BP chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg emerged from his long anticipated meeting with President Barack Obama on Wednesday and declared "We care about the small people." Of course he was attempting to convey the message that his company will live up to its responsibilities to those businesses and individuals directly affected by the oil spill in the Gulf. He actually said words to that effect too but the line that stood out the most remains, "We care about the small people."

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While this derogatory reference to the victims of the worst environmental disaster in our nation's history justifiably angered many Gulf coast residents and countless others on their behalf; it also represents a frighteningly pervasive attitude in this country. Power brokers from both big business and big government meet behind closed doors and decide what will be done and how it will be done to serve their own interests best. Keeping their jobs, furthering their own agendas, appeasing their power bases is paramount; claiming to care about "the small people" is merely lip service.

It's what happened when Wall Street CEO's and the White House collaborated to decide which financial institutions were too big to fail and would get buckets of the small people's money. It's what happened when the White House, auto manufacturers and unions decided how much of the small people's money would be provided to save failing companies from their own mismanagement. It's what happened when, under the guise of helping the small people, the health care system in this country was legislated into an inferior and infinitely more expensive mess than before. And it's what is happening as the administration attempts to use the ongoing disaster in the Gulf to push for financially irresponsible energy policies.

Although the BP chairman was the one who actually used the phrase "the small people," we have time and again heard our own president pronounce an issue as too complicated for us to understand or express frustration that we didn't "get" whatever he was trying to tell us or promise that we will thank the current power structure later for the actions to which we object now. And so we are all "the small people" in the eyes of those who believe they are larger, more important and much smarter than us all.

As former President Ronald Reagan once said, "From time to time, we have been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. But if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?" (source)

And so today we all stand with the people of the Gulf coast as big government offers no real leadership in crisis and big business looks down on both their victims and their stockholders. Today we are all small people and together, we are not too small to take them on.