Some Things Are Personal-- Like Your Child Drowning... Or Your Subordinates Talking Back To You

Since the start of OccupyWallStreet, a month ago, I've been furiously quoting passages by the two bards of the movement, David Korten and Corey Robin and then last night and Sunday night we showed the outstanding One Percent documentaries by Jamie Johnson. Corey and Jamie, especially, deal with the up close and personal aspect of the tenacious hold of privilege and entitlement from these people who claim they ARE America and rule by-- yes-- divine right. Monday morning I was moved to tweet this sentence from Corey's book, seeking to show just how personal it is for them:


Let's take a look at two more quotes, one from the Eric Cantor of the late 1700s and the other from a correspondent on an e-mail list. The first comes from Corey Robin's book, The Reactionary Mind:

"The real object" of the French Revolution, Burke told Parliament in 1790, is "to break all those connections, natural and civil, that regulate and hold together the community by a chain of subordination; to raise soldiers against their officers; servants against their masters; tradesmen against their customers; artificers against their employers; tenants against their landlords; curates against their bishops; and children against their parents."

And I'll leave you with this today, from an anonymous source: "I personally know of one actual billionaire. He is stunned people are focused on financial crimes. He feels personally attacked for being successful. This misses the proverbial elephant in the room: genuine populist anger with a system built to resist change. This country, our entire moral and legal code, is based on fairness. The traditional system does not provide even a hope for that. The housing/credit crash has stripped the game naked. Perversely, those responsible for the crash have been rewarded, which caused the stock market to recover, further benefiting the culprits, while forcing the 99% further into debt to pay for it. When few benefit while the 99% suffers, it's unfair. When small companies go under, without a glance from the government, while big companies get bailed out at our expense, people get pissed. It's not fair. A third of the world's wealth vanishes. Either it didn't exist in the first place or someone has it. Those someones, our oligarchs, our billionaires, do not like to be outed, for us to know their names, and how they manipulate the system to their benefit. They take that threat very seriously. And very personally. There are not that many of them, and they are known primarily to each other. They've got a lot to lose and finally, they are worried."

Is Revolution Inevitable Now?

In a democracy-- or even a sham democracy with a fascist-majority Supreme Court and Congress and an Executive that also is dedicated to protecting the ownership claims (on the nation) of the plutocrats who have nurtured their careers-- it's uncomfortable thinking of ourselves (the 99%) as "the subordinate classes." And even the father of conservative thought, Edmund Burke, said we had some rights. As Corey Robin points out in the introduction to The Reactionary Mind, "By virtue of membership in a polity, Burke allowed, men had a great many rights-- to the fruits of their labor, their inheritance, education, and more. But the one right he refused to concede to all men was that 'share of power, authority, and direction' they might think they ought to have in the management of the state'."

As you know, we've been part of an ad hoc coalition of bloggers working with OccupyTheBoardroom to help the 99% find their voice in the fight against plutocracy. There have been thousands of e-mails sent to CEOs and other banksters-- you can read them here-- and there's one in particular I'd like to point out from a guy on the East Side of L.A., Brian Malott, which I found very compelling and powerful:

My parents are paying for your bail out and bonuses with their golden years

To whom it may concern:

My parents, Randal Duane and Frances Marie, have worked hard their entire lives to care for my brother and I and to build a life. They own a modest house and two modest cars and have a minor savings account that they had hoped to grow a little more now that they are in their mid-fifties.

Frances lost her job over two years ago in customer service at a national carpet manufacturer because of cut backs related to the depressed housing market.

Randal lost his job a year ago as a manager of a branch of a company that provided temporary workers for construction and local city and county government. 

They made modest salaries and never benefited from the boom times. They literally saved their pennies to pay off their home and their cars early and to help my grandmother pay for her medications.

Now they spend nearly $2000 a month out of their 30-year-old Bank of America accounts to maintain their COBRA insurance. The savings they worked for over 40 years falls away moment by moment. They seek out cheaper and cheaper foods, clean their devalued home over and over as "entertainment" because they can't afford the gas to go anywhere.

My father is applying for progressively more degrading jobs in the hopes of keeping at least their current austere life. So far he's been virtually ignored because the few available jobs (even at the lowest level) are being given to the younger and equally overqualified applicants.

