The Mugging of the Common Good

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, ....The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand

-- William Butler Yeats

President Obama traveled to Wall Street on the anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers that triggered the worst financial debacle since the Great Depression. His purpose was to challenge Wall Street's barons, telling them:

"We will not go back to the days of reckless behavior and unchecked excess..where too many were motivated only bvy the appetite for quick kills and bloated bonuses"

Those days are over, the president said. It's time for comprehensive legislation. Taxpayers won't cover your bets or your bonuses. And we know once more the threat that financial wildings can pose to the nation.

The president invoked country and the common good. "Instead of learning the lessons...of the crisis, [some in the financial industry] are choosing to ignore them. They do so not just at their own peril, but our nation's." Obama called on Wall Street to act on its own, to overhaul pay systems, to level with consumers, to join with him in defining reform, but his tone was almost wistful. As he knows all too well, for much of Wall Street, patriotism is for suckers. And in Washington, private interests are rolling over the common good.

In the wake of the worst economic downturn since the 1930s, the president has called for fundamental reforms vital to the country's future. Put aside whether he's been too bold or too timid, whether he has pushed hard enough or too hard, there isn't any question he is calling the nation to its senses.

Our health care system is broken and unsustainable. Comprehensive reform is unavoidable. We can't continue to rely on fossil fuels; sustainable energy is a security imperative, not a choice. We need to shackle Wall Street, to shrink the size and excess profits of finance, and force it away from its addiction to gambling and back to the essential business of investing in the real economy. We have to reduce the crony capitalist subsidies that get squandered on agribusiness and Cold War weapons systems and top end tax cuts, and use that money to invest in education, in a modern infrastructure, in research and development vital to a vibrant high road economy.

This really shouldn't be controversial. Yes, disagreements about how to get this done are to be expected, but the status quo is simply indefensible. Despite all the fantasies of the rabid right, Obama is moderate by temperament, creative at compromise. He is, as one of his White House staff described him, a "raging minimalist." He really does believe you put everyone around a table, have a "civil conversation," find areas of agreement and move forward. He does believe that everyone -- from billionaire hedge fund operators to insurance company CEOS to conservative legislators -- will in a crisis put the country first.

But he and his reform program are getting mugged. He's taken on the most powerful private interests in America -- Big Oil, Wall Street, the insurance and drug lobbies -- and they are winning. Republicans, despite the shattering of their conservative shibboleths, have chosen, with lockstep unity, obstruction over compromise. And too many Democrats have shown themselves more beholden to the private interests that pay for their campaigns than the public interest the president of their own party invokes.

We are witnessing a harrowing test of our democracy. America is a big, bustling and entrepreneurial country. We pursue our own passions and pursuits, are jealous of our freedoms, and begrudge governmental intrusions. But in a crisis -- faced with depression or war, our history tells us, many become one. We join together for the common good.

Well, it is hard to imagine a greater crisis than the one this country has faced over the last years. A middle class that has suffered a lost decade. Two wars. The Great Recession. Gilded Age inequality. Catastrophic climate change accelerating faster than most predictions.

Yet, we haven't come together. Wall Street lobbies against reform. Derivative traders will ante up hundreds of millions to block regulation of credit default swaps. Goldman Sachs is back to computerized gambling and billions in bonuses. The insurance companies are spending over a million and half a day against comprehensive health care reform.

The president's preemptive compromises only feed their appetites. He offers polluters a good portion of the revenue generated by "cap and trade." They lobby to weaken the cap.
He bails out banks rather than taking them over and reorganizing them. They lobby against his financial reforms. He doesn't try to push for Medicare for All, accepting the role of employment based private insurance. He's accused of a government takeover of health care.

The teabaggers were in Washington this weekend. Despite their racial furies and right-wing fantasies, they shouldn't be dismissed. Many are working people, losing ground in an economy that isn't working for them. They are angry at a government that seems to take their taxes to bail out billionaire bankers, while they are left to swim or sink. They have every good reason to believe Washington caters to the wealthy and the connected, and not to them. And it is all too easy to deflect that anger to "them" -- illegal immigrants, poor minorities, foreign aid recipients.

This is the test for Democrats. With the White House and majorities in both houses of Congress, Democrats have to produce. If they are too cautious or too compromised, they will feed what could be an ugly populist backlash.

