Taibbi's Scream: Stop the Political System That Has Let Goldman Sachs Fleece Us for 90 Years

By Rob Johnson, AlterNet. Posted July 8, 2009.

It is hard to know what is in a writer's head and heart, but the Goldman Sachs piece is so intense in comparison to Taibbi's recent offerings that I sense a message of personal revulsion. For clues to what may have triggered this revulsion, I look back to his writings when he first returned to America and the book that acquainted me with his work: Spanking the Donkey: Dispatches from the Dumb Season. The book concerns the absurd carnival of the 2004 Democratic primaries. In the introduction, Taibbi describes how he had worked in Russia as a journalist for 10 years. He details the atrocities he saw, along with his sense of sympathy and fascination for the terrible things before his eyes. In Russia, he was an observer and not an accomplice, but when he returned to the USA in 2002, Taibbi felt less detached looking at his home country: "We are a country that has a large majority that on some level knows something is terribly wrong, but can't find any positive idea that it can follow and build upon..." He describes how he had no idea how to cover the presidental election but found the need to develop a strategy to move ahead: "...I did not see much that suggested to me that a groundswell of change is on the way. But I do believe there is a strategy to pursue in the meantime, and that is TO REFUSED TO BE LIED TO...." On the strength of that insight, Taibbi set out to write a book about lies -- how to recognize them and stop believing in them.

Taibbi's look at Goldman Sachs illuminates what is missing in our political energy as we prepare, as he suggests in the article, to get our lunch eaten again in the energy trading market. What's missing is a recognition that we have been violated by experts and leaders. What's needed is a proper cleansing of social misdeed through outrage.

It causes me great pain to think that this sensitive and brilliant young writer, who had a ringside seat for the grotesque rape of the body politic in 1990s Russia by rapacious private oligarchs, is sickened by what he sees in the USA now! Let me say that again. He watched the rape of the Russian people up close and he is sickened by what is happening in the USA right now.

Maybe when you see it happen in a foreign country, tragedy can be seen as comedy. Perhaps when it happens in your own country and devastates the people you love, things take on a darker tone. Or maybe it really is as objectively bad here as his scream indicates. Or at least becoming so. Whatever your interpretation, we all owe thanks to Taibbi for screaming. He is warning us, and it will do us all some good to feel his rage and connect it to the rage that resides within each of us.

Feeling Taibbi's outrage will help us refuse to be lied to by the experts in media, politics and finance. It will help us see through them when they pretend that they have not let us down or play the same old dysfunctional political patronage game to insure that things do not change. It will help us force them to give up some of their advantage to restore some balance and better serve the American people.

See more stories tagged with: matt taibbi, goldman sachs, great american bubble mac

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »