Mob Rule Coming to a Continent Near You?

“The time has come to address the entire robber banker culture. Investment banks have been run not for the benefit of society, customers, or even shareholders, but exclusively for the advantage of the bankers themselves…This is why we must stand outside their homes throwing rocks through the windows until they do.”

So says newspaper editorial Max Hastings in the U.K.'s Daily Mail. And he is not alone. College professors, union bosses and politicans in the U.K are stoking the fires of anarchy and mob rule, just in time for the G-20 summit in London next week. Some 2,000 protestors are set to descend on the meeting, causing trouble and hanging capitalist bankers in effigy.

Could it happen here? Consider: when AIG acting chairman Ed Liddy appeared before Congress last week he testified that many of his employees have received death threats in the wake of the AIG bonus "scandal" ginned up by our politicans. Barney Frank shrugged off his testimony, New York's attorney general Andrew Cuomo is suing to have the names of the bonus-receiving executives outed and a Republican U.S. Senator gently suggested that the executives might consider suicide. And then the U.S House of Representatives, including 85 shameless Republicans, voted to impose a 90% tax on the bonuses retroactively.

Never mind that the bonuses were specifically accounted for in the "stimulus" bill insisted upon by the President and passed by our dear members of Congress, none of whom read the final bill. Never mind that Connecticut Democrat Senator Dodd lied about his role in inserting the bonus waivers in the legislation (I am sure even liberal Connecticut voters would agree that Dodd is a walking advertisement for term limits, not that he is the only one). The politicians needed to divert attention away from their own reckless incompetence and who better to vilify than the very capitalists who they have showered with a gazillion dollars of bailouts, guarantees and the like.

When the New York Times published the resignation letter of AIG VP Jake deSantis, I thought for sure that average, hardworking Americans would applaud his ethic of hard work and duty to the company he served for many years. I felt that surely no one would begrudge him the right to the bonus that he was promised and deserved (especially since he took only a $1.00 salary).
Yet I saw nothing but scorn for Mr. deSantis in the press, including a column by Margaret Carlson pooh-pooing his plight. Is this what America has come to? Heaping scorn on a private citizen who was just doing his job, and then got stiffed on his way out the door?

So again, I ask: could the rule of the mob that threatens to storm the G20 summit happen here? I don't know. But Michelle Malkin thinks it can. It already has.