Co-Optation Station

One of the first thoughts that crossed my mind as the Occupy Wall Street protests gathered steam and media attention was: Will the Obama campaign and the Democratic Party attempt to co-opt the movement, and if so, will they succeed? The answer to the first question is a qualified "Yes" and to the second -- if there is a God, No.

As others have already pointed out, the movement is as much about protesting Obama's big sell-out and raging against the corrupt and inept two-party system as it is about anger at the unfettered capitalism that destroyed the lives and livelihoods of millions of people.  But that hasn't stopped various offshoots of the Democratic Party from attempting to glom onto it, and ever so subtly (or not), frame it to their own specifications.


The Center for American Progress (CAP), a D.C. think tank with direct ties to the White House, has set up its very own website on the mass demonstrations. But they refuse to call it "Occupy Wall Street" or occupy-anything.  That connotes a state of siege, and might cause the banksters to feel even more uncomfortable or petrified than they are already.  So CAP has renamed it, innocuously, The 99% Movement -- much safer, given that Goldman Sachs has been Obama's biggest contributor, and Lloyd Blankfein is the guest of honor at many a White House luncheon and state dinner.  (He is said to be fleeing the Big Apple for Washington today, in light of threatened demonstrations against his for-profit talk at Columbia U.  Do you think he'll be asking Barry for Secret Service Protection?  Do you think he'll get it?)



Wall Street-Upon-Potomac: The Blankfeins

 But back to CAP: its founder and leader is John Podesta, the former Clinton chief of staff who helped push through the repeal of Glass-Steagall and turned banks into gambling casinos. Podesta also was in charge of the Obama Transition Team and had a role in bringing in another banking deregulator (Timmy Geithner) to head up Treasury and bail out his buddies. 

The Boss and The PR Guy (Obama, Podesta)

The main thrust of the Podesta/Obama website is to cast aspersions on the GOP challengers who cast aspersions on the protesters.  Today's headline crowed about Mitt Romney's flip-flopping on the protesters, rather than discussing what the protests are all about.  It made hay out of Eric Cantor's "mob" characterization.  It gloated over Fox News' Geraldo Rivera getting heckled. Anything and everything to point out that Obama and the Democrats suck a lot less than the Republicans. 


Of course, CAP was founded during the reign of Bush II for the express purpose of establishing a Democratic War Room with a thrust on opposition research. From Wikipedia:

Podesta laid out his plan for what he likes to call a think tank on steroids. Emulating those conservative institutions, he said, a message-oriented war room will send out a daily briefing to refute the positions and arguments of the right. An aggressive media department will book liberal thinkers on cable TV. There will be an edgy Web site (ThinkProgress.org) and a policy shop to formulate strong positions on foreign and domestic issues. In addition, Podesta explained how he would recruit hundreds of fellows and scholars -- some in residence and others spread around the country -- to research and promote new progressive policy ideas. American Progress is slated to operate with a $10 million budget next year, raised from big donors like the financier George Soros.

CAP has come under criticism for refusing to divulge its list of donors, and also for cheerleading Obama's war escalations and drone attacks -- in stark contrast to its raison d'etre during the Bush years, which was to excoriate torture and bellicosity.  According to an article by Jeremy Scahill, CAP and other "veal pen" offshoots such as MoveOn and Media Matters, are nothing more than "pseudo PR flaks targeting liberals" to advance the White House agenda. 


Since the protests began three weeks ago, I have gotten a steady stream of emails from MoveOn, 21st Century Democrats and any number of veal pen shops, seeking my signature to show "solidarity" with Occupy Wall Street. A few have even blatantly tied their fund-raising campaigns to the mass movement. These organizations all belong to the Common Purpose Project, which meets at the White House every week to make sure the members stay in line with what Obama wants. And what he wants, apparently, is simply to use the Occupy uprising to make the Tea Party and GOP look bad, at the same time he "gets" our frustrations.

And according to The New York Times, The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the party’s powerful House fund-raising arm, has even started circulating a petition among the crowds of protesters, seeking 100,000 party supporters to declare that “I stand with the Occupy Wall Street protests.”


The Obama for America re-election outfit itself has remained largely silent on OWS. I imagine they are feverishly reworking their marketing to jibe with the current climate.  Somehow, I believe that even they won't be clueless enough to continue pretending they are a "grassroots movement made up of people just like me."  I haven't, for example, heard another word about entering for a chance to win a meal with Barry.