My parents paid for your inflated salaries, they paid for your speculation, they paid for your bail out, and now they are paying for you to sit on a trillion dollars with their short future.  A future that they sweated and saved for now looks like it will be a series of cheap bulk hamburger meat dinners, punctuated by window washing and heat waves with no air conditioning.

They are the 99% I protest for.

Brian Malott

Most of the members of Congress are part of the 1%. We keep electing millionaires to Congress who legislate against us and our families. It's part of why the Republican Party freaks out-- and why the Democratic Establishment and their pro-corporatist organizations pull their punches-- when someone like Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders comes along and tells them to shove their crocodile tears about "class war" up their asses. And what about Obama? Whose side is he on? His own, of course. Does he see a path to victory by sticking up for the 99%?

Rahm Emanuel's and Bill Daley's cronies on Wall Street has pretty much cut him off contribution-wise now. (Other than Blue Dogs, they're cutting off Democrats in general.)

Mitt Romney has raised far more money than Mr. Obama this year from the firms that have been among Wall Street’s top sources of donations for the two candidates.

That gap underscores the growing alienation from Mr. Obama among many rank-and-file financial professionals and Mr. Romney’s aggressive and successful efforts to woo them.

The imbalance exists at large investment banks and hedge funds, private equity firms and commercial banks, according to a New York Times analysis of the firms that accounted for the most campaign contributions from the industry to Mr. Romney and Mr. Obama in 2008, based on data from the Federal Election Commission and the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

It could widen as Mr. Obama, seeking to harness anger over growing income inequality, escalates his criticism of the industry, after a year spent trying to smooth ties bruised by efforts to impose tougher regulations.

...Employees of Goldman Sachs, who in the 2008 campaign gave Mr. Obama over $1 million-- more than donors from any other private employer in the country — have given him about $45,000 this year. Mr. Romney has raised about $350,000 from the firm’s employees.

Saturday, the same day as the Times article appeared, by the way, the president delivered some pretty strong 99%-oriented points to the nation in his weekly address as he discussed "why it was so disappointing to see Senate Republicans obstruct the American Jobs Act, even though a majority of Senators voted 'yes' to advance this jobs bill":

We can’t afford this lack of action. And there is no reason for it. Independent economists say that this jobs bill would give the economy a jumpstart and lead to nearly two million new jobs. Every idea in that jobs bill is the kind of idea both parties have supported in the past. 

The majority of the American people support the proposals in this jobs bill. And they want action from their elected leaders to create jobs and restore some security for the middle class right now. You deserve to see your hard work and responsibility rewarded-- and you certainly deserve to see it reflected in the folks you send to Washington.

But rather than listen to you and put folks back to work, Republicans in the House spent the past couple days picking partisan ideological fights. They’re seeing if they can roll back clean air and water protections.  They’re stirring up fights over a woman’s right to make her own health care choices. They’re not focused on the concrete actions that will put people back to work right now. 

Well, we’re going to give them another chance. We’re going to give them another chance to spend more time worrying about your jobs than keeping theirs. 

Next week, I’m urging Members of Congress to vote on putting hundreds of thousands of teachers back in the classroom, cops back on the streets, and firefighters back on the job.

And if they vote “no” on that, they’ll have to tell you why. They’ll have to tell you why teachers in your community don’t deserve a paycheck again. They’ll have to tell your kids why they don’t deserve to have their teacher back. They’ll have to tell you why they’re against commonsense proposals that would help families and strengthen our communities right now.

In the coming weeks, we’ll have them vote on the other parts of the jobs bill-- putting construction workers back on the job, rebuilding our roads and bridges; providing tax cuts for small businesses that hire our veterans; making sure that middle-class families don’t see a tax hike next year and that the unemployed and our out-of-work youth have a chance to get back in the workforce and earn their piece of the American Dream.
 
That’s what’s at stake. Putting people back to work. Restoring economic security for the middle class. Rebuilding an economy where hard work is valued and responsibility is rewarded-- an economy that’s built to last. And I’m going to travel all over the country over the next few weeks so that we can remind Congress that’s their job. Because there’s still time to create jobs and grow our economy right now. There’s still time for Congress to do the right thing. We just need to act. 

Or is it too little too late? Is the revolution on? And who's side will Obama be on then? Do you really have to ask?

