Double Standard

by Armadillo Joe

That uneasy feeling of a double standard I referenced in my previous couple of posts about the sanctity of the budget-busting contracts in the AIG bailout situation as opposed to the flippant expendability of the UAW contracts in the GM/Chrysler bailout situation was given voice last night by none other than David Sirota on The Rachel Maddow Show:

Because the guy Obama decided to put in charge of the auto bailout is a real-life Gordon Gekko:

President Obama appointed [Steve Rattner] to head the White House team now overseeing the auto industry (and don't say you weren't warned).

As the Wall Street Journal reports, Rattner's strategy is to use the government's leverage to try to specifically crush auto workers and force them to accept even more contract concessions than they've already agreed to:

DETROIT -- President Barack Obama's recovery plan for General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC appears to take aim at union retirees, a usually reliable Democratic constituency. After studying the plight of the companies, the president's auto task force concluded GM and Chrysler's survival is dependent on greater concessions from the United Auto Workers union.

[...]

when you put Gordon Gekko in control of government policy overseeing an industry, you are inevitably going to get a policy that assumes workers are the big problem. If you had a different kind of team, you may have a policy that says, for instance, we have to create a robust universal health care system before throwing retirees off their existing health care.

As I said, the way in which all of this is being handled speaks volumes about the priorities of the Obama Administration. Even if the intent is somehow fundamentally honorable (and I'm not convinced it is), the net result out here in the world outside the Beltway is that this government is simply viewed as more of the same, especially when so many people are being pushed out of their houses by law enforcement personnel while the Wall Street Masters of the Universe who created this mess get to not only keep their jobs, but get bonuses amounting to orders of magnitude more money than most American will ever make in their lifetimes.

Definitely not a government By, Of and For The People.

It's disgusting and the Ruling Class should be more afraid of us.