That’s the same mentality that doesn’t care “what some derivatives trader” on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange worries about – which was the response of the White House to CNBC’s Rick Santelli calling out the unfairness and moral hazard in the Administration’s mortgage plain. To the social justice mindset, this is not viewed as fellow American’s suffering, but with schadenfreude: traders are part of the system that is to be blamed, and if they suffer, it’s due and owing.
There’s another Alinsky principle that many of his adherents appreciate: issues and events are not so much important in and of themselves, but for the way they allow you to grow and strengthen your organization, broaden your membership, and leave you better positioned for the next fight.
That is exactly what the Democrat’s recent, rushed, massive, partisan, unread, and barely stimulating “stimulus” bill accomplished: they gained more money for their organization, expanded their dependent constituencies, and used the “crisis” to push through proposals that with daylight would have slunk back under the rocks from whence they came.
Continuing that crisis will allow them to do more of the same. It may be that President Obama is talking down any recovery and loving that word “crisis” to buy himself lowered expectations and time. But it may also be that the more people are told that markets (rather than congressional interference in mandating the making of bad loans) are to blame for the mortgage mess, and experience continued uncertainty, the better positioned those with activist agendas will be. As Alinsky wrote in Rules for Radicals, for revolutionary change to take place:
“There's another reason for working inside the system… Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and change the future. This acceptance is the reformation essential to any revolution.”
We don’t have a credit problem or a liquidity problem – those are only symptoms. We have a severe confidence problem, one which is being exacerbated into a crisis by every move Washington makes. Confidence will only be restored and the recession bottom when the market is allowed to value those bad debts which are unknowns, but the current powers that be on Wall Street and Washington, each have their own reasons for not going there. Those who thought they were electing a savior may soon realize that not only is President Obama no messiah for the American economy, but he wouldn’t want to be a savior even if he could be. It’s time to prepare for a long and ugly ride.