during the Bush Kleptocracy are running us like one big Company Store, let’s revisit how unsuccessful he feels he is.
“Doesn’t honor almost require it?” In a republic, yes. In an empire, no, not if the ruling elites are the ones who are corrupt. Maybe, the widespread outrage at AIG’s incomprehensible arrogance and greed is the last gasp of our moribund democracy. Will the patient recover? Or will it succumb to collusion of super rich bankers who care only for themselves?
Obama’s great challenge has come sooner than anyone expected. Sure hope he does better than he has in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and, possibly, Iran. To say nothing of our long standing policy with Israel.
The republican party basically lacks the integrity for this. They are the most corrupt political party this country has ever seen-and they elected-twice-the most corrupt president the country has ever had. People lke this have no honor-they have no integrity of any kind. You ask more from them than they are capable of. The foundation just isn’t there.
Oh my. The Democrats are hardly guiltless here. A lot of the current problems stem from things the Democrats did back under Carter – read “Who Will Tell the People” by William Greider re that.
There’s plenty of blame to go around.
one, among many, of the things that l find interesting in this whole fiasco, is where’s joe?
this would seem to be tailor made for biden’s blue collar cred…such as it is…and confrontational, attack dog, style. instead obama appears to be taking the lead.
is it part of the strategy to engage the grassroots network that the campaign built up, vis-a-vis the push for support for his new budget, or is something else at play here.
also, rachel maddow had a very interesting segment on her show yesterday with wyden and hagel. transcript here.
your thoughts?