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
Can anyone tell me why Obama is pushing the UN to lift the ban on clusterbombs?
That is a Neo Conservative stance.
AY,
Orly is running for Senate? That will be fun!
gbk:
Not exactly what I had thought you were going to come up with, since I already addressed that above.
Keep trying gbk, so far you are just making an assertion. I am waiting.
There must be much more for you to be carrying on like you are.
Elaine,
Now that you brought that up….The smell must really reek up on the east coast at present….I hear Orly has been in NH challenging Obamas’ citizenship…
Orly Taitz Challenge To Obama Ballot Eligibility Rejected By New Hampshire Election Officials
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/22/orly-taitz-obama-birth-certificate-new-hampshire_n_1108144.html?1321990201&icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk1%7C114890
I also read she…if it is a she….is running for the Senate in 2012….Just what we need…one more person in Congress on crack….
Bron, the analysis is correct, because Vermont could have done the same thing and they did not.
Arizona could have used more strict infrastructure laws instead of giving these corporations huge tax incentives and chipping in for infrastructure to support their corporate projects. For short term gains. They allowed them to create a housing bubble in the worst sort of way.
Gene H: you are confusing Marijuana with Industrial hemp. They have very little to do with each other. Industrial hemp does not contain thc or cannabiniods for medical use.
And I will say this, I travel all over the nation and the EU.
The people in Europe resent our attempts to undermine their markets with our Governmental-Multinational collusion. They do not want our food, they do not want our US diplomats pushing Monsanto into their nation under duress of punishment. They do not want our banks crashing their economies with US government sanction.
I see the poor and homeless populations growing all over America while corporate profits have never been higher. It is disgusting that these corporate entities are not paying taxes or are getting refunded by the IRS when we have such tremendous need and suffering in this rich nation.
it is horrifying what is happening to average people in America while corporations hide profits off shore. this is something all America should be in agreement about.
AY,
Gee, I thought Obama was born and brought up in Kenya!
😉
Bron,
Well, I pointed out one just above with your contradiction of, “wall street idiots . . . who made all those bad deals . . .” and your advice of investing in markets. Quite a contradiction.
Read your own words, Bron. I have, and this is what caused me to comment in the first place. Your circular arguments are apparent to all but youself.
OS,
Thanks…..I read the consumer segment….damn kids wanting to read in school…I think the better application would be the cattle prod and standing water….
Elaine,
You mean that Obama does not eve care what the little folks have to say…..Must be his Hawaiian upbringing….
shano:
the building industry has been the hardest hit all around the country, very high unemployment within that sector. Especially housing.
I am not sure you are making a correct analysis.
gbk:
since you are so smart, point it out to me. that should be easy for a bright person like yourself. shouldnt be too hard to do. Just a couple of cut and pastes.
shano,
In re industrial hemp, don’t forget pressure from pharmaceutical companies on that list. In addition to the plant’s many other uses, as a treatment for pain and nausea, it presents a threat to Big Pharma’s bottom line as well. After all, you can’t treat Grandma’s pain from her rheumatoid arthritis if you can get her hooked on Oxycontin and you can’t treat Jane’s nausea from her chemotherapy if you can’t also gouge her for Hydroxyzine too.
Mike, I have met Bernie a couple of times in Vermont (the company I work for is based there) he is a really nice guy.
I asked him about the influence of lobbyists in DC, and he said “No matter how bad you think it is, it is much, much worse”.
Just some random thoughts from my living situation, since I live in Arizona (Red state) and work for a Vermont company (blue state):
Arizona has one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation, over 16%, because they let corporate entities come in and do whatever they wanted (giant Wall Street builders like Pulte homes, etc)
Vermont still has a 5% unemployment rate simply because they protected their communities from corporate invasions of the worst sort. People over money.
And that is living proof of the model that limiting the power of corporations is a good thing for all of society.
shano:
well there you go, another example of politicians being bought off by industry. Maybe free markets arent so bad after all?
But I dont know if I would make people grow it, that is as bad as preventing people from growing it. Let the market decide.
Bron,
“then show me the inconsistency. What is it, where is it?”
Read this thread, Bron.
Bron,
“I am sorry I dont have the same high level of IQ that you and others throw around so that I can understand the many “complexities” and “nuances” of politics and economics. Liberals are so much smarter than we mere conservatives, why we are probably a subspecies compared to your great intellects.
Oh masters of the universe, we bow down before your superior intelligence for guidance in complexity and nuance.”
Nothing like unsincere hyperbole to make your point.
gbk:
then show me the inconsistency. What is it, where is it?
Mike:
why do you need to invest with anyone? you are free to buy stock in McDonalds or any number of companies for that matter.
Not all of the “elites” believe in government hand outs.
I think I am fairly consistent in my views. I like limited government free from entanglements with business. I think lobbying needs to go and I think corporate subsidies need to go.
I might wobble on a few things but not the main one which is let markets work and keep government out of the economy and business out of government.
I am sorry I dont have the same high level of IQ that you and others throw around so that I can understand the many “complexities” and “nuances” of politics and economics. Liberals are so much smarter than we mere conservatives, why we are probably a subspecies compared to your great intellects.
Oh masters of the universe, we bow down before your superior intelligence for guidance in complexity and nuance.
“oh jeeze, the thread degenerated into the old left vs right distraction that our MSM has promoted for decades?
Be aware, that is the major way they keep the citizens of the US from attacking the real culprits in our oligarchy and our government.
Face it, all our politicians are these days are salesmen and women for giant Multinational Corporations.”
Shano,
There is so damn much I agree with in your political analysis that I’m almost hesitant to post this. We are perhaps in 90% agreement on what is wrong in our country and the world. In that other 10% though is the fact that you are perhaps more sour than I am on all politicians. While I think most are corporate shills just as they say, I think that there still are some that actually do put the people’s interests above themselves and their corporate contributors. I trust Bernie Sanders and NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, I’ve met the latter and must admit there is a familial connection. I think there are others also and that we can’t lump all politicians into the same corrupt bunch. This weekend I saw Senator Alan Simpson attack Grover Norquist on his anti-tax stance and while I rarely agree with Simpson I saw political courage in his daring to run counter to Norquist’s power in his Party.
Some politician’s do actually try to do their jobs and those are the ones that we must reach out to. I believe this at the same time that I believe that the 1% is trying to re-establish feudalism via a corporate plutocracy. I don’t think they are mutually exclusive and I think that we must pursue true revitalizing change on a number of fronts. I admit though that in my dotage I may be grasping at straws, I hope not.