The Double Standard

- Bernie Madoff not only got to stay at his $7m Manhattan penthouse while awaiting trial for bilking $50 billion dollars, but once he's actually in jail has the balls to have his lawyer petition his return to house arrest, due to the "harsh" conditions of his incarceration.

- AIG CEO Edward Liddy, with a straight face, defends the sanctity of contracts that promised bonuses to the white collar incompetents who got the company in this mess, and dragged the taxpayer along for the ride. Yet Liddy failed to honor the sanctity of the contracts AllState had with victims of Hurricane Katrina it had insured, when he was that company's CEO.

- CNBC's Rick Santelli calls foreclosed homeowners losers but has no biting adjectives for the Wall St. types who took people's money on a video game-like joyride and lost it all on bullshit schemes.

- Conservative talk show hosts like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, and others come to the defense of those who have bonuses paid to them with taxpayer-funded bailout money, but turn into vicious attack dogs when it comes to displaced union workers.


It's obvious that the working man and woman are worthless to these people; that fat cats are to be protected and coddled, while the working masses are nothing more than whining losers and leeches, who deserve nothing more than to bust their asses and to grin and bear it when taken advantage of; that those who lack power or connections are unworthy of justice or safeguards against corporate greed and plunder, not during nor after the fact.

Right now, I'm thinking of Radiohead's "Paranoid Android", especially the line "when I am king / you will be first against the wall". Who should we start with, Mr. Yorke? 'Cause it just seems to me there's not enough bullets for the over abundance of candidates for the firing squad.