They know that we know about the true agenda of the Democratic Party, which has nothing much to do with us. I don't believe there is a veal pen large enough to contain all the millions of people thoroughly disgusted with the corruption of our government. And the politicians are likely as scared as the plutocrats.

**Update: Glenn Greenwald has more.

Report from "Occupy Tampa"

Story and Photos by Neil Gillespie

The Justice Network

America is broken. That was the message of the Occupy Tampa protesters in Gaslight Park Thursday.  The peaceful assembly was attended by several hundred diverse protesters. Although the park is located right across from Tampa Police headquarters, no officers showed up in the park, and only a handful watched from afar. Protesters expressed their complaints on signs, and chanted "We are the 99 percent" while marching to a beat provided by a young man with a drum. Some of the messages on the homemade signs included "Rise Up! The System Is Broken", "Healthcare Not Warfare" and "Hang The Bankers".

"Robert", a French national, complained about corrupt politicians in Europe and America. His gray hair and business attire lent credibility to his complaints about the insurance, oil, and banking industries.



Robert of France: They Know How to Demonstrate!



News organization helicopters hovering over the park created a deafening racket, making conversations difficult. The day-long protest included several marches around downtown Tampa. One such march began at 5:00 PM, went past the Bank of America building at Kennedy Blvd. and Tampa Street, then down Ashley Avenue past the art museum and library. The marchers turned at Zack Street, and again on N. Florida Ave., and continued to march past the Sam M. Gibbons US Courthouse. A few blocks further the protesters stopped and gathered on the steps of the old Federal Courthouse.

The protesters in Tampa included many older people. This "Occupy" movement is no longer a youth movement, it is now mainstream, or as they say, the "99 percent" of Americans. I saw babies in backpacks. One man marched in a wheelchair. People of all ages, races and backgrounds marched and chanted side by side.

One woman wore a Ron Paul shirt. A sign proclaimed "Governments Stage Terror To Take Away Our Rights, Infowars.com". Another read "Stop The Creed Of Greed", and one said "Stop Killing Kids In Afghanistan". "End The Federal Reserve", "Capitalism is destroying our lives!" and "Corporate America You're Fired" were messages too, along with "Save the American Dream" and "For the People not Corporations".

They chanted slogans before returning to Gaslight Park. The mainstream and alternative news media were present. Shanna Gillette energetically snapped photos for "Creative Loafing".  A reporter from WMNF, 88.5 Community Radio joined in the march. News vans parked near the police building, and a mainstream reporter stood by with a bored look on her face, while the cameraman panned the scene.  

One protester said it best: "When Injustice Becomes Law, Rebellion Becomes Duty".

Greetings and Solidarity from Occupy Tampa

Extra, Extra -- Read All About It!

The second issue of "The Occupied Wall Street Journal" is hot off the presses.  You can read it here.


And if you missed the first issue, here it is.


The on-site, 50,000-circulation broadside is produced by the weekly Indypendent. ("A Free Paper for Free People.") The publishers point out that the new journal is not to be construed as the "official" paper of the movement: "This is one attempt by a group of journalists who support the occupation to offer a way for the general public to hear the stories, perspectives and ideas from inside the movement. We think the more voices, ideas and media the better".

Obama Jobs Czar Whines About Not Being Liked

Did anybody catch the segment on Jeff Immelt on "60 Minutes" last night?  The CEO of G.E., who helped the president craft his American Jobs package, unashamedly admits he's a global kinda guy, his first priority being profits to please his investors.  And so what if he hires only a few thousand workers here at $13 an hour?  He's got thousands and thousands of desperate people to choose from. He thinks we should all be cheering for him! (And his own $15.2 million compensation package). From the show's transcript:

Immelt: I want you to root for me. You know, everybody in Germany roots for Siemens. Everybody in Japan roots for Toshiba. Everybody in China roots for China South Rail. I want you to say, "Win, G.E."

Stahl: Do you not see any reason that maybe the public doesn't hold American corporations up here in the highest...

Immelt: I think this notion that it's the population of the U.S. against the big companies is just wrong. It's just wrong-minded and when I walk through a factory with you or anybody, you know, our employees basically like us.

Stahl: They do. I saw it.

