Chris Hayes' piece on America's system failure in the Nation on February 3rd is one of the single best posts I've seen in a long time on the long term challenges facing progressive activists in this county. It captures for me that combination of intense discouragement at the problems we've been having getting anything good done in the Obama era so far, with that call for continuing the fight that I think is so important for all of us.
What Chris captured in his diagnosis of the American political system at present was that sense of how broken things are in really fundamental ways. It reminded me of my feelings when old friends from the Clinton administration era read my blog posts and asked if I've moved to the left in the years since I worked in the Clinton White House. My answer is no. I don't think I have, but I do feel that the country is at a much more precarious juncture, and that more fundamental change needs to be pushed right now.
I know that plenty of progressives then and in retrospect don't share this perspective, but my view of the Clinton era was that it was a more comfortable time for a progressive to work inside and/or with the Clinton White House. We lost more than our share of battles, but won quite a few, too. NAFTA was awful, but we got great appointments to the National Labor Relations Board. Clinton signing welfare reform was wrong, but we got big increases in the Earned Income Tax Credit, a minimum wage increase, and S-CHIP. Not enough was done on climate change, but Carol Browner at EPA and Bruce Babbitt at Interior were pretty strong environmental regulators overall. And in an era where 22 million jobs were being created and poverty rates were heading down, the tradeoffs seemed acceptable -- especially compared to the prospect that Newt Gingrich, Tom Delay and their friends might completely take our government.
Behind the scenes, though, the banking oligarchs were tightening their grip on the government. While the toxic stew of the Glass-Steagall repeal was being passed, and Rubin and Summers were helping Wall Street block Brooksley Born's attempt to regulate derivatives, I was battling to save Bill Clinton's butt from his self-created Lewinsky problems, and wasn't paying nearly enough attention. While there was some lonely opposition to the Glass-Steagall repeal and the neutering of Born (a shout-out to Byron Dorgan, who warned us all exactly what would happen), for the most part progressives like myself were too focused on battling the right wingers' most obvious excesses instead of worrying about what our own White House and Treasury Department were unleashing on us.
The Rubin/Summers changes to financial regulation combined with the Bush administration's appointments of the worst set of regulators since the 1920s (at least) created an environment where the big banks became monsters capable of destroying our economy. And they did, creating the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression. They quite literally broke our economy, and while things have stabilized some over the panic atmosphere of late 2008/early 2009, it is still broken.
What has also become broken is our ability to govern. Between the absurd filibuster rules and the abuse of them , and the huge and wealthy special interests (the financial behemoths above all), the system has the worst kind of sclerosis built into it. If the minority party and the power house lobbies want to shut things down, they can just do it.
Between the repeal of Glass-Steagall, the emergence of completely unregulated "dark" derivative markets (where no light of day is ever seen), and the laissez-faire regulators of the Bush administration, our country is in the grip of economic powers that have far greater economic and political power than any set of institutions at least since Teddy Roosevelt finally began to tame the robber barons over a century ago. Ponder this fact for a moment: six megabanks control assets amounting to more than 60% of the country's gross domestic product. That is unfathomable. How does our economy ever function under the weight of that kind of concentration of wealth and power? How does our democracy? And with our government so dysfunctional, how do we make the changes we need to make?
So have I moved to the left over the last decade? Not really. I still have the same basic beliefs about politics and government that I did before. I still have all the same stands on issues. But our country in this last decade has moved toward a far, far weaker economy and democracy, and my sense of urgency and anger at not challenging that trend has grown dramatically.
For many of my old colleagues in the Clinton administration, comfortably operating in DC's friendly confines, the system has been pretty good to them and doesn't seem so different from before. For so many Obama administration officials, they know how the wheels of government turn, and they're pretty comfortable with it, even if they get frustrated at times. But we're all in that proverbial pot with the frog on the stove with the water getting warmer and warmer. I believe that the danger of our democracy boiling alive really exists.
