Congress, Criminal law, Free Speech, Justice, Politics, Society

The Smell of Corporatist Fear, Smells Just Like . . . a Lobbyist Memo

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

467 thoughts on “The Smell of Corporatist Fear, Smells Just Like . . . a Lobbyist Memo”

  1. “Maybe people who just watch Fox News in New Jersey arent curious about what is going on in the world.”

    ************************

    Wow! Talk about being damned with faint praise.

  3. AT, look for pepper spray to be on school menus everywhere. After all, peppers are members of the same plant family as tomatoes and are considered a vegetable.

    Well, technically a fruit, but that is just a quibble. I guess we could put it on the dessert menu.

  4. OS:

    I did, it was a study only of New Jerseyeans. Said it was random and gave an overview of what it asked and the results.

    OK, so what? I now know that New Jerseyeans who watch Fox news arent well informed. Who watches only one news source? Maybe people who just watch Fox News in New Jersey arent curious about what is going on in the world.

  5. Bron,

    Thank you. I thought about what you wrote yesterday and would like to hear your response. I believe you are correct to point out that going to N.D. is a possible option for finding a job. There are problems with this idea though.

    First it is a solution only available to a small group of people. One must have the resources to move, those being both financial and physical health. Where I live people literally may not have $10.00 for gas. They would be completely unable to afford moving to another state. They cannot even get to work sometimes. It really is that bad and these are people with full time jobs.

    People who have homes that are underwater cannot sell their homes. There is a glut in the rental market so renting is not necessarily possible. If you leave that home in many states, you will be in a serious legal situation.

    People with parents who are ill or anyone taking care of the sick cannot do this. It is usually not safe to move a sick person. There are many other similar reasons people simply cannot take that course of action.

    We should also look at the situation from a macro level. Most places with employment opportunities are in the boom phase. History teaches us that booms are followed by busts. As people move out of their area this kills off businesses and public services. Tax revenues cease, businesses cannot survive a lack of costumers and they collapse. An economy is not healthy when many places are stripped out by people leaving to find work.

    A society is not healthy when it requires people to leave their neighbors, friends and family to keep from starving to death. A healthy society and economy is one where every place affords people a living wage and decent standard of living.

  6. Pepper Spray is nothing to mess with……

    What is Pepper Spray?
    How does it work to stop an attacker?

    Pepper spray is made up of an active ingredient called OC (Oleoresin Capsicum) and other inert ingredients. They can be water or oil based. The best formula being oil based as oil based products do not have the problem of separation. Separation is where the final blend will not stay blended and the oil (OC) will separate from the water base. This is very similar to putting oil in water. The oil will want to rise to the top. All OC products that the Pepper Spray Store sells are non-toxic and non-flammable. The effects of the pepper spray last between 20 and 90 minutes, giving the user plenty of time to escape their terrifying situation. Pepper spray units can be fired multiple times and can have a range of 8 to 20 feet, depending on the particular model you purchase.

    The newest defensive spray agent, Oleoresin Capsicum, is a derivative of hot cayenne peppers. OC is an inflammatory agent and unlike tear gas it is effective on those under the influence of drugs and alcohol. When the OC contacts the mucous membranes (eyes, nose, throat, and lungs), symptoms will appear instantly. The capillaries of the eyes will immediately dilate, causing temporary blindness. Inflammation of the breathing tube tissues will cause difficulty in breathing; however the victim will still be able to breathe. Pepper spray will not deteriorate with age and will not cause lasting aftereffects, however the short-term effects are quite effective.

    http://www.chilliworld.com/FactFile/Scoville_Scale.asp

    16,000,000 Scoville Units Pure capsaicin and Dihydrocapsaicin

  7. Jill,

    I posted a link to an article that proved that the poll that supposedly showed liberals to be less informed than conservatives and libertarians on economic issues was seriously flawed. The author of that study admitted his own bias. Regarding the Dickinson research findings: I provided a link to and an excerpt from the report. You seem to have inferred something about me from my comments that isn’t a fact.

    Where in any of my comments did I suggest that the media aren’t managed? On many occasions on the Turley Blawg, I have criticized the mainstream media. I am not as dumb, naive, gullible, or as biased as you seem to think. In addition, I don’t need you to educate me on the failings of the American news media.

    *****

    Bron,

    Who said Jill was a liberal?

  8. Bron, regarding your questions above. Read the damn report. What is hard about that?

  11. Elaine,

    I think there is something larger at work here than Fox news. All our news is managed. It is truly difficult to find information. It takes moving from overseas sources, to listening to all our news like people in the USSR listened to Pravda–information is in there sort of, but it’s only coming through in bits and pieces. I find this alarming.

    I don’t think Fox news is there to inform its customers, but I don’t think NPR-National Pentagon Radio, is either. I do think left wing people worry an awful lot about right wing propaganda while ignoring left wing propaganda.

