The Occupy Wall Street Movement really seems to be gathering momentum now. Breaking up encampments in New York, Oakland, Portland and Fresno appears to have had the unintended effect of dispersing and multiplying new demonstrations rather than stopping them. Though the encampments, marches and demonstrations continue to remain remarkably peaceful, authorities appear to be getting more and more worried and eager to quash the movement. Remarkably, there have been 4,400 arrests as of Thursday, November 17 nationally against Occupy Movement protesters. That is already 400 more than were arrested by the government of Iran during the protests against the fraudulent elections there in 2009!
Last Friday's outrageous pepper spraying of peacefully demonstrating students at the University of California at Davis was the latest impingement on the First Amendment rights of citizens to peaceably assemble and exercise freedom of speech. To read about the incident and watch a video of it, click here.
The movement is gaining strength because its message resonates. First, Wall Street brokers and investment banks got bailed out when their casino securitization schemes came crashing down. With this in hand they turned around and showered themselves with billions of dollars in bonuses. Then, instead of turning to job creation, Congress concentrated on debt reduction, even bringing the U.S. to the brink of fiscal default. Instead of offering real help to homeowners in danger of foreclosure, the Bush tax breaks of the wealthiest 1% were protected. Across the country, instead of asking the haves to contribute to society at the levels they used to, students have been socked with an 81% increase in tuition in recent years, with the prospect of 16% a year more for the next four years.
The pattern is clear. The wealthy pay a 15% tax rate on capital gains while wage and salaried labor pays 25 to 35%. Corporations are allowed to park income in the Cayman Islands to hide it from accountability. Oil companies, big agribusinesses and corporate jet owners receive subsidies while regular folks are told to expect their Social Security and Medicare to be cut and their children's class sizes to go up. Big interests with their campaign cash and their 17,000 Washington lobbyists have gamed the system to help the rich get richer while gutting everything that helps sustain the middle class. Fantastically, now it is the middle class's money which is going to support plutocrats.
The Occupy message in response to is equally clear: this class warfare of the top against everyone else is destroying opportunity in the country and must be reversed. By uniting the vast majority to vote their interests they challenge the comfy arrangements that have grown up over time and threaten to restore some of the social mobility and the safety net that has been so shredded since the inception of the failed trickle-down ideology in the 1980s.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Legalized Bribery Continues
Sunday night CBS News ran a feature on 60 Minutes that every American should watch. You really have to see it to believe it. Called The Lobbyist's Playbook, it features Leslie Stahl interviewing convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who is out of prison now and telling it like it was. Not only does Abramoff fess up to his own corrupt misdeeds, he makes it clear he feels that despite some tighter laws being passed as a result of his scandal, little has truly changed in the influence peddling game.
In the piece, Abramoff claims to have had strong influence over 100 Washington legislators. One particularly effective technique he used was to tell congressional staffers he would have a job waiting for them after they were through with the government service, often at triple the salary. They would then become amenable to slipping items into bills that would benefit the clients Abramoff represented.
The 60 Minutes segment also includes Stahl interviewing former congressman Bob Ney, the only lawmaker convicted in the Abramoff scandal. Ney is similarly frank about his own corrupt doings. Despite the disgusting nature of how they operated, it's refreshing to see some honesty from inside participants about how the game is often played. Abramoff also talks about legal dodges around attempts to rein in the industry.
The bottom line is that so long as politicians need large quantities of cash to run campaigns, and so long as they have to get it from private sources, interests with business before the government will find ways to get it to them in exchange for the favors and special treatment they desire. The system is in itself tantamount to legalized bribery.
To see the 60 Minutes segment click here. To see my earlier post including suggestions on reforming this travesty, click here.
In the piece, Abramoff claims to have had strong influence over 100 Washington legislators. One particularly effective technique he used was to tell congressional staffers he would have a job waiting for them after they were through with the government service, often at triple the salary. They would then become amenable to slipping items into bills that would benefit the clients Abramoff represented.
The 60 Minutes segment also includes Stahl interviewing former congressman Bob Ney, the only lawmaker convicted in the Abramoff scandal. Ney is similarly frank about his own corrupt doings. Despite the disgusting nature of how they operated, it's refreshing to see some honesty from inside participants about how the game is often played. Abramoff also talks about legal dodges around attempts to rein in the industry.