This has been a pretty dark post, I will admit. But I want to end on a note that, if not exactly hopeful, at least expresses what Chris was expressing in his system failure piece: that while the system is failing us, we can still gather ourselves together to fight back and win some battles. The hope of getting a decent health care reform package is still not dead, in spite of the power of the insurance industry. The hope of passing a financial reform bill with some good reforms in it is not dead, in spite of the massive power of Wall Street. The progressive movement is still fighting, still battling the forces that be.
My favorite passage in all of literature in is The Plague by Camus (if you are a regular reader of mine, you may remember I've quoted it before). Doctor Rieux' friend, in asking why he keeps on treating all the people dying of the plague, says "But your victories will never be lasting, that's all." And Rieux replies, "Yes, I know that. But it's no reason for giving up the struggle." Hopefully progressives will win more victories than Dr. Rieux won against the plague. But whether we do or not, it's no reason to give up the struggle.
See the Supreme Court ruling that allows corporations to buy public office seats. Or the re-appointment of Ben Bernanke. These and other atrocities are bubbles in a boiling pot. America is dying.
That's the only problem I have with these posts - the right sentiment is there, but the timing is off. We need action NOW. We can't just "hope" that financial or health care reform will pass. As you said, Mike, the system is broken. Why rely on it for another second? Gut it.
There will be a revolution of some kind. I'm just waiting for a leader to emerge.
I was an insider (of sorts) before and during the mortgage crisis and I can tell you unequivocally that it was completely planned and engineered by wall street. To prove it to yourself, ask yourself this question:
If the mortgage industry had been chugging along just fine for decades making loans that they knew were good ones and rejecting the bad ones...why would they suddenly decide that all those 'bad' loans were now a GREAT way to make money? Answer: They had folks on the inside who would use taxpayer money to bail them out! Fraud, not incompetence!
I think we need to put a finer point on it. Here is what I believe to be fact:
Our government, money supply, banking industry and ability to wage war (or NOT wage war) is in the control of people other than our elected officials.
I think we have totally lost control of our government, but we are so busy taking shots at Sarah Palin's crib notes and Glenn Beck's use of the word 'slaughter' that we are as easily distracted as a two year old focusing on a candy bar.
One of my favorite quotes of all time is: "Great minds discuss ideas, mediocre minds discuss events, small minds discuss personalities." We need to follow your lead as a voice of reason and become a great people again. The alternative is that we will make great slaves someday.
The corporate Democrats in the White House and Congress now appear to be proud to spend their time in government preparing the way for lucrative future jobs working for the powers who have bought their time. More and more, it appears there is no legal, nonviolent way for the people to influence their government anymore. The frustration builds on the right and on the left, and I fear that it won't be long before the teabaggers are mirrored by modern day anarchists.
Then again, maybe voting will make a difference. Maybe there will be some kind of third-party movement that could rise over the next 20 years. But these guys will give up their money and priviledges over their dead bodies. No matter how humble their origins, they are social climbers who will always look to their "betters" in determining their values and objectives.
The big bank concentration problem tends to mandate a status quo even when our ship of state is heading for the rocks.
http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2010/02/nation-building-will-of-wind.html
I just can't let this go.
SO WE LOST JOBS FOR A WHOLE GENERATION TO CORPORATE OUTSOURCING, but you like that some of your friends got on the National Labor Relations Board!!!
Wow, thanks, that really summed up your perspective for me.
Hypocrite.
Obama put Health care on the table immediately. No President would bank his political credibility on this issue their first year-- not Hillary Clinton, not John MCCain.
DADT was a Clinton policy. Obama's military leadership is voicing its repeal.
Obama revived S-CHIP.
You make the specious argument that EPA regulators were stronger with NO evidence and not taking into account the weakening of the agency under Bush.
Progressives have a real shot for change, but only if we:
1) Engage in door-to-door grassroots mobilization for SPECIFIC policies. You trivialize the democratic process by acting as if blogging is work. Tea Partiers get more done.
2) Educate the public beyond the MSM. The banks are waging a full-scale war on ANY bank regulations. See today's NYT article, "Irked Wall St. Hedges It's Bets on Democrats."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/08/us/politics/08lobby.html?emc=eta1
3) Whatever happened to the boycott idea? If progressives buy cable tv, keep their high-interest credit cards, and continue banking with the big 6 banks, isn't that undermining anything they claim they want DC to do? I have yet to see a common sense grassroots response to corporate power.