And, at this point, this is the guy who most Republican primary voters see as their best hope for a bright future:

Throw A Pie In The Face Of The Chairman of The Board Today

What a day! We've been working with a coalition of online groups for 2 weeks and finally launched OccupyTheBoardRoom early this morning, after tweaking final details all last night. And then we did our live chat session with Colorado activist Joe Miklosi, who's running for the congressional seat currently held by right-wing extremist Mike Coffman. And in the middle of all that a very old pal, Steve Barton, sent me the song above, "Pie In The Face," from his Projector album.

Like the Occupy Wall Street movement, Steve's a non-violent kind of guy. No one's really advocating physical pies in anyone's faces-- not even any of the 1%-- just metaphorical pies in the face in the form of e-mails. You can send one here and you can view the ones others have sent today here. I know Steve about 30 years. He was one of the singers Translator, a band on my indie label, 415. He's one of the 99%. I hope he's read The Reactionary Mind by Corey Robins. I hope you have too. It goes a long way towards explaining why-- unlike us-- the reactionaries are decidedly not non-violent. They're uptight, viciously so and, as we saw today, they and their brutal agents are looking for a fight, for an excuse to put the 99% back in "our place." As Robin explains, there's nothing that infuriates the 1% afflicted with reactionary mind syndrome than when the rest of us try to claim equality.

During the Seattle general strike of 1919, workers went to great lengths to provide basic government services, including law and order. So successful were they that the mayor [a fascist] concluded it was this, the workers' independent capacity to limit violence and anarchy, that posed the greatest threat.

"The so-called sympathetic Seattle strike was an attempted revolution. That there was no violence does not alter the fact... True, there were no flashing guns, no bombs, no killings. Revolution, I repeat, doesn't need violence. The general strike, as practiced in Seattle, is of itself the weapon of revolution, all the more dangerous because quiet... That is to say, it puts the government out of operation. And that is all there is to revolt-- no matter how achieved"

...Conservatism is the theoretical voice of this animus against the agency of the subordinate classes. It provides the most consistent and profound argument as to why the lower orders should not be allowed to exercise their independent will, why they should not be allowed to govern themselves or the polity. Submission is their first duty, agency, the prerogative of the elite.

Though it is often claimed that the left stands for equality while the right stands for freedom, this notion misstates the actual disagreement between right and left. Historically, the conservative has favored liberty for the higher orders and constraint for the lower orders. What the conservative sees and dislikes in equality, in other words, is not a threat to freedom, but its extension. For in that extension, he sees a loss of his own freedom. ... Such was the threat Edmund Burke saw in the French Revolution: not merely an expropriation of property or explosion of violence but an inversion of the obligations of deference and command. "The levellers," he claimed, "only change and pervert the natural order of things."

The occupation of an hair-dresser, or of a working tallow-chandler, cannot be a matter of honour to any person-- to say nothing of a number of other more servile employments. Such descriptions of men ought not to suffer oppression from the state; but the state suffers oppression, if such as they, either individually or collectively, are permitted to rule.

There's an Edmund Burke Institute for American Renewal in Washington, a block up from K Street and they just love Paul Ryan, the Wall Street shill who presented plutocracy's plan for ending Medicare and gutting Social Security. Ryan has never worked an honest day in his miserable life but he's well-paid by his Wall Street overlords and he's now-- though a career politician-- a member of the 1%. If you're a Burke devotee, I'm sure Ryan is your kind of politician. For the 99%... there's Rob Zerban-- who spent this afternoon tweeting up a storm from OccupyMilwaukee.

Would Conservative Icon Edmund Burke Have Been A Blue Dog Today?

Mike Lux's book, The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be is so inspiring and so celebratory and positive that you may have noticed I've been letting Mike's ideas infuse into a lot of posts in the last few days. This will be one of those, a look at how the American conservative movement hasn't changed-- at least not ideologically-- since its earliest days of violently opposing the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolutionary War. Their supine, kiss ass orientation towards wealth, privilege, elites and the status quo sounds the same-- if more polished two and a half centuries ago-- reading the treatises of reactionary Irish shill for the English aristocracy Edmund Burke or the talking point tweets of shallow, knee jerk rightists like obstructionist congressmen Paul Ryan and Mike Pence.