Immelt: They root for us, they want us to win. I don't know why you don't.

You can read the transcript and watch the entire segment here.

Immelt is holding another meeting with the Jobs Council this week, and plans to give Obama some more great advice, having nothing whatever to do with jobs.  Regulations, for one thing -- they are so annoying. (Immelt was among those urging Obama to scrap the EPA ozone standards last month).
More free trade -- Immelt loves the free trade deal expected to rocket through Congress this week with little to no debate, despite the fact that it will bleed even more thousands of jobs from the American economy. Repatriation of profits in exchange for another huge tax break is a must.  Yeah, he admits, we tried that once and it didn't create any new jobs, but the second time might be a charm.  But he can't guarantee anything.

You probably remember the big uproar when it was revealed that G.E. not only paid zero taxes this year, but it actually got a refund from the government because of all the money it loses not being able to keep its money in the United States. (Immelt's head tax lawyer used to work in Treasury and literally wrote that law in G.E.'s favor).

Then it came out that G.E. Capitol got a bailout from the U.S. treasury to help it recoup losses it "suffered" in the 2008 meltdown.  We never would have found out about the last bit unless Bernie Sanders had insisted on getting the info. Sanders calls G.E. one of the 10 worst corporate tax evaders of all time: "Over the past five years", he said, "while General Electric made $26 billion in profits in the United States, it received a $4.1 billion refund from the IRS."'

Last March, a petition drive called "Immelt Must Go" was launched by former Senator Russ Feingold. After garnering thousands of signatures, it was presented to Obama.  He dug in his heels.  Immelt Must Stay, decreed Barry. Press Secretary Jay Carney explained at the time that the president would be keeping Immelt at the helm because he enjoys hearing a "diversity of opinion."

The latest G.E. outsourcing extravaganza is the removal of its 115-year-old X-Ray business headquarters to Beijing, taking several billion dollars out of the U.S. and investing it in China. But Immelt doesn't understand why American lawmakers are making such a big deal out of China and its currency manipulation anyway. "I'm not afraid of China!" he boasted to Lesley Stahl last evening.

Body Language Says It All 

Die Laughing, Republican Style

So you thought the Grover Norquist robots of the Republican Party were only in it for themselves, their families, and their wealthy benefactors? Well, scratch the middle category:  a select group of extreme right wing House members are perfectly willing to throw their own flesh and blood under the bus -- or should I say hearse - just to make an ideological point.

Rep. Bill Posey of Florida and his gang of six conservatives want to do away with the payoff they'll get if they die in office.  Yes, you heard right: they are framing their bill as being all about money they personally would get as a dead body in good standing in Congress. Nothing about the spouses, the kids, or the grandkids in relinquishing the payout of a year's salary of $174,000.  

But then again, are they not the Living Dead zombies of supply side economics anyway? In their world, a pulse and respiration are just liberal concepts. They are the reanimated Norquistians, roaming the countryside, arms outstretched, sucking the lifeblood from the lower classes to keep themselves going.

Among the Gang of Seven is everybody's favorite old batty aunt from hell, Virginia Foxx of North Carolina. You may remember Virginia as a frequent winner of Keith Olbermann's "Worst Person in the World" awards for her various heartless votes and remarks against everything from health care to education.  She said if Congress wants to provide for their families, look somewhere else besides her beloved taxpayers.  But please do continue paying for her franking privileges, travel, vacations, Cadillac health plan and generous pension.

Yes, Virginia, There Is a Way to be More Heartless

And then there is loveable curmudgeon Ron Paul (R-TX), who defiantly did not provide health coverage for employees of his last campaign, with the upshot being that his campaign manager died uninsured and destitute after the 2008 race.

Said Posey (who has never yet had one of his bills passed): "I believe Members of Congress should do what other Americans do, purchase their own life insurance."

Yeah!  Get down with the common people!  He went on, "And with so many Americans struggling to make ends meet - mostly because of bad policy coming out of Washington - this taxpayer funded 'gratuity' just adds more insult to injury. It's no wonder Americans have such a low opinion of Congress."

I am so relieved, aren't you?  They get it, they finally get why we have such a low (about 12% approval rating) opinion of them.  And now they are redeemed for altruistically agreeing not to take it with them when they get raptured up, or whatever their future plans are.