    I feel it might help everyone to look most carefully at the propaganda aimed at our own particular demographic AS WELL AS the propaganda aimed at other demographics. From these parts, we will begin to see the whole. It would reveal the level of manipulation and misinformation we are all, right and left, subjected to. We can then begin to understand what the govt. wants us to believe, how they are lying to us, what crap are they putting out today!

    There is a real arrogance I have found on the left, a deadly arrogance about being manipulated. Studies of manipulation show that no group is immune, yet the left wing seems to believe we are “above” being manipulated. Facts do not bear this assessment out.

    The best way to confront manipulation is to understand that is is happening, that anyone can fall for it, and to try to see if we can catch the manipulation by putting are collective heads together to ferret it out. What one person cannot see, another can. What they cannot see, someone else can. And so on.

    So sure, let’s look very closely at Fox news. But let’s also look very closely at the so called “liberal” media. If we look at all of it, we can put things together much better.

  12. Elaine:

    they asked only people from the state of New Jersey. What was their sample size? What was the sample population? What was the educational level? Socio-economic level?

  14. Bron,

    Here’s a link to the poll:
    http://www.scribd.com/doc/73377350/Fairleigh-Dickinson-University-Public-Mind-Poll

    Excerpt:
    Monday, Nov. 21, 2011
    8 pp.
    Contact: Daniel Cassino 973.896.7072 or Peter Woolley 973.670.3239
    Some News Leaves People Knowing Less

    According to the latest results from Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind Poll, some news sources make us less likely to know what’s going on in the world. In the most recent study, the poll asked New Jerseyans about current events at home and abroad, and from what sources – if any – they get their information. The conclusion: Sunday morning news shows do the most to help people learn about current events, while some outlets, especially Fox News, lead people to be even less informed than those who don’t watch any news at all.

    Among other topics, New Jerseyans were asked about the outcome of the uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East this past year. While 53% of New Jerseyans know that Egyptians were successful in overthrowing the government of Hosni Mubarak, 21% say that the uprisings were unsuccessful, and 26% admit they don’t know. Also, 48% knowthat the Syrian uprising has thus far been unsuccessful, while 36% say they don’t know, and 16% say the Syrians have already toppled their government.

    But the real finding is that the results depend on what media sources people turn to for their news. For example, people who watch
    Fox News, the most popular of the 24-hourcable news networks, are 18-points less likely to know that Egyptians overthrew their government than those who watch no news at all (after controlling for other newssources, partisanship, education and other demographic factors).
    Fox News watchers are also 6-points less likely to know that Syrians have not yet overthrown their government than those who watch no news.”

    Because of the controls for partisanship, we know these results are not just driven by Republicans or other groups being more likely to watch
    Fox News,” said Dan Cassino, a professor of political science at Fairleigh Dickinson and an analyst for the PublicMind Poll. “Rather, the results show us that there is something about watching Fox News that leads people to do worse on these questions than those who don’t watch any news a tall.”

    By contrast, some media sources have a positive effect on political knowledge. For example, people who report reading a national newspaper like The New York Times or USA Today are 12-points more likely to know that Egyptians have overthrown their government than those who have not looked at any news source. And those who listen to the non-profit NPR radio network are 11-points more likely to know the outcome of the revolt against Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. However, the best informed respondents are those that watched Sunday morning news programs: leading to a 16-point increase in the likelihood of knowing what happened in Egypt and an 8-point increase in the likelihood of knowing what happened in Syria.

    “Sunday morning news shows tend to spend a lot more time on a single issue than other news broadcasts, and they are less likely to degenerate into people shouting at each other,” said Cassino. “Viewers pick up more information from this sort of calm discussion than from other formats. Unfortunately, these shows have a much smaller audience than the shouters.

  15. Elaine:

    “The poll — which asked New Jerseyans where they find news and information about current events — found that Sunday morning news shows are the most informative, while Fox News actually leads people to be less informed than those who consume no news at all.”

    Do you see the flaw in the poll?

  17. Bron,

    Did OS say anything about conservatives? He provided a link to a study that found that people who watch Fox News are less informed. Do you believe that isn’t the case? Do you think the research project was flawed in some way? I’m willing to listen if you can provide proof that it was.

  18. rafflaw:

    apparently not concerning abortion. Otherwise they wouldnt want government involved in that decision.

    So I am not trying to fool anyone.

  20. Elaine:

    here you go:

    From OS above:

    “Poll just out from Dickinson University’s PublicMind research project. The findings are that people who watch Fox News are less informed than people who watch no news at all.

    Bizarre. Who would have suspected that watching Fox News would make you stupid? I think we have found out Bron’s secret.

    http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/11/poll-fox-news-viewers-less-informed-than-those-who-read-no-news.php?ref=fpnewsfeed”

    As I said, what I posted was in response to this. You can find anything on the Internet to support your opinions and that was my point which you made so well.

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