Category: Uncategorized

Discussing OWS (3): #OccupyWallStreet as a Culture Change Movement

Excerpted from William Gamson:

“The single most important thing to understand about the Occupy movement[deleted plural ending] is that it is primarily a movement about cultural change, not institutional and policy change. Cultural change means changing the nature of political discourse and the various spheres in which it is carried on, especially mass media. Changing what is salient on the public agenda can open discursive opportunities for various groups seeking specific institutional and policy changes.

The cultural mission of the Occupy movement is to raise consciousness about the corporate domination of American political, social, and economic institutions – and to the enormous inequalities in income and wealth produced by this domination. At the same time, it attempts to build a collective identity within its constituency by making personal suffering a shared experience. While I have no systematic data to prove it has done so, I am quite confident that, when such data is available, it will show that in various forums there has been a sharp increase since September, 2011 in references to corporate power and actual or potential abuse of corporate power and to statistics showing the dramatic increases in wealth and income controlled by the richest one percent or fewer families. Hence, it seems reasonable to argue that, whatever future institutional and policy changes may or may not take place in the future, this movement has already been a major success by changing the nature of U.S. political discourse.

Continue reading “Michel Bauwens: Occupy as a Culture Change Movement”

How Ron Paul Could Win

In the Soviet Union common criminals were punished less harshly and received better treatment than political prisoners. A person who had committed a violent crime had more rights than someone who expressed criticism of the government and could be portrayed as having acted against the government. We now have the same situation in the US.

In a recent case the Supreme Court overturned the sentence of a drug dealer who was convicted on the basis of a warrantless 28-day search by having a GPS device affixed to his car. In other words, a common criminal still has privacy rights under the Constitution, but not US citizens who are suspected of vague and nebulous “terrorist support.”

Both Republicans and Democrats have demonstrated disregard for the civil liberty protections guaranteed by the US Constitution. Among the visible candidates for president, only Ron Paul has respect for the Constitution. As it is now possible for the executive branch to take away the life and liberty of a US citizen without due process of law, the Constitution is for all practical purposes lost. Tyranny looms, and Ron Paul is the only candidate who stands against tyranny.

This is why I have written that Ron Paul is our last chance and encouraged his libertarian handlers to be flexible enough for the electorate to elect Ron Paul. I agree that Ron Paul, if elected president, would be hamstrung by the Establishment, but the other candidates offer no hope whatsoever.

Continue reading “Paul Craig Roberts: How Ron Paul Could Win”

Close Ties to Goldman Enrich Romney’s Public and Private Lives

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE, PETER LATTMAN and KEVIN ROOSE

New York Times,  January 27, 2012

When Bain Capital sought to raise money in 1989 for a fast-growing office-supply company named Staples, Mitt Romney, Bain’s founder, called upon a trusted business partner: Goldman Sachs, whose bankers led the company’s initial public offering.

When Mr. Romney became governor of Massachusetts, his blind trust gave Goldman much of his wealth to manage, a fortune now estimated to be as much as $250 million.

And as Mr. Romney mounts his second bid for the presidency, Goldman is coming through again: Its employees have contributed at least $367,000 to his campaign, making the firm Mr. Romney’s largest single source of campaign money through the end of September.

No other company is so closely intertwined with Mr. Romney’s public and private lives except Bain itself. And in recent days, Mr. Romney’s ties to Goldman Sachs have lashed another lightning rod to a campaign already fending off withering attacks on his career as a buyout specialist, thrusting the privileges of the Wall Street elite to the forefront of the Republican nominating battle.

Read rest of article.

Phi Beta Iota:  Goldman Sachs is not stupid, just criminally irresponsible.  When China and Russia threatened the lives of the Goldman partners, they immediately “made good.”  There are three ways to interpret this information: first, that Romney's SuperPACs will have unlimited funding and Obama will be cash-starved and lose; second, that Romney will be so damned by this information as to be made unelectable, throwing the race to Obama; or third, that this is part of the theater leading up to a deadlocked convention from which Jeb Bush emerges as the “surprise” nominee.   Any of  the three is a loss for the 99%.

 

John Dean served as Counsel to the President of the United States from July 1970 to April 1973.

 

This column originally appeared in Justia‘s Verdict.

On December 30, 2011, the Montana Supreme Court ruled that the state’s one-hundred-year-old ban on corporate political contributions should remain in full force and effect, notwithstanding the January 21, 2010 ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court in Citizens United v. FEC.  (As readers may recall, Citizens United was the controversial decision holding that corporate campaign contributions are protected as political speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.)

Supporters of the Citizens United ruling think that the Montana justices simply don’t know how to read the law.  On the other hand, those who want to overturn Citizens United—and thus to reverse its corrosive impact, which allows corporate money to be spent on partisan politics—have applauded the Montana high court’s action. They believe that Montana’s high court got it right.

No one knows for certain, though, which side will ultimately prevail.

Montana’s Claimed Exception To Citizens United

EXTRACT

Most likely, it will take a Constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United, and thankfully, efforts to introduce just such an amendment are proceeding. But the amendment process is very difficult, and while public polling shows clear and overwhelming public disapproval of the role of corporate money in politics, this issue is not of the sort that moves large numbers of people to take actions, and that is what is needed. Rather, I expect public apathy to allow corporations and their money to dominate politics under Citizen United in 2012, and in the foreseeable future. It is a mess, but a mess that favors Republicans, and a powerful minority of Americans.  Thus, the ugly situation with respect to elections and corporate money is going to get much worse before it gets better.

Read full article.

Reflection: The Concept of Enlightenment

musings on Adorno & Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment.

Panetta: Military Spending Is Going Up

By David Swanson

The Washington-Wall Street Revolving Door Keeps Spinning

Tuesday 24 January 2012

by: Bill Moyers and Michael Winship, Moyers & Co. | Op-Ed

We’ve already made our choice for the best headline of the year, so far: “Citigroup Replaces JPMorgan as White House Chief of Staff.”

When we saw it on the website Gawker.com we had to smile — but the smile didn’t last long. There’s simply too much truth in that headline; it says a lot about how Wall Street and Washington have colluded to create the winner-take-all economy that rewards the very few at the expense of everyone else.

The story behind it is that Jack Lew is President Obama’s new chief of staff — arguably the most powerful office in the White House that isn’t shaped like an oval. He used to work for the giant banking conglomerate Citigroup. His predecessor as chief of staff is Bill Daley, who used to work at the giant banking conglomerate JPMorgan Chase, where he was maestro of the bank’s global lobbying and chief liaison to the White House. Daley replaced Obama’s first chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, who once worked as a rainmaker for the investment bank now known as Wasserstein & Company, where in less than three years he was paid a reported eighteen and a half million dollars.

Continue reading “Chuck Spinney: How Bankers Own White House, Offer Clandestine Tax Evasion Services in USA”