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
Gene, you missed one especially important interest group in your post on hemp.
You forgot the law enforcement/private prison nexus.
As an aside, one of the biggest lobbyists in favor of tough anti-immigration laws in Arizona was the private prison industry. Wonder why that is?
UC Davis Pepper-Spray Incident Reveals Weakness Up Top
By Matt Taibbi
POSTED: November 22
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/uc-davis-pepper-spray-incident-reveals-weakness-up-top-20111122
Excerpt:
Was absolutely mesmerized last night watching the viral video of the UC-Davis pepper-spraying. It was totally amazing, simultaneously one of most depressing and inspiring things I’ve seen in many years.
To recap for those who haven’t seen it: police in paramilitary gear line up in front of a group of Occupy protesters peacefully assembled on a quad pathway. Completely unprovoked, police decide to douse the whole group of sitting protesters with pepper spray. There is crying and chaos and panic, but the wheezing protesters sit resolutely in place and refuse to move despite the assault.
Finally, in what to me is the most amazing part, the protesters gather together and move forward shouting “Shame On You! Shame On You!” over and over again. You can literally see the painful truth of those words cutting the resolve of the policemen and forcing them backwards.
Glenn Greenwald’s post at Salon says this far better than I can, but there are undeniable conclusions one can draw from this incident. The main thing is that the frenzied dissolution of due process and individual rights that took took place under George Bush’s watch, and continued uncorrected even when supposed liberal constitutional lawyer Barack Obama took office, has now come full circle and become an important element to the newer political controversy involving domestic/financial corruption and economic injustice.
As Glenn points out, when we militarized our society in response to the global terrorist threat, we created a new psychological atmosphere in which the use of force and military technology became a favored method for dealing with dissent of any kind.
Bron: while ‘conservative’ ideology might sound nice, in practice it is simply the fact that they are for sale to the highest bidder these days.
I live in the reddest county in a red state where I see Palin 2012 bumper stickers, and the city just bought a commercial lot, for 2.4 million, so Trader Joes would come to town.
The money came out of a fund that was meant for our water infrastructure. The developer got paid top dollar in a falling market and TJs will compete with our local health food store, a small business.
Also, the Tea Party might have had some relevance if they had this crony capitalism on their list of grievances. No, their main point was “taxed enough already”, a pretty selfish stance.
Conservatives refuse to see that Multinationals are not paying their fair share and are wrecking society so they can have record profits.
They could not agree to ONE PENNY of new revenue, when the rich are paying the lowest tax rate in 50 years. they are unreasonable, they are wrong and they are hurting this nation.
gbk:
you do know I am against TARP and Stimulus dont you? I have been pretty clear and consistent about those points.
I am not sure what case you are resting.
Bron,
You keep on giving!
“Government should not subsidize the private sector with tax payer dollars. That is nothing but a transfer of wealth from one citizen to another.”
What do you think TARP and the $12 trillion passed out by the Federal Reserve was?
I rest my case.
Gene H. one of the biggest obstacles in the legalization of Industrial Hemp is the confusion that people can get ‘high’ off of it. Industrial hemp still grows wild in the US, they call it ‘ditch weed’, it is not a plant anyone would use to get a buzz, haha, maybe a giant headache.
So I try to segregate the two whenever possible. I really think it could solve so many problems here, from unemployment to pollution.
Mysterious gas used on protesters in Egypt:
Attention #Egypt: We won’t tolerate speculation about ingredients of our gas. The U.S. manufacturer can & will sue for defamation. #tahrir
Bron,
As the old saying goes, “you can lead a horse to water . . . ”
I’ll say it one last time and then I’m done: read your own arguments in this thread and your own responses to others. Your last post is putting words in my mouth – let the thread speak for itself.
shano,
I’m not mistaking anything for anything. I’m saying there is more than one corporate base of causation that keeps hemp in any form illegal. For keeping hemp down, the three biggest corporate opponents are those invested in petroleum based plastics (like DuPont who were instrumental in banning hemp for rope production), wood based paper products, and pharmaceutical companies.
shano:
What did the laws say was acceptable? I think politicians lining their pockets while in office is unacceptable. If the project is a good one, then the market should decide.
Government should not subsidize the private sector with tax payer dollars. That is nothing but a transfer of wealth from one citizen to another. Why should the purchaser of a new house have a street, sewer or sidewalk paid by the tax payers of Arizona.
AN,
Always a pleasure to hear you chime in….
Bron, you might look up Rick Renzi, another good Arizona ‘conservative’ if you want to see how corrupt these land deals were. the FBI eventually got involved.
gbk:
then show me where. I am waiting.
what part do you not understand? That a person who believes in free markets would be against bail-outs? if that is the case then you really dont understand what capitalism is about. Or maybe my stance on corporate welfare? I am against it, is that a contradiction? Or my opposition to lobbyists? Are those the contradictions you are pointing to?
Or maybe my thought that bail-outs, lobbyists buying favors and corporate welfare is fascism or socialism at best? Is that what you think is contradictory?
Show me where I have contradicted myself, maybe I can learn something and not make the mistake again.
Arizona ‘conservatives’ gave Wall Street builders sweet, sweet deals on infrastructure. Deals that the average small home builder could not get. I was in a couple of these battles trying to save Federally protected wet lands. the builder got whatever they wanted regardless of public opinion.
It was not just the low interest rates. It was our Red State ‘conservative’ politicians working in collusion with giant corporations. And lining their pockets at the same time with good old campaign cash.
yea, anan nurse, another example of our politicians shilling for Multinational corporations over the safety of the entire world.
The corporate strategy is to infiltrate many nations and get support, then have laws written to support their business. the whole system is corrupt.
shano:
the Federal Reserve caused the housing bubble with very low interest rates. What spurs housing is loan rates, the Fed has control of those rates.
IDont you think Arizona saw future tax revenues from new home construction? They thought the housing market would benefit the state as well. I guess they didnt stop and think that when interest rates are that low, bad things can happen.
I found this information on Vermont. I dont think the picture you paint is as cheery as you make it out to be:
http://www.vermonttiger.com/file-downloads/OffTheRailsFINAL.pdf
Vermont has an aging population and about 20% of their non-farm workforce is employed by government.
Undercover hits journalist runs away:
Can anyone tell me why Obama is pushing the UN to lift the ban on clusterbombs? -shano
Unless it’s about $$$$$, but I’m only guessing…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/22/us-pushing-un-cluster-bombs
Excerpts:
“The US is being supported by other cluster bomb manufacturers – including Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan – at negotiations due to end in Geneva on Friday. The move is also backed by a number of signatories to the 2008 convention, including France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Australia, conference observers said.”
…….
“We need the UK to speak up,” said Nash, adding that the British delegation in Geneva had so far said nothing during the negotiations.
Anna Macdonald, of Oxfam International, said: “We will need more leadership from ministers this week to resist US pressure.”
Amnesty’s Oliver Sprague said: “The UK has quite rightly championed the total ban on cluster munitions. It must not now support cynical attempts by the US to undermine efforts to eradicate these deadly and indiscriminate weapons by agreeing to a new legal standard.”
Other weapons, including white phosphorus, are on the agenda in Geneva.
A Foreign Office spokesman said: “The UK is committed to ridding the world of cluster munitions … We will take a view on the protocol at the end of these negotiations. We have been clear that we will not sign up to anything which would undermine [the convention on cluster munitions] or dilute our obligations under it.”
Bron,
“Keep trying gbk, so far you are just making an assertion.”
All arguments are assertions, Bron. I just think yours have no grounding as they shift given what point you want to make. You contradict yourself, it’s that simple.