They Won't Be Smiling When Gramps Cuts Them Off:  The Posey Heirs

Do you think it's a mere coincidence that Posey's second largest campaign contributor is the insurance industry? And now that Congress will be forced to buy its own life insurance, the industry is champing at the bit, salivating over the ultra-high premiums the 60, 70 and 80-somethings will now have to fork over to pay for their own "final expenses." Posey certainly made sure to send a press release hyping his industry-friendly legislation straight to the insurance industry for their delectation.

The Republicans may get to have it both ways. Not only are they laughing all the way to the bank with lobbyist largesse, they'll be laughing all the way to the mausoleum too. And their heirs can just forget any ideas about Gram or Gramps conveniently kicking the bucket before their terms are up. You hear that, Rand Paul?

Fathers and Sons, the Ayn Rand Edition

"Up in the Air": The Sequel



The actors are all dutifully playing their parts in PASS THIS JOBS BILL RIGHT NOW Theater.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid doesn't even have the votes to pass it in his own party, so he's stalling.  Minority Leader Mitch McConnell knows it can't pass, so he tried to force a vote on it RIGHT NOW. President Obama was out of town, busily raising millions from wealthy donors, so he can keep his own job. It's a race to the top of the pile of gold, and his goal is an unheard of $1 billion war chest.  More than 90 percent of the time, elections are determined by who raises the most money -- economy or no economy.


Obama must be concerned about jobs, because when he presented the George W. Bush-contrived Free Trade Trifecta to Congress this week, he made sure it contained a renewal of Trade Adjustment Assistance to compensate the thousands of workers who will might lose their jobs to South Korea, Panama and Columbia.  Of course, there is nothing in the bill which actually funds such compensation to the American victims of free trade rape. But it's fun to imagine a remake of the George Clooney movie "Up in the Air", with Obama taking over the role of the charming hatchet man who fires people by video conference. 


The presidential bullshit will take its inspiration directly from the cinematic script.  Obama might stage an internet town hall for the newly redundant whose jobs have now been shipped to slave wage factories in South Korea, whose pensions were stolen and now sit in nouveau-legal tax havens in Panama, whose livelihoods were sent to the jungles of Columbia where hired thugs can murder with impunity the trade unionists standing in the way of corporate profits. 


 He will flash his famous grin and intone: "Anyone who ever built an empire sat where you're sitting right now! Save for college, tighten your belts, win the future." And a group of shell-shocked unemployed people will be sitting in back of him as living prop temps, dutiful grins frozen on their faces, their termination packets containing no federally funded severance pay, in their laps. (I wouldn't be surprised, though, if the packets contained info on how to volunteer for OFA and learn some new skills.)


Obama will then tell them if they want the compensatory benefits he promised them to just CALL CONGRESS RIGHT NOW!  And like George Clooney, he will obsessively continue racking up his millions of frequent flyer miles in his obsessive quest to rack up millions of dollars at fundraisers.


Oh, and about that Air Force One.  It is manufactured by Boeing, whose CEO just so happens to be the chairman of the Business Roundtable (BRT), Obama's most favorite corporate group, and who just so happened to be the first to congratulate Obama on toeing the corporate line on the new free trade deal.  And why not, since Obama named him to the White House Exports Council last year!  Who said the deal will cost us jobs, anyway?  Not James McNerney of Boeing!  According to a statement he put out yesterday, the deal will ADD 250,000 new American jobs.  Of course, he may have simply meant the jobs will be provided by corporations who have some of their land holdings within the continental U.S.  He did not actually specify the geographical location of the new hives of worker bees.  He did not actually mention anything about why the compensation rider for dispossessed American workers was necessary to give Barry some cover with the hoi polloi, either.



Fingered!!! Free Trade Lovers Caught in the Act


 Remember, it was the BRT that urged Obama to scrap smog emission standards last month by pointing to a study they themselves funded showing it is perfectly safe to breathe polluted air.  So I would take McNerney's 250,000 American jobs claim with a huge grain of salt.) 
But the NAFTA-like bill enjoys bipartisan support!  Isn't that what the pundits tell us we all count as our top priority?


Well, there are skeptics, inconveniently comprised of most labor unions and liberals, who are raining on Obama's feel-good program of fake job creationism in anticipation of the state visit later this month by the South Korean president. "As with any such agreement, there will be winners and losers," according to John Feffer, a Korea specialist at the Institute of Policy Studies. "The problem is that most of the winners are the wealthier players, namely major U.S. and South Korean manufacturers and financial institutions. The losers will be U.S. workers, Korean farmers, probably the environment in both countries."


