In the age of all-American anger:Bernie Sanders, “The Big Short” & a nation that’s had it up to here
by EDWIN LYNGAR
We are always told that life isn’t fair, and most of us accept that truism. I have to be honest and tell my kids that they might not be the smartest, fastest, luckiest or richest people out there. That’s just how it goes. However, “fairness” isn’t the same thing as justice.
The biggest financial crime of my lifetime, the financial collapse of 2008, is a historic injustice that has gone unpunished. The people who caused it also profited from it. The plutocratic class, spanning from Wall Street to Silicon Valley, manipulate politicians to get whatever they want, while the rest of us get almost nothing for our votes. This state of affairs is obvious to anyone who cares to look, and it’s the driving factor behind Bernie Sanders’ strong performance in Iowa. If this election becomes a referendum on that unaddressed outrage, Sanders can and should become the next president.
The housing collapse and subsequent bailout of Wall Street was a graft of Biblical proportions and an animating factor in my own political evolution from Republican voter to liberal. Trillions were spent bailing out banks, eventually making the financial class even wealthier, while the rest of us suffered job losses, declining asset prices and a reversal of hard fought fortunes. There was no reckoning for the kleptocracy.
Conservatives and liberals often agree about the stupidity and injustice of bailing out Wall Street, while leaving the rest of us hanging, but conventional politicians on both sides of the aisle have done nothing to rectify this historic wrong. I would add that this incident stands as Barack Obama’s greatest failure. Regular people paid the tab for the graft and corruption of Wall Street, and frustration and resentment have been brewing ever since, driving the rise of the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, Donald Trump and growing white mortality. Despite the greatest economic reaming since 1929, consumers and taxpayers have answered only with self-destruction and impotent rage, while our slimy, gutless and corrupt political class begs more campaign cash from the same people who caused the mess.
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http://www.salon.com/2016/02/08/in_the_age_of_all_american_anger_bernie_sanders_the_big_short_a_nation_thats_had_it_up_to_here/
