Edwards Radicalizes Anti-Corporate Pitch

Dubuque, Iowa - Amid a heavy snow storm Friday afternoon, an overflow crowd of several hundred supporters bundled into a meeting hall in this economically battered town to hear candidate John Edwards escalate his closing campaign message of opposing "corporate greed" and denounce what he called a "small group of profiteers" dominating American life.

"Everything about America is threatened today...this is an epic struggle for the future of America," Edwards told the cheering crowd. "Corporate greed and the very powerful use their money to control Washington and this corrupting influence is destroying the middle class."

While all of the presidential campaigns have refocused to some degree on foreign policy in the wake of the murder of Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto, Edwards is keeping his message of economic fairness front and center during the final week of campaigning here. "We will defeat greed and fear - and strike a blow for working people, for those with no voice, for those Washington has ignored too long." Edwards made no mention of the Pakistani crisis in his newly re-tooled stump speech.

While Edwards has consistently campaigned on an economically populist program, his speech today in Dubuque was marked by a noticeable ratcheting up and radicalization of his critique of corporate wealth and power.

"Why on earth would we expect the corporate powers and their lobbyists, who make billions by selling out the middle-class, to just give up their power because we ask them nicely?" Edwards asked. He made no mention of rivals Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton in today's speech; in the past, he has slammed Clinton for being too indebted to powerful Washington lobbies.

Edwards is in the midst of a final 38-county push to win next Thursday's Iowa caucuses. Even his own supporters will concede that taking Iowa is a do-or-die must for a campaign running third in national polls, but in a virtual dead heat in the Hawkeye State with rivals Clinton and Obama.

Nestled on the gritty Illinois border, Dubuque has been hit hard by the collapse in American manufacturing jobs and offers itself as a perfect venue for Edwards' message of economic fairness. The local Flexsteel plant has lost about two-thirds of its 800 jobs over the past decade. Paper maker Georgia Pacific, another big employer in town, has also been hit hard by job exports.

"Iowa has lost twice as many jobs to unfair trade deals than it's won in the so-called technological revolution," Edwards adviser Dave "Mudcat" Saunders told the HuffPost before today's event started. "What kind of revolution is that?" Saunders said Edwards would stay on his message of opposing "unchecked greed" and that it was a theme that resonated deeply throughout the state.

Check out the rest of HuffPost's Iowa coverage.

Comments

[Lucere]

"ITT to Pay $100 Million Export Fine
Restricted Night-Vision Data Given to Overseas Suppliers"
________

National Security and Sovereignty mean NOTHING to Corporate Criminal Traitors!

After the corporate officers and individuals implicated in this high crime are arrested and after paying the fine, ITT should be immediately broken up and sold off piece by piece.

If corporations want to enjoy the special protection as a legal entity afforded them, they should act like responsible citizens. Anything less is treason.

Source:
Alec Klein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 28, 2007; Page D01

[Demoid]

Edwards doesn't understand that people in this country are more scared than they are angry. He scored points four years ago by telling folks he could bring us together and move forward, that's different from promising to lead a crusade against corporate America. In two weeks time he'll be toast.

[emerywood]

I wish Edwards would give more specifics as to what he would propose to neutralize the powerful lobbyists system in Washington. How would that square with his own legal profession which has a potent representation there ? Just giving lip service is not enough, I am sorry to say.

[TheIndependenceParty]

It is not "radical" to tell the truth. John Edwards points to the very truth that corporations and their lobbyists control American Politicians, and he is correct. Our leaders are major owners of those very corporations! Even if lobbyists were outlawed, the shareholders of those corporations, the men and women who are our elected officials, would still vote their own interests, and not those of the electorate!

The Carlyle Group, owned by many top American politicians and their families, including the Bush Family, have purchased countless enterprises, most recently hundreds of nursing faclities, ... but also seek long term leases on turnpikes and toll roads across America. Why? To serve America's elderly? No, ... to profit from the demise of American society, its infrastructure, its elderly! Halliburton, KBR, and Blackwater USA are corporate shells to allow these already privileged families, to further bleed the American People of their stake in our nation's common wealth. The very Medicare and Medicaid and state toll systems they say they hate so much, will actually pump untold profits into their pockets for generations to come!

How many more years of their bleeding us do you think we can survive? Listen to Edwards. He is not an early warning system to something that might happen to America. He is the only canary left in the coal mine that was ... America. He is telling us we are dying, unless we do something NOW.

Do you think The Carlyle Group gives a damn whether their profits are denominated in dollars or Euros? Do they even think of themselves as "Americans", ... or something else altogether? If they can take their untold wealth anywhere in the world, with paid armies to protect them, why should they concern themselves with what is "Right"?

A fool could answer that sad, final question.

[HumeSkeptic]

Slightly off topic, but consider the following quote of Dwight D. Eisenhower:
-----------------------
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children...
This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."
---------------------

Today, this might come from Kucinich, and labeled "radical".

That is how far the pendulum has swung to the Right.

It is about time to turn things around and go back to that equilibrium of Dwight D. Eisenhower.

[workingboy]

What happened to Edwards' alleged love child and its mother??? That story DIED. What happened to the all clear health report Ghouliani said his doctor would present after Christmas? Another story that DIED. MSM is obviously on OxyContin. Come on HuffPo: why no follow-up to these stories??? By the way, did Ghouliani just happen to be in Pakistan lately? He has THIS WAY of being where the action is, be it WTC or sleazy cigar bars.

[NYDamien]

There's nothing wrong with corporations.
There's nothing wrong with rich people.
There IS something wrong with unregulated, unfettered, uncontrolled corporations.
and
There IS something wrong with rich people who aren't satisfied with having most of the wealth, but who want it ALL.

[HumeSkeptic]

The present healcare crisis, Iraq war, the lack of a comprehensive energy independence strategy, and the lack of action against polltion and Global Warming - all these critical issues are directly related to excessive corporate influence on our government.

What Edwards is doing is getting at the source of these problems.

He is exactly right. If we want to address these issues, we must do what Edwards is suggesting.

[imsosure]

For a retrospective documentary of some of the problems he's referring to watch this;

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1656880303867390173

[HumeSkeptic]

What Edwards is doing is extraordinarily courageous.

If you think that corporations wouldn't try to have him "romoved" from the scene if he gains momentum, think again.

Corporations have killed and made people disappear for much less than someone challenging their power.

[degjack]

Edwards is THE ONE!

Hair or no hair, lawyer or not...

Southern, white, big house, whatever...

This man is THE ONE!!

[lornejl]

Sixteen tons, and what do you get ?

[HumeSkeptic]

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex." -Dwight D. Eisenhower

Farewell Address, Jan. 17, 1961
-------------------

This warning was against influence of corporations, and especially against corporations working with/for the military.

The "military industrial complex" is no longer just militray -industrial. It has expanded. It is now government-corporate complex.

It is eating away at the roots of our Republic.

Edwards is exactly right.

[lornejl]

Exxon still hasn't paid for Valdez fiasco, that sums up how " nice " mega corporations are.

[Chubbster]

John Edwards pretty much guarantees a depression. He's getting more and more shrill and hysterical, punching peoples envy and jealousy buttons. His schtick only presages potential disaster. Trial lawyers are trained to win and spin hypnotic tales; the truth is irrelevant and so are facts. Edwards is great at building a straw man and knocking it down.