Submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
UPDATED: Newton’s Third Law of Motion is commonly expressed by the phrase “for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction”. The action in question is the Occupy Wall Street Movement. The reaction in question is fear.
Huffington Post obtained a copy of a memo being sent by high-powered Washington lobbying firm Clark, Lytle, Geduldig, Cranford to one of its major Wall Street clients over Thanksgiving. Previously unnamed, it has been revealed that the major Wall Street client in question is the American Bankers Association. The four page memo was first revealed by MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, host of the show “Up with Chris Hayes“. The first two paragraphs of the memo are indicative of the mood and probably sets the tone for what many in the lobbying industry are having to admit as an inconvenient truth. Namely the truth that the OWS Movement is gaining traction for their cause and doing so in such a way that politicians are eventually going to be forced to put on the appearance of action in bringing the criminals on Wall Street to justice if not actually bring them to justice. The fear on behalf of the lobbyists and their Wall Street clients is palpable.
The first two paragraphs of the Thanksgiving Memo read as follows:
Leading Democratic party strategists have begun to openly discuss the benefits of embracing the growing and increasingly organized Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement to prevent Republican gains in Congress and the White House next year. We have seen this process of adopting extreme positions and movements to increase base voter turnout, including in the 2005-2006 immigration debate. This would mean more than just short-term discomfort for Wall Street firms. If vilifying the leading companies of this sector is allowed to become an unchallenged centerpiece of a coordinated Democratic campaign, it has the potential to have very long-lasting political, policy and financial impacts on the companies in the center of the bullseye.
It shouldn’t be surprising that the Democratic party or even President Obama’s re-election team would campaign against Wall Street in this cycle. However the bigger concern should be that Republicans will no longer defend Wall Street companies — and might start running against them too.
While phrased in partisan terms, the memo is possibly indicative of not just fear on behalf of Wall Street and their K Street cohorts, but rather recognizes that the problems created by not bringing to justice those who wrecked our domestic economy and nearly wrecked the global economy with their unfettered greed and massive systemic fraud is growing to ultra-partisan proportions. Consider the words of Joshua Stephens, a participant in OWS New York City, who said “The danger is not whether or not politicians will defend these institutions. My fear wouldn’t be that. My fear would be that the politicians that come to their aid will be increasingly irrelevant…That’s the real threat and that’s where things are going.” OWS is serving as a wake-up call for both Wall Street and Washington. A wake-up call that this memo acknowledges presents a real and serious problem for both the corporate bankers and the politicians that have been protecting them from prosecution and doing their political bidding in helping dismantle the regulations around the banking industry. A call for justice that transcends party affiliation and loyalty to the point that the bankers responsible may actually have to face trial with the possibility of prison sentences. A call for justice that may force politicians to take steps to break up the big banks to prevent the myth and the lie of “too big to fail” from being used in the future as an excuse by corporatists to raid our nation’s tax coffers thus making society pay for the risks of their private failures all while the banks reaping massive record private profits in the process. A call for justice that might mean the return of regulation to the banking industry and a return of regulation with teeth.
Perhaps even more telling that the 1% are starting to feel and fear the political pressure is the context of the memo as a sales pitch. What is it that CLGC is offering to sell the ABA? $850,000 worth of spin. In the new MSNBC article by Jonathan Larsen and Ken Olshansky, the deliverable of such a spin project is summarized as ” ‘opposition research’ on Occupy Wall Street in order to construct ‘negative narratives’ about the protests and allied politicians.” If you’d like to read the memo in its entirety, it can be found here in .pdf form. You may feel a bit queasy after reading it.
OWS could be, should be and might be even bigger than this one set of issues though. It should be a notice to Washington and the graft merchants of K Street that the United States Constitution says in plain language where the true political power rests in this country and who is really the boss of Washington when push comes to shove: “We the People of the United States”. Not “We the Corporations” or “We the Biggest Campaign Contributors” or “We the K Street Lobbying and Revolving Capital Hill Door Conflict of Interest Machine”, but “We the People”. Washington would be wise to take heed to call to substantively start addressing the needs and demands for justice of the 99% instead of catering to the greedy desires of the 1% and their own over-inflated egos. Our nation was founded in reaction to the tyranny of oppression and non-responsive government of King George. Just so, it can be reshaped in reaction to the tyranny of oppression and non-responsive government of as exemplified by the incestuous nexus of today’s Wall Street and Washington. We didn’t throw off the yoke of a mad, capricious and economically exploitative king in the 18th Century just to have it replaced by the yoke of venal and corrupt plutocrats and their political lackeys in the 21st.
Are Wall Street and their lobbyists starting to fear Main Street? Is the government? Is this a sign of the beginning of the end of OWS? Or is this a sign of the beginning of the beginning of OWS and the effort to reclaim the government for “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”?