Take health care reform. Senator Max Baucus has produced a draft for the Finance Committee -- making concessions as far anyone can see not for Republican votes, but for insurance lobby approval. He's produced that lobby's dream bill, mandating coverage for everyone without subsidies to make it affordable. His bill would drive people to take the high deductible, low coverage plans that are the industry's cash cows. It is hard to imagine a greater disservice to the country or to the party. Take young Americans who vote Democratic in large numbers, force them to buy health insurance that they don't want and can't afford, make them pay for policies that don't cover their health care costs -- and reap the whirlwind that you deserve.

These next months are the reckoning. The president and the Congress will step up to the reforms the country needs -- or they will fail the nation in a time of peril. For citizens, now is the time to get engaged. The only way legislators in both parties will rise above partisan politics and private interests is if their constituents allow them no choice.

Middle income Americans lost income over the last decade, for the first time since we began keeping records. Financial speculation drove the economy off the cliff. Catastrophic climate change is already melting the ice caps. We cannot afford another lost decade. If reason cannot prevail, angry people will increasingly look for a strong man to get something done. And that could make the teabaggers look like a tea party.

 

 

Comments

[marinara]

congress' solution to any crisis is to give tax breaks to corporations. Don't call your congressman, remain calm.

[greatscot]

All well & good, but we need systemic change. We need to reform how we fund elections, making the politicians beholden once again to voters, not corporations, and reform corporation law, making corporations legel entities, but not legal persons with full free speech rights as they are now. Because, in the free speech marketplace, the people's voice will NEVER win over the power and wealth of corporations. We need to cap and limit donations by real persons to politicians (ie - no out of district donations, - and prohibit donations by non-human entities like coporations).

After almost 230 years of mostly successful operation, the Constitution is in sore need of an overhaul and that's why we need a Constitutional Convention to re-draw the document to restore democracy and power to the people, and disempower the corporatocracy, oligarchy, and political nomenclatura that runs the country now!

[Ventoi]

The best

are denoted as that by themselves­...

they are too self-involved to do much more than look down upon others...

a REVELATION will be lost on them.


This is not how I normally talk
(roses and sunshine are my forté)
but we must recognise a lack of reaction as being just that...

a blindness at Best.

[bestealth]

Geeze folks this is101. Cancel your insurance, cancel your cable, don't pay your credit card bill, cancel your bank account, reduce your gas and elect. by 15% immediately, and if you really want to p!ss them off, go buy a package of seeds.

[FreeSpeechFlyoverCountry]

The battle raging on the "social justice" front is only growing and the ACORN story has captivated the nation.

As this story unfolds, I'd hope that Christians will heed the call to pray for those caught in the net of this investigation, as in "Pray for Theresa. Pray for Bertha. Pray for Every ACORN Advocate." at http://firebreathingchristian.wordpress.com/2009/09/16/pray-for-theresa-pray-for-bertha-pray-for-every-acorn-advocate/

Thanks and keep fighting the good fight!

[William50]

The common man was raised in this article, but the thought was he is too small and unimportant to sway the powerful. Such could have been said about George Washington and his beginning bid to take over a country.
Today, there is a hundred times more wealth in the hands of the middleamerican then in banks. That common man can bring down a bank or the government if it has leadership­..that is what is lacking in both parties..l­eadership.­..that is why the world now looks at the USA as another England...­....
The O'man is not a leader..he is ( as was Bush) a talking head for the very corporations he says he is going to control...­he has no new ideas because they would harm the status of Washington and its money masters..h­e is pushing health care because it takes the eyes of the sheep and lemmings from the financial institutions, China, the UN and two wars..Whil­e the talking heads of the media are ranting the core of Americans are seeing that nothing has changed except the color of the White House.
The USA of the future has to have a dream, control out pour of wealth from this nation and produce the majority of what we need here on the North American Continent. That means a violent revolution, not of the people but of business and government. The bullets will be votes, the force will be for America...

[RickO]

I had an eye-opening conversation with an acquaintance I learned was a professional lobbyist. The conversation began on the topic of that assemblyman in California who was caught on open mic talking about his escapades with a lobbyist and my friend told me she gets hit on constantly­...constan­tly by legislators. The proverbial casting couch is a big part of the system. Why do you think these creeps don't get kicked out when they get caught?

But was was most distressing was her confirming what so many of us already think. Our members of congress cater to donors, period. If you go to Washington to visit your rep, do you think you could take them to lunch? Of course not. They give you a few minutes, a photo op, a pat on the head, then they're off to lunch with a lobbyist.

When you call to weigh in as a constituent, they always take your call, sound interested, ask for your zip code and such, but the reason they do that is not to base their vote on your opinion but to use it as an excuse if they have to vote against a particular donor's interest. "Hey, my constituents are on me about this". Unless they need you for an excuse, you don't count because you don't have enough money.