And then there's chronic spoil-sport Dennis Kucinich, who writes:  "Hundreds of thousands of American jobs have been displaced and outsourced as a result of our pursuit of trade policies which are adverse to the economic interests of the American people. My home State of Ohio is one of the top-ten states posting the biggest job losses since the passage of NAFTA."


Hmmm... isn't Ohio one of those battleground states Obama needs for his reelection?  Isn't that the state where he posed in front of a crumbling bridge just last week, shouting himself hoarse in his populist rant of PASS JOBS ACT NOW??  Is Dennis Kucinich due for another mystery ride on Air Force One where it will again be explained to him that his seat is in danger of being redistricted out of existence?  I don't know.  It's all up in the air.





Outsourcing, Inc.

 

The New Obama Campaign Talking Points: EGAD!!!

Since Congressional Democrats are not exactly champing at the bit to fight for the president's PASS AMERICAN JOBS ACT NOW!!  (Senate votes are lacking), his campaign strategizers figure they had better distract those amorphous swing voters from the crappy economy and unemployment crisis post-haste.

According to a N.Y.Times blog post by John Harwood, Obama will use social issues and his security state cred as wedges between what he calls his "like-minded thinkers" and the unwashed, uneducated right-wing rabble who jeer at gay soldiers at Republican debates.  He will appeal to the sensibilities of the so-called "monied burbs" and run a campaign celebrating EGAD: the Environment, Gay Rights, Abortion Rights and the Drone killings of Al Qaeda suspects as well as the big get on Osama bin Laden. It's the Snob Appeal, stupid!

(Yes, it's OK to cheer for presidentially-ordered assassinations as long as a Democrat does them. Look at it this way: Obama outlawed torture at his ostentatious signing statement when he first took office. He is being merciful by using computerized Drone attacks to put enemies of The Homeland out of their misery quickly, without resorting to water-boarding first. Plus, he is being open and transparent about his murders. If Bush were still president, we would never have known that the CIA and the military are now one great big family and are killing American citizens. So eat your peas, civil libertarians. Don't let perfect due process be the enemy of some damned good pragmatism).

But back to the Harwood article: if it is even close to accurate, Obama will abandon the old-school Democratic plank (labor, the social safety net, poverty, the economy) and focus on what matters most to "lifestyle liberals" who are not particularly worried about their own money supplies.  He has already voiced his disgust at the redneck crowd booing a gay soldier at a recent Republican debate. Therefore, he is one of "Us." (if you make over $250,000, that is). Shared outrage at the right-wing fringe is now reason enough to vote for Obama and feel all warm and self-satisfied.  Pay no attention to 20 percent unemployment and 50 million uninsured and the highest childhood poverty rate in history.

And for God's sake, get over that white liberal guilt further instilled in you by Melissa Harris-Lacewell-Talkwell-Perry, accusing you of insidious racism if you no longer feel the Barry love. Agonize with Salon's Joan Walsh as she takes paragraphs and paragraphs to explain that she really, really likes and respects Melissa as a person but golly gee, it's not fair to call Obama critics insidious racists, yo.  And that of course, the disappointment in Obama is no reason at all not to actually vote for him again. Because, think of the alternative.

And if you have some free time, do check out the Patchwork Nation website where the Obama operatives apparently gleaned the demographic info on their targeted "Monied Burbs."  You can go to the map and find out where your particular locale fits in.  I looked up my county (Ulster, NY) and was not surprised to find out I live not in a Monied Burb, but in a Service Center.  I apparently used to live in a Monied Burb (Orange County).  And that is so weird, because one of the towns (Kiryas Joel) in "monied" Orange County was recently rated as the poorest of the dirt poor municipalities in the entire nation!

Another category is the Evangelical Epicenter (Obama will likely avoid those towns like the plague). Then there are Tractor Central and Military Bastion (battlegrounds for sure) and Immigration Nation ( another issue to be kicked down the road into the next millenium) and one called Mormon Outpost (Romney shoo-in) and an agonizing one for Joan Walsh dubbed Minority Central (no Black Caucus slipper-wearers allowed).