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
Y’know, folks. The more I read, the more videos I watch, the more I talk to people, the madder I get. I am sure I am not alone. Many who are professed conservatives as well as liberals are getting mad. That electric moment from the movie “Network” has arrived. We are mad as hell and are not going to take it any more.
What are we up against? The power of multinational corporations, politicians owned by those giant faceless corporations, the military-industrial complex, the police-private prison complex, and the inertia of the low information voter. We are up against slick advertising and a propaganda effort that would make Paul Josef Goebbels envious.
What we have is lots of angry people, scared people and some really smart people. We have numbers, bodies and the phenomenon of mic check. We have the technology of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LiveStream and Anonymous. And we have moral authority.
And we have some really big digital projectors….
A little Thanksgiving humor from Zina Saunders:
Thanks Elaine! Great video and great song! Power to the people!
rafflaw,
This one’s for you:
Gene,
“Although as a technical matter, you are correct. 😀 A little speedy with the post comment button there.”
That’s fine. I hit the post button too soon almost all the time. 😀
Bron,
“I just dont think socialism works, but then neither does fascism which is what I think we have now or dam close. I am appalled at what is happening in this country and think our rights are flying out the window at breakneck speed, both parties are drunk with power and at the helm of a semi on a 7% grade with no brakes and no possibility of slowing the descent into tyranny.”
I agree with this as a whole, but as Gene suggested earlier you might be confusing socialism and fascism.
This country has for some time had socialism for the wealthy as their losses have been recovered by the government since the S&L debacle of the 80’s (I’m speaking of modern times only) and the obvious capital injection into failing institutions in the last five years, not to mention subsidies for companies reaping billiions of dollars of profits every year.
And the fascism – where corporate need for growth and securitization (privatization) of resourses become government policy – is now all too apparent.
These are powerful forces arrayed against a singular individual. We would be on the same side except that you blame the individual and not the monied interests and their paid lackies (formerly known as government) for the state that most people find themselves now.
Amen to what Elaine said.
pete,
I saw that video last night. Katehi should hang her head in shame–so should the police who pepper sprayed peaceful student protesters.
Journalists protest treatment by police at ‘Occupy’ protests
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WIRE REPORT
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/journalists-protest-treatment-by-police-at-occupy-protests
Excerpt:
NEW YORK — News organizations sent letters yesterday to city officials complaining about the police handling of journalists covering the Occupy Wall Street protests and called for meetings to address their concerns.
They said New York police blocked journalists from seeing when authorities cleared out the Occupy camp in lower Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park last week and said police officers used force and arrested some journalists as they were trying to do their jobs.
“The police actions of last week have been more hostile to the press than any other event in recent memory,” a coalition of news organizations and journalist groups said in a letter to chief New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne.
The New York Civil Liberties Union sent another letter to Mayor Michael Bloomberg and police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, covering similar ground.
“The numerous reports we have received and have learned of make clear to us that the NYPD is aggressively blocking journalists from doing their constitutionally protected work and in some instances is even targeting journalists for mistreatment,” that letter said.
When police cleared out the Occupy camp in Zuccotti Park last week in an overnight raid, journalists were kept at a distance, and several were arrested along with the protesters there and at other sites later in the day.
Bloomberg, an independent, has defended the NYPD’s policy of keeping the press back, saying it was intended to keep journalists out of harm’s way.
Elaine
this was my favorite. the chancellor walking to her car, protesters all around and nobody says a word.
Pepper Spray is a Food So Megyn Kelly Says U.C. Davis Cops Get a Pass
gbk,
Although as a technical matter, you are correct. 😀 A little speedy with the post comment button there.
gbk,
When it comes to fascism, by any other name, it’s still fascism. And there is nothing – I repeat nothing – I hate worse than fascists.
Gene,
“Neoconservatism. Neoliberalism. Bah! They are both misnomers and synonymous.”
While I agree they are both misnomers they are not synonymous, but I also agree they are both a form of fascism. Neoconservatism preaches military superiority for the economic benefit of its adherents while neoliberalism preaches free trade with the stick of military reprisal for non-conformists.
The difference is slight, but it is there.
GBK:
first of all we do not have a free market for a multitude of reasons. And I am fully aware that a true free market has never existed but we had close at one point.
I think shano and others make valid points, for example the city/county buying a lot for Trader Joes is BS.
I disagree that the market has failed, we have an interventionist market from both government and corporations. Corporations need to be weened off of the government teat and government needs to be weened from the tax payer teat.
Even in a free economy you are going to have recessions or short term depressions while the market sorts itself out and reallocates capital to more efficient producers. During these times you may have to move out of town for awhile to get a job in another state or county. I dont see that as a problem. For some people it may be.
I just dont think socialism works, but then neither does fascism which is what I think we have now or dam close. I am appalled at what is happening in this country and think our rights are flying out the window at breakneck speed, both parties are drunk with power and at the helm of a semi on a 7% grade with no brakes and no possibility of slowing the descent into tyranny.
Liberals are very good on political freedom but they are very bad on economic freedom, conservatives arent much better on economic freedom and arent at all good on political freedom because of their association with the fundamentalist Christians. [Those people scare me more than liberals do]
I am all for shutting down corporate give-aways.
OS,
You are right about pepper spray. I s nasty stuff. I was sprayed with a substance the state cops called pepper spray in May, 1970 and I was sneezing all summer.
Neoconservatism. Neoliberalism. Bah! They are both misnomers and synonymous. They are in fact both neofascism: a post WWII version of Mussolini’s sycretic political ideology of corporatism adjusted for the age of the multinational corporation. Two heads on the same snake. A pox upon both their houses.
“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?”
OS: because Gov. Jan Brewer and Neo Nazi Russell Pearce and all our other good upstanding Conservative Republicans ™ were getting paid by the private prison industry to do so.
I do not think these conservatives ever take a stance on ‘values’ unless that value is the worship of money.
OS: not only that, but the pepper spray was not used in accordance with the stated manufacturer use, which stated it should be used “at least 15 feet away”. These kids were sprayed point blank range at least three times.
Some research suggests that use of pepper spray and Mace is illegal under Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions of 1977.
If it is illegal to use in warfare, can somebody smarter than me explain why it is legal to use on US citizens on the streets of US cities? In a study done as far back as 13 years ago by the International Association of Chiefs of Police, there were 113 deaths reported from use of pepper spray. I have not been able to find figures since 1998, but I am sure they are out there. Non-lethal, my a$$.
Bron,
“you do know I am against TARP and Stimulus dont you? I have been pretty clear and consistent about those points.”
You appear to be, but then your argument in this thread states that we should all just accept and adapt to the largest transfer of wealth upwards in history by moving to where there are jobs, and accept our newly minted positions of transient feudal serfs in the oil towns of North Dakota — and then count our blessings. You make it sound so simple: work hard and it will all be fine.
You refuse to see that, for at least thirty years, working hard, gaining an education, and trusting in the “free market,” let alone the stock market, is no longer a hedge against destitution, and that many people refuse to accept the neoliberal vision of the “free market” given its failings in the last decade.
The cat is out of bag, neoliberalism is a race to the bottom with corporate welfare being it’s primary concern. Again, your arguments are valid but your direction of scorn is misplaced.