What do you think?
Source: Huffington Post, MSNBC, CLGC Memo
~Submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
Bron,
“so what? I posted that in response to OS talking about conservatives. Thanks for making my point. I am glad someone caught it.”
*****
I proved that your point about liberals being no smarter than fifth graders when asked questions about economics was incorrect. You were hoping we’d buy that WSJ piece of biased writing. Nice try!
What did OS say about conservatives? Did he suggest they were dumber than liberals when it comes to economics?
Koch and George Mason University
http://www.desmogblog.com/koch-and-george-mason-university
Excerpt:
Funding and Connections
Since 1985, George Mason University (GMU), and its associated institutes and centers, has received more funding from the Koch Family Charitable Foundations than any other organization—a total of $29,604,354. The George Mason University Foundation has received the most funding, $20,297,143, while the Institute for Humane Studies has been directly given $3,111,457, the Mercatus Center $1,442,000, and George Mason University itself has received $4,753,754.
In addition to financial ties, Koch also has personnel involved with the university. Richard Fink, the vice president of Koch Industries, Inc., and the former president of the Charles G. Koch Foundation and the Claude R. Lambe Foundation, serves on the board of directors of the George Mason University Foundation and the Mercatus Center. Fink’s connection to George Mason University is strong. Besides teaching at the university from 1980-1986, Fink has also served on a number of boards at the university including the Institute for Humane Studies and the Center for the Study of Public Choice, the Board of Visitors, and the Student Affairs Committee.
rafflaw:
I dont know why. It is very worrisome to me. I am personally against abortion but that is my personal belief and I have no right to impose that on anyone else. And I especially dont want government involved in that decision. China requires one child and now they dont have enough females, the next logical step is for their government to require the abortion of male children to increase the number of females in the population.
I think my conservative brethren assume government is benign and beneficent. They forget that what government makes illegal it can also compel.
Elaine:
so what? I posted that in response to OS talking about conservatives. Thanks for making my point. I am glad someone caught it.
Hats off to you Elaine, you are one smart liberal!
By the way, George Mason has a pretty good economics department. James Buchanan taught there (Nobel Prize in Economics), Walter Williams is a professor Emeritus, it is and makes no bones about being a pro free market economics department.
Nothing wrong with the truth and Klein should be ashamed of himself for doing what he did.
Keynes or Jean Baptiste Say? That is the choice and one is better than the other. One relies on government the other relies on individuals.
Bron,
It appears that libertarians and conservatives aren’t any smarter than liberals when it comes to economics after all. So sorry to burst your “my-kind-is-smarter-than-your-kind” balloon.
OS:
you are right about the WSJ not being what it once was. But not for the same reasons. Although once in awhile they do have a good editorial.
Ah, the old Dunning-Kruger response when someone has no clue as to how to respond. If they dont understand or are dumb as a pallet of bricks bring out Dunning-Kruger. Its a 2 fer, makes them look smart [even though they arent] and is most likely going to intimidate the other person because who wants to be accused of being so uninformed they dont know they are.
Good one, I will have to remember that.
shano:
“Jon Corzine’s firm stole over $1 billion but they should be fine unless they sit down on a pathway and peacefully lock arms.”
wasnt Corzine a liberal/progressive?
From Econ4.org, a group that’s devoted to building an alternative to the economics orthodoxy that the economy is about Wall Street and not about the well-being of working people, a statement that’s been signed by 170 economists so far:
We are economists who oppose ideological cleansing in the economics profession. Equally we oppose political cleansing in the vital debate over the causes and consequences of our current economic crisis.
We support the efforts of the Occupy Wall Street movement across the country and across the globe to liberate the economy from the short-term greed of the rich and powerful “one percent”.
We oppose cynical and perverse attempts to misuse our police officers and public servants to expel advocates of the public good from our public spaces.
We extend our support to the vision of building an economy that works for the people, for the planet, and for the future, and we declare our solidarity with the Occupiers who are exercising our democratic right to demand economic and social justice.
Amherst, Massachusetts
November 13, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/nyregion/nypd-stops-reporters-with-badges-and-fists.html?_r=1&smid=tw-nytmetro&seid=auto
Finally a paper writing about the police suppression of the Press.
This has to end.
Bron,
FYI:
Confirmation Bias in Everything
E.D. Kain, Contributor
Forbes
11/8/11
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/11/08/confirmation-bias-in-everything/
Excerpt:
In June of 2010, Daniel Klein and Zeljka Buturovic published a study which they said proved that liberals and progressives were less enlightened about economic issues than their libertarian and conservative counterparts. Klein followed up with an Op/Ed in the Wall Street Journal explaining their methodology and results.
