Cheaters Never Prosper?

by digby

Matt Taibbi had a conversation with Will Cain, who claimed that the Occupy Wall Street people are just jealous of the Masters of the Universe. Taibbi disagreed:

“I find the one thing [the protesters] have in common revolves around the human emotions of envy and entitlement,” he said. “What you have is more than what I have, and I’m not happy with my situation.”

Cain seems like a nice enough guy, but I nearly blew my stack when I heard this. When you take into consideration all the theft and fraud and market manipulation and other evil shit Wall Street bankers have been guilty of in the last ten-fifteen years, you have to have balls like church bells to trot out a propaganda line that says the protesters are just jealous of their hard-earned money.

Think about it: there have always been rich and poor people in America, so if this is about jealousy, why the protests now? The idea that masses of people suddenly discovered a deep-seated animus/envy toward the rich – after keeping it strategically hidden for decades – is crazy.

Where was all that class hatred in the Reagan years, when openly dumping on the poor became fashionable? Where was it in the last two decades, when unions disappeared and CEO pay relative to median incomes started to triple and quadruple?

The answer is, it was never there. If anything, just the opposite has been true. Americans for the most part love the rich, even the obnoxious rich. And in recent years, the harder things got, the more we’ve obsessed over the wealth dream. As unemployment skyrocketed, people tuned in in droves to gawk at Evrémonde-heiresses like Paris Hilton, or watch bullies like Donald Trump fire people on TV.

Moreover, the worse the economy got, the more being a millionaire or a billionaire somehow became a qualification for high office, as people flocked to voting booths to support politicians with names like Bloomberg and Rockefeller and Corzine, names that to voters symbolized success and expertise at a time when few people seemed to have answers. At last count, there were 245 millionaires in congress, including 66 in the Senate.

And we hate the rich? Come on. Success is the national religion, and almost everyone is a believer. Americans love winners. But that’s just the problem. These guys on Wall Street are not winning – they’re cheating. And as much as we love the self-made success story, we hate the cheater that much more.

In this country, we cheer for people who hit their own home runs – not shortcut-chasing juicers like Bonds and McGwire, Blankfein and Dimon.

That’s why it’s so obnoxious when people say the protesters are just sore losers who are jealous of these smart guys in suits who beat them at the game of life. This isn’t disappointment at having lost. It’s anger because those other guys didn’t really win. And people now want the score overturned.

I hope he’s right. Certainly, a civilized society depends upon it. But I’ll never forget the conversation I had with a smart neighbor after Bush vs Gore was decided. I wondered why there wasn’t more of an outcry and he said, “Americans respect people who will stop at nothing to get what they want. They’re winners — and that’s all that matters.” It seemed a bit simplistic, but I did wonder how it could be that a man who stole the presidency of the United States could ever win re-election. But he did.

I hope that Taibbi is correct and that the basic average American is still repulsed by cheaters. But I have to say I’m not so sure. I think quite a few truly believe the old Lombardi quote: “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” I’ve certainly heard more than one corporate executive muse quite openly that somebody’s a chump if they don’t play all the angles. And I’ll never forget these wise guys:

This is Bob Badeer (a trader at Enron’s West Power desk in Portland, CA, where all these tapes were recorded) and Kevin McGowan (in Enron’s central office in Houston,TX, as he mentions in the transcript):

KEVIN: So,

BOB: (laughing)

KEVIN: So the rumor’s true? They’re fuckin’ takin’ all the money back from you guys? All those money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers in California?

BOB: Yeah, grandma Millie, man. But she’s the one who couldn’t figure out how to fuckin’ vote on the butterfly ballot.

KEVIN: Yeah, now she wants her fuckin’ money back for all the power you’ve charged right up – jammed right up her ass for fuckin’ 250 dollars a megawatt hour.

BOB: You know – you know – you know, grandma Millie, she’s the one that Al Gore’s fightin’ for, you know? You’re not going to –

BOB: Grandma Millie –

What happened to old Kevin and Bob? Anything? Did anyone really care about that?

I suppose the real question is whether or not this idea is confined to the Masters of the Universe types (and others who have it made) or whether or not it’s penetrated down to the plebes. I’m guessing at least some of it has.