PrintKettle, meet pot
Robert Reich, who was Bill Clinton's Secretary of Labor, attempts to scare corporate America away from the tea party in today's Wall Street Journal.
In his piece titled "Why Business Should Fear the Tea Party" he does his level best to convince businesses that the ideas of the tea party are too extreme and will hurt business. Reich even argues that the IRS is actually a good an necessary part of our government (although he can't put into words why).
What sticks out like a sore thumb is Reich's analysis of the tea party. Reich assigns and maligns tea party values. The entire movement in Reich's analysis is merely the simpleton's being afraid and falling prey to fear and demagoguery. The hypocrisy of an author trying to scare corporate America away from the tea party values decrying demagoguery is indeed something special. Reich's hypocrisy doesn't end there.
Underlying all of this is a deep tea party suspicion that big government is in cahoots with big business and Wall Street, against the rest of America. This has been the conventional view among leftist conspiracy theorists for years but it's now emerging full-throttle on the right.
What Reich fails to inform readers is that is his view as well. A few short weeks ago Reich was writing for the Huffington Post and used the same exact conspiracy theory to support his own view of FEC vs Citizens United. In his article "The Secret Big-Money Takeover of America" Reich went on to claim that money spent on elections was nothing more than big business giving to big government against the middle class.
But you can safely assume its purpose is not to help America's stranded middle class, working class, and poor. It's to pad the nests of the rich, stop all reform, and deregulate big corporations and Wall Street
For one audience he ascribes an idea to the world of the conspiracy theorist, and for another audience that same idea is part of his basis for an assault on the Citizens United decision. Does that make him a conspiracy theorist? Is there a really a difference between Reich's arguments for an assault on first amendment freedoms and the attitude that he ascribes to conspiracy theorists? Of course not, and that is why Robert Reich is a very special hypocrite.
Aaron Gee is a U.S.-based IT consultant who started the blog foundingideals.com.