Burke, often called the father of modern conservative theory, was a member of the British Parliament, starting as a pet designee of Lord Fermanagh (the 2nd Earl Verney) in a pocket borough. He was briefly elected to represent a real constituency, lost his seat and was given another pocket borough for the rest of his career. But Burke was a Whig, not a Conservative (Tory). In fact he was the leader of the "Old Whigs," the conservative lot who championed tradition and vehemently opposed the premises-- Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité-- of the French Revolution. He was a kind of a DLC scumbag or Blue Dog Democrat of his day. (He can't really and truly be claimed by today's Republican Party, although the ones who get into stuff like reading try, because he opposed imperialism, supported Catholic emancipation and the end of capital punishment and, in 1780, he condemned the use of the pillory for two men convicted for attempting to practice sodomy. Yes, the father of modern conservative thought wasn't homophobic enough to get him past today's GOP primary base!)

And what a base it is; aside from the racists and self-absorbed, selfish multimillionaires all the GOP has left are the cluelessly and perpetually deluded: self-righteous consumers of the right-wing media owned and operated by those self-absorbed, selfish multimillionaires. They know what they want-- no taxes for the wealthy-- and they'll do whatever they have to do to get it.

And just as Edmund Burke was a political creature of his wealthy sponsors, conservative political hacks like Blanche Lincoln, Max Baucus, Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman, Arlen Specter, Mark Pryor, Mary Landrieu and the entire Republican Party congressional caucus are owned-- lock, stock and barrel-- by the special interests who finance their very lucrative political careers, and of course their post-congressional careers. Listen to conservative hack Ginny Brown-Waite (R-FL) completely distorting the health care debate to mislead the needy elderly into thinking that suddenly-- it would certainly be the first time in history-- conservatives are their friends and protectors. While fanatic partisan warriors like Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Richard Burr (R-NC) and Jim DeMint (R-SC) make no bones about anything other than Rush Limbaugh's early diktat to do whatever is needed to make Obama fail, it falls on lesser lights-- like Brown-Waite, Pence, Ryan and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and their conservative Blue Dog and DLC allies-- to try to put forward some kind of Republican counter to America's next great progressive stride forward.

What is especially painful is how conservative Democrats, bought off by special interests, are willing to betray progressivism-- as well as their own constituents-- to keep the CEO, the PAC and the lobbyist money flowing. Yesterday the American Prospect exposed how 5 "moderates" are backing the GOP demands that women's health issues regarding choice not be included in the health care reform. Two-- Alabama reactionary Artur Davis and Florida tool Kendrick Meek-- are running for higher office.

There's a real struggle for the soul of the Democratic Party going on now. Will it continue to be a vehicle for progress and for American working families, or will it allow itself to be bought off by the forces of reaction and plutocracy? It could go either way. In the run-up to the 2010 midterm elections we find candidates like Jennifer Brunner in Ohio and Doug Tudor in Florida battling against tremendous odds as the special interests pour money into their opponents' coffers-- and not just Republican opponents, but so-called Democratic ones as well.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz, often likened to a female Rahm Emanuel in the making, has always been a sleazy and disreputable character willing to deal with the devil for the sake of accumulating raw political power. Last year she tacitly backed Republicans Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the notorious gangster brothers the Diaz-Balarts, and Republican leader Adam "Howdy Doody" Putnam, rather than Democratic challengers-- despite the fact that she was the chair of the DCCC Red to Blue program! This year, while her protege Kendrick Meek betrays women's choice, she has funneled thousands of dollars into the campaign of far right Blue Dog Lori Edwards in the race for the seat being abandoned by Putnam-- despite, or maybe because, that seat is being contested by a grassroots progressive, Doug Tudor.

This morning we contacted Doug and asked him why he thought Wasserman Schultz was getting behind someone who opposes the Democratic Party agenda. “If Ms. Edwards is positioning herself as a candidate of the status quo," he told us, "she is gaining the right endorsements. The Blue Dogs are determined to represent the insurance industry, instead of the people, in the crucial healthcare debate. And, as we saw in Representative Wasserman Schultz’ tacit endorsement of Adam Putnam and the Diaz brothers in the last election, Debbie also isn’t interested in furthering a progressive agenda. Despite what many others are saying, I don’t believe DWS-PAC’s contribution to Ms. Edwards involves gender politics.  I just refuse to believe that.” 

Like Doug, Jennifer Brunner is continuing to battle for crucial progressive legislation, as she has throughout her career. Yesterday she was on HuffPo voicing very different concerns from anti-progressives like Meek and Davis.