The bottom line is that so long as politicians need large quantities of cash to run campaigns, and so long as they have to get it from private sources, interests with business before the government will find ways to get it to them in exchange for the favors and special treatment they desire. The system is in itself tantamount to legalized bribery.
To see the 60 Minutes segment click here. To see my earlier post including suggestions on reforming this travesty, click here.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Occupy Wall Street Changes National Conversation
An amazing transformation in the national conversation has taken place over the past six weeks, thanks to the Occupy Wall Street movement. What people are talking about has moved off cuts, layoffs and deficit reduction. It is now focused on jobs and inequity, the inequity of a system that watches out for the interests of millionaires, billionaires and corporate giants and neglects the needs of the overwhelming majority of middle and working class Americans.
This change has resulted in a spate of attention to stories about how income inequality has risen since the introduction of trickle-down theory thirty years ago. Click here to see the chart based on Congressional Budget Office statistics showing a 275% gain in income for the top 1% compared to the nearly flat performance for other income levels. It's noteworthy that the link in this paragraph is not from a liberal source, but from the staid Economist magazine's site.
What began in New York's Zucotti Park September 17 has spread nationwide and even internationally. You can get reports from a wide range of "Occupy" goings on in Richmond, Nashville, Portland, Oakland, and from London to Cairo's Tahrir Square here. There have even been a couple of Occupy marches here in Visalia.
The reaction against those with the money and clout to hire an army of lobbyists, bankroll anonymous political action committees and skew legislation and the tax code to their special advantage is widespread across the political spectrum. It is worth noting that before it was co-opted by the Republican Party, even the Tea Party movement was originally set off by the bank bailout.
Remarks by figures such as House Minority Leader Eric Cantor that the movement is motivated by "hatred" or is "pro-Communism" show how poorly some understand the ideals at work here. What spawns the perspective that children should have decent public schools or senior citizens a dignified retirement is hardly hatred. The notion that banks and brokerages should be careful with their depositers' money and cover their own losses is hardly antithetical to the principles of real free enterprise.
Whether Occupy Wall Street has legs will be determined by its staying power and its ability to crystallize and lead opinion. Its basic premise: that ever-lower taxes for plutocrats and corporate giants should not come at the expense of basic human services, retirement security, and jobs for the rest of the population is one that has struck a chord and ought to resonate in these times. We could be in for a wild ride.
This change has resulted in a spate of attention to stories about how income inequality has risen since the introduction of trickle-down theory thirty years ago. Click here to see the chart based on Congressional Budget Office statistics showing a 275% gain in income for the top 1% compared to the nearly flat performance for other income levels. It's noteworthy that the link in this paragraph is not from a liberal source, but from the staid Economist magazine's site.
What began in New York's Zucotti Park September 17 has spread nationwide and even internationally. You can get reports from a wide range of "Occupy" goings on in Richmond, Nashville, Portland, Oakland, and from London to Cairo's Tahrir Square here. There have even been a couple of Occupy marches here in Visalia.
The reaction against those with the money and clout to hire an army of lobbyists, bankroll anonymous political action committees and skew legislation and the tax code to their special advantage is widespread across the political spectrum. It is worth noting that before it was co-opted by the Republican Party, even the Tea Party movement was originally set off by the bank bailout.
Remarks by figures such as House Minority Leader Eric Cantor that the movement is motivated by "hatred" or is "pro-Communism" show how poorly some understand the ideals at work here. What spawns the perspective that children should have decent public schools or senior citizens a dignified retirement is hardly hatred. The notion that banks and brokerages should be careful with their depositers' money and cover their own losses is hardly antithetical to the principles of real free enterprise.
Whether Occupy Wall Street has legs will be determined by its staying power and its ability to crystallize and lead opinion. Its basic premise: that ever-lower taxes for plutocrats and corporate giants should not come at the expense of basic human services, retirement security, and jobs for the rest of the population is one that has struck a chord and ought to resonate in these times. We could be in for a wild ride.
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