[zjr909]

The one thing neither the Democrats nor the Republicans could survive is a One-Party System. Because that would genuinely open the door to a third party, and a fourth. So, not to worry: the Democrats will do everything in their power to make sure the Republicans don't self-immolate. Which, in this case, means sacrificing their majority in 2010. Because, make no mistake: if the Democrats accomplish nothing they pledged to accomplish, the Republicans will be back in the seat next time around. And that's as it should be - according to the Two-Party paradigm. Each party can survive only if there's another party to blame when things go wrong; but no one party can survive if everything lands on its doorstep. So just sit back, relax, preview the new season of Political Theater 2010. Just don't imagine anything's going to be allowed to upset the corporate playbill. Dancing with the Oligarchs. Who knew Congress was so light on its feet?

[henryberry]

Obama's aim for the Fall '09 (until the end-of-the-year holiday season) should be to create the grounds for reforms. Engineering them and getting them into legislation would come in the first part of next year. The first phase of his presidency (to the Summer '09) was pursuing his non-partisan approach to leadership. We see where this went--unremitting negativism from the Republicans and disruptions of town-hall meetings attempting to search out bipartisan grounds for major problems. The time wasn't wasted. Obama had to pursue this because he had put forth this approach in the presidential race. But after seeing what he has met with from the Republicans, no one can now say that he didn't give this a try and pursue it to the point where the futility, the impossibility of this approach became evident. Obama did however lose time in gathering allies around him and working out a strategy which reflected openmindedness yet which doesn't involve nor depend on cooperation or good faith from Republicans. To this day, I don't think Obama can say for sure who is allies are--especially who are his strongest allies, who are opportunistic, etc. This is important in political accomplishment. So the aim of Obama and his advisers during the Fall is to find out just what grounds there are for advances of what he wants to accomplish as president.

[Sinned39]

Amen Brother...­.. You hit the nail on the head. The Baucus Bill is cr ap. Democrats need to step up and put this country back on the right track with menaingful legislation. The country voted overwhelmingly for CHANGE - so let's see it!

[alumcreek]

The common good is anathema to the rich. Always has been and always will be. If all are happy, or not seriously disgruntled, then profits will be down and employees will over compensated. That must not be permitted. The reason the rich back some politician with obscene donation amounts is that those politicians can be counted on to subvert any movement towards the common good.

[morganhoyle]

If only all the angry disillusioned masses could unity under a banner that was actually proactive. Where were our 70,000 protesters to the patriot act, the war in Afghanistan, the first and second election of GW Bush?

We have truly lost our will to be unquestionably heard.

[AverageJoe-1]

Mass hysteria and unfortunately 'mob mentality'. It is easy to support something if you do not have to sacrifice, perform, and or be part of the solution. The real problem was Congress (both Democrats and Republicans) for failing to stop and ask about the downside risk and believing in the 'best case scenario'.

I hope that it is not the case with healthcare reform-which we need-as the momentum for change clouds the debating and development process. I wished that we would learn from that situation of how not to 'rush' into a situation without a full and thoughtful process and of being prepared for possible scenarios that does not reflect assumptions, projections, or promises. At the end of the day, the average 'American' will be left with the consequences, good or bad, from this process and as such we all should be deliberating seriously of how it will affect the nation....­.

[LeftoftheLeft]

I was out in the streets protesting the Bush administration as much as I could and often traveled long distances to do so.

It never mattered. The media paid hardly any attention. And Bush et al couldn't have cared less.

But... I would still be out there now if there were rallies for health care reform, protests against the escalation in Afghanistan, protests demanding real investigations and prosecutions of those responsible for torture, rallies for gay rights, etc, anywhere near me.

Although I know the media would still hardly pay any attention. And I fear this administration couldn't care less either... We would simply be dismissed as "the left of the left".

[JBVT]

I'm deeply saddened at the fast pace in which America is failing. We, as a nation have caused a great dream to die.

I will not laugh as this dream implodes.

I will not cry.

I will, however, enjoy watching the right wing melt...

[Bluedanube]

Ronald Reagan planted the seeds of the potential destruction of the United States when he said, the most feared words in the English language are "I'm from the government and I'm here to help." This toxic crop is now coming in for the harvest in the form of baggers, birthers, deathers and the the entire Republican Party.

[lastpost]

“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, ....The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand
William Butler Yeats”

Cometh the hour,

Dinosaurs 0. Small furry animals 1.