The public uproar over the bonuses for the executives of AIG must be one of the most ridiculous cases of misdirected anger in my lifetime. I'm not going to get all weepy over the hurt feelings of millionaire recipients of government boodle, but it’s a very sad example of how sound and potentially antistatist public sentiments, like “government giveaways to big business are bad,” get redirected so that they are harmless to the rulers. The government loots the nation of billions upon billions of dollars to give to wealthy cronies in an orgy of handouts and corporate welfare, and the lion’s share of public indignation on the subject is directed towards the beneficiaries of one tiny fraction of it, who received it due to a preexisting contract with a firm that was given government money. It’s as if everyone who thinks the invasion of Iraq was a bad idea ignored the existence of George W. Bush, selected a Marine gunnery sergeant at random, and declared him single-handedly responsible for the hundreds of thousands of deaths wrought by the war.
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