The Obama administration is not pushing for true "single payer" health insurance, where there is just one health care payment system for the country. Instead, President Obama pragmatically recognizes that people should have the choice of the public option or private insurance, if they have or can obtain private insurance. There are, however, 50 million people without any health insurance, many of whom are ready to accept and embrace what is, as I urged Meredith, a basic human right. Giving them a choice and making the federal government directly accountable for that choice is what the public option means.

For the long-term economic health of our country, the public option will jettison costs from employers and from us as taxpayers, who pay the hidden costs of uninsured and underinsured Americans' health care now as it is. You don't cure a headache by beating your head against a wall, but that's what we've been doing-- and it's getting worse. Glenn Beck can scream all he wants about how leaders of other countries come to the U.S. for our excellent care, but he doesn't talk about how some desperate middle class Americans take enormous risks going to other countries to get health care, under whatever standards of care may prevail there, because they cannot get it here.

We are the United States of America. We are still, to so many here and abroad, that "shining city on the hill." We must step forward, recognize that the free market, by itself, as applied to health care doesn't make us free, but rather imprisons us in a vicious cycle of suffering, inequality, disparity and grief. The public option is the first step to stem the flood of loss and resulting damage.

You can donate-- and I hope you will-- to both Doug Tudor's and Jennifer Brunner's campaigns here at our ActBlue page. Even $5 and $10 donations go a long way towards fighting off the pervasive influence of those who spend thousands to elect candidates who will stand for their special interests rather than for working families. The alternative is a government run for and by the Big Money interests. That's what conservatism really boils down to and what it has always boiled down to. Conservatives opposed everything that has moved our country forward since before its founding. They were aghast over Jefferson and his Declaration of Independence. They fought against the Bill of Rights tooth and nail. They slimed Abraham Lincoln for the Gettysburg Address. They opposed Social Security, Medicare, rural electrification, the 8-hour workday, the right of workers to organize, the right of women and minorities to vote, as well as public education, consumer protections, the abolition of child labor, the minimum wage, civil rights... everything that has made America great. That's the conservative movement that today is fighting to wreck health care reform, and the Obama presidency.

For those looking for some more direct Mike Lux material, I found an apt passage while I was riding on the Bangkok Skytrain yesterday afternoon, conveniently tying together conservative dogma and corruption (often an integral part of conservative dogma!):

Conservatives from Hamilton's time until today have always viewed government as best used as an instrument to benefit business and wealthy elites. Unfortunately, this philosophy has bled over all too often into private interests using government for personal enrichment. Keeping our democracy from being overrun by corruption is always a challenge, but it has been made more difficult by the conservative Social Darwinist philosophy that views government as a tool to assist the already wealthy.

...In the post-Civil War Gilded Age, Social Darwinism supported the notion that corruption might even be a force for good: the dominant and wealthy would advance society and force the weak out of the way... Corporations were relatively open about their practice of bribing politicians... Widespread and well-documented stories told of congressional members receiving $5,000 for every important vote, stocks in companies, and free services like railroad tickets at any time upon request. Republican presidential candidate James Garfield [the first of the new breed to corrupt, corporate Republicans to follow Lincoln's ultra progressive Radical Republicans] took a $150,000 contribution from robber baron Jay Gould and, in exchange, promised to appoint whomever Gould wanted to the Supreme Court... [T]he ideology of priate interest over the public good has led to a historical pattern such that when conservatives have been in power, much more corruption tends to happen.

As Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. put it, "Private interest eras rest on the principle that the individual in promoting his own interests promotes the general interest... This priority of wealth over commonwealth naturally provides a propensity to corruption in government. When public purpose dominates, government tends to be idealistic. Idealists have many faults but they rarely steal... When private interests dominate, public morals are very different."

...When you look back at the trends in our nation's history, it is simply a fact that since the Gilded Age ushered big money and Social Darwinist ethics into our governmental system, when conservatives have dominated our government, corruption has also been at its peak. Conservatives have believed, as the conservative philosopher Bernard Mandeville put it, that private vices yield public benefits. But that kind of philosophy leads to stealing from the public coffers. And as the Bush-era conservatives have just shown us, that kind of avarice, combined with a blatant willingness to abuse power, leads to a level of corruption that is truly historic.