Clinton also to his credit left Bush a balanced budget, a surplus, and a great job market while Bush left us with a deficit, a crashed economy, 2 wars and a bailout.
Obama has done more than he is given credit for. There is no way to get it all done in 1 year or even a full term. It may take years.
The Obama proposal to pass small business tax cuts for hiring is a step in the right direction.
This is the condition that should be attached to large corporations. Until corporations have to present a certain % of job growth attached to tax cuts we won't get the recovery.
The GOP policies of giving away tax dollars to rich banks & corporations finally crashed the economy.
The corporations can easily afford to create new jobs with minimal loss of profits & bonuses.
A CEO that gets a 90 million dollar bonus could easily "survive" if he sacrificed a portion of that 90 million & hired more workers to help our country economically recover.
The GOP policy of only supporting the "private sector" believing they will take care of us has been proven wrong.
The "private sector" took the money and ran, they did not take care of us, they took care of themselves and donated to the GOP or Dems who supported these
It doesn't !
It won't !
"How does our economy ever function under the weight of that kind of concentration of wealth and power? How does our democracy? "
1. Return control of government to the citizenry at large.
2. End the stranglehold of the political class on the political process.
3. Provide built-in term limits since ALL offices would be refilled after one term.
4. Tap in to popular discontent across the political spectrum.
5. Provide for greater citizen participation in government.
I have a piece published on this idea in greater detail here:
http://www.boilingfrogspost.com
all of what you said is a must, especially this one.
3. Provide built-in term limits since ALL offices would be refilled after one term.
The public is now being killed by life time politicians that know the lobbyist on a first name basis. J street, K street, banking lobbyist that buttonhole our legislators who stuff them with money to do THEIR BIDDING.
What's worse, even if he passes this bastardized health care bill, many of it's measures don't go into effect for years. Americans will in the meantime feel betrayed and take their anger out in the elections.
Still, we need to separate commercial/personal banking from investment banking. We need to break up the big 6 into regional companies even under their current trade names and cross company free ATM and other reduced banking fees.
We have allowed the 4th Estate to be owned by a handful of entities by calling it Free Speech. Our founders realized the importance of the press and media. They knew it was essential to a democracy, but we have disregarded that and let the same "Robber Barons" control that as well as the GOP.
Sadly, the only entity big enough to balance this corporate take over is a government of, by and for the people. The tea party group is actually strengthening the Corporate Right and hurting us all.
Senator Mitch McConnell 2005 - 2010
Select cycle and data to include:
2010200820062004200220001998Career Campaign Cmte Only
Leadership PAC Profile Only
Campaign Cmte & Leadership PAC Combined
Top 20 Industries contributing to Campaign Cmte and Leadership PAC
Industry Total Indivs PACs
Securities & Investment $1,236,024 $962,525 $273,499
Lawyers/Law Firms $986,383 $738,683 $247,700
Retired $906,305 $906,305 $0
Real Estate $825,880 $593,880 $232,000
Health Professionals $802,500 $510,100 $292,400
Insurance $726,283 $261,783 $464,500
Lobbyists $658,255 $642,014 $16,241
Pharmaceuticals/Health Products $616,985 $166,000 $450,985
Republican/Conservative $520,358 $468,308 $52,050
Oil & Gas $498,350 $263,650 $234,700
Commercial Banks $480,950 $268,950 $212,000
Hospitals/Nursing Homes $446,250 $258,550 $187,700
Pro-Israel $415,710 $304,200 $111,510
General Contractors $371,421 $279,421 $92,000
Leadership PACs $368,744 $0 $368,744
Misc Finance $364,534 $322,534 $42,000
TV/Movies/Music $312,900 $154,400 $158,500
Misc Business $311,050 $289,550 $21,500
Misc Manufacturing & Distributing $308,550 $196,550 $112,000
Computers/Internet