As I wrote at the time, conservatives happily spread the results of the study across the right-wing blogosphere.
I later participated in a response forum hosted by Econ Journal Watch, which originally published Klein and Buturovic’s study, though my piece there was essentially the same as my piece in the Washington Examiner.
At the time, I wrote of the paper, “Whether or not you agree or disagree with Klein’s economics it’s important to note that this is bad polling done for strictly partisan reasons. The bias is practically dripping from the Op-Ed’s pages.”
Apparently Klein read my piece, because he quotes me in his discussion of his and Buturovic’s latest, and improved study over at The Atlantic. Indeed, the entire thrust of Klein’s Atlantic piece is that the original study was tainted by confirmation bias – which is exactly what I and many others argued at the time. His piece is titled “I Was Wrong, and So Are You.”
The op-ed set off fireworks. On The Journal’s Web site, the piece peaked at No.2 in most-e-mailed for the month it was published. The Examiner, in Washington, D.C., ran two opinion pieces in response, one approving and one critical. (The latter noted, correctly, that conservatives were “happily disseminating the results across the right-wing blogosphere.”)
That’s me, though I’m not named in the piece. C’est la vie…
Here’s Klein again:
It turned out that I needed to retract the conclusions I’d trumpeted in The Wall Street Journal. The new results invalidated our original result: under the right circumstances, conservatives and libertarians were as likely as anyone on the left to give wrong answers to economic questions. The proper inference from our work is not that one group is more enlightened, or less. It’s that “myside bias”—the tendency to judge a statement according to how conveniently it fits with one’s settled position—is pervasive among all of America’s political groups. The bias is seen in the data, and in my actions.
Shano,
Buckminster Fuller would be proud of the UC Davis students.
Another developing story:
RT @studentactivism: UC Davis students are erecting a 30-foot geodesic dome on the quad. Should have let ’em keep the tents. #OWS
haha those kids.
The Wikileaks truck is a funny story until you find the owner lost all his possessions, everything he owned.
He is collecting donations for WikiLeaks Truck using WePay https://www.wepay.com/x1be65w Easy to use and secure
Are the NYPD going to help him out?
Bron,
The answer is more! They should pay at least the same percentage that I pay. They should pay Social Security on all of ther income, like I do. If abortion is a personal matter, why do all of the Republican candidates(almost all) think government should outlaw it?
Jon Corzine’s firm stole over $1 billion but they should be fine unless they sit down on a pathway and peacefully lock arms.
That about sums up America these days. Students can’t afford higher education so they get beat. Wall Streeters can steal a billion dollars and walk away unscathed.
Sure, these guys do not need any more regulation….heavens no!
Otteray,
I agree with you. One must always consider the source of information provided.
About that WSJ article about the study that Bron provided a link to:
“Mr. Klein is a professor of economics at George Mason University.”
George Mason University–a subsidiary of the Koch Brothers Industries.
*****
Koch Brother Buys Professors At Public University to Spread Free Market Propaganda — Is Public Education the Kochs’ Next Front?
The latest Koch brother affront is an “unheard of” breach of academic freedom–a donation to FSU only on the condition they can oversee the faculty appointees.
AlterNet / By Sarah Seltzer
May 10, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/150892/koch_brother_buys_professors_at_public_university_to_spread_free_market_propaganda_–_is_public_education_the_kochs'_next_front
Excerpt:
The reality is, the Koch brothers have been mostly focused on creating their own think tanks and institutes rather than infiltrating universities and attempting to bend economics departments to their own ideological will–with one exception. They have, in fact, been doing something similar at George Mason University, right outside DC, and it’s had a demonstrable effect on public policy, as Hundley reported:
The big exception has been George Mason University, a public university in Virginia which has received more than $30 million from Koch over the past 20 years. At George Mason, Koch’s foundation has underwritten the Mercatus Center, whose faculty study “how institutions affect the freedom to prosper.”
I am not interested in anything a Rupert Murdoch owned media outlet has to say. The WSJ used to be a respectable publication. Not any more. Their editorial credibility is nothing more than Fox News in print. See the Dickinson University poll results above.
Bron, you are a real piece of work. And a perfect clinical example of the Dunning–Kruger effect in action.
What you are selling, no one is buying.
shano:
oh and I forgot to mention the department of HS.
shano:
there is a leviathan down the road from me. it sucks a good portion of our yearly output, it controls what we can do on many different levels. Are you kidding me?
rafflaw:
some regulations are necessary but most are not. Abortion is a private matter of conscience. How much should the rich pay? What is their fair share?
OS:
Are you smarter than a 5th grader? Apparently not if you are liberal/progressive on questions of economics:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703561604575282190930932412.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop