Creeping Change

There's been a buzz today in the righty blogosphere about an alleged threat to some of the private bondholders who refused to get clipped in the Chrysler deal, a group Obama tarred hard in public. The threat comes from a lawyer representing the non-TARP bondholders, who said the White House threatened to use the White House Press Corp (as if they could) to ruin them if they didn't assimilate to hopenchange. The White House has denied it.

As several have said it's quite possible the allegation is more legal gamesmanship than anything else but it certainly seems to fall in line with the presumed philosophy of the administration so far, which says that contract law and free markets don't matter if they get in the way of fairness and social justice.

As to the bankruptcy itself, here's el-Rushbo with the clips and commentary:



There's yet another implied threat here, although to be fair it was said that Bush was not beneath punishing media outlets, too. Whatever the case, Garrett's questions need answers.

Drifting into the hypothetical, if one were to endeavor to 'change' the world and bring social justice a few things might need to occur first. The current conglomeration of wealth in the hands of mainly white Americans and Europeans would have to be broken up (the color of wealth being mentioned by Obama's former spiritual adviser). There are plenty of wealthy Asians and Arabs but they might not be so averse to a plan designed to tamp down the competition.

Such could not be done easily and overnight, though. The major impediments are of course free-market capitalism, the bedrock of western civilization, which would have to be demonized in order to get public support for 'restructuring' the world markets to protect against future inevitable dips in the business cycle. What better way than a sudden world financial catastrophe allowing a new populist administration to employ class warfare and greed to cleverly amplify the racist angle? Think AIG bonus recipient bus tours.

But the wall would still be high. The bulwarks known as the rule of law and free press would continue to block the way, requiring brute force to remove overnight. A more subtle method would be required. Actually that's not so true--the press wall isn't that high (certainly only a foot tall if the above allegation is true) and bias is already a known commodity. With major newspapers spiraling down the financial toilet a bailout could worsen the problem by leveraging newsrooms into reporting the party line the same way TARP has tied the hands of various banks. That leaves only discredited blogs and Fox News to shine any light.

As to the rule of law, Obama once told a radio audience several years ago that his view of the Constitution is that of a still flawed document because it doesn't adequately address social justice (wealth and power spreading), something perhaps made more clear yesterday when he outlined his prerequisites for a prospective Supreme Court justice.

All hypothetically speaking, of course.